New DM Looking for Help with monsters

[Xphile]

Inside of the dwarf stronghold, I had the idea of having my party get cornered by a group of these guys:

My party is very meele based, 5 meele characters and 1 wizard. I wanted to give the meelers a challange since they are very good at surrounding creatures and pulling them apart with CA. If the creatures get too close together, the wizard tends to area attack them.

The tactics that these would use is to have two shield bearers up front in a 2 square wide hallway as they push the PCs back towards traps and reinforcements.

I'm very new at making monsters, so I'm not sure if the defenses, attacks and such would be good for a party of like level. All critiques are of course welcome.

 

[ender_wiggin]

Good work. My first thought is:

Your shield bearers are a great idea, but you need to hammer out what "behind" means in respect to the cover that they grant. This might mean nothing more complicated then they can to pick a line of squares that the cover, but since D&D has no inherent facing property, you should make this explicit before play.

 

[the Jester]

I'd reword the Shield Bearer ability so that he gives cover to all adjacent allies. It's much easier to adjudicate that way.

 

[Mesh Hong]

Always nice to see someone new having a go at creating their own threats, welcome aboard.

Tunnel Warden

1: Defences
It’s a nice standard creature, I would probably rate the defences as:

AC 21; Fortitude 18; Reflex 16; Will 16

I think that a Reflex and Will defence of 13 is probably too much on the low side for a level 5 soldier.

2: Spear Thrust
An attack that targets NADs instead of AC is usually lower, I think this should be:

Reach 2; attack +10 vs. Reflex;

I also see that you are using the normal damage expression, it is usual for soldier type creatures to use the low expression damage, but like all things it is a matter of balance. In this case as there is a little control and the creature already has a standard attack that uses medium instead of low I would go with

1d8+4 damage; on hit slide target 1 square

Tunnel Warden Shield Bearer

1: Defences
You are really playing around with the figures here, AC 23 is pretty strong for a level 5 creature (it is the equivalent of a level 9 skirmisher), especially if you start granting cover and superior cover. My prediction is that your melee characters are going to have a tough time hitting.

In all fairness the Shield Bearer should have the same defences as the standard Tunnel Warden. Now as these are themed creatures you can play with them a little, going from your slight deviation from expected damage I might suggest dropping the AC of the Tunnel Warden by 1 and increasing the Will of the Shield Bearer by 1, I might also increase the advantage of Stand Your Ground on the Shield Bearer by 1 (so that it can resist 2 squares of forced movement).

Another thing you might consider is creature version of the player feat that cancels the +2 attack bonus from flanking. This would fit thematically with the shield bearers.

2: Shield Bearer
Its an interesting idea. Like others have said I would change the mechanic to grant the bonus to all adjacent allies, its clearer and easier to arbitrate mid combat.

As far as I am aware there is no tower shield in 4e so you are setting a precedent by using it. Is the cover provided meant to be verses just ranged attacks? Or are you working under the principle that it would include melee attacks as well?

Really I would move away from having it grant cover and have it grant a shield bonus instead (your Tunnel Wardens don’t use a shield so it would work well). I might have the bonus at +1 to AC and Reflex, then +2 to AC and Reflex, I also might restrict the bonus to just allies and not the Shield Bearer itself. (If you felt that the Shield Bearer really needed the increased AC then I would just add 1 to AC defence, but again I would be cautious of pushing up a soldiers AC)

I might write it as:

Shield Bearer
If on its turn Shield Bearer moves at half or less than its speed it grants all adjacent allies a +1 shield bonus to their AC and Reflex defences until the start of its next turn; if the Shield Bearer does not move on its turn it grants all adjacent allies a +2 shield bonus to their AC and Reflex defences until the start of its next turn.


Anyway these are my initial thoughts, I hope they help.

 

[Xphile]

Thanks for the feedback. I will definitely play with the stats more. I do agree that the powers for the Shield Bearer should just be for adjacent allies. The image I had was a dwarf with a huge shield covering his allies behind him, but with a lack of facing in 4e, this would be sort of hard to establish. And probably not worth it overall since it will only be used for one or two encounters.

What I am tempted to do instead of a +2 bonus to AC and reflex is to keep it at +1 if the Shield Bearer doesn't move, but cancel combat advantage or flanking on adjacent allies.

Another thing you might consider is creature version of the player feat that cancels the +2 attack bonus from flanking. This would fit thematically with the shield bearers.

What feat is that? I know my players would be interested in it.

As an aside, I got the idea for these monsters from Vault Warden Team | Games Workshop

 

[LostSoul]

You could make the shield a wall 1 that blocks line of sight and effect.

edit: I don't think it would be much good if there's only one of them, not unless he's in a 5' passage. Which is fine, he'll still provide cover. 2 or more of them will form a shield wall, and be forced movement bait.

 

[eriktheguy]

Balance seems alright, but a fight with these guys is going to be GRINDY. That means it could go slow and take a long time, with all the hp and defenses on the board.
It shouldn't be too grindy, because the level is low, but take my advice. If you are going to have the players run into a group of 5 tough soldiers with extra defense capabilities, I wouldn't do it more than once in a session or more than twice in the entire adventure. I think this fight is going to take awhile.
It can certainly work to your advantage, it really hammers home the flavor of dwarves being tough as nails. But if this is the standard encounter for an adventure it will get tedious.

Edit: Also note that the dwarves deal very low damage and really present no threat to a level 5 party other than to use up resources. It will probably be a boring battle. You definitely need those traps you are suggesting. I would try an encounter with 3 or 4 of those guys (maybe 3 and some minions) and a couple of traps that deal very high damage. This way you can use your well made monsters and still present a threat to the party.
Edit edit: Tunnel Warden Shield: Shield Bearer: "does no move" should be "does not move".

 

[LostSoul]

Edit: Also note that the dwarves deal very low damage and really present no threat to a level 5 party other than to use up resources.[/I]

Yeah. You should upgrade the soldier to 1d10+4 damage with that warhammer. I'd also suggest some kind of other power - maybe something like:

Warden's Fury (standard; encounter)
+12 vs AC; 2d10+4, push 2 and the target is dazed (save ends). When the Warden uses this attack, until the end of his next turn he cannot use his shield bearer power and his AC and Reflex defenses are lowered by 2.