Discussing Draedens

[Upper_Krust]

Always nice to hear some feedback Zelda Themelin!

It's interesting to read about old things of D&D. Honestly I never found them so interesting. As an idea certainly, but presentation had always felt bit, dunno, "my monster is bigger than yours".

I think epic will always have an element of one-upmanship. I believe the key to epic design is either to give the monsters a new power we haven't seen before or make the write-up intrinsic to the (epic) 'universe' and in so doing make the monster fill a 'position' we haven't seen before.

I own epic bestiary, but to be totally honest, monsters there are bit boring.

Compared to which other similar source?

I'm curious to hear your opinion, in case I ever wanted to release another epic bestiary.

Some good ideas, but kinda not something I use when I run epic games.

Which other sources do you use when you run epic games?

Far too many angels for example.

Well admittedly, that book only covered A-G, hence the reason the other dimensional hierarchies weren't really covered. But the Angels were only 14 pages out of a 96 page book and I think I did an okay job showing how angels could be adversaries in campaigns.

Far too much plague of high ac, forced reason why make parties out of 60th lv characters.

About 50% of the book covers CR 40 or less, but I reasoned that with the Epic Level Handbook monsters topping out at CR 57 (off the top of my head) that people would want to see some monsters that went up to CR 100 and beyond.

But book was using epic rules as they were made (bad IMO), so such is to be expected.

The epic rules weren't great, that's true, although I think the main problems stemmed from the PCs rather than the monsters.

I rather liked reading it though.

Thanks.

I guess the book would have been more about something "elder evil" style monsters.

I tried to paint a picture that the universe (or indeed super-universes) had lots of things within it that even the gods wouldn't know about and that many of the most powerful entities would be imprisoned, distant or dormant and that's why they are not currently controlling or laying waste to the planes.

 

[Piratecat]

Hey Sorrowdusk!

Heh. If you're 5 years later in responding, it may not be worth the effort.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Heh. If you're 5 years later in responding, it may not be worth the effort.

Immortal Bestiary is fun book and I own it and I recently re-read it so never mind if it was available 5 years ago or something. Or something else?



But I really love epic stuff.
I answer better later U-K but I am busy gaming now, so shortly I liked your style and some beasties were cool though I hoped few more would have been if you get another one out I get it too. I like your writing style. But gotto go. Later.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Piratecat!

Heh. If you're 5 years later in responding, it may not be worth the effort.

Actually I was responding to the comment in the Experience points Sorrowdusk gave me a few days ago. So the thread is 5 years old, but the experience points comment is only a few days old.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Zelda Themelin!

Immortal Bestiary is fun book and I own it and I recently re-read it so never mind if it was available 5 years ago or something. Or something else?

I think Piratecat is referring to my quote of Sorrowdusk which he believed was 5 years too late (but I was actually quoting an experience points comment made a few days ago by Sorrowdusk).

I answer better later U-K but I am busy gaming now, so shortly I liked your style and some beasties were cool though I hoped few more would have been if you get another one out I get it too. I like your writing style. But gotto go. Later.

Have fun at the game.

I'm always interested to hear feedback or take criticism on the chin so don't hold back and give it to me straight. I'm pretty thick-skinned so no need to worry about hurting my feelings.

 

[S'mon]

Howdy freyar!


Well I'd like to recommend the Akishra monster I created for my Immortals Handbook: Epic Bestiary, since that is effectively a severed tentacle from a Cogent (which is a monster inspired by the Draeden).

The Akishra illustration can be seen at the top of this page:

Immortality

The Cogent illustration is on this page, scroll down a bit:

Immortality

Hi Craig, thou great Necromancer!

As I am too lazy to dig out my Immortals Handbook right now, remind me - is the Cogent your version of my Intruder, which was inspired by a brief glimpse at the pic of the Draeden in Alan Shiels' BECMI Immortals book during BRA school assembly? Or did you stat the Intruder separately? AIR the world-eating Intruder which tried to eat Oerth was a single eye surrounded by miles-long energy tentacles, so a bit different from both.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Craig, thou great Necromancer!

Hey Simon, probably going to book that London trip within the next week or two just to let you know.

As I am too lazy to dig out my Immortals Handbook right now, remind me - is the Cogent your version of my Intruder, which was inspired by a brief glimpse at the pic of the Draeden in Alan Shiels' BECMI Immortals book during BRA school assembly? Or did you stat the Intruder separately? AIR the world-eating Intruder which tried to eat Oerth was a single eye surrounded by miles-long energy tentacles, so a bit different from both.

When I designed the Cogent I already had Wrath of the Immortals and thus was familiar with the Draeden. So unfortunately the Cogent isn't really inspired by the Intruder creature beyond that 'said monster' was also inspired by the Draeden.

Also your Intruder creature was about Overgod level in power, whereas classically the Draeden were akin to a weak Greater God (or Hierarch Immortal if you prefer).

The Cogent was designed to be roughly on a par with a weak Greater God. Its much smaller than the Draeden though (100' ft. diameter brain with 200' ft. tentacles).

The size rules for 3E were pretty fussy and something the size of the original Draeden in 3E would have required 8000 Hit Dice (or thereabouts). This of course has a knock on effect to all its other attributes and the whole thing gets a bit messy.

However, if I was redesigning it for 4E then you could have no problems with monsters that big. Level 36 (Giga-sized) Super-solo should be sufficient.