Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 ianex Jul 28, 2009 12:17:56	Before we begin, my game is in 4E D&D. If you would like additional information about the campaign, you can follow the link here. As my campaign currently stands, my players are about to invade a Kobold hideout, but quite a bit is there that they might not be expecting. The Kobolds are actually under the influence of Orcs (a race nearly extinct in my campaign) who have captured a Young White Dragon, as well as a peculiar Gnome Tinkerer. Now, the Orcs have forced the Gnome to begin modifying some of the Kobolds to become more resilient and strong so that they can be used as front line fighters when the Orcs re initiate an age old war. In my campaign, Warforged do not yet exist (and one of my player characters wishes to create them after being forcefully captured by the enemy [Weird, but I figure his idea, so I'll go with it]) but this Gnomes work would be the beginning of that. I am thinking he will replace various parts of the Kobolds, giving them Iron Jaws and Mechanical Arms, stuff like that. I intend to make these abilities rather powerful and threatening, with the balancing factor being that whenever the Kobolds critically fail with an attack using the appendage they die. Hopefully this shows the inferiority of the Gnomes initial designs, giving the Orcs reason to later replace the Gnome with my player's character. Perhaps it is best to actually ask my question then: Would making the Kobolds die on a crit fail be a balancing factor for using high damage expression from DMG Pg. 42 or should I scale it back a bit more for balance? It should be noted that I don't intend for there to be an influx of this sort of monster...yet...
#2 myt3m0w53 Jul 28, 2009 17:03:04	I would make them Minions... that way they are still a threat to the players, but due to the fact that they have had vital parts of their bodies replaced with mechanics(i am guessing it's a totally new concept), they can't take a hit, or like 90% of them are minions(the inferior works) while the elite 10% could be a standard monster. Are you also going to have a few "Tinkered" Orcs as well? powered up kobolds might usurp control from the orcs if they are not kept in check, maybe "recycled" parts make up the minion kobolds
#3 ianex Jul 28, 2009 17:28:16	Good idea, I will certainly minion-ize them, that would make them a lot more balanced, as well as showing the instability of the implants on their bodies. The Orc is having the Gnome test on the Kobolds, but ultimately they intend to have themselves modified when the enhancements become more stable. I don't know if the Kobolds, even with their implants, could threaten these Orcs, but it might be an interesting powerplay if the battle ends up being far TOO challenging for the players. So, keep the damage on the high end, but make them minions, this sounds like a solid idea to me! Like you said, I'll have a couple of the more "recent" modifications be more stable, and thus a regular monster.