[Storming...] Vincent, Your Monster Creation Rules are Borked

[Willow]

So, in the errata, we've got these gems:

1) Give monsters more hit points. I haven't figured out exactly how
many more, but more. For 3 players, maybe 1 more (or maybe it's fine
as is). For 4-5 players, maybe double the current number? For 6-7,
maybe triple it? Something like that.

and

5) Currently, a 1-XV monster gets 3 abilities. Instead, a 1-XV monster
gets a number of abilities equal to the number of PCs.

I'm writing up some monsters for a game I'll be running Sunday, and I have no idea how many players are going to show up.  Abilities equal to the number of PCs?  Hell no, I'm not doing that.  I'd need to have conditional abilities or conditional XV values.

No sir.  My monsters are going to have 3 abilities, and all the scaling is going to be in the hit points.  For every player after two, they're going to get +1 hit points.  That's it.  No mulitplying, no fiddly tinkering, that's it.  Four people sit down?  +2 hp.  Bam!  Done!

I'll let you know how it goes.

[lumpley]

Borked: true.

Good luck! Let me know.

-Vincent

[Willow]

So we played, everyone had a really great time, though the monster rules were borked (as predicted, though for different reasons), and there were some questions and confusion that really wasn't covered in the text.

We played in my town Heavenly Rest, which I posted over in the Lumpley Games forum.  Basically, wuxia China crossroads town.

Chargen was fun- roll straight down felt old school, yet there were still choices to be made.  Our characters were the Sorcerer Ming the Merciless (Tim), Dock Worker Peng the Walking Fortress (Sabe) and the Courtier Beautiful Zhen Mu (Shari).  Sabe's rolls blew, Shari's rocked (5-6-5-5-5-1).

The adventure:  Fearsome Bandit Chief Fung and his gang are stepping up their raids of the merchant caravans on the great road, robbing them blind.  But they're only so desperate because their former stomping grounds have been crystalized, because of the influence of the reawakened Dragon of Glass and Stone!

It kicked off with a boatcaptain waiting for his goods, Peng going to recruit Zhen and Ming for help.  Tim wanted his Sorcerer to have a nasty lair just outside of town, so I drew it on the map.  There was some rumor gathering about Fung & his gang.

(What do you roll for a character saying "What Does My Contact Know?"  I treated it as an Arcane roll for the player, since it's for knowing stuff, and added the Person as a tool.  And they needed to get more successes than previously gained- once one person gets 3 hits, you need 4 to learn anything new.)

They went out, and failed to get Ambushed by the bandits- both Feng and his gang had Ambush, and everyone rolled well on their perception checks.

The fight started with me describing the terrain (road, rolling dunes, bandit camp just beyond the dunes) and the positions (you guys, on the road, Fung and his gang cresting the dunes, gang getting advantage die for firing down arrows.)

Monsters attacking everyone is badass.

For Shari's first action, she hid behind a rock.  I treated that as "something else"- roll skill for green dice, and those help you defend against the arrows & such.  Tim cast a Call Lightning spell. (Incidentally, he forgot his attunement, and I thought he needed one success for range, so 3 to get any damage at all.  I gave him some free hits on later spellcasting rolls to make up for it.)  Tons of green dice, a few blue dice- archers attacking everyone- he took like 5 points of damage from archery, then got his spell off.  Sabe fought while doing something else to close with the archers and attack them, doing a bunch of damage.

Over the next few rounds, Sabe dealt with the archers, Fung came down and beat the crap out of Tim's mage, Shari cast her Unnoticed Passage spell to get a sneak attack on Fung with her warfan, and Sabe squared off with Fung and beat him up.

(That same round Shari tried to Command him to surrender.  Can you Command monsters you are fighting in combat with?  Can you Command monsters you aren't in combat with yet?  I gave her the surrender for free, and the other hits as hold over these guys.)

Tim's mage and Shari's courtier were both really beat up, so they used healing (Shari had a healer's hit- I had Tim roll Endurance + 2 dice for her item, and she rolled Endurance + 1 die since it's less useful when you're using it to heal yourself.)  Tim cast some Healing Light to heal a couple of more points.  Sabe had only taken 1 point of damage.

Fung spilled the beans about the Dragon of Glass and Stone encroaching on his territory.  They marched him and his men back to town, handed them over to magistrates, gathered some information on the desert and the dragon, and went out there.

First there was an encounter to traverse the Cystal Desert, home to dangerous crystal growths and hostile Glass Wasps.  This was kind of boring- Tim's mage blasted the wasps in round 1 (I ruled his Lightning attack ignored their swarm ability). and then it was a hard slog against the five dice of the terrain.  It didn't have an attack, only the Jagged trait, but really good rolls on my part (4 hits a few times on 5 dice) meant that everyone was taking 2 damage each round, and making slow progress.  Eventually, they got through, but Sabe had to use his rest, Tim eeked out another point out of the Healing Light, but Tim's mage and Shari's courtier were in Endurance roll area.

They came up with a really good plan to fight the dragon: they knew it's weakness (really slow), so they snuck up to it's cave, and the very strong dock worker took his supplies and prepared a rock fall trap to unleash on the dragon.  The wizard stood behind him to ready one of his attack spells (he took both, so he could zap every turn and not have to worry about miscast as much).  Shari was going to call out to the dragon to lure it out, then turn invisible (which worked, although maybe she should have cast her spell before the fight started.)

I gave Sabe a preparation roll where he got three hits, which rolled into his doing other stuff roll- he was putting everything in dropping rocks on the dragon.  And rolled badly.  So my dragon came out, ignores the rocks, and hits the mage and dock worker with two attacks each, for 5 and 3 damage- 8 damage each!  Badda bing, badda boom, swatted off the mesa.  I was exceedingly generous and let the invisible courtier sneak off and drag them back to town.  She would not have been able to take the dragon on her own.

Some assorted questions & comments:
I ruled that Empathy doesn't work for Rallying Troops in combat (like how Tireless doesn't work in combat).  Was that the correct call, or should it help with Rallying Troops?

The party beat 11 XV worth of stuff.  I had given out 4 units of treasure after raiding the bandit camp, so that left me with 7 to give out, which I decided was gems scavenged from the crystal wasps and the desert.  But that cheated the party out of a major treasure.  Should I have waited towards the end to assign treasure, or do something else, or what?

Everyone really liked the core die mechanics- gathering dice, counting hits, tinkering with different kind of dice, different dice doing different stuff- everyone caught on really quickly.  Please don't change the core mechanic!

The players remarked that one Endurance roll per adventure seemed tough.  But then, it was a tough adventure, and the monster rules were very nasty.

I totally get what you're trying to do with this batch of monster rules- if a monster only gets to attack one guy, and he whiffs, or ties, it's a downer for the GM.  One monster attacks everyone also means you have good one-monster encounters.  But I think if 3 snow orcs (or whatever) attack the party, each one should attack one guy at a time.  If the monster gets a good roll though, oh man, it's bad news for everyone.

Everyone was in endurance roll territory.  Do I make them all make new characters next week, or can they say that time is passing for everyone?

Is the first session supposed to be tough?  The players speculated that they got significantly more badass with that 11 XV.

We agreed to play again next week, but we'll be using the rules as written, just to see how that goes.

[Willow]

Here's my first batch of the monsters, using the rules in the basic PDF:

Encounters:
Desert Bandit Gang & Fearsome Bandit Chief Fung (XV 4)

Traversing the Desert of Glass and Stone:
Desert, 3 Swarms of Glass Wasps (5 XV)

Confronting the Dragon of Glass and Stone (6 XV)

Total XV: 15

Monsters:

The Desert Bandit Gang
Flesh & Stone
Endurance: 2
Abilities:
Stealth:  Attacks from Ambush! Perception vs 3.  Each failure gives the gang +2 Red dice to attacks for first round.
Swarm: Attack Everyone
+1 Damage Box

Weakness:
Emotionally attached to Fung.  If he dies, they want to flee.  If he is captured, they want to release him.

Damage ( )( )( )
Dice: 5 White
XV: 1

Fearsome Bandit Chief Fung
Flesh & Stone
Endurance: 3
Abilities:
Attack: Bludgeon (Giant Club). +2 Red
Big: +2 Damage Boxes, +1 Red, +1 Blue
Knockdown: +2 Green Dice to knock over.
Stealth, Improved:  Attacks from Ambush! Perception vs 4.  Each failure gives Fung +2 Red dice to attacks for first round.

Weakness:
Sees Red:  Can't stand being insulted or belittled.

Damage ( )( )( )( )( )
Dice: 5 White, 3 Red, 1 Blue, 2 Green
XV: 3

The Dragon of Glass and Stone
Materials: Glass & Stone
Endurance: 3
Abilities: 
Additional Attack: Makes a Bite and a Claw attack each round.
Attack: (Cut)- Jagged Glass Claws.  +2 Red Dice
Big.  Really Big: +3 Boxes, +2 Red, +2 Blue
Dazzle: To attack, need a setup roll of Perception vs. 3.  Fail means no setup, and -1 white die per difference.
+1 White Die
+1 Damage Box
Weakness:
Slow-Moving.

Damage: ( )( )( )( )( )( )( )
Dice: 6 White, 4 Red, 2 Blue
XV: 6

Glass Wasps
Material: Glass & Wind
Endurance: 1
Abilities:
Attack: Cut: +2 Red Dice
Swarm.  Attack everyone.
+1 White Die
Weakness:
Sees Red, Sortof:  Won't attack glass.  If a character can make themselves reflective, shiny, or tries to wave a mirror at it, the Glass Wasps ignore them.

Damage: ( )
Dice: 6 White, 2 Red
XV: 1

Treacherous Desert
Material: Glass & Stone
Endurance: 3
Terrain: Use Endurance or Skill to navigate.  Successes either get you out, or go towards group progress.
+1 Endurance
Jagged, Improved: If defense beats player's attack, player takes 2 damage.
Weakness:
Inanimate.

Progress: ( )( )( )( )
Group Progress: ( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )
Dice: 5 White
XV: 2

[Willow]

And here's the "updated" versions:

(Also, since I had 3 players, I added +1 hp to everything, except the terrain.)

Encounters:

Desert Bandit Gang & Fearsome Bandit Chief Fung (XV 5)

Traversing the Desert of Glass and Stone:
Desert, Swarm of Glass Wasps (6 XV)

Confronting the Dragon of Glass and Stone (6 XV)

Total XV: 17

Monsters:

The Desert Bandit Gang
Flesh & Stone
Endurance: 2
Abilities:
Stealth:  Attacks from Ambush! Perception vs 3.  Each failure gives the gang +2 Red dice to attacks for first round.
Swarm, Improved: Can't Take More than 2 Damage in one Attack.
+1 Damage Box

Weakness:
Emotionally attached to Fung.  If he dies, they want to flee.  If he is captured, they want to release him.

Damage ( )( )( )
Dice: 5 White
XV: 2

Fearsome Bandit Chief Fung
Flesh & Stone
Endurance: 3
Abilities:
Attack: Bludgeon (Giant Club). +2 Red
Big: +2 Damage Boxes, +1 Red, +1 Blue
Knockdown: +2 Green Dice to knock over.
Stealth, Improved:  Attacks from Ambush! Perception vs 4.  Each failure gives Fung +2 Red dice to attacks for first round.

Weakness:
Sees Red:  Can't stand being insulted or belittled.

Damage ( )( )( )( )( )
Dice: 5 White, 3 Red, 1 Blue, 2 Green
XV: 3

The Dragon of Glass and Stone
Materials: Glass & Stone
Endurance: 3
Abilities: 
Attack: (Bite)- Jagged Glass Jaw.  +2 Red Dice
Attack: (Cut)- Jagged Glass Claws.  +2 Red Dice
Big.  Really Big: +3 Boxes, +2 Red, +2 Blue
Dazzle: To attack, need a setup roll of Perception vs. 3.  Fail means no setup, and -1 white die per difference.
+1 White Die
+1 Damage Box
Weakness:
Slow-Moving.

Damage: ( )( )( )( )( )( )( )
Dice: 6 White, 4 Red, 4 Red, 2 Blue
XV: 6

Glass Wasps
Material: Glass & Wind
Endurance: 1
Abilities:
Attack: Cut: +2 Red Dice
Swarm, Improved; Can't Take More than 1 Damage per Attack
+1 White Die
Weakness:
Sees Red, Sortof:  Won't attack glass.  If a character can make themselves reflective, shiny, or tries to wave a mirror at it, the Glass Wasps ignore them.

Damage: ( )( )
Dice: 6 White, 2 Red
XV: 4

Treacherous Desert
Material: Glass & Stone
Endurance: 3
Terrain: Use Endurance or Skill to navigate.  Successes either get you out, or go towards group progress.
+1 Endurance
Jagged, Improved: If defense beats player's attack, player takes 2 damage.
Weakness:
Inanimate.

Progress: ( )( )( )( )
Group Progress: ( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )
Dice: 5 White
XV: 2