Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 OneWeirdCat Sep 21, 2010 17:05:36	Hello all.  As some of you may know, I am working on reworking the 2E Dungeon Adventure "Raiders of the Chanth" for 4E.  Well, here is my attempt at the Chanth.  I have set the adventure at level 5 in the hopes that I will beat your parties to 5 and it was originally set for (3-5).  I can post more information if someone can show me how to do a spoiler hider which I have seen.  This is my first elite, the question is, should it be solo and a level lower?  I want it to have some minions and lackeys (as per the original as it led to very distinct flavor roleplaying the monster).  The problem is, this dang thing is a damage machine, so if it is made of hit points.... TPK?  Nobody wants TPK.  Soooooo, I come to you. I will post a link so that those of you who wish to avoid spoilers can not click, for all else, I apologize for the extraneous clicking.  Again, someone telling me how to spoiler hide a monster would be very appreciated.  I know I have seen it on these boards some where....? images.community.wizards.com/community.w...
#2 Pennarin Sep 21, 2010 17:30:17	Mm, is that Microsoft Word you're using? It lacks the characteristic...presence of the Monster Builder /wink wink It can be better, I'll check on it in the next few days, and post back here if I get a bright idea. I won't bother you with stupid ones ;) Shouldn't it read Vulnerable 5, instead of Vulnerability? The monster has no basic attack. Dominate would make a poor basic attack, because its use would un-dominate the previous target. Overload: What is the recharge and the attack/effect?...they're missing. Supremacy: Lacking a trigger.
#3 OneWeirdCat Sep 21, 2010 21:01:34	Nope, still waiting on that set of tricks from you man.  Monster builder strikes again!   Didn't list the recharges or triggers that I had set.  Will get to work on a basic attack too, opps.
#4 alsoanima Sep 21, 2010 21:58:06	An At-Will Dominate at level 7. No. Don't do it.
#5 Pennarin Sep 21, 2010 22:51:47	First, do you have MS Word 2007? That's the one I know. I've cracked most of what I needed out of it in the past months, hence I can closely reproduce MM3. Plus I have a look-alike Font and all the various D&D symbols. I can shoot you a MM3 template, with color schemes built in, and send you an attachment with the Font.  Second, emails are a killing. Chat is better. Just invite me up in MSN or Gmail Talk and we'll chat. We may discover we don't like each other, which is fine. Otherwise this can be fun.
#6 Duke5150 Sep 21, 2010 23:04:57	My feedback. Speed 0: If this monster is knocked prone and a pc moves into the space to occupy it (stand over the monster) the monster will be locked in the space as it won't be able to stand up or crawl away. I'd give it a crawl speed of 2, at least. Vulnerability should read Vulnerable. Double Actions: Clean up language a bit. " The Chanth rolls initiative twice and takes a turn on each count." Multiple Brains : Clean up language a bit. "At the end of each of its turns" (worded the other way could lead to the belief that both initiative counts need to be taken before this action triggers) Loyal Slaves: Drop the bonus to +1 and clean up language. " Allies within the aura gain a +1 bonus to all attack rolls." Still a bit over powered. I'd go with either melee and ranged attacks or close and area attacks. Dominate:Change (save ends) to (until the end of the Chanth's next turn) * I'd also not go with a basic attack that dominates which would make OA very annoying. You can make monsters without OAs if you want. Mind Stab: Drop the Penalty from -2 to -1, clean up language a bit. " And the target takes a -1 penalty to Will defense." Overload: Recharge 6 as it is very powerful with the ability to drain surges. This is an ability that is almost to powerful as a recharge, a recharge of 6 will help balance this out. Telekinetic Discharge: Change (force) to (psychic). Clean up miss effect to "half damage". No need to add the part about not being dazed. Telekinetic Throw: Drop this completely as you already have a recharge and encounter for a heroic tier monster. Telekinetic thrust and compelling lureboth have really powerful push/pull distances. I'd drop them both by 2 squares. Telekinetic thrust (force) should be changed to (psychic). Supremacyis broken. As an at-will interrupt, it goes off every turn, and it recharges three powers. It's damage is good enough at level 7 to TPK an entire party depending on what allies the Chanth has. IMO this power needs to be completely reworked or dropped. The trigger would be very important to know. Skills: Why does it need diplomacy? Beyond that, nice monster. Also the force/psychic keyword is a matter of opinion, so feel free to ignore that if you want.
#7 Pennarin Sep 22, 2010 10:41:53	Nice analysis Duke! I'll create my own Chanth, based on 2e and 3e's versions, and present it here, this should help OneWeirdCat with his own.
#8 terminus_vortexa Sep 22, 2010 11:33:25	Duke5150 and Pennarin are some of the most experienced DS dm/players out there. I'm sure they will help put some polish on your Chanth, OneWeirdCat!
#9 Pennarin Sep 22, 2010 11:34:32	I am? I mean...I am, yes. @OneWeirdCat: I'm usually available on MSN and Gtalk on weekdays from 7PM-12PM, and most of the weekend besides Friday nights. This week I'm off on Friday all day, plus all weekend.
#10 OneWeirdCat Sep 22, 2010 14:51:40	Yikes, wow, I guess I didn't look too hard at what I was doing..... monster builder really screwed the pooch with some of it, it dropped all the triggers, recharges etc.  I decided to make it a level 5 or 6 Solo (adventure is based 5x5), and will take your comments to heart. Duke5150: the bitch of it is, I copied language exactly from Brain in a Jar (Open Grave) and Ettin Maruader (MMI) for some of the Chanth's abilities.  Yeah, I should clean that up a lot.  The trigger is Chanth is bloodied for the supremacy power. pennarin: Please if you want to do a Chanth, I will use it for my remake, but let me try to fix mine first.  Also, I will be away all weekend.  Are you on facebook? i chat there, but i have never chatted on there on gmail or msn messanger.  LOL I don't think that we would find that we don't like each other, unless I have already given you reason to dislike me, which I am sure I could.  I'm afraid that advice to removing my addresses was good, PM me, I know, slow. in fact i will just pre-empt n message you. What I need, and am NOT buying again, is the old 2E Monstrous compendium for Darksun, to do the Lirre, Sand Howler, T'Chowb, etc.  i miss those beasties, but don't need them for this. Thanks for the feedback so far!
#11 Pennarin Sep 22, 2010 16:10:14	We can deal with your needs in private. I'll chat you up on gmail then. I actually use a program that merges all of my chat needs, it's called Digsby. It opens on start up, automatically logs me on MSN and Gtalk and Facebook Chat, so one program for many things, easier. Plus it's pretty ;)
#12 Duke5150 Sep 22, 2010 17:49:45	Duke5150: the bitch of it is, I copied language exactly from Brain in a Jar (Open Grave) and Ettin Maruader (MMI) for some of the Chanth's abilities.  Yeah, I should clean that up a lot.  The trigger is Chanth is bloodied for the supremacy power. A lot of my balancing suggestions are due to the monster having so many attacks, so changing save ends to end of next turn helps. (since save ends can really screw a pc) The keyword change is pure opinion, but mechanically it's the same. Resist force works as well as resist psychic, so either is fine. I tend to use force more for magical attacks and psychic more for psionic type attacks. Chanth had a very psionic feel to me. The language in some of the official products can be a bit confusing, at least for me, so I try to find a way to be very clear. It's also a safe method to change the wording or name of official powers when using them material you plan to upload online. This could help avoid copy write issues. (although I don't know if powers are covered under the free use laws) When it comes to -2 penalty to Will, Reflex or Fortitude defenses, I tend to go with a -1 penalty instead when the monster has a lot of powers. If your  monster only have  1 encounter/recharge power and an opportunity action, I'd say a -2 penalty would be fine. But as a heroic tier monster, it's very strong already. This also applies to forced movement. If a monster only has a few powers, powerful forced movement is fine. But a monster like this is simply too powerful, so dropping the movement helps balance this out. When a power recharges a power like supremacy does, it should only ever recharge a single power and if that power is an encounter power, the power that recharges it (supremacy) should be an encounter power as well. Or a recharge 6 power with the requirement that the monster needs to be bloodied in order to use supremacy. This helps keep it fair. Otherwise, attacking the monster is suicide. For an at-will, it needs a 1/turn or 1/round limitation. I'd say 1/round. The bloodied requirement means that the monster gets more dangerous as it gets closer to death and also makes the battle a bit more balanced. A bloodied creature can deal massive damage or heavy condition affliction because it won't live that long. (usually) So it makes the end of the fight more interesting without turning the entire fight into a headache. And don't get discouraged. Making monsters goes in steps and it's common to have multiple versions of the same monster, with corrections and changes coming over time. My sloth has already gone through its third change as it is and my flailer might get changed in the future.
#13 Duke5150 Sep 22, 2010 17:57:47	Duke5150 and Pennarin are some of the most experienced DS dm/players out there. I'm sure they will help put some polish on your Chanth, OneWeirdCat! Thanks dude. I'd build my own Chanth, but I'm in the middle of finishing Xaynon of salt view (the real xaynon, not the halfelf pretender :p) and the caller in the dark along with the graydeath disease to share with another forum member. I'v also got my codex neraka project for the dragonlance nexus which is a pdf book of 33 dragonlance monsters for 4th edition. Not to mention the adventures I'm working on. So I'v got a full plate at the moment and simply can't add anything else to the mix.
#14 Grummore Sep 22, 2010 22:24:33	pennarin: Please if you want to do a Chanth, I will use it for my remake, but let me try to fix mine first.  Also, I will be away all weekend.  Are you on facebook?  jeffprall@hotmail.com, for gmail jeffs.prall@gmail.com, but i have never chatted on there on gmail or msn messanger.  LOL I don't think that we would find that we don't like each other, unless I have already given you reason to dislike me, which I am sure I could. If you dont want to get spammed with junkmail, I would suggest you to remove the @ for something else in both these addresses.
#15 Pennarin Sep 22, 2010 23:31:39	There's still bots that scour forums for email addresses these days? Yeah, you could replace @ with [at], or add SPAM somewhere in the address.
#16 OneWeirdCat Sep 23, 2010 6:47:26	Duke5150: the bitch of it is, I copied language exactly from Brain in a Jar (Open Grave) and Ettin Maruader (MMI) for some of the Chanth's abilities.  Yeah, I should clean that up a lot.  The trigger is Chanth is bloodied for the supremacy power. A lot of my balancing suggestions are due to the monster having so many attacks, so changing save ends to end of next turn helps. (since save ends can really screw a pc) The keyword change is pure opinion, but mechanically it's the same. Resist force works as well as resist psychic, so either is fine. I tend to use force more for magical attacks and psychic more for psionic type attacks. Chanth had a very psionic feel to me. The language in some of the official products can be a bit confusing, at least for me, so I try to find a way to be very clear. It's also a safe method to change the wording or name of official powers when using them material you plan to upload online. This could help avoid copy write issues. (although I don't know if powers are covered under the free use laws) When it comes to -2 penalty to Will, Reflex or Fortitude defenses, I tend to go with a -1 penalty instead when the monster has a lot of powers. If your  monster only have  1 encounter/recharge power and an opportunity action, I'd say a -2 penalty would be fine. But as a heroic tier monster, it's very strong already. This also applies to forced movement. If a monster only has a few powers, powerful forced movement is fine. But a monster like this is simply too powerful, so dropping the movement helps balance this out. When a power recharges a power like supremacy does, it should only ever recharge a single power and if that power is an encounter power, the power that recharges it (supremacy) should be an encounter power as well. Or a recharge 6 power with the requirement that the monster needs to be bloodied in order to use supremacy. This helps keep it fair. Otherwise, attacking the monster is suicide. For an at-will, it needs a 1/turn or 1/round limitation. I'd say 1/round. The bloodied requirement means that the monster gets more dangerous as it gets closer to death and also makes the battle a bit more balanced. A bloodied creature can deal massive damage or heavy condition affliction because it won't live that long. (usually) So it makes the end of the fight more interesting without turning the entire fight into a headache. And don't get discouraged. Making monsters goes in steps and it's common to have multiple versions of the same monster, with corrections and changes coming over time. My sloth has already gone through its third change as it is and my flailer might get changed in the future. Thanks, that is all fantastic feedback.  I will get to work on it hopefully this afternoon after work.  I know, my Gith went thru several revisions due to help here on this forum.  Yeah, I've always had a hard time making 'unclassed" monster bosses.  Which is probably why we killed so many npcs over the years....  sigh, we shoulda been killing monsters to make the world a better place.
#17 flip Sep 23, 2010 17:06:19	If you dont want to get spammed with junkmail, I would suggest you to remove the @ for something else in both these addresses. Grumm, if you're going to advise someone to edit their messge to escape the @ in an email address ... don't include it in the quote, thereby pinning the address in the thread, and defeating the point of said advice.  :P