Quickleaf
Legend
Three things that go well together:
Boston's pizza, insomnia, and
a Lovecraftian mega-roper (of doom)
Boston's pizza, insomnia, and
a Lovecraftian mega-roper (of doom)
I can't believe I actually did this! Game prep on a pizza box!
Some game prep before a major D&D session is par for the course for us hard-working DMs (gotta love us), but this is something beyond the pall, even for me...
First, here's the not-so-pretty(ish) shot.
Next, here's the shot of my encounter notes... framing the famous Boston's Pizza logo!
And that's just the front of the box, braddah! Cheers
EDIT: Here's a translation of my encounter notes in case you don't speak "pizza box" (or generally crappy handwriting of a computer-dependent guy).
Lovecraftian Mega-Roper Lair of Doom
The Map: Room about 16" x 22" with stairway descending into large room with a 5' ledge dropping 5' into water dirty and dank. Without the water the stairway would continue down 10'. Fortuitously, the mega-roper's tentacle range stops right at the edge of the ledge. Across the way the roper sits atop a 4x4 hatching mound for little baby ropers in an "alcove" of grand proportion. This mass of hatchlings acts as grasping and auto-damage aura - hard to enter, but harder to leave. All of the area within 3 squares of the alcove is difficult terrain - the water deepens here to waist height (or chest/neck deep for short folk).
The Mega-Roper: It's actually less of a roper and more of an unholy love child between a roper, an otyugh, and a giant crab/jellyfish thing. Basically what you see (the roper) is just the head/sensory unit for a muuuuuch larger beastie. And it's aquatic so pretty far from what most PCs think of as a roper.
To make it a solo I tweaked a couple things...
- No limit to the number of grabbed targets it can pull, but the extent of pull is reduced to 3 (instead of 10)
- Begins with 2 large tentacles and 4 medium "minion" tentacles.
- All tentacles (besides the mega-roper itself) have Threatening Reach equal to their normal reach -1. For example a large tentacle has Reach 4, so its Threatening Reach is 3.
- It can take a minor action to attack with one of the large tentacles (in addition to its double attack).
- The medium tentacles are minions which act on their own initiative count just before the mega-roper's turn. At the start of the roper's turn 3 tentacle minions re-spawn. As the mega-roper is injured its ability to re-spawn lessens.
- Phase One -- The "mega-roper" can pull 10 only on its first attack. The roper and tentacle minions are visible (one tentacle minion is hidden underwater). On the roper's second round the large tentacles burst forth with some cool effect.
- Phase Two -- The "mega-roper" dives/sinks underwater creating several "inhale paths" which threaten to drag PCs underwater and pull them toward hatchling nest. During this phase the roper doesn't make attacks because it's charging up. Instead a number of hatchlings (lurker/skirmisher 14) equal to the number of PCs slip into the water to attack with stealth. A whirlpool/churning waters mini skill challenge kicks in at some point.
- Phase Three -- The ENTIRE mega-roper bursts from the depths, attacking all PCs in a flurry of tentacles, crab pincers, and one enormous maw! The mega-roper is huge and appears in the marked area on the map. Any hatchlings still alive dive for safety, leaving the fight. In their stead 4 pincers emerge in squares adjacent to the mega-roper. Additionally, all 4 tentacle minions re-spawn and both of the large tentacles return if they were "killed" before.
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