Another MV preview: Hurly Burly brothers

[Aegeri]

This is a simple monster presented on one page, with a reasonable enough story gimmick. I think the roleplaying potential and adventure set up here is worth the price of admission. Only problem is with the bound by blood trait, which is confusingly worded and doesn't get the intent of how they work across.

If Hurly or Burly is reduced to 0 hit points by damage that isn’t acid or fire, he does not die and instead falls unconscious until the start of his next turn, when he returns to life with 30 hit points. If an attack hits him and deals any acid or fire damage while he is unconscious and within 5 squares of his brother, he does not return to life in this way. When one brother dies, the other loses this trait.

Due to the way it's worded, it would appear not to work when hit by acid/fire damage. This is probably a mistake but it's a bit of a silly one. Unless the intent is that this power does nothing against acid/fire, which pretty much would mean they really don't have much of a unique feeling. The intent is obviously that they can't be killed unless hit with acid/fire damage while within 5 of one another.

The art is pretty great, but nothing really that inspiring here on the level of the Wandering Tower for example. I'm kind of disappointed they are both mechanically identical and nothing was done to differentiate one from the other.

Edit: You know, for near paragon monsters they are immensely underwhelming mechanically. Just noticed they're elites, with a single standard action attack and a burst power. That's, um, kind of uninteresting for the story based aspects they can bring to the table. Bit of a shame really, because I love the concept but I would almost certainly redesign the monsters here to actually make it more interesting in actual gameplay.

 

[Erren]

I would have loved to hear from the authors how this page of the book happened. It looks like they had a piece of art they really liked, but just couldn't seem to justify to themselves that they needed to print 2 different troll stat blocks in the same level range (they're twins, so I guess the exact same level). Since they needed to put in some story, and devote a large amount of page space to the Bound By Blood trait (which they still didn't word well), a second stat block just wouldn't fit without adding another page to the monster entry - which also wasn't worth it.

Now, we end up with this travesty. It's not significantly different from me taking the Troll from the Monster Vault, making it an elite, and adding one close burst power. That Bound By Blood trait takes up way too much page space to make a unique monster. They needed to either give the entry a second page, hold the art and use it for another product (thus giving them page space to add another stat block), or scrap the entire entry from this book.

 

[IanB]

This is a simple monster presented on one page, with a reasonable enough story gimmick. I think the roleplaying potential and adventure set up here is worth the price of admission. Only problem is with the bound by blood trait, which is confusingly worded and doesn't get the intent of how they work across.

Due to the way it's worded, it would appear not to work when hit by acid/fire damage. This is probably a mistake but it's a bit of a silly one. Unless the intent is that this power does nothing against acid/fire, which pretty much would mean they really don't have much of a unique feeling. The intent is obviously that they can't be killed unless hit with acid/fire damage while within 5 of one another.

The art is pretty great, but nothing really that inspiring here on the level of the Wandering Tower for example. I'm kind of disappointed they are both mechanically identical and nothing was done to differentiate one from the other.

Edit: You know, for near paragon monsters they are immensely underwhelming mechanically. Just noticed they're elites, with a single standard action attack and a burst power. That's, um, kind of uninteresting for the story based aspects they can bring to the table. Bit of a shame really, because I love the concept but I would almost certainly redesign the monsters here to actually make it more interesting in actual gameplay.

EDIT: Never mind I think I misunderstood what you meant by the power not working.

 

[Neverfate]

The power is a bit underwhelming. I'm reading 2 distinct aspects. This creates a small loophole.

1- If he gets dropped to 0HP by fire/acid he goes down and doesn't come back.

2- If he's unconscious and within 5 squares of his brother and THEN you hit him with fire/acid they don't come back.

Which means if he's unconscious and NOT within 5 squares of his brother it can be dealt fire damage and not die . . . which means a coup de grace works just fine? (though by flavor this is not what its intended be). It's confusing.

Also it lists Hurly/Burly as one stat block. So am I getting 2 elites for the price of one?

 

[Aegeri]

@IanB The problem is that they should only be able to be killed by acid/fire when within 5 squares of one another. They've accidentally kept the acid/fire thing on the first part, making the second part of Blood Bond by RAW not function any differently to any other troll. It's pretty clear this is an unintended mistake, probably from a bit of copying and pasting while writing the ability (I've made similar errors myself).

I see that you edited your post while I was responding! But yeah, you got what I meant.

@Erren I have to agree with you there. It felt like they had an awesome piece of art and then just put this quick monster together to use it. Unfortunately, I feel they lose a whole lot by being so mechanically blase except for the bound in blood power. Two unique stat blocks with their own set of powers, with some that interacted with one another would have been really great. I'm already working on something very similar, but as they are they're a little underwhelming mechanically for elites.

[MENTION=93685]Neverfate[/MENTION] Yes, they use the same (rather bland) stat block. I have to admit, this is one of the only times I've read a monster that Wizards has produced in a while and felt "What's the point of this exactly?". I actually thought they would be really cool from the art, thinking that one would have powers that complement (or even antagonise) the other in a fight. Unfortunately that's something I'm going to have to do myself.

 

[Mengu]

Needs more detail. I include stats for two distinct creatures in the same block all the time, it would look something like this:

Standard Actions
Hurl Rocks (Hurly only) * Encounter
One or two creatures in range 10; +14 vs AC; 2d8+12 damage and target is knocked prone.
Minor Actions
Eat Spinach (Burly only) * Encounter
Burly gains a +2 bonus to attack, +7 bonus to damage until the end of his turn.

 

[Aegeri]

Wizards do the same thing as well. For example Demogorgon with his dual heads. Either would have worked pretty well actually, especially if they both had the same "skeleton" to work with power wise.

As it is they are less threatening than 4 standard creatures, due to their lack of multiple attacks or, well, anything to be honest. They should be an interesting and pretty dynamic encounter by themselves, while being a real threatening encounter to bring down together. Unfortunately their mechanics just don't support this in any way. Two really underpowered level 9 elites like this are not going to be an issue for upper heroic PCs to spank around.

A rare dud for this book from what I can tell.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Hmmh, I think those kind of elites work quite well, actually. But this are also those kind of elites i make myself.
Those work great against a party of some levels lower, i guess, of ycourse they stand no chance, and should not stand a chance against a party of level 9 or so... they are equal to 4 standard monsters of its level, exactly as they should be, and 4 stqandard monsters should not be threat to 5 PC´s of the same level.

The bigger problem for me with this book is the sloppy wording of some traits in this book. And one problem I see is, that we got 2 kind of monsters now (last friday´s tiefling and those 2 trolls, if you read the power as it is intended), that are unkillable, if the DM desires... i am not sure I buy this design...

 

[Lancelot]

A rare dud for this book from what I can tell.

Agreed. I've been really impressed by every other preview so far; enough so that Nentir Vale is an auto-buy for me.

But this particular monster has three problems: 1) the Bound by Blood mechanic is misworded (simple enough to correct - the flavor text makes the intent very clear); 2) the brothers aren't different enough from a regular troll to be very interesting; 3) they lack sufficient options for a near-paragon elite challenge. Another couple powers, or more differentiation from a regular troll, would have made all the difference.

 

[Mummolus]

They strike me as a perfect threat to throw at a mid-heroic group. Let the brothers maul them a bit, so that when they come back in late-heroic or early-paragon they can feel that much more powerful.

They may not be as well done as the other previews we've seen, but they certainly have their uses.