My first attempt at monster creation: Ice Mephit

[ebertran]

I am attempting to convert Mike Mearls' "Swords Through the Ice Gate" for my campaign, and it includes some Ice Mephits, that unfortunatly aren't in the MM. So I thought I'd whip up my own. I made them a little tougher, to adjust to my group's level.

This is my first attempt, so please be gentle... Let me know what you think...

 

[Guyanthalas]

Thanks for submitting your monster! I'll be glad to tear it to pieces for you. I'm kidding, while I think there are some major concerns, I'm glad that you put your neck out there and submitted it here before putting it in your campaign. With that said, here are things my friend Mitch and I noticed:

Category: Artillery? It has only 1 ranged attack, and that is an encounter power. Also, with a fly speed (at all) it is more geared to be a skirmisher. I'd build it as such

Fly Speed: 10 seems a wee bit high to me. Granted, a mephit's main source of transportation is flight, but it needs to be somewhat reasonable like fly 6. As it stands, flying will help it control the battlefield more then most.

Summon Mephit: Nix it. Summoning is old hat. Not only that, but following the logic of prior editions, the summoned creatures would grant no additional XP. The XP of a monster is designed to encapsulate all of its powers, including that of a summon. If you want 3 mephits on the battlefield, just start with three.
If you REALLY want it to summon something, create a mephit minion for it to summon two of. (Yes, you'll have to stat that out too. )

Overall: Good shot. I'd try to decide if you want it to be artillary or skirmisher, and design it that way. If you want it to be artillary, you need ranged attacks as the primary focus. If you want to keep the attacks, make it a skirmisher and add in a fly by attack. Something where it can fly in, hit them, then fly out again without provoking. Other then that, your mechanics are balanced.

Keep up the good work, I'd love to see how this takes form!

 

[Rechan]

Congrats on posting your first monster.

1) Agree with all that have been said.

2) Monsters don't get 'daily' powers. They get encounter powers. This is because a monster is only going to be in 1 fight, so it won't have the opportunity to use something in a day's span.

3) Given that it's an artillery monster, it doesn't need the double attack, really, unless you want this guy to get into melee. Artillery monsters (in general) want to stay the heck out of melee, since they have little HP or AC or movement capabilities. Now, if you want to change that (i.e. many controllers do so in the middle of melee), go ahead, just realize that you need to do a little gymnastics. Artillery monsters have HIGH to-hits, but don't do buckets of damage or have high defenses/HP, so they need something to counterbalance this.

4) I like the blinding blast thing. Although giving a monster an AT WILL area affect that blinds? That's harsh. What I would do? Switch the damage and frequency of Icy Barrage and Blinding Ice (so Blinding Ice becomes an encounter power that does 2d8+4 and Icy Barrage does 1d10+4 and is at-will). Then I'd let Blinding Ice recharge when the Mephit is bloodied. This way, the Mephit stays back, if someone charges it and attacks it in melee, he blinds them and runs away.

5) Instead of thinking of summoning as an ability, think of summoning as an abstract explanation. An NPC can "Summon" his allies outside of combat (i.e. just as PCs kick in the door, or moments before hand, or they appear a round after the battle has begun). This way, you can explain "Where did these monsters come from?" or "Why are they hanging out together?"

In other words, there's no difference, in game terms, between 4 monsters being in the same room when the Encounter starts, 1 monster yelling for help for the monsters in the next room, or those same 3 monsters appearing from Beyond. Either way, you're going to have an encounter with those 4 monsters; describe it otherwise how you see fit.

6) FYI, there are some mephit conversions here (Steam, Mud and Salt). The same guy has done a bunch of conversions; I swear by him.

 

[ebertran]

Thanks for the great tips...
I'm thinking of Fly 7, I really want him to be fast... Here's the modified version...

With the Blinding Death, he is really forcing the PC's to think hard about meele fighting him, if they fight more than one and see this happen...