Posts
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Merging GURPS Weapon Skills
Recently, Peter V. Dell’Orto made a post in his blog Dungeon Fantastic about merging GURPS weapon skills. I really, really like the idea, so I thought about writing about how I’d do it.
Mr. Dell’Orto’s post is specific to Dungeon Fantasy and to his own Felltower campaign. Mine is a bit more generic since I don’t have an active campaign going, and I tend to kind of mix up Dungeon Fantasy and default GURPS rules in my head. Consider it an addition to my House Style.
The reason for doing this is also pretty well-covered by this follow-up Dungeon Fantastic Post: having too many fine distinctions between spells and skills in a cinematic campaign can serve as a bit of a damper on the pacing and excitement of the campaign. My usual players tend to have a certain resistance to trying stuff that’s not on their character sheets, especially in a complex system like GURPS, so having broader traits would allow them to experiment a bit more.
The Skills
In campaigns where this post is in effect, I’m going to use the following list of weapon skills.
Axe/Mace (DX/Average)
Defaults: DX-5, Two-Handed Axe/Mace-3
This skill is a combination of the original Axe/Mace with Flail. When using a flail, the character suffers a -1 skill penalty.
In games that use Techniques, Flail is a new Hard technique that defaults to Skill-1 and has a maximum level equal to Skill. This means you can buy the -1 penalty off for 2 points.
Fencing (DX/Average)
Defaults: DX-5, One-Handed Sword-4
This new skill merges Rapier, Saber and Smallsword. It allows you to use not only these three “titular” weapons, but also any other weapon that would fall under those skills, such as the jian (Rapier) or the light stick (Smallsword).
All the normal rules for fencing weapons apply.
Force Sword (DX/Average)
Defaults: DX-5, Fencing-3, One-Handed Sword-3, Two-handed Sword-3.
Should I ever play a science fiction game with force swords, this gets merged with Force Saber. Whether you get fencing parries or not depends on the stat line of the weapon you’re using. The “Fencing parries for everyone!” option is also valid in a more explicitly Star Warsy game.
Knife (DX/Average)
Defaults: DX-5, Fencing-4
This merges the original Knife skill with Jitte/Sai and Main-Gauche. Any weapon that could be used with either of these can be used with the new skill. Weapons use their Main-Gauche profiles for this, meaning there’s no penalty for using the off hand and the user gets fencing parries.
In my experience, “knife expert” PCs always went for Main-Gauche anyway. People who dropped a point in Knife as a back-up skill almost never ended up using it, so they can just drop a point in this one instead.
The Jutte and the Sai get both a +2 for disarm attempts and fencing parries without any special stance switches required. They are rare enough in my games that I don’t believe it will be a problem. And by “rare” I mean no one has taken these weapons and no one has tried a disarm yet.
One-Handed Sword (DX/Average)
Defaults: DX-5, Fencing-4, Two-Handed Sword-4
This is the skill used for all one-handed swords, merging both Broadsword and Shortsword.
Blade length is an important consideration in real life, but it’s below the level of granularity I prefer. This also broadens the range of really cool magic swords your sword-wielding players can find and immediately use.
Pole Weapons (DX/Average)
Defaults: DX-5, Two-Handed Sword-5
This merges Polearm, Spear, and Staff. The Form Mastery perk is redundant for these weapons.
What about that sweet Staff parry bonus? If it’s in your weapon’s stat line under Staff, you get it. If it’s not, you don’t. The only exception to this are balanced two-handed spears, which I feel should have the bonus.
Two-Handed Axe/Mace (DX/Average)
Defaults: DX-5, Axe-Mace-3
Like Axe/Mace, but for two-handed weapons. The same rules apply for two-handed flails, including the existence of a Hard technique to buy the -1 penalty off.
Two-Handed Sword (DX/Average)
Defaults: DX-5, One-Handed Sword-4
This is pretty much the same skill as the original, with a suitably altered list of defaults.
What about all the other skills?
All of the more exotic weapon skills, like Whip, Kusari, and Tonfa, remain the same. I might change my mind in the future and come back to this, but I haven’t actually used any of them in my games, so it makes no difference for them to stay as-is.
Optional Rule: Weapon Familiarity
If you like how these skills are merged, but still feel a staff user shouldn’t be able to pick up a halberd and wield it just as proficiently right away, then you can use a version of the Familiarity rules from the GURPS core book.
PCs are considered familiar with any weapons they acquire during character creation. If they pick up a weapon that would be used with a different skill under the standard rules, they have a -2 penalty to use that weapon until they can spend a few hours practicing with it. This takes time but costs no money or points. In effect, it can only happen when the PCs have a significant amount of downtime (such as when returning to town from a dungeon in DF). After this, the PC is considered familiar with that weapon type.
I’m writing this up as an option, but it’s not one I’ll use myself.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Gargoyle
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
Gargoyles made their 4e debut in the first Monster Manual. I wrote about them here. Though that article includes a whole bunch of gargoyles, most of them are from the Monster Vault. When the MM3 was published, we still only had the two originals from the MM1.
This entry adds a lot more variety, and it doesn’t actually overlap with the later MV gargoyles, so we’re going to be looking at all of them.
The Lore
Gargoyle lore remains basically the same, and you can read it here. We get two new bits in this entry:
The first is that efreets love to train packs of gargoyles to hunt sapients for sport. The elemental lords are endlessly amused by their pets’ penchant for sadism when hunting. In the world, cultists of the Elder Elemental Eye frequently recruit and train gargoyles to guard their temples.
The second is that while gargoyles have a fearsome reputation in the world, they tend to be viewed as weak in their native Elemental Chaos. There, they are more often the prey than the hunter. Gargoyle packs skulk in caves and other secluded locations, and only attack when they greatly outnumber their target.
The Numbers
All gargoyles in this entry are Medium Elemental Humanoids with the Earth keyword. They have Darkvision, a ground speed of 6, and a flight speed of 8. They’re immune to petrification, and all but one of them have a passive trait called Lurking Presence, which gives them a +10 bonus to Stealth against enemies’ passive Perception.
It’s also interesting to note that none of the gargoyles in this entry have the Lurker role - with these and the ones from the MV, you can build varied all-gargoyle encounters.
Ironstone Gargoyle
Identified by the rust-red streaks covering their bodies, Ironstone Gargoyles behave like their “default” cousins, hanging out in mountain passes and ruins waiting to raid unsuspecting passers-by. They wait in ambush but fight in a more aggressive and mobile way than usual once combat starts.
Ironstone Gargoyles are Level 7 Skirmishers with 80 HP and the traits outlined above. They use claws to fight, and have a special attack named Crashing Stride (recharge 5+). This allows them to shift 4 squares and make claw attacks against two targets at any point along the shift. If they hit, they also slide the target 1 square and knock it prone.
When surrounded, a Leaping Glide (at-will move action) allows them to fly 4 squares without provoking opportunity attacks.
Hornstone Gargoyle
This robust specimen is distinguished by its large horns, which it uses to gore, impale and drag victims in combat. It’s a Level 8 Brute with 107 HP and all standard traits.
Those horns can be used in an Impaling Charge, an attack which must be used as part of a charge. It does heavy damage and grabs the target by impaling them in the gargoyle’s horns. The target takes 5 ongoing damage while the grab lasts. Escaping uses the standard rules (Athletics DC 22 or Acrobatics DC 19).
The gargoyle can use Skewering Drag as a move action to move half its speed and automatically pull the grabbed victim along with it. Neither provokes opportunity attacks from the other during this movement.
I left the basic Claw attack for last because it interacts with the above abilities: aside from doing the usual heavy damage of a Brute, it allows the monster to use Skewering Drag as a free action. Attacking the grabbed victim is a perfectly valid choice, mind you.
In combat they’ll do their best to impale and drag an enemy away. If the charge fails they prefer to fly away and try again rather than stand and fight with basic attacks.
Obsidian Gargoyle
Obsidian gargoyles are kinda brittle, but also covered in sharp edges. Massive flocks of these things darken the skies of the Elemental Chaos, and they’re the preferred variant of Elemental Eye cultists. They’re Level 8 Minion Soldiers.
Their claw attacks are nothing special, but they also have a Cruel Claws passive that deals 4 damage to an enemy who leaves a square adjacent to the gargoyle. That’s not a lot, but it triggers on a shift and stacks. Surround a PC with these beasts. Leave only one way out. Dare them to take it.
Runic Gargoyle
This is an artificial gargoyle variant, originally created to serve the Elder Elemental Eye. Their skin looks like white marble covered in arcane runes, and they are a lot smarter than your average gargoyle. Some of them have since broken out of their servitude and found jobs with different groups.
Runic Gargoyles are Level 8 Soldiers with 87 HP and all standard traits except for Lurking Presence, since they don’t really have natural camouflage. They were made to be bodyguards, and their runes can be configured to bind them to a designated “master”. I guess “client” might be a better word for free runic gargoyles.
Their claw attack marks the target for a turn. They can also use an Avenging Claws maneuver that dazes instead of marking. This recharges when they’re first bloodied.
As a move action, they can teleport To the Master, appearing in a space within 2 squares of the client. There is no range limit on this, and it allows you to have a cool scene where the boss snaps his fingers and a gang of gargoyle guards teleports in.
If the gargoyle is adjacent to its client and the client takes damage, it can use Shielding Wings as an interrupt to take the damage instead.
Encounters
The same encounter building tips for MM1/MV gargoyles also apply here. The efreet and Elder Eye angles are new and just as valid.
Inter-gargoyle synergy is highest between the gargoyles from this entry. You have a couple of variants who are excellent at inflicting forced movement, and a minion who deals damage to enemies who move away from it. And since all of them fly, they also pair well with pits and other floor-based hazards.
Final Impressions
The stat blocks in this entry don’t really change my general opinion of gargoyles. They might be too iconic, as the exceptional case in a D&D adventure is meeting an inanimate gargoyle statue who won’t come to life and try to kill you. For this reason, you don’t want to use them too much in your actual game. Still, by combining the MM3 and the MV you have enough variants to make that one gargoyle encounter truly memorable.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Frog
Not a D&D illustration. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
Every individual roleplayer has a set of D&D monsters they consider “iconic”, regardless of what the publisher has to say about it. Years ago, I remember one such player saying that to him “giant fucking frogs” were the most iconic D&D monster. It’s not D&D if you don’t fight a huge-ass frog at some point.
By that criterion we can shut the grognards up for good now. Here is the moment when 4e finally becomes D&D.
The Lore
Real-world frogs are usually quite useful creatures. Most species are harmless to humans and eat disease-spreading insects. Some consider them cute and, if nothing else, they can be tasty when properly prepared.
In typical D&D fashion, this book calls such creatures “pests” because they’re not fuzzy wabbits. And then it moves on to focus on monstrous frogs, who are big and aggressive enough to eat people. They live in surface swamps and on underground lakes in “natural” caves or in the shallow Underdark. There are several different species, and the book implies they’re atavistic survivors from the world’s prehistory, like sharks and crocodiles in the real world.
A monstrous frog won’t usually leave its home territory to hunt people, but it will eat anyone foolish enough to wander through that territory. “Beware of Frog” signs are a common sight in villages close to the borders of their habitat. Frog attacks are a potential hazard for PCs traveling through marshy terrain, and the book suggests they could be hired by a wealthy family to retrieve some heirloom from the belly of a frog who ate its former bearer.
The Monsters
All frogs shown here are Medium Natural Beasts, though you could probably home-brew larger specimens if you want. They’re Aquatic, which lets them breathe underwater and gives them bonuses against non-aquatic enemies in underwater combat. They also have good Swim speeds and low-light vision.
Thornskin Frog
These frogs have brown skin covered in thick spines. The spines are not effective in combat but give them a distinctive look.
Thornskins are Level 1 Brutes with 35 HP. They have a ground speed of 4 and a swim speed of 6. Their basic attack is a bite and they can also pounce (recharge 5+). This lets them shift their speed, deald more damage than a bite and knocks the target prone. As a minor action they can use a Reach 3 Tongue Grab that pulls a target 2 squares on a hit.
In short, these critters do everything you could expect from a classic giant frog.
Sporeback Frog
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. Sporebacks are the laziest hunters imaginable. They pick a spot and wait there for prey to wander into the reach of their barbed tongues. They move so little that mushrooms often grow on their backs.
Most creatures smart enough to pose a threat to these monsters have long since learned to avoid them. As a result, sporebacks never expect their chosen prey to put up a fight, and don’t usually run away unless they’re very close to death.
Sporebacks are Level 2 Controllers with 42 HP. Their ground speed is a pitiful 3, and their swim speed is 5. Their basic attack is a bite that damages and slows, and their Reach 3 Barbed Tongues damage, pull the target 2 squares, and knock it prone.
When they die, the mushrooms on their back burst and perform a Spore Release, a close burst 2 attack that deals poison damage and inflicts a -2 attack penalty (save ends).
For extra nastiness, have the sporebacks in your encounter group stay underwater and use their tongues to drag PCs there. This works even better if all of Team Monster has the Aquatic keyword.
Murklord Frog
Murklords are entirely black, and have two parallel bio-luminescent stripes running down their backs. These flare up when the frog is startled or feels threatened.
These beautiful creatures are the opposite of sporebacks when it comes to attacking prey. They perform darting strikes from the muddy margins of their watery homes, and grow even more frantic and ferocious when wounded.
Murklords are Level 2 Skirmishers with 39 HP. They have ground and swim speeds of 6. Their basic melee attack is a bite and they can also perform a Leapfrog attack (recharge 4+) that deals more damage and allows them to shift 3 squares both before and after making the attack. Perfect for leaping out of the water, taking a bite, and returning before the PCs can react.
As a minor action, it can also perform a Reach 2 Tongue Lash that does no damage but slides the target 1 square on a hit.
The murklord’s attacks use d6s as their damage dice: 1d6+4 for the bite, 2d6+4 for the limited-use Leapfrog. After the frog is first bloodied, though, those d6s become d12s, significantly increasing its damage potential.
Encounters
Goblins, kobolds and bullywugs commonly employ trained monstrous frogs as mounts and war beasts. Only the bullywugs have succeeded in domesticating them, though - the others must capture wild frogs and train those. When bullywugs make alliances or trade agreements, they commonly make a gift of trained war frogs to their new partners.
People with no access to trained frogs can still use them by keeping them captive and releasing a bunch of angry half-starved frogs in the general direction of the enemy.
Final Impressions
I’m not sure if I’d go as far as calling huge-ass frogs “iconic D&D monsters”, but they are cool. These ones are properly froggy in their mechanics, and you can probably extend their usefulness by giving them additional levels, increasing their size, and giving them a Swallow attack.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Foulspawn
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
Foulspawn had their 4e debut in the first Monster Manual. If you read the post I wrote about them, you’ll see that MM1 Foulspawn were plagued by some design flaws, but you could speculate from their lore that they were the end state of mortal Far Realm cultists.
The Lore
The lore in this entry is mostly a re-statement of the original foulspawn lore. They’re more actively inimical to the natural world than most other Far Realm denizens, and cross over where the barrier between dimensions is thin to attack mortal settlements. They drag some of their victims back with them, and those unfortunates eventually become foulspawn themselves after having their bodies and minds warped by the Far Realm.
There’s still plenty of room for you to portray foulspawn as the “end state” for a lot of mortal cultists who worship cthulhoid entities - they’re the ones who step into the portal willingly. If all you had to go with were the MM1 entries, this was kind of an ironic fate, as the foulspawn there were kinda weak. Let’s see if this is still true.
The Monsters
Foulspawn are Aberrant Humanoids with a ground speed of 6 and a teleport speed of 3. They mix physical attacks with powers that warp space and damage enemy minds.
Foulspawn Wretch
Most unwilling victims probably turn into these. Wretches are Small Level 7 Minion Skirmishers with low-light vision and the standard traits listed above.
They have a Ceaseless Murmurs passive trait that inflicts a -2 penalty to the Will of any PC adjacent to two or more wretches. Their basic Claw attack deals a bit of damage and allows another wretch within 6 squares to teleport adjacent to the target. And when they die, their Screaming Echo ability teleports a non-minion ally within 6 squares to the position previously occupied by the dead wretch!
Wretches are made to use standard “monster wave” tactics - use a lot of them and have them crowd around the PCs. Try to get them adjacent to the PC’s squishies on the back line, so that when they die they teleport your front-line bruisers there.
Foulspawn Mockery
A spellcaster with a raven skull for a head. Mockeries use mind-bending magic to force the PCs close together and then hit them with area attacks. They’re Medium Level 10 Controllers with 104 HP, low-light vision, and the standard traits outlined above.
Their basic attack is a bite which is actually stronger than almost any attack from a MM1 fouslpawn simply because it uses the correct math. They attack at range with a Mind Harrier spell that deals psychic damage and imposes one of those interesting custom effects. If a target hit by Mind Harrier is not adjacent to any of its allies by the end of its next turn, it takes an extra 10 psychic damage and 10 ongoing psychic damage (save ends).
Once the mockery has used Mind Harrier to push the PCs together, it can hit them all with a Maddening Burst (recharge 5+), which deals psychic damage and dazes (save ends).
Foulspawn Warpcaller
These are like aberrant bards, or those things that keep dancing around Azatoth playing flutes and pipes. They’re Medium Level 12 Controllers (Leaders) with 126 HP, Darkvision, and the standard traits outlined above.
Their Droning Pipes act as an aura (3) that makes enemies inside Vulnerable 5 to Psychic damage. This is important because Psychic is pretty much the signature damage type for foulspawn and other aberrants.
Warpcallers can bite in melee for good damage, but their magic is the star of the show here. Warped Sending is an at-will ranged attack that deals psychic damage and teleports a foulspawn ally within 5 squares of the target to a space adjacent to the target. Twisted Dismissal does the same damage, immobilizes the target (save ends) and teleports it 2 squares.
Finally, Warpmind Field (encounter) is a fireball-sized area attack that deals psychic damage and creates a zone that lasts for a turn and can be sustained with a minor action. Enemies who enter the zone or end their turns there take 10 psychic damage. An enemy inside the zone can’t target anyone further than 5 squares away. And the warpcaller can spend its move action to move the zone up to 4 squares.
Warpmind Field is an excellent fight opener if you drop it on the party’s archers. If they move outside the zone to fire on their turn, Twisted Dismissal can push them back inside and keep them there, possibly combined with a move action spent moving the zone closer. And Warped Sending is another handy way to teleport your brutes past the PC’s defenders.
Friends and Final Impressions
Foulspawn usually only work with other foulspawn, though if you’re using the ones from the MM1 you really, really need to fix their math. Other appropriate company includes gibbering mouthers and other aberrant creatures that deal psychic damage. And according to the book they also sometimes work with cultists of Tharizdun and Demogorgon - the kind of person who wants to wreck the world but doesn’t care how it happens.
The lore remains the same, but the mechanics on these foulspawn are quite a bit better. I’m not just talking raw numbers either - the MM1 foulspawn rarely did more than spam basic melee attacks. These have a lot more variety.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Forsaken
This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
Later monster books in a D&D edition are usually where you find those monsters from previous editions who weren’t “iconic” enough to appear earlier, but sometimes they’re also where you can find some truly ambitious entries. After all, the authors have pages to fill and most of the classics have already been done. The Forsaken are one of the most ambitious new monsters presented by the MM3. Or at least they feel new. If a monster by this name existed earlier it was likely completely different.
The Lore
The Dawn War saw the death of many gods. In most such occasions, the dead god’s essence dispersed across the Astral Sea. However, a few gods were slain while physically present in the world, and their essence could not escape. Instead, it deposited itself in some of the mortal sapients that inhabited the world even back then.
Though the gods in question were dead and gone, these new vessels of their power acquired a memory of what it felt like to be immortal. This memory became a source of torment, for their owners were themselves mortal. They remembered and missed something they never had, and could never have. Overwhelmed by these feelings, these people ritually removed their own eyes so they would never have to gaze upon the mortal world again, and vowed to destroy and absorb the essences of the remaining gods so that they could steal their divinity for themselves. They called themselves the Forsaken, and they are still known by that name.
In our narrative present there are several different Forsaken tribes, each with their own approach to their grand design. They travel through all the universe in search of mystical secrets that will increase their power and allow them to become gods. They tangle and skirmish with Vecna worshippers, inflitrate astral dominions, and even journey the Hells. Some set up elaborate networks of followers and co-conspirators in the mortal realms. Some make plans to trap and devour a god.
The Monsters
Forsaken are epic-level threats. They’re Medium Natural Humanoids with the Blind keyword and Blindsight 20. This means they can’t be affected by the “blinded” status and they’re immune to gaze attacks and most vision-based impairments.
Their signature ability is Fragment of Immortality, which triggers when they hit 0 HP. It clears all effects from them, removes them from play and returns them a turn later with about 25% of their HP restored, in a space within 5 squares of their last location. The fragment allows them to cling to life.
All of their other abilities come from training and vary per stat block. They tend to have some vague similarities to PC divine classes, but any divine power would come from the Forsaken themselves rather than from a deity.
Forsaken Fearwrack
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast Fearwracks are spellcasters who delve deep into the mysteries of fear and death, confronting that which most scares the forsaken and inflicting it on others. There’s an enclave of them in the outer shores of Celestia, and though the inhabitants of that dominion very much want to see them gone, they fear meeting their final death at the hands of the Forsaken.
Fearwracks are Level 26 Artillery with 150 HP. They Inspire Fear, which acts as an aura (1) that inflicts a -2 penalty to all enemy defenses against fear attacks. Almost all of their attacks have the Fear keyword, of course.
They wield rods as implements, which I guess makes them a bit similar to PC invokers in look and feel. Their basic melee attack is a Fear Strike that targets Will, deals psychic damage, and forces the target to move its speed away from the invoker. The invoker chooses the path, but each square must be further away than the previous one. Why is this different from a push? Because the victim can provoke opportunity attacks during this movement!
At range they fire Terror Bolts which do the same amount of psychic damage and allow an ally adjacent to the target to make a melee basic attack against it.
Less often they can also employ a Curse of Mortality (recharge 4+), which targets Fortitude and inflicts 20 ongoing damage (save ends). The target has a -2 penalty to save against this, and each failed save increases the ongoing damage by 5 to a maximum of 30. I guess the damage looks like rapid aging, and since there’s no exception in the text it works even on beings who do not normally age.
Aside from Fragment of Immortality, fearwracks have another reaction power in the form of Cleansing Wounds, which clears all enemy effects from them when they first become bloodied.
An all-fearwrack group has a surprising amount of synergy. If the PCs close to melee with one of them, others can target the PC with Terror Bolt to open them up to a free Fear Strike. This causes the PC to run away and potentially get hit with more Fear Strikes. The fearwrack choses the victim’s path and there’s nothing forbidding them from walking them into traps or pits either.
There are occasions where the fearwrack wants the PC to stay close, though - their aura makes the Curse of Mortality even harder to resist with a total -4 save penalty.
Forkaken Infiltrators
Infiltrators have an amazing talent for long-term impersonation. Some believe they inherited it from the deity whose essence initially infused them. They join up with churches and cults of all types of deity, from Pelor to Vecna, with the goal of reaching a high post in their hierarchy. From that lofty perch they gain access to all sorts of restricted divine secrets, and can abuse their authority to sabotage the cult from within.
Infiltrators are Level 27 Skirmishers with 200 HP. They wield a kophesh in one hand and a hand crossbow in the other, and they use the classic strategy of moving around to gain combat advantage while discouraging the PCs from making opportunity attacks.
If they have Combat Advantage against a target, any attack they hit also immobilized the target and allows the infiltrator to shift 2 squares. Punishing Response is a mighty discouragement indeed: when an enemy hits the infiltrator with an opportunity attack, the enemy takes the same damage dealt to the infiltrator plus 5!
The Khopesh and Hand Crossbow are accurate and do solid damage, but have no built-in riders. They can also make a Careful Attack with the sword that deals about 25% less damage but gives the infiltrator a +2 bonus to defenses for a turn.
No combat-time shapeshifting powers here, so I guess any transformations either take more time, or are just the fruit of epic-level tradecraft rather than shape-shifting magic. Infiltrators do get training in all the social skills plus Stealth, and their high level means they’re better at those than most mortals.
Forsaken Loreseeker
Loreseekers are the rank and file of the Forsaken spying operation, tasked with actively breaking into libraries, vaults, and minds to steal the knowledge contained within. I guess a big part of the big-I Infiltrator’s mission is to open the way for loreseekers. Some believe they can steal all the memories of a creature they kill.
Loreseekers are Level 27 Minion Soldiers, which tells me they’re not really meant to engage in combat most of the time and/or that they work in large teams. When forced to fight, they use weapons similar to those of the Infiltrator.
Their Hand Crossbow attack marks for a turn, and their melee attack also performs a Theft of Memory. During the target next turn, all enemies except the attacking Loreseeker are invisible to the victim. Memory erasure in real time! The loreseeker loses this ability after it uses Fragment of Immortality. Yes, despite being a minion they also have this ability, so you need to hit them twice to defeat them for good.
Forsaken Slaughterer
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast Some Forsaken find the memory of immortality a weight too great to bear. It eats at their sanity until their mind snaps, and they’re consumed by rage and grief. The other forsaken keep these unfortunate individuals in reserve for use as living weapons. They’re more sensitive to divine power, you see, and tend to fly into a murderous frenzy when they sense some. It wouldn’t do to waste that kind of god-killing potential.
Slaugheterers are Level 28 Brutes, which means they can indeed challenge demigods and other things of that nature when backed up by a team of similar level. They have 253 HP, and the other standard Forsaken traits.
Slaughterers have a couple of interesting passive traits: Relentless Slaughter is an aura (1) that halves the benefits of healing for any enemy inside; and Proximal Resistance gives them Resist 10 against all ranged and area attacks if no enemies are adjacent to them. This makes them very capable of charging through an open field to engage PCs in melee.
They fight with paired khopesh swords, and their basic Khopesh attack does a nice chunk of damage - almost as much as a Balor’s sword, with the main difference being the lack of the High-Crit property. They can also use an Unstoppable Cut that splits that damage between two adjacent targets. This isn’t a multi-attack - if the first target gets hit, the second takes damage automatically.
Like all Forsaken, slaughterers have Fragment of Immortality as a triggered action. They also have another very interesting one called Blood for Blood. It triggers when they’re first bloodied, and consists of a Close Burst 1 attack against all enemies that does damage equal to each target’s healing surge value. That’s 25% of their HP, and it’s likely to bloody them since it will go off a ways into the fight.
Slaughterers are offensive brutes - you want them to charge past the defenders and attack your squishies. They’ll be particularly eager to target divine characters like clerics and invokers, so having a paladin with you is probably the best way to make them stop and fight your defenders. Otherwise they’ll definitely risk opportunity attacks and mark punishments to break through, with Blood for Blood working as a nasty surprise for those PCs who prove adept at hurting them.
Forsaken Mastermind
Forsaken Masterminds are strategists. They run operations whose scope encompasses an entire region, sitting at the center of a web of different cells and agents that include several other Forsaken as well as their mortal pawns. Their goals tend to involve heavy stuff like interfering with the designs of the gods themselves, or those of their direct servants. A mastermind should only enter combat directly if all of their other plans have been thwarted by meddlesome adventurers, but they’re far from defenseless if it comes to that.
Masterminds are Level 29 Controllers with 213 HP and the Leader keyword. They’re masterful warriors, and also employ some magic focused on disrupting divine powers. They’re surrounded by an Inspire Resilience aura (5), which grants an extra 40 temporary HP to any forsaken ally who uses Fragment of Immortality within it.
Their basic khopesh attack makes the target marked by one of the mastermind’s allies within 5 squares! So it forces the PC to target that ally instead of the mastermind itself, and allows the ally to use any mark-related abilities it may have.
They also use a hand crossbow that can make a solid ranged basic attack.
Their main spell is Tainted Wave, an at-will Close Blast 3 attack that targets enemies, deals untyped damage, and makes those it hits lose all temporary HP and become unable to regain HP for a turn. It targets Fortitude, so most defenders might have a good shot at resisting it, but if it hits they’re in trouble.
Less often (recharge 5+), they can use Delayed Retribution, an area spell that targets enemies’ Reflex. Those it hits take some damage and, more importantly, will become stunned for a turn if they attack the mastermind during their next action.
If someone uses a divine power within 10 squares of the mastermind, it can use Wrath of the Forsaken as a reaction. This ends all negative effects on an ally within 10 squares, and allows them to make an immediate recharge roll to recover an expended power.
Final Impressions
I quite like these guys. Their lore feels epic and horrific at the same time, and their mechanics are cool.
I do wonder how the Forsaken perpetuate themselves, as they’ve been around since the Dawn War and are very explicitly not immortal. Perhaps they’re still unaging, or maybe there is a procedure for exposing a mortal victim to the fragment of immortality that belonged to a deceased Forsaken, bringing them back in a new form Go’auld style.
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