"Fear of Monsters" back into 4th Edition

[Jhaelen]

The fear of being killed. This is the most important and powerful of all fears.

That may be true in real life, but in an RPG? Not so much.
There's a lot of things that are worse than death (even in real life...).

Rust monsters are often cited as being the scariest D&D monsters, ever. While I'm not sure I agree completely, it's clear to see why:
Destroying a pc's most valuable magic item(s) is something that can severly cripple them, invalidating many sessions worth of achievements.

Level-draining monsters, like vampires, could have a similar effect (and are in fact the monsters I used to dread most in earlier editions).

In D&D 3e, the magic number for me was '13'. This was the (encounter) level where the pcs started to regularly encounter monsters with save-or-die (or worse) powers: Beholders, Mind Flayers, etc.
It effectively put an end to regular character advancement - at least in my campaign.

If you were using the full range of rule supplements, this trend could be somewhat reversed, though.
In almost all high-level combat encounters, one or more pcs would be dropped dead at some point, only to be almost instantly raised by the party's cleric again.
Death was no longer much of a threat at that point.

 

[Igwilly]

Honestly, I’m not in the mood of discussing how much important Death should be to your characters. If you cannot see why, I’m not the one who’s going to convince you.
I stand by my previous statements: Raising the dead should be costly and difficult, and if your (general case, not specific “your”) players do not fear death, something is wrong. I also am willing to house-rule the system until I get that (I’ve created house-rules far more time-consuming than changing a couple of spells).
I do agree with you in two points: 1) at high-levels, there are far more serious threats than personal, physical death. At that point, though, you are conjuring meteors and travelling between the planes; life is quite different. 2) Level drain *is* worse than death, for the very nature of the game. I disagree with rust monsters, though.


@MoutonRustique sorry for taking so long, I was busy, hehe.
Well, I don’t know what are you planning or where you’ll use this, but ok.
My strongest complain about “nastiness” in 4e are status effects. I’m fine with some “until the end of next turn” stuff, but I came to be extremely disappointed with “save ends” effects. At first, they seemed to be strong, but they’re pretty weak for what they should do. Save ends in 4e means 55% of chance of ending in 1 round, by doing nothing! Do the math for 2 or 3 rounds and you’ll see how much it probably lasts. These status effects should last much more. In this category, there are paralysis, blindness, sleep, deafness, confusion, etc.
The second strongest complain are immunities. With the exception of undead, 4e was quite shy at giving immunities to monsters. I can get that, if a Wizard specialized with fire spells encounters a fire-immune creature, he/she will have a tough time. However, I have no sympathy for one-trick ponies. One particular example are solo monsters: 4e took some time to make them properly threatening instead of being very vulnerable to certain effects. In my opinion, that is actually easy to solve: just make solo monsters immune to status effects that simply shut them down. Contractual Boss Immunity. Give elites a resistance to that, and leave standard as it is. With the rarity of solo (boss) monsters and the number and importance of standard monsters, I don’t think we’ll end up with Useless Useful Spells – not if done right.
Along with specific immunities, there are also general immunities: magic resistance, magic immunity, immunity to weapons. I think magic/spell resistance, or immunity in the same vein as old-school Golems (perhaps some things still affect them somewhat) is an interesting challenge that makes players think differently than simply shooting their spells as one wants. Things like “need silver weapons to hit” and “incorporeal monsters are not hit by normal weapons” is one thing I miss. Especially ghosts and such: no matter how much one tries to explain to me, I simply cannot accept a common sword dealing half damage to a ghost! However, I think we should reserve this sort of immunities to monsters iconic of them. There’s no need or use to give every demon and devil a “need +X weapon to hit” and “XX% magic resistance”, if you know what I mean. In addition, I think the requirement of magical items should be a separated one and used sparingly (if we ever have it): no waves of monsters with “need +X weapon to hit”; and magic does not substitute for silver, or cold iron, or whatever.
(Small comment: I like these weapons immunities in good part because I love weapons and armor of different, exotic materials. Silver arrows, cold-iron dagger, mithril sword, adamant armor and weapons, golden/platinum darts, celestial bronze… It seems so flavorful and “magical” to me, and it should really matter that your equipment is made of such stuff.)
I also miss gaze attacks. I think the modern concept of gaze effects is very weird (I’ve seen it in other places): it’s an literal attack, a deliberate action. Gaze effects are not that for me: I prefer the old version: if you look at his/her/its eyes, the effect happens. The actual strength is something to debate, but medusas should be feared!
Energy drain: I like two things about energy drain: the concept of draining life energy, and the long-lasting nastiness of it. However, level drain specifically is not my favorite mechanic. Something else should replace it. Constitution drain is an alternative, as is permanent drain of healing surges (you don’t get them back until X).
Save of Die, obviously. Save or Suck enters into status effects. I’ve mentioned ability drain/loss, so count that too. Rust monsters are fine, but not needed for me: there’s always another magical sword, waiting to be found (and if you use a metal weapon against a rust monsters, shame on you). Charm effects, yay (although there are some of them in 4e). Also, poison was overused in AD&D 1e, being all save or die, but poison should be nastier depending on the specific poison, of course. Although, since poison is so common, one needs to regulate their strength so that the game won’t be overcrowded with save or die enemies or such.
Of course, the actual strength, danger and frequency of all this should be carefully chosen, but the general goal is to make them nastier than present 4e. In addition, there is highest priority to iconic monsters: some monsters have these effects but are not iconic of them. Overuse is bad and we should avoid it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Rust monsters are often cited as being the scariest D&D monsters, ever. While I'm not sure I agree completely, it's clear to see why:
Destroying a pc's most valuable magic item(s) is something that can severly cripple them, invalidating many sessions worth of achievements.

So true. You can bring a character back, at worst, or in low level play at least the survivors get to claim the fallen character's stuff and you could expect your new character to share in that pool of stuff equally. Item destruction was a quite nasty thing! I expect Gygax invented it as a way of 'cleaning up messes' where he felt that some PCs had gotten a little too fat.

Level-draining monsters, like vampires, could have a similar effect (and are in fact the monsters I used to dread most in earlier editions).

Level drain was a hugely fearsome thing. The Restoration spell is 7th level, and thus inaccessible over a large range of levels where you're likely to meet level-draining undead. You might find a 14th level NPC cleric somewhere, but they're going to be few and far between in most campaigns, and in any case the spell has severe restrictions (must be cast within 1 day per level of the cleric, so you better find that guy pretty quickly). It also only restores ONE level per casting, most unfortunate encounters with the undead will mean you'll need SEVERAL iterations of this to be cast! Thankfully it doesn't require material components or have other onerous casting requirements, so there is SOME chance of getting it cast without hideous expense. However, just finding a level 14 cleric is likely to involve considerable adventuring, and they'll surely put you permanently in their debt!

Honestly I always felt like level drain was dirty pool. The players earned those levels. Yeah, it was scary, but it never fit well with a really heroic sort of game, or one where the characters are part of some kind of story arc. I much preferred ability draining. It is harsh, and needed some better way of fixing it than was provided in AD&D (nothing that I can remember), but at least it wasn't taking away something you EARNED. Depending on the particularly character and ability score you might even just go on about your business and not worry about it too much afterwards. It was still plenty frightening though.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

See, I agree with you on a lot of specific points. I don't think 4e needs to be 'harder' or 'easier', but it is perfectly fun to present some 'puzzle monsters' that you need to switch tactics to defeat, or some things that you probably don't beat by fighting them (though maybe calling those monsters is something that D&D should stop doing, at least 4e has SCs which can put those things into a bit different category).

4e's disease track is awesome. In my hack of 4e (HoML) I have utilized the concept, with a few minor tweaks, to cover the full range of 'afflictions'. Basically I figure in a magical world that 'curse', 'disease', and 'poison' aren't really very separate categories anyway. They're all malignant magical forces (part of my world concept, the world IS magic, there's no 'physics' or whatever, it works magically, always and everywhere).

 

[MoutonRustique]

[snip]
My strongest complain about “nastiness” in 4e are status effects. I’m fine with some “until the end of next turn” stuff, but I came to be extremely disappointed with “save ends” effects. At first, they seemed to be strong, but they’re pretty weak for what they should do. Save ends in 4e means 55% of chance of ending in 1 round, by doing nothing! Do the math for 2 or 3 rounds and you’ll see how much it probably lasts. These status effects should last much more. In this category, there are paralysis, blindness, sleep, deafness, confusion, etc.

1st potential solution : save DC is now 15

2nd potential solution : (save ends) is now (until the end of the encounter), but you can use an appropriate standard action to remove the condition

3rd potential solution : conditions now all use a variation on the [disease track]

4th potential solution : conditions don't end by themselves. A character can spend a large amount of hp to remove it.
4.1th potential solution : ... spend a [HS] to remove it.
4.2th potential solution : spend a (lesser) amount of hp to ignore the condition for a round.

The second strongest complain are immunities. With the exception of undead, 4e was quite shy at giving immunities to monsters. I can get that, if a Wizard specialized with fire spells encounters a fire-immune creature, he/she will have a tough time. However, I have no sympathy for one-trick ponies. One particular example are solo monsters: 4e took some time to make them properly threatening instead of being very vulnerable to certain effects. In my opinion, that is actually easy to solve: just make solo monsters immune to status effects that simply shut them down. Contractual Boss Immunity. Give elites a resistance to that, and leave standard as it is. With the rarity of solo (boss) monsters and the number and importance of standard monsters, I don’t think we’ll end up with Useless Useful Spells – not if done right.

This one... is harder for me to figure out without going full-on "gamist". Maybe I'll get an idea latter...

Along with specific immunities, there are also general immunities: magic resistance, magic immunity, immunity to weapons. I think magic/spell resistance, or immunity in the same vein as old-school Golems ...[snip]... really matter that your equipment is made of such stuff.)

This is something I also, personally really like - I liked the "golf-bag" of PlaneScape! Bonus : it's really easy to implement in 4e! You just go by power source!

Can't cast spells at [golems], they're invulnerable to [arcane], [divine] and [primal] attacks - when the interaction would be kind of weird (against a Barbarians axe-swing, for example), it's easy to say the resulting effect is the same as a [melee/ranged weapon basic attack] !

Ghosts can't be hit : [immune] to [martial] attacks, or [untyped] damage, or anything else.

I also miss gaze attacks. I think the modern concept of gaze effects is very weird (I’ve seen it in other places): it’s an literal attack, a deliberate action. Gaze effects are not that for me: I prefer the old version: if you look at his/her/its eyes, the effect happens. The actual strength is something to debate, but medusas should be feared!

We can turn to 13th Age here - have it be a sort of aura (or an actual aura - say aura 20) where, if you don't grant the target full concealment against you, you suffer the gaze effect (or an attack from the gaze).

You could easily give the "gazing" creature a "touch" range standard action attack where it imposes the effects of its gaze on a creature that avoided it's gaze - to simulate the creature actively "getting in your face".

Energy drain: I like two things about energy drain: the concept of draining life energy, and the long-lasting nastiness of it. However, level drain specifically is not my favorite mechanic. Something else should replace it. Constitution drain is an alternative, as is permanent drain of healing surges (you don’t get them back until X).

We can take a cue from 5e here - "permanent" hp reduction, as well as "permanent" HS count reduction. These are effects NO ONE would find trivial!

If you wanted a form of "power-loss curse", you could make it so the first [daily] attack power also costs a [HS] to use - signifying the target's reduction in power. You could even have it affect only the player's strongest attack (perhaps affecting more and more powers as the player gains more and more "negative-levels" to take from 3e)

Save of Die, obviously.

You can have them as-is : force a save, failed = you die. Or, set a DC at 20+ attack bonus and have the player roll a "Defense save" (d20+Fort/Ref/Will)

Also, poison was overused in AD&D 1e, being all save or die, but poison should be nastier depending on the specific poison, of course. Although, since poison is so common, one needs to regulate their strength so that the game won’t be overcrowded with save or die enemies or such..

1st potential poison : use a variant of the [disease track] (perhaps one where you start at the bottom and can't fall back down)

2nd potential poison : (save ends) is simply (until you're cured). This makes anti-toxins (mundane and magical) a priority!

3rd potential poison : (save ends) is morphed into (endurance halves), so that ongoing 10 poison (save ends) will deal 10, and then 5, and then 2, and then 1, and then be negated (assuming all successful Endurance checks). With this, you could also tie the secondary effects to how much damage the creature suffered - making it feel really "organic".

4th potential poison : poison doesn't inflict hp, only conditions and [HS] loss.

5th potential poison : poisons don't have effects until they are failed against (but otherwise "permanent") making them.

Pretty much everything discussed means taking into account how strong you want the effects to be, on prevalent you're making them, what it does to the action economy, what impacts with [resistance] and such, and etc. Nothing that can't be done, but something that needs to be thought about a bit - depending on the road chosen!

 

[MoutonRustique]

My personal "making 4e deadlier" remix blueprint
[sblock= "This turned out to be more: Tweaks to play The Witcher..."]
[resist] values are reduced significantly (i.e. resist 2 fire would be the new base line)

(save ends) is changed to (until you take an appropriate action)
- appropriate actions vary by effect but usually require a minor action for a hard DC or a standard action for an easy DC
-- [stunned] (save ends) is just removed
-- removing or ignoring [dazed] and [dominated] will require suffering psychic damage

Special "story" monsters impose effects using the [disease track] (with "improving" DCs set 5+ higher)
- these also get special rituals and conditions to remove their nasty effects (see [Mummy Lord] by [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION])

[immobilized] is changed to [restrained] with the exception of [psychic] and [charm] sources of [immobilized]

On the flip side : most monster basic attacks do not impose riders and such on [opportunity attacks]

[swarm] changes so that it doesn't provoke [opportunity attacks], has [reach 0]

Many creatures become [puzzle monsters] with much less "fair" mechanics than presently used (i.e. Gargoyles have resist all 15, etc)

Much fewer permanent magical items - and most in the "nice to have" category. Much heavier emphasis on consumables.

The end result would, ideally, be something along the Witchter universe : if you're ready, you'll prevail. But if you don't plan for X condition... well... not so much.[/sblock]
Deadlier 4e
(save ends) DC is now 15
[Remove Affliction] ritual now imposes -10 to the check
[resist] values on gear are reduced by 3
[Healing Word] (and ilk) is reduced to once per encounter and offers 1/2 bonus hp
All [Healing Surge]-free healing is removed
The first [Healing Surge] lost to SC or environmental conditions is instead translated to 1/4 hp loss at start of next encounter if at all plausible.
Characters must complete a milestone before gaining benefits* from a short rest. (*Characters can still spend healing surges.)

Some of these would probably impose/encourage a play-style that would potentially translate "deadlier" into "slower"... hum...

 

[Tony Vargas]

I came to be extremely disappointed with “save ends” effects. At first, they seemed to be strong, but they’re pretty weak for what they should do.

Depends on what you think they 'should' do, I suppose. Presumably they were meant to do less than 3e's rocket-tag SoDs.

Save ends in 4e means 55% of chance of ending in 1 round, by doing nothing! Do the math for 2 or 3 rounds and you’ll see how much it probably lasts.

If you make you save on the first round, you were under the effect for the whole turn, so that's not nothing.

Save-ends and end-of-your-next-turn effects both have initiative foibles, though. Save-ends can do practically nothing if used as a reaction to an enemy's last action on their turn (I house rule that when I remember - or maybe it's even an errata, I forget). EoynT can end up doing 'nothing' when you use it on a surprise round, then win initiative. (Ditto)

Things like “need silver weapons to hit” and “incorporeal monsters are not hit by normal weapons” is one thing I miss

A strong trait, like regen that's suspended when hit by silver seems to work well.

. Especially ghosts and such: no matter how much one tries to explain to me, I simply cannot accept a common sword dealing half damage to a ghost!

So, a ghost is an /animus/, that has stuck around after the death of the body. Your PC also has an animus (Gilbert Ryle would hate this bit), allowing it to move, so when he hits a ghost (or vice versa) it's animus-on-animus violence.

 

[Igwilly]

[MENTION=22362]MoutonRustique[/MENTION] Most of these ideas are good; you could test them in a 4e hack/house-ruled variant.
One thing you can use about immunities is the weapon vs implement dichotomy of 4e.

About level drain: well, I like the concept of your life force being drained away, and being hard to get back. Loss of levels or abilities is not something I cherish. I mean, it’s not a crime or sin or something like that, but if I create my own system, I would avoid this option. Dealing with Constitution points, Healing Surges or even HP in a permanent (until reversed) way seems to be cool and fine for me.
[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] I do not know what else I need to say about “save ends” effects. They’re supposed to be very nasty, but they fall short of it.
I have seen this tactics in regeneration with werewolves and to some extend with vampires, and I need to say it wasn’t enough. Enough in this case means: possessing such material is not nearly as important as it should be. In order to recover from the damage of an entire party, a werewolf would need to have a VERY strong regeneration.
I am aware about this explanation. I saw it in Open Grave or something. I just don’t buy it. It’s obviously a hand-wave just because the designers were so adamant about not giving immunities to monsters.
You see, I understand that many of the issues with 4e come from the fact that 4e was trying hard to fix some mistakes of 3.X. However, a new edition is not supposed to only counter attack problems of the previous edition: it’s also supposed to not generate too many new problems while doing that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You see, I understand that many of the issues with 4e come from the fact that 4e was trying hard to fix some mistakes of 3.X. However, a new edition is not supposed to only counter attack problems of the previous edition: it’s also supposed to not generate too many new problems while doing that.

'Supposed,' maybe not. Yet each new edition has done just exactly that.

I do not know what else I need to say about “save ends” effects. They’re supposed to be very nasty, but they fall short of it.

Stun, for instance, is pretty nasty. Combats aren't that short, though, and I've certainly seen 'save ends' effect disappoint (or relieve) with an early save. They really do last longer than you might expect at times, though. My first 4e character very nearly died of ongoing 2 poison damage, because he kept failing the save, even after the fight was over, and the whole party was making heal checks to give him extra saves... it was just one of those perversity of the dice things.

I have seen this tactics in regeneration with werewolves and to some extend with vampires, and I need to say it wasn’t enough. Enough in this case means: possessing such material is not nearly as important as it should be.

Again with 'should' - should defeating a werewolf be a rock-paper-scissors proposition, where if you have silver, it's nothing, and if you don't, it's invincible? If so, yeah, give it a different trait: 'immune to all damage except silver.'

I am aware about this explanation. I saw it in Open Grave or something. I just don’t buy it. It’s obviously a hand-wave just because the designers were so adamant about not giving immunities to monsters.

IDK if the actual rationale for ghosts & the living interacting in physical combat was in there, per se, but Open Grave did lift/munge the concepts of the animus, mind, & soul from Cartesian Dualism and Theosophy and the like. Logically, if an incorporeal spirit capable of animating a living (or unliving) body is floating about in defiance of nature, the quality that let it make its original corpus move above might let it affect other living bodies, and vice-versa. Or, y'know, it might not, in which case it could be scary, perhaps, but not hurt anyone, while being immune to harm, itself.


I think part of the issue is that 4e Monsters were pretty consistently presented as combat challenges, with stat blocks and levels and secondary roles all to that end. In the classic game, you could have a monster that was really more like a trap or a puzzle. In 4e, such non-monster-monsters would be created as traps, or hazards or skill challenges. Green Slime, for instance, was in the classic 1e MM1, but for 4e, was in the DMG, not the MM, because it wasn't a combat challenge.

A 'monster' like a ghost that you can't fight, but instead must lay to rest, could be a skill challenge.
A pack of werewolves, utterly invulnerable, only active at night on the full moon, but killed neatly by silver could be a hazard that you avoid or, with preparation, bypass.


But a monster presented as an n-level monster, with a stat block, is supposed to be a modest combat challenge (by itself, if a solo, or among other similar-level monsters if any other secondary role) to an n-level party of 5. Being unbeatable without the right brand of cryptonite or able to remove PCs from the entire fight with one roll does not support that particular 'supposed.'

 

[Fox Lee]

Obviously your group has its own priorities, but to me most of those old-school effects aren't actually scary. What they are is super super annoying. I remember re-calculating stats and spells on the fly for level and stat drain effects. Entire builds reduced to "I guess I just try to punch it" by some stupid gear-destroying beastie. But was it scary? No, at least not for us. It just made somebody's day suck, and slowed the game down for everyone.

If anything, I find death more of a threat in 4e because you're less likely to die. Does that make sense? When there's the constant chance of save-or-die TPK slapping a boring, narratively unsatisfying ending on a story, my instinct is to presume that there is a fairly mundane way to bring a PC back to life. It's pretty hard to die in 4e, so if you needed to bring somebody back it wouldn't feel unfair for it to be a major quest or a unique ritual or something. So death in the setting can go back to being something meaningful, which is much more satisfying to me than the possibility of dying in what, let's face it, is often a really stupid way.

TLR, You could not pay me to put that sort of thing back into my 4e. But I don't need my players to fear death, so much as I need the world around them to fear it.