Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr_Ruminahui" data-source="post: 4664221" data-attributes="member: 81104">Ah, now I see where you are coming from - and yes, you explained yourself very clearly.Myself, from my experience looking at and using lower heroic elites, have not found that elites have basically double the attacks.  Which was confirmed by my quick perusal of the MM since reading your post.  However, given that I have generally found elites to be somewhat underwealming/not worth their XP, I will certainly agree that even if elites DON'T have double the attacks, they SHOULD.Now, onto the rest of your post.Thank you for the comment re: escape and skill checks.  It shouldn't be a problem, though - no one in the group has acrobatics, and only 2 have athletics.  Which, on second though, might be a problem - I certainly think it should be easier to escape from the whip grab than, say, the hold of a bugbear strangler.You raise a lot of interesting points, and although I'm going to disagree with many of them, I still find your input yery valuable.I agree with you that using his whip is a lot better for him, but I don't think that's a problem.  It might be if he was on his own, but instead I intend to combine him with (if I have 4 players) a couple of hobgoblin soldiers, 2 goblin minions and a goblin cutter.  Basically, his abilities allow him to draw a single PC into the middle of the group and then hold the PC there - which IMHO is quite powerful.  Plus, should he want to, he can always release the grab - I don't see him like a bugbear strangler, who grabs someone and doesn't let go, but as more of a controller, influencing the PCs so that his goblin cohorts can gang up on them.Now, if I had his whip automatically do damage on a sustain, that would deal with the problem you describe, but I think it would make the monster less tactically interesting.On the subject of his Whip Trip, I'm reluctant to change it in that in that I see it now as an equal option to the Whip Choke - he uses the Choke if the PC isn't adjacent to him, and the Trip if the PC is.   I guess that's also why I'm reluctant to make the Choke better - I want them to be 2 equal but different tactical options - though I admit minor trip and a standard choke would likely be more annoying.As for the "cheesy" tactic of hitting an enemy, immbolizing/tripping them, then shifting away... I had already planned on using it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Now, onto the Whip Crack - I think we have the same thing in mind in terms of its area of effect, I just think you are using the wrong term.Now, my understanding of the rules is that a Blast 2 would be like Burning hands, and look something like this (O is Slaver, - x is affected space:xxxxoWhereas, what I think we both want is a close burst 2, which looks like this:xxxxxxxxxxxxoxxxxxxxxxxxxNow, I definitely agree that I need to make it better than a standard action, as it is a 56 recharge power.  That said, I am still uncomfortable with boosting the damage.  Nor do I think that the push effect is what I want - not only is it too powerful for the encounter I'm designing (which is on a ledge above a chasm), but I don't see it as forcing the PCs back as much as forcing them to duck and keep their heads down.What if I gave it a MISS effect of allowing a Whip choke or trip attack against one target missed by the Whip Crack?  That would allow it to boost its defences against a bunch of PCs and damage them lightly, while STILL being able to do one of its nasty whip combos against a PC who wasn't smart enough to duck?Dr. Ruminahui - shrink with a spear</blockquote>

Verification