Monsters you are done with. And why.

[Roy]

You mean like swarms?

Well yes. But I meant more on the Voltron sense.

[Manxome]

Oh no, we've this conversation before.

This sentence no verb.

Actually, it does. we've = we have

It's just not conjugate correctly.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I actually like the sound of "we'ved".

[Thymos]

I know the dragon tank idea is not original. I still think it can work well.

Also I think it would stop a lot of goofyness if one of the subcharacters (that's what I'm calling the pieces for now) was the vital one. Kill the vital subchar and you kill the monster.

Why split off the other pieces? Multiple actions and initiatives.

Why attack the other pieces? They have less health and when you kill them they stop doing anything (the dragons left arm is broken or his head is too injured to breath fire, something like that).

The real reason for one monster being split up into multiple characters is to solve the action discrepancy of solos. 4v4 works, 4v1 doesn't. The solution is to represent the 1 monster as 4 mechanically.

My only worry is that this might reduce variety of encounters.

Oh, and yah I did mean that levels should directly translate through all parts. Level 4 monsters should challenge level 4 characters etc.

I do think monsters and characters should ideally either use a very similar creations system or use a gimped mook system that does not create credible threats by themselves (like minions in 4e only better thought out).

[Cielingcat]

What you could do is have the monster be broken into sub-pieces, but the vital piece has hp equal to the sum of all the piece's hp. When you kill a piece, the vital piece loses that much hp, so you get to make progress by killing the other pieces, but you can't just focus fire the main piece because doing that is no more efficient than killing it one by one.

(Idea totally stolen from the Kologarn encounter in World of Warcraft.)

[CatharzGodfoot]

Is the purpose of multi-monsters allowing a monster's torso to make a bluff attempt while its head casts a spell and its left arm intimidates with a rude gesture, or is it a kludge to deal with a lack of called shot rules (or am I creating a false dichotomy)?

[Thymos]

Is the purpose of multi-monsters allowing a monster's torso to make a bluff attempt while its head casts a spell and its left arm intimidates with a rude gesture, or is it a kludge to deal with a lack of called shot rules (or am I creating a false dichotomy)?

I guess it's the bluff, cast, and intimidate one. That's really presenting a bizarre situation.

Ideally the head would be the only one able to communicate. The hands can't do anything other than hand stuff. The torso probably just takes hits. Stuff like that.

[Kaelik]

Ideally the head would be the only one able to communicate. The hands can't do anything other than hand stuff. The torso probably just takes hits. Stuff like that.

Probably better would be the body performs various stances and buffs most of the time.

IE) Beholder Body casts/redirects AMF.

Dragon Body, uses double move and sometimes switches between defense and offense stance.

Balor body uses defensive SLAs, while Head uses offensive.

ect...

[Josh_Kablack]

Monsters you are done with

[Koumei]

Unless they are sexy, in which case they're evil. Unless they're gay, in which case they're still good.

:3

[Prak]

where are these gay celestials? I've never seen them... closest I've seen is dirty bad wrongsex fiends...

not that there's anything wrong with that...

well, and the time I characterized paladins and hound archons as gay for one another in an Ur Priest arguement...

edit: Wait, does that mean bi=neutral?

[Judging__Eagle]

Since... when are angels gay? Seriously, where the hell does that come from?

"Puzzle" monsters, where if you don't have the single right answer, you can't kill the damned thing.

They're a cute, but a dumb, idea.

[Lokathor]

oh wow, was just shown this:
http://badgods.com/rustmonster.html

[Prak]

Since... when are angels gay? Seriously, where the hell does that come from?

"Puzzle" monsters, where if you don't have the single right answer, you can't kill the damned thing.

They're a cute, but a dumb, idea.

all the more so when the monster is literally a puzzle (conundrum cursed template, turns monsters into a 3d puzzle that can only speak in a single riddle, and the answer must be given in order to break their curse, puzzle golems)

[Username17]

The gay angels thing was from the Book of Exalted Furries. Realizing that nipple piercings were evil, and that they would have to get their adult content rating another way, but also realizing that they still needed a 1:1 page correspondence with the Book of Vile Darkness to drive home how uncreative they were, the authors did the only rational thing - which was to take every page number from the BoVD that talked about rape and replace it with a page in the BoED that was about teh gays or furries. Or gay furries. Because as we know, gay sex is practically the same as rape and enslavement, save for the fact that it would totally get you in trouble if you actually said it was "evil."

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

oh wow, was just shown this:
http://badgods.com/rustmonster.html

Priceless. Especially the part about the locks and the golem.

I also like the use of Schrodinger's gun to explain the gears. That should have been part of the 1E DMG!

"How to get rid of unwanted treasure in a way that seems fair and realistic"

[Thymos]

"How to get rid of unwanted treasure in a way that seems fair and realistic"

I'm pulling this from memory but I think I actually read that from the Q&A 3.x dnd section on the website.

[RobbyPants]

That doesn't surprise me. I remember reading similar things back in 2E as well. At least I remember part of the advice being "talk to the players OOC about the imbalance before pulling their PCs pants down"

[Crissa]

No, gay angels is from Barbarella.

-Crissa