The Runecarved Eidolon - Weird monster

[Scholar & Brutalman]

What the heck is a natural construct? These things self assemble spontaneously?

From the other monsters I've seen "natural" is just planar origin - it means they originate from the middle world. There are "Natural" undead as well.

Immortal = Astral Sea
Natural = Real World
Fey = Feywild
Elemental = Elemental Tempest
Shadow = Shadowfell
Aberrant = Far Realm

 

[Fallen Seraph]

What the heck is a natural construct? These things self assemble spontaneously?

Assuming they mean it is made from natural materials, ie: wood, vines, earth, etc.

Or what was said above, forgot about that whole thing, so yeah go with above answer.

 

[AllisterH]

What the heck is a natural construct? These things self assemble spontaneously?

"Natural" actually means something different in 4E. It signifies WHERE the creature was originally created.

 

[lvl20dm]

This thing does sound interesting, and it has really cool abilities. It seems like a big part of 4e fights, particularly high level ones, will involve tactics on both sides of the DM screen. I'm still trying to understand why these DDM monsters all have such low HP (this thing has less than half the hp of the hooked horror, for example). They must be from earlier drafts or something.

 

[Revinor]

Divine Retribution: Immediate, when takes damage or when ally at 0 HP while divine beacon active. Range 20, nearest; +16 vs Reflex; 3D8+5 radiant

It depends how do you interpret it. It can be

(when takes damage or when ally at 0 HP) while divine beacon active

or

(when takes damage) or (when ally at 0 HP while divine beacon active)

In latter case, I would like to welcome our new Runecarved Eidolon overlords, all our bases belong to you.

 

[Gargazon]

This thing does sound interesting, and it has really cool abilities. It seems like a big part of 4e fights, particularly high level ones, will involve tactics on both sides of the DM screen. I'm still trying to understand why these DDM monsters all have such low HP (this thing has less than half the hp of the hooked horror, for example). They must be from earlier drafts or something.

I imagine it has less than half the hp of the hooked horror because this thing is quite difficult to kill without needing a huge amount of hp, and if it DID have a huge amount of hp everyone would be complaining that they could never kill the thing

 

[Stalker0]

I imagine it has less than half the hp of the hooked horror because this thing is quite difficult to kill without needing a huge amount of hp, and if it DID have a huge amount of hp everyone would be complaining that they could never kill the thing

Further, this thing doesn't really seem to be a standard monster, its more of a backdrop buffer to another group of monsters. It has low hitpoints so that the party can feel a reasonable chance of taking it down to remove the buffs. If its too hard to kill there wouldn't be a point.

 

[AllisterH]

This thing does sound interesting, and it has really cool abilities. It seems like a big part of 4e fights, particularly high level ones, will involve tactics on both sides of the DM screen. I'm still trying to understand why these DDM monsters all have such low HP (this thing has less than half the hp of the hooked horror, for example). They must be from earlier drafts or something.

I think you're right. Another ENworld poster came up with a HP formula which works for all the MM monsters that were run at DDXP but which breaks down for the DDM monsters released at DDXP.

I suspect that the DDM cards had to be finalized and shipped a couple months before DDXP when the MM formulas were still being tweaked.

 

[ZappoHisbane]

A couple of things that haven't been mentioned. It can move around, but it can't attack until it's been attacked or it's allies are at 0 HP. If you can simply disable the allies rather than killing them, you're fine. Or lure them out of sight, and then kill them. With only a speed of 4, this thing isn't going to be chasing anyone down. Heck, even the halfling paladin in heavy armor had a speed of 5, didn't he?

The other point to be made here is that I'm gonna guess this thing is generally good-aligned (as much as a construct can have an alignment). With powers named like Divine Beacon, and with it dealing Radiant damage, there's all sorts of Positive energy going on here. This thing is probably meant to be a PC or VIP-NPC (VINPC?) bodyguard. Something to dissuade the more chaotic PC's from killing the King and his entourage.

Hmmm. When a creature is DEAD, does it have 0 HP? When a PC has 0 HP (or less) they're not necessarily dead. So once they're actually dead, what's their HP? Undefined?

 

[Sir Brennen]

The other point to be made here is that I'm gonna guess this thing is generally good-aligned (as much as a construct can have an alignment). With powers named like Divine Beacon, and with it dealing Radiant damage, there's all sorts of Positive energy going on here. This thing is probably meant to be a PC or VIP-NPC (VINPC?) bodyguard. Something to dissuade the more chaotic PC's from killing the King and his entourage.

Just a wild guess, but I think that, unless a deity is specifically tied to the plane of shadow and/or death, most divine magic will deal radiant damage, regardless of the character/creatures alignment.