A Demon Haunted World

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 3:28 am

Probably the first step would be to understat and underspecify monsters relative to the PCs, which I was vaguely pretty sure was going to be the case with e.g. monster classes being essentially "secondary" classes for what a PC would have, unless I misunderstood that bit.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 7:01 am

Like most of the design decisions of 4th edition, the decision to make monsters have a lot of fiddly tracks to consider in combat and have literally nothing to offer outside of combat is exactly backwards. Monsters in combat should be relatively simple, with resource questions being largely state based or generated on the turn so that the MC doesn't have to track a lot of crap for each monster. But monsters out of combat can and often should have all kinds of effects on the world. We kind of want to know how much foliage spread is caused by Nymphs or how many mindthralls a Mindflayer can keep in line.

The complexity of monsters is obviously going to vary. Dire Bears genuinely are just a pile of numbers once the fight music starts, but the aforementioned Mindflayer has an in-combat area blast and an in-combat single-target command and an in-combat tentacle attack. But even with all of those options, it's a considerably simpler unit to make decisions for than a 6th level Necromancer or even a 6th level Paladin.

-Username17

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 9:15 pm

So to think about the alternate defenses a bit, let's look at a couple of levels:

Level 1 Monsters

Boggle (Brute)
Giant Ant (Brute)
Zombie (Brute)
Corallax (Controller)
Dretch (Controller)
Pixie (Controller)
Blood Hawk (Harrier)
Giant Rat (Harrier)
Harpy (Harrier)
Shocker Lizard (Harrier)
War Dog/Wolf (Harrier)
War Horse (Harrier)
Wisp (Harrier)
Cobra (Lurker)
Giant Scorpion (Lurker)
Boar (Ravager)
Giant Bee (Ravager)
Legion Fiend (Ravager)
Skeleton (Ravager)

So that's 19 level 1 monsters, and of them the following I would say have a good excuse to target a non-AC defense:

Corallax (Mind)
Dretch (Poison)
Pixie (Mind)
Harpy (Mind)
Shocker Lizard (Elemental)
Wisp (Elemental & Mind)

In addition, the Snake, Scorpion, and Giant Bee all have a Poison attack rider where if their normal AC-attack hits they also get to attack your poison resistance. That's nearly half the monsters even at 1st level having some flavor of special attack. And there's actually enough Mind attacks to go around that you could split them up into Mind and Soul attacks or Perception and Morale attacks or something - to usefully distinguish fear blasts from color sprays.

You'll note that these all fit fairly nicely into the Will/Fort/Ref paradigm of 3rd edition, although I find Reflex saves to be particularly problematic because they lead to the assumption that things can be and need to be dodged, which in turn brings up the question of what the fuck happens with disintegration rays and fire clouds that fill the room and all the rest of it. Having a more action-agnostic definition for the defense against Elemental attacks would go a long way towards making those arguments go away.

Anyway, let's consider some Level 5 Monsters:

Large Earth Elemental (Brute)
Troll (Brute)
Wood Golem (Brute)
Large Water Elemental (Controller)
Oni (Controller)
Rakshasa (Controller)
Rusalka (Controller)
Large Air Elemental (Harrier)
Manticore (Harrier)
Marrash (Harrier)
Doppleganger (Lurker)
Drider (Lurker)
Land Shark (Lurker)
Medusa (Lurker)
Roper (Lurker)
Shadow Fiend (Lurker)
Spider Fiend (Lurker)
Burning Dead (Ravager)
Chaos Beast (Ravager)
Large Fire Elemental (Ravager)
Dullahan (Ravager)
Swordwraith (Ravager)

That's 22 Monsters, of which the following have special attacks:

Large Water Elemental (Elemental / Entangle)
Oni (Elemental / Mind)
Rakshasa (Mind)
Rusalka (Entangle / Mind)
Large Air Elemental (Entangle)
Doppleganger (Mind)
Drider (Entangle)
Medusa (Petrification)
Burning Dead (Elemental)
Chaos Beast (Poison)
Large Fire Elemental (Elemental)

Then there's Poison riders on the Drider, Roper, and Shadow Fiend, and Mind Riders on the Dullahan and Sword Wraith. So the total number of monsters with some sort of special attack targeting effect is about three quarters - which is obviously higher than it was at 1st level. By 10th level, I expect 90% of the monsters will have some sort of non-AC attack option.

Another thing to notice is that there remain enough Mind attacks that you could usefully and plausibly split them up into the attacks that are resisted by Morale (like a Dullahan's Fear strike) and attacks that are resisted by Perception (like the Doppelganger's Swap Places). And that Petrification really is rare enough that you could just declare that it's resisted with the same toughness you resist Poisons with or the same soul-integrity you resist Terror with and that would be fine. And finally, you're going to want a defense against Entanglement that is distinct from the defenses against fire bolts, poisons, illusions, or fear waves.

So I'm looking at like 5 defenses. Which seems manageable.

-Username17

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 1:36 am

Five is certainly manageable, but I think you want both more and fewer. For entanglement specifically, I don't see how a plant grabbing you is really
different from having a monster try to grab you, and having a monster try to grab you is at-most-marginally different from having the same monster try to poke you with a stick.

On the other tentacle, you want some monsters to be fire resistant and others to be cold resistant; there is a happy middle ground where some mobs are resistant to fire but you don't entertain shards and nexus damage. At that rate, a general energy defense seems counter-intuitive.

Second point, for most attacks, there should be two important defenses. Go back to your trenchant criticisms of nWoD to see why having only one dimension on which to vary attacks is bad.

So for a general physical attack, it both has to hit and penetrate to do damage, beating your Dodge and Physical defenses respectively.

A poison cloud might only hit Physical defense (that is, it hits automatically) with the Poison-specific rider.

So I would have four main defenses:
[*] Dodge
[*] Physical
[*] Perceive
[*] Resist
and also tags/riders like "Poison" (which still goes against Physical defense but Armor doesn't help), and "Fire" and "Cold" which are still Physical but for which many monsters have RNG-breaking bonuses. "Illusions" and "Fog Clouds" both hit your perceive with slightly different riders, and so on.

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 4:36 am

I would basically assume that a Dire Bear or whatever is built off of the Brute chassis, but that they would probably not be taking full advantage of all the abilities that would be available to an Xth level character because they're a fucking animal, not a human intelligence. They would have just enough to provide a level-appropriate threat, but the fact that they're more of a closet troll than a proper encounter would be not-a-bug. And they'd probably be only vaguely a threat at higher levels. Correct?

As far as Defenses go, I agree with DrPraetor that punching you and grabbing you seem like they are going to be similarly good options if the enemy is using "Strength-based" attacks and probably should also be successful against fairly similar people, for similar reasons. And if it targets AC and everyone wants AC, then you don't get the issue where it follows this weird main-defense-avoiding path of "touch AC to resisted Str checks" or whatever that happens.

Maybe it's a bit weird to have wearing armor improve your grappling, but honestly, have you ever tried grappling a knight?

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 6:24 am

The main defenses (which are tied to the 4 core attributes of Body, Agility, Sense, Will)for my heartbreaker are...

Physical Dodge: getting out of the way of an attack. Some exceptions like poison gas chambers and medusa gazes that are 'dodged' by other means.

Physical Soak: Resisting a physical attack like a gunshot, axe blow. Perhaps also for resisting poison? But "toughening it out" could be a mental thing. If elemental breath attacks are super common (like Monster Hunter) then a subcategory of soaking different types of energy damage is handy

Perception defense: Resist being ambushed, see through an illusion, spot the pickpocket

Morale/Mental defense: Resist social and magical fear/domination. Maybe also resist pain from venom, fatigue.

So there's also subspecializations of various defenses like being extra resilient to fear, poison, etc.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 6:40 am

DrPraetor wrote:For entanglement specifically, I don't see how a plant grabbing you is really different from having a monster try to grab you, and having a monster try to grab you is at-most-marginally different from having the same monster try to poke you with a stick.

Tentacles aren't really different from snatching vines and only marginally different from solid fog. The issue here is that while you can get out of grasping tentacles by being slick and agile or by being big and strong, you can't escape by having harder armor. 3e attempted to represent this truth by having Grapples be a Touch Attack followed by an opposed Strength check, which is 3 die rolls and rather more than is strictly necessary. Ideally, you'd just have a single number that represented how generally good you were at escaping such things and roll against that once - like how Combat Maneuver Defense was supposed to be in Pathfailure except hopefully less full of fail. And yes, I expect that the defense you have against Water Whip should be the same defense you have against Octo Grab. Or against a player character Berserker throwing his ax to the side and trying to wrestle you for whatever reason.

• Dodge
• Physical
• Perceive
• Resist

Those names don't sit with me right. Firstly, because one of them is Dodge, which I've already said a little bit about why I think that's terrible. But basically, having one of the defenses imply that you need to actively move out of the way brings up so many questions when characters are flat footed, blind, rooted to the ground, or locked in a room. And while all of those might be situations where it is logically impossible for you to actively dodge, the game still needs a means to determine whether an attack succeeds at full value or not. Especially when you're talking about stuff like Fireball and Lightning Bolt, where characters are presumably going to try block with their shield or just tough it out rather than literally dodging them.

Physical is an awful name because several of the things in the category you wanted to call Dodge are also Physical. And Resist is absolutely unacceptable because literally all of these are measures of Resisting different stuff. You wouldn't call one of your defenses "Defense" and you wouldn't call one of the things you use to Resist some sorts of things "Resist," because that's terrible.

Anyway, Willpower is a good name, Fortitude is a good name. Reflex is a bad name. Which leaves us with:

Armor Class (still split into Touch and Unaware AC for some special attacks)
Fortitude (the thing you resist Poisons with)
Perception (the thing you resist Illusions with)
Willpower (the thing you resist Fear with)
name to be decided (the thing you resist Entanglement with)
name to be decided (the thing you resist Lightning Bolts with)

That covers all the things that need covering. But yes, the last two need names. Combat Maneuver Defense and Elemental Defense do cover what they are, but ideally you'd want pithy 1 word names that abbreviate to 4 letter, 1 syllable terms like Fort and Will.

-Username17

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 7:28 am

Escape Artist was the D&D3e skill for that sort of thing. Could just shorten it to Escape as 'escape drills' are what you do in greco roman, jiujitsu. Water rescue drills talk about 'escaping rope entanglement'.

Energy Resistance/Soak (if you're using physical soak then whatever term you use for physical, but with 'Energy' in front) for resisting lightning bolts, heat rays, etc.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 7:49 am

I think Elusiveness and Endurance are the best bet here. Yeah, it sucks that they start with the same letter, but Elude is really good at capturing the ideas of both 'escape entanglement' and 'avoid getting caught in the first place', while Endure has memetic resonance because of Endure Elements being a spell. Plus, they both start with L and N phonetically, so the fact that the first letter isn't as big of a deal. Your 1-2 letter abbreviations are AC, W, F, P, L and N.

Cervantes · Post by **Cervantes** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 10:44 am

"Avoidance" is also an ok word for Reflex saves

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 11:15 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Berserker throwing his ax to the side and trying to wrestle you for whatever reason.

Well presumably berserkers can transform into tigers and bears, and I'm pretty sure they like to grab foes and pull them to the ground. It doesn't have to be an actual Tiger Driver, but I think everyone agrees that would be for the best.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 11:55 am

Cervantes wrote:"Avoidance" is also an ok word for Reflex saves

No, that's a crap word. The point is that sometimes your opponent is a big tree. That's literally one of the Lord Level Antagonists. Or a giant brain in a pool full of polliwogs. That's one of the Lord Level Antagonists too! Those enemies don't "avoid" anything. They don't even move. But they still resist when you shoot frost bolts at them, because they are boss monsters and hella bad ass.

The word for the defense against Fireballs should be something like "Mettle" and not something like "Reflexes." Because you want to be purposefully vague as to how the various creatures are going about resisting the Fireball. Maybe it's a Pixie and doing some sort of aerial bullet time maneuver, but maybe it's a fucking Roper and it's just like "Is that the best you can do?" Although I kind of like "Mettle" in particular more for the thing that you use to resist wrestling moves and grasping vines, because it's so much harder to come up with a word that could mean elusiveness but could also mean implacability.

Anyway, I'm not especially wedded to specific terms, since among other things it is necessary to juggle what classes give which good special defenses in order to balance out how they end up pulling their weight in different expected combats. Like, if you name the defense against Yeth Hound Terror "Willpower" then you're thematically committed to letting the Psion have a high defense against it. If you name the defense against the same thing "Morale" then you have essentially committed to letting the Paladin have a high version instead. If you leave the defense type with a provisional name until after you've seen which classes need the minor boost required of being relatively resistant to the less than 10% of monsters that blast you with Fear effects, then you have that much extra working room in your design space.

What's actually important is making up the antagonists and then using that to determine what the various classes are going to need to bring to the table. So consider the 5th level Black Sands encounter where you meet a Large Fire Elemental and some Burning Dead. 3 out of 5 of those monsters have some kind of Fire attack, so any character with a good defense against Elemental Attacks is automatically looking pretty good. Now lets consider the Assassin and the Paladin. In 2nd Edition AD&D, the Paladin had the better defense against fire attacks because of saves versus Dragon Breath. In 3rd edition, the Assassin had the better defense against fire attacks because Reflex Saves and Evasion. But the bottom line is that whether the Assassin or the Paladin should have the defensive edge in this combat has to do not with how you feel about different classes resisting fire attacks, but on who got the relatively shorter end of the stick in the other 5th level sample encounters.

-Username17

merxa · Post by **merxa** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 6:43 pm

Is there only one Elemental Resistance defense which protects equally against fire and ice? Will A Fire Giant stat block have something like 'ER+10, immune to fire'?

While one number simplifies elemental resistance is does make them all feel sort of the same unless they get extra rider effects like being slowed or destroying equipment etc.

Mettle seems ok, maybe grit or moxie.

Under what category are 'level drains' or negative energy effects? Besides poisons there is also curses and disease.

Returning to the discussion on damage, there is hit points and status conditions, anything else?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 9:08 pm

So how does this look? It looks like a giant table, or series of tables. Let's do a deep dive on level five. Because that fucking rhymes.

Hidden Thicket of the Blood Bayou - Level 5 Encounter


Classes\Monsters	Rusalka	Great Eagle	Manticore	Wood Golem	Large Water Elemental
Assassin	Good	Bad	Good	Good	Bad
Berserker	Bad	Good	Bad	Good	Good
Druid	Bad	Good	Good	Bad	Good
Enchanter	Good	Good	Bad	Good	Bad
Hero	Bad	Bad	Good	Good	Good
Monk	Good	Good	Bad	Bad	Good
Paladin	Good	Bad	Bad	Good	Good
Psion	Good	Good	Good	Bad	Bad
Ranger	Bad	Good	Good	Good	Bad
Warlock	Good	Bad	Good	Bad	Good

This is an encounter with 2 controllers (Rusalka and Water Elemental) and 2 Harriers (Manticore and Great Eagle). So again it wouldn't be weird if this was an encounter where some classes were hitting above their weight and other classes were hitting below their weight. But the target is still to have all the characters roughly even in encounters of all sorts.

Manor on the Lonely Moors - Level 5 Encounter


Classes\Monsters	Doppelganger	Swordwraith	Troll	Shadow Fiend	Dullahan
Assassin	Good	Good	Bad	Good	Bad
Berserker	Bad	Good	Good	Bad	Good
Druid	Good	Good	Bad	Bad	Good
Enchanter	Bad	Good	Good	Good	Bad
Hero	Good	Bad	Good	Bad	Good
Monk	Good	Bad	Bad	Good	Good
Paladin	Bad	Good	Bad	Good	Good
Psion	Good	Good	Good	Bad	Bad
Ranger	Good	Bad	Good	Good	Bad
Warlock	Bad	Bad	Good	Good	Good

The Dullahan and Swordwraith are conceptually similar monsters, differing largely in that one is Celtic and the other is inspired by Lord of the Rings. In either case it's an undead dude with a big sword. It wouldn't be weird if all the characters who were good or bad at one of those were good or bad at both together. And that in turn would lead to some characters being substantially above or below par in this battle. However, the aspiration is still to have roughly evenly distributed strengths and weaknesses. And the Dullahan's heedlessness seems like a point of difference that could make an Assassin's strike less effective or a Psion's mindblast ineffective to cause there to be some differences in how they play out against different classes.

Caverns of Flesh and Stone - Level 5 Encounter


Classes\Monsters	Large Earth Elemental	Medusa	Roper	Spider Fiend	Black Pudding
Assassin	Good	Good	Good	Bad	Bad
Berserker	Good	Bad	Good	Good	Bad
Druid	Bad	Bad	Good	Good	Good
Enchanter	Good	Bad	Bad	Good	Good
Hero	Good	Good	Bad	Bad	Good
Monk	Good	Good	Bad	Good	Bad
Paladin	Bad	Good	Bad	Good	Good
Psion	Bad	Good	Good	Good	Bad
Ranger	Bad	Good	Good	Bad	Good
Warlock	Good	Bad	Good	Bad	Good

More of a mixed bag this time around, with not a lot of tactical similarities between the monsters. The Spider Fiend is probably closest to the Roper, since they both have area denial poison attacks, but the one is hidden in a web nest that you should try to burn them out of and the other is just the MC's middle finger on the table.

Windswept Dunes of Black Sand - Level 5 Encounter


Classes\Monsters	Marrash	Burning Dead	Land Shark	Large Fire Elemental	Large Air Elemental
Assassin	Good	Good	Bad	Good	Bad
Berserker	Bad	Bad	Good	Good	Good
Druid	Good	Good	Bad	Bad	Good
Enchanter	Bad	Good	Good	Good	Bad
Hero	Good	Bad	Good	Bad	Good
Monk	Bad	Good	Good	Bad	Good
Paladin	Bad	Good	Bad	Good	Good
Psion	Good	Good	Good	Bad	Bad
Ranger	Good	Bad	Good	Good	Bad
Warlock	Good	Bad	Bad	Good	Good

OK, so aspirationally, we got 12 monsters that each character class should be good at facing, and 8 monsters that they should not. Then we can work out what kind of tactical powers and abilities the different monsters and then player characters need to get that to happen.

And it's aspirational. Some of those matchups made immediate sense to me - obviously the Monk is going to be unhappy with his fist attacks against the Black Pudding and the Fire Elemental, obviously the Psion is going to be suboptimal against the Wood Golem and Dullahan. Some of those are a little bit of throwing darts at a damn board. And I'm not really sure I can make it all crinkle out correctly. But if a few of the monsters end up punching slightly above or below their weight and find themselves at a disadvantage against 7 character classes or 5 instead of 6, I'm not going to call that the end of the world. Having a directly veryfiable balance point right from the beginning gives all of these creations a lot more of a reasonable and hittable balance target than other editions have had.

So yeah, we see that the Wood Golem is suppoed to do well against the Warlock, Druid, Psion, and Monk, but be at a disadvantage against the Assassin, Berserker, Enchanter, Hero, Paladin, and Ranger. This seems like a reasonably easy target to hit. The Wood Golem is highly resistant to magic attacks, but doesn't get similar resistance to magically boosted normal attacks. So the Enchanter is able to boost up his sword and then beat down the Golem, but the Warlock's invocations mostly bounce off. A slightly more difficult design is the Great Eagle, which is supposed to do well against the Assassin, Hero, Paladin, and Warlock, but do poorly against the Berserker, Druid, Enchanter, Monk, Psion, and Ranger. Some of that can be handled with exactly how the Swoop attack works. Monks and Berserkers get to interrupt it, and Paladins and Heroes cannot (or at least, not easily).

-Username17

Axebird · Post by **Axebird** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 10:11 pm

These encounters seem pretty wild, thematically. Most encounters I've seen or run have groups of creatures that are thematically similar or paired in some way, like goblins with worgs, earth elementals with animated statues, groups of assorted bullshit fey, the evil wizard's demon servitors, etc. Encounters that expect players to be regularly fighting the party guests of this week's monster mash are going to come off as really weird.

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Sun Apr 01, 2018 3:13 am

Given that I endorse Frank's basic thesis that he should generate a monster manual before configuring the heartbreaker, I don't want to derail the more productive discussion of what the monsters should do.

But1, I tend to agree with OgreBattle that, assuming you want the stats to have roughly the same cost/value, Might, Agility, Mind and Soul are the four stats you want in D&D. I think that "planning ahead" and "spotting ambushes" are both overlapping and insufficiently independently useful to justify having five stats, but this will depend on how things shake out in later stages so let's come back to it.

But2, while I agree that Evade, Dodge, and etc. have problems, if the chief problem is that there are immobile monsters that don't get dodgy defense, well, you're going to have to cross that bridge sooner or later, and making dodge-not-a-thing isn't a satisfactory answer. This is especially true if you have a defense called "Armor Class" that doesn't always include armor?!?!?!
https://youtu.be/STRyHD8eWIo?t=88

Am I the only one annoyed with the reporters who clearly do not know what existentialism means?

ANYWAY.

Doesn't the Warlock get ranged attacks?

I have trouble seeing how the Warlock is bad against the Giant Eagle, given that it kites. Also Druid being bad against Rusalka seems counterintuitive to me. But at this stage I think we can legitimately ask what we think are the ten basic classes, before switching the alternative optimization back to track A and working on the monsters.

Using the names of 3E classes as shorthand:
[*] The Hero is a fighter / rogue?
[*] The Berserker is a barbarian?
[*] The Druid... is a nature-caster or a shape-shifter or both? Or an astral magic wielder like in Dominions Marverni?
[*] The Ranger fights and tracks, does she have special Ranger fighting techniques or nature magic or both?
[*] The Paladin is a white mage with armor and a weapon?
[*] The Warlock is a black mage? Does the warlock inflict SOD conditions or does the Warlock deal damage?
[*] The Assassin is a different mix of fighter / rogue?
[*] The Monk I'm guessing will be built from the Tome Monk and/or Crusader. Is the Monk also a Psychic Warrior (by definition?)
[*] I'm asking this question because I would've assumed the Enchanter to be a beguiler, but apparently she's a Duskblade - so she magics her sword?
[*] The Psion inflicts SOD conditions, I assume?

Once we've answered that, we can then ask the same questions about what these monsters are, then flesh out the monsters, then turn around and flesh out the character classes...

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Apr 01, 2018 7:15 am

Axebird wrote:These encounters seem pretty wild, thematically.

Most encounters are indeed going to be one boss monster and a bunch of minions or two of one thing and three of another or whatever, Three Khasta Warriors, two of which are riding Black Unicorns, that sort of thing. But for purposes of tweaking monster stats and designing class progressions, you want to look at the Legion of Doom encounters.

A more typical encounter might be "Five Trolls" or "Four Trolls and a Chaos Beast" but if one character over or under performs in an encounter like that, what have you actually learned?

DrPraetor wrote:I have trouble seeing how the Warlock is bad against the Giant Eagle, given that it kites.

Depends exactly how Swoop works, considering that the Warlock is also the clothiest of cloth wearers. The Eagle doesn't just stay at long range and exchange fire like the Manticore or Marrash (and if it did, we'd expect it to lose to the Warlock by just being outgunned), it closes and grabs with its talons. Presumably Warlocks have a hard time getting out of that. Similar to how they do poorly against the Land Shark that is doing essentially the same thing, just from below instead of from above.

DrPraetor wrote:Also Druid being bad against Rusalka seems counterintuitive to me.

I could definitely go either way on that. I figure Druids are either going to be strong or weak against evil fairy magic. I would not actually be offended if the encounters in Blood Bayou were very pro-Druid and the Caverns of Flesh and Stone or maybe the Manor on the Lonely Moors were very anti-Druid. But for a first pass I hypothesized all of the classes being equally good in all four major test engagements. I feel you need to imagine a balance point before you can have a coherent discussion of whether deviating from the balance point is OK. It would certainly be reasonable to have the Druids just be extra strong against Elementals, Beasts, and Fairies but extra weak against Undead and Fiends.

DrP wrote:Using the names of 3E classes as shorthand:

Assassin: Crossbow Rogue with minor magic.
Berserker: Barbarian with Shapeshifting
Druid: Nature Caster
Enchanter: Like an Artificer or Rune Priest. Enchants things in the traditional fantasy sense of the word rather than as the Enchantment/Charm school of AD&D magic.
Hero: A Fighter/Rogue
Monk: Like a Dungeonomicon Monk / Psychic Warrior
Paladin: a Melee focused Cleric.
Psion: Stun Blasts, short duration dominate effects, telekinesis. Mostly does mind affecting save or lose type effects.
Ranger: Basically like an Assassin except with a more nature-themed set of magics and more of an emphasis on fire arrows and less of an emphasis on precision damage.
Warlock: Mostly an evoker style mage that shoots darkness and fireballs around.

DrP wrote:Once we've answered that, we can then ask the same questions about what these monsters are, then flesh out the monsters, then turn around and flesh out the character classes...

Yep.

-Username17

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Apr 01, 2018 2:15 pm

So let's talk about individual monsters in terms of their balance targets. We want each monster to be less than a player character in average slap down effect, and considerably less than a player character in terms of in-combat complexity. But we also want them to challenge the player characters, and as such we want them to be able to be threatening to the PCs and even be at situational advantages against some of them. So let's consider what the monsters are looking at:

Rusalka

Strong Against: Berserker, Druid, Hero, Ranger
Weak Against: Assassin, Enchanter, Monk, Paladin, Psion, Warlock

That's a difficult target to hit. The Assassin and the Ranger are quite similar conceptually, and the four melee combat classes are split with Berserkers and Heroes having a tough time and the Monk and Paladin having an easy time. Of course, if that's your goal, it's relatively easy to hit such a thing. Imagine for the moment that the Rusalka has the following abilities:

Queen of Nature: Has a chance of taking over and redirecting nature spells in her LOS (bones Ranger and Druids).
Awe: Characters in short range have a chance of losing their action if they try to attack her based on whatever you call the soul defense (bones Heroes and Berserkers, but not Monks or Paladins due to Diamond Soul).

And other than that, she's a modest Controller with cloth wearer stats and some debuffs.

Great Eagle

Strong Against: Assassin, Hero, Paladin, Warlock
Weak Against: Berserker, Druid, Enchanter, Monk, Paladin, Psion, Ranger

So the Great Eagle is an animal, so I don't think we need a lot of deep explanations why the Druid and Ranger should do well here. If they have any sort of Beast Mastery effects, they should be able to smack down. The Assassin and Warlock are cloth wearers, which means that the Great Eagle's dive attack can punish cloth wearers, but it also does poorly against the Psion and Monk. It's also supposed to be good against the Paladin and Hero, who are the hardest of the armored folk. So I'm thinking about two attacks, the first is a dive that does heavy damage to light armor characters, and the second is a snatch and drop the works against heavy armor characters. In either case, the attack routine can be interrupted by stuff that impedes movement, so the Monk's Stand-Still or the Enchanter's Defense Runes should do a good job.

Manticore

Strong Against: Berserker, Enchanter, Monk, Paladin
Weak Against: Assassin, Druid, Hero, Psion, Ranger, Warlock

This seems reasonably straight forward. It's a flying archer. If your archery is better than its archery, you are the winner. The only odd one out is the Hero, who presumably has a backup bow that he's better with than the Paladin is with hers.

Wood Golem

Strong Against: Druid, Monk, Psion, Warlock
Weak Against: Assassin, Berserker, Enchanter, Hero, Paladin, Ranger

This also seems relatively simple. Golems in D&D have traditionally held the spot of being highly resistant to magical attacks, and relatively vulnerable to physical attacks with magical weapons. The only bit of interest here is the Monk and the Enchanter, where the Monk's super punches evidently have to count as psionic or sorcerous attacks, while the Enchanter's Rune Blade strikes evidently do not.

Large Water Elemental

Strong Against: Assassin, Enchanter, Psion, Ranger
Weak Against: Berserker, Druid, Hero, Monk, Paladin, Warlock

So the Water Elemental lives in the Controller slot, with the special defense that it's Amorphous. Most of the Assassin's and Psion's tricks do not work on it because of that, so the real question is why the Water Elemental's tricks work against Enchanters and Rangers better than they work against Paladins and Heroes. And I think that's the place where defenses come into it. Whatever the "Crashing Wave" attack targets, the Hero and the Paladin are good at resisting it and the Enchanter and Ranger are not.

Doppelganger

Strong Against: Berserker, Enchanter, Paladin, Warlock
Weak Against: Assassin, Druid, Hero, Monk, Psion, Ranger

Here's an example of a one-trick pony monster. It has its Backstab super attack, which it uses against you by targeting your perception. High perception characters get to say "Nope!" and relatively low perception characters get to suck it. So the Berserker and the Warlock both get Backstabbed, and the Assassin and the Psion both do not. This doesn't seem hard to design.

Swordwraith

Strong Against: Hero, Monk, Ranger, Warlock
Weak Against: Assassin, Berserker, Druid, Enchanter, Paladin, Psion

The Swordwraith is conceptually a Nazgul. So it's mostly just beating up on Lord of the Rings Characters. Ha! But we're also talking about something that is undead and also filled with evil power. So being strong against evil magic like the Warlock uses isn't weird, and being vulnerable to the rune blade of the Enchanter or the Holy Smite of the Paladin seems very reasonable. The issue at contention I think is why it is that Swordwraiths are weak against the Psion if they are tough against the Monk. And I honestly think that's mostly to do with the Swordwraith just having pretty big numbers in melee combat, so if you aren't a dedicated melee combat hardass like the Berserker, you're going to have a pretty bad time. Even the Hero and Ranger have a hard time, and they are dedicated melee combat hardasses.

Troll

Strong Against: Assassin, Druid, Monk, Paladin
Weak Against: Berserker, Enchanter, Hero, Psion, Ranger, Warlock

Trolls in D&D land are pretty well determined to be the Three Hearts and Three Lions Trolls. They are green giants that regenerate wounds and fear fire and acid. Various editions have done variably well in actually delivering that (for fuck's sake, in 3rd edition the ideal method to dealing with a Troll is to beat it unconscious with a warhammer and then drown it in a lake), but that is and has been the concept. I take it as given that the Troll can be portrayed as something that doesn't fear traditional crossbow bolts to organs very much, and thus has the same kind of Amorphous ability that the Water Elemental had with regard to the Assassin's critical strikes. Where this is different is the Psion, where the Water Elemental was immune to dazing because it's a living column of water, the Troll is vulnerable because it's a stupid giant. I figure that the Troll is good against Monks for the same reason that the Swordwraith is - it has good combat stats for melee. The Paladin is a harder nut to crack. The 3e Troll was the quintessential Closet Troll, where ending your turn next to one was "real bad" so a character like a Ranger or Hero who can kite it better than the Paladin can would have a real advantage.

Shadow Fiend

Strong Against: Berserker, Druid, Hero, Psion
Weak Against: Assassin, Enchanter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Warlock

The ever popular demon made out of darkness. These vary over the editions from being essentially incorporeal nightmares to being poison-clawed demons that happen to be black. The presented game balance target seems to argue more for the Bad Dream version - where it comes in doing soul flaying attacks that bypass the Berserker's toughness tricks. And possibly to the point where it's enough of a nightmare that Psionic contact is a bad idea. Being weak against the Assassin might agitate for it being not-amorphous, but personally I prefer the idea that it actually is immune to the Assassin's precise strikes, but that the Assassin's backup Shadow Magic can own it along another axis.

Dullahan

Strong Against: Assassin, Enchanter, Psion, Ranger
Weak Against: Berserker, Druid, Hero, Monk, Paladin, Warlock

The Dullahan is a Headless Horseman. I don't think that their relative resistance to precise strikes or psychic attacks is that weird. They are headless.

-Username17

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Sun Apr 01, 2018 5:06 pm

So these won't interact with the resource management schemes in some way?

If the Psion has a fixed number of ISP that count down in battle, then anything which just prolongs the fight will be strong against the Psion, while presumably it will be weak against the Berserker who has a rage bar?

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Sun Apr 01, 2018 6:00 pm

We can edit these later, but I suggest the following overview of a resource management scheme:

[*] Downtime. Nothing is usable 1/downtime because it discourages you from staying in the damn dungeon, but downtime is what enables you to reconfigure whatever slots you get for different abilities. That is, if you prepare a flame strike you can use it 1/battle, if you want to prepare call lightning instead you need to go back to the village.

[*] Extended reset. This should be used sparingly. An extended rest might take a few hours, so basically in order to get any Extended reset abilities back, you have to barricade yourself in a safe place to rest.

[*] Normal reset. Unless otherwise specified, you get your abilities back with a "short" reset, which happens whenever the combat music stops long enough for you to loot the bodies.

Then, on top of that:
Assassins have the "opportunity cost" resource scheme, giving them abilities that trigger when something else happens. So you can shoot people in the back when they're distracted, for example. Secondarily, they get a "downtime only" scheme that you can use as much as you want but you have to back to the village to swap bonuses out.

Berserkers have a rage meter than fills up as they fight, and faster when they or their allies suffer damage.

Druids have vancian casting, because they have limited favors from nature spirits.

Enchanters have downtime management only; effectively, this means you get various bonuses to the generic-thumbs actions. Some of these you can share with the rest of the party by handing someone a rune sword or whatever. Do they get "opportunity cost" actions as well?

Heroes also have downtime management only. Heroes are thus fundamentally similar to enchanters, in that their resource counter doesn't change in combat. Do they get "opportunity cost" actions as well?

Monks have opportunity cost actions primarily, and secondarily some bonuses that just hang around but can be swapped out more dynamically as a special monk thing. Should monks get an option on having ISP as well? I think it's okay if magical martial artists are "complicated to manage" as a class feature.

Paladins have downtime management for their stabbing, and vancian casting for their prayers, on basically the same assumption as the Druid that you have limited favors from your patron spirits.

Psions have ISP that comes back between fights.

Rangers clearly have some downtime management for their stabbing. I think it's better if they use a different resource management scheme than the Druid, though.

Warlocks get the same meter mechanic as Barbarians, but it grows when you inflict damage on the enemy instead.

A resource mechanic that we might have instead or in addition:
[*] cooldown on individual abilities?
[*] a winds of fate deck-style approach?

Both of those are cool and could easily be used in addition / instead. Maybe for the enchanter?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Apr 01, 2018 6:10 pm

DrPraetor wrote:So these won't interact with the resource management schemes in some way?

If the Psion has a fixed number of ISP that count down in battle, then anything which just prolongs the fight will be strong against the Psion, while presumably it will be weak against the Berserker who has a rage bar?

Possibly? I mean, the reason I had in my head for the Paladin matching up poorly against the Troll is that self-healing and playing the longer-fight game is rather playing to the Troll's strengths.
But in general, the exact way that resource schemes work out is a bit up in the air, and hard to predict what effect they will have on individual matchups.

Also of course there are going to be a few more classes, especially more flavors of Wizard. Like, obviously you want Bard, Necromancer, and Illusionist. I just made examples with 10 classes because things divide evenly like that. And let's be honest, the Bard's whole shtick is that he underperforms in one-on-one comparison because much of what he brings to the table is buffs to the other party members.

Other reasonable class concepts include Scout, Shaman, Summoner, Marshal, Rogue, and so on and so forth. And that's before getting into "regional" classes like Ninja or Knight; or "modified" classes like Warden (Ranger) or Artificer (Enchanter).

-Username17

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Sun Apr 01, 2018 6:56 pm

My suggestion is - set up a monster manual that you can balance against 10 base classes before you worry about any of that - but you do need some idea of how the resource management is going to work for those 10 classes before you switch back to writing up actual stat blocks for the monsters.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 2:52 pm

Anyone who has significant in-combat healing needs a daily limit of some kind. Because having people start combat music with doors and chests and shit so they can fire off per-encounter healing pulses is too stupid for words, and having endless healing stalemates is completely unacceptable. The in-combat healing has to be finite in this battle and you can't get it back just by declaring yourself to be in a new battle because that's retarded.

Now personally, I am not actually super invested in daily spell points (3e Psion) versus daily prepared spells (3e Wizard) versus daily spell charges (3e Sorcerer). The world is probably big enough for all of those things, and because some people are aesthetically invested in one of those, the different healing classes should probably have different ones. There can even be separate counters, like I don't mind if the Necromancer gets unlimited soul drains, but only X hit points can be recovered per day.

But it does mean that healing characters are all going to be at something of a disadvantage against enemies able to play a longer game. So that could be all that's needed to explain why Druids and Paladins are on the outs with Troll encounters. The Troll has unlimited healing and they don't, so the grind isn't particularly good for them.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:05 pm

If endless healing stalemates are completely unacceptable (for obvious reasons), how does this gel with "You could basically have a troll on either side of the battle here, players can just take a troll at level X and add a simple class (or whatever) to it"?

Are we assuming there isn't actually anything that constantly regains hit points? (That's not something trolls specifically have to do, but you've implied they do that, and there's probably something that does have to do that as far as all descriptions go.)

Or are we assuming that there are, and yes those could even be players, but nobody gives a shit about Fast Healing 1 or whatever during the fight because they're hitting you for 27 and it's just that casting actual healing spells that heal a bunch of HP is limited?

And really, with either one of the above there, what does that mean for trolls "playing the healing/stalling game" (with which they beat the Paladin)? I'm not sure you can make a triangle where "Anyone can have Blissey", "Blissey uses Softboiled!" and "Fuck off you are not playing for a time limit" are all ticked.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 8:43 pm

Koumei wrote:If endless healing stalemates are completely unacceptable (for obvious reasons), how does this gel with "You could basically have a troll on either side of the battle here, players can just take a troll at level X and add a simple class (or whatever) to it"?

Are we assuming there isn't actually anything that constantly regains hit points? (That's not something trolls specifically have to do, but you've implied they do that, and there's probably something that does have to do that as far as all descriptions go.)

Or are we assuming that there are, and yes those could even be players, but nobody gives a shit about Fast Healing 1 or whatever during the fight because they're hitting you for 27 and it's just that casting actual healing spells that heal a bunch of HP is limited?

And really, with either one of the above there, what does that mean for trolls "playing the healing/stalling game" (with which they beat the Paladin)? I'm not sure you can make a triangle where "Anyone can have Blissey", "Blissey uses Softboiled!" and "Fuck off you are not playing for a time limit" are all ticked.

This is a difficult question. Classically puzzle monsters are unacceptable as PCs because monsters are simple and much of the opposition has no answers to many puzzle monsters. On the flip side, low end Giants are one of the simplest design options. If your system lets people play any kind of monster, it would be weird as fuck for Ogre and Hillgiant to not be on the list.

Trolls are a weird edge case. Yes, they are a low end Giant. But also yes, they are a puzzle monster of the classic sort. Probably Trolls are just off limits for PCs even though they check all the other boxes for playability: thumbs, language, able to climb stairs and squeeze through doorways, able to use items made for humanoids, within the level range games often start at, and so on. Being basically unkillable outside one weird trick is probably just a bridge too far.

-Username17