Posts
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Ultra-Tech Dungeon Delving in GURPS
I started writing this post a few years ago when I was GMing the Iron Gods adventure path for Pathfinder using the Dungeon Fantasy RPG rules. My approach to that campaign was pretty slap-dash, and after I stopped I began thinking of a more structured way to do it. Since a recent comment here on the blog asked for specifics, I though I’d dust the post off and publish it.
Let’s say you have a Dungeon Fantasy game where you want your characters to get into contact with more advanced technology. How would you go about it?
Ultra-Tech Delving: A Survey
Steve Jackson games did a little foray into this area in Pyramid #3/60, in an article entitled “High-Tech Dungeon Crawl”, which focused on bringing modern-day characters with guns into fantasy dungeons to mow down orcs with autofire and take their stuff. This raises the inherent level of colonalism in the genre from “concerning” to “yikes!”1.
What I want to focus on here is in an older variation on the theme: fantasy characters exploring “dungeons” filled with elements you might be more used to seeing in science fiction stories. When I say “older”, I mean it’s older than D&D: Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign featured a whole ultra-tech city-state descended from the crew of a crashed spaceship, and it was played for several years before what became the OD&D rules were finalized and officially published. D&D proper would explore the same territory with its famous “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks” module.
Pathfinder dedicates a whole kingdom in its setting to the idea: the land of Numeria is a barbarian kingdom where a giant spaceship crashed millenia ago, breaking up during atmospheric entry and scattering its many modules all over the region. And, of course, in Gamma World and other post-apocalyptic games all “dungeons” are ultra-tech because they’re the ruins of the futuristic civilization that preceded the apocalypse.
Ultra-Tech Delving in GURPS
GURPS is of course a uniquely well-suited system for this kind of thing. Its rules already support a wide range of genres and technology levels from the corebook onwards. We only need a few adjustments depending on the sort of campaign we want.
After The End already deals with the post-apocalyptic angle and offers a set of detailed rules. What I want, however, is something simpler and more suited to a Barrier Peaks/Numeria scenario. The ultra-tech stuff is alien, but characters can gain an understanding of it with some investment, and the gap between their usual medievalish milieu and the lofty heights of alien tech isn’t completely impossible to cross. How would I do it?
Tech Level, or the Lack Thereof.
So on one side we have the usual “medievalish” dungeon fantasy setting. In GURPS, that’s roughtly TL 4, but without gunpowder. On the other side we have a space-opera intrusion, which corresponds very roughly to a TL9-10 selection with a few outliers (personal shields are TL11-12, but they fit the flavor). With these vague numbers in mind, we can ditch the concept of Tech Levels completely for our treatment!
Default GURPS Tech Level rules are only useful for giving us a starting set of gadgets to work with. In actual play, the only thing that matters is if a given thing is “low-tech” and thus familiar to everyone, or “high-tech” and thus a mystery to the uninitiated. How to differentiate both? With the following advantage:
Tech Familiarity (10 points)
You have a layman’s knowledge of the basic principles behind the advanced technology scattered through your otherwise medieval fantasy world. You understand why it isn’t magic. You know about electricity and how it powers high-tech devices. You grasp enough of the high-tech design aesthetic to easily spot a device’s charging port or battery, its control surfaces (be they switches, triggers, or touchpads), its information displays, and its business end even if you don’t know what the thing actually does. You can identify the high-tech civilization’s writing even though you can’t read it, and you can identify its iconography for “danger”. You can also recognize hazards like exposed live wires, recognize which type of power cell goes into a device, and plug it in.
This is a form of Unusual Background that makes you immune to the sort of amusing accident which plagues other low-tech explorers confronted with high-tech devices.
More importantly, Tech Familiarity is a pre-requisite for learning high-tech skills, and the language of the high-tech civilization (if any). With this advantage, you can spend points on those things normally.
Yes, this is quite similar to High TL from the core book, but much cheaper. The reason is that paying 30-35 points in High TL to get the same benefits is way too expensive for a campaign in this mold. This advantage doesn’t give you any familiarity with deeper aspects of the high-tech civilization, just what’s in the first paragraph.
Tech Skills
Skills that would require a /TL specialization in standard GURPS rules have only two versions here: standard (no suffix) and “/Tech”. That way, you don’t need to change anything about how you write down a standard “medievalish” character.
The two specialties don’t overlap at all: they don’t default to each other, and can’t be used at all across the “tech divide”. If you only have standard Lockpicking, you can’t open a high-tech door with a magnetic lock. If you only have Lockpicking/Tech, you can’t open low-tech mechanical locks with old-fashioned picks, tough you might be able to operate a machine that does it for you.
High-tech weapons are usually firearms of beam weapons - the skills to operate them properly are always “/Tech” skills. High-Tech melee weapons are a possible exception to the “no defaults” rule above, though the GM would need to rule on each case:
Weapons that use the same skill as their low-tech counterparts can be used normally by anyone if the only difference is in their construction (such as a superfine or hyperdense blade). If they have some additional feature that requires power (such as a vibroblade or shock baton) then the character has a -2 penalty to use that feature unless they have Tech Familiarity. If they require an exclusive skill to operate (like a force sword or monowire whip) then that skill has the “/Tech” suffix. You might be able to get away with a default to a low-tech skill here, but the only way to improve on that is to buy Tech Familiarity and the high-tech skill.
Ultra-Tech Gear
With the character stuff out of the way, we can talk about the goodies! As I mentioned above, one advantage of GURPS is that it has entire books of high- and ultra-tech gadgets that can be plugged straight into your fantasy campaigns. Therefore, we don’t need to talk about how to stat this stuff up at all! What we do need is talk about the effects it’s going to have on your campaign, which in turn will aid you in selecting which items to include.
How much is this stuff worth?
A vital question in the dungeon fantasy genre! Going more or less by the book, high-tech items should be worth roughly 30 times their list price in a dungeon fantasy setting. That makes even a relatively innocuous gadget into a major piece of loot!
This might seem a bit too much for a dungeon fantasy setting where magic and magic items are relatively common, but I think it kinda makes sense. Ultra-tech items are going to be a lot rarer than magic items, particularly in settings where they come from that single crashed spaceship. They work regardless of the local mana and sanctitiy levels. And they can be enchanted! These are exactly the same reasons why a suit of fine plate armor costs more than a standard suit enchanted with Lighten 1.
Example: A superfine broadword would cost $3600 in its native ultra-tech society. Recovered from a crashed spaceship in a dungeon fantasy setting, it’s worth $108,000!
That sword gives a +2 bonus to damage and a (2) armor divisor. The closest “low-tech” equivalent would be a very fine sword with a Penetrating Weapon enchantment, worth $17,000, almost ten times cheaper. Even if all the bonuses were from magic, it would still cost only $25,600. However, the superfine blade will lose none of its functionality in a low- or no-mana zone, and it could be enchanted with the same magic as the low-tech sword to become even better.
If you do think that this is too much, you could say that the value of ultra-tech gear is capped by the value of magic items with similar properties. The sword from the example would be worth $17,000 then. Gear that has no magical equivalent might still use the “uncapped” price.
Timeworn Gear
One concept from Pathfinder that’s useful to borrow is that of timeworn items. In Barrier Peaks-style setups, most of the high-tech stuff the PCs come across has been sitting around in derelict ruins for a very long time; even if it was very well-built, it might not have withstood the passage of the ages intact. To model that, we introduce the following equipment modifier:
Timeworn: This can be applied to any high-tech armor, weapon, or device that requires power or ammunition to function. These items can’t be recharged. After whatever reserves they contain when found are used up, they’ll break down and become useless. They may also have other quirks arising from their almost-broken state at the GM’s discretion. Divide final price by 10.
Weapons and Armor
Weapons and armor deserve special mention because Dungeon Fantasy is a combat-heavy genre, and this combat has a very specific “feel” to it. Therefore, high-tech combat gear will have an outsize impact on it.
Baseline Dungeon Fantasy suggests that PCs should have a maximum total DR of about 15, as anything more than that will make them invulnerable to too many monster attacks.
PC damage also has some upper bounds. Spellcasters with missile spells and a spellcasting talent of 6 can do a maximum of 18d damage, though that requires enough setup to only be possible about once per fight, and not on all fights. The maximum amount of “at-will” melee and ranged damage a PC can do is equivalent to about 7d per attack23.
Introducing ultra-tech armor into the game almost certainly means you’re going to exceed the DR cap. Even non-combat safety gear at these tech levels has as much DR as low-tech plate, while being much lighter. Proper combat armor is much tougher. Most of the published DF enemies will have trouble getting past the DR of a PC in full ultra-tech armor with their physical attacks.
Similarly, high-tech weapons can change the shape of combat in your campaign. Dungeon Fantasy usually considers melee to be the main event and ranged combat to be a specialist niche, but if guns and beam weapons are common these two are going to swap places.
Ultra-tech melee and ranged weapons can also allow PCs to approach or exceed the upper damage bounds described above much more easily. Both “boundaries” are roughly equivalent to rolling 7d of damage per attack. A force sword does 8d; a laser rifle does 6d, and can can fire many more shots per turn than a bow with no penalty. Both of those have armor divisors too, which make enemy DR become much less of an obstacle.
The first step when addressing these issues is to carefully consider which items are available. What do you want your campaign’s new DR cap to be? What is the highest armor divisor you’re comfortable with? What sort of maximum damage do you want your PCs to do with a melee or ranged attack they can use every second? And, to quote Mister Torgue from Borderlands 2: EXPLOSIONS?
The second step is to consider the same thing from the side of the opposition: what’s the highest DR and damage you estimate they will be able to routunely bring to the table? The gear available to the PCs should give them a chance to match those figures.
You can then safely remove anything that exceeds your new planned limits. That will end up giving you a pretty good set of guidelines for what the ultra-tech culture and their ruins look like. A civilian medical lab infested with non-sapient monsters and low-tech looters might have plenty of medkits and wonder drugs, but no weapon heavier than a couple of timeworn electrolasers and some scalpels the thief can use as superfine daggers. For a military base filled with killer robots and with a tank at the end as a boss fight, the sky is the limit, though those anti-tank weapons might all be timeworn if you don’t want the PCs using them outside.
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The article itself includes a section titled “The Sociological Ramifications are Appalling”. ↩
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A ST 20 Knight with Weapon Master and a halberd can easily attack twice every turn and do 3d+13 per attack. This is theoretically possible right out of character creation if your knight is a half-ogre. ↩
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A ST 20 Scout with Weapon Master and Strongbow might be able to shoot once per turn and do about 4d+10 per shot. This particular boundary is hard to reach, so your highest “at-will” ranged damage will probably be less than that. ↩
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Let's Read the 4e Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Gaj
A gaj perched on a desert rock. Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the rest.
The book opens this entry by that the wastelands of Athas “sometimes spawn monsters so terrible not even the merciful can permit them to live”. Cheery.
The Lore
The illustration makes me think a gaj is what you get when you mix a mind flayer with a beetle. These aberrations have human-level intelligence, strong telepathic powers, and a taste for the flesh and fear of sapient creatures. They’re too anti-social to practice infiltration like mind flayers sometimes do, but there’s still a lot about them that’s familiar.
Gaj dwell in extensive burrow networks that technically form a community, but they rarely interact with each other. They’ll band together to defend their home, but they mostly hunt alone or in mated pairs. They attack their prey with their claws and mandibles, and with invasive telepathy focused through their feathery antennae. Once a gaj has a firm grip on a victim, the touch of those antennae will rapidly disassemble the creature’s mind and use it to fuel further psychic assault.
Certain specimens mutate to assume a sort of leadership role in a gaj community. Their powers specialize on inflicting pain, and they take upon themselves the job of keeping victims captive in the burrow as dominated slaves and/or reserve rations for lean times. These Pain Tyrants are one of the few things that can get a whole burrow together for a bigger hunt or a raid against a settlement.
In really lean times, when gaj cannot find new victims and have already devoured all of their captives, they’ll turn on each other - even their own mates.
Ironically, just as gaj like to hunt other sapients, so are they hunted in return. They’re very popular in the arena, so those ubuquitous slavers often mount expeditions to find and capture them.
The Numbers
Gaj are Medium Aberrant Magical Beasts with a ground speed of 6, a burrow speed of 3, Darkvision, and Tremorsense 5. Their signature trait is Warding Shell, which gives them +2 to defenses against any creature marking them.
All of the stat blocks here are Chaotic Evil.
Gaj Mindhunter
This is the typical specimen, so named to distinguish it from the Pain Tyrant. Mindhunters are Level 8 Elite Controllers with 172 HP. Their basic attack is a bite with their Mandibles, which grab on a hit. Once the mindhunter has a victim in its jaws, it can only use this attack against it, and not against others.
Its Invasive Presence has no such restrictions. It’s targets one or two creatures within Range 10, deals psychic damage on a hit, and pushes 1 square. There’s also Mind Wrench (recharge 5+), which targets a creature within a Close Burst 3 and dominates on a hit (save ends). Each time the target fails the save, the mindhunter’s grabbed victim takes 2d6 psychic damage.
As a minor action, once per round, the mindhunter can use its Feathery Probe on the grabbed victim. On a hit this deals light psychic damage, 5 ongoing psychic damage, and dazes (save ends). If the target is already taking ongoing psychic damage, that damage increases by 5. Yes, repeated hits with this attack will result in more and more ongoing damage.
All of this paints us a picture of the mindhunter’s preferred tactics: choose a victim to bite and grab, get away from the PCs, and keep using Invasive Presence and Mind Wrench to keep them busy while they nom on the victim with Feathery Probe.
Gaj Pain Tyrant
Pain Tyrants are considerably stronger than mindhunters, being Level 13 Elite Artillery with the Leader tag and 200 HP. Its Mandibles have no special effects other than damage. Its ranged basic attack is a Mind Shriek with range 20, that targets 1-2 creatures, and on a hit deals psychic damage and dazes for a turn.
Less often they can use Agonizing Insight, an Area Burst 2 Within 20 with a lot of complicated effects. This weaponized anxiety attack inflicts 20 psychic damage on a hit (save ends). Whenever the target takes this ongoing damage, each of its allies within 3 squares also takes 5 psychic damage. So, if it hits 3 PCs, in the next round each of them is going to take a total of 30 psychic damage if they stay together: 20 from the main effect, 10 from splash damage. It recharges when the tyrant scores a critical hit with Phrenic Probe (see below).
As an effect the attack also makes each enemy inside the burst grant combat advantage for a turn even if they weren’t hit by the main attack. It also lets allies in the burst use a free action to either shift 1 square or move half their speed.
Against a dazed target, the Pain Tyrant can use Phrenic Probe as a 1/round minor action. This is a version of the mindhunter’s Feathery Probe that has range 20! Finally, Vicious Goad lets an ally within 20 squares move its speed and make a basic attack against an enemy of the tyrant’s choice as a free action. The ally is then dazed for a turn.
Encounters and Final Impressions
Looks like the most common gaj encounter in the wilderness is a pair of mindhunters. A Pain Tyrant leading a larger group is also possible, but in this case I’d recommend making the accompanying mindhunters into regulars of a slightly lower level than their boss. Enslaved humanoids can round out the group. And you can also find mindhunters being used as arena fighters.
These seem to be very tricky to fight.
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Let's Read the Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Floating Mantle
An red floating mantle. Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the rest.
The Lore
The Silt Sea makes up the eastern border of the known regions of Athas. No one knows what’s on the other side of it, and they have only the barest idea of what’s under the dust. Sometimes, weird creatures will drift in from those far and deep regions. One of these weirdoes is the floating mantle.
Floating mantles are giant flying jellyfish, though no one in Athas calls them that because they don’t know what a fish is. Despite their strong psionic powers, their flight is entirely mundane. Their bodies secrete a lighter than air gas into internal cavities to keep them aloft, and they expel small quantities of this gas to propel themselves.
These creatures live in small groups called colonies, which are psychically linked to form a collective consciousness. They have some fairly obvious sexual dimorphism: males are a pale red in color, while females are a pale yellow. Both grow much more vivid in coloration when they feel agitated or threatened.
During their reproductive cycle, the female will carry a large litter of “polyps” to term. This causes her to become larger, bluish in color and much more irritable, as the pregnancy is highly uncomfortable for her. When in this state, she’s known as a “bluesting”. When threatened, a bluesting might prematurely release some of its polyps, which can fight ferociously but don’t last long. Even when they’re properly birthed at the right time, polyps are still fragile and only a small fraction of them will grow up to join the colony.
The book describes floating mantles as “quiet and inoffensive”, which I guess means they only attack sapients if they feel threatened, or to defend their young. They probably feed on small animals, and mainly hunt on the Silt Sea. When they do fight, they use the same natural weapons they use for hunting: sting-covered tendrils that deliver a paralytic poison, and the ability to drain the life force of a helpless victims.
When hurt, a floating mantle emits a psychic scream that stuns attackers and warns their fellows of danger. Finally, the gas that they use is probably hydrogen, because it gives them an unfortunate tendency to explode when exposed to fire or electricity.
The Numbers
Floating Mantles are Aberrant Magical Beasts with the Blind tag, which makes them immune to blinding effects and gaze attacks. They perceive their surroundings with Blindsight 20. Mantles have a flight speed of 6, with an altitude limit of 3 and the ability to hover.
Adult mantles are vulnerable 10 to fire and lightning. Polyps have too little stored hydrogen for this.
Flying mantles are also immune to the effects of their Psychic Scream powers, whether used by themselves or by another mantle.
Floating Mantle
This typical specimen is Small in size, and a Level 13 Controller with 126 HP. Its basic attack is a Tentacle Rake (melee 2 vs. reflex) that deals poison damage and slows for a turn. If they have combat advantage against a target, they can use Life Leech (melee 2 vs. Fortitude) as a minor action. This deals poison damage, dazes and immobilizes (save ends both) and gives 10 temporary HP to the mantle. Of course, a target who’s hit by this once becomes susceptible to it until they save against that daze, since dazed characters grant CA.
Also as a minor action, the mantle can squeeze out a Jet to shift its speed.
When the mantle is first bloodied, a lot of stuff happens. First, Jet recharges. Then it lets out a Psychic Scream! The scream is a free action attack vs. Will in a Close Burst 2. On a hit, it deals psychic damage, and makes it so the affected targets take 10 psychic damage whenever they make an attack against the creature (save ends). As an effect, the floating mantle becomes invisible until the end of its next turn.
If the mantle is reduced to 0 HP by fire or lightning, it suddenly explodes! This is another Close Burst 2, vs. Reflex this time, dealing high fire damage and pushing targets 1d4 squares. On a miss, it does half damage. This is probably the only variable push I ever saw.
Floating Mantle Bluesting
Bluestings grow to Medium size. They’re Level 15 Artillery with 111 HP, and a greater blindsight range of 25.
Their Tentacle Rake Attack has reach 3 and does more damage than the common mantle’s, and they also gain the ability to fling their tiny stingers at distant targets. This Flinging Nettles attack targets Fortitude and deals poison damage out to range 20.
If enemies manage to get close, the bluesting can let out a Toxic Burst, which targets creatures in a Close Burst 1 and deals poison damage on a hit. If the bluesting has less than four accompanying polyps, one appears in an adjacent square, acting right after the bluesting in initiative order.
They have the same Jet ability as the common specimen, and can also perform a Sudden Birth (recharge 4+) as a minor when pressed. This is more or less the same as the secondary effect of the Toxic Burst above: it puts a new polyp in play within 3 squares if there are less than four accompanying the bluesting.
Psychic Scream and Sudden Explosion work the same as in the common specimen, but do more damage since bluestings are higher level.
Floating Mantle Polyp
These Tiny youngsters can either be pre-placed in an encounter, or be produced by bluestings (in which case they’re not worth XP). A previously-placed polyp is one that reached term and was birthed normally, and adults will fiercely defend it. One produced during combat is considered premature and will die a few minutes after the fighting stops. Adults are less attached to those. In either case it’s not yet hooked up to the hive mind and it’s recklessly hangry.
Polyps are Level 15 Minion Brutes. Their Tentacle Rakes do poison damage, and when they die they let loose a Psychic Scream in a close burst 2, which deals psychic damage and dazes for a turn on a hit.
Encounters and Final Impressions
These are likely the most peaceful and sympathetic aberrant creatures you’re likely to find anywhere. They’ll most likely be found just chilling and minding their business, and will only become dangerous if the PCs strike the first blow. The capybaras of the Far Realm.
Their lore is both disturbingly biological and a breath of fresh air. The first part is obvious (poor premature polyps!), and the second one is because here we have an example of powerful Athasian wildlife that isn’t so mindlessly aggressive it thinks armed adventurers are a good meal.
Standard flying mantles need to either appear in pairs or have some other opportunistic flanking buddy that will help them get their initial combat advantage on a target. Other than that all of them have some interesting ways to punish PCs that do too well against them.
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Let's Read the Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Elf
An elf running through the desert. Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the rest.
The Lore
Athasian elves are tall and long-legged, and their culture is almost entirely nomadic. Elven communities roam the deserts of Athas accompanied by swift beasts of burden and war, but none of those are mounts. An elf will only accept being carried by a beast if they’re too sick or wounded to stand. Otherwise, they prefer to run. And they’re very good at it.
Unlike some of the other nomads we saw so far, such as brohgs, elves have frequent interactions with Athasian settled peoples and city states. Their overall reputation is not very good. They’re known as itinerant traders who bring a lot of cool stuff to sell in the Elven Markets many towns have, but they’re also known as swindlers, thieves, raiders, and occasionally murderers. The cool stuff they sell you was probably stolen from someone else, according to rumor.
This sort of reputation has a number of unplasant parallels with real-world prejudices, so I find it off-putting that the book spends a lot of effort trying to convince me it’s true. Even the PCs have “desert raider” and “market thief” as their new custom background options.
I’d prefer to portray elves as having a lot of solidarity for each other and not a lot of sympathy for the outsiders who hate them so much. They drive hard bargains at the Market and skip town en masse if it looks like someone’s going to accuse one of them of a crime. The accusation is likely to be false most of the time, as I interpret it. Some individuals might resemble the negative stereotype, but then again that’s also true of city-dwellers, whose negative stereotype is “servant to a slaving despot” or “slaver”.
Elves who are found guilty of crimes in their own communities are cast out, and will often end up joining groups of actual raiders and bandits.
The Numbers
Despite their taller build elves remain Medium Fey Humanoids with a ground speed of 7. The stat blocks here don’t have low-light vision, though I think that’s still a feature of PC elves. They do all have Wild Step and Elven Accuracy, which work like their PC versions too.
The level range here is roughly comparable to that of standard elves from other books, so you can mix-and-match a bit. All of the stat blocks here are Unaligned.
Elf Peddler
A typical denizen of the Elven Markets. This could both represent a more or less honest trader who knows how to defend themselves, or a cutthroat who looks for particularly vulnerable customers to ambush after a sale. It’s a Level 2 Skirmisher with the Leader tag and 34 HP.
A typical peddler’s goal in a fight will be to live to fight another day, so they always hang around places with convenient escape routes and obstacles that might deter pursuers, such as twisty alleys or clustered stalls.
The peddler is armed with a bone longsword, which does standard damage for its level. It can use the Double Dealing maneuver at will: this lets it make a sword attack, shift half their speed, and then make another sword attack against a different target if they end the shift flanking that target.
As a minor action they can also use Peddler’s Command, which lets an ally within 20 squares move half their speed as a free action. If that ally is another elf, the move is instead a shift. This is useful to set up the flank for that second Double Dealing attack.
Elf Sniper
Another typical denizen of the markets, Snipers work security from shadowy corners and rooftop perches. If trouble starts, they help cover their allies’ retreat with their thrown weapons.
Snipers are Level 3 Minion Lurkers armed with Bone Daggers and a brace of 10 Chatkchas, which are three-pronged sharpened boomerangs. Both of these attacks deal a bit of extra damage if the sniper is hidden from the target when they start the attack.
As an at-will Move action, the sniper can use Elven Misdirection to move 2 squares and make a free Stealth check to become hidden if they end the movement with cover or concealment. This check has an automatic result of 25, which means they “take 15” on the roll.
In combat, they’ll try to pop out from cover, make a ranged attack, and hide again. If someone tries to get close to them they will run. Like the peddler, their goal in a “market fight” situation is to delay and distract pursuers enough for their allies to flee, and then flee themselves.
Elf Dune Strider
This nomadic warrior is used to running through the wastes. This stat block can represent a raider, or someone who’s just protecting their wandering band. It’s a Level 4 Skirmisher with 52 HP.
The Dune Strider can Move Like the Wind, gaining +5 to all defenses against opportunity attacks provoked by movement. They’re armed with a Bone Longsword that does extra damage on a charge, and a Obsidian Shortsword that’s slightly better for static attacks. The Rushing Dervish maneuver lets them move their Speed + 2 and make one attack with each sword against a different target during the movement. This recharges when they’re bloodied.
Striders acting as raiders will keep mobile and try to spread out their attacks in an attempt to intimidate their targets into giving up their possessions. They will flee if the fight turns against them. Their traits and abilities make it easy for them to bounce around the battlefield like pinballs, making charge attacks.
Elf Raid Leader
The sort of veteran commander you might find leading a larger raid against a settlement, either as revenge for mistreatment or as a plain old resource grab. It’s level 6 Artillery with the Leader tag.
The leader has a obsidian shortsword for emergencies, whose strikes let it shift 1 square on a hit. It will mostly fight with its Bone Bow, which is both more accurate and more damaging. It can fire Harrying Shots that do the same damage as a basic ranged attack, but also make the target grant combat advantage to adjacent allies of the leader for a turn.
Its leaderly action is a command to Focus on the Pain (minor action, recharge 6+) which deals 5 damage to an ally within 20 squares and allows that ally to immediately roll a save with a +2 bonus.
Raid leaders obviously lead from the back, providing ranged support to their skirmisher and lurker allies. It might be good to add a brute or soldier war beast to help protect them.
Encounters and Final Impressions
I’ve already mentioned my opinion about the elven stereotypes here: I don’t like them, and would probably change them a bit were I to run a campaign in this setting. They would be less true than depicted in the book, and depending on the tone I was going for might or might not be less prevalent in the setting.
The stat blocks are good, and can make for an extremely mobile encounter group when used together. As mentioned above, any brutes and soldiers who are part of an all-elven group will likely be trained war beasts instead of more elves.
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Let's Read the Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Eladrin
An Eladrin Veiled Warrior stepping out of a mirage. Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the rest.
The Lore
Physically, Athasian eladrin are very similar to those of the core setting, but the near-total loss of their home plane has done a number on their psychology and culture.
Defiling magic didn’t just destroy Athasian ecosystems - they also dissolved its Feywild. Now only a few rare pocket dimensions remain, scattered like oases through the wastes. The fate of the Lands Within the Wind is still tied to that of Athas, which means they’re slowly dying just like the world is.
Similarly, Athasian Eladrin are a traumatized and dying people. Most of the ones that remain live in remote castles and settlements in the desert or inside surviving pockets of Feywild, guarding the entrance to their realms with psychic illusions and only venturing out when they must.
The Numbers
Eladrin have the same common stats as always: they’re Medium Fey Humanoids with a Speed of 6, Low-light vision and a +5 on saves vs. charm effects. They retain their signature Fey Step power, which lets them teleport 5 squares as a move action once per encounter.
These stat blocks occupies what would be the lower range of eladrin power levels from the Monster Manuals and Monster Vault. There are no more epic-level ghaeles and bralanis in Athas… probably.
Eladrin Veiled Warriors
Veiled Warriors are spies and scouts that range far away from Eladrin settlements to gather information and locate resources, thought hey can also be found as part of their homes’ defense force. This is a great origin for PCs!
NPC Veiled Warriors are Level 5 Soldiers with 60 HP. They fight with Reach 2 Longspears that damage and mark for a turn on a hit. Once per encounter they can use a Veiling Dart (ranged 5 vs. Will) which deals psychic damage, blinds for a turn and slows (save ends).
Eladrin Mirage Adept
These are the psions responsible for hiding Eladrin settlements. They’re Level 7 Controllers with 80 HP and a focus on illusion powers.
Their basic melee attack is a Dagger that deals psychic damage and slows for a turn. They can attack at range with Deluding Whispers (ranged 10 vs. Will), a charm power that deals psychic damage, slides 3 squares and prevents the target from seeing creatures not adjacent to it for a turn.
Occasionally they’ll strike with the Phantom Foes power (recharge 6, area 2 within 20 vs. Will), which I guess projects the illusion that many additional foes are attacking the targets. This “psychic fireball” deals psychic damage and confuses (save ends). Confused characters roll a d20 whenever they’re about to make a melee or ranged attack and an ally is also in reach of that attack. On a 10 or higher, they attack the ally instead of the intended target.
Mirage adepts are very effective when combined with veiled warriors, because the warriors use reach weapons and so don’t need to be adjacent to a target blinded by Deluding Whispers in order to attack.
Eladrin Windwalker
Some eladrin indiscriminately blame all people of the natural world for the fate of their homeland, and feel such overwhelming hatred towards them that they offer themselves in ritual sacrifice. This causes their life essence to slowly leak into the Feywild and be replaced with the raw magic of that plane. This gives them great power for as long as their diminishing life lasts. They use their remaining time to go out into the world and slay every humanoid they see.
Windwalkers are Level 8 Lurkers with 69 HP. They fight with sabers and blowguns that ignore armor and target Reflex. Their damage is average, but Unseen Advantage lets the windwalker deal extra damage against targets that can’t see it, and slow them for a turn on any hit.
The Between the Winds trait lets a windwalker become invisible and gain phasing whenever it either spends a turn without attacking or uses its fey step. These conditions last for a turn or until the windwalker attacks. This does mean they can stay continuously invisible if they don’t attack.
Windwalkers will usually try to attack every other turn like most lurkers to benefit from Unseen Advantage, but the presence of an ally who can make them invisible or blind PCs (like a Mirage Adept) can let them strike every turn with bonus damage.
Eladrin Windwalker Mirage
Windwalkers in the final stages of the process are little more than ghosts. They become Level 8 Minion Lurkers with a ground speed of zero, a flight speed of 6 (hover, altitude limit 2), always-on phasing, and Resist 10 All. Despite appearances they are not undead, and are not especially vulnerable to radiant damage and anti-undead powers.
Their Wisp on the Wind trait gives them partial concealment vs. enemies that are 2 or 3 squares away, and total concealment against enemies 4 or more squares away. Their melee attack is a Razor Wind that does minion-tier damage. When they hit 0 HP, their Dispersing Essence attacks a Close Burst 3 and does the same damage as Razor Wind to those it hits.
The mirage’s damage resistance means you can only get it to that point by dealing 11 or more damage with a single attack - they’ll resist anything weaker. On the bright side, this means Dispersing Essence cannot provoke a chain reaction as it only deals 8 damage.
Mirages love large battle maps that let them invisibly fly past the party’s defenders and gang up on isolated squishies. PCs can counter this tactic by sticking together, but Dispersing Essence makes that decision a bit tougher than it would seem at first. Cruel GMs can make it even harder by including other monsters capable of area attacks in the encounter.
Encounters and Final Impressions
The Windwalker variants are evil, having succumbed to genocidal rage, but everyone else is unaligned. And they’re all super tragic.
I don’t think windwalkers would mix with other eladrin, though it’s easy enough to reskin a standard Mirage Adept as another windwalker variant if you want to mix them up. As noted above, this makes for a potent combination.
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