Encountering D&D: Recurrance and Fortune

Dragon Magazine used to have this kick-ass series of articles about the Adventure Paths that were running in Dungeon Magazine that same month. The format was, admittedly, quite different from the D&D: Encounters format, in that the Adventure Paths tended to focus on an entire story arc rather than a single encounter, but I think there are cool things to be learned from D&D: Encounters and the way the good folks at Wizards have put together their initiative. Encountering D&D is a weekly article that discusses the coolest points of each week's session.

One of the cool things about this chapter of Keep on the Borderlands is that it's bringing back elements of previous encounters, depending on how those elements were handled in earlier chapters. In Encounter 5-17, both Moxulhar and Vermastyx play a part in the unfolding battle, assuming you let both survive. In this week's Encounter, Ferdinand Ronnick is back, again assuming you let him live Way Back in the Day (Chapter 2).

For an adventure designed for beginning players, this is a surpassingly next-level Dungeon Mastery maneuver. Chris Simms is not an adventure designer to be fucked with, ladies and gentlemen; this guy knows exactly what he's doing when it comes to making your adventures cohesive and interesting. Sometimes, game masters forget about things like this; bringing back story elements from the Before Times is a great way to give your world and your story some cohesion. And having the villain from the first couple of chapters come back as an underpowered ally later is a quick-and-dirty way to show some character growth and development, things that most role-playing games lose in a haze of Cheetoes and Mountain Dew-flavored Monty Python quotations.

Other Things to be Learned From This Encounter:

Sometimes, the bad guys aren't just sitting around waiting for you to come in and kill them. Sometimes, as you're killing bad guys, more bad guys show up. Sometimes, there are huge waves of bad guys waiting in the wings, and if you don't kill them quickly enough, you are going to get overwhelmed. And sometimes, the answer isn't just stabbing the bad guys to death; sometimes you need to get creative and find a new way to stop them from showing up. Close the portal, block the cave entrance, drop a house on their way in, pile the bodies in front of the door, light a huge cart full of horse dung on fire and roll it up to the gate. This sort of thinking should be encouraged. Give players who come up with these sorts of ideas bonuses to doing whatever it is they're trying to do.

One thing I would suggest to budding adventure designers, though, is this: Provide more than one victory condition. If knocking down Benwick's house is the only way to stop the onslaught of bad guys, then there should be a few ways to make that happen. The catapult is one, how about setting the house on fire as another? Pushing a cart in front of the door and guarding the windows? As with any situation that has the potential to completely overwhelm the player-characters, there need to be a variety of ways to keep that overwhelming from happening. I actually had to tell the players in my second flight to get the catapult after the house; they completely ignored the clues and were happy to just bash in heads ad infinitum.

From My Table to Yours:

When it was finally brought to the players’ attention that the catapult could be used to destroy the house, and thus stave off the waves of bad guys that were flooding in through it, I decided that the guys on the walls manning the thing were going to be having a smoke break, talking about their kids and the state of the Lord’s marriage. There are times when I like to infuse little modern bits like this into my games. It gives completely useless side characters some depth, gives your world a bit of a relatable edge, and gives you the opportunity to throw some humor into your gaming.

Dragging people around in nets was way less productive than I wanted it to be. I think next time, I’ll be making drag attacks like that deal damage, like getting hauled behind a horse or something.

Fortune Cards

Before Playing With Them:

I got in a preview box of D&D Fortune Cards in the mail this week. One of the perks of being the games manager at a FLGS is that Wizards of the Coast sometimes mails me stuff for free, and then I get to try it out and see how it goes. Yesterday I opened two packs of them, and I will be giving a pack each to my players at D&D: Encounters tonight (we haven't actually played yet, as of this writing; I will write a short review of how they played after the second flight is done). My initial thoughts on the product:

1) It has fewer options than I am immediately happy with. You get one card in your hand at any one time, and that card is determined randomly (you shuffle your deck then draw one). The chances that the card you pull is going to be useful are pretty low. At first look, I'm thinking that a hand of three cards would add utility to the product without over-powering it.

2) Monsters don't get cards. Whenever you add utility to player characters without adding equal or greater utility to the monsters they're fighting, you are making encounters easier. While I'm all for a certain level of ease in the Encounters initiative (re: Dark Sun), I think that this season has been generally underpowered and have had to make adjustments to make the challenges more... well, challenging. My monsters will be using Fortune Cards, but will stick to the one-card-in-your-hand rule to keep it balanced (as more monsters have access to the DM's hand, making it more likely to be relevant).

3) The back of the card is pretty. The face of the card is not. The card-front looks like it was designed by the same guy who designed the Vangard card-frame for Magic: The Gathering, which is my least favorite of the frame designs in that game. From the company that puts out card designs like the Future Shifted cards or the Planeswalker frames, the fortune cards lack 'production value.'

After Playing with Them:

1) Do these actually add anything to the game? One of my players complained about the increased amount of system required to use the cards while they didn't actually change the game all that much. The most positive reviews the cards got were "They were useful sometimes." One of the Game Masters for the first flight remarked that the encounters would need to be scaled up significantly whenever the cards were used, as the occasional power-up was still enough to make tonight's Encounter a cakewalk.

2) People forget about them. This is pretty similar to the major problem facing Ongoing Damage. No one remembers that the mechanic exists until about halfway through their turn, or even after their turn is over. Doing things like this at the beginning of your turn seems to go against the grain of the game; the play-flow of D&D 4E seems oriented todwards Standard/Move/Minor -> Bookkeeping -> End of Turn Effects. Players (and DMs, including myself) consistently forget about Auras, Ongoing Damage, and now cards, because all of those things seem like they should live in the middle or end phase of your turn flow.

3) It works better with more options, but also bogs the game down. We tried both the one-card variant and the three-card variant, and both versions of the rule (the former is the official, the latter is something suggested to me by my rep at Wizards) bogged the game down considerably. People read the cards, and that takes a few seconds. They also have to consider how the card is going to interact with their plan for the turn. In a game where combat already takes for bloody ever, it seems strange to want to bog the game down as much as the cards do. Moreover, the cards seem to slow the speed of choice to a crawl, so much so that I actually had to start counting down when players were taking too much time to come to decisions.

4) It would work better with starter decks. The random nature of the packs is meant to get people collecting them, like the Gamma World cards and, before them, Magic: The Gathering cards. Honestly, though, the cards would have worked better in a themed deck, especially as an introduction to the product. The cards were all over the damned place and were rarely any help to the players holding them. When they were a help, they helped out a lot, but those occasions were few and far between. How much better would it have been if a defender could choose the Defender Deck, and have a boost that was going to work well with his or her abilities? Even if the individual cards drawn were less than useful, at least they would tie into what it is that role does, ne?

5) They don't cost you anything. There is absolutely no reason that you should not be running a deck of these cards beside your character. To use a card does not cost you an action. It does not in any way impede any of the functions you previously enjoyed. I think this is a major error on the part of the cards' designers. Every card should cost something to use. A card can cost an action, hit points, healing surges, movement, a status effect. Make the choices difficult. Should I give myself a +2 bonus to all of my defenses in exchange for being dazed (save ends)? Whoever designed these cards should be forced to read this article [ROSEWATER ON DECISIONS].

6) People are not going to pay for these. They are going to print them out and put them into card sleeves the exact same way they do with Power cards. There will be an online database of them, and you will be able to write up a whole deck of the little bastards, print them, and use them in your games. Which is a damned shame, because nothing sells better in brick-and-mortar stores than game accessories, usually. Wizards of the Coast keeps making accessories that suck, though (re: Power Cards).

Session Review

So I’m actually writing some of this session review before the session happens. I’ve got some pretty intense stuff happening this time around, and I figured it would be best if I could just get some of it down before the session goes live, and fill in the blanks when it’s done. Obviously, I’m going to erase this introduction before I publish the post, but it’s nice to have a draft to come back to when the session’s done.

The first thing to take a good look at is the Social Combat system. I’ve designed the Headmaster at the Extreme Library around this sort of encounter as a solo who will give up when he’s bloodied. With completely average damage rolls, it will take 19 hits to finish him off; not a ton, just enough to see how the system works and where it needs to be tweaked a bit. Here, have the whole encounter!

This is how things usually go at the Extreme Library:

 

1. You go to the front desk and request a book.
2. The bookaneers go and get that book for you. This can take weeks.
3. Depending on the level of difficulty getting the book, you pay a fee.
4. You get your book.

 

The player characters are on something of a time-budget, though, and can try and convince the woman a the front office to let them go after the book themselves. That will, of course, cost something, as the Extreme Library makes all of it's money from it's book delves. Determining whether or not the players will be able to get the books for themselves (and at what cost) will be a Diplomatic Encounter.

 

Roll Initiative: d20 + (half level + charisma modifier + misc. initiative mods)

 

On your Turn: Choose Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate as a Fight, Defend or Manouever action. Roll that skill vs. the opponent's Passive Insight. If the check is successful:

 

Fight: Deal 2d6 + Charisma Modifier damage.
Defend: Choose a creature. That creature may spend a healing surge.
Manouver: Opponent suffers a -2 skill penalty to Insight (save ends).

 

 

So looking at his stats, he’s got a social AC of 22, and a +14 to hit on most of his attacks. That’s pretty much in line with level 10 rolls, though he was hit a little too often, and didn’t do enough damage to be a real threat.

The player characters actually knocked this guy around pretty easily, and it was slowly turning into a slog at about the point he was bloodied. They were going on all-out attack, which is fine against a guy like this, but he simply wasn’t dishing out damage on a level to be a decent threat. I think the next social combat encounter is going to be a lot higher on the damage dealt, with a higher Insight check; I want to see people using Maneuver and Defense rolls as well as just straight-up attacking.

The second thing I’ve done today is fuck with movement a bit. I incorporated a bunch of notes that constitute something of a miniature skill challenge; success on the skill challenge means you don’t take boatloads of damage.

The Extreme Library is built into the side of a huge ocean-facing cliff. It falls thousands of feat, hangs miles over the ocean (held up by the Cage Spires), and some say that the bottom is some sort of dimensional rift to where every book ever made in every language, written on every possible material has come to rest. It is an insanely dangerous place, due to the huge number of dangerous creatures that guard the various tomes of incredible value here and the certain doom that awaits anyone who falls.

 

The "broomsticks" that the party has are basically useless here; you can only fly a number of squares above the ground equal to your speed, and the number of squares between the ground and the Library are "infinite."

 

To get around on the walls here, they will need climbing and rappelling gear. The DC to climb down, using appropriate equipment, is 5 (just with half their level, every PC makes it); the shelves make for easy climbing, as there are plenty of hand and foot holds, but it is exhausting work (DC 22 Endurance check every hour, or lose a healing surge).

 

The combat map will be flipped on it's side, today, with one side being "Up," the other "Down." You can move up to your speed Up with a DC 25 athletics check or half your speed Up with a DC 15 athletics check. You can move an extra two squares Down with no climb check.

 

With a DC 20 athletics check, you can also "swing," which allows you to "fly" up to half your speed side-to-side (and diagonally down), but you need to begin and end your move action on the "ground."  While swinging you can make a melee basic attack as a minor action once any time during movement, without provoking an opportunity attack. You may swash your buckle at any time during this movement or attack.

 

Attacks that require two hands CAN be done, but provoke an Immediate Interrupt from Gravity that slides the character two squares.

 

If you fall prone, fall ten squares and take 2d10 damage. Your rope will save you from most of the damage, but not all of it.

The party made it through the first encounter using these rules, and while they didn’t look any different on the map, the shift in perspective from top-down to side-scroller resulted in a few moments that couldn’t have happened otherwise. Things like “falling as a charge” or “jumping on the gargoyle’s back” that would be completely ridiculous in a top-down map orientation.

We fought some bookend gargoyles, and a bookworm (just normal gargoyles, and a scythejaws that had its speed reduced to zero). Good times were had.

Undermountain Encounters 4 and 5

The 4th Edition Undermountain Revival

I was waiting for Ian to get me an encounter before I was going to post another one, but I needed something to write about today, and he’s had like, two weeks to make that happen. So I’m doing another one. Room 4 in the original Undermountain campaign didn’t have anything in it. Room five had a bad fight. So “Encounter” 4 isn’t actually much of an Encounter.

I guess one of the problems with old school Undermountain is that sometimes it’s horrifically boring. The two rooms coming up are pretty good examples of that. One of them is empty, except for a couple of loose cobblestones, and the next has a pretty mediocre fight against two bugbears, and the life history of a whole party that probably never made it through this room in the play-test. The second room, in particular, insults my sensibilities as a Game Master. I mean, I can deal with a flavor room with some random treasure. But room five of Undermountain is so obviously a tribute to a lost party that it hurts my brain just to think about it.

I think the worst part of it is that the party isn’t even all that interesting. They’re just a bunch of dudes who died fighting some fucking bugbears.

These encounters aren’t much different from the originals. I needed to share the pain…

Cobweb Room

The floor of this area is strewn with
stony rubble, and gray, dust-shrouded
cobwebs hang from ceiling to floor,
blocking all view of what lies within.

This room is basically empty. There are no creatures, and whatever may have made the webs is long gone. The rubble on the floor ranges in size from tiny pebbles to fist-sized chunks. If you put all of them together (a task that will take a good long time), the stones form a statue of three human warriors standing atop a rounded hump of stone. Each faces outwards, and is holding a short sword; the statue is well-crafted, but beyond broken. It might be worth as much as a few silver to a collector who would want to reproduce it.

If a character makes a DC 20 Perception check, he or she will notice a couple of loose flagstones, under which they’ll discover the skeletal remains of a human hand and a sack holding eight gold pieces. The coins are stamped with the Hammer and Anvil of the trading dwarves of the Sword Coast.

Chamber of Death

In this chamber, many bodies lie -
both human and those of tall, armored,
hairy creatures with long ears
and fangs. Only two figures move in
the room, searching among the bodies,
grunting and snarling to each other.
One breaks off and raises its head to
look your way!

The two creatures are bugbears, a warrior and a shadow walker. The bugbears will attack ferociously, seeing themselves as outnumbered and outgunned, their only hope of survival resting in a strong and immediate attack. If the player characters start to beat face (bloodying them, or killing one), the bugbears will simply try to fight past them and flee. They will only fight to the death if the death in question is that of the player characters.

If the bugbears do manage to escape, they will begin stalking the player characters (+12 stealth), and waiting until the party is weak or asleep to attack again.

Bugbear Shadow Walker		Level 5 Lurker
Medium natural humanoid		XP 200
Initiative +9                          Senses Perception +3; low-light vision HP 49; Bloodied 24 AC 19; Fortitude 17; Reflex 17; Will 16 Speed 7 Action Points 1
m Short Sword (standard; at-will) • Weapon
+10 vs AC; 2d6 + 3 damage
M Blur of Movement (standard; recharge 5 6)
The shadow walker shifts up to 8 squares, and can make 2 short sword attacks at any point during the move. The shadow walker must attack two different targets. On a hit, the shadow walker slides the target 3 squares.
Shadow Walk • Illusion
When a shadow walker moves 3 or more squares on its turn, it becomes invisible until the end of its next turn or until it attacks.
Predatory Eye (minor; encounter)
The shadow walker deals 1d6 extra damage against the next target granting combat advantage to it.
Alignment Evil		Languages Common, Goblin
Skills Acrobatics +9, Athletics +9, Stealth +12, Thievery +10
Str 14 (+4)	Dex 17 (+5)		Wis 12 (+3)
Con 13 (+3)	Int 13 (+3)		Cha 11 (+2)
Equipment Leather Armor, Short sword

 

Bugbear Warrior		Level 5 Brute
Medium natural humanoid		XP 200
Initiative +5                          Senses Perception +4; low-light vision HP 76; Bloodied 38 AC 18; Fortitude 17; Reflex 15; Will 14 Speed 6
m Morningstar (standard; at-will) • Weapon
+7 vs AC; 1d10 + 7 damage
M Skullthumper (standard; encounter) • Weapon
requires a morningstar and combat advanage against the target; +5 vs Fortitude; 1d10 + 7 damage, and the target is knocked prone and dazed (save ends)
Predatory Eye (minor; encounter)
The bugbear warrior deals 1d6 extra damage on the next attack it makes against a target granting combat advantage to it. It must apply this bonus before the end of its next turn.
Alignment Evil		Languages Common, Goblin
Skills Intimidate +9, Stealth +11
Str 20 (+7)	Dex 16 (+5)		Wis 14 (+4)
Con 16 (+5)	Int 10 (+2)		Cha 10 (+2)
Equipment Hide Armor, Morningstar
© 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This monster statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.

 

Terrain Features

Corpses: Each square occupied by a corpse counts as difficult terrain.

Pile of Skulls: The pile of skulls provides partial cover (-2 to ranged attacks against a character with cover), and count as difficult terrain.

The corpses, recently slain, are those of seven bugbears and five human men. The skulls are likely trophies kept by the bugbears. The men were all novice adventurers, much like our heroes, trying their fortune in the most dangerous dungeon in the world. Feel free to come up with some adventure ideas.

The original adventure gave you a bunch of history on each of the corpses, and a detailed description, but I’m not going to do that here. Personally, I think the Black Banner Band was one of Ed Greenwood’s crews, or maybe the party of a play-tester or something. There is a LOT of detail, let’s put it that way.

 

The total amassed treasure in the room is as follows:

• 6 pp 37 gp 25 sp 32 cp
• A glowing dagger +1
• A ritual book with Spider Climb and Tenser’s Floating Disk
• Three day’s rations
• A silver holy symbol
• A mace
• Four daggers
• A broad sword
• A short sword
• A battle axe
• Hand axe
• Three bloodstones, worth 50gp each
• A set of thieves’ tools
• 70ft climbing rope
• gold ring worth 3 gp
• brass buckle worth 2 cp

Picture by this guy: Benwootten

Random Monster

Sometimes I like making up new monsters. When I find a particularly fascinating image or someone says something that hits me in my deep places, I'll usually write a story here, but there are occasions where I see a thing and think "Well shit, what sort of encounter would this make? Where would something like this live, and how would it make that space insanely dangerous?" When I saw this critter, I thought along the latter lines; there's probably a story in there somewhere, I want to see that creepy girl with the too-big eyes and no mouth fuck some bitches up.

I'm imagining a psychic baddie. Like a siren that sings to your mind while you're traversing the already deadly Astral Seas. Off the starboard bow, you see a pair or trio of naked, ivory-skinned women who sing out to you like the voices of a dream. When you come near to them, they feed from you, draining your mind of it's ability to think or act or feel. When an Astral Siren does damage to you, it's damage to your memories, your thoughts, your philosophical reflections, your personality. Even when she's defeated, an Astral Siren leaves scars on your mind. There will always be a few things you can't quite remember, things that sit on the tip of your tongue, but you can never quite get them out. Is that just the effects of growing older, or is that something the Siren took from you, something you'll never get back?

Astral Siren		Level 15 Elite Controller
Medium fey humanoid		XP 2,400
Initiative +10        Senses Perception +10 HP 333; Bloodied 166 AC 29; Fortitude 30; Reflex 27; Will 30 Saving Throws +2 Speed 6 Action Points 1
C Psychic Blast (standard; at-will) • Psychic
blast 5; +20 vs AC; Targets all enemies in blast; 2d8 + 6 psychic damage.
M Mind Melt (standard; at-will) • Psychic
+17 vs. Will; the target is stunned until the end of the Astral Siren's next turn.
C Siren's Call (minor; recharge 5 6) • Psychic
Close burst 5; +13 vs. Will; targets all creatures in burst; the Astral Siren slides the targets 2 squares.
A New Power (standard; recharge 5 6) • Psychic, Fire
blast 2; +20 vs AC; 3d6 + 6 psychic fire damage and the targets take 5 ongoing fire (save ends).
Alignment Unaligned		Languages —
Str 17 (+10)	Dex 17 (+10)		Wis 17 (+10)
Con 17 (+10)	Int 17 (+10)		Cha 17 (+10)
© 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This monster statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.

Pic was straight-jacked from http://lalory.deviantart.com/art/Placebo-161629508

Undermountain Encounters 3, Nimraith’s Rest

In this alcove lies a human skeleton, huddled under a riven brass shield. It is clad in the crumbling remnants of leather armor. A metal, visored helm sits upright on the flagstone floor nearby.

Nimraith's rest is a pretty simple room. In it, there is one thing, a skeleton under a shield. At least, that's the original encounter as written. If you disturb the shield, you have to deal with a stirge, which is never pleasant because stirges were assholes. In 4^th Edition, they're pretty tame little guys. They don't have many hit points, their defenses are low, and a group of kick-ass adventurers taking down a single bug is a pretty stupid encounter.

So fuck the single bug, says I. The obvious answer is to make the stirges a swarm, with a couple of singular stirges kicking around for good measure. But the smallest stirge swarm is a level six monster, and I don't really want to dumb a six down to a one. Another option is a few pesky bugs working in conjunction. D&D Encounters' first skill challenge could end in a random combat with a few different things. One of those things was a trio of bugs; a stirge and two fire beetles. Fire beetles, for the record, are fucking terrifying. 3d6 damage over a blast 3 is insane at first level. With a critical hit, it could take fresh controllers into the negatives. Put two of those assholes in the same encounter, and you've got fricassee wizard.

Normally, when I'm looking at inventing an encounter, I don't take the XP reward system into account much. I know what seems like an easy, balanced or tough encounter to me, and if it turns out it's different from what I imagined it would be like, I change it around on the fly. Today, though, I'm going to break this down by experience point values, because it seems like fun.

I'm figuring on a single flame beetle, at 100xp. It gives out a big burst to begin with, and can be either a recurring threat (depending on how your recharge rolls go), or an easy target for your players. After that, we need a stirge to hearken back to the original encounter, so I'm thinking a single stirge at 100xp. After this, we can get a bit more creative with it. I love minions because they pose a viable threat without overpowering an encounter. So I invented stirgelings by setting their Secondary Role to "minion" in the Adventure Tools, changing the amount of damage it does to a static 3 with 3 ongoing. We're throwing three of these babies in there, for another 75xp. That leaves me with some 125xp to play around with. Just enough for a second-level monster!

Going along with our bug room theme and rocking the swarm idea, let's throw in a second-level centipede swarm. For parties that don't have a lot of blast or burst damage at their disposal, swarms prove a hell of a challenge. For more balanced parties, or parties that love them some mages, swarms are easy pickings, while the critters that hang out around the swarms are a bit harder to deal with.

For tactics, I'm thinking the stirges are going to attack as soon as the party is visible to them. They're going to go for the weakest looking characters, even if they're marked; they aren't smart enough to realize they're in danger of the fighter's opportunity attacks, or that the Warden is going to push them away from their food. The fire beetle is going to step out from behind the shield and let go with its recharging blast attack, then hide behind the shield for the extra cover and take a total defense action until the blast recharges. The centipede swarm is going to come from the hall to the south, a good choke point, where it will try to draw their enemies so that they can make short work of them between their own aura attack and the fireballs behind them.

This isn't intelligence, mind, this is blind instinct. The bugs don't want to deal with a group of people, they want to deal with small chunks of a group of people so that they can eat.

The (F) can be a little tough to see over the skeleton and the shield, but that's where the Fire Beetle is. 

 

Stirge (S)		Level 1 Lurker
Small natural beast		XP 100
Initiative +7        Senses Perception +0; darkvision HP 22; Bloodied 11 AC 15; Fortitude 12; Reflex 13; Will 10 Speed 2 , Fly 6 (hover)
m Bite (standard; at-will)
+6 vs AC; 1d4 damage, and the target is grabbed (until escape) and takes ongoing 5 damage until it escapes. An attached stirge doesn't make attack rolls while grabbing a target and gains a +5 bonus to its AC and Reflex defenses
Alignment Unaligned		Languages —
Skills Stealth +8
Str 8 (–1)	Dex 16 (+3)		Wis 10 (+0)
Con 10 (+0)	Int 1 (–5)		Cha 4 (–3)
Monster found in Monster Manual and Compendium
© 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This monster statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.

 

Stirgeling (L)		Level 1 Minion Lurker
Small natural beast		XP 25
Initiative +7        Senses Perception +0; darkvision HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion. AC 15; Fortitude 12; Reflex 13; Will 10 Speed 2 , Fly 6 (hover)
m Bite (standard; at-will)
+6 vs AC; 3 damage, and the target is grabbed (until escape) and takes ongoing 3 damage until it escapes. An attached stirge doesn't make attack rolls while grabbing a target and gains a +5 bonus to its AC and Reflex defenses
Alignment Unaligned		Languages —
Skills Stealth +8
Str 8 (–1)	Dex 16 (+3)		Wis 10 (+0)
Con 10 (+0)	Int 1 (–5)		Cha 4 (–3)
This one's my own creation, based on the Stirge, above. © 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This monster statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.

 

Fire Beetle (F)		Level 1 Brute
Small natural beast		XP 100
Initiative +1        Senses Perception +0 HP 32; Bloodied 16 AC 13; Fortitude 13; Reflex 12; Will 11 Resist 10 fire Speed 6
m Bite (standard; at-will)
+5 vs AC; 2d4 + 2 damage
C Fire Spray (standard; recharge 5 6) • Fire
Close blast 3; +4 vs Reflex; 3d6 fire damage
Alignment Unaligned		Languages —
Str 14 (+2)	Dex 12 (+1)		Wis 10 (+0)
Con 12 (+1)	Int 1 (–5)		Cha 8 (–1)
Monster found in Monster Manual and Compendium
© 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This monster statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.

 

Centipede Swarm (C)		Level 2 Brute
Medium natural beast		XP 125
Initiative +4        Senses Perception +1; darkvision Swarm Attack aura 1; each enemy that starts its turn within the aura takes 3 damage plus 2 extra damage per centipede swarm adjacent to the enemy. HP 44; Bloodied 22 AC 14; Fortitude 14; Reflex 15; Will 10 Resist half damage from melee and ranged attacks; Vulnerable 10 against close and area attacks Speed 6 , Climb 6 (spider climb)
m Swarm of Mandibles (standard; at-will) • Poison
+4 vs AC; 1d6 damage, and ongoing 5 poison damage (save ends); a creature already taking ongoing poison damage is also weakened (save ends). The centipede swarm's attack deals 1 extra damage for each centipede swarm adjacent to it
Survival Instinct (immediate reaction, when hit by an area or close attack; at-will)
The centipede swarm shifts 3 squares.
Alignment Unaligned		Languages —
Skills Stealth +9
Str 9 (+0)	Dex 17 (+4)		Wis 10 (+1)
Con 14 (+3)	Int 1 (–4)		Cha 6 (–1)
Monster found in Monster Manual 2 and Compendium
© 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This monster statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.

The skeleton has some gear on him, but it's mostly useless. The shield is split in half (the word "Nimraith" written across it in Thorass). The leather armor is old and cracked and parts crumble into useless strips of leather when someone attempts to wear it. The rotting remains of a backpack are folded under the corpse containing a moldy mass of cloth scraps and a polished ivory tube worth 2sp. Inside the tube are two scraps of parchment. One is a partially completed map of Undermountain called Nimraith's Map, the other is a scroll with the Comrade's Succor ritual written on it (Dragon, 380), which is a godsend in a place like Undermountain. With it, a group can give up healing surges to give those surges to other players. And in a place as deadly as this, every one of those surges counts.