Myconids, how to use them?

[sfedi]

I'm about to use some Myconids, from MM2 in an adventure.

But I fail to see how could they effectively work together.

Myconid Rotpriest
The Rotpriest's best attacks work best in melee or amid enemies.
Yet it has two other abilities that work best far from enemies and adjacent to allies.

Myconid Sovereign
As a Controller, it's only good power is a rechargable blast.
Not of much use behind the front line (when not recharged, obviously)
I mean, he can't reliably be on the back and remain useful as a Controller.
Commanding Spores, a Leader power, is absolutely weak: a Standard action for an allie's shift.
So, he should stay behind, but he rarely can attack (50% of the time) and the other half of the time he does weak leader stuff.

Myconid Guard
He doesn't have a Soldier's AC.
His Encounter power doesn't encourage been side by side with allies. Which is counterproductive for a Soldier (specially to synergize with the rotpriest).
He's at-will attack fails to do Soldiery stuff.

Anyone used them? How was your experience?
Should they be tweaked?
How useful/strong is Roots of the Colony?

 

[CapnZapp]

Hang on here, just because a monster attack is weak doesn't mean the monster won't use it.

I sense you're looking at your monsters with a player's eye - looking to pick the best deals out of a big selection.

Well, if you do, don't.

The monster "powers" are there to be used, not to be disregarded as "not good enough". Think of it as showcasing the monster through its attacks. The goal isn't necessarily to do well, the goal is to confront the players with a large selection of sometimes-whacky attack forms.

Most monsters are supposed to be not "good enough" - they just don't know it.

Your job as DM is to create fun for your players - not to play all monsters optimally. In other words, it's perfectly fine for a monster with a fungus for a brain to use all its powers, even the sorry-ass weak ones.

If your players are steamrolling the Myconids; don't bother optimizing each and every foe; instead simply combine the next two encounters into a single one (perhaps by disregarding any "these foes don't call for backup" text in the adventure)!

 

[Mesh Hong]

Most monsters are supposed to be not "good enough" - they just don't know it.

Your job as DM is to create fun for your players - not to play all monsters optimally. In other words, it's perfectly fine for a monster with a fungus for a brain to use all its powers, even the sorry-ass weak ones.

Thats absolutely right. Sometimes the players have the most fun when the monsters are blundering about in an enthusiastic but ultimately disorganised way, reacting to whatever grabs their attention at the time instead of having an orderly or effective plan of attack.

Its also worth remembering that some creatures will have set preconceptions of "how to hunt", usually animals, these creatures will try and apply those methods to PCs even when that might not be wise.

Think of lions stalking gazelle in the savannah. Now think of lions stalking PCs in the savannah. The lions will try and use the same tactics but the encounter won't go the way the lions are expecting.

 

[Mentat55]

I think the myconids could work pretty well together. The guards and rotpriests get into melee, use their close attacks whenever a decent opportunity arises, and use Roots of the Colony to distribute the damage done by the PCs, so that all of the myconids stay up longer and can keep whacking at the party.

The sovereign hangs back, uses its rechargeable attack whenever it can, and absorbs some damage when necessary with Roots of the Colony.

Make it feel like the party is beating up on a whole network of mushrooms, rather than just a group of individuals.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Roots of the Colony is pretty nasty since it effectively means when you fight Myconids its practically as if they had one giant hit point pool. Thus 5 myconids will ALL stand until the very end of the encounter, doubling their action economy roughly.

I think the reason the other Myconid powers are not SUPER incredible is just this, if they were the shroomheads would be scary tough to beat at all.

Even so consider a Rotpriest. He stands behind the lines and uses Sacrifice for the Colony to absorb the damage dealt to the guards in front of him. Then he regenerates. If he dies he lifebursts and pumps the guards back up by 10 HP each. His melee/close powers are decent so if he happens to be on the front lines he can easily hold his own.

The guards can either simply fight melee style and spread out damage amongst them or if the opportunity arises jump into the middle of the party and drop pacification spores to rob the party of attacks. Even when surrounded they will be hard to take down due to Roots of the Colony.

The sovereign isn't worth a huge amount in combat, though his dazing power is handy. Commanding Spores is a weak power certainly but it gives him something to do every round and if he can shift guards into ideal position to use pacification spores it isn't all that bad.

Overall the mushroom men are fairly weak monsters, but I would suggest using mass numbers of them against a bit higher level PCs and see what happens. Collectively they'll have loads of HP and even with their weak defenses it will be a tough attrition battle for the party.

Alternatively a small number of them used vs lower level PCs (1st or 2nd level) should be fun too as the party will hit often but the shrooms will continue to fight hard.

Overall these fights devolve into the party doing massive amounts of damage and the shrooms just taking it and coming back for more. Its fun.

 

[sfedi]

Roots of the Colony is pretty nasty since it effectively means when you fight Myconids its practically as if they had one giant hit point pool. Thus 5 myconids will ALL stand until the very end of the encounter, doubling their action economy roughly.

Yes, I'm aware of that.

But I'm not sure how that translates mechanically.

I think the reason the other Myconid powers are not SUPER incredible is just this, if they were the shroomheads would be scary tough to beat at all.

The underpowerd powers are not the main issue.
The problem are the mutually exclusive powers.
You can't have a close burst that damages everyone and a power that when you die it heals nearby creatures.
(unless you explicitly desgin a monster that deals lots of damage, but
"compensates" it when it dies, which the Rotmaster is not)

Even so consider a Rotpriest. He stands behind the lines and uses Sacrifice for the Colony to absorb the damage dealt to the guards in front of him. Then he regenerates. If he dies he lifebursts and pumps the guards back up by 10 HP each. His melee/close powers are decent so if he happens to be on the front lines he can easily hold his own.

If he stands in the back, he does zero damage to the party.
And he isn't healing or absorbing enough damage to justify that.
At least mathematically I can't see how it adds up.

He even has an at-will close burst 3 power. And he's a brute.
That SCREAMS "get in the middle of the enemies and damage all of them"

The guards can either simply fight melee style and spread out damage amongst them or if the opportunity arises jump into the middle of the party and drop pacification spores to rob the party of attacks. Even when surrounded they will be hard to take down due to Roots of the Colony.

Yep, I see that working.

The sovereign isn't worth a huge amount in combat, though his dazing power is handy. Commanding Spores is a weak power certainly but it gives him something to do every round and if he can shift guards into ideal position to use pacification spores it isn't all that bad.

Well, I thought that his shift-giving at-will would be handing in repositioning the rotpriest and the guards.
But it doesn't feel strong enough.

Anyone has a practical experience on how these creatures work in real combat?
Maybe I'm underestimating them.

 

[bganon]

I think the thing about the Myconids is that with a bunch of them together (especially with a Rotpriest), they have a lot of choice as to when each of them dies. So the Rotpriest can start out by wading into melee ahead of the Guards and use decomposing spray for a few turns -- then when the accumulated damage starts to add up, it can fall back to the other 'nids before deliberately sacrificing itself for a Life Burst.

Shift-giving doesn't seem like much, but it's pretty nice for setting up flanks and getting the most out of the other creatures' bursts. I sort of see the Sovereign as mostly standing a few squares back, occasionally darting in to blast Spore Burst when it recharges. It has good AC and Fort, though, so it's not really bad at all in close combat.

 

[sfedi]

That's how I thought would be best to run them, without modifying them.

I'll give them a try as they are.

 

[wherwrthal]

I used a smalll mycanoid band who attacked the PCs while they were rampaging through their spore colony under a lake.
They rose up from the ground, and demanded that the PCs stop.
Since no one spoke deep speech, there was a bit of a communication barrier, so the Mycanoids attacked when the PCs didn't stop moving around.

The guards rushed in with their Pacification Spores then started beating on the PCs and rotpriest kept using his Decomposing Spray from a distance.

While describing the rotpriest I said: "The mushroom man sprays a foul smelling, black, necrotic looking liquid at you."

I actually had a PC ask: "Is he peeing on me? Eww..."

 

[Angellis_ater]

I can see the players weeping at these guys as it doesn't quite matter how much they keep hitting, they can take enormous amounts of damage. Two Rotpriests who can take the full damage from attacks onto themselves and then fall back to regenerate? Nasty. And the 2d10+3 damage from the Rotpriests melee attack is nothing to be sneezed at, especially not at 3rd level.