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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PowerToast" data-source="post: 4596707" data-attributes="member: 67318">For the tentacles: I suggest stating them as brutes, despite the obvious soldier-y role. That'll make them tough, but also very squishy and vulnerable to focused fire. They'll go down quick, but not too quick. Don't worry about the role, so much. As for what status the tentacles can inflict, I'd have you look at the Feymire Crocodile in the Monster Manual. What's cooler than getting swallowed into the earth? Keep the 'only works on bloodied' part if you like, or don't. I'd go ahead and just port the attacks over to your tentacle beasties, actually. Grabbing a target and then crushing the life out of it seems to be just about what you're looking for in the tentacles. If you want them to synergize with the head more, just have them knock the hero's prone, though. Alternativly, have the attack that's only useable when the target is grabbed simply pin the players to the ground, forgoeing extra damage in return for making the player effectivly prone.As to why the entire monster isn't marked when one part of it is, why not give each of the tentacles a set of eyes and maybe even a brain, a la hydra? They all report to the central head, and that helps explain how the head knows where to come up and bite. Failing that, I'd just say "It's too darn big!" or even perhaps "The tentacles are controlled independently of the head; each tentacle is controlled by a sub-section of it's brain."When the head is bloodied, why not make it start draining hp from the tentacles? "You watch the tentacle to your left writhe and wither, and the head is suddenly looking more healthy!" A note to increasing the head's longevity: Have it duck under ground if it's got too many effects on it, and let it make a heal check to get an extra save against the junk on it. This, combined with the life leaching will let it feel more like a solo and less like an elite. These two things combined really make the players feel like they need to kill the tentacles. That being said, if the players manage to take it from bloodied to dead in a single turn, let the tentacles all die with the head instead of them transfering vitality as a immediate reaction. They've served their purpose at that point, and if your players can do that, they deserve a little reward, no?Edit: Missed the timed events thing, posted before you did. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" /> How about letting the head hedge players in with rock walls? Treat it as a separate thing, don't make it part of the head's actions. Just say "after three rounds, create a wall 5 within 10 of a tentacle" and describe it something like this: "One of the beasts tentacles burrows underground, forcing a five foot high stone wall to rise up from the earth! It will take an athletics check to climb over it!" This will force the players to waste time trying to regroup, while your beastie pounds on isolated players. Another idea would be to have the head eat the ground from under a player, creating a sinkhole. Give the player a saving throw, if he fails, he's in a ten foot deep pit. Don't let this effect cause damage, simply tell him "The beast eats the ground out from under you, and you slide into a pit in the earth!" or some such. Then the monster's head is down there with him, hopefully eating him alive while his allies struggle to toss him rope and help him out. If you want a pit or a wall to be relevant later on, give your tentacles a push power and give it a decent recharge; five or six on a d6 would be about right. Have one tentacle push him past the wall, and another tentacle push it behind the wall. It be even easier to push the players into a pit. Finally, consider giving the tentacles an encounter power to cause an earthquake and knock everyone prone. Use it just in time to KO a bloodied player with the head. Have all the tentacles spend their standard to make the attack, a close burst 5 measured from each tentacle. Have it attack fort, on a hit, knock the player prone and do no damage. Doing that on the turn a pit opens up would be killer to. "You're prone, and you slide into a pit. Now the head's eating you, nom!"I hope this helped! Good gaming!</blockquote>

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