I'm not sure that aberrations are subject to the operation of natural selection . . .
Things from Beyond the Stars
- Thread starter Wizards of the Coast
- Start date
howandwhy99
Adventurer
I like the definition of aberration. These are things that don't even have much of their component parts recognizable. They might be corporeal. They might be something altogether different, but beyond an odd shaped mass they don't commonly have legs, arms, eyes, ears, fur, scales, heads, tails, wings, as we know them. They are not easily described for players to imagine without help. We have no words for what these are. These are wholly different "things". It should be pointed out that any new aberration needs a picture to show the players as verbal descriptions will routinely fail.
Beholder[sblock]Type, Level, and Environment stats being included gets a big thumbs up from me.
I think the eye stalk rays are more about having a large suite of powers on hand to handle a wide variety of foes. The original set aren't necessary as is mentioned. Even then, only a few could fire in a single round in one direction, which aided single attackers. They are far better against groups.
One of the catches with Beholders is they have a unique defense, sort of like hydras and how you cut off their heads. Called shots may no longer be in the game, but they were designed for earlier. A Beholder's main eye & eye stalks are less difficult to hit than attacking all of it at once. It's body is chitinous (insect-like exoskeleton), while its central eye can be hit relatively easily. This is one of the reasons it is not commonly open. The stalks are also high up and often out of reach of melee warriors and aren't as low AC to piercing attacks as they would be to something like slashing (not helping the AC of most ranged attacks). All of this may be ignored in the simple core rules, but might want to be reexamined for combat modules. Facing for the direction of the anti-magic cone is yet another missing feature.
This looks like a pretty good write up. I like the unique elements and the wide variability.
Question: Why are these found only underground? Couldn't I have some as oligarchs ruling openly above ground in an isolated jungle slave empire?[/sblock]
Mind Flayer[sblock]I don't understand what your rationales are for the distance limits on the powers. Sure, they have a limit, but why those?
Mind Flayers aren't magic users except perhaps by item use because of their magic resistance.
Because they can dominate PCs this is an important instance where the game balancing of PCs vs. their average opponents comes to light. If the PCs are significantly stronger than such (as this average has been moving down), then when PCs become foes to each other they are too big a threat for any monster to have under its power.
Tentacle attacks & brain extraction are commensurate with assassination attacks. However, I would say these creatures are not assassin role-based combatants, but not quite magic users either. They are both hidden and back line foes. They use special effects to control the battlefield and attack only solo creatures when they leave hiding. AD&D lists powers as Levitation, Domination, ESP, Body Equilibrium, Astral Projection, and Probability Travel. These aren't fireball attacks.
Telepathy is a very powerful and not altogether rare ability. Like some creatures have a standard Magic Resistance, the usual PC races have Psychic Resistance to psionic effects. Once broken through (saving throw) telepathy was a 1-way street. It did not alone allow for reading of minds, which is how the victims who were not telepathic could respond via the mind. Mind Reading was another spell level up. Language was the big natural barrier here even if Mind Reading was possible. Comprehend Languages meant greater Mind Reading ability. Tongues and Telepathy allowed full comprehension from any intelligent creature telepathically spoken to. Add that to Read Minds and you're an open book. The ability of mind flayers telepathy to do all of this short circuits the ladder of communication spells that used to be built in for magic user exploration. It could be okay as a special kind of telepathy for this high level monster, but it is far more powerful than the norm and should be accounted as such in its tactics and XP rating and called out as a uniquely titled kind of telepathy and a racial power.
The thrall list is really good. These are creatures that can actually survive underground and under brutal conditions. Weak races like orcs, gnolls, hobgoblins, and your standard 0-level human or demi-human are relatively quick to die off. (Well, maybe dwarves)[/sblock]
Aboleths[sblock]These guys are are psionicists focusing on mind affecting and illusionist psionics, probably from their cultural tradition. They are also telepathic and can Charm creatures (not Dominate like Mindflayer) 3x/day. This has a range of 1 mile, but no limit on how many followers it can control. [I'd probably include some limit based upon Intelligence, which is only High BTW, not genius or exceptional]
This was a pretty good write up overall in my opinion. Also, this has become one of my favorite columns on Wizards site.[/sblock]
Beholder[sblock]Type, Level, and Environment stats being included gets a big thumbs up from me.
I think the eye stalk rays are more about having a large suite of powers on hand to handle a wide variety of foes. The original set aren't necessary as is mentioned. Even then, only a few could fire in a single round in one direction, which aided single attackers. They are far better against groups.
One of the catches with Beholders is they have a unique defense, sort of like hydras and how you cut off their heads. Called shots may no longer be in the game, but they were designed for earlier. A Beholder's main eye & eye stalks are less difficult to hit than attacking all of it at once. It's body is chitinous (insect-like exoskeleton), while its central eye can be hit relatively easily. This is one of the reasons it is not commonly open. The stalks are also high up and often out of reach of melee warriors and aren't as low AC to piercing attacks as they would be to something like slashing (not helping the AC of most ranged attacks). All of this may be ignored in the simple core rules, but might want to be reexamined for combat modules. Facing for the direction of the anti-magic cone is yet another missing feature.
This looks like a pretty good write up. I like the unique elements and the wide variability.
Question: Why are these found only underground? Couldn't I have some as oligarchs ruling openly above ground in an isolated jungle slave empire?[/sblock]
Mind Flayer[sblock]I don't understand what your rationales are for the distance limits on the powers. Sure, they have a limit, but why those?
Mind Flayers aren't magic users except perhaps by item use because of their magic resistance.
Because they can dominate PCs this is an important instance where the game balancing of PCs vs. their average opponents comes to light. If the PCs are significantly stronger than such (as this average has been moving down), then when PCs become foes to each other they are too big a threat for any monster to have under its power.
Tentacle attacks & brain extraction are commensurate with assassination attacks. However, I would say these creatures are not assassin role-based combatants, but not quite magic users either. They are both hidden and back line foes. They use special effects to control the battlefield and attack only solo creatures when they leave hiding. AD&D lists powers as Levitation, Domination, ESP, Body Equilibrium, Astral Projection, and Probability Travel. These aren't fireball attacks.
Telepathy is a very powerful and not altogether rare ability. Like some creatures have a standard Magic Resistance, the usual PC races have Psychic Resistance to psionic effects. Once broken through (saving throw) telepathy was a 1-way street. It did not alone allow for reading of minds, which is how the victims who were not telepathic could respond via the mind. Mind Reading was another spell level up. Language was the big natural barrier here even if Mind Reading was possible. Comprehend Languages meant greater Mind Reading ability. Tongues and Telepathy allowed full comprehension from any intelligent creature telepathically spoken to. Add that to Read Minds and you're an open book. The ability of mind flayers telepathy to do all of this short circuits the ladder of communication spells that used to be built in for magic user exploration. It could be okay as a special kind of telepathy for this high level monster, but it is far more powerful than the norm and should be accounted as such in its tactics and XP rating and called out as a uniquely titled kind of telepathy and a racial power.
The thrall list is really good. These are creatures that can actually survive underground and under brutal conditions. Weak races like orcs, gnolls, hobgoblins, and your standard 0-level human or demi-human are relatively quick to die off. (Well, maybe dwarves)[/sblock]
Aboleths[sblock]These guys are are psionicists focusing on mind affecting and illusionist psionics, probably from their cultural tradition. They are also telepathic and can Charm creatures (not Dominate like Mindflayer) 3x/day. This has a range of 1 mile, but no limit on how many followers it can control. [I'd probably include some limit based upon Intelligence, which is only High BTW, not genius or exceptional]
This was a pretty good write up overall in my opinion. Also, this has become one of my favorite columns on Wizards site.[/sblock]
I'm not sure what you mean by the "more definition". In the 3E MoP the Far Realm gets a bit over 2 pages, with mechanical details like "Maddening" and the Wild Magic trait. In the 4e MoP there is one, mechanics-free page - and several chunks of the text on that page are lifted straight from the 3E version!
Again, I'm not really sure what you've got in mind. Aboleths, mind flayers and the like have about the same amount of stats in 4e as in 3E.
I personally find him hard to read (in the sense that I think the writing is bad - for me, at least, constant references by the narrator to "nameless dread" aren't the way to generate nameless dread!). And the idea that "mechanistic emptiness" is a source of horror is one which I think probably had more purchase when the Victorian period was still part of living memory. I also find his treatment of race pretty abhorrent.
But the idea of scary things coming from the nameless dark and living in the depths of the earth and sea is pretty cool. What's interesting about D&D's use of them, though, is that they have never replicated Lovecraft's idea of "indifference". Mind Flayers, Aboleths and Beholders generally seem to care about the PCs, and (demi-)humanity more generally, in a way that is quite different from truly Lovecraftian horrors.
One thing I don't really get in D&D is why Slaads have never been assimilated to aberrations - they look like frogs, they deal in entropy, and they breed by implantation. They even have a Lord of Entropy and an amoebic Lord of the Insane. I used Ssendam in my last campaign (as a Far Realm entity) and so won't be using it again this time round, but want to use Ygorl. I especially like his "travel back in time" schtick - I think that will fit nicely with some other ideas I have around the Far Realm, the Abyss and the Dusk War.
Pour
First Post
Lovecraftian horror in D&D is a bit of a joke to me. I just don't see it, even with Aberrations. What you get is D&D's version, heavy on tentacles, knowable, mortal, visually stimulating but lacking in any notion of what makes that kind of fiction engaging, which is okay. In a game with spells, super-heroics, gods, monsters, and ultimately the expectation of even a slim chance to win (and fairness for that matter) it's difficult to hard-wire that, but lets not pretend any game besides certain Lovecraftian-specific games do it well.
Aberrations, if you're really going for unspeakable, might drastically differ from every other creature type in the monster manual, like a Colour Out of Space that's immune to damage and magic, instantly kills when it occupies a character's space, and cannot be trapped or impeded. Now the characters are working on a somewhat Lovecraftian playing field. How do they reconcile this being's presence?
How else do you bring the sense of things infinitely greater and imperishable to a game of D&D characters? Where's the hopelessness in AC and a hp total? Where's the overwhelming horror of being able to survive even one blow with your sanity or your life intact? Even if they did defeat or just survive something, what's the lasting physical or more likely psychological effect? And don't even get me started on something like stats for Great Cthulhu.
Part of me feels demons are meant to be the strangest, most fearsome monsters in the game. They can be killed (lords with extreme difficulty), but exhibit cursory elements of Lovecraftian horror (Juiblex or Dagon, for instance).
It's ironic, since my current game deals heavily with Lovecraftian-like entities, but I think that's where I'm coming from, the struggle with the expectations of a D&D game and my own sense of what should really happen, even after a 4 year old game... they should all be devoured, never having really had more than an illusion of a chance.
Aberrations, if you're really going for unspeakable, might drastically differ from every other creature type in the monster manual, like a Colour Out of Space that's immune to damage and magic, instantly kills when it occupies a character's space, and cannot be trapped or impeded. Now the characters are working on a somewhat Lovecraftian playing field. How do they reconcile this being's presence?
How else do you bring the sense of things infinitely greater and imperishable to a game of D&D characters? Where's the hopelessness in AC and a hp total? Where's the overwhelming horror of being able to survive even one blow with your sanity or your life intact? Even if they did defeat or just survive something, what's the lasting physical or more likely psychological effect? And don't even get me started on something like stats for Great Cthulhu.
Part of me feels demons are meant to be the strangest, most fearsome monsters in the game. They can be killed (lords with extreme difficulty), but exhibit cursory elements of Lovecraftian horror (Juiblex or Dagon, for instance).
It's ironic, since my current game deals heavily with Lovecraftian-like entities, but I think that's where I'm coming from, the struggle with the expectations of a D&D game and my own sense of what should really happen, even after a 4 year old game... they should all be devoured, never having really had more than an illusion of a chance.
Last edited:
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I'm not much of a fan of "ceremorphosis," personally, but that is a very tiny nit to pick in what is overall pretty spot-on.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
I like how people are posting their own variations of classic monsters online. I actually hope that they use those rather than whatever end result is published, but hey, take the very best ultimately.
My question is, what do folks think about including different degrees of completeness for some monsters in the monster manuals?
Think of it like the adventure module B1. This is one of the most central understandings of the game. Your going to homebrew. That's part of the great fun of D&D. There is no hard writ canon even though we cherish our traditions. Each group, each campaign is different with variances in creatures and abilities and magics and everything else. That's retains the pleasure of novelty's discovery as well as keeping up to date on current fashions.
I'm not saying the entire book by any means. But what if even 10 monsters didn't include certain portions of their stats? Some don't have histories or cultures. Some list the trade goods they craft, but not their magical traditions. Maybe some are missing entire elements of their combat statistics? The picture of them?
My question is, what do folks think about including different degrees of completeness for some monsters in the monster manuals?
Think of it like the adventure module B1. This is one of the most central understandings of the game. Your going to homebrew. That's part of the great fun of D&D. There is no hard writ canon even though we cherish our traditions. Each group, each campaign is different with variances in creatures and abilities and magics and everything else. That's retains the pleasure of novelty's discovery as well as keeping up to date on current fashions.
I'm not saying the entire book by any means. But what if even 10 monsters didn't include certain portions of their stats? Some don't have histories or cultures. Some list the trade goods they craft, but not their magical traditions. Maybe some are missing entire elements of their combat statistics? The picture of them?
Kinak
First Post
Aberrations are pretty easily my favorite monster type. The Far Realm mythos doesn't particularly bother me, but I feel it played out to "generify" the aberrations. So it's nice to be headed somewhere else with that.
The beholder description is about spot on. The varying eyestalks and subraces-as-individuals are both good ideas that harken back to older editions, but still can be fresh.
I wasn't as impressed by the mind flayers. It's a path that's been trod several times before, with no innovation in the article. It needed a section on how to use them, I think. They can still be special if treated as big movers, but the description just feels like another creepy Underdark monster.
Aboleths are always a good time. It's sort of funny that the giant fish absorb memories, but the brain eaters don't. That said, I like that combined with their racial memory, so I'd consider implying they're related and give it to both. They're also lacking real hooks, but that's been a long-standing problem for aboleths.
I think overall the article lacked some discussion of what the monsters were "for" and how they were intended to be used in a game. The beholders did the best at that, but illithids and aboleths felt like they relied too much on experience having successfully used those creatures before.
Cheers!
Kinak
The beholder description is about spot on. The varying eyestalks and subraces-as-individuals are both good ideas that harken back to older editions, but still can be fresh.
I wasn't as impressed by the mind flayers. It's a path that's been trod several times before, with no innovation in the article. It needed a section on how to use them, I think. They can still be special if treated as big movers, but the description just feels like another creepy Underdark monster.
Aboleths are always a good time. It's sort of funny that the giant fish absorb memories, but the brain eaters don't. That said, I like that combined with their racial memory, so I'd consider implying they're related and give it to both. They're also lacking real hooks, but that's been a long-standing problem for aboleths.
I think overall the article lacked some discussion of what the monsters were "for" and how they were intended to be used in a game. The beholders did the best at that, but illithids and aboleths felt like they relied too much on experience having successfully used those creatures before.
Cheers!
Kinak
It's not CoC, I'll agree.
In a previous campaign I treated Juiblex as coming from the Far Realm.
And in 4e, at leaset, Dagon is an Obyrith, and my plan for Obyriths at present is to treat them as Far Realm refugees.
So agreed here too.
I'm assuming the word, rather than the phenomenon?
tomBitonti
Adventurer
Just a minor nit: What does "virtually incomprehensible" mean?
Thx!
TomB
Thx!
TomB
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