"Fear of Monsters" back into 4th Edition

Was just taking a look at converting a classic mummy into a 4.5 Edition version, i.e. borrowing the best of 5th Edition to 4th Edition, when it really struck me - the 5e monsters are clearly nastier!
Lets just start by comparing mummy rot in the various editions.

2nd Edition:
"A single blow from a mummy's arm inflicts 1-12 points of damage, and worse, its scabrous touch infects the victim with a rotting disease which is fatal in 1-6 months. For each month the rot progresses, the victim permanently loses 2 points of Charisma. The disease can be cured only with a cure disease spell. Cure wounds spells have no effect on a person inflicted with mummy rot and his wounds heal at 10% of the normal rate. A regenerate spell will restore damage but will not otherwise affect the course of the disease."
Comment: Not many would cry for some lost Charisma Points in 1st Edition but it was fatal for anybody within a couple of months, and only cure disease could save you.

3rd Edition:
"Supernatural disease - slam, Fortitude DC 16, incubation period 1 minute, damage 1d6 Com and 1d6 Cha. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Unlike normla diseases, mummy rot continues until the victim reaches Constitution 0 (and dies) or is cured as described below.
Mummy rot is a powerful curse, not a natural disease. A character attempting to cast any conjuration (helaing) spell on a creature afflicted with mummy rot must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check, or the spell has no effec on the afflicted charactger.
To eliminate mummy rot, the curse must first be broken with break enchantment or meove curse (requiring a DC 20 caster level check for either spell), after which a caster level check is no longer necessary to cast healing spells on the victim, and the mummy rot can be magiclly cured as any normal disease."
Comment: Now it also affects Constitution which is tied to HP so now it has an impact on most players, and we are talking about days, not months anymore. A lot of tedious recalculations after each check to get the Con and Cha effects right.

4th Edition:
"Mummy Rot (Mummy Guardian), Level 8 Disease, Endurance stable DC 20, improve DC 24
Stage 0: The target is cured.
Stage 1 Initial Effect: The target regains only half the normal number of hit points from healing effects.
Stage 2: The target regains only half the normal number of hit points from healing effects. In addition, the target takes 10 necrotic damage, which cannot be healed until the target is cured of the disease.
Stage 3: The target dies."
Comment: We are talking table format here. Anybody can get well if your Endurance is at least decent and no unlucky rolls - no need for Cure Disease anymore. Chance of actually dying for a fighter in the front line i probably around ~20% (estimated likelihood of failing two endurance checks)

5th Edition:
"If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or be cursed with mummy rot. The cursed target can't regain hit points, and its hit point maximum decreases by 10 (3d6) for every 24 hours that elapse. If the curse reduces the target's hit point maximum to 0, the target dies, and its body turns to dust. The curse lasts until removed by the remove curse spell or other magic."
Comment: Back to a very similar game effect as in 3.5 Edition but with a much more simple way of handling and describing it. And yes, you die if you do not get a cure disease cast on you - that is everybody - even you who tried to max out your Endurance score.

Personally I feel very tempted to either take the 5th Edition phrasing straight off when I rework my 4th Edition monster, or potentially use the 4th Edition "disease" format but increase DC to Hard levels so almost everybody is doomed without a cure disease (maybe loosing 10 Max HP for each failed check, rather than only having two stages before death). My reason is that it creates more fearful and distinct monsters, than what you might have in 4th Edition. The added level of fear of dying I think I have been missing a little since I started playing 4th Edition.

For those of you that have choosen to stay with 4th Edition, what are your thoughts on the topic? Keeping 4th Edition monsters as is, or stealing with pride from 5th Edition?

/Myrhdraak
4.5 Edition Conversion Guide
The Sunless Citadell 4.5 Conversion
Reign of Winter 4th Edition Conversion
H1-E3: Demon Prince of Undeath Conversion

I gotta say I prefer the 4e version. I like that the mechanics of monsters don't require specific abilities to counter (most often specific spells naturally) because it allows for a wider variety of party compositions and even campaign styles. For example, it's easier to reduce the availability of magic in 4e since the monsters don't assume access to spells like cure disease or remove curse.

Want to make 4e scary? Remember that it is balanced and you can toss anything from an extra minion to multiple solos into it. You can't fail a single save and die. In fact, you likely have to make at least 3 saving throws before ever dying - if you end up dead, you should have seen it coming by the end of round 2 and taken steps to avoid it.

Keep tossing extra monsters into encounters until your players start getting nervous…

MwaO said:

Want to make 4e scary? Remember that it is balanced and you can toss anything from an extra minion to multiple solos into it. You can't fail a single save and die. In fact, you likely have to make at least 3 saving throws before ever dying - if you end up dead, you should have seen it coming by the end of round 2 and taken steps to avoid it.

Keep tossing extra monsters into encounters until your players start getting nervous…

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Yes, you can always build hard encounters. That is not what I am refering to here. It is that you have a fear of a particualar monter due to its particular abilities. The mummy is not a monster that gives you the flu and you have to stay home and rest in order to get better. The mummy gives you MUMMY ROT - and it is going to turn you into ash and sand if you do not get magical help in time. The two have a little different impact in the players life. "I think I pick that monster that gives the flu. The other scare ¤%¤¤¤!!&% out of me. I never would like to meet that one!"
Have 4th Edition, in its effort of making everything balanced, made some monster to "timid", and therefore less memorable as a player? Are 5th Edition on to something here, or not?

Myrhdraak said:

Yes, you can always build hard encounters. That is not what I am refering to here. It is that you have a fear of a particualar monter due to its particular abilities. The mummy is not a monster that gives you the flu and you have to stay home and rest in order to get better. The mummy gives you MUMMY ROT - and it is going to turn you into ash and sand if you do not get magical help in time. The two have a little different impact in the players life. "I think I pick that monster that gives the flu. The other scare ¤%¤¤¤!!&% out of me. I never would like to meet that one!"
Have 4th Edition, in its effort of making everything balanced, made some monster to "timid", and therefore less memorable as a player? Are 5th Edition on to something here, or not?

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What is the actual outcome of Mummy Rot in 5e? Either A) a death sentence based on 25% Mummy swings on most PCs or B) go on a hunt for a cure or C) have a party caster throw the appropriate spell to get rid of it.

It might seem scary to you, but it isn't actually any more scary than Mummy Rot in 4e. Because the only interesting option is B and that's what happens in 4e too 90% of the time.

My 2cp : on the whole, the 4e method to dealing with serious effects may seem bland when used at the appropriate levels because the system will have taught you that there's an "easy out" - you have a good change to simply roll yourself out of it.

For my part, the solutions go more along these lines :
- for effects like [mummy rot] that are intended to impose significant effects on the PCs, there will be no question of "did you get infected". If you were in the death burst, you have it.
- the "get better" DC is increased by 5
- the "stay the same" effect costs you a surge
- there is no way to recover completely "by yourself" : healed means that you still make checks, but only suffer something bad on sliding back (in the specific instance of mummy rot, I believe this is already the case)
- (this is the harder one on the DM) the "basic" [remove curse] ritual is (a lot) more dangerous - you're much better off finding the proper [specific purpose] ritual (unless you can have a much stronger ritualist cast the "basic" version)

MwaO said:

What is the actual outcome of Mummy Rot in 5e? Either A) a death sentence based on 25% Mummy swings on most PCs or B) go on a hunt for a cure or C) have a party caster throw the appropriate spell to get rid of it.

It might seem scary to you, but it isn't actually any more scary than Mummy Rot in 4e. Because the only interesting option is B and that's what happens in 4e too 90% of the time.

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Pretty much this... and as was mentioned elsewhere over emphasis on only magic will save you... amounts to over emphasis on spell casting classes ho hum, where have we heard of that before and is it really a good thing.

Myrhdraak said:

Was just taking a look at converting a classic mummy into a 4.5 Edition version, i.e. borrowing the best of 5th Edition to 4th Edition, when it really struck me - the 5e monsters are clearly nastier!
Lets just start by comparing mummy rot in the various editions.

Click to expand...

1st/2nd Edition:
Meh, Cure Disease is a level 3 spell, and you'd hardly encounter a Mummy much below the 5th character level, so unless there's a serious dearth of clerics in your vicinity the rot is going to be a one day thing.

3rd Edition:
Clearly someone realized the utter triviality of AD&D Mummy Rot and gave it an immediate tactical significance. Mostly this forces clerics to actually carry Cure Disease with them, but then they made it so you could swap out spell levels for cures, so that really isn't a big deal after all! lol.

4th Edition:
4e diseases are a nice idea, but surviving them is pretty trivial given the way the Heal skill gives good bonuses to disease checks, and then there's STILL the Cure Disease ritual. Overall its probably more of a plot device than anything.

5th Edition:
This is a bit deadlier than the 4e version, you can't get out of it without a ritual, but again Clerics can swap slots and I believe CD is a ritual, so there's really no probably having access to it at the levels where you'd encounter mummies.

Personally I feel very tempted to either take the 5th Edition phrasing straight off when I rework my 4th Edition monster, or potentially use the 4th Edition "disease" format but increase DC to Hard levels so almost everybody is doomed without a cure disease (maybe loosing 10 Max HP for each failed check, rather than only having two stages before death). My reason is that it creates more fearful and distinct monsters, than what you might have in 4th Edition. The added level of fear of dying I think I have been missing a little since I started playing 4th Edition.

For those of you that have choosen to stay with 4th Edition, what are your thoughts on the topic? Keeping 4th Edition monsters as is, or stealing with pride from 5th Edition?

Click to expand...

I think that 4e diseases are a bit anemic. They CAN work, but you have to basically inflict diseases that are a good bit higher level than the PCs before they become truly threatening in most cases. The problem being that inflicting a 4e Mummy on lower level 4e PCs probably isn't TOO fun. Still, your basic Mummy Guardian is a level 8 Brute, so you could certainly toss one in against level 3 PCs as a special sort of encounter (with perhaps some zombies reskinned as lesser mummies for some extra fun). Hard to hit, but not stupid hard, and I never really thought of that as a terrible problem if the setup is right. The level 8 disease will then be kinda nasty with its DC20/24. Most characters WILL die in 2 days, so getting access to the cure should be pretty interesting. Naturally it is in the possession of some very persnickety elves...

[MENTION=6694190]Myrhdraak[/MENTION] I played a lot of 4e, and the sorts of debilitating effects you're talking about – rust monsters, mummy rot, carrion crawlers, etc. – absolutely were toned down compared to what I remember of their AD&D versions. My experience with 3e was limited so I don't feel confident commenting there.

In 5e, it depends on the monster. For example, rust monsters & mummies lean far more toward their AD&D versions than 4e did. However, the paralyzation of carrion crawlers is still just as gimped in 5e as it was in 4e (reduced to a round or three compared to minutes in AD&D).

Anyhow, I ran mummies back in AD&D quite a bit – we had an Egyptian themed Planescape campaign – and I came up with some original ways to remove mummy rot that felt more interesting than spells (and because my "party" was 2 PCs – a fighter and a mage – lacking clerical magic). Straining my memory here, but I think...

• I incorporated the idea of a mummy's sarcophagus being a sort of shrine to their patron deity, and if the proper prayers/propitiation/sacrifices were offered to that deity at that sarcophagus-shrine, that would remove the mummy rot.
• I came up with a magic ritual puzzle using the mummy's canopic jars that, if merged with alchemical substances in the right combo, would create an unguent which - when painted over the eyelids - would remove the mummy rot (or allow it to be transferred to an incapacitated creature who was painted). However, it posed risk of reanimating the mummy if done incorrectly. EDIT: Actually, now I remember, I had a table I rolled on if the ritual wasn't done right – with results ranging from inflicting blindness, swapping sight of mummy & victim (if both still "alive"), mummy possessing victim, etc.
• I had these "blood murals" in one dungeon which required pricking a finger on a single needle to get them to spin - some revealed secret passages, others cryptograms with clues, others were traps guarding treasure/portals. I think one was curative and would purify the blood/skin of creatures infected with mummy rot at the cost of hit points.

The general principle I tend to fall back on with such long-term debilitating conditions is "Yes you're afflicted with this really nasty thing, BUT...here's what can be done about it that adds to the drama/interest of the game & provides an interesting choice..."

4e’s myriad of intuitive, well-tuned, and well-integrated toggles/dials can trivially handle this:

1) Up-level the Mummy as a Brute (Leader) Elite 2 DC levels above the PCs (so 4ish levels). Fill out the rest of the encounter budget with a bunch of level - 1 Hazards, Artillery, Minions (with the Mummy able to “absorb” the Minions to heal, thus keeping the prospects for the contagion in play longer). The Disease is now a few DC levels Higher.

2) Make the Endurance/Heal Skill Checks for the Disease Hard (along with 2 DC levels higher).

3) Make the track punitive (2 or even 3 Healing Surges lost once contracted) or even “spiraley” (such as a further – 2 to Skill Checks and Defenses).

4) Make Mummy Rot resistant to the Cure Disease Ritual to make the situation dangerous. Maybe the Ritualist suffers an attack from the Mummy Rot when they attempt to cleanse it? Maybe the same thing happens to anyone using the Heal Skill on the afflicted?

Done.