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<blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 7019448" data-attributes="member: 32659"><p>Another Planescape monster, the <strong>Vargouille</strong> is a fun addition to a demon summoning storyline, or an entertainingly gonzo creature to use in swarms. </p><p></p><p><img src="http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/4econversion/images/e/e1/MM35_PG254.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100409034958" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The Vargouille gets a picture that emphasises both their swarm nature and essentially daft physiology. I like that it shows them with radically different faces, since that’s an important element. </p><p></p><p>So the Vargouille, like many Demons, is not exactly the height of sophistication, and is not exactly going to be a scintillating conversationalist. However, we do get a couple fun options here for using them. They can ‘tag along’ with another Demon that is being summoned, and are more likely to pass unnoticed and escape than the summonee itself; in this way, they can begin an infestation of the Prime Material, and if so are likely to serve as your players’ first warning of a demon sumoner, or even worse a demonic incursion. They can use their <em>Kiss</em> ability to turn a humanoid into another Vargouille, and the little post-it note from Elminster suggests having that happen to a king, which is an intriguing idea. It also suggests the use of these as weird pseudo-zombies, infesting the ruins of a mining expedition or something similar; the zombie quality comes from them still possessing the head of their victims. If your players venture to the Abyss - like mine are in a week or so - then using absolutely huge swarms of these blighters also seems appropriate, and they are weak enough that the party cleric or wizard can get satisfaction from AoE efforts.</p><p></p><p>You can have an NPC that the party likes be infested by one of these, doomed to turn into one if they cannot prevent it. It requires so many conditions, though - no <em>remove curse</em> spell available, no sunlight to prevent the transformation - that I think you’d really only manage to make it tense if the party had that quest at a very low level, or were already totally out of resources when they met the victim, and it was already night time. I think that this will work if you really want it to, but don’t be surprised if the party can instantly stop the transformation and thus remove any tension from the Vargouille’s presence. </p><p></p><p>The Vargouille possesses both a fairly interesting statblock, and also a name that is really annoying to spell. They’re easy as pie to kill, with 12 AC and 13 HP, which is impressively weak even for CR 1, and with numbers like that no amount of resistances is going to help. They get three actions: a <em>bite</em> which is just a standard though high damage melee attack; a <em>stunning shriek</em> which is one of those effects which passing the save makes you immune to, and which makes you stunned and frightened; and a <em>kiss</em> which curses an incapacitated target to become a Vargouille themselves. The latter is reasonably easy to get around, but might still catch a resource-low party by surprise, if for example they’re trapped in the Abyss. The Stunning Shriek is pretty easy to resist, and once you pass once it is not a concern for the rest of the day, so it is unlikely to play a huge part in the combat. So I think that you’ll mainly be using these guys as flying annoyances that fly 40ft into melee and use <em>bite</em> attacks to annoy and harass the players, effectively very stupid but incredibly ugly midges. </p><p></p><p>A fun but simple entry, the Vargouille isn’t going to win many fights on its own I think, but also do a much better job than the Dretch and Mane as ‘random combat chaff’, the sort of thing that you can toss six of into every fight in an Abyssal adventure, to add numbers and give AoE experts something to do, without necessarily adding a lot of complexity. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Sent from my iPad using <a href="http://r.tapatalk.com/byo?rid=93205" target="_blank">EN World mobile app</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charles Rampant, post: 7019448, member: 32659"] Another Planescape monster, the [b]Vargouille[/b] is a fun addition to a demon summoning storyline, or an entertainingly gonzo creature to use in swarms. [img]http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/4econversion/images/e/e1/MM35_PG254.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100409034958[/img] The Vargouille gets a picture that emphasises both their swarm nature and essentially daft physiology. I like that it shows them with radically different faces, since that’s an important element. So the Vargouille, like many Demons, is not exactly the height of sophistication, and is not exactly going to be a scintillating conversationalist. However, we do get a couple fun options here for using them. They can ‘tag along’ with another Demon that is being summoned, and are more likely to pass unnoticed and escape than the summonee itself; in this way, they can begin an infestation of the Prime Material, and if so are likely to serve as your players’ first warning of a demon sumoner, or even worse a demonic incursion. They can use their [i]Kiss[/i] ability to turn a humanoid into another Vargouille, and the little post-it note from Elminster suggests having that happen to a king, which is an intriguing idea. It also suggests the use of these as weird pseudo-zombies, infesting the ruins of a mining expedition or something similar; the zombie quality comes from them still possessing the head of their victims. If your players venture to the Abyss - like mine are in a week or so - then using absolutely huge swarms of these blighters also seems appropriate, and they are weak enough that the party cleric or wizard can get satisfaction from AoE efforts. You can have an NPC that the party likes be infested by one of these, doomed to turn into one if they cannot prevent it. It requires so many conditions, though - no [i]remove curse[/i] spell available, no sunlight to prevent the transformation - that I think you’d really only manage to make it tense if the party had that quest at a very low level, or were already totally out of resources when they met the victim, and it was already night time. I think that this will work if you really want it to, but don’t be surprised if the party can instantly stop the transformation and thus remove any tension from the Vargouille’s presence. The Vargouille possesses both a fairly interesting statblock, and also a name that is really annoying to spell. They’re easy as pie to kill, with 12 AC and 13 HP, which is impressively weak even for CR 1, and with numbers like that no amount of resistances is going to help. They get three actions: a [i]bite[/i] which is just a standard though high damage melee attack; a [i]stunning shriek[/i] which is one of those effects which passing the save makes you immune to, and which makes you stunned and frightened; and a [i]kiss[/i] which curses an incapacitated target to become a Vargouille themselves. The latter is reasonably easy to get around, but might still catch a resource-low party by surprise, if for example they’re trapped in the Abyss. The Stunning Shriek is pretty easy to resist, and once you pass once it is not a concern for the rest of the day, so it is unlikely to play a huge part in the combat. So I think that you’ll mainly be using these guys as flying annoyances that fly 40ft into melee and use [i]bite[/i] attacks to annoy and harass the players, effectively very stupid but incredibly ugly midges. A fun but simple entry, the Vargouille isn’t going to win many fights on its own I think, but also do a much better job than the Dretch and Mane as ‘random combat chaff’, the sort of thing that you can toss six of into every fight in an Abyssal adventure, to add numbers and give AoE experts something to do, without necessarily adding a lot of complexity. Sent from my iPad using [url=http://r.tapatalk.com/byo?rid=93205]EN World mobile app[/url] [/QUOTE]
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