Skill-linked monsters (defeated by skill checks)

[Aramax]

Ok so I tried a major encounter using this idea and it went well.

The party was in a huge evill library nd were attcked by a hhuge swaarm of books that were skill linked.Becaause this was a major encounter, I ended up using 3 skills insteaad of 1
arcana dc25
athletics dc 28
religion dc 32
my group is L 23 and I thoughht this would be a good spread,the paladin was rolling bad aand had low skills so he wasnt al that involved.
The books were doing 30+d20 and I had them doing random effects when they hit.The 'swarm" had 250 "HP" and did 10 extra damage whhen bloodied.
I let them flounder for 4 rounds,being unable to hit the books when 1 of the players made a history check and they figured out what they were suposed to do.
alla in all it went very well and will use this again def.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Ok.. I'm not sure about this, but skill linked minions/monsters don't have hitpoints, and cannot be defeated with conventional attacks, right?

Otherwise they seem like a problem best left up to the party controller while the rest of the group wipe out the non-minions.

However if they don't have hitpoints, then chances are only one or two party members will be able to deal with them effectively, and characters with minion slaying abilities (which tend to be more effective than a close blast 5 with a skill) don't get benefits with those skills. And depending on what skill you choose, you might be causing the striker to spend time using his less-effective skill-slaying power instead of killing the bigger stuff. That goes double if you cop one of the social-skill monsters because there's basically no way to tell which skill will work well, and no real reason that the others shouldn't (the mercenaries are being defeated by using the bluff skill to intimidate them, for starters).

All in all - if these things don't have hitpoints, they lead to more grind, not less.

That said, they're a cool idea, but the concept that they're grind reducers is just wrong unless I'm missing something.

Now, to make use of the "monsters that can be easily defeated with skill checks" concept I'd probably introduce a rule that basically runs "a skill-based monster can be reduced to 1 hitpoint as a minor action with a successful roll on the appropriate skill" and then run normal full-strength monsters that cost half xp.

For some of your examples (dungeoneering, athletics, acrobatics, streetwise, history) I wouldn't even go that far - they either seem like situations where a minor action and the appropriate check should end in a roleplaying solution, where appropriate terrain use will end the encounter or where the skill description seems to be mirroring regular attack powers with a different mechanic.

 

[eriktheguy]

Ok.. I'm not sure about this, but skill linked minions/monsters don't have hitpoints, and cannot be defeated with conventional attacks, right?

They can be defeated with conventional attacks or skill checks. Skill checks are much faster, because a standard action covers a 5x5 area, which is excellent action economy for a good skill. I edited the OP to make this clearer.

Otherwise they seem like a problem best left up to the party controller while the rest of the group wipe out the non-minions.

However if they don't have hitpoints, then chances are only one or two party members will be able to deal with them effectively, and characters with minion slaying abilities (which tend to be more effective than a close blast 5 with a skill) don't get benefits with those skills. And depending on what skill you choose, you might be causing the striker to spend time using his less-effective skill-slaying power instead of killing the bigger stuff. That goes double if you cop one of the social-skill monsters because there's basically no way to tell which skill will work well, and no real reason that the others shouldn't (the mercenaries are being defeated by using the bluff skill to intimidate them, for starters).

It does depend heavily on which skills you assign. Most parties of 5+ have a good balance of skills, and at least one member that can defeat a skill-linked minion on an 8+.
Part of your argument here (specifically, the bluff vs intimidate pointer) is more of an issue with the skill system than with skill-linked monsters. Trying to scare someone with a bluff almost makes intimidate redundant, but you could easily argue by the same logic that the two skills should be one (coerce). If you want the two skills to be different, apply the hard DC to bluff because scaring with intimidate is easier. If you want to two skills to be the same, then allow players to use them both as one skill in all facets of the game, not just when battling skill-linked monsters.

I disagree that using skill checks is worse than minion-slaying abilities. Find me an at-will attack that is better at killing minions. Moreover, this gives minion killing capacity to players and parties that don't normally have it, which can help keep things interesting at the table and gives more options to DMs of controller-free parties.

All in all - if these things don't have hitpoints, they lead to more grind, not less.

That said, they're a cool idea, but the concept that they're grind reducers is just wrong unless I'm missing something.

Now, to make use of the "monsters that can be easily defeated with skill checks" concept I'd probably introduce a rule that basically runs "a skill-based monster can be reduced to 1 hitpoint as a minor action with a successful roll on the appropriate skill" and then run normal full-strength monsters that cost half xp.

For some of your examples (dungeoneering, athletics, acrobatics, streetwise, history) I wouldn't even go that far - they either seem like situations where a minor action and the appropriate check should end in a roleplaying solution, where appropriate terrain use will end the encounter or where the skill description seems to be mirroring regular attack powers with a different mechanic.

I agree that some of the examples I gave were bad. Feel free to suggest your own if you have any. That said, there is no reason to force all skills to be used for defeating monsters. And hey, feel free to allow your players to use the skills in different ways depending on the monster/skill in question.

- use acrobatics to shift 4 squares in a line as a move action, killing minions with weak underbellies as you shift through their squares
- use thievery to disable an adjacent minion construct as a minor
- use athletics to vault over an adjacent minion carrying a tower shield as a move action, killing them and shifting to any square adjacent to them

In these cases you will have to tell your players what they are able to do with their action before they use it (but probably after they express some interest in using the skill).

Most of all, I stress not to make any of these rules definitive. If a player comes up with a neat way to kill your monsters with skills, you should always be open to it.

 

[eriktheguy]

Ok so I tried a major encounter using this idea and it went well.

The party was in a huge evill library nd were attcked by a hhuge swaarm of books that were skill linked.Becaause this was a major encounter, I ended up using 3 skills insteaad of 1
arcana dc25
athletics dc 28
religion dc 32
my group is L 23 and I thoughht this would be a good spread,the paladin was rolling bad aand had low skills so he wasnt al that involved.
The books were doing 30+d20 and I had them doing random effects when they hit.The 'swarm" had 250 "HP" and did 10 extra damage whhen bloodied.
I let them flounder for 4 rounds,being unable to hit the books when 1 of the players made a history check and they figured out what they were suposed to do.
alla in all it went very well and will use this again def.

Sounds like an interesting encounter. Can you give a bit more specifics on how you ran this? How many swarms, one skill check killed how many targets, were they able to damage the swarm with attacks, etc...
I'm interested in any variations one the idea that you tried so I can steal them for my own table !

 

[Saeviomagy]

It does depend heavily on which skills you assign. Most parties of 5+ have a good balance of skills, and at least one member that can defeat a skill-linked minion on an 8+.

Most parties I've seen will hit a minion with regular attacks on that number, and most regular attacks will have secondary effects to killing minions.

I disagree that using skill checks is worse than minion-slaying abilities. Find me an at-will attack that is better at killing minions.

Well, first there are such at-wills, based on the DCs you expect. Second it doesn't need to be at-wills. Spending an encounter power to target a 5x5 area of skill-minions PLUS damage all the regular foes within the area is going to be much better than spending one action on the minions then one action on the real foes.

Trying to scare someone with a bluff almost makes intimidate redundant, but you could easily argue by the same logic that the two skills should be one (coerce). If you want the two skills to be different, apply the hard DC to bluff because scaring with intimidate is easier. If you want to two skills to be the same, then allow players to use them both as one skill in all facets of the game, not just when battling skill-linked monsters.

It's always been a personal peeve of mine that the three social skills seem to always get treated as "diplomacy is any time you talk, bluff is any time you lie and intimidate is used for shows of brute strength". To me diplomacy is convincing people by making them like you, bluff is convincing people by making them believe you and intimidate is convincing people by making them afraid of something. Some degree of overlap isn't a problem until you start saying "you can't intimidate these guys into being scared, you have to bluff them into being scared", at which point you're really saying "no" to a player without much of a reason to back it up apart from "because I don't like that solution".

- use acrobatics to shift 4 squares in a line as a move action, killing minions with weak underbellies as you shift through their squares
- use thievery to disable an adjacent minion construct as a minor
- use athletics to vault over an adjacent minion carrying a tower shield as a move action, killing them and shifting to any square adjacent to them

See, I think these play into the idea of having a terrain or creature-linked skill power for creatures. I also like them more because they're using less than a standard action to accomplish: attack powers that can kill minions with this little effort are rare indeed, so the players aren't losing anything by performing them.

 

[Aramax]

Sounds like an interesting encounter. Can you give a bit more specifics on how you ran this? How many swarms, one skill check killed how many targets, were they able to damage the swarm with attacks, etc...
I'm interested in any variations one the idea that you tried so I can steal them for my own table !

Ok I was running it as one big swarm that damaged everybody,I described it as waves of books.
They could not be damaged by anything but skill checks specificly
arcana invoking the names of Cthulu gods
religion using a chant similar to what you would use on undead
athletics out running and dodging
Each point you made the skill check by killed 1 point of books,the swarm was dispelled when it took 250 but was much bigger than that.
I added points to your roll if you roleplayed the check
I also let them suffer for a while until they figured out that you needed to use skills.

 

[eriktheguy]

Most parties I've seen will hit a minion with regular attacks on that number, and most regular attacks will have secondary effects to killing minions.

Well, first there are such at-wills, based on the DCs you expect. Second it doesn't need to be at-wills. Spending an encounter power to target a 5x5 area of skill-minions PLUS damage all the regular foes within the area is going to be much better than spending one action on the minions then one action on the real foes.

It's always been a personal peeve of mine that the three social skills seem to always get treated as "diplomacy is any time you talk, bluff is any time you lie and intimidate is used for shows of brute strength". To me diplomacy is convincing people by making them like you, bluff is convincing people by making them believe you and intimidate is convincing people by making them afraid of something. Some degree of overlap isn't a problem until you start saying "you can't intimidate these guys into being scared, you have to bluff them into being scared", at which point you're really saying "no" to a player without much of a reason to back it up apart from "because I don't like that solution".


See, I think these play into the idea of having a terrain or creature-linked skill power for creatures. I also like them more because they're using less than a standard action to accomplish: attack powers that can kill minions with this little effort are rare indeed, so the players aren't losing anything by performing them.

I could really get behind this idea of letting players improvise ways to use skill checks to defeat minions in a more action-economy oriented sort of way. The most obvious way to do it would be to allow players to make checks as a minor/move action or to let them do it as a free action as part of an appropriate attack (a barbarian's attack against a target grants him an intimidate check to frighten nearby minions etc).

 

[Aramax]

Ill tell you Eric ,I just dont think you and I are marching to the beat of the same drum as most en worlders! The encounter I ran was thought provoking and provided much more roleplaying possiblities than yor standard combat and yet its basicly you and I talking about this awesome idea.

I really dont get it,but you know what its thier loss not ours,we have an excellent new tool for DMing and they get vanella ice cream.

I salute your outstanding idea!

 

[eriktheguy]

Thanks Aramax

And some people like vanilla

 

[El Mahdi]

I love the idea. It's very interesting, and looks like it would make for some really fun encounters. I just have a couple of suggestions. These are of course purely in my own opinion...so if they don't strike a vibe with you, feel free to just go "Uggghhhh!" and try to scrub the memory of reading this post from your mind...

Skill-linked monsters are monsters that appear in greater numbers, but can be defeated in swaths by skill checks. At the beginning of each encounter, the DM should make it fairly obvious that skill-linked minions are present and how they can be defeated. The system works best when you replace two or fewer standard monsters with skill-linked monsters.

First, I'm not sure what you mean by "at the beginning of each encounter, the DM should make it fairly obvious that skill-linked minions are present and how they can be defeated." If you simply mean "tell your players that there are skill-linked monsters present, etc...", then I'm not a fan. If you instead are suggesting a DM say something to the players like "you see a horde of xxxxx in front of you - mixed in with this horde are two spirits of fire, the likes of which you've never seen before - something about them reminds you of something you read once...", or something similar - and then having characters with the appropriate Knowledge Skill make a Skill Check to see if they know the monsters skill based weakness - then I'd say "Sweet!".

Just as I'm not a fan of telling Players "you're in a Skill Challenge...", I don't like the idea of just telling players these monsters are present and how to defeat them. I prefer such knowledge be imparted through in-game roleplaying.

Secondly, I love the idea of alternate forms of resolution in a combat encounter...but not to the exclusion of combat. I'd suggest that for monster types (not just flying books, etc. - more akin to your fire spirit example), that such monsters should be able to be defeated by either a skill-linked solution or a combat solution. Even in Skill Challenges, I'm not a fan of the "one road to success" scenario. Just like with clues, dungeon exits, etc., I try to follow a guideling of always providing at least two different, but preferably three, ways to success in any given situation. Using the fire spirit example again, this means that everyone in the group is capable of effectively fighting and defeating them, and the monsters can still be defeated even if nobody makes a successful Knowledge Skill check (to figure out the skill-linked solution). If there are a horde of skill-linked monsters, then treat them as minions as pertains to using combat. If less, scale appropriately.

Aramax's scenario sounds like something best resolved through a straight-up Skill Challenge (using whatever Skill Challenge rules one prefers, whether RAW, Stalker0's, or another). I would present the book scenario as "suddenly and by the score, the books lining the walls shelves begin flying about the room - there are just too many books flying at you from too many directions to be able to "fight" them - you're going to have to find another solution..." At that point, the Skill Challenge starts, though it doesn't need to be specifically stated as "You're in a Skill Challenge...". Though, as with my above advice, I'd still let players "swing away" at them if they wanted to. It would just mean that for that round they defended themself from the books by attacking, avoiding any damage to themselves that round for a successful attack...but not necessarily furthering the groups success as pertains to the Skill Challenge.

The skill-linked ideas you came up with (like using the Arcana skill to cut-off the fire spirits) also seem like outstanding results for skill uses in a Skill Challenge.

I'm betting you run some Reeeeeaaaaally Cooooooool Skill Challenges!




(P.S.: using half experience for a double than normal amount sounds cool, but I'd use normal XP for a smaller amount - I don't see why it would always have to be a larger than normal horde...)

(P.P.S.: I'd have XP'd you for the idea, but too much in 24 blah, blah, blah... I'll have to hit you up later.)