Greater Monsters

[Timeshadow]

I would like to see aside from campaign rules a few truly terrifying monsters. Things that would ether make your warband flee for it's life or join forces with the other one to take down the greater threat.

Things like Dragons, packs of real gaints, Greater Demons and elementals.

They would need slightly better rules for their actions though so they just don't eat one warband.

I was thinking at the start of a game roll a d20 on 20 modified by +1 per game that no "Greater monster" has appeared (average between the warbands participating) a greater monster has been spotted.

Use all normal senerio rules except add

Roll to see if it arrives turn 2: 15+ it arrives, Turn 3 10+, Turn 4 5+, Turn 5 auto arrives. This gives players a chance to grab and dash before it arrives.

The monster wants the treasures and will move toward the nearest (no los needed it can smell/sense them) letting nothing stand in it's way. Greater monsters cannot be "stuck in combat" and can always move. At first they will not initiate any attacks they will dbl move toward the nearest treasure and consume/take it. (They do not become encumbered) If the nearest treasure is being carried it will attack the carrier until it is dropped or the carrier dies then it will take the treasure.

If the monster is injured in combat to half it's starting health it will become enraged and go on a killing spree heading for the nearest model in LOS and killing till the board is empty or it dies. If the monster is not brought to half it's life or less then it will collect all available treasures then leave the table.

Bonus XP for this Monster includes: Wizard witnessing the arrival (Ie not KO'd before it arrives) +50xp
                                                Wizard surviving a round of combat with a greater monster +50xp
                                                Warband member bringing greater monster to half or lower health +50xp
                                                Warband member killing a greater monster +50xp
                                                Wizard surviving the encounter with a greater monster(must still be on the table
                                                after the monster is killed or leaves.
                                                After the battle if the monster left traces (scales, icor, magical residue) can be collected by
                                                both warbands (if any members survive) for an extra d20x15GC

If the monster is killed it immediately drops the treasures it consumed (take turns placing them adjacent to the corpse) and the corpse itself becomes 2 treasure tokens each worth a D20x25GC.

The monsters stats would need to be epic somthing that would most likely swat most attackers like:
Move:8 Fight: +10 Shoot: +5 Armor: 20 Will: +10 Health: 50 Is unaffected by any control type spells/non magic weapons, does not get pushed back when loses melee and destroys any "Wall" it passes through. It should be at least 4" tall so as to be able to see over said walls. Oh and give it three actions one of which must be a move.

Thoughts?

[Philhelm]

Interesting idea, although I think that the creature might be a bit too powerful (even if that's the point).  At the very least, I think that the Armor value should be reduced (maybe 15-16), and perhaps the fight value (maybe 6-8).  Most soldiers would need to roll a 19-20 to just score a point or so of damage, and that's assuming that the monster has a low combat roll allowing the soldier to win/hit to begin with.

(Very) rough statistics, a player would only expect one soldier per turn to hit and cause damage, and probably only a point or two of damage.  It would probably take around 30 turns or so to kill the beast, but that doesn't even take into account that the player's warband would be slaughtered beforehand.

[Timeshadow]

Guess I did go a bit overboard but I just wanted to prevent the nat 20 dead syndrome guess I could make it immune to crit damage and give it a damage multiplier like some of the other monsters which would allow me to reduce armor and fight values.

So how about:

Move: 8 Fight: +8 Shoot: +4 Armor: 15 Will: +8 Health: 40 When critted damage is not doubled, Is unaffected by any control type spells/non magic weapons, does not get pushed back when loses melee and destroys any "Wall" it passes through. It should be at least 4" tall so as to be able to see over said walls. Oh and give it three actions one of which must be a move.

[Philhelm]

I think that would be much more manageable.  Even with the reduced stats, it would be resilient against ranged attacks and would require at least half the warband to gang up on it for the support bonuses in melee.

The other consideration though, is that even with the reduced stats, I wouldn't have any motivation to engage it.  It will usually arrive on turn 3 or 4, and by then some/most of the treasure should be collected already.  Since the dragon will only leave after it collects all of the treasure, I would be faced with the option of fighting it, or taking what I already have and leaving.  I would get 50xp just for it arriving, but would probably choose to flee rather than hope for the 200 extra xp for wounding, killing, or surviving the encounter.  It would be a huge risk (especially for the wizard/apprentice), and not one I'd likely take during a campaign. 

Perhaps a higher reward is in order.  Maybe it has its own treasure table, perhaps with some unique items, that can be rolled for.

[Digitarii]

I would say that the critter would need an exploitable weakness. For Smaug, it was the Black Arrow. Demons and Devils usually have a True Name that weakens them. I would write a scenario for each critter and determine it's weakness. Part of the scenario would involve finding the critter's weakness and then exploiting it

[MrCharisma]

I really like this idea and I need to unpack it when I have more time (and not at work). My club wants to play 6-8 man campaigns so this might be a nice boost to keep it competitive and with stronger objectives/goals.

[JohnDSD2]

Nice idea, we need some big stuff to fight.
I do think making it immune to criticals isn't the way to go, after all the mark of a true hero is being able to bring down a mighty opponent with a single well placed blow (or perhaps a couple).
Even with Armour 15 an unmodified 20 + 2 fight is only going to do 7 x 2 = 14 damage, so with 50 health you need a few of those to bring it down.
Of course if you Elemental bolted it with a natural 20 + 8 - 15 = 13 x 2 for 26 damage you'd only need a couple but this is all based on rolling a 20 in the first place.
I'd keep the criticals and give the Heroes a chance to step up!

[Timeshadow]

Nice idea, we need some big stuff to fight.
I do think making it immune to criticals isn't the way to go, after all the mark of a true hero is being able to bring down a mighty opponent with a single well placed blow (or perhaps a couple).
Even with Armour 15 an unmodified 20 + 2 fight is only going to do 7 x 2 = 14 damage, so with 50 health you need a few of those to bring it down.
Of course if you Elemental bolted it with a natural 20 + 8 - 15 = 13 x 2 for 26 damage you'd only need a couple but this is all based on rolling a 20 in the first place.
I'd keep the criticals and give the Heroes a chance to step up!

The point is I want these things to be terrifying and cause an immediate team up to kill it or flee response. If all it takes is to throw mooks at it until you roll a few 20's it becomes just another way to make some extra xp. I'm considering adding that on it's attacks opponents in melee don't get gang up bonuses and giving it double damage like the Wraith(only on it's attack actions). That way It will likely badly hurt or kill almost everything it hits, but when your models are attacking it on their actions they can still get the gang up bonus allowing ppl to try and overwhelm it.

[November]

Powerful monsters are a great idea to make the game interesting. Like Digitarii suggested, I would make them mostly part of a specific scenario, where it is possible to:

• Fight the monster head-on - but with a great chance of losing
• Exploit its weakness somehow by taking the long route
• Avoid the monster altogether and just try to snatch the treasure before fleeing

Exp gains to fight them seem a bit exaggerated, Timeshadow. I would suggest easing it down majorly. If the gains of fighting powerful monsters are big, everyone wants to fight them and they become a gold rush. If they are super dangerous, but don't give much in return, warbands choose more carefully if they want to go butt heads with them at all.

[Timeshadow]

I think that would be much more manageable.  Even with the reduced stats, it would be resilient against ranged attacks and would require at least half the warband to gang up on it for the support bonuses in melee.

The other consideration though, is that even with the reduced stats, I wouldn't have any motivation to engage it.  It will usually arrive on turn 3 or 4, and by then some/most of the treasure should be collected already.  Since the dragon will only leave after it collects all of the treasure, I would be faced with the option of fighting it, or taking what I already have and leaving.  I would get 50xp just for it arriving, but would probably choose to flee rather than hope for the 200 extra xp for wounding, killing, or surviving the encounter.  It would be a huge risk (especially for the wizard/apprentice), and not one I'd likely take during a campaign. 

Perhaps a higher reward is in order.  Maybe it has its own treasure table, perhaps with some unique items, that can be rolled for.

Powerful monsters are a great idea to make the game interesting. Like Digitarii suggested, I would make them mostly part of a specific scenario, where it is possible to:

• Fight the monster head-on - but with a great chance of losing
• Exploit its weakness somehow by taking the long route
• Avoid the monster altogether and just try to snatch the treasure before fleeing

Exp gains to fight them seem a bit exaggerated, Timeshadow. I would suggest easing it down majorly. If the gains of fighting powerful monsters are big, everyone wants to fight them and they become a gold rush. If they are super dangerous, but don't give much in return, warbands choose more carefully if they want to go butt heads with them at all.

So I think I need to playtest a bit with the stats and see what is actually needed to take this down using current stats. Even experienced warbands don't have everyone with magic weapons so limited ppl will be able to hurt it. Most ppl will just flee as Philhelm said espushly if they have already secured a treasure or two. I think the xp and rewards are enough to tempt more powerful warbands into fighting it but with it's stats it's most likely gonna kill a few ppl at least if not all and it might just snatch up all the loot and fly off the table before it gets hurt enough to fight back.

[Timeshadow]

Just a quick look at what a moderately tooled up wizard and apprentice can do with a few minions makes me think I need to curtail gang up bonuses against this thing. Round 1: Wizard group activates with 3 minions(even if only the wiz has magic items they all provide gang up bonus) move three minions in first then wiz. A moderately experienced Wizard with a magic sword(+1 Fight) and dagger will have a fight of +6 (with out spell buffs), With 3 minions supporting that's +12 Fight which will on average beat the monster and deal 7-8 damage and if a decent roll is made more like 10-15 damage.

Add to this an apprentice charging in with two more minions. Lets say one of the better minions a treasure hunter has a +1 fight magic sword. Again even if all the others have no magic weapons that lets the Treasure hunter fight at +17 (4 base +1 magic sword +12 from 6 supporting figures) Which means an average roll nets 12-14 damage even more again on a decent roll. That's with just the wizard and apprentice and 5 soldiers and 2 magic weapons.

Now the monster will likely survive one round of this then return attack twice at +8 vs the wizard which will likely kill him if he hits (+8 vs +6 remember no gang up bonus when it attacks) will on an average roll of 12 do 9 damage doubled is 18 which the wizard "can" survive (assuming the wizard has 11 armor or better) on the second attack (remember it has 3 actions with one always being a move) it will on average kill the wizard.
More likely if it hit the first time it killed the wizard or it misses the first attack and kills the wizard on the second. Ether way it's most likely a dead wizard. With good or bad rolls it could easily mean Dead wizard and magic item wielding soldier.

But it's fairly easy to get a buffed up wizard at +5 fight (base) +2 strength potion, +2 spell, +1 Fight weapon giving a +10 total without minions. Heck you could do the same to any +4 fight minion some with TH weapons to get a +9 fight.

So I'm thinking of adding a max gang up bonus of +6 against it. Which keeps the damage reasonable without inflating hit's HP or increasing it's Fight.

Finally I'm thinking if you are using the Greater monster rules that there be a monster slayer weapon available to find so if you "find"(not buy) a magic melee weapon you may "test" it and roll a d20 1 Rejected weapon explodes injuring a random soldier in your warband(roll for ko result) 2-10 unworthy...weapon destroyed, 11-15 not the one... weapon survives intact, 16-19 Monster slayer Weapon gets +5 damage vs Greater monsters, 20 The one to slay them all, Weapon is instead of it's regular bonuses +3 fight (against everything) and gets double damage against greater monsters. Or I guess you could do a special senerio to acquire one as well but  kinda want to just insert this into regular games

[Philhelm]

I do think making it immune to criticals isn't the way to go, after all the mark of a true hero is being able to bring down a mighty opponent with a single well placed blow (or perhaps a couple).

But wizards aren't heroes, at least not in the traditional sense, which got me thinking.  Generally, why does a wizard enter Frostgrave?  To find ancient, magical artifacts.  Why would a wizard choose to face a dragon?  For rare dragon ingredients, of course - Dragon scales, fangs, claws, eyes, flame sacs, wing leather, etc., etc., etc.

Perhaps the dead dragon will leave parts that can be used to create rare items, rather than just being sold for cash.  Dragon scales could be used for, say, +2 leather or mail armor, or perhaps +1 mail armor that also adds +1 to move (lightweight), or a +2 shield.  Perhaps it could be made into a cloak that may be worn by the wizard and adds +3 armor when attacked by a damage causing spells.  The fangs/claws could obviously be forged into unique weapons; perhaps something like the Sword of Embers, which is a +1 sword that ignores opponents' armor when calculating damage.

[Froggy the Great]

In that vein, X number of Enchant Armor/Weapon and Embed Enchantment scrolls, maybe castable out of game?

[Timeshadow]

I made the extra rewards as gold just to keep things simple but yes you could have some special weapons or armor or magic items available to those who acquire the right components from greater monsters. You could do that with any monster really. Have several "special" magic items that can be made with the right ingredients and spells. In a campaign it might even get ppl working together to trade spells or find the right components or even hunt a greater monster on purpose.