Krakenspire
First Post
Re-skinning is on a gradient, there's the orc with lipstick reskin (no really, its just a very angry barmaid) and then there is the take a base monster and convert it with different abilities to what you want. Depends I suppose on your definition of reskin.
I do this all the time with monsters. Made alchemicaly created humans as opponents in 4e, took a shifter and used the shifter bonus as the draining of their green magical syringes (ala Bane) to make them more powerful. Needed alchemical exploding creatures, took giant rats and then gave them an explosion of acid when they reached 0 hp. Needed a large mutated master creature that smashed through walls from the evil laboratory, took a troll, gave it armour, took away bite attacks, changed claw to smash upped the AC and then gave it a surge power similar to what shifters had. All the same adventure just gradual shifting of the monsters down the line with more and more mod work.
Cosmetic and tactical changes or behaviour changes are often what is needed to give an encounter a completely different feel. For example I wanted my party to fight something at low level over a wide bridge. I wanted something flying that could go under or over the bridge and swoop down on them. Using the pseudodragon stats I had the party fight winged harpy like demons. The sting was venomous claws. The demons swarm attacked any creature that fell unconscious from the poison and tried to eat them, as they were just that nasty. They would swoop in, slash with claws, disengage and fly away to let the poison work. Then another would swoop in from a different angle. I described them as quarrelsome, dirty and shrieking (which they could hear in their heads due to telepathy). Their telepathy filled the players thoughts with the feelings of rage, hunger and images of blood, tearing flesh and death. The party had no clue it was a pseudodragon template. It was an interesting and different location, had a new and unexpected monster and forced some interesting tactical choices on the players (so if I throw my axe that way and miss, does it end up in the chasm??). Re-skinned in 3 min... tonnes of fun.
I do this all the time with monsters. Made alchemicaly created humans as opponents in 4e, took a shifter and used the shifter bonus as the draining of their green magical syringes (ala Bane) to make them more powerful. Needed alchemical exploding creatures, took giant rats and then gave them an explosion of acid when they reached 0 hp. Needed a large mutated master creature that smashed through walls from the evil laboratory, took a troll, gave it armour, took away bite attacks, changed claw to smash upped the AC and then gave it a surge power similar to what shifters had. All the same adventure just gradual shifting of the monsters down the line with more and more mod work.
Cosmetic and tactical changes or behaviour changes are often what is needed to give an encounter a completely different feel. For example I wanted my party to fight something at low level over a wide bridge. I wanted something flying that could go under or over the bridge and swoop down on them. Using the pseudodragon stats I had the party fight winged harpy like demons. The sting was venomous claws. The demons swarm attacked any creature that fell unconscious from the poison and tried to eat them, as they were just that nasty. They would swoop in, slash with claws, disengage and fly away to let the poison work. Then another would swoop in from a different angle. I described them as quarrelsome, dirty and shrieking (which they could hear in their heads due to telepathy). Their telepathy filled the players thoughts with the feelings of rage, hunger and images of blood, tearing flesh and death. The party had no clue it was a pseudodragon template. It was an interesting and different location, had a new and unexpected monster and forced some interesting tactical choices on the players (so if I throw my axe that way and miss, does it end up in the chasm??). Re-skinned in 3 min... tonnes of fun.
