GITP Monster Competition Chat Thread

[Poppatomus]

Firstly, thanks to all that voted in the previous contest.

Secondly, is there any guidance on the length of the story/poem? Is a short story supposed to be 5 sentences, 10 paragraphs, or 20 pages?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Well, the poems of course wouldn't have to be too long (though a haiku would definetely be too short).

So...

Poems anything beyond a haiku.

Short stories need to at least be 500 words. Thats, like, half a page. Surely folks can manage that, right?

[Poppatomus]

Well, the poems of course wouldn't have to be too long (though a haiku would definetely be too short).

So...

Poems anything beyond a haiku.

Short stories need to at least be 500 words. Thats, like, half a page. Surely folks can manage that, right?

Perfectly reasonable. If anything the problem was the opposite. Trying to scope out the question I was wondeirng whether anyone would actually read through a story that was, in my head, stretching past 10 pages. What you're looking for, though, is less a narrative and more a truly compelling backstory for a unique monster. Maybe longer than a normal backstory, but not necessarily an opus. yea?

[TheEscapist]

I can't update and re-post my Fimbulwinter entry, can I?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Well, I'm not going to put a limit on how long the stories can be, though as you say, if it is too long folks may not read it, so just keep that in mind.

I can't update and re-post my Fimbulwinter entry, can I?

Uh, no.

[Poppatomus]

Just when you thought I couldn't ask another question, here are two:

As I read the contest, the goal here is to create not just an epic type or species of monster, but to flesh out a single individual monster that is a legend of itself. (Grendel not zombies) Is that an accurate reading? If so would it be valid to create an epic template which could only apply to a single creature at a time? (the Dr. Who or Green Lantern of the D&D world, for instance.)

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Just when you thought I couldn't ask another question, here are two:

As I read the contest, the goal here is to create not just an epic type or species of monster, but to flesh out a single individual monster that is a legend of itself. (Grendel not zombies) Is that an accurate reading?

It all depends. You may make a single type of that creature a legend, or just its race in general. Whether singular or in numbers in your story though is up to you.

If so would it be valid to create an epic template which could only apply to a single creature at a time? (the Dr. Who or Green Lantern of the D&D world, for instance.)

No, no templates unless its applied to a new creature of your own making thats also being submitted.

[The Demented One]

Does the story/poem necessarily have to be original? If not, I might try making something for the Holders series.

[Marek]

Wow... has anyone else seen the latest entry in the competition? I was expecting high powered and massive monsters, but I never expected DEATH itself to show up on it's doorstep. Talk about epic...

[Fax Celestis]

Now, does the poem have to be brand new, or can I use one I wrote prior to this?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

All stories must be original and done by the maker of the monster, though I'll say that it can be something you've written before as long as it fits the monster.


Now I'm going to perform the epic task of going over those submitted...

*goes to get an energy drink*

[Poppatomus]

A simple request for people to post more monsters. Also, does anyone know if there will be a moderator run contest this month?

[DracoDei]

*goes to get an energy drink*

Just be sure you don't grab one of the Negative ones. (Because I KNOW someone who makes monsters as eeeeeevil as you do must occasionally have undead as guests).

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Behold my creation. The end is Nigh.

[Poppatomus]

With art and everything. Very nice.

[TheEscapist]

Okay, I've ended up making another creature that creates other creatures. Do I have to stat up the creatures it creates before the deadline, too? Or is it acceptable for me to submit just the main creature with the understanding that the stats for its babies will be forthcoming?

[TheEscapist]

I ditched the "creates other creatures" thing and now submit for your approval Melakhaunthet. Put on a pot of coffee, cause it clocks in at 7 pages on MS Word.

I need a LOT of help balancing this guy, because once you get to about CR 25 and above, the air starts getting really thin and it's tough to figure out what's appropriately powerful.

Also, I'm not familiar with the language that the GiantITP forum uses, all I know is HTML. How do I indent for a tab at the beginning of a paragraph, and how do I do spoiler boxes? I'll look around for a tutorial, but if anyone could help me it'd be appreciated.

[Poppatomus]

I ditched the "creates other creatures" thing and now submit for your approval Melakhaunthet. Put on a pot of coffee, cause it clocks in at 7 pages on MS Word.

I need a LOT of help balancing this guy, because once you get to about CR 25 and above, the air starts getting really thin and it's tough to figure out what's appropriately powerful.

Also, I'm not familiar with the language that the GiantITP forum uses, all I know is HTML. How do I indent for a tab at the beginning of a paragraph, and how do I do spoiler boxes? I'll look around for a tutorial, but if anyone could help me it'd be appreciated.

To do a spoiler box put [spoiler] in front of what you want to keep hidden and then put [%spoiler] at the point that you want the box to end, but replace the % with a / as when you do a quote box.

Can't wait to read the monster, wish I had time now.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I need a LOT of help balancing this guy, because once you get to about CR 25 and above, the air starts getting really thin and it's tough to figure out what's appropriately powerful.

If the PCs will miss it 50% of the time, fail their saves 50% of the time and fail to overcome its SR 50% of the time and don't eat completely pwned by its attack forms, then its got the right CR.

I haven't a clue to be honest, my monster is too powerful to have a CR so I just gave it a spell resistance and pretended they were related. Maybe I should look at the ECL 74 PC some guy had in his sig.

[Poppatomus]

Added a second story, (boredom is a terrible thing.) Should I choose which applies, or just assume its the first?

Also, theEscapist, give the +76 to attack 40 CR seems low. i don't have much experience with high level CR monsters either, but Bael over at dicefreaks, the CR 56 lord of the first circle of hell, has a best BAB of 85 and an average in the mid 70s (he's also got an insanely higher number of special abilities) Deffering to their greater expertise, this suggests to me that the CR of your apocolyptic creation should be a bit higher, 45 or 50 at least. Another point of comparison would be Krimm's creature above, with a +63 to attack and a CR of 42.

Having read through the dicefreaks version of hell a few time recently, have you given any thought to fleshing out how to summon this creature you've constructed? You hint at it in the descriptive text, but it would be interesting to see.

[TheEscapist]

Honestly, when I CR an epic creature, I'm just taking a stab in the dark. Using the "Making Monsters" section in the back of the 3.5 MM, all of the numbers on Melakhaunthet seem appropriate to me. I'll take your advice, though, because I think a number of its other abilities may make it a little tougher than it should be.

As for the summoning thing, that would be up to the DM who decides to use this critter. I intended the appearance of Melakhaunthet to be a campaign-making event, rather than something the PCs would just decide to look up when they get bored.

And please, just call me "Escapist."

Also, theEscapist, give the +76 to attack 40 CR seems low. i don't have much experience with high level CR monsters either, but Bael over at dicefreaks, the CR 56 lord of the first circle of hell, has a best BAB of 85 and an average in the mid 70s (he's also got an insanely higher number of special abilities) Deffering to their greater expertise, this suggests to me that the CR of your apocolyptic creation should be a bit higher, 45 or 50 at least. Another point of comparison would be Krimm's creature above, with a +63 to attack and a CR of 42.

Having read through the dicefreaks version of hell a few time recently, have you given any thought to fleshing out how to summon this creature you've constructed? You hint at it in the descriptive text, but it would be interesting to see.

[belboz]

Ookay. My first epic creature, *and* my first psionic creature, all in one go.

The CR, or perhaps I should say CR system, is a complete wild guess--even more than my usual CR guesses are. I've actually never participated in a campaign with this sort of power level.

Suggestions, comments, etc (especially anyone who can help me with the credit mentioned at the top of the post) are very, very welcome.

Oh, and a particular question: How's the DC for, for example, a swarm of construct's distraction calculated? Is it given a bonus of +0, or is it made Cha-based, or what? I've (provisionally) given a +0 bonus for distraction, but made most other powers (including those that might normally use Con for DC) Cha-based. Thoughts?

Thanks much.

[Highwarlord]

I see a problem with the construct swarm.
A nonmagical "Gray Ooze" nanod replicater would convert all carbon on the planet into grey ooze within 90 minutes. I don't remember which scientist came up with that estimate, I could look it up. It's called the "Grey Ooze Problem" and is one reason nano construction is limitted. Is there some magical restriction on the ones you created? Does the intelligence make it much less efficient at replicating?

[belboz]

I see a problem with the construct swarm.
A nonmagical "Gray Ooze" nanod replicater would convert all carbon on the planet into grey ooze within 90 minutes. I don't remember which scientist came up with that estimate, I could look it up. It's called the "Grey Ooze Problem" and is one reason nano construction is limitted. Is there some magical restriction on the ones you created? Does the intelligence make it much less efficient at replicating?

Well, of course exactly how long it would take depends on two things:

1) How long each generation takes
2) If there's any sort of "bottleneck" in finding new materials: Note that a glob of 5,000,000 gray goo particles cannot actually reproduce 5,000,000 times as fast as a single particle, because those not "on the surface" can't reproduce except by cannibalization.
3) In the D&D universe, some materials are resistant to being taken apart. There's DR, there's "hardness", and so on.

That said, I've implied 30 seconds (5 rounds) for #1, and that may put me in a bit of a bind. If it weren't for #2, a single particle could split into a trillion particles in about 40 generations--or 20 minutes. Even assuming that, on average, only the surface ones could reproduce and that they formed a sphere, I think it would only take on the order of 60 generations to make a trillion particles. That, I'll admit, is too fast if a generation is just 30 seconds. And these guys can move, so they're not confined to a sphere. And I'm not sure exactly how much mileage I can get out of number 3.

I could make a "generation" longer, but that would make the story take a bit of rewriting. Maybe I should do that. Or maybe I'll just save the Catgirls.

It's probably worth noting that, even as written, Gray Goo will become an unstoppable force unless it's stopped or contained very, very quickly. An adventure should actually probably start or include the release of Gray Goo into the material plane; it's not like even extremely high-level characters could stumble into Gray Goo that's been undisturbed for 200 years and have any hope of defeating it.

The idea from the monster did, as you've surmised, come from the problem in nanotechnology (I've always heard the term "gray goo", rather than "gray ooze", used to describe the universe-destroying substance). Of course, I'm under no illusions that this has any particular *realistic* connection to the stuff.

Anyway, thanks--I'll think more about how this works; I may try to rationalize why this thing doesn't take over the earth within a couple of hours.

[Edit 7/18: OK, I've got my rationalization: It actually takes this stuff quite a while to eat through solids (and if it doesn't, it's trapped). Suppose this thing is up against a stone cliff (hardness 8, HP 15/inch, or 1800/10'). The spread through solids ability lets the swarm do (5d6/2 - 8) damage/round against the cliff. That's an average of 6.75 HP/round, or about 267 rounds (almost 27 minutes) to actually burrow into the cliff. A foot-thick steel wall takes 4.75 hp/round against its 360HP...that's still about 8 minutes to get through). That sort of thing actually should slow it down considerably...at least enough to give our epic-level adventurers a couple of weeks before it really eats everything, I think. Once it gets through all the easily-digested stuff in the area, it's pretty much burrow or stop spreading until (at its 30'/round movement rate) it finds more.]

[Kel]

Hi. Um, sorry it took me so long to enter it in, I was forced to go on vacation, so the version I was going to enter is on notepad at home. I had to remake this from memory, and re-create most of it. So, um, any suggestions would be appreciated for the day-and-a-half or so left, becasue I never made an epic level thing quite this powerful before, so I don't know if the CR is right... a CR of 155 seemed a bit high, so I just guessed.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

You have till the 24th, Kel.

I'll be trying to get to these soon. Just soooo busy, not to mention my computer room is totally devoid of air conditioning and staying for too long tends to sap your strength faster than a dehydrated vampire.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

I added plot hooks to Nigh's entry.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Can someone please explain the Death entry to me, there's something very odd about its stats and its annoying my overly pedantic mind.

1. It should have a grapple modifier. Even if its incorporeal it can be grappled by incorporeal creatures right?

2. The Base Attack Bonus looks wrong. I personally desided to put Epic Prowess into that area but I don't see why this monster has 2 higher base attack than HD.

3. Its a wee bit easier to kill for CR 50. I could kill it at level 20 without twinking. The rebirth ability makes that pointless but I'd have thought a monster which you can't kill should be really hard to kill anyway. If its too easy to kill it will ruin the campaign. A level 50 wizard could trap it instead of killing it without a second thought. I'm guessing its supposed to be a low very low Epic encounter but then it shouldn't have CR 50 except to stop the heroes from getting any XP.

4. Its SR is 10 less than its CR. While I'll admit that it makes my level 20 comment dubious it still makes the monster a complete joke for its level.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Yes, stat-wise Death needs an overhaul. I wasn't able to get in touch with Lying until after the voting began however.


In other news, July's contest has come to a close and August's now begun. See the first post for a link.

[Marek]

Now, for Tiny but Tough, can the creature change to a size category larger than Small or does it have to remain static and below the Medium threshold?