What's that? Behind again? Honestly, though, if you're one of the two people still reading this... you should know better by now.
So the final round of RPGSS Season 9 is up and the polls are open (and soon to be closed). Which means it's finally time for me to talk about the last round, because I am that quick.
The Faceweaver’s Workshop
I've always liked the Soulbound Mannequin, but never had a place to use it. This encounter's a neat little set up for a particularly interesting one. That whole cyborg dilemma. You might last forever, but your existence sucks, ha! But that's alright, because this makes for a lot of really cool interaction with the NPC.
Unfortunately, that's all it has. I feel like it's riding on the coolness factor of a crazy soul-bound-construct. There's some ghouls being dicks to him! Well, yeah. Average ghouls. There's a hole with rot grubs! Okay, still cool. It all fits together nicely. It's a package that makes sense. But none of it really wows me. Nothing here really sticks out as super memorable or particularly interesting, other than the mannequin itself. And he's not really tied to the encounter, or the location, or even the ghouls or anything. I could pick him up and drop him pretty much anywhere in any city in any building and let him start murdering people and... he'd still be just as cool. There's a lot to be said for how cool he is, but there's also a lot to be said for how uninteresting the encounter is otherwise.
I mean, if you do diplomacize the guy, what's left? A fight with two ghouls. In an abandoned building. By the water. No one ever did that before.
Bracken Moor Bridge
Aw yis, Nirmathas. I love this place. Fey and will o wisps and Molthuni turncoats who are actually spies?! Yis, indeed. The story of this encounter is great. It's got a very flavorful buildup with the conflict in the region, the nasties in the Fangwood, and haunts that do exactly what haunts should do--provide narrative while being a reasonable hazard.
Speaking of hazards, this encounter is a bit of a mish-mash. The kelpie and the wisp working together make sense, but the mention of the fungal leshy doesn't even seem necessary. He's just kind of there to be story. And he doesn't even story that hard, since he's just collecting shinies in his garden. I could do that! Then throw in the Molthuni, and you've got (admittedly pretty awesome) fight with just about everything in it. Weather hazards reducing visibility, terrain hazards on the shores, a haunt, some invisible floating thing... I don't know if I really like that many factors all in such a short span and space.
Gnome’s Throw Crossing
I don't really care for clockwork gnomes, so this one's a hard sell on me. Crazy eccentrics with unbound wanderlust? Hell yeah. But mechano-nerds? That feels too WoW for me. (I know, I know, WoW didn't invent mechanically inclined gnomes. But I played that game too long to think otherwise.) That being said, this is another work of madness that I very much appreciate. It's also got just the right touch of gnomish humor without going overboard.
The encounter itself, though, seems deliberately designed as more of a Charisma check than a combat encounter. Yeah, doorkickers might find themselves at odds with the guardians of this portal, but I know my players would have a ball talking to these things. Smashing this particular door just seems rude. Consequently, I don't really think this is a super cinematic encounter because this is really just a really cool roleplaying encounter. Don't get me wrong--I love cool roleplaying encounters. I just think this sort of misses the point of this round? I mean, even if we did fight them... are they even tough enough for a fight? They kind of strike me as little pushovers... like gnomes. Hey-oh.
Dead Man’s End
This is another one with a great set up. A good encounter requires a good story, and this certainly has that. Chasing down vampires and ambushing them at a bridge that sometimes disappears because Desna. Awesome. I almost feel like the delaying bits are cheating, since that's more than just this encounter, but I like them enough to not care. (Rules are for suckers, after all.) (Suckers being people who aren't still playing the RPGSS game. People who are still playing should obviously play by the rules.) (Also, don't even listen to my parenthetical advice.)
Unfortunately, this one also seems to suffer from 'superstars cram lots of stuff on one map' syndrome. We've got a cool chase to a disappearing bridge with some vampires. But also it's been raining a bunch so the river can wash you away. Also it's really cold so better get those endure element spells ready. Except that you can't, because you made the mistake of grabbing the broken handrails! Or worse, you were stuck in the mud! Again, don't get me wrong! I think it all comes together very nicely in this case, making for a very memorable--and wet--encounter with some cool baddies that have a cool story going for them. I would only be particularly concerned about very successful PCs... taking this fight in the daytime seems entirely trivial. I guess that's the point, and they should be rewarded for delaying the vampire enough to make her life miserable, but I feel like the reward should be a legitimate shift to negotiation instead of a 'hey let's talk lol jk we're attacking now' thing. Why would the vampire want to even try starting shit with some adventurers while she's out of commission? Why would they even wait to try and get some protective shadow on that bitch and let her vampire the hell out of things? Also, isn't there something about vampires being unable to cross running water? That's another reason to avoid a fight here. I don't think that's part of Golarion vampire lore, but I'd try to apply something like that in a home game anyway. Negotiate for freedom, and then murder these murderhobos later. Average vampire.
And done!
... Maybe I am just a hater. Or maybe my tastes are just completely off. Either way, the Captain is an unrepentant jerk from Jersey, so that's just how things are.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
On Course to Misery
So the first time in a while (first time period?), let me diverge from talking about RPG stuff to talk about other things.
A few days ago, the conclusion to Life is Strange came out. I'm going to keep this spoiler-free for those of you haven't played or purchased it yet. You absolutely should.
The long and short of it a girl stumbles into time travel and shenanigans and misery follow. Given that it is/was Back to the Future day, it was only appropriate to finish out this awesome story today. Unfortunately, anyone who's ever watched Doctor Who has a vague idea of how these things always work out.
That's all I'll say about that.
The ending might be sort of predictable, but I'm not sure the story was ever really about the end of it. The journey getting there was... memorable. After every choice you make, you're always left wondering if you've done the right thing. Have you made the world better or worse? Have you even affected a damn thing? The characters all feel real; all with stories worth telling and experiencing.
Max (our time-stumbling girl) strikes a particular chord with me. Maybe it's that fact that creative folks (all folks?) always seem to exist on the edge of anxiety and depression, that omnipresent and rather overbearing fear of failure. Maybe it's her general hopefulness and excitement over what she's stumbled into; after all, everyone loves time travel. Maybe it's just because we see the world through her eyes and she's both our mouthpiece and window into it. Maybe it's that thirst for adventure and life and all of her dreams and all that youthful vigor. Maybe it's a little of all of that.
But I think a big part of it is that since we are Max, for lack of a better way to describe it. She stands on her own as a believable character--it's not like taking over some mook in an FPS game and becoming a god of death. She takes on a bit of who we are. We leave her with little elements of ourselves, as her own personality merges with ours to deal with the evolving story. By the end of the game, as you sit on the precipice of the final decision you have to make, it's not just Max the character choosing her destiny, but you as well.
Admittedly, there are some parts of the game that could be better written. I feel like the ending should be... more substantial. Or something. I don't know. Sometimes the little puzzley bits feel out of place. A sort of 'get back to the story, stop making me jump through hoops.'
But it's still well worth the journey. It's a narrative that proves video games are a perfectly viable medium for telling worthwhile stories. Narratives that can strike us in ways that books or movies can't. Narratives that not only take us on a trip of self discovery and love and sadness, but ones that put you right into the eye of the storm.
Somehow, it's a story as much about yourself as it is about the characters.
tl;dr
helio83: cyrax i finished life is strange and i am sad
helio83: pls send help
Cy: What is "life is strange"?
helio83: misery
A few days ago, the conclusion to Life is Strange came out. I'm going to keep this spoiler-free for those of you haven't played or purchased it yet. You absolutely should.
The long and short of it a girl stumbles into time travel and shenanigans and misery follow. Given that it is/was Back to the Future day, it was only appropriate to finish out this awesome story today. Unfortunately, anyone who's ever watched Doctor Who has a vague idea of how these things always work out.
That's all I'll say about that.
The ending might be sort of predictable, but I'm not sure the story was ever really about the end of it. The journey getting there was... memorable. After every choice you make, you're always left wondering if you've done the right thing. Have you made the world better or worse? Have you even affected a damn thing? The characters all feel real; all with stories worth telling and experiencing.
Max (our time-stumbling girl) strikes a particular chord with me. Maybe it's that fact that creative folks (all folks?) always seem to exist on the edge of anxiety and depression, that omnipresent and rather overbearing fear of failure. Maybe it's her general hopefulness and excitement over what she's stumbled into; after all, everyone loves time travel. Maybe it's just because we see the world through her eyes and she's both our mouthpiece and window into it. Maybe it's that thirst for adventure and life and all of her dreams and all that youthful vigor. Maybe it's a little of all of that.
But I think a big part of it is that since we are Max, for lack of a better way to describe it. She stands on her own as a believable character--it's not like taking over some mook in an FPS game and becoming a god of death. She takes on a bit of who we are. We leave her with little elements of ourselves, as her own personality merges with ours to deal with the evolving story. By the end of the game, as you sit on the precipice of the final decision you have to make, it's not just Max the character choosing her destiny, but you as well.
Admittedly, there are some parts of the game that could be better written. I feel like the ending should be... more substantial. Or something. I don't know. Sometimes the little puzzley bits feel out of place. A sort of 'get back to the story, stop making me jump through hoops.'
But it's still well worth the journey. It's a narrative that proves video games are a perfectly viable medium for telling worthwhile stories. Narratives that can strike us in ways that books or movies can't. Narratives that not only take us on a trip of self discovery and love and sadness, but ones that put you right into the eye of the storm.
Somehow, it's a story as much about yourself as it is about the characters.
tl;dr
helio83: cyrax i finished life is strange and i am sad
helio83: pls send help
Cy: What is "life is strange"?
helio83: misery
Monday, October 19, 2015
The Captain's Critique: Encounters
Apparently time really does fly when you have a blog you're supposed to update. I hadn't realized it'd been this long since my last update.
My bad.
So the voting has finally ended and results are in for Round 4 of RPGSS Season 9! As always, however, I exist in a state of perpetual lateness and am only just now providing my reviews for all eight encounters that were submitted. Since these are a little longer, I'll divide them in half and cover the four that didn't make the cut today and the other four tomorrow (probably/maybe/okay-sometime-this-year).
As before, my judgement comes largely from the cinematic value of an encounter. This is especially true when the challenge basically comes down to 'take this really boring map (so boring we made it a re-usable flip map!) and do something cool with it.' At that point, the actual map is probably less important to the encounter than how fun the encounter actually is...
But I've done enough hating on everything for now. Let's talk critique.
Rimesoul Nexus
Aw yeah, rime-buddies. On a first reading, I was a little thrown by the fey dealing in souls. Night hags aside... is that even a thing? I know that they're mean fey, but isn't it more the domain of daemons and all those bad-plane dwelling folks? I guess it's Irrisen, so all of that sort of fits up there because everyone's a jerk... so I'll just roll with it. I really like how this isn't a strict combat encounter. There's a strong likelihood the PCs are going to end up making a mess, but the set up is all there for a perfectly reasonable monetary exchange for some souls. The fact that the night hag dips out seems a little bit of a pulled punch, to me. Sure, she doesn't care about the market--but why shouldn't she care about a couple of (probably not Irrisani) PCs coming around and mucking things up? Even if she just tossed a couple of spell-likes and stomped off in a huff screaming 'not even worth my time,' that would add more personality and more memorable npcs to these whole scene. And man is there a great little cast here. The redcap butcher, the money-driven forlarren, and a pair of smartly cold-resistant water buds chilling in the water to watch the prisoners. I could see my PCs striking up conversations with any of them--except the redcap, of course, who would probably just enjoy lopping off limbs more than anything.
I'm not so sure I'm buying the cages outside and over the water. Yeah, they're cool, but is that how souls are collected? What happens if the prisoners die from exposure early? Why not just harvest those guys when you get them--is it better to let the souls simmer in the cold for a bit? Likewise, it seems that the biggest threat here isn't the boss of the place--it's the night hag who's pulling bunches because of ???, the redcap in the back room, and a really nasty freezey drowny cage. All of them are a really cool composite, but individually looking at who should be the real challenge of this place, I'm left wondering why the forlarren is in charge of anything.
Laboratory of Unraveling Arcana
Oh, hey, someone used the beginner's box map! Props for using one of the flipmaps I actually enjoy.
This one's got a whole lot of great set up for a dungeon crawl, but the actual encounter here at the start feels like a mishmash of cool features thrown together. There's a really cool NPC who probably wants nothing to do with a real fight because he'll get his shit kicked in, a shadow that lurks there just to piss off said NPC, a neat and relatively unique hazard (and one that feels very Mana-Wastey), a fiendish snake swarm, and some asshole construct. That just about runs the gamut of beasties, and--while pretty cool--feels like it would just end up being a huge hassle to run as a GM. There's just so many disparate elements working together here because 'bad guys said so.' I don't even really buy Turlik's commitment to this whole fight.
Granted, I think it's a very cool fight. There's a big room with lots of detail and all kinds of hazards and things to deal with. Stuff to jump off! Walls to climb on! Crunchy things to ruin your stealth checks! That's a lot of really good detail. But for what this encounter is--a huge truckfest with a construct and a swarm--I'm not sure any of those details are really needed. The other guys are just sort of there. I'd actually think it was cooler is the shadow was also a scorned researcher, forced to work with Turlik and the two absolutely hate each other and everything. Then you'd have two insane NPCs to interact with in hilarious and awesome ways. And, as an added bonus, the encounter with the door-guards wouldn't feel like such a wild mashup of random elements.
Kynoon's Crossing
The set up for this thing is great. More Tian Xia adventures? More kaiju? More cool encounters with Eastern-themed baddies? Yiiiiis. My biggest fault here is that the approaching kaiju making a mess of the land should play out earlier than it does, I think. Does the Consort cross the river right exactly when the PCs get into a fight with the terracotta soldiers? That's a little contrived, and I feel like the PCs should be made well aware of how dangerous the ground itself is becoming well before they get into a fight. Each step should threaten to knock them down--perhaps Kynoon has balanced himself on the bridge to play because it suffers less from each impact. Perhaps whole bits of the bridge could give way over time, or the flash flood could threaten to displace the entire thing! For something that clearly wants to be such a key element of this encounter, the kaiju feels like it's sort of tacked on (and for hazards with no CR value, at that!).
All of that might just lend itself better to my new abhorrence for battlemaps. You don't have to worry about exactly where the bridge is crumbling or where the flood is or where the 'new' ground is as the bridge gives way and starts flowing downriver when there's no actual map to deal with. But, I suppose, that's not the challenge here--even if I think it should be. Given the parameters, I really like this encounter. The tanuki is the sort of NPC I love to play and my players love to interact with. The terracotta soldiers aren't super duper interesting on their own, but they play to a larger story that could be a whole set of awesome adventures. Unfortunately, assuming the PCs ally with Kynoon, the encounter here isn't the most interesting--it's Kynoon himself, and the ever-present force of the offscreen kaiju.
(Side note: I know Jeff was... not himself while writing this. I think that shows in the actual quality of writing--I've been up sleepless nights writing long enough to know the look of it. I still think it's awesome, though!)
The Petrified Plain
People really seem to enjoy Nex and Geb. I don't really care for either of those places, though I do think the Mana Wastes are a neat concept. Regardless, this has a lot of set up to get there and I think it's a pretty cool set up. Maybe a bit much for an encounter... but it's pretty cool regardless. Petrified, talking, beheaded pirate queens with buried treasure? Sign me up. Oh, the encounter doesn't actually use any of that? O-oh... nevermind. Yes, there's obviously a whole lot of cool adventure to come. Yes, I was totally disappointed this encounter didn't get straight to that business and skip all these generic mooks.
The encounter itself feels so lackluster compared to the setup. Some wights, some hungry fog, a pair of haunts. The one haunt doesn't even feel haunting--the visions it provides are inspirational if you're blissfully unaware of the results. Perhaps it should end with them all wasting away in death or stone or whatever... something that makes it clear the promises were indeed broken. The other haunt? Now that one is frickin' cool. As they're all turned to stone... you are slowly joining them! Neat. It occurs to me that setting two haunts against one another would be cool. Can haunts even be positive? (I'm going to vote sure, fuck it, why not.) Maybe the inspirational haunt, a remnant of all the hope they had, helps empower the PCs against the calcifying haunt and the mean undead nasties below the bridge. Man, those undead nasties just feel like such an afterthought. "Oh, I guess I need something that can actually attack and stall and/or kill people here." Easily the least interesting part of this encounter, and there's some really cool stuff going on in the rest of it.
And that's that for these encounters! Tune in next time on Dragon Ba- Er, the Captain's Quill to hear all of my debatably curmudgeonly and clearly highly opinionated thoughts about the rest of the encounters!
My bad.
So the voting has finally ended and results are in for Round 4 of RPGSS Season 9! As always, however, I exist in a state of perpetual lateness and am only just now providing my reviews for all eight encounters that were submitted. Since these are a little longer, I'll divide them in half and cover the four that didn't make the cut today and the other four tomorrow (probably/maybe/okay-sometime-this-year).
As before, my judgement comes largely from the cinematic value of an encounter. This is especially true when the challenge basically comes down to 'take this really boring map (so boring we made it a re-usable flip map!) and do something cool with it.' At that point, the actual map is probably less important to the encounter than how fun the encounter actually is...
But I've done enough hating on everything for now. Let's talk critique.
Rimesoul Nexus
Aw yeah, rime-buddies. On a first reading, I was a little thrown by the fey dealing in souls. Night hags aside... is that even a thing? I know that they're mean fey, but isn't it more the domain of daemons and all those bad-plane dwelling folks? I guess it's Irrisen, so all of that sort of fits up there because everyone's a jerk... so I'll just roll with it. I really like how this isn't a strict combat encounter. There's a strong likelihood the PCs are going to end up making a mess, but the set up is all there for a perfectly reasonable monetary exchange for some souls. The fact that the night hag dips out seems a little bit of a pulled punch, to me. Sure, she doesn't care about the market--but why shouldn't she care about a couple of (probably not Irrisani) PCs coming around and mucking things up? Even if she just tossed a couple of spell-likes and stomped off in a huff screaming 'not even worth my time,' that would add more personality and more memorable npcs to these whole scene. And man is there a great little cast here. The redcap butcher, the money-driven forlarren, and a pair of smartly cold-resistant water buds chilling in the water to watch the prisoners. I could see my PCs striking up conversations with any of them--except the redcap, of course, who would probably just enjoy lopping off limbs more than anything.
I'm not so sure I'm buying the cages outside and over the water. Yeah, they're cool, but is that how souls are collected? What happens if the prisoners die from exposure early? Why not just harvest those guys when you get them--is it better to let the souls simmer in the cold for a bit? Likewise, it seems that the biggest threat here isn't the boss of the place--it's the night hag who's pulling bunches because of ???, the redcap in the back room, and a really nasty freezey drowny cage. All of them are a really cool composite, but individually looking at who should be the real challenge of this place, I'm left wondering why the forlarren is in charge of anything.
Laboratory of Unraveling Arcana
Oh, hey, someone used the beginner's box map! Props for using one of the flipmaps I actually enjoy.
This one's got a whole lot of great set up for a dungeon crawl, but the actual encounter here at the start feels like a mishmash of cool features thrown together. There's a really cool NPC who probably wants nothing to do with a real fight because he'll get his shit kicked in, a shadow that lurks there just to piss off said NPC, a neat and relatively unique hazard (and one that feels very Mana-Wastey), a fiendish snake swarm, and some asshole construct. That just about runs the gamut of beasties, and--while pretty cool--feels like it would just end up being a huge hassle to run as a GM. There's just so many disparate elements working together here because 'bad guys said so.' I don't even really buy Turlik's commitment to this whole fight.
Granted, I think it's a very cool fight. There's a big room with lots of detail and all kinds of hazards and things to deal with. Stuff to jump off! Walls to climb on! Crunchy things to ruin your stealth checks! That's a lot of really good detail. But for what this encounter is--a huge truckfest with a construct and a swarm--I'm not sure any of those details are really needed. The other guys are just sort of there. I'd actually think it was cooler is the shadow was also a scorned researcher, forced to work with Turlik and the two absolutely hate each other and everything. Then you'd have two insane NPCs to interact with in hilarious and awesome ways. And, as an added bonus, the encounter with the door-guards wouldn't feel like such a wild mashup of random elements.
Kynoon's Crossing
The set up for this thing is great. More Tian Xia adventures? More kaiju? More cool encounters with Eastern-themed baddies? Yiiiiis. My biggest fault here is that the approaching kaiju making a mess of the land should play out earlier than it does, I think. Does the Consort cross the river right exactly when the PCs get into a fight with the terracotta soldiers? That's a little contrived, and I feel like the PCs should be made well aware of how dangerous the ground itself is becoming well before they get into a fight. Each step should threaten to knock them down--perhaps Kynoon has balanced himself on the bridge to play because it suffers less from each impact. Perhaps whole bits of the bridge could give way over time, or the flash flood could threaten to displace the entire thing! For something that clearly wants to be such a key element of this encounter, the kaiju feels like it's sort of tacked on (and for hazards with no CR value, at that!).
All of that might just lend itself better to my new abhorrence for battlemaps. You don't have to worry about exactly where the bridge is crumbling or where the flood is or where the 'new' ground is as the bridge gives way and starts flowing downriver when there's no actual map to deal with. But, I suppose, that's not the challenge here--even if I think it should be. Given the parameters, I really like this encounter. The tanuki is the sort of NPC I love to play and my players love to interact with. The terracotta soldiers aren't super duper interesting on their own, but they play to a larger story that could be a whole set of awesome adventures. Unfortunately, assuming the PCs ally with Kynoon, the encounter here isn't the most interesting--it's Kynoon himself, and the ever-present force of the offscreen kaiju.
(Side note: I know Jeff was... not himself while writing this. I think that shows in the actual quality of writing--I've been up sleepless nights writing long enough to know the look of it. I still think it's awesome, though!)
The Petrified Plain
People really seem to enjoy Nex and Geb. I don't really care for either of those places, though I do think the Mana Wastes are a neat concept. Regardless, this has a lot of set up to get there and I think it's a pretty cool set up. Maybe a bit much for an encounter... but it's pretty cool regardless. Petrified, talking, beheaded pirate queens with buried treasure? Sign me up. Oh, the encounter doesn't actually use any of that? O-oh... nevermind. Yes, there's obviously a whole lot of cool adventure to come. Yes, I was totally disappointed this encounter didn't get straight to that business and skip all these generic mooks.
The encounter itself feels so lackluster compared to the setup. Some wights, some hungry fog, a pair of haunts. The one haunt doesn't even feel haunting--the visions it provides are inspirational if you're blissfully unaware of the results. Perhaps it should end with them all wasting away in death or stone or whatever... something that makes it clear the promises were indeed broken. The other haunt? Now that one is frickin' cool. As they're all turned to stone... you are slowly joining them! Neat. It occurs to me that setting two haunts against one another would be cool. Can haunts even be positive? (I'm going to vote sure, fuck it, why not.) Maybe the inspirational haunt, a remnant of all the hope they had, helps empower the PCs against the calcifying haunt and the mean undead nasties below the bridge. Man, those undead nasties just feel like such an afterthought. "Oh, I guess I need something that can actually attack and stall and/or kill people here." Easily the least interesting part of this encounter, and there's some really cool stuff going on in the rest of it.
And that's that for these encounters! Tune in next time on Dragon Ba- Er, the Captain's Quill to hear all of my debatably curmudgeonly and clearly highly opinionated thoughts about the rest of the encounters!
Saturday, October 3, 2015
The Captain's Critique: The Monstrous Art
And, after much delay, the Captain weighs in on this season's monstrous competitors. Just in time for the next round.
I never claimed I was quick. It's a consequence of living a life on island time. I just wish I had an actual island on which to live on island time.
Valemask
Fey are a favorite of mine, and I want to like this creature... There's a lot dedicated to its net, but it doesn't seem like something a small fey with a longbow is ever really going to use. It's evoking this whole 'big game hunter in a tiny body' thing--which I love--but it just doesn't seem to quite line up. There's some talk of the game they play in the description, but then it talks about the darkmoon vale, and how they're too lazy to really hunt things so they just transform stuff into easier prey... except that they're still being transformed into "fearsome Medium animals"? And then there's the whole plant-trap thing, which seems like a cool idea tacked on at the end... maybe if the plants functioned as a net, and these things actually had a reason to use the net?
Kravyad
Flaming death bears. And they're hungry. This one is an instant favorite. It's got all the right bits for an evocative and memorable fight. The abilities all work together and play towards the whole 'I'm really hungry and also on fire' theme that it has. Swallow whole dealing fire damage, some immolation aura (and who doesn't love immolation auras?!), and flames that try to eat you. The howl is a little funky in its execution, but I'm still digging it. My only other complaint is they seem like they might veer too close to to Plane of Fire outsiders--they even speak Ingan! But that's a minor quibble. Just keep these things away from my ship. Like miles away.
Tatterghoul
The name nearly threw me on this one. Ghouls are overdone, and I'm not a huge fan of them to begin with. The flavor text is also not particularly exciting. But when you get down to the description, I'm so on board. They walk the line of daemon and undead, blending the aspect of death with the vengeful dead. They're the creepy creatures you spot out of the corner of your eye, where you're never really sure if you've seen something at all... It's great fuel for encounters. Its abilities are thematic, but I'm not sure I love them as much as the creature itself. Isolate fits, but... meh. And its super-blur is also fitting, but... meh. I feel like these could be executed better, though I'm not exactly sure how.
Hollow One
The name and feel of this one strike me more as undead than outsider, but I'm alright with creepy nature demons. Creepy organ-collecting is also pretty cool. I don't really get the whole synergy behind the name and function and the demonic corruption, but it all adds up to a really memorable encounter. Trying to save your buddy from having his heart ripped out? That's the stuff of legend. Aside from its creepy-factor, I'm not sure there's a whole lot going for this thing. The lore isn't particularly interesting to me, its description isn't super interesting and could just be some random fey thing, and its array of spell-likes just puts it up with all of the other 'stalk you in the forest' types.
Corpsebound
I might be biased towards the lore on this one because I read Lord of Runes not that long ago (spoiler: Zutha's lore plays a role), but there's something very satisfying about creature that crawl into stuff and use the body against you. The corpsebound does it pretty damn well, and I think the defenses granted by the body represent a body-shell pretty well. Consuming spells is pretty nasty, and I'm not entirely sold on the synergy with binding corpses, but it really makes one of these things scary to deal with. My players have universally terrible luck getting past SR, so I'm not sure they'd ever hurt these things.
Phase Mongrel
Also known as the Jumm-Vubburath. Bleh. I am not a fan of Lovecraftian names, no matter how popular they may be or how horrible the creatures of the deep may be. The name throws me off no matter what, though, since this is some kind of phase-spider-plant-thing. It's got some weird blinky powers to get in and out and pull people with it, but I feel like this has already been done? But it's also got the whole annoying fungus-spore thing, coupled with the equally annoying fungal-infestation thing. Add in a disease that functions more like a poison, and I'm not really sure where this thing is going. I don't think it's treading interesting new territory, as there's already plenty of invasive body snatchers that I don't want anywhere near me.
Malkin
More fey, and this time it's a creepy death cat. For its CR, it sure seems like a very noncombat creature. These strike me more as plot devices than creatures the players would outwardly face--which is totally fine, in my book. I can already imagine a village dying of a horrible sleeping sickness... except that plague is really just one fey cat being a complete dick. The problem is that when you actually come face to face with this thing you either completely trounce it or it manages to subdue you before proceeding to obliterate you with sneak attack and Con damage. Kind of boring for an encounter, but super memorable for its function.
Tranquility Ooze
I think this is a really cool niche for an ooze. Rather than munching on flesh and decomposing everything to the bone... it eats brains! Probably. I'm not so sure its mechanics match up with this, most notably because it's completely mindless and has no wisdom or charisma of its own to speak of. I guess it could have some instinctual hunger for emotions, but then why is it affected by them? With the reference to Jalmeray in the lore, it really seems like this thing wants to be psionic without actually being psionic... I have a long standing hatred for psionics, but I still love the concept of this thing. Then again, that Cha drain. Goddamn. I want to like this, but it just seems to fall short in execution.
Sorrow Stitcher
First off, that's a damn good name. I love the idea behind this thing, stealing emotions to sew into its own existence. I don't really buy into the whole separate shadow thing, and that feels like something better suited for a different creature with a whole dual-self thing. That said, its other abilities definitely tie into the theme. I feel like there's some mechanical and wording cleanup that could be done here, but there's definitely a solid creature here. As for how memorable it is, I can't really say. It has a lot of potential to be really cool, but I feel like 'really sad thing that wants to ruin your day' has been done a thousand times already.
Guillowed
Headless undead are also cool. They're a classic! The lore here is pretty awesome, and I find myself drawn to the extra tidbits of super-guilloweds. Mechanically, I think they're a little low on damage--except when they're not, and then you're dead. These, like the malkin, seem more interesting as noncombat and plot opponents. The actual fight might be cool, but it's one of those things you either win really hard or lose really hard, and those aren't the most memorable fights. They're also not particularly fun, as you just kind of get grappled into a coup de grace and then you're dead. And other than its guillotine power, it's not super interesting. Lots of other things have 'jk, I'm totally not a person' powers.
Thaumigorger
More cat things, but with scales this time. While it could be a case of parallel design, these remind me a lot of these things. They're not on the PRD and they're not really common (the only reason I know of them is because of The Wizard's Mask--which I liked, screw the haters), so it's understandable... but the fact that this is also (sort of) catlike doesn't really help the matter. At least they're different enough to stand on their own. I particularly like the inversion of its DR... vulnerability to mundane? That's crazy! The rest of it just synergizes really well with its theme. This thing does, in fact, eat magic.
Swarmwyrm
"Man, people really love swarms. I'll just make a swarm for my creature!"
Okay, this is cool take on how dragons could be a swarm. It's not a swarm of tiny dragons, but a swarm playing at being a dragon. And it does that pretty well. It's also suitably icky. It's also a pretty nasty combatant, as is befitting of a dragon. The only problem I've got with this is that it doesn't really feel like a normal dragon encounter. It's memorable, sure, but it's one of those types that sneaks into the dragon category without really being a dragon. I'm looking at you, drakes. Yes, you have draconic blood and all those neat immunities and things, but you're not in the same epic-encounter category as a real dragon. Also, swarms. Seriously, I'm tired of swarms.
Scrapshell Oyster
An swashbuckling oyster that collects awesome treasure inside of its shell instead of pearls. As a nautically-inclined fellow, this thing hits home. I... don't even know what to say. It's insane, but it's my kind of insane. The theme is solid, the abilities are on point with that theme, if sword-fighting a clam isn't memorable then I don't know what is, and damn if this thing isn't just downright cool. I'd totally get one for my crew (somehow), and this is the only creature I can say that for.
Matianak
More sad dead things. Apparently sadness is a theme for this season. These are pretty cool for the misguided aid aspect going on. They're just trying to help! In a way that might be moderately painful and extremely discomforting, but it's help. Its abilities are also really, really cool. Making divine things go haywire, while granting random things negative energy affinity? Neat! I'm a little concerned about how their damage would play out, though, since they are trying to help. Also, are they really neutral evil if they're legitimately trying to help in a really roundabout and debatably evil way? *insert paladin falling argument here* These do have a lot of fuel to be memorable encounters, so that's good. I can easily see them as incredibly annoying support creatures for a host of undead things or misguided 'healers' that are totally helping.
Despoiler
In my head I have this image of a Starcraft defiler. Damn similar names.
Fortunately, these are nothing alike. Because these are awesome. I love its use of a limited resource and how everything ties into its use of shards. I'm a little sad not to see the shards get tossed as negative energy javelins, but I can't have everything. (Admittedly, I just want to see one of these with class levels hurling black shards 20 miles to impale people.) The only thing I'm not really buying for this are its lore and name. So it forms from good-aligned clerics, because their bodies are good for storing bad-aligned energy. I'm also not really getting any despoiling from its actions... I mean, yeah it's got a desecrate aura and a super-altar it can lay down, but meh. I feel like its shards are a much cooler thing to go with for name and purpose.
And so that's it for this round of monsters! Sadly with only 15 of them, thanks to the possibly-legendary DQs of Season 9.
I never claimed I was quick. It's a consequence of living a life on island time. I just wish I had an actual island on which to live on island time.
Valemask
Fey are a favorite of mine, and I want to like this creature... There's a lot dedicated to its net, but it doesn't seem like something a small fey with a longbow is ever really going to use. It's evoking this whole 'big game hunter in a tiny body' thing--which I love--but it just doesn't seem to quite line up. There's some talk of the game they play in the description, but then it talks about the darkmoon vale, and how they're too lazy to really hunt things so they just transform stuff into easier prey... except that they're still being transformed into "fearsome Medium animals"? And then there's the whole plant-trap thing, which seems like a cool idea tacked on at the end... maybe if the plants functioned as a net, and these things actually had a reason to use the net?
Kravyad
Flaming death bears. And they're hungry. This one is an instant favorite. It's got all the right bits for an evocative and memorable fight. The abilities all work together and play towards the whole 'I'm really hungry and also on fire' theme that it has. Swallow whole dealing fire damage, some immolation aura (and who doesn't love immolation auras?!), and flames that try to eat you. The howl is a little funky in its execution, but I'm still digging it. My only other complaint is they seem like they might veer too close to to Plane of Fire outsiders--they even speak Ingan! But that's a minor quibble. Just keep these things away from my ship. Like miles away.
Tatterghoul
The name nearly threw me on this one. Ghouls are overdone, and I'm not a huge fan of them to begin with. The flavor text is also not particularly exciting. But when you get down to the description, I'm so on board. They walk the line of daemon and undead, blending the aspect of death with the vengeful dead. They're the creepy creatures you spot out of the corner of your eye, where you're never really sure if you've seen something at all... It's great fuel for encounters. Its abilities are thematic, but I'm not sure I love them as much as the creature itself. Isolate fits, but... meh. And its super-blur is also fitting, but... meh. I feel like these could be executed better, though I'm not exactly sure how.
Hollow One
The name and feel of this one strike me more as undead than outsider, but I'm alright with creepy nature demons. Creepy organ-collecting is also pretty cool. I don't really get the whole synergy behind the name and function and the demonic corruption, but it all adds up to a really memorable encounter. Trying to save your buddy from having his heart ripped out? That's the stuff of legend. Aside from its creepy-factor, I'm not sure there's a whole lot going for this thing. The lore isn't particularly interesting to me, its description isn't super interesting and could just be some random fey thing, and its array of spell-likes just puts it up with all of the other 'stalk you in the forest' types.
Corpsebound
I might be biased towards the lore on this one because I read Lord of Runes not that long ago (spoiler: Zutha's lore plays a role), but there's something very satisfying about creature that crawl into stuff and use the body against you. The corpsebound does it pretty damn well, and I think the defenses granted by the body represent a body-shell pretty well. Consuming spells is pretty nasty, and I'm not entirely sold on the synergy with binding corpses, but it really makes one of these things scary to deal with. My players have universally terrible luck getting past SR, so I'm not sure they'd ever hurt these things.
Phase Mongrel
Also known as the Jumm-Vubburath. Bleh. I am not a fan of Lovecraftian names, no matter how popular they may be or how horrible the creatures of the deep may be. The name throws me off no matter what, though, since this is some kind of phase-spider-plant-thing. It's got some weird blinky powers to get in and out and pull people with it, but I feel like this has already been done? But it's also got the whole annoying fungus-spore thing, coupled with the equally annoying fungal-infestation thing. Add in a disease that functions more like a poison, and I'm not really sure where this thing is going. I don't think it's treading interesting new territory, as there's already plenty of invasive body snatchers that I don't want anywhere near me.
Malkin
More fey, and this time it's a creepy death cat. For its CR, it sure seems like a very noncombat creature. These strike me more as plot devices than creatures the players would outwardly face--which is totally fine, in my book. I can already imagine a village dying of a horrible sleeping sickness... except that plague is really just one fey cat being a complete dick. The problem is that when you actually come face to face with this thing you either completely trounce it or it manages to subdue you before proceeding to obliterate you with sneak attack and Con damage. Kind of boring for an encounter, but super memorable for its function.
Tranquility Ooze
I think this is a really cool niche for an ooze. Rather than munching on flesh and decomposing everything to the bone... it eats brains! Probably. I'm not so sure its mechanics match up with this, most notably because it's completely mindless and has no wisdom or charisma of its own to speak of. I guess it could have some instinctual hunger for emotions, but then why is it affected by them? With the reference to Jalmeray in the lore, it really seems like this thing wants to be psionic without actually being psionic... I have a long standing hatred for psionics, but I still love the concept of this thing. Then again, that Cha drain. Goddamn. I want to like this, but it just seems to fall short in execution.
Sorrow Stitcher
First off, that's a damn good name. I love the idea behind this thing, stealing emotions to sew into its own existence. I don't really buy into the whole separate shadow thing, and that feels like something better suited for a different creature with a whole dual-self thing. That said, its other abilities definitely tie into the theme. I feel like there's some mechanical and wording cleanup that could be done here, but there's definitely a solid creature here. As for how memorable it is, I can't really say. It has a lot of potential to be really cool, but I feel like 'really sad thing that wants to ruin your day' has been done a thousand times already.
Guillowed
Headless undead are also cool. They're a classic! The lore here is pretty awesome, and I find myself drawn to the extra tidbits of super-guilloweds. Mechanically, I think they're a little low on damage--except when they're not, and then you're dead. These, like the malkin, seem more interesting as noncombat and plot opponents. The actual fight might be cool, but it's one of those things you either win really hard or lose really hard, and those aren't the most memorable fights. They're also not particularly fun, as you just kind of get grappled into a coup de grace and then you're dead. And other than its guillotine power, it's not super interesting. Lots of other things have 'jk, I'm totally not a person' powers.
Thaumigorger
More cat things, but with scales this time. While it could be a case of parallel design, these remind me a lot of these things. They're not on the PRD and they're not really common (the only reason I know of them is because of The Wizard's Mask--which I liked, screw the haters), so it's understandable... but the fact that this is also (sort of) catlike doesn't really help the matter. At least they're different enough to stand on their own. I particularly like the inversion of its DR... vulnerability to mundane? That's crazy! The rest of it just synergizes really well with its theme. This thing does, in fact, eat magic.
Swarmwyrm
"Man, people really love swarms. I'll just make a swarm for my creature!"
Okay, this is cool take on how dragons could be a swarm. It's not a swarm of tiny dragons, but a swarm playing at being a dragon. And it does that pretty well. It's also suitably icky. It's also a pretty nasty combatant, as is befitting of a dragon. The only problem I've got with this is that it doesn't really feel like a normal dragon encounter. It's memorable, sure, but it's one of those types that sneaks into the dragon category without really being a dragon. I'm looking at you, drakes. Yes, you have draconic blood and all those neat immunities and things, but you're not in the same epic-encounter category as a real dragon. Also, swarms. Seriously, I'm tired of swarms.
Scrapshell Oyster
An swashbuckling oyster that collects awesome treasure inside of its shell instead of pearls. As a nautically-inclined fellow, this thing hits home. I... don't even know what to say. It's insane, but it's my kind of insane. The theme is solid, the abilities are on point with that theme, if sword-fighting a clam isn't memorable then I don't know what is, and damn if this thing isn't just downright cool. I'd totally get one for my crew (somehow), and this is the only creature I can say that for.
Matianak
More sad dead things. Apparently sadness is a theme for this season. These are pretty cool for the misguided aid aspect going on. They're just trying to help! In a way that might be moderately painful and extremely discomforting, but it's help. Its abilities are also really, really cool. Making divine things go haywire, while granting random things negative energy affinity? Neat! I'm a little concerned about how their damage would play out, though, since they are trying to help. Also, are they really neutral evil if they're legitimately trying to help in a really roundabout and debatably evil way? *insert paladin falling argument here* These do have a lot of fuel to be memorable encounters, so that's good. I can easily see them as incredibly annoying support creatures for a host of undead things or misguided 'healers' that are totally helping.
Despoiler
In my head I have this image of a Starcraft defiler. Damn similar names.
Fortunately, these are nothing alike. Because these are awesome. I love its use of a limited resource and how everything ties into its use of shards. I'm a little sad not to see the shards get tossed as negative energy javelins, but I can't have everything. (Admittedly, I just want to see one of these with class levels hurling black shards 20 miles to impale people.) The only thing I'm not really buying for this are its lore and name. So it forms from good-aligned clerics, because their bodies are good for storing bad-aligned energy. I'm also not really getting any despoiling from its actions... I mean, yeah it's got a desecrate aura and a super-altar it can lay down, but meh. I feel like its shards are a much cooler thing to go with for name and purpose.
And so that's it for this round of monsters! Sadly with only 15 of them, thanks to the possibly-legendary DQs of Season 9.
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