Midgard Bestiary for 4th Edition from Open Design - now a Kickstarter!

RichGreen · Jun 10, 2012

Hi,

I'm very excited that the Midgard Bestiary for 4th Edition that I wrote with Brian Liberge last Autumn has gone live this morning as a Kickstarter project.

I worked on this book every weekend from the end of July through to the beginning of December last year and loved every minute of it.

To pick the monsters, I went through five year's worth of Open Design's adventures and sourcebooks looking for the most interesting, iconic and flavoursome monsters to pull together a balanced line-up of creature types and levels that represented the best of the Midgard setting.

After Wolfgang Baur had approved the outline and the list, Brian Liberge came on board, we decided who was going to do what, and began working our way through the monsters, converting them to 4e from 3.5 D&D, Pathfinder and the AGE system. Often, we looked at the original monster and decided it would be would be fun to come up with several variants of the creature. For example, there are three nasty gnomes of Niemhiem, rather than just the one that appeared in the AGE Bestiary.

We also wrote some brand new monsters, and got additional contributions via the KQ Forums from patrons including Tracy “Sarah Darkmagic” Hurley. The Pathfinder Bestiary was being written at the same time and we worked closely with Adam Daigle, adding in several creatures from that book to bring the final total to 150 monsters.

Long time fans of Midgard will be pleased to see monsters like the owl harpy from Six Arabian Nights and the blood hag from Blood of the Gorgon included, and there are 30 brand new creatures which don’t appear anywhere else, including Mammon himself (a level 33 solo!)

Once we had all our monsters, we enlisted the help of 15 groups of 4e players and playtested them to make sure they all worked properly at the table and were fun to fight. Final tweaks were made the manuscript went off to the editor.

We’re very proud of the book and I’m very excited it’s now out there for people to back as a Kickstarter project. The monsters give you a fantastic set of creatures with interesting, varied powers and great background lore to put straight into your 4th Edition D&D game.

It would be great to get as many backers as possible to bring the book into print!

Cheers

Rich

Neonchameleon · Jun 16, 2012

Comments I PMd them by Kickstarter:

I'm unconvinced. I'd fund the kickstarter for what looked to me like a very good 4e bestiary (I already have several official ones). But just scanning the design of al three previewed monsters makes me raise my eyebrows.

The pact drake's math is clearly wrong. It has the hit points of the gear drake, and about the same defences. Despite being level 12 as against level 5. It also has an utterly pointless claw attack - there is never a reason not to bite instead. And I imagine pacifying breath to be really really annoying in play.

The gear drake appears to be based on pre-MM3 math. It again has redundant claws attacks. But ultimately the problem with it is that it isn't artillery. Artillery should be more dangerous at range than in melee and it simply isn't (unless playing kite). It does as much damage in melee and gets +2 to hit with its bite (which is effectively putting the bite on the high damage expression and the ranged attack on medium). The fly speed is missing a maneuverability rating (and with artillery like that the flight maneuverability really matters). I might buy it as a skirmisher (with the increased defences) but it isn't artillery.

Zobek Legionnaire? Let me get this right. As an at will it has a sword attack followed by a shield bash. In short it has one attack at the medium damage expression and one at the low - for a combined at will at the Limited level. And it's a soldier? (Besides that Clockwork Resilliance doesn't make me think of clockwork. Give me something based on the tick-tock rhythm - something active for preferance that the PCs can eventually use for an advantage - for instance always alternating sword then crossbow attacks)

I'm afraid when all three of your monster previews are not things I believe I can use as written I'm not going to fund the kickstarter.

ScorpiusRisk · Jun 16, 2012

Hi Neonchameleon,

I appreciate the fact that you took a look at our Kickstarter. I'm going to take a little time to address some of your concerns.

Taking a look at the master document for the book, you are correct. The pact drake is not displaying the correct hit points or defenses. I wouldn't be surprised if a few other things were wrong in fact, but the image is really at a level for quality reading. I think the intent of the image is to show how the pages the book will look, including the layout and art. You can see from the Legionnaire that the drakes don't even have the final format on their stat blocks. I'll bring it to Kobold in Chiefs attention just to be sure it doesn't make it into the final product.

Midgard is a large world shared among all the products Kobold Quarterly and Open Design has published over the past five years. Many of the creatures featured in this book were first produced under other systems. While not all abilities get fully converted we do seek a certain amount of continuity. You are absolutely correct that mechanically its not a good choice for the drakes presented to use their claws. However the claw attack doesn't take up much room, Midgard drakes have claws and you might find a good story reason to use them.

Story is also the main motivation behind the Pact Drake's Pacifying Breath ability. The Pact Drake enforces laws, deals and oversees negotiations. If it catches enough creatures in it's breath, it can't then attack the pacified targets or the effects will end. Its an excellent opportunity to take a break from straight combat for role-playing or creative use of skills. It's not a first for 4e. I recall my player's cleric had a power that could provided a similar effect, though this has an added play balance.

The Gear Drake isn't a straight artillery. It's got some controller like features as well. It operates best not in melee or at long range, but at short range. It's a dangerous place to be, but it helps when your enemy is slowed.

The Zobeck Legionnaire is not a simple clockwork but a gearforged. They have mortal souls and think tactically. The dual strike is potent and I think you'll find it very fun in play.

The gearforged have become a staple of the Midgard world and the clockwork resilience power is part of that. You'll find a version included as a racial ability for gearforged PCs within the pages of Kobold Quarterly Magazine.

If you like more traditional clockwork, there's a section earlier in the book.

I hope you'll keep an eye out for more previews as the Kickstarter Campaign continues. Maybe we'll change your mind.

We're nearly funded with 30 days to go, and we have some wonderful stretch goals in the works.

EDIT: By the way I'm Brian Liberge, one of the designers on the book.

RichGreen · Jun 20, 2012

Hi,

The project has hit its initial funding goal, and we are now setting our sights on the first stretch goal.

I've got a design diary up here where I write about a couple of my favourite monsters in the book - the Ghost Boar of the Ringwood and the Derro Fetal Savant.

Cheers

Rich