[4e] Monster creation - help on specific abilities

[SirKazum]

I'm working on a few 4th edition monsters, for a potential campaign that would make heavy use of custom / new monsters (so I'll probably need to really get the hang of monster creation). So, as a start, I'm working on a skirmisher beastie that can jump hella high (and far), as well as swallow other creatures whole. I'm aiming at a level 4 Standard skirmisher, Large size (since it's usable as a mount). The questions for the moment are:

1) Is there any creature with some "Jump" ability I can draw on for inspiration? A look over the MM turned up nothing. I'm thinking of giving it an at-will power, using a move action, that lets it fly up to 6 squares, but only in a straight line, and the movement must begin and end in solid ground. (FYI, the creature's base movement is 10 squares. Yes, very fast.) That any good?

2) For the swallowing ability, while there are a few creatures that can do it, the current writeup isn't much to my liking. Creatures with such abilities can grab with their bite, then use Clamping Jaws, then Swallow, always at-will, and against enemies two or more sizes smaller. The problems with that are a) it's too involved (and makes the power list look kinda inflated); b) it's at-will (I was initially intending for an encounter power, something they're not going to use all the time); and c) for Large beasts, it affects only Small or smaller enemies, which limits its usability against most PC parties a lot. My initial idea (before doing the research) was something like an encounter power that lets the monster swallow a Medium or smaller creature immediately, upon an attack roll, with little (but not negligible) HP damage. Would that be too jarring? On the other hand, would the standard grab, clamping jaws, swallow Small or smaller enemies thing work well in a creature like this?

Any advice is welcome. I've got other things I'm working on as well, but I'll leave them for later.

[kc0bbq]

I'm working on a few 4th edition monsters, for a potential campaign that would make heavy use of custom / new monsters (so I'll probably need to really get the hang of monster creation). So, as a start, I'm working on a skirmisher beastie that can jump hella high (and far), as well as swallow other creatures whole. I'm aiming at a level 4 Standard skirmisher, Large size (since it's usable as a mount). The questions for the moment are:

1) Is there any creature with some "Jump" ability I can draw on for inspiration? A look over the MM turned up nothing. I'm thinking of giving it an at-will power, using a move action, that lets it fly up to 6 squares, but only in a straight line, and the movement must begin and end in solid ground. (FYI, the creature's base movement is 10 squares. Yes, very fast.) That any good?

2) For the swallowing ability, while there are a few creatures that can do it, the current writeup isn't much to my liking. Creatures with such abilities can grab with their bite, then use Clamping Jaws, then Swallow, always at-will, and against enemies two or more sizes smaller. The problems with that are a) it's too involved (and makes the power list look kinda inflated); b) it's at-will (I was initially intending for an encounter power, something they're not going to use all the time); and c) for Large beasts, it affects only Small or smaller enemies, which limits its usability against most PC parties a lot. My initial idea (before doing the research) was something like an encounter power that lets the monster swallow a Medium or smaller creature immediately, upon an attack roll, with little (but not negligible) HP damage. Would that be too jarring? On the other hand, would the standard grab, clamping jaws, swallow Small or smaller enemies thing work well in a creature like this?

Any advice is welcome. I've got other things I'm working on as well, but I'll leave them for later.

For the Jump, just do whatever seems reasonable.

For the swallow hole stuff, unless it's easy to get out, it's really, really overpowered to break the conventions of swallowing. In the spirit of the system nothing probably fatal shouldn't be done without intermediate steps to allow for escape. Large swallowing a medium is a bit much, too. I wouldn't go much further than dropping it to two steps instead of three, and neither if it's an elite or solo with action points.

Then again, if you want to break with what is considered balanced by the system generically, it's your game. Just make sure your players know that you're doing away with some of the built in safeguards for them or it's a bit unfair to them. You'd have to play differently with that kind of stuff back in the game.

[kieza]

I think there's a spider (Deathjump?) in the MM that jumps around a lot, at least, a DM used one on my group, and he's known for only using published monsters.

For swallowing, try this: It has an at-will bite attack that deals damage and grabs on a hit. Once it has something grabbed with that attack, it can use a reliable (?) encounter power to attempt to swallow it, which works like any other swallowing power there is. If you want, it could swallow Medium creatures, if it's something like a snake with gigantic jaws, since if it can only swallow Small creatures that restricts it to two PC races.

Hope this helps!

[kamuishirou]

I don't have my books with me, nor my notes, but this weekend, in MM2, the Barghast has a jump attack. Encounter power with 5,6 refresh if I'm not mistaken.

[RTGoodman]

For the jump ability, the Deathjump Spider from MM1 has what you want, sort of. I'd just give it

Prodigious Leap (Move action; at-will)
The [Monster] shifts up to 8 squares. It ignores
difficult terrain during this shift. It may shift up or down,
but it must end its turn on a level surface or fall.

For the swallowed whole thing, you could probably do a normal bite attack that does some damage and add "and the target is grabbed (until escape)." Give it a Swallow attack also

Swallow (Standard Action; recharge )
Must target a creature grabbed by the [Monster]'s
Bite attack; +X vs. Reflex; X damage, and the target
is swallowed.

Then just add in the effects of being swallowed, probably copied from the Purple Worm entry (I think they've got it).

[Yakk]

Action denial should be used sparingly.

The "multi-step swallow" is about the threat of action denial, and letting the players respond to it, instead of doing action denial.

Great Leap: Move, recharge 456.
Move up to 2d6 squares in a strait line. During this movement, you may move through enemy squares. You only provoke opportunity attacks in your first and last square of movement.

M Wack-a-mole: Encounter
Do a great leap (it must be recovered) and end your movement in the target's square.
+8 vs Reflex, Knock prone and $$$ damage. Effect: Slide the target so it is adjacent to the landing location.

[M] Bite: +10 vs AC, $$$ and target is grabbed.

M Swallow: Standard action, Recharge 6, target must be grabbed and smaller in size than the Frogger.
+8 vs Fortitude, target is swallowed. Swallowed targets are considered grabbed and are moved into the Frogger's square, have line of effect and sight only to the Frogger, and have a -3 penalty to all attacks and attempts to escape the grab. If they escape the grab, they are placed into a square adjacent to the Frogger of their choice, prone, and are no longer swallowed. No more than 1 creature can be swallowed at a time.

Digest: Free action, once per turn. Deal $$$ plus $$$ acid damage to a swallowed creature.

[SirKazum]

You know what, I'm thinking of dropping the whole "swallow" thing. It's too hard to make it work satisfactorily for a standard, Large, level 4 creature, and it's too distracting for a monster that's supposed to be a jump-happy skirmisher anyway. I think I'll just leave it as fluff, that the creature is able to devour a (dead) man in a matter of seconds and such.

I just remembered that I actually did notice the deathjump spider, as it's in my research notes (Thing is, this is a project that's been idle for a few months, and I just picked it back up.) So the reason why I didn't want to do the spider's "shift X squares" thing is that it doesn't permit, for example, jumping across a chasm or over difficult terrain, that and I also like the idea of allowing AoO's mid-leap. That last part isn't quite set in stone though.

I've got a working draft, but it needs some reworking after these latest decisions, so I might post it later. Maybe I'll post the drafts I've got for the other beasts there are in the same family.

[Ninetail]

I just remembered that I actually did notice the deathjump spider, as it's in my research notes (Thing is, this is a project that's been idle for a few months, and I just picked it back up.) So the reason why I didn't want to do the spider's "shift X squares" thing is that it doesn't permit, for example, jumping across a chasm or over difficult terrain, that and I also like the idea of allowing AoO's mid-leap. That last part isn't quite set in stone though.

Then you could just use the Athletics skill to jump.

If necessary, give the monster a trait like:

Incredible Leap: This monster gains a +10 racial bonus to Athletics checks made to jump. In addition, it is always considered to have a running start.

(You can do the same thing as an action by making it a move action, with the action being "Make an Athletics check to jump...")