Louder than words

Here is the companion the previous handout. This one details actions during combat. From coup de grace to equiping a shield, all designed to prevent the need to flip through the PHB again and again.

Included are two actions not found in the 4e PHB: Disarm and trip. They were designed along the lines of the bull rush action, and complement it well. Where bull rush is a simple strength vs. fortitude, disarm is a dexterity vs. reflex, and trip is in the middle, allowing either attack type. Do note that like bull rush, neither have the Weapon keyword, and therefore you do not add any modifiers from your weapon to the attack.

4th Edition Actions Handout (70 kB pdf)

Ramping Up

I’ve been busy with a lot of campaign specific things lately, including deciding to change from the 4e Forgotten Realms setting to the 3e Forgotten Realms. So as the start date is drawing closer, I put aside the monster creation to instead work on quests and handouts. I will be posting quests after I’ve run them, but not before then since I don’t want any of my players happening across them here. Once I’ve got more of a head start on the campaign, I’ll be back to posting monsters and other goodies.

For now, here’s a 1 page cheat sheet for players or the DM, detailing conditions, cover, concealment, and combat advantage.

4th Edition Conditions Handout (70 kB pdf)

Heroes without horses

Here we have a page of abilities for a dozen creatures from the Monster Manual which may be used as exotic mounts. All of them are from the Heroic Tier.

• Venom-Eye Basilisk
• Tangler Beetle
• Macetail Behemoth
• Bloodspike Behemoth
• Carrion Crawler
• Chuul
• Destrachan
• Displacer Beast
• Cacklefiend Hyena
• Ogre Savage
• Unicorn
• Worg

Yes, that Ogre Savage is correct. Who doesn’t envision a goblin perched atop an ogre shouting orders at it?

4e Heroic Mount Abilities (87 kB pdf) — Updated June 29 (minor changes)

Fungal followup

Here we have a companion to the myconid entry. There are three creatures to facilitate an adversarial myconid presence in your game world. To further flesh out their existence, there are two new rituals for the myconid sovereign, two new diseases, and a new type of terrain. Enjoy!

• Shadow Spore (Level 7 Lurker)
• Corrupted Myconid Sovereign (Level 6 Elite Soldier)
• Corrupted Myconid Drudge (Level 4 Skirmisher)
• Fey Tunnel (Level 6 Travel Ritual)
• Healing Ground (Level 6 Healing Ritual)
• Vile Fungus (Level 7 Disease)
• Hypomyces (Level 3 Disease)
• Carnivorous Fungus (Fantastic Terrain)

4th Edition Myconid Variants (119 kB pdf)

Toad v. Toadstool

Here is another classic monster, the myconid. They play as rather simple enemies, but I find them to be great as reluctant allies to the PCs. Whatever your preference, here’s the breakdown:

• Myconid Colonist (Level 3 Minion)
• Myconid Guard (Level 4 Soldier)
• Myconid Ring Watcher (Level 5 Controller) (Leader)
• Myconid Sovereign (Level 6 Elite Controller) (Leader)
• Myconid Drudges (Level 4 Brute)

Enjoy! There’s some more myconid content on the way, although I’m not sure that it will be next.

4th Edition Myconids (114 kB pdf) — Updated June 26 (minor changes)

A fistful of frogs

As a compliment to the Bullywugs uploaded yesterday, I have here a trio of frogs, including one that can serve as a mount and one which inflicts a brand new disease, feywarts.

4th Edition Frogs (108 kB pdf)

Thanks to everyone for their feedback so far. I updated the bullywug file with minor changes. The biggest is that they’re now of the chaotic evil alignment, rather than just evil. If anyone does use these in their game, please let me know if you encounter any issues.

• Sludge Toad (Level 4 Brute) (Mount)
• Giant Dart Frog (Level 4 Skirmisher)
• Feytouched Frog Swarm (Level 7 Skirmisher) (Swarm)

Nowhere near the hassle of 3e templates

As requested by a few people, I’ve uploaded the Open Office file which I use as a template for creating monster stat blocks:

4e Monster Template (13 kB odt)

It uses a couple fonts. Calibri for most of the text, so if you don’t have that it might look odd using a different sans-serif font. The other font is essential: Daelkyr’s 4e icon font, which you can download here or here.

A fondness for frogmen

When it comes to RPGs, the books I find I enjoy the most are the monster books. As much as I love a good kobold or goblin or gnoll, I love even more seeing a great variety of creatures filling out a world. So, faced with starting a new D&D 4e campaign in a couple months,  I had to decide if I would stick to the monsters in the sole 4e Monster Manual or start converting some old faces to the new game rules.

I of course chose the more interesting path, and have had quite a bit of fun learning the guidelines for creating 4e monsters. My first adventure in the upcoming campaign will feature my favourite anthropomorphic frogs: Bullywugs.

I often passed these guys up, although the art in the 2e Monstrous Manual always caught my eye. I never felt I could make good use of them until I decided my starting adventure would see the party scouring a small island for food. For this, bullywugs seemed perfect; in my mind they are a savage species who want only to hunt and eat.

I created six flavours of bullywug:

• Bullywug Spearcarriers (Level 1 Minion)
• Bullywug Hunters (Level 1 Soldier)
• Bullywug Impalers (Level 2 Brute)
• Bullywug Harriers (Level 2 Skirmisher)
• Bullywug Hero (Level 3 Soldier) (Leader)
• Bullywug Mudmage (Level 3 Controller)

I am quite happy with them, especially the integration of their cowardice through the death croak ability. Complete stats, lore, and encounter groups are available on the two page pdf.

4th Edition Bullywugs (117 kB pdf) — Updated June 19 (minor changes)