The Slenderman

[eriktheguy]

An excellent encounter if you like to see your players piss themselves and cry.

The Slenderman is a great monster to set the atmosphere of a frightening setting or campaign world, or to just scare the out of your party in general. Although relatively fragile, the Slenderman has the ability to kill off one or two careless party members without initiating a TPK, which can be an effective way to prepare players for a horror campaign or emphasize the sacrifice endured by characters at the end of an adventure.
The Slenderman is a team building encounter because one or two PCs will often be rendered completely defenseless while Slenderman slowly embraces the life out of them. Only the other PCs can save the player by knocking the Slenderman away, dragging their comrades from his grip, or killing the creature.

View attachment Slender Man.pdf

For more info on the Slenderman

 

[Zinovia]

An interesting concept that would fit well with gritty horror settings. I think the Come Home with Me power is not balanced however.

Come home with me (standard, at-will) fear
Melee, one or two dazed or dominated targets; +12 VS. Will, 2d6+3 psychic and target must make a death saving throw. Targets hit cannot save against the dazed or dominated conditions or be affected by healing powers until the end of the Slenderman’s next turn. Automatically hits dominated targets. Targets who fail their third death saving throw disappear without a trace and cannot be resurrected.

There's a good chance it will have a couple of dazed or dominated targets to effect with this at any given point. Auto-hitting them (if dominated) at reach 4, preventing heals until the end of its next turn, forcing death saves, and doing damage seems to be overpowered for an at-will ability on this creature.

Preventing heals seems hard to justify thematically - how is it doing that? It's not a big deal since it comes down to fluff, but I like creatures to have a coherent theme. The ability itself is definitely scary, if that's what you're going for. It also has the feel of something designed simply to thwart players rather than an organic part of this creature's powers. What thematic part of this creature goes along with preventing healing? It seems all about reach, domination, fear, and clambering around on its stilt legs in the mist.

If I were to design a creature that prevented healing, or absorbed it, I'd make it a major theme of that creature. Perhasps something like:

Embracer of Life - a semi-sentient vine creature from the Feywild that thrives on life energy, draining vitality from living creatures.
Come Hither My Tasty Morsel - reach 4 grab, pulls the target 4 squares - does little or no damage
Draining Embrace - on a grabbed target, sucks life out of it, doing moderate to high damage and healing the Embracer for a bit, or granting it temporary HP.
All Your Heals Are Belong to Me (or something less silly ) - immediate interrupt, recharge 5,6 (or recharge when bloodied) - when an embraced creature is the target of a healing power, the Embracer of Life instead absorbs the healing energy, gaining temporary hit points (or healing, or regeneration).

That's just a rough idea of course. I do like some of the flavor of the Slenderman, but think you need to consider making that particular power a recharge power, or toning it down some. I don't really like killing off someone permanently with no chance of resurrection, but I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to those things. It may work for your group. Have fun with it!

 

[LostSoul]

That's pretty cool.

Does the Come Home With Me power need to do damage? Just asking.

 

[eriktheguy]

I made the 'come home with me' power deny healing so that players would not just toss out a couple dozen free save powers to protect their allies. The idea is that they were entranced by the Slenderman and could not be made to defend themselves.
I suppose allowing healing powers is only fair, an ally giving you a save might be just the thing you need to snap out of Slenderman's trance.

Otherwise I'm going to leave the 'come home with me' power as is. I think it might even be a little weak. Most players will have to roll 6 death saving throws before they are killed, and many solos don't even last that long. If He can manage to delay the combat to about 10 rounds with daze/stunning maybe he can seriously threaten one player.
It doesn't really need to deal damage either.

 

[eriktheguy]

Updated rigorously.
Slenderman no longer ignores concealment (because he already has blindsight)

Changed the 'come home with me' attack completely:
-Slender man now has an aura that forces characters starting their turn next to him to make a death save.
-Slenderman now has a 'Stay by my side' attack
-The attack no longer auto-hits dominated foes, no longer deals damage, no longer prevents healing powers.
-The attack now specifies reach 1.
-The attack is recharge 4,5,6 to prevent spamming domination
-The attack forces a death save on a hit, and causes the target to remain dominated as long as it remains adjacent to the Slenderman

The effects of the changes are:
-Dominated characters can now be saved with healing powers that allow saves
-Dominated characters can be saved by moving them or the slenderman
-Dominated characters can now be forced to make death saves up to two times in a turn (once from the aura, once from the attack)
-This is in line with similar monster's powers (medusa can cause petrification after 2 failed saves, bodaks can reduce enemies to 0hp if they hit with 2 attacks

 

[Saeviomagy]

The main problem I see with this foe is this:

For the players, it's not going to be tense, it's going to be tedious. The slenderman effectively makes ~5 actions on it's turn. Most of the actions it makes are deliberately designed so that the standard reactions do not apply to them (ie - 1 target within close burst 10 is a ranged attack that specifically denies attacks of opportunity. Shift 2 as a minor action is another OA denier).
Meanwhile the party are likely to see multiple members dazed or dominated, reducing their contribution to the fight immensely.

I see a lot of people wandering off to the kitchen and yelling "call me when I die or you save me"

 

[eriktheguy]

thanks Saev
Agreed
I'm going to make some of the obvious ranged attacks provoke OAs, and I'm going to make the shift become movement.
I don't so much mind the amount of dazing or dominating attacks (I'm trying to keep it at 2 party memebers) though I'm thinking that 2 at-wills a round that daze might be a bit much. I'll cap it at one.
Since most of the player are adjacent to slender, dazing them isn't THAT punishing. He tends to draw people close, so we shouldn't get into the issue of 'I can only move or shoot' since players can just attack while adjacent.