Revised Madness Stats

[Morrus]

I playtested a new version of Madness last light. In light of that playtest, I present the revised stats for Madness. These stats are reduced somewhat from those we used last night, and some abilities are altered or made less available.

I feel that this version more accurately conveys Madness' nature - which is all about the madness; and is a little easier to run than the version in The Mad King's Banquet.

It IS a long stat block (which is quite un-4E-like), but I felt that the madness concept requires a seemingly random range of madness-inducing abilities without any apparent rhyme or reason. This stat block allows the DM to have her use different things and convey the impression that the PCs don't know what's coming next.

 

[DragoonLance]

Wow, that IS long. As a DM that makes my eyes glaze over. And some of those attacks if spammed could be TPK's IMO (I'm looking at you, gaze of madness.) If you want randomness, I would suggest you give her a minor action attack, a reaction attack or two (you could change one of those nasty ones to be a reaction when bloodied for example) and then make the rest work a bit like the Beholder's eye rays, have them all count as one standard action power, say two attacks and roll a d6 to see which ones she uses.

 

[Morrus]

Heh, you're clearly spoiled by 4E! Remember the 3-page stat blocks (tiny text) in the higher level adventures in 3.5?

But, yeah, one could list all those "minor action" in one block with a random die roll. I'm not convinced "make the DM roll" as opposed to "let the DM choose" is better per se (just different), but I'll whip together a version that presents them that way for those who like the idea.

 

[EugeneZ]

This version looks like it would be more fun than the one in the adventure. Nice work. Unfortunately, I won't have a chance to try it out. The PCs rocked Madness two weeks ago.

 

[DragoonLance]

Heh, you're clearly spoiled by 4E! Remember the 3-page stat blocks (tiny text) in the higher level adventures in 3.5?

And without trying to flog the reanimated horse corpse, that's part of why I never ran 3.X
I just think if you are going for random madness, an option for a random roll is better. Otherwise we'll be tempted to nail them with the nastiest one or two over and over.

 

[Morrus]

I just think if you are going for random madness, an option for a random roll is better. Otherwise we'll be tempted to nail them with the nastiest one or two over and over.

Well, here you go. Same thing, but all folded into a random roll instead of a choice.

 

[Eccles]

I have to say as one of the playtesters that I don't know what changes there are to the above compared to what we faced on Thursday night, but she completely handed our hides to us.

A completely fresh party of 5 with a complete set of daily powers, and we used pretty much all of our daily and encounter powers just to bloody her.

The insubstantiality at will is just frightening. At least give it a 'maintain minor' so players can turn it off and/or she reduces the number of minor actions she can spam. (Which amounted to her attacking us 3 times a round and frequently dominating at least one with one of those 3).

Oh, and can she still grab people whilst insubstantial? Should it at least not drastically improve a PC's chance of escaping from a grapple?

Ah. I see you turned the engulf into a 2 stage process.

I'd argue controller hitpoints as well. She was as tough as old bricks.

Of course, if she's due to come back later then I can understand why she was as tough as she was.

 

[DragoonLance]

Looks good Morrus, thanks!

Eccles, was your party using the song of forms? That seems to be the one thing that can bring her from crazy hard to survivable.

 

[Morrus]

Looks good Morrus, thanks!

Eccles, was your party using the song of forms? That seems to be the one thing that can bring her from crazy hard to survivable.

They used it but (a) kept rolling really badly and (b) didn't have a PC with a good Arcana score!

 

[Morrus]

I have to say as one of the playtesters that I don't know what changes there are to the above compared to what we faced on Thursday night, but she completely handed our hides to us.

A completely fresh party of 5 with a complete set of daily powers, and we used pretty much all of our daily and encounter powers just to bloody her.

The insubstantiality at will is just frightening. At least give it a 'maintain minor' so players can turn it off and/or she reduces the number of minor actions she can spam. (Which amounted to her attacking us 3 times a round and frequently dominating at least one with one of those 3).

Oh, and can she still grab people whilst insubstantial? Should it at least not drastically improve a PC's chance of escaping from a grapple?

Ah. I see you turned the engulf into a 2 stage process.

I'd argue controller hitpoints as well. She was as tough as old bricks.

Of course, if she's due to come back later then I can understand why she was as tough as she was.

Well, @Eccles: (that's me testing the new tag/mention system - the board should have notified you I mentioned you), this is quite toned down from what you fought. With the above HP you actually would have killed her witht he damage you did; also her defences are lower by a couple of points, the Engulf - as you mention - is now a two-step process, the saves against her effects are no longer at -2, Song of Forms now causes her damage as well as making her substantial, and most of her attacks do less damage.

Based on Thursday night, I think you'd beat this version. Isn't it fun being a guinea pig for my random experiments?