D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)

[Plane Sailing]

Tempting Lure (requires bunny minion; standard; recharge 56)
The rabbit blinks coyly at you and hops a few paces away.
Ranged 10; +8 vs Will; 3d6 + 4 psychic damage and the target is pulled 3 towards the luring bunny.

The rabbit blinks coyly and someone takes more damage than a two handed sword! It seems that it would be pretty counterproductive as a lure if the tempting bunny ends up slaying things which are out of reach!

Maybe the ecology of it is that it blasts things to death with its rabbits and then crawls over to the dead prey and eats it?

 

[Piratecat]

The rabbit blinks coyly and someone takes more damage than a two handed sword! It seems that it would be pretty counterproductive as a lure if the tempting bunny ends up slaying things which are out of reach!

Maybe the ecology of it is that it blasts things to death with its rabbits and then crawls over to the dead prey and eats it?

That's one seriously badass rabbit.

Of course, the concept is that locking eyes with the rabbit suddenly means that you know what it's like to be a plant. You understand the endless tedium, the hunger, the feel of insects boring into your stump. Your meat brain can't process it, though, and if the revelation doesn't kill you outright you stumble towards the bunny as if looking for solace -- at which point the grasping roots grab you, convey you to the chomping maw, and your pain is finally ended.

At least in theory. In practice the WISC gets dazed before it act, gets set on fire, and then rolls two rounds of low-single-digit numbers while you and your buddies go stabbity-stab.

Sniff.

Take a look at those hit points, by the way. 168. The fact that this solo (which I accompanied with the darkswallow swarm to adjust for a 4th lvl 6 person party, making this a straight lvl 4 encounter) lasted only two rounds makes me wonder what the heck grind is like. Doing this again, if I wanted a longer/more challenging fight I'd raise his level and a second bird swarm (I'd also actually remember that the darkswallows have an aura 1. Instead of, say, forgetting it. It didn't have a huge effect on the fight, but it's still galling.) The major flaw with the WISC as written is that the eyestalks and bunnies have an effect on defenses and attack rolls; that's cool in theory but a pain in the butt in practice, because it's minutia the DM has to keep track of on the fly. Better to raise all defenses and attacks one point and remove that feature from the monster.

A revised monster might look like...

[sblock=Revised WISC]

Wolf In Sheep's Clothing
Level 4 Solo Controller Medium Aberrant Beast (Plant) XP 700
Action Points: 2
Saving throws: +5
Initiative +3 Senses Perception +11 (+15 with eyestalks); tremorsense
Grasping Roots aura 3; the Wolf In Sheep's Clothing makes a Grasping Roots attack as a free action against each enemy that begins its turn in the aura or enters the aura.
HP 168; Bloodied 84
AC 19; Fortitude 20, Reflex 16, Will 17
Speed 2

m Grasping Roots (Standard; at-will)
Melee Reach 3. +9 vs Reflex; 2d6+4 damage and target is grabbed. If the target is already grabbed, the target is Pulled 1.
M Gnashing Teeth (standard; at-will)
+10 vs AC; 3d8 + 4 damage
R Tempting Lure (requires bunny minion; standard; recharge 56)
The rabbit blinks coyly at you and hops a few paces away.
Ranged 10; +9 vs Will; 2d6 + 4 psychic damage and the target is pulled 3 towards the luring bunny.
Thrashing Roots (free, when first bloodied; encounter)
Close burst 3; +7 vs. Reflex; 2d6+4 damage, and any un-grabbed target is pushed 3 squares and knocked prone.
Extrude Appendage (Move; at-will)
The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing summons a new appendage: either a new Eyestalk or a new Bunny. The appendage must appear within 3 spaces of the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.
* The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing begins the encounter with two active Eyestalks and one active bunny, and can never have more than 4 eyestalks and two bunnies.
* Destroying all eyestalks reduces the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing perception and imposes a -1 penalty to hit.
* Destroying all bunnies reduces the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing's defenses by -1.
* The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing can move its Eyestalks and Bunnies anywhere within 3 spaces of the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing as a minor action. This movement may cause opportunity attacks.
* A Bunny is the focus of the Tempting Lure attack -- the attack's range and line of sight is calculated from the Bunny's square.
* Eyestalks and bunnies can be attacked and use the Wolf In Sheep's Clothing's defenses. Any attack that does less than 10 points of damage to the appendage has no effect. An attack that does 10 points of damage or more destroys the appendage and does 5 points of damage to the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.[/sblock]

 

[Rechan]

PCat, how did you get 168 HP?

A 4th level Solo Controller with (let's say 15 con) should have 220 HP.

It should also be giving 875 XP, not 700.

I highly recommend Asmor's monster maker program.

 

[Glyfair]

PCat, how did you get 168 HP?

A 4th level Solo Controller with (let's say 15 con) should have 220 HP.

It should also be giving 875 XP, not 700.

I highly recommend Asmor's monster maker program.

I think that tjhe hp total is the amount it would have with methods used for MM2 solos (I am not somewhere that has them handy now).

 

[Piratecat]

Radiating Gnome did most of the monster design, but my guess is that it was originally a different level and not everything got changed. I didn't even notice the xp since I'm not using it in my game -- and I'll echo Glyfair and say that it is probably using MM2 solo design. Or it's an error. In which case it isn't actually an error, it's just old and a little feeble.

 

[Rechan]

IIRC, the MM2 solo design are for Paragon/Epic solos, not heroic tier.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I'm sure y'all intuited this already, but one important things about solos is to use their Action Points ASAP! That way you don't suffer the ignominy of having your sweet monster get ganked while it still has both APs remaining.

Not that this has ever happened when I am DMing. No sirree, I would never do something as silly as forget to use APs.

The temptation is there to save the AP(s) for a "killing blow", or just something very dramatic. But it's often more effective to use the AP(s) on the first 1-2-3 rounds.

 

[Piratecat]

Sagiro has a work deadline this week (even cancelling his game tomorrow), so I think I'll write this up and nab the bonus action point that I normally give Sagiro for my monsters instead. Bwah ha ha. First some plot background, then some analysis. Folks reading this may come to some conclusions as to what's going on, but please don't share any spoiler-y predictions in this thread if you do.

Plot background: The PCs have clues that a woman (swamp hag?) named Alene seems to be behind the recent lizardman invasion because she needed something in Floodford and wanted time to find it. They aren't sure where Alene is or what she looks like. Out in her lair in the Bubbling Fens, the PCs had found a rubbing of an old map; after checking with a local scholar the map showed an ancient shrine of Demis (the goddess of Agriculture) in relation to the Grey Guard tower in Floodford. Last game they disarmed a trap, found the old mausoleum of Floodford's fabled "guardian angel" named Aleph and activated a teleporter in an empty coffin.

This game we started by the group entering the teleporter one by one. I asked each to make a secret choice: 1, 2 or neither. Choice one or two brought them (at half hit points) squeezed out of a cobblestone in one of Floodford's squares; choice "neither" brought them out of both cobblestones at once, at zero hp and dying. As Sagiro said at the time, "Worst dungeon ever." After they saved the dying, a local beggar informed them that (a) some very angry woman had tried this twice before (Alene?), and that the cobblestones had come from a dungeon (underneath a nearby smokehouse) that was discovered years ago by adventurers, before it was completely stripped of anything useful.

Conclusion? That teleporter was supposed to lead into the old dungeon, but whoever reused the stones flummoxed up the magic.

The PCs sweet-talked the bar's owner, got into the bare sub-basement (now full of beer kegs), found another secret trapdoor that had been missed, opened the trapdoor with a prayer, and dropped down into a sub-sub basement that looked like nothing more than an underdark version of a zen garden: phosphorescent moss paths, blind and vicious koi, blind flocks of sparrows, and lots of large mushrooms (including some small motile ones.) Statues rose up out of the darkness; one in particular showing hundreds of people climbing atop one another. The PCs were moving to examine the central pagoda when they were attacked by the aforementioned Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, along with the darkswallow swarm.

They examined the pagoda post fight, where a weed-encrusted sword in a jeweled scabbard floated in mid-air. They heard a voice:

[sblock]"I greet myself upon my return. You have found the Furrow, our home and refuge, as we have hundreds of times in our past. I imagine you were reborn from the sacred circle of earth that Demis has granted us here, or perhaps you have followed the clues that a previous incarnation of ourselves has laid down. That's what I had to do. I imagine you are confused. I was as well when I was reborn. You may pick whatever name you like, but in your heart you are Aleph, sacred warrior of the Goddess Demis and an angel clothed in flesh. It is your soul's sworn duty to combat the taint of the soil and to further the worship of the Goddess in whatever way you can. This may mean smiting her enemies, or a peaceful promoting of her interests. That is up to you to decide your own path. Do not stray towards corruption.

In this place you will find the tools you need to start our new life, and upstairs are many diaries. Read them when you can, and add to them. Other refuges that you may eventually remember hold everything that has served us over the millennia: our art, our statuary, our wealth, our clothing, and our secrets. Find them and you will gain strength, but your true strength comes from Demis.

There are guardians in the garden, but they will respond to you once you identify yourself. My memories are a part of you; you will soon know if you are making all your past incarnations proud."
[/sblock]We ended with movement in the darkness as something large, something distinctly mushroom-shaped, moved forward to attack.

Analysis? The mystery part went beautifully, with the players making good and interesting guesses as to what was going on. I ran a mini-skill challenge (difficulty 1) in the bar as the PCs had to tell a riveting story of monster-hunting in order to gain admission to the sub-basement (discrediting Runcible Parsons in the process.) Lots of social skill uses, and the heal skill ended up saving a life after the teleporter. Two character are eyeing the new Eberron alchemy rules with interest, and Dr. Caldwell changed his multiclass feat from cleric to artificer to better model his use of alchemy and medicine when healing.

It'll take us a bit to get used to how the shaman's spirit companion works. No one is used to those rules, so there was some confusion and fumbling. I'll probably make up a summary card for people and hang it on my DM screen.

And man, that fight with the WISC was a sad thing. Most of that was the daze (can you spend action points for extra actions while dazed? I didn't, thinking it wasn't legal, and perhaps should have.) and me slightly messing up auras; the encounter would have benefited greatly by a previously drawn battlemap and by using the transparent aura/blast templates in the 4e Battlebox. Sic transit my awesome, goofy 1e monster. Until next time!

 

[wedgeski]

And man, that fight with the WISC was a sad thing. Most of that was the daze (can you spend action points for extra actions while dazed? I didn't, thinking it wasn't legal, and perhaps should have.)

I've always assumed you could. It's come up more than once in my game.

 

[Rechan]

I've seen an interesting rule for solos in terms of conditions like that:

Daze = Lose a move action.
Stun = Lose a standard action.