In AD&D, Gargoyles are living creatures, the fleshy inspiration for their stone depictions I suppose. I like my version better. Drain-faced, cruel, and darkly inspired.
I'm debating downgrading their immunity to mundane weapons to an immunity to slashing and piercing damage. This would make them slightly less deadly, but perhaps less useful as mid-level dungeon guards. Thoughts?
The Grue is based on the Grue from Zork, of course, but with some inspiration from Arnold K's sublimely weird version. It's a living trap and an entertaining problem.
The AD&D Monster Manual II has four grues, one from each of the main elemental planes. They've all got lavishly and horrible descriptions, but in the Monster Overhaul, they'll be merged into the rest of the elementals.
This is also the first public test of a two monster page (compared to a one monster page here or here). Any complaints? Far easier to fix them now.
Also, Patrons at the $5 level and above get access to all the draft content, in case you want more monsters as quickly as I can write and test them.
I like the one monster page format for most monsters but if I were you I would keep both as some monsters (herd animals) require far less detail and others might want 3 columns or even 2 pages (dragons). Keep the flexibility.
ReplyDeleteOh for sure. Sorry, didn't mean to imply that all monsters would use this format. I'll be on a case-by-case basis.
DeleteI also like architectural drain gargoyles, I think it's more fun. I had them be able to spit water as the blast from a 'decanter of endless water' (although the gargoyle has to gulp down water to recharge the ability).
ReplyDeleteI protest the gargoyle's blanket immunity to mind - affecting stuff. Clearly there's a bunch of wizards out there who've put the whammy on some gargoyle minions. Maybe their nature means only one person can command them at a time, and without a master they lose that immunity
ReplyDeleteAh, interesting! I'd always assumed it was a commercial transaction (e.g. If you work for me, I'll give you all my prisoners plus one peasant per week) instead of mind whammy. Good suggestion for mind control limits though.
DeleteHonestly, I like the idea that that's how all mind control works. The reasons that wizards act weird is because they've preemptively mind-controlled themselves, and the commands are never bug free.
DeleteOh dear. That'd be... something to implement.
Deletei kinda wish the descriptive text was replaced with a single line for their mechanical attributes (gargoyles act last, grues do not exist in light) and the extra space used for more random tables. those were my favorite part of the mercenaries page.
ReplyDeletehave you seen middenmurk's mantyger stat pages? i think two pages for a single niche monster is ridiculous, but i friggin love the tables that guy writes. i don't want someone to tell me that a gargoyle will try to take prisoners alive for torture, i want a table to randomly determine a gargoyle's favored torture method.
For both the Gargoyle and the Grue, I'm having trouble coming up for better extra tables. Lots of other monsters get several (Minotaurs have a full 2-page spread plus a map), but... what would be a *useful* table for Grues, compared to a table that's merely there to fill space?
DeleteSimilarly for Gargoyles, a table of torture methods was on my draft list, but I dropped it because it just felt gratuitous. I'd just encourage DMs to describe that in detail, and maybe that's not something I need to provide extra material to assist.
The Menu boxes are useless and self-indulgent, especially for monsters that are inedible. You should cut them unless eating the monster does something interesting. Maybe put that stuff in an appendix. I would much rather have a nice piece of public domain art than fluff that has no game application.
ReplyDeleteAlso, downgrading the gargoyle's immunity to only slashing/piercing weapons is a good idea. It's more intuitive and doesn't make the monster significantly less dangerous.
Fair point r.e. menu boxes for inedible creatures. I've been including them for inedible monsters just for consistency's sake, but as the project grows I'm not sure they're necessary. For edible monsters, especially ones with interesting effects, they're staying. No question. They might not be useful for every game, but they're still an aspect that's worth including.
DeletePutting it in an appendix goes against one of the design goals; all info on a monster as close to the monster as possible. The space cost isn't very high for most creatures.
We'll see how it goes, but this book might have 100% commissioned art.
That's fair. Eating monsters to get cool effects is a fine idea, but having a big box on the page saying "You can't eat this" is a waste of space. I don't need to be told a being made out of stone or shadows is inedible. I concede your point about the appendix being a bad idea for this project; maybe fold pertinent info about monster flesh consumption into the main description?
Delete