Make Powers Visible to the Players!
There’s something I’ve noticed… It started off when I was looking at Sahuagin in the Monster Manual.
The Sahuagins’ “thing” is that they’re like sharks, and they go into a frenzy when their target is bloodied (or maybe when they’re bloodied, I forget). So to represent this frenzy, they get a bonus to attack and damage.
A similar thing came up when I was contemplating my own monster. An NPC, actually, a monk who always wore heavy weights. The idea is that, when he was bloodied, he’d unleash them, and without them weighing him down he’d be considerably faster and more skillful. So to represent this, I’d give him a bonus to speed, attack and defenses.
Yet another thing, and what really spurred this post, just came up again on The Open Archive Wiki. The Last Rogue had come up with a cool monster called an Eyewing, and one of its abilities was called Steal Vision, which caused it to blind the target. I suggested that it would be cool if there were some other effect to imply that the vision was actually being stolen, and Rogue suggested perhaps increasing the range of attacks or giving it a bonus to its attacks.
What do all of these have in common? They’re cool ideas, but they’re almost completely invisible in the context of the actual game! The players are never going to notice a +2 or probably even a +5. Luck is fickle, and regardless of your bonus you’ll have times when you’ll get lots of hits with a tiny bonus and times when you’ll get lots of misses with a huge bonus. These kinds of mathematical bonuses only really become visible in the long run, over the course of dozens if not hundreds of battles.
So what do you do? Find other ways to apply the bonus. Using the Eyewing again, I suggested that it couldn’t be flanked as long as the target was blinded. That’s something the players will notice! And in the end, it’s a lot less significant than a static bonus. It’s basically a highly situational +2 bonus to defenses, and the PCs could always gain combat advantage in some other way.
Going back to my monk, perhaps rather than giving him a bonus, he could have a low-damage attack, and when he takes off the weights he can now make two attacks as a standard action, to represent him moving so much faster (I’d probably give him a bonus to speed as well).
As for the Sahuagin, that’s a bit trickier. Here’s what I’m thinking: as long as they’re attacking a bloodied foe, they ignore the marked condition– they don’t take the penalty to attacks, and the marking PC can’t use abilities that would let them “punish” the Sahuagin for attacking someone else.
So the moral of the story is this: bonuses are nice from a purely mathematical standpoint, but they’re frankly boring! Try to find more interesting and creative bonuses and your monsters will really stand out and provide a unique experience.
You can always narrate the event in a way that makes the players cringe whenever it happens… I know I’m guilty of going into “rule moderator” in a game…
“He hits you for 10″
“You miss”
Instead, for the Sahagin:
“The taste of blood in the water seems to strengthen the monster, suddenly, it explodes in a flurry of quick, almost random attacks, too quick for you to block. Take 10 damage.”
While a different mechanic can be good, I think a story is always better
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The two are not mutually exclusive, though, and I think interesting mechanics only help to reinforce and backup the role-playing.
“The Sahuagin seems completely unconcerned with you as it smells the Eladrin’s blood in the air.”
I think you hit the issue perfectly. Making powers and abilites whose mechanics echo the flavour you want to give the monster is perfect.
Extra attacks, Stronger attacks… ‘Burst of Speed’ at-will powers are all ways of showcasing what a monster does.
Good post!
High praise from the Chatty one! I’m flattered. I am a bit confounded by your spelling of “flavor,” though, isn’t it time you guys got out from the shadow of the British Empire? I mean, we left them behind over 200 years ago… Get with the times!
Woo Hoo! Mentioned via blog!
Seriously though, great post and great idea about the flanking for the same reason.
I really love that we are only a few days in on this project and already the sharing of ideas is really helping to sculpt our creations.
Great post!
About your monk: is the action of releasing these weights a free action? I’m a DM, so please forgive my critique of your NPC, but I find the concept a little silly. Are the weights a punishment of some kind, or is it specifically for the purpose of weighting down the NPC, in order to justify the bonuses you wanted? I lean towards some realism when designing things and your idea just doesn’t make sense to me as it would seem that any creature carrying a significant amount of weight to load itself down like that would likely be quite fatigued, nearly all the time.
Re: the sahuagin gain +1 to att and +2 to dmg against bloodied enemies. We’d need some playtesting to see the results of your idea about ignoring being marked . . . are there any other monsters that do that?
@Richard: It’s a common theme in Asian fiction, someone who trains and fights with a handicap, and become quite adept at fighting with that handicap. Then, when they release themselves of it, they are far more powerful. Another example is a samurai who prefers fighting with his blade sheathed or with a wooden training sword, and fights as well as any other warrior. When he uses the actual blade, though, he is far deadlier.
Regarding Sahuagin, I don’t believe there are any other monsters with a similar ability.
How long does the bonus to the monk’s attacks and defenses last after the weights are dropped? Is the bonus to these stats the only reason the NPC wears these weights? Are there any drawbacks the NPC suffers from the weights, other than not getting the bonuses? What’s the story behind this NPC?
Believe me, I totally understand the concept of handicaps, as I’m creating a new campaign setting for 4e, for my home grown game, and I’m working in similar stuff for certain groups of wizards. Kinda like the Wizards of High Sorcery from Dragonlance, wizards who join a particular organization get benefits, but there are drawbacks, and I’m currently working on making the benefit(s) worth the handicap(s). The narrative I’m trying to develop is driving the development, though.
Maybe you could post more about your NPC monk?
There is no NPC monk, it was just a passing idea I had which served as a nice example for this post. :p
That said, yes, the idea is that by wearing weights all the time, they just become a natural part of you and you don’t even notice them. Then, when you remove them, your muscles are still built up, but you’ve now got less mass keeping you down, less mass to accelerate and decelerate when you’re punching… Realistically, this would probably be a bit disorienting and unbalancing, but realism can take a backseat to cool.