Monster Vault: Mages of Saruun

[Aegeri]

Another start of the week MV preview and this time its the Mages of Saruun. I didn't really find this all that invigorating in the end. The Bronze Warder is a monster published in H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth and the Mage wasn't really that exciting mechanically (Their magic missile is an interesting effect in an encounter though). The fluff is pretty much based around the Seven Pillared Hall and seemed a bit plain to be honest.

I don't hate it or really like it that much overall. In fairness to the Bronze Warder, the new MV version is much improved on the original level 7 soldier. Much like Vestapalk, I find having a monster like this that's a bit of a pure update to another one isn't really ideal.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

I agree, the preview was fairly boring.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Hmm even the fluff did not do a lot for me.

 

[malraux]

Is it just me, or does the warped Mage of Saruun look like he wants to say "All your base are belong to us!"?

 

[Drammattex]

Is it just me, or does the warped Mage of Saruun look like he wants to say "All your base are belong to us!"?

That is exactly what he is saying!

(Designer comment!)

Not a defense (I'm satisfied with the entry), but rather an FYI for all those interested in the designer take:

Indeed, the material in the entry is essentially all the info on the Mages of Saruun gathered from Thunderspire Labyrinth and a few other sources and compiled in one place. I think the only authorial invention here is some speculation on what's happening to the mages.

The place where the mages got some expansion is in the mechanics section (you're only getting the first page in this preview). I imagine you'll see a couple more of the creatures from the illustration in the print version, and mechanically they should work well together to make neat encounters.

Ordinarily I might write a monster around a mood or theme, but my larger concern here was to make sure all the important info made it into the entry, and then expand on the creatures mechanically. I'd do the same thing if, for instance, I was tasked with creating an entry for the Zhentarim. Since I haven't run Forgotten Realms since 1993, my knowledge of those guys is pretty dated, and there are LOTS of people who know and care a lot more about them than I do. In that instance I'd try to make certain that the entry had the facts straight and then I'd get more inventive in the mechanics, which was the tack I took here with the Mages of Saruun. When dealing with established lore, the designer has to figure out where to get crazy with "interesting new ideas" and where to be more conservative and just report the facts. In my experience, people tend to hate it when you change the mythology without good reason. Han shot first. So I tended to be more conservative with this entry.

That said, it's a lot easier for me to be excited about the weirder stuff, like the wandering tower, the boggle, hounds of ill omen, penanggalan, etc...

I wonder how the other humanoid groups in MVNV will be received. I believe some are founded on existing lore, and others were just names/ideas given to the designers to develop. I tend to get more excited about MONSTER-monsters, but there are a couple humanoid groups I worked on that I'm pretty keen to see.

 

[bganon]

The previewed monsters seem a little generic, but I like some of that once in a while. Mechanically they look very solid, and they're pretty easily refluffable into whatever you like. The mage in particular is pretty nice; controllers can be tricky to get just "right", and this guy has a great variety of good controlling attacks without being overly complicated.

 

[Drammattex]

By the way, Claudio Pozas just had a golden idea for this entry. I want to play it.

Claudio Pozas I loved that you called the Underdark "the deep frontier". That simple turn-of-phrase evokes images of a Wild West situation, with the Ordinator Arcanis' golden mask standing in for a sheriff's badge.

Steve Townshend That sounds like a really cool campaign idea (I hadn't thought of that when stringing those words together). Now that you mention it, yeah... The heroes come to a small settlement on the edge of the vast subterranean wilderness where the law is more a suggestion than a rule. Here you'll find prospectors, miners, subterranean cowboys (rangers), a whore with a heart of gold, and a whole lot of marauders, outlaws, and savage natives. Maybe you should move north a continent and run that for me (I wanna be a cowboy... er, "drowboy").

 

[BobTheNob]

Yea, there is nothing that different in them, but really, where can monsters go from here? We have had so many publications by now that anything that is released is going to be variants on what proceeded it. Frankly Im happy these are so banal, otherwise we might end up with over-baked encounter stoppers.

Frankly, the only reason I even use monsters from books is to give players some grounding, creatures that they recognize and can measure themselves against (and that is mainly the earlier published ones, the D&D stalwarts), other than that I use ones I compose.

What they really need is a better line up for late paragon and epic. We really dont need to be cramming more monsters into an already overcrowded late heroic/early paragon.

But that's just my take. Im certain others will disagree.

 

[Erudite Frog]

why is this marked as essentials? mv2 is not an essentials product, right?

 

[Aegeri]

That said, it's a lot easier for me to be excited about the weirder stuff, like the wandering tower, the boggle, hounds of ill omen, penanggalan, etc...

I have to admit I have the same thing when I'm designing monsters. I can do an awesome dragon, giant spider or whatever else, but making coherent human opponents interesting can be harder. So I can certainly appreciate the challenge you had here!

It's not like I actively dislike these monsters, it's more the "reprint" value I don't view as being very high for this (as I have Thunderspire Labyrinth for the lore already). For example, I would love a few of these things that are packed into the late heroic/early paragon tier to go and be replaced with epic tier monsters (something desperately needed). This of course wasn't your decision, but it's something I would have liked with the book to more evenly spread over the tiers.

Most of the previews have just been awesome, but some like this, the Hurly Burly Brothers and Vestapulk all say to me "This could easily have been cut for epic creatures that were badly needed". At the same time I can see a use for the Bronze Warder in my own game, but it isn't vastly different from the original (at least not substantially more than I would have changed it).

I'm still buying the book basically the instant I see it of course!

Edit: Sadly, I cannot give you more XP. This makes me sad.