Immortals Handbook - Epic Bestiary (Epic Monster Discussion)

[paradox42]

Putting aside the issue of replying to UK's reply to my own long post, until tomorrow, I'd like to jump into the save item discussion briefly and point out that nothing says it must be a cloak. That just happens to be the form the core-rules version of the item takes. In point of fact, the power-gamers in my own games have always done their best to shift save bonuses to other items so they can use Cloaks other than Resistance; the tank in my first Epic game, for example, is currently using a Mantle of Epic SR instead of a Cloak of Resistance (Epic or otherwise). He got the party's item crafter to make him another item granting a resistance bonus; I think that's actually one of his Ioun Stones. Obviously his Ioun Stone version is much more expensive than a normal Cloak would be, but you do get what you pay for and he did have the resources available to get the materials to make it.

Wardragon is correct about item pricing; I can confirm it from personal experience because I myself had that aspect of the pricing rules pointed out to me during an argument about pricing an artifact/Epic item the item crafter PC wanted to make.

And I will also note that I now have to say "first Epic game" because the current secondary campaign, the one featuring Equinox the semi-divine character, officially went into Epic territory as well at the end of the last session. All of the characters will be above 20th (except Equinox, but then again Equinox counts as above 20th with the Prophet template) when we pick it back up in two weeks.

 

[paradox42]

You're probably thinking of the Divine Phoenix, which isn't exactly a dragon...

No, it was definitely a dragon, with the twelve age categories statted up and everything. I want to say it was Electrum, or some sort of gold-colored metal, but I know Electrum is the Forgotten Realms "Song Dragon" and that's probably why it's confusing the issue in my mind. This was specifically done as a IH Bestiary-style Epic/Neotic Dragon and intended as the "Bard Dragon." UK gave high approval at the time, as did everybody else. If I could remember who posted it we'd be a step closer to finding it- somebody in this group must have the Search function, surely!

 

[paradox42]

Congratulations.

Thank you. Saturday's game was a red-letter one in both of the games, actually.

The original Epic game realized that for the first time in months of game time- and years of real time- they literally had no pressing obligations to deal with to Save The World (again). They just had one last duty, that being to bring the artifact they fought the Orichalcum Guardian for back to the god, which they did- and then stayed to witness the fight the god and his buddies had with the Orichalcum Sentinel that the artifact made to challenge them for attunement (he had his divine realm mostly protected with force fields to stop the Nuke that was expected from its destruction, and they gathered behind one for the watching). After that battle they went down when he called them over, for introductions- and among other things witnessed one Demigoddess having a tearful goodbye with her original divine patron because she had just hit Lesser Goddess (surely a momentous event to witness). But with all this divine contact, and nothing left to do for others, they took the opportunity to start seriously pursuing divinity and activating what I've called in game their "divine sparks" (manifested as several of them having the Cryptomnesia feat and all of them having been given Quintessence Points from various adventures). They're all potential Hero-Deities (some could be higher if they met the minimum HD requirements, but they don't) at this point. So, they started what I termed the Quest(s) For Enlightenment and are likely to be pursuing those for a while.

The secondary game finally got that Bygone Odium to reveal itself and take the fight to them directly; this took place in two enormous caverns underground, each over a mile across and 1000 feet high, one on top of the other with a ruined city and containing a chasm to the lower one which was where the Odium was holed up. Equinox has access to a reroll ability and used it to save the party's collective hide from a Verdegris Tsunami that the beast essentially "opened" the fight with after the Warlock blasted one of its minions and destroyed what passed for its mind, in full view of the Odium (though the party didn't know exactly where it was at the time). Equinox actually forced the reroll to make the Warlock miss and thus retroactively prevent the response, and then used Temporal Acceleration to Teleport the party back to the top chamber. They then Dominated one of the remaining minion monsters up there, and sent it into the lower cavern to start fighting its fellows, with one of the characters using Clairvoyance to watch for activity. They didn't notice the suspiciously-Venus-flytrap-shaped cloud float by in the winds that mysteriously sprang up, until it was too late (i.e. when the Odium found their upper-cavern position and opened the real fight with a Mass Frog that ended up only getting the Warlock). I could go on, but suffice it to say the fight was most memorable and climactic- and a wonderful way to usher those characters into Epic territory.

All in all, a wonderful way to spend 12 hours on a Saturday.

I wasn't overtly disagreeing with you in the first place, even though you are sort of a special case.

It's nice to be special.

Its the sort of deep rooted issue that probably needs built into the system from the ground up (ie. in 4th Edition).

I'm just looking for story reasons to introduce it at this point- the secondary game really has one already with all the Far Realm interaction they're doing lately (I actually postulated in game that the creature I used the stats of a Bygone Odium for was a godlike intruder from the Far Realm and specifically an enemy of the group's patron, which is also a godlike entity in the Far Realm). All the intrusion of energy and critters From Beyond has got to wreak some havoc with standard multiversal laws eventually, right? Meanwhile, the original Epic game has had some peripheral contact, in Dreams (I capitalize the word when it's a potentially Lucid Dream involving a trip to the Region of Dreams), with a couple of Overgods including Zurvan himself. If one of them decides to change things, the party will know why it hit the entire cosmos at once- they're aware how deeply connected the "Sidereal entities" are to the cosmos at the sub-quantum level.

Unless the melee attack would deal 4%.

Cheeky!

Don't worry, together we CAN kill your PCs.

Hey, if I wanted to just kill them, it's easy- I just have to toss a Neutronium Golem into the mix, or send a Void Dragon after them- even a Wyrmling would pretty much toast them with no possibility of survival. The challenge here is to continue to challenge them, of course.

I think there'll be something for everyone...the Drakainai are about Lesser power type powerful, the Gigantes Intermediate type powerful and the Titans are Greater God type powerful.

All of the above are scalable to a degree.

Well, we'll see what's in there that I can use then. I look forward to it.

No, they are based on the dimensions.

Ahh. So if I want more Adamic Dragons, I have to come up with more Dimensions! Interesting. Or perhaps I could come up with Dragons for the intersections of two Dimensions- say, Time and Spirit or Spirit and Fate? But then, I'd really have to see the "existing" six to be sure of getting things right I suppose.

Superstring Dragon = Nehaschimic (possibly from a micro-universe).

That right there is a very interesting notion to me. I may go with that, at least on some level- have you seen the esoteric speculations that our universe may be contained in some "quantum particle" or more likely black hole, in another universe? Maybe the Superstring Dragon is an escapee from such a realm.

Quantum (Superposition) Dragon = Adamic

I don't really like calling that one a Quantum Dragon, but I admit I can't think of a better name yet myself.

Edit: I think one idea worth pursuing regarding this beast is that the "superposition particles," if they exist, may be what constitutes the Dark Matter that astronomers and physicists are so diligently searching for these days. So this could be a Dark Matter Dragon.

Brane Dragon = Nehaschimic (connecting universes?)

That would sort of be the point, yes. The idea I'm referring to is that M-Theory suggests not only that the most fundamental particles are one-dimensional objects whose vibrations produce the particle properties we know and recognize, but that those one-dimensional objects aren't all that's out there. There are also objects with 2 dimensions, 3 dimensions, and even more, and these are called "branes" (based on the word "membranes" actually). Those who spend their time seriously thinking about this theory have suggested that our universe may, itself, be such a brane, and the fact that it is a brane with only a few dimensions would then explain why we can't see the higher dimensions directly. So our universe-brane is essentially floating around in some higher-dimensional space that constitutes "true reality" in this theory- sound familiar at all?

One of the more interesting notions advanced in conjunction with the brane-universe one is that the Big Bang which created all matter and energy in our universe may have resulted from a collision between our universe and another one floating nearby. The scientists who suggested this have also suggested that this may actually be a cycle, with the two branes forever floating close, drifting apart from the titanic energies released in their collisions, but then gradually drifting back together after a few trillion years due to gravitational attraction- and colliding again, to create another Big Bang in each universe and start the cycle all over again.

It is in that context that I suggested the idea of a Brane Dragon. It seems to fit well with the Quasar, Black Hole, and Wormhole Dragons, in my view.

Quark Dragon...I'll have to think about (somewhere between Adamic and Nehaschimic...they are strange like that Quarks).

I really like the sound of the Quantum and Brane Dragons...those could be interesting to flesh out.

Well, I'll be thinking about them when I'm not spending time preparing plots for my games. Not like I don't spend time coming up with monsters and powers/spells I don't reasonably expect to ever see used in game anyway. That was what I did when I came up with the Draeden version I made; a CR 41,000 creature is nothing one actually expects PCs to fight someday.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Axolotl dude!

Please could you explain thatcomment because it really dosen't make much sense.

No problem mate.

A Ring of Protection, Cloak of Resistance and Amulet of Natural Armor have a single, numerical function. None of them are derived from mythology, none of them technically exist in (non-D&D) fantasy literature, they are ultimately flavourless magic items.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

That's why you draw upon their ideas for inspiration and give things a new twist. While there is something wrong with replicating other peoples work verbatim, theres certainly nothing wrong with being inspired.

I like a lot of their ideas, but the mechanics they use are a bit off at times. Not to mention not nearly as simplified as they could be.

Ive always liked the idea of Vampire Aging tables, but your idea of Templates that stack on to existing undead is much easier. Case in point being the Akalich.

Theres a difference between inspiration and stealing, I try to draw the line at using other RPG products as inspiration.

In a similar way, if I was writing a comic, I wouldn't use ideas from other comics (at least not consciously).

So I'll use movies, anime, comics, mythology, fantasy literature, video games and other sources to inspire my RPG creations, but not other RPGs if I can help it.

All in all they currently have the best Vampire product out there, I'd like to see what Krusty can do with the whole epic vampire thing.

I already have more undead planned than I have time to actually 'do them'!

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey dude!

It's not mundane, and it's not underpriced, it's necessary. Don't believe me? Check the ELH. A non-minmaxed character, with a cloak of resistance that doesn't take up a huge portion of his wealth, is laughably far behind the save DCs of anything at his own CR. Calling it metagaming (which it's not, any character with a brain in his head will spend money and time on the most efficient methods of survival) doesn't change this fact.

Exactly, I am agreeing with you on the necessity. But my point is that the game does not offer you a choice on the matter! Which means that every deity and every epic character MUST take the same item (or an item which does exactly the same thing).

SO...if everyone has one of these items, what the hell is so magical and special about owning one!? Nothing! They are just a numerical number cruncher.

SO...designers have created a system that NEEDS a certain item in order to be played. It doesn't benefit the game in anyway at all, its just THERE.

Its a humongous lack of choice in a game thats supposedly open-ended.

EDIT: Oh, and your pricing for the uber-save item above is wrong. The x10 Epic pricing mod doesn't kick in until you have any individual bonus in Epic territory; merely having a total price over 200,000 doesn't do it (that would be silly, then there would be no possible item with a price between 200,000 and 2,000,010). Don't believe me? Look at Stormbrand.

Well there must be conflicting text on this somewhere because I have definately read it.

Frankly the whole sevenfold save bonus stacking system really makes the items in the DMG a complete [insert swear verb] joke. They are so far behind its laughable. Did they sort this out for the Magic Item Compendium I wonder (I do not yet own that book)?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy!

Putting aside the issue of replying to UK's reply to my own long post, until tomorrow, I'd like to jump into the save item discussion briefly and point out that nothing says it must be a cloak. That just happens to be the form the core-rules version of the item takes. In point of fact, the power-gamers in my own games have always done their best to shift save bonuses to other items so they can use Cloaks other than Resistance; the tank in my first Epic game, for example, is currently using a Mantle of Epic SR instead of a Cloak of Resistance (Epic or otherwise). He got the party's item crafter to make him another item granting a resistance bonus; I think that's actually one of his Ioun Stones. Obviously his Ioun Stone version is much more expensive than a normal Cloak would be, but you do get what you pay for and he did have the resources available to get the materials to make it.

Whether its an actual cloak or not is irrelevant. Its a non-tactical, number crunching, 'white elephant', being forced upon the game.

Wardragon is correct about item pricing; I can confirm it from personal experience because I myself had that aspect of the pricing rules pointed out to me during an argument about pricing an artifact/Epic item the item crafter PC wanted to make.

Technically irrelevant given that you would need 21st-level wealth to own something of 200,000+ gp value.

And I will also note that I now have to say "first Epic game" because the current secondary campaign, the one featuring Equinox the semi-divine character, officially went into Epic territory as well at the end of the last session. All of the characters will be above 20th (except Equinox, but then again Equinox counts as above 20th with the Prophet template) when we pick it back up in two weeks.

...but doesn't 20th-level with your mob means about 30th with most others right!

Either way, best of luck with the campaign mate.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey there!

Thank you. Saturday's game was a red-letter one in both of the games, actually.

*SNIP*

All in all, a wonderful way to spend 12 hours on a Saturday.

I always remember a sense of grandeur when I took part in truely immortal events. *has nostalgic daydream*

I'm just looking for story reasons to introduce it at this point- the secondary game really has one already with all the Far Realm interaction they're doing lately (I actually postulated in game that the creature I used the stats of a Bygone Odium for was a godlike intruder from the Far Realm and specifically an enemy of the group's patron, which is also a godlike entity in the Far Realm). All the intrusion of energy and critters From Beyond has got to wreak some havoc with standard multiversal laws eventually, right?

Absolutely.

Meanwhile, the original Epic game has had some peripheral contact, in Dreams (I capitalize the word when it's a potentially Lucid Dream involving a trip to the Region of Dreams), with a couple of Overgods including Zurvan himself. If one of them decides to change things, the party will know why it hit the entire cosmos at once- they're aware how deeply connected the "Sidereal entities" are to the cosmos at the sub-quantum level.

Technically that could be their prisons, bound by string theory.

Hey, if I wanted to just kill them, it's easy- I just have to toss a Neutronium Golem into the mix, or send a Void Dragon after them- even a Wyrmling would pretty much toast them with no possibility of survival. The challenge here is to continue to challenge them, of course.

Thats what I mean though. Its bringing them to the brink of defeat and having them triumph in the face of disaster that leaves a lasting impression. If they win easily, then its not much fun.

Thrin has more near death (and I mean immortal death) experiences where he was against the odds but just pulled something out of the bag to save the day than I'd care to mention.

Well, we'll see what's in there that I can use then. I look forward to it.

I guarantee now that the Drakainai, Gigantes and Titans will be as revelatory as the idea of Abominations (from the ELH) themselves.

Ahh. So if I want more Adamic Dragons, I have to come up with more Dimensions! Interesting.

Or perhaps I could come up with Dragons for the intersections of two Dimensions- say, Time and Spirit or Spirit and Fate? But then, I'd really have to see the "existing" six to be sure of getting things right I suppose.

Well you have seen Cometary and Void. Seraphim are indirectly Stellar Dragons. King Ghidorah is obtusely inspiring Planetary Dragons. The Lunar Dragon will be in the Gods & Monsters book (Thats Typhon)...and that leaves Io himself.

That right there is a very interesting notion to me. I may go with that, at least on some level- have you seen the esoteric speculations that our universe may be contained in some "quantum particle" or more likely black hole, in another universe? Maybe the Superstring Dragon is an escapee from such a realm.

A superstring might be incredibly tiny at one end, but increadibly vast at the other end.

I don't really like calling that one a Quantum Dragon, but I admit I can't think of a better name yet myself.

If you don't like it I guess I'll have to steal it.

Edit: I think one idea worth pursuing regarding this beast is that the "superposition particles," if they exist, may be what constitutes the Dark Matter that astronomers and physicists are so diligently searching for these days. So this could be a Dark Matter Dragon.

Possibly, or maybe that balancing factor of the universe could be entropy and umbrals...?

That would sort of be the point, yes. The idea I'm referring to is that M-Theory suggests not only that the most fundamental particles are one-dimensional objects whose vibrations produce the particle properties we know and recognize, but that those one-dimensional objects aren't all that's out there. There are also objects with 2 dimensions, 3 dimensions, and even more, and these are called "branes" (based on the word "membranes" actually). Those who spend their time seriously thinking about this theory have suggested that our universe may, itself, be such a brane, and the fact that it is a brane with only a few dimensions would then explain why we can't see the higher dimensions directly. So our universe-brane is essentially floating around in some higher-dimensional space that constitutes "true reality" in this theory- sound familiar at all?

One of the more interesting notions advanced in conjunction with the brane-universe one is that the Big Bang which created all matter and energy in our universe may have resulted from a collision between our universe and another one floating nearby. The scientists who suggested this have also suggested that this may actually be a cycle, with the two branes forever floating close, drifting apart from the titanic energies released in their collisions, but then gradually drifting back together after a few trillion years due to gravitational attraction- and colliding again, to create another Big Bang in each universe and start the cycle all over again.

It is in that context that I suggested the idea of a Brane Dragon. It seems to fit well with the Quasar, Black Hole, and Wormhole Dragons, in my view.

Yes it could be the missing link. Also I like the sound of the name, lots of potential.

These Brane Dragons could link universes together, suggesting they can latch onto two time lords and perhaps pit their own powers against them, thus making them difficult to kill.

Well, I'll be thinking about them when I'm not spending time preparing plots for my games. Not like I don't spend time coming up with monsters and powers/spells I don't reasonably expect to ever see used in game anyway. That was what I did when I came up with the Draeden version I made; a CR 41,000 creature is nothing one actually expects PCs to fight someday.

I am sure someone somewhere will find a use for it.

 

[Pssthpok]

UK, I think you're picking a fight with the resistance bonus when many other items qualify for the same peeve... basically any item that ups numbers generally qualifies.

Armor bonuses, weapon bonuses... both are necessary for combat; both are forced on players since the game literally cannot go one without them. You have no beef with them?
Don't pull the "staples of fantasy" jig with me on this, it's not an objective argument; it's an argument merely based on what fantasy one has managed to read. Hypothetically, someone "in off the street", with no fantasy literature background, would see all magic items as contrivances based solely on the protection and power of the players in a game. The idea that more people might more readily accept and understand a "magic sword" in a Jungian sense than a "cloak of resistance" doesn't make it a white elephant.

I'm a strong supporter of your work, but you're bending the evidence to support your claim that more rules need to be changed, basing the argument on straw men like "cloaks of resistance are not prolific in the fantasy genre outside of the game itself", where that has nothing to do with it. The strength of a save DC is a relative issue, based on the level of the PCs and the condition of their equipment (something taken into account during design). The problem has only reared its head when looking at your monsters, so I hazard to guess that the problem lies in your upper level design principles.
So, rather than try to retcon every extant monster in the game to suit your relative handful, just lower the HD or the relevant ability modifiers on your end and the problem simply vanishes. It's a hell of a lot better than a "1 or 20" situation, even if some of us have to act offended at the fact that our epic characters are dependent on epic magic items. :\

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

UK, I think you're picking a fight with the resistance bonus when many other items qualify for the same peeve... basically any item that ups numbers generally qualifies.

The difference is that those items are not essential, they're optional

Armor bonuses, weapon bonuses... both are necessary for combat; both are forced on players since the game literally cannot go one without them. You have no beef with them?

Few if any gamers go for mere plus'es on their weapons at epic levels. But therein lies the tactical choice. More special ablities or more plus'es, what type of weapon, what material is it made from. Choices, choices, choices. Will a monk or a wizard even use a magic weapon at all...possibly not. More choices.

With Cloaks of Resistance there is no choice.

Don't pull the "staples of fantasy" jig with me on this, it's not an objective argument; it's an argument merely based on what fantasy one has managed to read. Hypothetically, someone "in off the street", with no fantasy literature background, would see all magic items as contrivances based solely on the protection and power of the players in a game. The idea that more people might more readily accept and understand a "magic sword" in a Jungian sense than a "cloak of resistance" doesn't make it a white elephant.

Outside the purely mecahnical, Cloaks of Resistance are futile...to paraphrase the Borg.

I'm a strong supporter of your work, but you're bending the evidence to support your claim that more rules need to be changed, basing the argument on straw men like "cloaks of resistance are not prolific in the fantasy genre outside of the game itself", where that has nothing to do with it. The strength of a save DC is a relative issue, based on the level of the PCs and the condition of their equipment (something taken into account during design). The problem has only reared its head when looking at your monsters, so I hazard to guess that the problem lies in your upper level design principles.

Incorrect. The problem is inherant with epic monster design, not merely my monsters.

But as with official Challenge Rating - which everyone said was hunkydory way back when, the problem becomes more apparent the higher you go. So obviously in taking things higher, my monsters will better illustrate the potential problem.

So, rather than try to retcon every extant monster in the game to suit your relative handful,

I haven't officially/unofficially retconned anything. I am merely making a suggestion. Just like my optional classes are just that...optional.

just lower the HD or the relevant ability modifiers on your end and the problem simply vanishes.

Once you lower the Hit Dice, the Challenge Rating drops. Its a catch 22 situation.

Added to which you cannot second guess what items characters will have. Even if a 40th-level PC has a Cloak of Resistance +20 they are still going to fail that poison save DC against the Devastation Scorpion unless they roll a '20'.

Even if we factor in Cloaks of Resistance at +1/2 per level, that still puts people way down on a powergamer with WarDragons "Cloak of Many Saves" which could easily give you +46 at the same level.

Thats a difference of more than 20 points. Ergo, its possible one of those characters will always succeed on a '2' or better and the other can only succeed on a '20'.

There are simply too many variables to keep everything into a neatly packaged margin of 20 points at epic levels. Whether that be Armor Class or Saving Throws.

It's a hell of a lot better than a "1 or 20" situation, even if some of us have to act offended at the fact that our epic characters are dependent on epic magic items. :\

It doesn't matter whether you act offended or not, the '1' & '20' situation will still turn up at epic levels. It won't turn up with every character, every time. But it will still happen.

With AC the 20/1 scenario is not much of a problem, because the difference won't kill you immediately. But with saves, requiring a '20' could be a big problem because it could wipe your players out.