Court of the Bramble Queen

[Aegeri]

The thing is the article already makes it clear plenty of monsters that already exist are directly related to her. Dryads and shapeshifting fey. There happens to be a lot of these creatures in heroic and early paragon conveniently as well. Making these more related would be easily accomplished with a theme actually, that added or maybe even power swapped certain things (like the Demonomicons replacement of variable resistance or the theme like Pazuzu's Dread Flock). New monsters at heroic aren't really needed when plenty are there: IIRC, there are like 4-5 different dryads in Monster Vault spreading across level 5-12 or so.

It's at the higher levels that you run out of options pretty much. I would have liked her lieutenant given a nifty stat block at say, an elite at level 26. A couple of standard monsters that would be plants/fey to go with her in an actual encounter would have been perfect.

The article is still really great though (this needs emphasis), but I wish that Wizards would give authors a bit more room for awesome background material AND some statblocks. The Q'Barra article in this months Dungeon was good as well, let down by a complete lack of any stat blocks to use. Mouseferatu makes some great monsters too, if Tomb of Horrors is anything to go by.

 

[Klaus]

No, we really don't because all of her allies suggested in the article have plenty of ink to paper across several books.

For heroic/early paragon fey and plant type critters there are:
Nymphs
Several Dryads
Eladrin
Hags (Upper Heroic, easily deleveled into mid heroic)
Oblivion Moss (Plant Monster - really appropriate for her as well)
Shambling Mound
Treants
Quicklings
Scarcrows (Murderous Fey Constructs that kill mortals? Why thank you for the perfect fit from just the other month in Dungeon)

As a short list.

Now when you're actually facing her at epic her allies are.... Um... Formorians with some levels? Making your own dryads (as a level 5 dryad does not level up to 26/27 nicely)? Templating anything you can think of with the Wood Bride? But basically you'd need to make these monsters from scratch.

Yeah, there is very little of her own level. This is partly because epic is devoid largely of creatures beyond demons - but there are plenty of heroic monsters. Just thinking about it, I could easily run a campaign based around her from levels 1-10 without much of an issue. By mid paragon I'm struggling and by epic tier I'm basically making 90% of my monsters to support this campaign. So some epic tier allies would have been really nice, because as it is you're going to have to make most of them. Unfortunately if the author isn't given much of a word count, it's difficult to include all the really good background material + several additional statblocks.

4E really has the opposite problem. Lots of heroic monsters and then we run out of ideas the higher level we get.

Add to that list:

Wood Woads (Heroic)
Myconids (Heroic)
Green Dragons (Heroic-Epic)
Ghaele of Winter (Epic)
Tulani of Summer (Epic, Dungeon Delve)
Wild Hunt Hound (Epic)
Firbolg Master of the Wild Hunt (Epic)
Dream Hag (Paragon)
Mist Hag (Epic)

Being slightly unhinged, she might even ally with a few Fomorians (Paragon-Epic).

 

[Riastlin]

Having read through the article, I agree, its a great article. Certainly, I think that the theme provided gives ample opportunity to adjust monsters to be related closely to her, so again the problems start to arise in late paragon to epic -- though this is a general problem with 4th Ed., not just her.

The word count is interesting. I know that there has been discussion about the word counts and all, but I'm curious as to why there needs to be a fairly strict limit? Back when Dungeon and Dragon were print magazines it obviously made sense as the longer the articles, the more pages to print which would then have to be offset by advertising, etc. However, I'm curious as to how much cost goes into the production of a longer online article. Advertising isn't an issue, nor are printing costs.

Certainly I can see the need to give a rough limit (a 60 page "article" on the Bramble Queen might be interesting, but likely would turn a lot of people away too). I realize that the articles need to be edited, proofed, play tested (in theory anyway), etc. but its just not obvious to me why an extra page or two would be problematic. Is this just a reflection of the old print magazine mentality, or is there another legitimate reason that just isn't obvious to a schmuck like myself?

 

[kilamanjaro]

Having read through the article, I agree, its a great article. Certainly, I think that the theme provided gives ample opportunity to adjust monsters to be related closely to her, so again the problems start to arise in late paragon to epic -- though this is a general problem with 4th Ed., not just her.

The word count is interesting. I know that there has been discussion about the word counts and all, but I'm curious as to why there needs to be a fairly strict limit? Back when Dungeon and Dragon were print magazines it obviously made sense as the longer the articles, the more pages to print which would then have to be offset by advertising, etc. However, I'm curious as to how much cost goes into the production of a longer online article. Advertising isn't an issue, nor are printing costs.

Certainly I can see the need to give a rough limit (a 60 page "article" on the Bramble Queen might be interesting, but likely would turn a lot of people away too). I realize that the articles need to be edited, proofed, play tested (in theory anyway), etc. but its just not obvious to me why an extra page or two would be problematic. Is this just a reflection of the old print magazine mentality, or is there another legitimate reason that just isn't obvious to a schmuck like myself?

My guess is that writers are paid by the word and the magazines have a monthly budget.

 

[Riastlin]

My guess is that writers are paid by the word and the magazines have a monthly budget.

Well that would certainly make sense. For some reason though I thought it was just a flat rate that the writers got, but if not, then that would be a good reason.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I realize that the articles need to be edited, proofed, play tested (in theory anyway), etc. but its just not obvious to me why an extra page or two would be problematic.

I don't think a page or two for one article would be a big deal. However, if each article went a page or two over, they would add up quickly. It's easier to just have them all keep to the limit.

(Note, I too would like to see more and longer articles, I'm just trying to explain WOTC's reasoning.)

 

[WotC_Huscarl]

The magazines pay by the word. Typically we agree to a word count and pay rate up front, based on a compromise between how long we'd like the article to be and how many words the author thinks he needs in order to say what he wants to say. Once we settle on, say, 3,000 words, then that's the author's target. If the author overwrites, we don't generally cut something just because we asked for 3,000 words and got 3,800. We don't PAY for the overage, either, even though we're happy to get it. Authors, especially less experienced ones, tend to lowball their word counts, so we ask for more words in the outline stage as often as we ask for less.

Steve

 

[Aegeri]

I see the compiled issue is out and the Bramble Queen had her stat block corrected a bit. It's disappointing to see she did not pick up any resistance to status effects: Making her extremely weak by RAW and unable to do very much beyond a round 1 destructive salutation (or whatever else whams into her). That's a bit disappointing - then again I already know what power I would change and why anyway. New DMs to epic tier though may not realize just how powerful the whole "shut down your ability to do anything ever" ability that PCs have against solos sadly. Turning what could be a climactic fight into a bit of a one sided farce.