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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nogray" data-source="post: 5979655" data-attributes="member: 28028">True (regarding the unhinged/blinded), but you asked why they wouldn't go ahead and transform long prior to the encounter, so I endeavored to create some reasons, both RP (unpleasantness/risk of life) and mechanical (losing their hit points to represent a painful/fatiguing transformation).The choices I made were to address the OP, who was asking about simulating a D3 transforming cultist. They (1) don't start transforming until they are aware of you, (2) will definitely transform without being attacked, (3) take some time to transform, (4) don't all generally transform at once, and (5) when they do change, they become a fresh (full hit points) creature.To address (1), I embraced your question and provided a mechanical incentive for them not to start transforming too early. If they do, make themselves weak when the transformation wears off. (Thus, "lose all hit points but one.") As a heroic tier NPC, they would have only one healing surge, so even spending that, they are at low hit points.Point (2) nullifies conditions like requiring bloodied for the transformation. It's one of the points of drama, as they are usually not the only things around. You usually have to choose between dealing with a more immediate threat that is actually damaging you and killing the cultists chanting peacefully in the corner.Points (3) and (4) worked together, in my head, with the idea that maybe the reason they weren't all simultaneously transforming was they were focusing their efforts on changing one of them into demon form. Thus, I decided that donating "charges" of the power might be one way to model that. The cultists never attack or move while they are transforming, too, so I gave them a reason. If they do anything else on their turn, they lose all that they've built up.Point (5) led me to giving them a set total of hit points. (126 was chosen for a level 10 Brute, which I thought was fitting given the circumstances of the story at the time you are encountering these foes.) I think the cultists do become full-health monsters when they change, but I'm actually not certain that is absolutely correct. As to the complexity, it's not really. It sets their hit points (the total of their normal and temporary) to that of an unwounded brute. It might also be cool because (if you used the mechanic as it was written in my second post) it would make them "bloodied" the whole time they are in demon form. That has some interesting implications, both mechanically and in the fiction (I am playing with a couple tieflings in one of my campaigns, for example).I am not saying that your ideas are not better and possibly simpler, but they don't really address the transforming cultists in D3. I prefaced the whole original set of powers with, "if I were going for a totally literal translation," after all. I was trying to set up the mechanics to match (as closely as I could) the experiences I'd had fighting the cultists in Diablo 3.Anyhow, it's an interesting topic, and I like your ideas, too. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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