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I really like this monster. I'm with all the folks upthread who said they immediately started thinking of adventure ideas. The bone mongrel is something I'd love to build an adventure or two around.
__________________ Gary Hoggatt - www.garyh.net "Such heroic nonsense..."
I really hope that we can see more on the mechanics of dealing with the phylactercy which was odd to be missing in the excerpt.
One question though,
If the PCs fail the first saving throw after the breath weapon and takes the ongoing 10 damage, does it revert back on the second round or it stays at 10 damage until saved?
Well, the bone mongrel is just a elite brute so I'll probably be using them together with a few other monsters. The fluff is kinda disspointing but I think it does give space for DMs to expand on it further.
I really hope that we can see more on the mechanics of dealing with the phylactercy which was odd to be missing in the excerpt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cadfan
I really like this dragon. Its not really a "dragon" to me, in a way... its more an undead critter, but its a good undead critter.
The only thing I would add would be rules for the phylactery. Maybe something like, "It takes Ritual X to create a Dracolich Mongrel, and costs Y. If you already have the phylactery, possibly because you salvaged it after a previous Dracolich Mongrel was destroyed, the cost is reduced by Z."
Or even just a general statement: "It is far easier to recreate a Dracolich Mongrel from a salvaged phylactery than it is to create one from scratch."
That would give some simple hooks for the monster- you might have to fight it more than once because your party didn't realize they had to destroy the phylactery, and it was salvaged and rebuilt.
I had to get home to my books to check this, but as I suspected, Monster Manual, Page 72 under Dracolich provides all the phylactery info.
One question though,
If the PCs fail the first saving throw after the breath weapon and takes the ongoing 10 damage, does it revert back on the second round or it stays at 10 damage until saved?
I believe that it stays at 10; its a pretty nasty power.
__________________ Veronica: Where's your brother?
Dick: I think he took Ghost World up to his room. They're probably up there making love. Or playing Dungeons and Dragons. Or both, at the same time. They're both, like, 12th-level dorks. I'm just sayin'
1) I really like a lot of the mechanical tricks they use. Like the bone mongrel's breath weapon, with the ongoing damage getting more ongoing? Cool.
2) I'm not so fond of the fluff deficit. There's a bare-bones (heh) paragraph of flavor text, which does provide some ideas to riff on... but I'd like more. I grew up on the 2e Monstrous Manual, which provided a lot of info on ecology, society and that sort of thing (also, uses for monster corpses), and that's one of the most fun things about D&D to me. If I don't like the flavor text, I can change it, true, but I want it to be there in the first place.
Oh my... Imagine an evil society which utilized slave labor with liches.
Why use liches when you have mindless skeletons for that?
How can this creature even have a consciousness considering that it is a patchwork out of multiple, already long dead creatures?
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
2) I'm not so fond of the fluff deficit. There's a bare-bones (heh) paragraph of flavor text, which does provide some ideas to riff on... but I'd like more. I grew up on the 2e Monstrous Manual, which provided a lot of info on ecology, society and that sort of thing (also, uses for monster corpses), and that's one of the most fun things about D&D to me. If I don't like the flavor text, I can change it, true, but I want it to be there in the first place.
Different strokes for different folks I guess. Plenty of fluff for me to work with, although I can see where people would be looking for more to go with. Especially with the embarresment of riches provided in the 2e Monster manuals.
I just thought I would point out that this is the way to express an opinion of something you don't agree with. You get your point across, and allow discussion. This is not:
Quote:
Originally Posted by [B
ProfessorCirno[/b]] Just like all the other 4e monster fluff.
Which is to say, dull, uninspiring, and just lame.
(If any of the mods feel this is inappropriate, let me know and I will edit it out)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Derren
Why use liches when you have mindless skeletons for that?
How can this creature even have a consciousness considering that it is a patchwork out of multiple, already long dead creatures?
I think the mindless part answers that question, a bound intellegent undead can be more usefull. As for the consciousness, a couple of ideas I'll throw out here:
1. The consciousness is an almalgamation of the seperate identites of the dragons whose remains make up the dracolich.
2. The consciousness is that of the dragon whose remains for the phylactery.
How can this creature even have a consciousness considering that it is a patchwork out of multiple, already long dead creatures?
I was wondering myself what sort of 'personality' such a creature would have, with fragments of multiple minds and souls shoved together in a chaotic mass. If the thing didn't have some sort of controller, it would likely tear itself apart. Even then, a dracolich made from a single, even mostly intact, dragon skeleton seems like it would be easier to handle.
Then again, perhaps a mostly intact draconic spirit is *too hard* to control, and only one that is broken into a hundred pieces and at war with itself is able to be controlled at all?
These would make interesting 'spontaneous undead,' to occur in a Dragon's Graveyard, where winds charged with elemental forces sweep in sporadically and toss the bones around. While the spirits of the dragons are long gone, sometimes fragments of rage or despair remain soaked in these ancient relics, and when the bones are thrown into each other by the elemental winds of fire, ice, acid and lightning, these 'echoes' of ancient inhuman feelings surge and flare, the bones assembling into motley pathwork 'dragon liches' and going on rampages, fueled by long-dead passions.
Right, because nowhere in fantasy or horror literature are there any examples of such a Frankenstein-like creature ever existing.
Except that we are not talking about literature, but about D&D, and the idea of a lich put together from many creatures which weren't even alive at the time when the ritual started does not fit.
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
Except that we are not talking about literature, but about D&D, and the idea of a lich put together from many creatures which weren't even alive at the time when the ritual started does not fit.
If that monster would be a golem (or a generic undead) I wouldn't have a problem with it. But its a lich which is something very different.
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
Except that we are not talking about literature, but about D&D, and the idea of a lich put together from many creatures which weren't even alive at the time when the ritual started does not fit.
The Skull Lord and Dread Wraith would like a word with you too.
On the otherhand, if it disturbs you, a small refluff:
The Dracolich Mongrel is formed during a vile ritual where a still living dragon is disected, it's limbs removed and replaced with the remains of long dead dragons, its pain fueling the magic, driving the unfortunate dragon insane. The Evil cults who perform these rituals prefer using good dragons as the base for the Mongrel.
Except that we are not talking about literature, but about D&D, and the idea of a lich put together from many creatures which weren't even alive at the time when the ritual started does not fit.
Doesn't fit why?
Seriously, can you give me any reason other than that you don't like it? There are plenty of examples in D&D of creatures with more than one mind/persona, be they living, undead, or constructs. Just off the top of my head and counting undead alone, we have skull lords in 4E (three heads) and the dream vestige in 3E. And that's without 10 seconds' thought and not opening a book; I guarantee you I can find others.
Nobody's claiming you have to like the concept, but claiming that it "doesn't fit," or expressing faux shock as you did in the post I originally replied to, is just silly.
Edit: Just saw your prior post. Why is being a lich any different? It's just another form of undead whose essence is linked to a phylactery. The fact that there haven't been "multi-part" liches before hardly makes the concept innately unsound.
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