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• May 20, 2022

  Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Beholder

  This is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

  Beholders appear in every 4e Monster Manual and also in the Monster Vault. They’re apparently too iconic to leave out! In this entry, we get spooky.

  There’s no new “general” lore in this entry. Everything it introduces would be packaged into the Monster Vault as well and we already looked at that lore here.

  Beholder Spawn

  D&D 5th Edition would introduce that cool bit where beholders reproduce asexually through nightmares. The MM3 just says that the means of beholder reproduction are best left unknown. In either case, the result of that process could be represented by this Beholder Spawn stat block.

  These are beholders at the start of their life-cycle, very young and comparatively weak but already quite smart and evil. You might find them alongside their parents. Or perhaps they’re banding together for survival, hoping to last long enough to be the first to reach full size and devour the rest of their siblings.

  In either case they’d be very aware of their fragility and would try to stay mobile, spread out, and away from the reach of the PCs.

  The Numbers

  Beholder spawn are Medium Aberrant Magical Beasts, and Level 15 Minion Artillery. They have a flight speed of 6, darkvision, and all-around vision (which means they can’t be flanked).

  Like all beholders, they bite in melee and fire eye rays with a maximum range of 10. Their rays are a lot simpler than that of a “full” beholder, and do elemental damage of the same type as one of the types used by their parent.

  If a spawn is hit or missed by a close or area attack, they can use Desperate Flight as an interrupt to shift 2 squares. This means they can try to get out of the area of effect before they suffer damage.

  Beholder Eye of Shadow

  In past articles we already established that beholders mutate when they cross over from the Far Realm, taking characteristics that match their new environment. Eyes of Shadow are beholders that hung out in the Shadowfell too long, acquiring powers compatible with that bleak place.

  The Numbers

  We’re back in familiar territory here: this beholder is Large and a Level 12 Elite Lurker with 194 HP. It has the same speed and senses as the spawn above, deals extra damage when it has combat advantage, and heals 20 HP at the end of a turn if it has remained invisible since the start of that turn.

  It capitalizes on those passive traits through a couple of auxiliary abilities: its Central Eye (minor action 1/round) projects a fear attack that targets Will and makes the target grant combat advantage; and it can Vanish Into Shadow (recharge 5+) as a move action, teleporting up to 20 squares and becoming invisible until it attacks or until the end of its next turn.

  As for its actual attacks, there’s the usual bite and a set of 3 eye rays. These are ranged attacks but don’t provoke opportunity attacks. The beholder can fire two of them in the same action but must aim each at a different target. They are:

  • a Blinding Ray (vs. Reflex) that deals radiant damage and blinds for a turn.

  • a Thundering Ray (vs. Fortitude) which deals heavy thunder damage and deafens for a turn.

  • a Shadowbond Ray (vs. Will) that deals necrotic damage and immobilizes (save ends). While this condition lasts, the beholder and any shadow creatures in play have concealment while within 5 squares of the target.

  This beholder wants to attack from ambush and use its central eye and blinding ray to make the PCs grant it combat advantage from a distance. Then it’s going to hit them with thundering rays and bites while enjoying the extra damage. Shadowbond is for melee defenders, and Vanish Into Shadow is a good escape hatch. The teleport range on that is so large it could allow the beholder to escape combat entirely, though an overconfident or angry individual might still return to the fight as soon as it finishes healing those 20 HP.

  Its ability to target any defense makes it quite versatile, even if it only has three rays.

  Ghost Beholder

  

  While the Eye of Shadow is merely goth, this one is actually undead. Beholders are stubborn and hateful creatures at the best of times, so it’s natural that some of them will linger on as ghosts after they die or are killed. This usually suits them just fine, but it also makes the more cautious since they know they won’t get a third chance at existence.

  The Numbers

  Ghost beholders are Large Level 18 Elite Controllers with 254 HP. It combines common beholder traits (as seen on the two previous monsters) with undead ones. It’s immune to disease and poison, and Vulnerable 10 to radiant damage. As a ghost, it’s insubstantial and has phasing.

  Its bite is a ghostly attack that targets Reflex and does necrotic damage. Its Central Eye has a minor-action poltergeist effect that targets Will, slides the target 5 squares, and gives if 5 vulnerability to necrotic and psychic damage for a turn. All of its eye rays deal one of these damage types.

  The ghost beholder has three eye rays to choose from. It can only fire one on its own turn, but it also has the Eyes of the Beholder trait that gives it a free random ray attack against enemies that start their turn within 5 squares of it.

  The rays are:

  • Chill of the Grave (vs. Fortitude) does cold and necrotic damage, and slows (save ends).

  • Ghostly Possession (vs. Will) inflicts 15 ongoing psychic damage (save ends)e. The first failed save also dazes the target; the second one completes the possession. Possessed targets are dominated, and the beholder disappears from play until the effect ends. This happens on a sucessful save, or the beholder can end it voluntarily.

  • Killing Thought (vs. Will) does psychic damage and forces the target to make a melee basic attack against themselves! Targets who are not holding a weapon will drop what they’re holding, draw a weapon, and make that attack anyway, all as part of the same free action. Creepy.

  Ghost beholders are fond of phasing into the floor or walls to protect themselves from attack, emerging from unexpected angles to shoot against the characters. Fighting them without access to force and/or radiant damage is an exercise in suffering.

  Final Impressions

  More Beholders! Even though the Eye of Shadow follows the same naming convention as the Eyes of Flame and Frost, I think it has a better stat block. It does a variety of unexpected damage types and can target any defense!

  The Ghost Beholder also has interesting abilities, but its defenses make it a nightmare to fight for an unprepared party. Even well-prepared undead hunters might boggle a bit when they find one of those instead of more standard monster like a vampire or banshee.

  As for the spawn, I’d probably reskin them into something else. The idea of mobile flying artillery minions is sound, but the thought of fighting beholder “children” is a bit disturbing and I’m partial to the idea that beholders spawn as fully-grown nightmares given form.

• May 20, 2022

  Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Behemoth

  

  This is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

  Behemoths were introduced in the first Monster Manual. As you can see there, they’re basically fantasy dinosaurs. Most of them resemble the dinosaurs we learned about as kids, but the “official” association is tenuous enough that behemoths don’t have to change to conform to newer scientific developments.

  The Lore

  The book gives us a couple of poetic paragraphs about how behemoth steps thunder through the landscape and so on. They’re nice.

  The new information here is that behemoths are always in demand for use as war beasts, so specimens young enough to train are a hot commodity. Capturing one is not easy though, because mommy behemoths fight their hardest when protecting their nests and their young. Some of them also live in really hard to reach places.

  Even “tame” behemoths aren’t 100% safe. There’s always a chance they’ll flip out and turn on their handlers, and then escape to the wild after killing them. This could happen in the middle of a battle, in which case the behemoth will attack enemy and former ally alike until it can run off.

  The Monsters

  We get three new behemoth species here. They’re Natural Beasts as usual, and since we have a focus on behemoths that can be used as weapons they all have the Mount keyword in addition to the usual Reptile keyword. Their other traits vary per stat block, and their levels range from mid- to late- Heroic.

  Bone Crown Behemoths

  This is an old-school triceratops. I understand the science on those has moved on by now, but this is one of the advantages of behemoths over realistic dinosaurs. Their size is Large.

  Bone crowns are herbivorous but extremely aggressive and ill-tempered. They’re a favorite of hobgoblins and troglodytes, who train them for use as unstoppable, tank-like cavalry. The “poetic” imagery in the text describes these things charging through infantry formations and coming out the other side adorned in soldier guts hanging from their crowns as if they were pennants. As you might have guessed, they have a relatively high chance to flip out and turn on their riders in the heat of battle.

  Bone crowns are Level 6 Soldiers with 71 HP and Speed 7. Their basic (and only) attack action is a Head Butt that damages and marks for a turn. When used in a charge it also pushes 1 square, and when used in an opportunity attack it knocks prone.

  They also have a couple of triggered actions: Threatening Bash allows them to attack a marked enemy that shifts as an interrupt. Insult to Injury is their mount power, and adds their “push 1 square” effect to their rider’s charge attacks.

  Use pseudo-cavalry tactics for these: charge in from a distance, crash into the PCs, and then stay around to step on them and pin them down while your skirmishers and atrillery have fun. It’s better if the charge comes in from a flank and hits the squishies, but since the PCs aren’t an army that’s difficult to arrange.

  Skinwing Behemoth

  One of those giant pterodactyls. They nest in craggy mountains, and thieves often try to steal their eggs to sell to kingdoms looking to start or maintain an air force. A lot of these thieves get killed by enraged skinwing parents.

  These Large behemoths are Level 7 Skirmishers with 79 HP. Their ground speed is a pitiful 2 (clumsy), but they fly at speed 8 (hover). That clumsiness means a downed skinwing will do everything in its power to take flight again as soon as possible… even abandon its rider.

  Their basic attack is a bite with no special effects, but they have the famous Flyby Attack power that allows them to fly their speed, make an attack at any point, and not provoke opportunity attacks from their target. The Strafe trait allows the rider to make a basic attack in place of their mount’s bite during this maneuver.

  The skinwing can also enhance a flyby attack with its Grasping Talons (recharge 5+), which allow it to grab the target if the main attack hits. They can then Drag Off the victim, carrying it with them while the grab lasts.

  Skinwings fight by doing constant flyby attacks, and carrying victims off to be dropped from a great height when they can. Skinwing cavalry will coordinate with ground forces to do the same thing in a maximally inconvenient way. PCs would do well to knock them off the air as soon as possible and prevent them from taking off again.

  Spirehorn Behemoth

  I don’t think this Huge creature has an analog in the real world. At size Huge, they’re so big they can mount platforms transporting up to a dozen people, and they have big horns. They are the perfect vanity ride for your typical barbarian chieftain or hobgoblin general, so there is high demand for eggs and even for healthy adults. Lots of people die trying to get those.

  Their actual battlefield use depends on the personality of their owners. Some are used like thrones and sit in a palace somewhere. Others are mobile fortified command centers that hang at the back of a fighting army. And others are siege engines at the front lines, transporting troops instead of a single big ego or command staff.

  Spirehorns are Level 9 Elite Brutes with 234 HP. They confer the Beastmaster trait to their rider, giving them a +1 to AC and Reflex. I guess only the person actually directing the spirehorn gets the bonus. Their speed is 6.

  A spirehorn’s basic attack is a gore with no special effects, and it can make Double Attacks. Once per encounter it can build up some speed and Trample, moving twice its speed. It can enter enemy spaces during this move and makes a free attack on each enemy whose space it enters.

  You’re likely to see these used in battle as living siege towers, or as carriers for enemy leaders. In either case they’re going to be priority targets.

  Final Impressions

  Dinosaurs are awesome even when they’re called Behemoths, and with the ones in this entry plus the others we’ve seen before you have enough assemble a full force organization table for a fantasy army that uses most of them in different roles.

  I think we even have enough “war beasts” at this point to make themed armies. Here’s an example:

  • Dragonborn use behemoths!

  • Hobgoblins use mammalian megafauna, dire wolves, and giant bats!

  • Elves use fey panthers and griffons!

  • Dwarves ride dire boars!

  • Kobolds use giant bugs!

  • Humans use horses and hippogriffs!

  And everyone uses drakes because most of them are so common and easily tamed.

• May 19, 2022

  A Short Review: Cyberpunk RED

  

  I remember buying the Cyberpunk 2020 core book around the mid-nineties. By then it was already in its second edition. The first one was titled Cyberpunk 2013, and it was released in 1988, making it the first actual cyberpunk RPG (Shadowrun would arrive in 1989).

  This system and its subsequent iterations remained mostly at the edges of my awareness for a long time, since I was more of a Shadowrun fan. But recently I started playing the Cyberpunk 2077 video game and I liked it enough that I decided to also check out the latest edition of the tabletop game, Cyberpunk RED.

  The first thing I notice is that this is a big book. Nearly 500 pages in length, I’m sure it would be quite hefty if it was a physical copy. The first half of it is player-facing information starting with a setting overview, character creation, basic rules, combat and finally netrunning. The second half is a more detailed description of the setting, and then GM advice including a series of short adventures.

  When it comes to layout and presentation, R. Talsorian definitely learned from its past mistakes with the ill-fated Cyberpunk V.3. Cyberpunk RED’s layout is pretty clean, and its sans-serif font quite readable (to me at least). Page margins have tastefully minimalistic decoration (done in red, of course) and the illustrations are gorgeous and very detailed. Very little of the text is obviously copied from CP 2020, surely another lesson learned from CP V3.

  The mechanics are pretty much a new iteration of the Interlock system used by CP2020. The basic numbers are tweaked a bit, but it should be pretty familiar to anyone who played the earlier edition and pretty easy for newcomers to learn. There are some useful artifacts from FUZION that managed to sneak into the game, like the concept of “everyday skills” every character should know.

  The combat rules are a bit simpler all around and should be fairly fun, but I dislike that they do the “Martial Arts Thing” that was so common in a lot of RPGs written in the 90s. You can be a pleb and learn Brawling, or you can learn one of four elegant Martial Arts styles from the far and mysterious East! They make your fists into registered lethal weapons and give you access to deadly Secret Techniques! Bleh. I dislike the exoticism implied in this view.

  Armor is really good compared to gun damage, and there is a very clear “firefight meta” going on here. An unarmored character is going to go down quickly, but it’s very easy to get concealable armor that will stop most bullets at least 50% of the time. Practically every sample PC and opponent wears this exact armor and carries the only handgun with a better than even chance of getting through. The only ones who wear or carry anything lighter are those enemies whose main distinction is having shitty gear, and those PCs for whom combat is a tertiary concern.

  The netrunning rules do a solid job of avoiding the pitfalls from the original set. A hacking session is still a sort of mini-dungeon-crawl, but it’s a lot more abstract and well-integrated into “meatspace” initiative. It also requires the netrunner to be on-site, so that they can participate in the physical side of the adventure with the rest of the group. My main criticism here is that these rules remain very tightly coupled to their corresponding setting elements, just like they were in CP2020. The new netrunning system comes accompanied by a bunch of cataclysmic setting changes and a technical explanation that’s pretty much just a word salad. Luckily this is extremely easy to eject.

  The cyberware rules are essentially the same as always, though they carve a few important and long overdue exceptions to the Humanity Loss rules. Still, I feel they could have gone further.

  As for the setting… I’ll be honest, I never knew there was so much backstory and metaplot to it. I remember the setting section in CP 2020 as a sort of “lightly flavored background soup” that was just there to explain why you had cybered-up folks being all punky in this fictional city. CP RED decides to delve way deep into it, with a huge historical section that serves as a stealth “2020 era” supplement before moving on to the 2045 narrative present of this game.

  While I think the narrative presents of RED and 2077 are both very interesting, I have a lot of nits to pick with all that backstory and metaplot, and with the ways it seems to remain static for a long time or loop over itself. Personally, I’d probably move up its divergence point with the real world by a good 30+ years and condense a lot of the subsequent events up to 2077 into something more dynamic and streamlined.

  Proceeding to the GM advice, I finally find out where the copied text from previous editions is this time. The first couple of pages in this section reproduce a lot of advice I remember seeing from editions past. Some of it is serious, some of it is a tongue-in-cheek parody, all of it feels very dated when read in The Actual Year of 2022. Apparently the reader is supposed to easily distinguish the real advice from the jokes, but in my experience that never really works.

  After we get past this bit of cringe, we get to advice on plotting adventures. Though it talks in terms of “script-writing”, it does recognize things will go off-script and that improvisation is essential. “Just roll with it” is very basic advice but it’s still welcome.

  The system for awarding XP at the end of each session recommends classifying players according to their playstyles, and evaluating them based on how well they stuck to that classification. The combat monster should get XP for fighting well, the roleplayer for roleplaying well, and so on. I’d have been all over this back when 2020 was still the distant future. These days, though, I don’t want to have to tell Player A that they got less XP than Player B for failing to live up to the way I think they should play. In my games, when someone does something worthy of a XP bonus, everyone gets that bonus. We all lift together!

  Finally, just like in CP2020, there’s a section of “screamsheets”, two-page spreads containing a handful of fictional news articles on the left and a mini-adventure on the right. These are entertaining.

  Final Impressions

  It might seem like I’m complaining a lot, but I’d happily play Cyberpunk RED. The system is simple and very playable, and most actual groups are likely to care little about deep metaplot cuts. It’s a good game overall.

  Speaking as a GM, I don’t think the CP RED system clears my personal “Treshold of GURPS”. If I had ample time to prepare and plan, I’d probably adapt its setting to that system. However I’d happily run the game as-is if I had to do it on the spot. I’d just hand out the ready-made RED iconics as PCs, and pick one of the short adventures at the back of the book.

  In either case, if the setting’s timeline was important, I’d probably use the hypotethical condensed version I mentioned earlier. And I’m definitely going to ditch that advice that says a group of PCs can’t hope for anything more than their own survival and maybe doing some small good beyond that. You don’t get to say that and have a setting where Rache Bartmoss can take the whole NET and quite a few megacorps down in one fell swoop, and where Johnny Silverhand’s raids on Arasaka Tower are practically a regular event. If these clowns can have that much of an impact, then so can any PC group whose players are interested in this sort of game.

• May 9, 2022

  Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Banderhobb

  

  This is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

  I’m fairly sure Banderhobbs are a new monster. If they appeared before, it was in a book I don’t own.

  The Lore

  Banderhobbs stuck in my memory as a notable monster when I first read this book, and now that I’m here again I can see why. They’re D&D’s take on the Boogeyman, the monsters parents use to scare their children. Be good, or a banderhobb will come to you in your sleep and take you away.

  This isn’t just a fairy tale, though. Banderhobbs really exist. On moonless nights, they set forth from their home in the Shadowfell, cross into the world, and look for victims. Once a banderhobb has chosen a victim, it will chase and swallow them.

  All banderhobbs live in the same sinister tower in the Shadowfell, under the command of an ancient master the book doesn’t describe beyond saying he exists. Banderhobbs who catch their victims return there to regurgitate them, intact, in front of their master. No one knows what the inside of the tower is like, or what happens to the abductees.

  The Numbers

  We get three Banderhobb stat blocks here. They’re all Shadow Magical Beasts with darkvision and ground/swim speeds of 6. Their levels place them in the mid-to-late paragon tier.

  Banderhobb Warder

  This Large monster is a Level 16 Soldier with 160 HP. Warders are the ones that most closely resemble a classic horror movie monster or boogeyman. They have an uncanny ability to chase their chosen victims, appearing from under beds and inside closets, always a step ahead.

  They strike with a Reach 2 Lonfinger Claw or with a Longfinger Clutch that’s a little weaker but can target two creatures. Both attacks mark on a hit, and the mark lasts for a turn. They can also make a a Range 5 Lightning Tongue attack that deals lightning damage and knocks prone on a hit.

  Marked enemies are in for a bad time. When they end their move, the warder can teleport up to 10 squares to appear next to them. If they try to make an attack that doesn’t target the warder, the warder can Swallow them! This is an attack against Fortitude, and the warder can shift 3 squares before making it. A hit means the victim is removed from the map, as they’re now inside the warder.

  While in the warder’s gullet, they take ongoing 10 damage. They can make melee and close attacks against the warder, or take other non-attack actions. The effect lasts until the warder hits 0 HP, or until it spits the victim out as a free action.

  There is no save or test that allows an early escape. The warder must die or regurgitate for the victim to leave its gullet. I guess the warder could also opt not to damage the victim if we want something like what happens in the lore story.

  Banderhobb Filch

  Instead of being a big frog thing that swallows people, the filch is a Small lizard thing that puts people in a sack and drags them away. It’s a Level 17 Skirmisher with the Leader keyword and 164 HP.

  Filches fight with their claws, using Quick Claw basic attacks that allow them to shift on a hit and weaker Hook Strikes that grab the target. Once per encounter they go on a Distracting Frenzy, attacking every enemy in a Close Burst 1 and allowing an ally within 5 squares to make a free standard action.

  They can attack from further away by hocking Stinking Gobs (Ranged 5) at their enemies, or by teleporting with Shadow Blink and making a strong claw attack at either end of the movement.

  I would guess being grabbed by a banderhobb filch means being stuffed into the sack. It’s a normal grab, so you can still fight back and try to escape, but there’s no limit to the number of greabbed creatures. The filch can use Drag Away to move its speed and pull all grabbed creatures along with it.

  Banderhobb Abductor

  We’re back to the “big frog thing” form factor. Abductors are Level 18 Brutes with 211 HP. They’re all about swallowing victims as quickly as possible.

  Their basic attack is a Bite and they can fling their Grasping Tongues out to Range 5. A hit does damage and pulls the victim adjacent to the banderhobb, grabbing it. It can use Swallow (recharge 5+) on a grabbed victim, which works like the Warder power but as a standard action attack instead of a reaction.

  When the abductor is first bloodied, it Crosses into Shadow, disappearing from play for a turn and re-appearing 10 squares away. A bloodied abductor can use Gobble, which is a stronger bite that also grabs the target and allows an immediate Swallow follow-up, recharging the ability as needed.

  Final Impressions

  Bandehobbs are spooky and evocative. The book text really lays the purple prose on thick for them, but I think that works rather well. They’re also a shadow creature without a death theme. They’re neither goth nor undead, which is kind of a rarity.

  They pair well with evil fey that have a “nightmare” theme, and that Shadowfell tower sounds like a good final dungeon for a Paragon Tier campaign.

• May 9, 2022

  Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Arcanian

  

  This is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

  I don’t remember seeing arcanians anywhere else before, though they do have that “late-3e feeling” to them.

  The Lore

  Wizardry is a craft that demands great patience and care. While a warlock “cheats” by making shady deals with dubious entities, a wizard earns every bit of power they have. But some wizards have less than great patience and care, and try to reach a bit too far beyond their current ability.

  In the vast majority of cases that just results in an embarrassing fizzle, but sometimes the magic goes out of control and causes a major accident. Most of those end up turning the caster into a messy stain on the floor, but some are worse.

  In these rare cases, the wizard absorbs most of the runaway magic, which kills them and animates the corpse. The resulting entity is known as an Arcanian. Its sapient and highly intelligent, but utterly consumed by whatever strong emotion the wizard felt as they died, further warped by the nature of the magic that killed them.

  The Monsters

  Arcanians are Medium Natural Humanoids (Undead). Each is themed around an element and an emotion, though ironically they have no particular resistance against their own theme element. They have a ground speed of 6 and no special senses. They also carry wizardly implements that give them abilities similar to that of a PC wizard.

  Their signature ability is Arcane Surge, an encounter power that triggers when they hit an enemy with an implement power (anything but their basic melee attack). It makes that power deal maximum damage.

  Green Arcanian

  Green Arcanians are half-melted monstrosities. Acid seeps from their pores, and their footsteps leave seared footprints. Their driven by envy and a hatred of beauty, which they use acid magic to destroy.

  Green Arcanians are Level 8 Artillery with 67 HP. All of their attacks deal acid damage. Their basic melee attack is an Acid Touch, and their basic ranged attack an Acid Bolt that also deals a bit of splash damage to enemies adjacent to the target. Less often they can cast a Stream of Acid (recharge 5+) that does heavy damage and inflicts a -2 AC penalty and 5 ongoing acid damage (save ends both).

  Their implement power is Orb of Denial, an interrupt which triggers when an enemy succeeds on a save and makes them fail the save instead. Thankfully this is an encounter power.

  Blue Arcanian

  This shivering corpse despises warmth, and believes that people and things can remain forever perfect if they’re frozen. As you might imagine, it goes around attempting to preserve everything it likes.

  Blue Arcanians are Level 10 Controllers with 105 HP. They move slightly slower than normal at Speed 5, and all of their powers deal cold damage.

  Their basic melee attack is a Frost Staff that also pushes 2 squares and immobilizes for a turn. They fight at range with at-will Bolts of Frost that turn the area surrounding the target into difficult terrain for a turn, and once per encounter they can summon a Swirling Blizzard to deal damage over an area (half on a miss).

  Their implement power is Staff of Shielding, which once per encounter gives them +4 to all defenses against an attack.

  Red Arcanian

  These eternally burning undead are gripped in the throes of fiery passion or red-hot wrath. They want to burn the world and take great pleasure in doing so.

  Red Arcanians are considerably more powerful than the rest: Level 19 Artillery with 131 HP. All of their attacks deal fire damage, and they carry wands.

  Their melee basic attack is a Fiery Touch, and their ranged spells will be familiar to PC wizards: Scorching Burst is an at-will area attack, and Burning Hands is an encounter power that hits a close blast 5 that deals heavy damage and pushes 3 squares.

  Their implement encounter power is Wand of Accuracy, which gives them a +4 bonus to their next attack.

  Final Impression

  Just because liches are the most iconic undead wizards, it doesn’t mean they’re the only ones. Arcanians seem like a good monster to use when you want to make an adventure themed around wizards who dug too deep.

  You could have a whole ruined academy filled with a variety of them and with other supporting undead or summoned extra-planar monsters. It’s easy enough to change the ruling element of the stat blocks presented here, or to adjust their level so you can have all three in the same dungeon. Maybe there’s a tome or artifact in its vaults that the party must recover, or maybe it’s just a place they need to pass through on their perilous journey.

  Sprinkle in journal entries that hint at the disaster that destroyed the place, and add a big lich with multiple elemental attacks as the “end boss”. And there you have it, an instant Dark Souls level for your 4e table.

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