Posts
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Merging Shield Skills in GURPS
This is kind of an addendum to my earlier post on Merging Weapon Skills in GURPS, which occurred to me after reading this other post in After the Ogre. I realized I hadn’t mentioned Shield skills, but I had been merging them for so long I had forgotten that wasn’t the standard.
In my GURPS games, there is only one shield skill:
Shield (DX/E)
This skill merges Shield, Shield (Buckler) and Force Shield. There is still a mechanical difference between a shield that’s held in the hand and one that’s strapped to the arm, but both of them use the same skill and there is no familiarity penalty from switching between them.
If you’re using the optional rules for Familiarity Penalties in the previous post, such a penalty would definitely apply when someone used to traditional shields wields a weightless force shield, and vice-versa. As a reminder, that’s a -2 penalty to Shield that goes away after a few hours of practice during downtime, at no point cost.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Hag
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
As I mentioned way back in the MM/MV post about Hags, they’re a species of fey that resemble fairytale witches in appearance and behavior. They tend to have great knowledge of magic, but also tend use it to further selfish and greedy schemes.
Their basic lore remains the same in the MM3, which also adds that hags are keepers of secrets. They’re always after new treasure and new secrets, generally of the type that increases their power. They use divination magic, pacts with mortals, and a network of portals that weaves through the Feywild and the middle world, which they also use to keep connected to each other.
Hags are of course loathe to part with any of their secrets for free. Adventurers seeking information from a hag must usually agree to do them a favor, which commonly means doing something nasty to one of the hag’s many enemies. These enemies might include archfey, demons, devils, other hags…
Hags are Medium Fey Humanoids and have Low-Light Vision. Everything else varies with stat blocks, which are usually split along the lines of which type of magic a hag uses in combat. I don’t think they’re supposed to be different sub-species or anything of the sort.
Pact Hag
This is your typical “sinister village witch”, living in a hut out of sight of the village itself. This location is far enough away to deter curious casuals, but still close enough that someone who really wants to make a deal with the hag can easily reach it.
A pact hag is much more willing to negotiate with these visitors than most of her relatives, though she’s still just as prone to seeking deals that benefit her more than they do the petitioner. She usually keep ogres, trolls, and dangerous fey fauna as bodyguards. They’re initially out of sight, but can arrive quickly if a fight breaks out.
Pact hags are Level 11 Controllers with the Leader tag and 115 HP. In a fight, they use all sorts of fun mind control magic, starting with a Pact of Obedience aura (5) that allows allies inside to spend 5 HP to reroll a missed attack roll with a +2 bonus to the reroll.
Her basic melee attack is a Compelling Staff that deals light damage but forces the target to make a melee basic attack against a target of the hag’s choice.
Her basic ranged attack is named Pact of Compelled Obedience and does no damage at all, but it dominates the target for a turn instead. Fun (TM) for the whole party.
Her special attacks follow along the same lines. Pact of Choked Aggression also doesn’t do immediate damage and inflicts a nasty curse on the target: they take 10 psychic damage the first time they hit a creature during one of their turns. This lasts until the end of the encounter, or until one of the target’s allies attacks the target. And it recharges when no enemy is affected by the curse!
The other special attack is Pact of Shared Agony, which the hag can only use while bloodied. It’s another curse: until the end of the encounter, if the target is within 10 squares of the hag, they take 10 psychic damage whenever the hag takes any amount of damage. This power recharges whenever the hag misses with it, so she can keep using it until she hits.
This big emphasis on indirect damage means pact hags work best when surrounded by those beefy bodyguards, and will probably try to flee the fight once they become bloodied. Pact of Shared Agony is good for discouraging pursuit by melee strikers. Their “Pact” theme makes them a good patron for a heroic-tier fey warlock! This patron hag might either level up as the PC does, or you can have a story where the PC “trades up” to a better teacher Sith-style once the hag’s demands become untenable.
Dream Hag
These hags, as you might imagine, focus on dream magic. They can send dream visions to people, a power they use to lure their (or their paying customer’s) enemies to traps. However, the constraints of dream magic mean the hag doesn’t have full control over the content of the visions, so genuinely useful information tends to slip through.
Dream Hags are Level 19 Controllers with 179 HP. They project a Nightmare Weaver aura (3) that causes unconscious enemies inside to become dominated for a turn. They stand up and perform one action of the hag’s choice while still remaining unconscious. The wording here makes it clear that this puppetry continues while the enemies remain inside the aura.
Their basic attack is a Staff of Mindless Reverie, which damages and dazes for a turn on a hit. Their at-will ranged attack are weaponized Nightmare Visions that deal psychic damage and slide the target 5 squares.
And then we have the powers that make people unconscious so the hag can exploit her aura. Both affect a Close Blast 5! Dust of Dreams (recharge 5+) dazes on a hit (save ends), and this worsens to unconsciousness after the first failed save. Sleep’s Undeniable Grasp (Encounter) makes its targets unconscious right away. It’s a (save ends) effect and it also ends if the target is attacked.
Yes, it’s possible for the hag to put the whole party to sleep at once if she’s really lucky. This shouldn’t be an automatic total party kill if you run the abilities as written, though - sleeping PCs can still roll saves to end the effect, and in the case of the encounter power they also wake up if attacked. Of course, this attack will probably be an auto-crit if it comes from an enemy, so it’s still a problem.
I also think it’s acceptable to fudge things a little if Team Monster’s goal is something other than killing the PCs. If the goal is capturing them, or taking them somewhere else, then you can fade to black if the whole party falls asleep and have them wake up at that place.
Mist Hag
These are among the most powerful of hags. They’ve been accumulating secrets, artifacts and power for ages, and they dwell in the deepest forests of the Feywild. Their dwellings are surrounded by a thick mist that they have full control over. If the Death Hag from the MM1 was a “Baba Yaga wannabe”, this one is closest to the real deal. She’s pretty much an arch-fey herself. The Mist Hag does not deal with devils - devils deal with her. A few of them probably have been pressed into service as her bodyguards. Other possible allies include epic undead, fomorians, and so on.
A Mist Hag is a Level 27 Controller with the Leader tag and 247 HP. She has a zippy ground speed of 8, instead of the standard 6 for a medium humanoid. Her aura is a Mist Shroud that makes allies within 1 square insubstantial.
The hag’s Mist Staff damages and pushes targets 5 squares. During the push, targets act as if they had the Phasing trait, which means the hag can push them through walls and other creatures. The final destination square must still be empty, but the hag doesn’t need to have a line of effect to it or the other squares of the push. If you want to get cute with this ability, include a piece of hazardous terrain surrounded by walls in your battle map.
Her basic attack is Mist on the Wind, which damages and removes the target from play for a turn! The target returns to play in a square of the hag’s choice within 4 squares of its original position.
Finally, Choking Mist (recharge 5+) is a ranged attack serves as a reminder that the PCs are breathing the same mist the hag can control. It deals heavy physical damage and ongoing 20 damage (save ends). Every time the target fails a save, the hag can slide them 3 squares.
When an enemy gets to within 2 squares of the hag, the hag can use Maze of Mist to mess with them. This is a triggered effect that doesn’t require an action, so it can happen every time the trigger happens. When it does, the hag can roll a d20. On a 10 or higher, she slides the triggering enemy 1 square. This makes closing to melee reach a lot harder than usual.
Final Impressions
As I said back in the original article, I like hags when they are portrayed as their own species of fey being that don’t necessarily need to obey natural laws. They’re fairytale witches, with a penchant for doing the things fairytale witches do.
That said, I think treating each hag stat block as an entirely different species is going a bit too far. I prefer to treat those as differences of skill and training.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Gremlin
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
Just look at this pointy boy. They’re not even trying to hide the inspiration for him.
Anyway, D&D has had monsters named “gremlin” since almost its beginning, but the lore for them its new to this edition.
The Lore
A long time ago, the fomorians under King Thrumbolg took a large group of goblin captives, transformed them into bioweapons, and released them into the cities of their eladrin enemies. The new creatures had a great aptitude for deception and sabotage, and an engineered predilection for it. These were the first gremlins.
They did their job wonderfully, disrupting the alliance of eladrin city states arrayed against Thrumbolg by altering the correspondence between them, murdering key officials, and other such deeds. However, they also ended up doing the same sort of thing to Thumbolg’s own court, causing great damage to it. Gremlins gotta gremlin.
The little rascals were cast out, and over the ages spread through the Feywild and the middle world. Though they sometimes live openly in the communities of other sapients, many gremlins follow their engineered calling and hide out among their chosen victims, taming vermin to do their bidding and engaging in the same ghastly shenanigans their ancestors did back in the day, basically for the lulz. The worst among them find natural allies in demons, who have the same appetite for chaos.
Examples of things gremlins do, taken from the stat block descriptions: stealing documents and heirlooms from a royal court and stashing them to be found in the quarters of visiting nobles; intercepting and altering important correspondence so that a call for peace becomes a declaration of war; and plain old serial murder.
The Numbers
Gremlins are Small Fey Humanoids with low-light vision and a speed of 6. They have two signature abilities present in almost all stat blocks. The first is Sabotaging Presence, an large aura (size 5) that gives enemies inside a -5 penalty to skill checks. The second is Gremlin Tactics, a reaction that allows them to swap spaces with an enemy that misses them with a melee attack.
Skill-wise, training in Stealth and Thievery is nearly universal, and they occasionally know other “thiefy” skills like Bluff as well.
Gremlin Deceiver
Deceivers are Level 5 Controllers with 63 HP, which makes them the earliest gremlin the PCs are likely to find. Like other gremlins, their presence is going to be hidden at first, and they only fight when found out.
Deceivers fight with their claws, but their magic is a lot more interesting. They can cast a fireball-sized Befuddling Burst that targets Will and, on a hit, deals psychic damage and prevents targets from shifting or standing up (save ends). The burst itself doesn’t knock them prone - that’s what the Slip Up minor-action attack does. This is a ranged attack that targets Will and does no damage.
For added lulz, pair them with other monsters that can knock people prone, such as other gremlins, or wolves reskinned as dire rats.
Gremlin Skulker
Skulkers are Level 7 Lurkers with 64 HP, and they’re surprisingly sticky. Aside from the standard gremlin traits, they have a Shadow Sneak passive that makes them invisible while adjacent to an enemy, and Opportunistic Advantage that gives them extra damage in opportunity attacks.
Their claw attacks do okay damage and “curse” the target: if the target moves away from the gremlin, they fall prone at the end of their movement. And when an enemy adjacent to the skulker moves, the Shadow Skulk encounter power allows them to shift up to 6 squares simultaneously, following the enemy as it moves so it stays adjacent.
You want this one right in the middle of the PCs, preferrably starting the fight already there with some of those strong opportunity attcks after sneaking in undetected.
Gremlin Conniver
Connivers are Level 17 Controllers with 162 HP. That’s quite a jump in power! They’re probably similar to the OG gremlins that destroyed the eladrin alliance.
Their basic claw attack also teleports the target 5 squares on a hit. Their Connive spell is a non-damaging, at-will ranged attack that dominates on a hit (save ends!). Fortunately only one creature can be dominated at a time.
As a minor action it can also create a Beguiling Fog (recharge 6+), a fireball-sized area attack against Will that does no damage. It always dazes the enemy - a hit means it’s a (save ends) effect, a miss means it only lasts a turn.
While connivers have little direct damage potential, they can dole out some of the game’s most annoying status effects at-will. The teleport effect on their basic claw attack is also particularly wonderful in battlefields with dangerous terrain or other hazards.
Gremlin Prankster
Pranksters are Level 17 Minion Controllers, perfect for when you want to re-enact a certain 80s movie. They’re not particularly hardy, but they like to run around in huge crowds and try to cause as much chaos as possible before vanishing. They have a basic claw attack and a Slip Up ranged attack that’s similar to the Deceiver’s, but also slides the target 3 squares before knocking them prone.
Final Impressions
The teme for the Gremlins 2 movie was playing through my head the entire time I was writing this. I love these critters.
They’re also very interesting mechanically and can end up making your PCs pull their own hair out in frustration. That can lead to memorable sessions if you do it properly, but can also be frustrating for the players, so consider the examples below cautiously.
If you really want the PCs to have a bad time, make sure your gremlin encounter takes place in a site full of traps and other hazards that require skill checks to disable. Or even have the PCs deal with a gremlin battle and a skill challenge at the same time. The skill penalty from Sabotaging Presence is untyped, meaning it technically stacks, but if you’re feeling merciful you can say it caps out at the -5 a single gremlin would provide.
That skill penalty also aids grappling-centered monsters! The roll to escape a grapple is a skill check, after all.
Since a lot of gremlins can knock PCs prone, they also go really well with monsters that can do ugly things to prone PCs. Especially evil GMs might want to keep in mind that 2 Gremlin Deceivers and 2 Needlefang Drake Swarms make up a valid Level 3 encounter.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Gnoll
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
Oh boy, more gnolls. They’ve been in every Monster Manual for this edition. I skipped the MM2 entry because it turned out to fully overlap the Monster Vault, but the one in this book is specifically meant to complement the MV instead of overlapping with it. We don’t get much in the way of new lore, but we get a few new stat blocks.
The Monsters
As usual, gnolls are Medium Natural Humanoids. They have low-light vision and their ground speed is 7. Their signature ability remains Pack Attack, giving them a +5 damage bonus on melee and ranged attacks against an enemy that has two or more gnoll allies adjacent to it.
Gnoll Skulker
Our first gnoll, however, is a bit of an exception. These runty buggers are too cowardly to employ the usual brutish gnoll tactics, so they usually keep to the edges of the fight and wait for opportunities to strike isolated enemies from surprise. They’re good at this, but it’s not a fighting style that’s valued in “mainstream” demon-worshipping gnoll society.
Skulkers are Level 5 Lurkers with 51 HP. Their Peerless Camouflage allows them to make Stealth checks to hide even when they only have partial cover or concealment, and to stay hidden for an additional turn after leaving cover. They lack Pack Attack but have Something to Prove, gaining a +5 damage bonus against enemies that have no allies adjacent to them.
They fight with a dagger and a shortbow, and have a Hit and Run maneuver that allows them to shift 2 squares after hitting with the bow if they attack from hiding.
A band of gnolls with some skulkers in it is a lot harder to fight. If you spread out a bit to make it harder for the standard gnolls to use Pack Attack, the skulkers get you with Something to Prove, and vice-versa.
Gnoll War Fang
War Fangs are heavily armored commander-types that also make use of demonic powers. They’re anti-paladins of Yeenoghu, basically. War Fangs are Level 6 Soldiers with 72 HP and the Leader tag.
Their War Fang Defense aura (1) grants allies a +2 bonus to AC, and they fight with a Longsword that deals extra damage when they’re bloodied (this stacks with Pack Attack).
Once per round as a minor action, they can issue a Demonic Challenge that works a lot like the paladin version - it marks an enemy within 3 squares, and whenever the marked enemy makes an attack that doesn’t target the war fang they suffer 10 fire damage.
If any enemy misses the war fang with a melee attack, the No Mercy ability allows an ally adjacent to that enemy to make a melee basic attack against them.
War Fangs work very well when positioned in the second row of the enemy front line, because they’ll improve the front-liners’ defenses and mark the PCs from a place where they can’t be easily attacked. They also do very well on the front line when surrounded by their allies.
Chosen of Yeenoghu
This is a gnoll necromancer, a Level 7 Elite Controller with 156 HP. It fights with a staff in melee and fires bolts of ruination that deal necrotic damage at range, but its main schtick is filling the battlefield with ghostly hyenas.
The Chosen can summon a single Hyena Spirit as a minor action, or four of them at once with the Call Beyond the Grave encounter power. Spirit Strike is a 1/round minor action that allows a spirit to make a free basic attack with a +2 bonus. Finally, To the Front is a power that teleports every adjacent ally 10 squares.
This is a monster, not a PC, so it doesn’t use PC summoning rules. Hyena Spirits are Level 7 Minion Soldiers and each one has their own full set of actions in the initiative order. They have a Spectral Jaws aura (1) that slows enemies caught inside, and a standard basic bite attack. When one of them dies, the Chosen takes 5 damage. Depending on how the Chosen is positioned, killing the hyenas might be the only way the PCs can damage it.
The spirits are worth 0 XP if they’re summoned by a Chosen, but you can include them in a fight by themselves and have them work as normal minions.
Final Impressions
I continue to mourn the fact that they never expanded playable non-evil gnolls beyond that single Dragon article, while remarking that the mechanics for these gnolls are pretty interesting.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Girallon
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
Remember how, way back in the “Ape” entry, I commented that I wasn’t fond of the “pulp fiction carnivorous gorilla” cliches some of them were leaning on? Then you might imagine how I feel about this particular monster. I first saw them in the 3e Monster Manual, but they might have appeared in a supplement for an earlier edition.
A girallon is what happens when you take every single one of those cliches, lump them together, and double the result. It’s an evil carnivorous gorilla that has twice the size, twice the appetite for human flesh, and twice the number of arms as the standard version of the trope. To complete the cliche bingo card, girallons have white fur and are frequently worshipped as gods by “savage jungle-dwelling tribes”. So yeah, not a great look so far.
Girallons are voracious carnivores and messy eaters that have the habit of leaving viscera and entrails lying around their territories. They can climb and move through the treetops with practiced ease, but their large size means they need to sleep on the ground. Their lairs are usually in caves or ruins. Though not sapient, some of them learn to make trails in their territory’s vegetation that lead to prime ambush spots, which can act as an effective lure for sapient prey.
Girallons are usually the most badass predators in their region. They’re either solitary or organized in small bands, and do not willingly seek out allies of other species. Still, they’re sometimes “tamed” by giants, trolls, fomorians and other such sapients. Prospective girallon keepers must be either big and strong enough to physically beat the creatures into submission, or have the knowledge of magic necessary to keep them dominated.
The Monsters
Girallon
The basic model and the template used for the others. This is a Large Natural Beast and a Level 12 Brute with 145 HP. It has a ground speed of 8 and a climb speed of 6. Its four arms act as a Threatening Claws aura (1) that makes all enemies inside grant combat advantage, and a Combat Climber trait that make it not provoke opportunity attacks when climbing.
The basic claw attack is Reach 2 and does the heavy damage expected of a brute, and the Claw Flurry special (recharge 5+) allows it to make four half-damage claw attacks.
Girallon Alpha
This specimen is much bigger and stronger than a typical girallon. It has all the same traits as the basic model but is level 17 with 195 HP. It has two new abilities as well.
The first is a positioning thing: Whirling Claws is a free action triggered when an enemy starts its turn within 2 squares of the alpha. The alpha slides that enemy 1 square, which is perfect for breaking flanking maneuvers.
The other is a special attack: Rend and Tear targets enemies in a Close Blast 3, does heavy damage, and slides the targets 3 squares on a hit.
Infernal Girallon
A long time ago some devils decided infusing packs of girallons with the power of Hell for use as bioweapons in the Blood War would be a swell idea. Now there are packs of Infernal Girallons roaming and hunting through both the Elemental Chaos and the Nine Hells.
These have all the same traits as a basic girallon but are Immortal instead of Natural. They have the Devil keyword and Darkvision. They’re Level 22 Brutes with 249 HP and all the same abilities as a basic girallon.
Their first new power is a trait named Burning Soul. This aura (2) causes 10 fire damage to enemies caught inside, or 20 if the girallon is bloodied. Better give your defenders some protection from fire.
Their other new power is an attack named Burning Ichor, a Close Blast 3 that does immediate and ongoing fire damage (save ends).
So yeah, an even bigger girallon that is on fire.
Final Impressions
You already know my opinion of their lore. I’m tempted to reskin these things into demons or some other type of monster. I guess the exception is the lore for Infernal Girallons. “Devils tried to do science, it did not go as planned” is a good hook.
Mechanically, the Girallon is a basic paragon-tier brute, serviceable but not spectacular. The enhanced versions add more interesting special attacks, so depending on your needs you might want to down-level an alpha instead of using the basic version.
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