MM excerpt: phane

[mmu1]

The SF nerd in me wants a word with you.

But, your basic point is sound I think. This is not a ravaging beast. This is a mastermind.

A mastermind that solves problems by hitting things.

It has melee and close-range burst abilities, and nothing else - you can declare that in your game, it's a mastermind, but you could do the same thing with a high-level fighter with decent Int, with about as much justification. (And since all its ability mods are in the +19 to +23 range, it's hardly defined by its Intelligence. Yet another example of how bland it is.)

The fact that it's a Controller doesn't make it a thinker - a controller is just a debuffer.

 

[DandD]

Yes, and what's so bad about it? A mastermind can still clober some weak people up. Superheroes (basically, epic-tiered player characters) can deal more easily with him.

 

[I'm A Banana]

A mastermind can still clober some weak people up.

Pfft. It's no different from a level 4 orc in this regard. They'll both wipe out a town full of minions....eventually.

By the appearance, this is a campaign/encounter level failure on the part of the phane. It fails as an Anybody.

 

[Celebrim]

But, your basic point is sound I think. This is not a ravaging beast. This is a mastermind.

One which lacks the powers of stopping or manipulating time, turning invisible, teleportation, detecting magic, speaking in diverse tongues or anything it might need to be a subtle manipulator. One which even lacks the capacity to inflict any enduring condition, since even if it ages you to decriptitude in a few seconds you may just shake it off, rub some dirt on it, and be back in the trenches.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

One thing though to... Just think about the name; Phane... Only Phane. This could very simply be the base version. Since I am hoping there will be base versions of monsters (very simple ones) then we get into more advance ones.

So your super-crazy time-control mid-combat, detect magic, etc. Can still be the case for the Phane.

I personally think it is fine as is, and can showcase time-control, teleportation, etc. as is. But you could still very well have ones with more abilities.

 

[Hussar]

One which lacks the powers of stopping or manipulating time, turning invisible, teleportation, detecting magic, speaking in diverse tongues or anything it might need to be a subtle manipulator. One which even lacks the capacity to inflict any enduring condition, since even if it ages you to decriptitude in a few seconds you may just shake it off, rub some dirt on it, and be back in the trenches.

Yet, somehow, I imagine that if I wanted a creature that can do all of those things, I could add them pretty easily. Since nearly every one of those things you name are the realm of rituals, WHY IN HELL WOULD THEY BE IN THE BASIC STAT BLOCK?

I'm getting so tired of asking this same questions over and over and over again.

THE BASIC STAT BLOCK ONLY CONTAINS COMBAT INFORMATION.

How many times does this need to be repeated in order for it to take?

 

[Hussar]

An additional thought.

It absolutely astonishes me that critics of this creature propose exactly the opposite criticism when it comes to flavor text in the PHB. After all, we're being given all sorts of flavor for the races and classes in the PHB. Complete histories for the Dragonborn for example, core settings and the like.

And several of the posters in this thread have routinely denounced it as VERY BAD.

Yet, here we have a creature writeup that doesn't force any flavor on you, contains very little in the way of background information and allows DM's to do pretty much whatever they want with the creature.

And that's VERY BAD too.

So, color me confused. Which is it? Is flavor text good sometimes and bad in other places? Exactly how much is good? Or, is it only that flavor text that happens to satisfy your own personal aesthetics is good and anything else is drek?

Which is it?

 

[med stud]

To the absolute majority of all people, the phane is invulnerable. It is also fast and can position itself to make AOs very easily. Assuming that peasants run in fear from the phane, it will make one OA per round, killing one peasant. With it's other attacks it can kill one peasant more. It will kill one person per three seconds and is able to catch fleeing peasants with no trouble. In a minute it kills 20 people, in an hour 1200.

If you factor in that people will flee from their homes in a disorganized manner as well, you can add starvation and disease to the killing figures.

Really, the phane could in about an hour depopulate a town of thousands of citizens. Give it a day, and the town is defenitly dead. Since dead people can't make saves, everyone that is killed by the phane will be dead of high age. This goes for killed high HP opponents of the phane as well.

If the PCs would come to a town attacked by a phane, they will encounter paniced refugees telling them about the horror that struck town. The PCs come to a deserted town where the bodies of old people are laying everywhere. Somewhere in all this is the phane.

I think it's suitably epic. An epic monster doesn't have to be a nuclear bomb, it just have to be sufficiently dangerous.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I am sure other people saw the OA strategy right away. But glad I got to write it down first

Also put in, that the Phane could easily go through time and say lock the gates quickly or other such things to cause even more chaos.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

An additional thought.

It absolutely astonishes me that critics of this creature propose exactly the opposite criticism when it comes to flavor text in the PHB. After all, we're being given all sorts of flavor for the races and classes in the PHB. Complete histories for the Dragonborn for example, core settings and the like.

And several of the posters in this thread have routinely denounced it as VERY BAD.

Yet, here we have a creature writeup that doesn't force any flavor on you, contains very little in the way of background information and allows DM's to do pretty much whatever they want with the creature.

And that's VERY BAD too.

So, color me confused. Which is it? Is flavor text good sometimes and bad in other places? Exactly how much is good? Or, is it only that flavor text that happens to satisfy your own personal aesthetics is good and anything else is drek?

Which is it?

Well, we don't know if it are the same critics. But it implies that it's impossible to get it right for everyone. (Unless people treat fluff in the PHB differently then fluff in the MM)