Monster Patterns and Roles

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New Templates

There are tons of templates, but there's a lack of powerful templates without a lot of specific 'flavor'. For example. you can't really add a 'Jotunblood Giant' template to a purple worm. Which is a shame, because the 'Jotunblood Giant' template is pretty darn cool.

So here's a new, more generic, template which can be added to any creature and add up to CR +4 to it.

Great Creature

Design notes: Great creature is a complex full template. It's also modular, and was specifically designed to stack cleanly with either the 'Advanced Simple Template' or the 'Mighty' template. Using only these three templates, the CR of a monster may be adjusted from +1CR to +10CR. And that should be plenty.

Elemental Skeleton Templates

These templates are designed to add even more variety to skeletons. You can find skeletons at all levels of the game, and many of the creatures are designed as nice, solid, martial opponents. If you want to add a little variety to the basic skeletons, add one of these templates to them!

Note that you should probably try to make the templates a thematic 'fit' with the skeleton you're working with. Adding the Numbing template to a Smoky Apocalypse Skeleton might seem a little strange. But hey, all referee's are allowed to run the game as they see fit, so if it floats your boat, go for it!

Disgusting Zombie Templates

These templates are designed to add even more variety to zombies. You can find zombies at all levels of the game, and many of the creatures are designed as creepy, horrible things you'd rather avoid. If you want to add a little miserable grotesquerie to the basic zombies, add one of these templates to them!

Monster Roles

The first rule of encounters is that they are fun. A sure way to avoid dull fights is to 'shake things up' with interesting settings, maguffins, variable terrain, etc. Another good way is vary the monsters. For example, six orcs are a pretty vanilla encounter, but eight orc minions with a leader and an elite backing them up is worth the same and feels and plays very differently. Note that adding roles increases the damage in the game considerably, especially when you add minions: This is completely intentional. Fights should be fairly brief but intense affairs.

Monster Roles are applied AFTER all templates. They are not templates and do not change the CR. Instead, they count as more or fewer monsters each. Yes, that's effectively the same thing, so possible CR adjustments later. Wow, an encounter with Heavies wearing the Mighty template could turn kobolds into like CR 10. This has potential….

Minion

Cheap fodder? Not likely.

• Apply the Minion role to a monster and it turns into four monsters.

• HPs are reduced to one.

• Minions die after one hit or four misses.

• Minions never gain temp hitpoints or healing, although both count as a buff. If a minion receives any buff, at all, it requires two hits to kill it, not one. This is in addition to the normal, non-hitpoint, effects of the buff.

• Minions are able to squeeze with no penalties. You can pack them into the battlefield like sardines.

• Four minions count as one monster for xp and loot.

Clarification: The main way to kill a minion is to hit it cleanly with a die roll. If the minion is then able to successfully mitigate the damage with a die roll, they live anyway. They take no damage from misses, if they make a saving throw they take no damage from any spell or effect, if they make an SR roll they are unharmed, etc. Clean hits kill them instantly, anything else, they stick around to cause problems.

Note that no minion can survive forever: Even if they continually make die rolls to survive, after four such successes they die anyway. So if a mainline barbarian rolls five attacks and through terrible luck misses ALL of them… the minion dies anyway. Ah, the lot of Igor is a hard one….

Autohit spells (no to-hit roll, no save, no Spell Resistance allowed, such as Acid Arrow or the Fog spells) are handled differently. Since there is no to-hit, save, or spell resistance to roll, minions are immune to such spells and that's annoying. Instead, autohit spells are counted as attacks, and counted as misses. So, four acid arrows have no effect, but the fifth kills the minion. This works for all 'no-die-roll' automatic damage, so a minion hanging out in an Acid Fog cloud is fine until the fifth round, when it dies.

Heavies

Your typical 'tough guy' in an encounter.

• Heavies have double hit points.

• Heavies do double damage.

• Heavies get 1 action point.

• Heavies are immune to the first instance of all conditions applied during an encounter.

• Heavies are able to keep fighting past death: When they are first made dead, they instead receive half their hit points again, all conditions are removed, and they keep on fighting.

• Heavies count as two monster for xp and loot.

Threats

A dungeon boss, or a tough 'heavy'. A really tough heavy…. Remember that Cave Troll fight in Lord of the Rings? Yeah, that guy.

• Threats have triple hit points.

• Threats do triple damage or more.

• Threats get 2 action points. These may not be spent on the same round.

• Threats are immune to the first five instances of all conditions applied during an encounter.

• Threats are able to fight past death. When they are made dead, instead they receive half their hitpoints, all conditions are cleared, any expended powers are returned, and they fight on.

• Threats count as four monsters for xp and loot.

Tanks

The monster the other monsters expect to take all the hits.

• Tanks have double hitpoints.

• Tanks are immune to all conditions applied during an encounter.

• Tanks add all damage they deal out to their own hit point total, up to their maximum.

• Tanks may make an attack of opportunity against any character they can reach who does not include them in an attack.

• Tanks are able to fight past death. When they are killed, they heal their hit points back to half, clear all conditions, and fight on.

• Tanks count as two monsters for xp and loot.

Shooters

Pew! Pew! Pew!

• Shooters may make all their attacks with a range increment of thirty.

• Shooters have double hitpoints.

• Shooters add one third their CR to their initiative modifier, round up.

• Shooters do double damage.

• Shooters count as two monsters for xp and loot.

Sneaks

They're stealthy, man. SUPER stealthy.

• Sneaks may add their number of hit dice to all Stealth rolls they make. If they do not have the Stealth skill, they gain it at a value of 10+ Dex mod.

• Sneaks may initiate stealth, even if they are being observed, once per encounter. This is an immediate reaction if off their turn, or a swift action if on their turn.

• Sneaks add one third their CR to their initiative modifier, round up.

• Sneaks add their CR to all attacks, both to-hit and damage, they make against a target who is unaware of them.

• Sneaks count as two monsters for xp and loot.

Killers

The scary-dangerous one.

• Killers have double hit points.

• Killers move twice as fast.

• Killers add one third their CR to their initiative modifier, round up.

• Killers do triple damage or more.

• Killers count as two monsters for xp and loot.

Leaders

The ones calling the shots.

• Leader attacks perform free Bull Rush attempts once per round.

• Leaders can give one ally a standard action, once per round.

• Leaders have double hitpoints.

• Leaders give all monsters +2 to hit per five hit dice of that monster. Minions use their normal hit die rating, even though they only have one hit point. Round up.

• Leaders buff all minions, so they take two hits to kill. If the minions then get another buff from a non-leader, they take three hits to kill. This benefit immediately goes away if the leader dies.

• Leaders count as two monsters for xp and loot.

Villains

The dungeon boss.

• Villains have four times as many hitpoints.

• Villains do triple damage.

• Villains get 2 action points. These may not be spent on the same round.

• Villains may summon four minions a round, every round as a free action. They may not use this action if they have eight or more minions in play already.

• Villains are immune to the first eight instances of each condition, even outside of an encounter.

• Villains may make all their attacks with a range increment of thirty.

• Villains are not killed when they reach zero hitpoints. Instead, they summon four minions, have their hitpoints set to half their maximum, remove all conditions, and fight on.

• Villains live to fight another day. The second time they are reduced to zero hitpoints or below they mysteriously vanish in a puff of plot, to appear again later, evilly twirling their mustache.

Gamemaster Notes on Roles

Even though the concept behind Roles is inspired by Fourth Edition, the way it is implemented here is very different, and demands a lot more from the referee than 4e ever did. Since Roles can be applied to ANY monster, the referee is expected to have a strong grasp of what this is going to do. Since we recognize that not every referee out there may be a thirty year veteran like us old guys, this section is here to give you some tips on what to expect and how to run mind-boggling games.

An overview

First, there's no reason to introduce roles right away. Let folks settle into their characters for the first two or three levels, run them through the classic 'five people meet in an inn' scenario, keep it simple as people get used to the way the new character classes work. Once you decide that vanilla encounters and stories are losing their luster, try introducing a Heavy mob.

Heavy mobs, despite their scary factor, are possibly the least impactful of the roles. Their ability to ignore a condition will likely be a surprise, as will their hard-hitting attacks and resurrection power. But despite all that, Heavies are very simple, easy-to-handle role mobs.

Once the players are used to Heavies, bring out a couple of Shooters. Shooters are the second least impactful role, and more importantly, demand an entirely different response (more mobility or ranged attacks) than a Heavy. Let the players get used to the way to handle Shooters.

Next, introduce Minions. Despite their lowly stature, minions are quite dangerous and demand good tactics to deal with. A single mob split into minions does quadruple the damage of a normal mob. Be sure your players are adaptable and tough before you pop minions on them. Also: Be very aware of the ability of minions to squeeze! This makes the front ranks of your party completely irrelevant to minions, so be sure your 'clothies' are ready for this surprising challenge.

Once you have Heavies, Shooters, and Minions, the rest of the roles are all really zesty. Tanks are especially nasty, especially if you combine a Tank with minions. The Tank will get lots of opportunity attacks while the party goes after minions, so be aware. Killers are extremely fast and can easily swamp the weaker members of the party if the group doesn't maneuver carefully, so handle with care. Sneaks are like Killers, only worse. Their ability to stealth even while being watched is sure to draw outraged cries the first few times, and rightly so. Plus, Sneaks hit so hard it's scary, so handle with care.

By far the most dangerous of the roles are the Leaders, Threats, and the Villains. Use them sparingly and carefully until you are sure your players can handle the challenge they present. Threats are basically drastically tougher Heavies. If your group is having trouble with Heavies combined with Tanks or Shooters, consider Threats very carefully. Villains are much worse than Threats because they do even more damage and summon in hordes of minions. Absolutely worst of all are Leaders. Use Leaders with great care, and be sure your group can handle them. Be extremely careful of combining Leaders and Tanks, Leaders and Shooters, Leaders and Sneaks, and especially Leaders and Villains.

Using Roles, you can challenge any group of players at any time, but remember the first rule: Fights should be fun!

A note about increased damage

We recommend several different ways of handling increased damage of roles.

The first and simplest way is to roll the damage as listed in the stat block and multiply it. This is easy and effective, but it rewards high armor class and hurts folks with Damage Resistance. Even worse, it's not very interesting. This is the cardinal sin of refereeing: being dull! It's fine to use this method every now and then, heck, vanilla fights are quite valuable. They're easy, they make the 'oh holy crap' encounters more vivid by contrast, and they're easy. Just don't do them too much.

The second way is to roll every attack multiple times. A fun variant on this is to give high-damage monsters a 'second' or 'third' initiative, for example, five counts after their main initiative, or ten counts after. Be careful of this variant method, as the players piling on the conditions can dilute the threat of your monsters. If you couple this with the simple expedient that every initiative count keeps a separate tally of statuses, this works extremely well, although it's a bit complicated. This works very well with multi-headed monsters. The 'two-headed' template is awesome stuff.

The third way is to do both. Boost the damage of each attack by fifty percent, and then roll a few extra attacks to represent their high speeds. This is a very good approach, and if you add the extra damage as flat damage, doesn't slow down the pace of combat much if at all. Even better, this feels very 'true to the rules' if that is important to you. A great variation is to make some or all of a monster's attacks into close blasts, or small cones, or affects any three adjacent squares. This is easily explained as the monster is sweeping its limbs in large arcs, and also spreads the damage out, so not only the tank is getting hit.

The fourth way is to add a minor action ranged attack. The monster throws a rock, spits of glob of ick, shoots rays from its eyes, flicks quills from its tail, animates the floor to bite at feet, pulls ropes to drop javelins from the ceiling, huffs poison from its nostrils, shoots tentacles from unmentionable places to zing the unwary, etc, etc, etc. Making it a minor action keeps it fun and rewards the characters for status effects. To make this more flexible, have this ranged attack hit two, three, or even more targets. This lets you 'dilute' the impact of a strong melee front row, as you can hit that pesky fighter and still keep the back ranks on their toes. If your party is laying lots of status effects, make the ranged attack a free action that happens at the start of the monster's turn on a trigger.

The fifth way is to add a damage aura. This is very easy and effective, simply announce the aura and make the players keep track of it for you! A nice variation of this is the damage aura that only turns on while the monster is under a status effect. If you're really feeling nasty, have the aura do damage every time an effect is laid on the monster in addition to the normal trigger times. This gives the players a mean choice: Lay the effect and take damage, or leave the monster unfazed.

The sixth way is a damage shield. Every time you strike the monster, you take damage. This is rough on melee and rewards ranged attacks, so a fun variation is giving a monster an automatic reflection ability, so any ranged attacks are turned back on the attacker. If you're really feeling nasty, have reflected ranged attacks target-able upon any of the PC's at will. Another fun variation is the 'safety zone' damage aura. The further you are from a monster, the more damage the aura does to you, but you are completely safe when adjacent. This rewards meleer's and punishes ranged attackers, which is a fun 'turnabout.'

The seventh way is to move the damage off the monsters completely. Have a damage zone that activates when the monster steps on it. If you're really feeling mean, have the zone heal the monster at the same time. Put in emitters, like poison mushrooms huffing spore clouds, or spinning blade pillars, or falling blocks of ceiling that do damage and then turn terrain into rough terrain, or sections of floor that slide everybody on them like conveyor belts right into spiked pits, or slippery patches that knock people on them prone, or jets of poisonous lava that squirt out at random intervals, etc, etc, etc.

The important thing is to introduce as much variety as possible into combat. Always strive to do something interesting. It doesn't have to be unique! Just interesting and fun. :)