Friday, November 23, 2018
Monsters: Breaking Down a Stat Block (Polar Bears)
In today's post I'm going to do a blow by blow rundown of a monsters stat block. For this exercise we are going to use a Polar Bear.
Thursday, November 22, 2018
Turkey Tarrasque
In honor of Thanksgiving I present to you the Turkey Tarrasque, Turkeysque for short. He'll be utilizing the basic framework I discussed earlier for universal modifiers on your monster.
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Monster Framework (Gargoyles)
To continue with the posting spirit I'd like to spend today talking a bit about how I've been designing monsters recently. I'm going to use these dastardly Gargoyles as an example today. In the below photo the Ork Party is playing cautiously moving their melee characters forward as they aren't sure which Gargoyles (represented by Eldar Swooping Hawks) are statues and which ones are ready to pounce.
Zombie!
Following up with yesterdays Halloween post I'm going to talk about a bit about the Zombie monster design. Zombies are meant to be dangerous cannon fodder, relatively helpless on their own but get surrounded and you'll torn to pieces. In the below photo we have one PC wisely on the roof, two PCs on the ground ready to protect some townsfolk, and to the south our brave fighter who already succumbed to six of the brain eaters represented by the grey unpainted minis.
Monday, November 19, 2018
Halloween One-Shot 2018
This year's Halloween one-shot I decided to continuation of last year's game, where the players after successfully stopping an apocalyptic event, retired to their villa and newly betrothed Weretiger brides. (Background at the bottom of the post).
An ongoing rivalry with a nearby Vampire Lord has finally proven too much for the party. The Vampire lord has been misdirecting undead hunters to the Weretigers doorsteps, unannounced. Enough is enough! The party ventures north, stakes in hand. It has been two months an no sign of them. Their apprentices now travel North in hopes to rescue them.
Scenario 1 - Zombie Outbreak
An ongoing rivalry with a nearby Vampire Lord has finally proven too much for the party. The Vampire lord has been misdirecting undead hunters to the Weretigers doorsteps, unannounced. Enough is enough! The party ventures north, stakes in hand. It has been two months an no sign of them. Their apprentices now travel North in hopes to rescue them.
Scenario 1 - Zombie Outbreak
Sunday, November 6, 2016
A&A Design: Monsters!
Since editing and re-editing a book will sometimes drive you mad it's always good to get a fresh burst of creativity and throughout the development of this game I've always found that by coming up with fresh new monsters hot off the presses.
So here I'm going to talk about how I handle basic monster design. Like characters I want these to be very quick and fluid to come up with, sometimes on the fly, which means a basic starting chassis shared across the board. To keep things on an even playing field I match them to the same mechanics as player characters.
0. Imagery
Don't forget to describe your monster to your players. Frequently it's the image of the monster that inspires the GM to stat one up so don't forget to share the visuals with your players. All the cool abilities in the world don't mean a thing if the players can't visualize it in their head.
1. Archetype
Monster archetypes match up with player archetypes.
Dire = Fighter (Smash twice the amount of things!)
Loathesome = Adventurer (Higher HP & Harder to kill)
Dreadful = Seeker (Specialist in Monster version of Intrepid Dice)
2. Level
This determines their HP, more levels means more dice to roll, typically I'll assign a bonus Wound to a higher level monster as well. It's also vaguely defines power level in that I won't put absurdly powerful abilities on lower level monsters. Except for the Vorpal Rabbite, all bets are off with those bodyless head-hopping chompers are around.
Examples: Vorpal Rabbite Lvl 1. Giant Psychic Eel Lvl 4. Ogre Magi Lvl 8.
Prehistoric Atlas Godbeetle Lvl 18.
Note: To keep things easier on the GM we removed "Reserves" from Monsters and kept them only for Heroes. This means that each monster don't have a fat stack of Hit Dice & Monster-Intrepid Dice to rely on (and for the GM to keep track of). Instead they have a single Monster-Intrepid dice to use at the right moment.
The GM already has enough on their mind balancing rules and a whole suite of creatures so all design decisions typically revolve around the keep it simple stupid principle.
3. Armor
Decide if the creature is easy to hit but harder to damage (Heavy AC3) or more nimble and made of paper (Lightly AC7 or Unarmored ACN7) or somewhere in-between (Medium armor AC5). Heavier armor means slower movement as well.
Examples: Long-neck Stone Serpent AC 3. Lizardman Conquistador AC5. Vine Hydra AC7
4. Armaments
Monsters that don't wield weapons typically get multiple attacks to account for their numerous natural weapons and the fact they're not getting any To-Hit bonuses (and most have Reach 0 which means they aren't counter-attacking Vs your typical sword, ax & spear). A one-handed weapon (claws) does a d6 and a two-handed or slow heavy weapon (i.e. Rhino horn, Croc bite) does 2d6 damage.
So a two-headed panther with life sucking tentacles on its shoulder-blades is making 4 attacks a round. It makes fighting monsters a very different experience than fighting bandits and raiding parties of Terror Knights who are wielding the same weaponry as the PCs and makes it easier for a single (powerful) monster to face off Vs. multiple PCs.
5. Special Abilities
Much like how all you're weapons are differentiated by their special quality Monsters are the same level and archetype are differentiated by their special abilities. That two-headed tentacle panther is a lot more dangerous when you upgrade him into a full displacer beast or have his tentacles drain life force and is radically different from your 4x attack/round vine hydra who specializes in strangling the life out of your foes after he lands multiple hits.
Note: It's rare for a monster to have more than two abilities. Remember, the GM has a lot to remember, don't overload them. You want the game (and combat) to continue cruising along without frequent or any rules look-ups.
Note: When coming up with your own abilities there's a quick litmus test before you implement. #1 Does it make sense for the monster? #2 Make sure it's not unfair or absurd.
Example Monster:
Next post I'll start talking about layout design and how that has influenced the evolution of our design.
So here I'm going to talk about how I handle basic monster design. Like characters I want these to be very quick and fluid to come up with, sometimes on the fly, which means a basic starting chassis shared across the board. To keep things on an even playing field I match them to the same mechanics as player characters.
0. Imagery
Don't forget to describe your monster to your players. Frequently it's the image of the monster that inspires the GM to stat one up so don't forget to share the visuals with your players. All the cool abilities in the world don't mean a thing if the players can't visualize it in their head.
1. Archetype
Monster archetypes match up with player archetypes.
Dire = Fighter (Smash twice the amount of things!)
Loathesome = Adventurer (Higher HP & Harder to kill)
Dreadful = Seeker (Specialist in Monster version of Intrepid Dice)
2. Level
This determines their HP, more levels means more dice to roll, typically I'll assign a bonus Wound to a higher level monster as well. It's also vaguely defines power level in that I won't put absurdly powerful abilities on lower level monsters. Except for the Vorpal Rabbite, all bets are off with those bodyless head-hopping chompers are around.
 |
| Secret of Mana - A boy and his rusty sword inches away from certain death |
Prehistoric Atlas Godbeetle Lvl 18.
Note: To keep things easier on the GM we removed "Reserves" from Monsters and kept them only for Heroes. This means that each monster don't have a fat stack of Hit Dice & Monster-Intrepid Dice to rely on (and for the GM to keep track of). Instead they have a single Monster-Intrepid dice to use at the right moment.
The GM already has enough on their mind balancing rules and a whole suite of creatures so all design decisions typically revolve around the keep it simple stupid principle.
3. Armor
Decide if the creature is easy to hit but harder to damage (Heavy AC3) or more nimble and made of paper (Lightly AC7 or Unarmored ACN7) or somewhere in-between (Medium armor AC5). Heavier armor means slower movement as well.
Examples: Long-neck Stone Serpent AC 3. Lizardman Conquistador AC5. Vine Hydra AC7
4. Armaments
Monsters that don't wield weapons typically get multiple attacks to account for their numerous natural weapons and the fact they're not getting any To-Hit bonuses (and most have Reach 0 which means they aren't counter-attacking Vs your typical sword, ax & spear). A one-handed weapon (claws) does a d6 and a two-handed or slow heavy weapon (i.e. Rhino horn, Croc bite) does 2d6 damage.
So a two-headed panther with life sucking tentacles on its shoulder-blades is making 4 attacks a round. It makes fighting monsters a very different experience than fighting bandits and raiding parties of Terror Knights who are wielding the same weaponry as the PCs and makes it easier for a single (powerful) monster to face off Vs. multiple PCs.
5. Special Abilities
Much like how all you're weapons are differentiated by their special quality Monsters are the same level and archetype are differentiated by their special abilities. That two-headed tentacle panther is a lot more dangerous when you upgrade him into a full displacer beast or have his tentacles drain life force and is radically different from your 4x attack/round vine hydra who specializes in strangling the life out of your foes after he lands multiple hits.
Note: It's rare for a monster to have more than two abilities. Remember, the GM has a lot to remember, don't overload them. You want the game (and combat) to continue cruising along without frequent or any rules look-ups.
Note: When coming up with your own abilities there's a quick litmus test before you implement. #1 Does it make sense for the monster? #2 Make sure it's not unfair or absurd.
Example Monster:
Bears (Dire) Lvl 5 HP 5d6+5 Wnd: 4 AC 7 Mv: L BearClaw R: 1 Dmg 2d6
- Maul - +2d6 damage in Close Quarters Combat
- Rage - +2d6 HP when Wounded
Next post I'll start talking about layout design and how that has influenced the evolution of our design.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
A&A Quickstart Guide Example Characters
Alright! Posting daily has reminded how fun blogging can be. Now to round off the Book of Earth I'm going to use the excerpts we've posted the last few days and walk through the character creation process. For an experienced guy like me I can do this in about 3 minutes, for one of my regular players it can be done in about 15m or less which I'm happy to report meets my original design goal.
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