Gaps In The Monster Lineup

[Knight Otu]

E-mail should be on its way, Tavis.

Hope you find it useful.

 

[Scotley]

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?

I am of the belief that you can never have too many monsters, but in this case you have to work within a set list and word count. I would consider trying to creat one new monster to add to the collection. I don't have any books in front of me, but you said this was for Troll Lord? Do they have anything in their books you could use. Perhaps you could get them to release a specific creature or two OGL (assuming they exist) as a web enhancement to the product saving you the page count?

Failing those options, have you considered tailoring the room to make the encounter tougher? It might make for a smaller word count to have the room be strongly associated with the negative material plane thus enhancing all the undead in the room. On a less epic level many spells could be set upon the room to increase the power of the creature or weaking the characters'. An association with the abyss might reduce the effectiveness of the character's armor and weapons, which effectively increases the difficulty of the encounter. If they know about the reductions it will also encourage them to look for another way of dealing with the monsters--in this case your artifact. Either way you should be able to either boost the undead or reduce the characters for a relatively small page count. Hope this helps.

Scotley