Gaps In The Monster Lineup

[jmucchiello]

BTW, I wish someone would explain to me why there is this general disdain among d20 publishers to not use other publishers' OGC content?

Can someone explain that to me? My god, there must be hundreds of open content undead out there, that could easily be used. Just post the content on the website if you're worried about page size.

In this context, , it is quite simple: He doesn't want to include a stat block in the adventure. If he uses someone elses critter, he has to include the stat block. He can't just say, go look them up in Fred's Guide to Undead because his module becomes useless to people lacking FGtU. (I'm assuming Fred doesn't mind him claiming compatibility with FGtU which is also not allowed under the OGL without permission.) After all, if he's stuck making a stat block he may as well create a new creature so that his adventure is 100% new material, not 80% new material. Some people hate buying the same material twice.

In the general context, the problem really is numbers. When I say the mage has magic missile prepared, you know that you can just go to the PHB and look up the particulars if you aren't familiar with it. If I say the mage has Grar's Missile of Magic prepared, I also have to tell that Grar's spell appear in such-and-such a book. Now I'm fairly certain that the cross-section of gamers with PHB and gamers buying my book is the set equal to gamers buying my book. However, the cross-section of gamers with Grar's Grimoire and gamers buying my book is not equal to gamers buying my book. In fact it is probably significantly smaller. Orders of magnitude smaller. Why should I limit the value of my book only to those who have Grar's Grimoire and the PHB when I can limit it those with the PHB alone? Adding another 3rd party title shrink the cross-section even smaller.

OTOH, you might say I could include Grar's Missile of Magic in my book so they don't have to own Grar's Grimoire. Now I have the situation where I cannot say my book is all new material. I now annoy those people who own both my and Grar's books because now they have that spell in print twice. As I add more 3rd party material to my book, the amount of new material falls and the likelihood of intersecting between spells in my book and spells in books already owned goes up. In fact, the odds of the buying having the other book are probably higher than in the population of two unrelated books. The buyer bought my book presumably because of the topic. I took the spell from the other book because it fit my topic. This means the topic of the other book is more likely useful to the buyer of my book and thus it is more likely that he has the other book.

Lastly, there's always Not Invented Here syndrome. But that's not really part of this topic, is it?

 

[Buzzardo]

In this context, , it is quite simple: He doesn't want to include a stat block in the adventure. Et. Al...

BING!

 

[Buzzardo]

Here's a question:

what in the heck are 4 ragewinds, 14 blood fiends, and 86 mummies doing working together? What - What on earth links this encounter together? This just doesn't feel right - it feels WAY to thrown together. I can't imagine why these creatures would interact like this...

Tell me about it. It feels jacked up because of the unbeleivably limited menu of undead from which to choose. The setup is basically a demon has trapped each undead in small secret compartments scattered throughout the large room. Party enters, secret compartments open, bait NPC flees the room, after which walls of force go up at the exits, leaving the party trapped inside with all the undead. They aren't really working together, they are just out of their confinement with only the PCs as targets.

PCs use their artifact to overcome insurmountable odds, and pursue the bait NPC after the walls of force end.

Thoughts? Still seem forced, given that setup?

 

[Grazzt]

Even going to the FF and MM2 is a stretch, because some DMs (a minority I hope) might not have them. .

Even going to those for something you plan to publish (unless WotC is publishing it for ya) is a bad idea since they aren't in the SRD and aren't OGC.

EDIT: Course if this is for your own private use...please ignore my comments above.

 

[Buzzardo]

Even going to those for something you plan to publish (unless WotC is publishing it for ya) is a bad idea since they aren't in the SRD and aren't OGC.

EDIT: Course if this is for your own private use...please ignore my comments above.

I am assured by my publisher that getting the permission from WoTC for those monsters will not be a problem, as WoTC is cool about giving permission to established publishers.

 

[takyris]

Flavorwise, a whole mess of mummies sounds like either an enormous hall of ancient dead kings or a legion of holy warriors killed by some horrific water-draining attack (like the dragons in Dark Sun?). That leaves the Blood Fiends and Ragewinds, neither of which I know much about, but if you start with "a whole mess of mummies" and work your way out, storywise, from there, it could make sense.

 

[nameless]

Sorry if I'm addressing the question in a way that isn't helpful... I don't like to think of single monsters but whole encounter scenarios.

I'm wondering if it HAS to be ALL undead. If a demon set up the trap, perhaps a few constructs (I'm thinking Retrievers) are viable. They have those eye rays as a free action each round, which will be at least a minor threat to high level PCs. When the artifact does its thing and takes out the undead, then there will still be an encounter to be had. It will be sort of a mop-up endeavor, but constructs aren't instakills because of their immunities. I know they're huge, but they are spiderlike and may not take up a lot of vertical space.

Dread Wraiths are CR 11 and are offense heavy. I could see that not working, though, since they are incorporeal (and might escape the confines). A horde of incorporeal undead might make an adequate challenge, though, because their weak touch attacks have a good chance of hitting anyways. The elite vampire listed is also CR 15, but likewise has shadow jump and could escape.

Another thought I had is to give situational disadvantages. Having an Unhallow effect with a Dimensional Anchor makes it tough to just teleport past the walls of force. It also boosts the undead. Likewise, a permanent Desecrate boosts undead a small amount. A persistent Cloudkill wouldn't bother undead at all, but it'll nip away at PCs.

4 Retrievers (CR 15), 8 Dread Wraiths (CR 17), an Elite Vampire (CR 15), and maybe 20 Regular Wraiths (CR 14) and 5 Vampire fighters (CR 11 and soak up the first turning) (from previously killed adventurers) in the enchanted room, with no automatic surprise, sounds like a CR 24 encounter to me, considering the likely ability damage/negative levels the party will suffer and not be able to fully heal.

 

[S'mon]

Is anyone else struck by the fact that there seem to be massive holes in the options for monsters of a particualr type for a particular Challenge Rating?

For example: I am designing an encounter, and I need several undead at specific CRs. Well. They don't exist. MM, MM2, FF... not there. ???? how can this be. Surely the designers at WoTC considered to create at least one monster of each type from abberations to undead to fill every CR? Nope. They didnt.

This is maddening! I know that you can advance monsters, but it's not the same, and if you are writing for publication (which is the case here), there is pressure to keep word count within limits, and statblocking all over the place adds considerably to size, without adding any new content. Same with creating a monster, but that is probably what I will do.

If any WoTC designers are reading this... a request for the forthcoming MM3: Please consider filling in the gaps in CR for each monster type.

Wow, a GM/player* out of Monte Cook's own heart!

Personally I find the attempt to provide a monster of every type for every CR to be hugely irritating. It results in a huge number of worthless designed-by-committee junk monsters like the Phantom Fungus that seem completely lifeless. I guess you disagree!

*edit: ok, designer/author, *sigh*. Jeez, this is so depressing.

 

[Grazzt]

I am assured by my publisher that getting the permission from WoTC for those monsters will not be a problem, as WoTC is cool about giving permission to established publishers.

Yeah- that's true too. They are very cool about it (we've asked a few time for Necro- stuff and they've always been cool about it).

 

[Darklone]

I'm a little bit surprised how one hundred undead fit into a room that's too small for two Nightwalkers...

Even if that means including stat blocks: I'd use vampires with class levels.