The Monster Roles Project

[ValhallaGH]

Nasty, ain't he?

As I envisioned monster roles working, you wouldn't even bother with the orc background. Just grab the 3rd level Brute, call it an orc, add the various bonuses together, attach any specials you wanted (darkvision, possibly add the Rage feat) and run it.

That said, there's absolutely no reason you can't attach a background to a monster role.

So a bit more like this:
Abilities: Str +5, Dex +1, Con +3, Int -2, Wis +1, Cha +0
Skills: Climb 6 (+11), Intimidate 6 (+6), Jump 6 (+11), Notice 6 (+7)
Feats: Rage
Traits: Darkvision 60 ft.
Initiative: +1 (Dex +1)
Offense:
Atk +5 (Cbt +4, Dex +1) (desc. as "greataxe")
Dmg +6 (Role +1, Str +5) / +8 (Rage)
Gppl +9 (Cbt +4, Str +5) / +11 (Rage)
Defense:
Dodge 15 (10 + Cbt 4 + Dex 1) / 13 (Rage)
Parry 19(10 + Cbt 4 + Str 5) / 17 (Rage)
Saves:
Fort +6 (Role +3, Con +3) / +8 (Rage)
Ref +3 (Role +2, Dex +1)
Will +2(Role +1, Wis +1) / +4 (Rage)
Tough +4 (Role +1, Con +3)

Regarding role formats, I fully intend to clean those up after I finish building them all. Of course, now I'm likely to do it since you mentioned it.
The Toughness column is meant to be a bonus to Toughness, added to the Con. One more thing that makes the brute tough. Not all the roles deserve it, so not all have it.

Feedback on the roles themselves is also welcome.

[ValhallaGH]

Okay, the Controller is up.

The heart of the controller is the Battlefield Mastery abilities. Which I reproduce below. Controllers get 6 of them, the list has 11. Feedback is welcome.

Battlefield Mastery: Each time the controller gains this, select one of the following abilities. The area of effect for the abilities is a radius of 5 ft per controller level, no more than 300 ft away. Each ability takes a standard action to activate. If it has duration longer than instant, it lasts for maintenance plus 3 rounds. Maintaining masteries takes a free action, just like maintaining powers; each distinct mastery active adds +2 to the Difficulty of any concentration checks required.
Each mastery can be used an unlimited number of times; however, no more than four of the same effect should be active at the same time.
Feel free to modify each mastery in ways appropriate to the trappings. Perhaps a barrier of fire deals damage to anything passing through it, rather than actually stopping it. A smoke cloud of magical darkness can be penetrated by darkvision. An EMP thunderclap only works on electronic sensors. A distracting totem of a lust-inducing illusion requires a Will save. Et cetera.

Bad Ground: The target area becomes almost impassable. The terrain becomes very difficult, reducing movement speed through the area to one-quarter.

Barrier: The controller creates a ‘wall’ that stops most movement and objects. The wall is 5 ft high and (10 ft per level) long. The wall may be arranged in any contiguous fashion. The wall can be broken (Toughness 5 + ½ level) as an object.

Distracting Totem: The controller creates an area that seriously hampers his foes. Each creature in the area must make a Fortitude save or be sickened. Failure by 5 or more causes a nauseated condition. Failure by 10 or more makes the victim helpless. The victims can recover, getting a new save each round outside the effect, with a +1 per previous save.

Entangling Field: Using appropriate trappings (vines, quicksand, webs, electro-nets, etc) the controller makes an area impassable. All characters in the area must make a Reflex save. Characters that fail are entangled. Failure by 5 or more leaves the character bound and helpless. Characters can escape via Escape Artist (Difficulty 15 + level) or by damaging the restraints (Toughness 1 + ¼ level), which are an object. Characters entering the area must also make a Reflex save, as above. Characters only need to save once per entrance.

Fatigue: The controller creates an area that drains the energy from characters. Characters in the target area must make a Fortitude save or become Winded. Failure by 5 causes the character to become Fatigued. Failure by 10 makes the character Exhausted. Failure by 15 or more renders the victim Unconscious. This is an instant effect. Victims can recover from this unnatural fatigue with only a minute of rest. Ten minutes of rest automatically removes all conditions caused by this ability.

Gravity: The controller effectively increases the gravity in an area. Victims must make a Strength check or be slowed. Failure by 5 pushes the victim to the ground, making them prone and slowed. Victims that fail by 10 are prone and must make another check to take any action at all.

Illusion: The controller generates a believable, but false, image in the area. Characters that interact with it may make a Will save to detect its illusory nature. The illusion cannot actually alter the area, though it can be perceived to do so. See the Illusion power for various modifiers and conditions on the will save.
Mass Slick: An area of unstable terrain (ice, minor earthquakes, grease, etc) trips all within. Characters in or entering the area must make a Reflex save or fall prone. Standing characters in the area at the beginning of their turn must also make a save.

Smoke Cloud: The controller can create an area that blocks visual senses. All vision through the area is blocked, blinding characters within the area.

Thunderclap: Using appropriate means, the controller can temporarily blind and deafen foes. Characters in the area must make a Reflex save or be unable to see and hear. Each round the victim makes a Fortitude save to recover, with a +1 per previous fortitude save. This is an instant effect. Victims immune to Fortitude saves recover automatically, on their turn.

Weather: The controller makes the environment itself distracting in the target area. Using appropriate means, the area becomes distracting, forcing a Concentration check (Difficulty 10 + level) from characters attempting any sort of focused activity.

Unspecified difficulties are found on the class chart. I'm a bit torn on a few of the abilities and appreciate any feedback available.

[NewtoTrue]

Thanks, these roles should make GMing easier.

[bryan.mullins]

I will chime in on the thank you's also!

My game group talked me out of True20 for a Golarion game and into Pathfinder as the rules (They are sooo shiny, the players just couldn't help themselves)

In spite of that, I may be using these Monster Roles anyway...just because I appreciate the good work.

>WBM

[ValhallaGH]

You're welcome to it. And thank you for the compliments.

I hope they work out well for you, and I appreciate any playtest feedback you can give.

[iwatt]

I'll be giving these babies a high level playtesting. I'm hitting Volume 6 of the Rise of the Runelords AP, and I'm tired of conversions. Brute + cool traits....done! Throw in some artillery, some lurkers, etc... and I'm golden.

[tezrak]

I'm trying to work up an Excel file that will, in one sheet, hold all the info for a role, from start to finish, and then generate a stat block in a side-by-side sheet by referencing the numbers in the first sheet. Ultimately, I'd like to just be able to type in the level on the stat block, and have it crunch all the values with if formulas and such, but I'm not quite there yet. I started with the lurker.

I'm also trying to think about how the skirmisher would work. I've got my next Freeport session tomorrow, and I need a swashbuckling villain type. I figure the "skirmisher" role would suit him.

[ValhallaGH]

iwatt, I look forward to reading about it.

tezrak, it seems you've grokked the utility I was aiming for.
No word yet on the Swashbuckler. I'd like to get something together in the next week or so, but there's no guarantees with this project. I've actually got a couple more ideas on the War Leader than on the Skirmisher, at the moment.
Still, my brain is a disturbing and mysterious place, full of all sorts of unexpected ideas and thoughts. I may have something by Friday. Currently, I'm leaning towards something vaguely like the 3.5 Scout class, or Iron Heroes Harrier class, which is both more mobile than most classes and gets major bonuses for using said mobility. The trick is going to be combining those ideas with some balance, simple-to-run mechanics, and enough flexibility to be relatively genre-neutral. Maybe Hong Ooi's Harrier hack....

[ValhallaGH]

Apparently I'm an impossible tinkerer.

With much thanks to Hong Ooi for spiritual guidance if not mechanical guidance, I now have a Skirmisher put together. Effective at melee or range, the skirmisher is a moderate fighter that gets ridiculous once it gets moving.

Check out the update here.

The secret is in the progression chart, but here's a sample of the specials
Feats: Skirmisher feats are related to their movement. Precise Shot negates a penalty, making it easier to run them.
Speed Attack: If the skirmisher has moved at least 30 feet this turn, they gain the listed bonus to attacks.
Speed Dodge: If the skirmisher has moved at least 30 feet this turn, they gain the listed dodge bonus to defense.
Fast Overrun: As Great Cleave, for overruns. As long as you have sufficient movement, and continue to succeed at overrun, you can continue to make overrun attempts until you run out of movement or miss an attempt. You can change directions between attempts but must move at least 10 feet before each attempt.
Improved Overrun: Opponents cannot avoid your overrun attempts, and you have a +4 bonus on the trip check.

[iwatt]

VGH: the save DC for the widen attack of the artillery isn't listed or formula explicited. I'd simply copy the controller's DC table.

Also, the skirmisher should probably list the total speed. As written, it says bonus speed but no base speed to add.


Easy to use dragons: gestalt Brute/artillery

[ValhallaGH]

Area damage attacks have a save difficulty of 10 + damage unless noted otherwise. (See area attack rules.) A reminder is probably a good idea, though.

I was assuming base speed 30 (as with the brute, who gets the Improved Speed feats). I was wanting to leave the calculation shown for easier customization (dwarf skirmisher, base of 20 +40 = 60). You do make a good point, however.


Gestalting these things can get difficult since it provides abilities. Also, it is likely to shatter the nods towards game balance. That said, if you make it work, I'd really appreciate hearing about it.

[NewtoTrue]

Thanks again. Keep 'em comin'

[Robilar]

I'm very impressed with your monster roles, ValhallaGH, and will playtest them in my regular game starting next week.

What impresses me the most is the Controller role's versatility and the fact that the Narrator could improvise when using these roles. What would improve the on-the-fly usability for me would be if the tables actually told me the already added up values (Dodge/Parry, Saves...) instead of the components I need to add the final value up. The latter makes it more a tool for preparing the game while the former would make it great to have while gaming.

Also I was wondering why you chose to have one monster be a Challenge for four monster's of that Level, instead of going with 4E's "4 monsters equal 4 PCs" (if I remember correctly). The great thing about 4E's approach for me was that I could come up with interesting encounters with several monsters on the fly (probably you already noticed this is very important to me). When using your monster roles for a encounter with 4 creatures, what should be the creature's level?

All in all however: Great stuff so far and I can't wait to see the continuation of your work!

[tezrak]

Figuring out the final stat block values isn't all that difficult. I built Excel spreadsheets that do all the calculation for me (I've got Lurker and Skirmisher done so far), and what's even nicer is that the final statblock prints out to the size of a 3"x5" index card. Realistically, I could just print out one for every level, keep them in my index card box, and just pull out whatever I need at any given level.

I used VGH's skirmisher in my last session. I've got a party of seven 2nd-level PCs. I pitted them against one 5th-level skirmisher and seven 1st-level skirmishers (a pack of rakish hooligans in Freeport). They're deadly, but my 5th-level skirmisher got hit with a Sleep and failed his Will save. The rest were split apart and picked off little by little. I used the minion rules for the 1st-level skirmishers, so it kept the combat moving quickly.

[ValhallaGH]

I'm very impressed with your monster roles, ValhallaGH, and will playtest them in my regular game starting next week.

Excellent! I look forward to the feedback.

What impresses me the most is the Controller role's versatility and the fact that the Narrator could improvise when using these roles.

Among other things, I'm trying to make only a few roles that let you easily fill most opponent types in most settings. Flexibility is key, and I thought the Controller really showcased that. I'm glad to see that you agree.

What would improve the on-the-fly usability for me would be if the tables actually told me the already added up values (Dodge/Parry, Saves...) instead of the components I need to add the final value up.

I see what you're saying, but you'd need all those components anyway. What happens when the monster gets surprised, feinted, stunned, et cetera? How does defense and toughness change? What if the thing is using a "weapon" and gets disarmed, how much damage does it deal now? To provide what you're asking for, I'd basically have to generate a stat block at each level (not quite that bad but close) which is a level of tedious and audience-insulting that I don't have the patience for.

In the interests of keeping this project one that would maintain my interest, and in keeping it flexible and easily customized for special encounters, I chose to just give the pieces, all of which can be quickly added and scribbled down for actual use. When a feat would just add to existing numbers (Attack Specialization for example) I just folded into the appropriate column.

For example, if I wanted to run a Beholder, I'd take a Controller, give it an extra three "power" actions per round, give it Flight 60 (perfect maneuverability), give it at least four controller abilities, and give it a couple more powers that are not on the list (single target sleep, single target paralyze, and a combined drain toughness / damage blast for disintegrating). Now I've got an eye-beam spewing, flying, biting death-ball to terrorize both my PCs and my campaign world. And I can swap out abilities and shift levels to keep it interesting and unpredictable when they meet new ones.

Also I was wondering why you chose to have one monster be a Challenge for four monster's of that Level, instead of going with 4E's "4 monsters equal 4 PCs" (if I remember correctly).

It's a "challenge" in the 3E sense. Barring terrible luck and planning, the PCs should win. For a more even fight (which is what 4E aimed for) use more of them and give some of them Conviction. If you want to use a lot of them but still want it to be relatively safe, use a lot of Minions.

I used VGH's skirmisher in my last session. I've got a party of seven 2nd-level PCs. I pitted them against one 5th-level skirmisher and seven 1st-level skirmishers (a pack of rakish hooligans in Freeport). They're deadly, but my 5th-level skirmisher got hit with a Sleep and failed his Will save. The rest were split apart and picked off little by little. I used the minion rules for the 1st-level skirmishers, so it kept the combat moving quickly.

Awesome. Sounds like a great encounter. Any input for me generated, or did they work like you wanted them to?

I built Excel spreadsheets that do all the calculation for me (I've got Lurker and Skirmisher done so far), and what's even nicer is that the final statblock prints out to the size of a 3"x5" index card.

If you'd like, I can host these where I host the Monster Roles, for greater distribution.