Talk:Monster Patterns and Roles

'Great Creature' is now converted to 12 +2 Patterns. Have also added three more Mage patterns and a few brand-new patterns with fairly interesting special effects and mechanics. have four more possibles below that I'm tinkering with adding to-boot, but we'll see how we feel about things.

• Pretender Mage- 3 'spells' plus a teleport speed - illusionist- mass vanish, aoe illusion,
• Specter Mage - 2 spells plus a pet - necromancer - summon monster of equal CR, heartwrench multi-target, dust

• new pattern: Vagabond gains ability to breathe air, gains a Walk speed equal to half of Swim, Greater Swim, or Jet. can choose to change damage type to winded with attacks. otherwise as Advanced Creature can be applied to other things than aquatic creatures as the GM wishes.
• new pattern Unkind once per round as a ranged swift, may inflict jinxed. once per round as a free action upon a successful hit (melee), may inflict hexed. all allow a Wil save to reduce one step. all place at risk, and can escalate to Cursed!

• possible keywords for monster CR adjustments
• least -2 CR
• basic -1 CR
• common -0 CR (assigned to all mobs in "Monster Maker" thingy
• able +1 CR (replaces Advanced pattern?)
• impressive +2 CR
• forceful +3 CR
• robust +4 CR
• scary +5 CR (replaces Mighty pattern?)

(might keep advanced and mighty as patterns, because they lend a different 'feel' to monsters, give another avenue to uniqueness in encounters. should probably keep writeups of all patterns in case MMM isn't working at some point. we should strive to make all monsters 'feel' different and interesting...unless they are very vanilla. vanilla is delicious, and serves an important purpose.)

rename 'mighty' to 'vanquisher?  hrrrm.

action items for million monster machine:
* come up with prefix names for each modified CR value (-2 CR to +5 CR) -- lesser, minor, common, greater, major, superior, elite, supreme (for example)
* review all existing monster names, and all proposed monster names, to make sure our prefixes don't lead to really dumb, unreadable names (lesser greater whompus, for example).
* move all proposed monster names to a discussion page; only actual monsters should be in the bestiary
* strip all the roles out of every monster that has a role.  
  * add language into the description that says "This monster is nearly always a <role> monster.  It is highly recommended that this role be applied to it." or whatever.
  * recode any role-specific powers into new fields that are specific to roles-only powers.  This will require me to create new fields for the template, but doesn't require a complete revamping of every monster.

• Monster name structure:

• Base name= Existing monster names, checked to 'make sense' "Orc Raider" (CR3)
• CR Name= Prefixed to Base name "Robust Orc Raider" (CR7)
• Role Name= Appended to Full Name with Spacer "Robust Orc Raider -Heavy" (CR7 heavy mob)
• Pattern Name= Suffixed to Base Name with leading Comma "Robust Orc Raider, Coursing -Shooter" (CR10 shooter mob)
• Multipat Names= Multiple of Pattern Name "Robust Orc Raider, Coursing, Agile -Killer" (CR13 killer mob)

• Pattern Changes -Might not cover everything in every pattern, but it covers everything I could find.

• 1 ) CR

• 2 ) Size

• 3 ) Type -Always gains a Subtype of the Pattern name. (This relates to the keywords open topic. I like keywords, but wonder how much use they are. If/when the MMM becomes a thing, could be pretty huge.)

• 4 ) Initiative Modifier (1st skill mod)

• 5 ) Senses - adding one or more sense types is different than a perception boost (see next)

• 6 ) Perception Skill Modifier (2nd skill mod)

• 7 ) AC - removing flat-footed and touch makes this much simpler, yay!

• 8 ) Hit Dice -This is where Patterns add hit points if the CR is not changed

• 9 ) Defensive Ability - Where things like Immune to various conditions/damage types/oddball things, new ER or DR, unique defensive powers (see agile creature for an example), bonuses to some or all saves, etc, etc, etc, is recorded. Should be added text field(s)? For maximum flexibility? Should we try to integrate this stuff into the existing template, or just make a "pattern power" addition and put this stuff in as a block of text? ER and DR needs to be calculated dynamically, and other things are as well.

• 10 ) Out of Combat - GM hint text changes go here, if needed.

• 11 ) Speed - Can get complex, as new movement types currently fall here, and if the base mob has that movement type already, the effect changes.

• 12 ) Melee Attacks - This is where the Pattern is made capable at its new CR. can be replaced with a base CR change, except that leaves non-powered Patterns weak.

• 13 ) Damage - same as melee attacks, above

• 14 ) Space

• 15 ) Reach

• 16 ) Offensive Ability - Same philosophy as Defensive Ability, above.

• 17 ) Save DC adjustment

• X ) Ability Scores -i'm voting we drop this to simplify things, since there's no game impact and no nudge value, it's pure 'flavor'

• 18 ) Maneuver Offense

• 19 ) Maneuver Defense

• X ) Feats - again, i'm saying we drop this, as it's very hard to implement, and fairly minor. we might add a generic text block saying 'add one by GM fiat if you want'

• X ) Skills (3rd skill mod, and much more complex as it's adding 1 or more skills, rather than modding existing numbers) - still againm voting we drop this one as it's minor and hard to automate. maybe add a text message as noted for feats, if it's easy.

if at all possible "monster maker" thingy should be able to 'stack' two patterns, as multiplying content twice is MUCH more powerful  three times is far, far better still!

monster roles expansions:

• tanks- get a taunt which pulls an enemy to them as a free/swift/move action. May also strip off a buff on the target.

• legends- get a power which they declare at the top of the round, targeting an area on the map, and att the end of the round it goes off. This is in addition to their full normal turn on their initiative.

• as we get into the bestiary pass, there's been a request for a different 'reset/shakeup' mechanic as used by heavies, threats, tanks, etc.

• Possibility 1: Defense: hardened vs all damage plus Reset/Shakeup: free action forced movement attack power.
• Possibility 2: Defense: regeneration plus Reset/Shakeup: a teleport damage power.
• Possibility 3: Defense: bloodied value heal/temp immune plus Reset/Shakeup: damaging teleport once.

The third one is what we have today.

if we wanted to get crazy, we could mix and match, any defense plus any reset/shakeup ability, making 9 total flavors of reset power. just a thought.