Ecology of the Deathknight up

[MerricB]

ack...

im so used to my magazines coming out a week BEFORE the actual publication date!! spoiled I am!

I'll say you are! I had to wait 2-3 months after everyone on EN World got theirs before my copy would arrive. (And I was a subscriber!)

Cheers!

 

[JoeGKushner]

So does anyone think that under the covers that the old skeleton warrior was folded into the death knight or that the two will still be seperate monsters?

 

[The_Warlock]

Dragon 3-2-4? I am amused.

And also interesting is that the artwork is by the same artist who did the Death Knight cover for issue 324, Marc Sasso (see the sig under the valiant female defender). This may be why the image seems to seem so familiar to some people.

 

[Guild Goodknife]

I thought the Deathknight article was pretty good, especially the soul-trapped-in weapon bit. That part really lends itself for some great adventure ideas.
I'm also cool with reimaginig the Deathknight as more of a melee threat - giving them special melee related powers helps making them more unique and, well, more knightley, instead of being just another undead with spells.

 

[Hussar]

Marc Sasso Rocks. He's done some fantastic stuff. IMO, this isn't one of his better pics unfortunately. That glowy bit around the elf just jars too much. Bit of a shame really.

As far as the mechanical changes, well, there are a few things to remember. The original Death Knight was envisioned as a bad ass. But, in 1e, monsters had a great deal of difficulty being bad assed in melee. They just didn't do enough damage. So, to make the DK bad assed, they gave him a slew of magical abilities that don't really tie into the idea of an undead knight all that well (after all, why is a knight chucking fireballs really?).

Now, with new mechanics, monsters can be very bad assed in melee and, from the sounds of it, they are going to make him a couple of steps higher on the food chain than most. So, you don't need walls of ice and fireballs from the fingertips anymore.

That's my take anyway.

 

[Cam Banks]

My hope would be that they handle death knights like dragons - they're a one man army, capable of a number of effects, attacks, and moves each round. You should be able to have a single death knight enter a room where the heroes are located, and the heroes should freak out - without any minions present.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Hussar]

My hope would be that they handle death knights like dragons - they're a one man army, capable of a number of effects, attacks, and moves each round. You should be able to have a single death knight enter a room where the heroes are located, and the heroes should freak out - without any minions present.

Cheers,
Cam

See, the problem with that is, even dragons can't do what you're saying. Everyone is limited to one standard action and a move action or one full attack. So, the dragon can either spell, breath or melee in any given round.

Although, thinking about it, using things like auras and stances a la Bo9S might handle what you're talking about.

 

[Cam Banks]

See, the problem with that is, even dragons can't do what you're saying.

I'm talking about 4e dragons. That red dragon battle that was posted a month or so ago made it seem as if the dragon was capable of doing more than one thing a round.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Andor]

But it's possible that the DC's are no longer Hit Die based. This might be one of the more "free form" aspects of monster design... rare monsters have higher DCs. Period.

Yeah that was always a little wonky. It's like a japanese guy in movie tokyo being capable of telling you all you want to know about a species of small cave frog that only lives in one mountain in argentia but he's never heard of godzilla. Everybody's heard of the legendary monsters. That's what makes them legendary.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I think the death knight = martial lich analogy is a good one.

I just noticed it said "result of a Religion check." Not Knowledge(Religion.)

Indeed. It appears like there is a Religion skill as opposed to Knowledge: Religion skill. I wonder if there will be an Arcana skill (maybe Spellcraft?).