Critiques!!On the Purple Worm, I kind of see the idea of a purple worm as a creature that bites, and holds on. Very dangerous if he gets ahold of you, so to speak. I think it would make more sense if the Drag Under required the worm to be grabbing a creature first, that way it captures the feel of a burrowing creature popping up and dragging creatures to their doom.
This would make, sense but makes it too dependent on hitting twice and means it cannot get the mobility the power affords it. It is effectively there to give it a move and an attack to disable someone at range who is annoying the creature - especially to take advantage of an opening to escape the defender with tremorshock. Making too many things rely on grabs - even if I made it very reliable at grabbing - is making it a tad unreliable. This is also because it really wants to (ultimately) swallow a target it is grabbing - drag under is a powerful action removal power to get rid of a PC for a turn.
I also envisage the worm starting the combat 90% of the time with Drag Under - either in a surprise round or just as its first move to get into combat.
Also, the Grinding Jaws seems a little wonky, why not make it a Minor Action attack instead of a triggered action.
There are two main reasons:
1) The target cannot use immediate reactions, opportunity actions or similar against the attack as it occurs on their own turn. So when the Wizard does get grabbed (say he was dazed by Drag Under), even if he's not dazed he can't just wizards escape or similar powers to get out of it.
2) It provides an out of turn free action attack for the purple worm. Improving its action economy and breaking up the damage it does to outside of its turn as well. This spreads its damage out and means it can't front load as much.
And third, albeit minor one:
3) By damaging an enemy on their turn it has the chance to actually "passively" action denial that PC by knocking them unconscious with potential damage (probably unlikely). It can then dump them if it feels like it or choose to attack another character instead on its turn, albeit 99% of the time probably eating the unconscious character. It also gives other characters time to react to this situation. Normally this occurs because the worm is stunned until the end of X PCs turn. In this case it doesn't potentially lose all its attacks, if the PC is before the grabbed PC in the initiative order it potentially picks up an attack it would otherwise fail to get if it had to make the attack on its own turn. Consider if the worm is dazed, it can take one action on its turn but it can still take free actions. Without an AP this set up "pinches" another attack where it couldn't get one as a minor action. This partly gets around being dazed until the end of some PCs next turn.
Essentially it's done like that for point 1. To make escaping its grab by reacting to its attacks more difficult. Effectively the purpose is to double up on the bite attack, while simultaneously spreading the damage out and ensuring it is still reliable (EG if the PC can't react to the first attack, reacting to the second attack is probably not likely either - but the intervening turns also prevents the worm from capitalizing most on the situation).
Remember that I've made the only effective way of getting rid of its grabs to dominate it (Then take the free action to let go of the PC) or push/pull/slide it away (or teleport it). Pushing it with forced movement triggers the aura and that can be pretty bad (as it's automatic damage). Teleportation based forced movement works well though.
Also, the poison stinger seems a bit too good to be a 4+ recharge, and a move action. If you remove the First Failed Save thing, it should be fine.
It's a minor action actually, because it is single typed damage (poison) I don't have so many worries about this. Plenty of ways of getting resistance to poison by paragon tier and it's certainly a worthwhile investment. The aftereffect depends on the leader and party composition. This power is quite swingy, it's either going to perform very well or resistances, improved saves, leader saves and similar will heavily degrade its performance. I usually find typed damage needs to be a little better than untyped due to common resistances.
Looking at it, I think it should be a 5+ and not 4+ recharge. I shall correct that when I get back home as 4+ is a little too low for the damage I gave it. This might actually be better as a move action though, now you mention it as it makes it harder to use with drag under and a standard action multiple attack power. In fact, I think that's a really good idea. I'll even change the power to give the worm some mobility before striking as well, so it fits with a move action better and lower the damage slightly to compensate.
With the 2 or 3 bit attacks a round, a chewing attack and sting or a drag under, there's more than enough attacks to deal some pretty severe damage. If anything, I'd say there's a bit too much.
Yes, which is why grinding jaws is spread over to the PCs turn. This reduces the overall damage output and allows leaders/other characters time to react to the situation. The swallow in this case is basically death for any character at this level who falls unconscious from it. Hence the damage needs to spread out somewhat (such as the change to Insatiable Hunger to target multiple enemies).
Effectively the grinding jaws is to encourage the PCs to get rid of it before the grabbed characters turn. Due to the clasping jaws trait, this means pushing it away and threatening to trigger the worms aura. I'm also going to modify the aura to remove the slide. At the moment the slide means that you need to push the worm a total of seven squares to break the grab. It has reach 3 and can slide the PC 3 squares when pushed/pulled/slid. That makes things a bit too unreasonable.
My "puppet" party of: Fighter/Wizard/Rogue/Cleric/Warlock was able to win when I played around with it a couple of hours ago, but I wasn't satisfied that I couldn't break the creatures grab AND took damage when using forced movement. The damage is meant to be the disincentive, not the fact it's nearly impossible to break the grab unless you have a wizard, thunderwave and a mega wisdom score.
I'll try it again with grinding jaws replacing the position that poisonous sting has as a minor action though. But first I have to fix the forced movement issue caused by the aura power as that's pretty crippling. I'll definitely move poisonous sting to a move, reduce the damage and give it a movement effect.
Is that a crime? I recommend the Balor get soul eater from Demonomicon as well. Because nothing is worse than spending a healing surge and being hit for 4d10+25 damage on a free action (with a +37 vs. AC attack bonus!).
