Monster Arena

Welcome to the Monster Arena! I'm your host, AlicornPriest.
We provide a safe, risk-free environment for you to playtest your latest creations. Stop on by with a friend or two and tussle with any of the monsters in all of Equestria. Don't worry, our team of animal trainers will keep the beasties from killing you outright.
But that's not all! We'll also let you bring in your latest monsters or boss baddies and pit them against our trained gladiators. Sign up your monsters, and we'll see if they're strong enough to take on the best. However, training gladiators is expensive; we'll call our animal trainers in again if we think your monster's gonna kill our guys.
So come on in, and take a seat! Place your bets! The Monster Arena battles are about to begin!
(NOTE: Betting on the results of the Monster Arena is strictly forbidden.)

[So, out of character, what does this mean? If you'd like to see what your character is like in-battle, or if you'd like to playtest a monster you've invented, post your intentions here. Once people accept the positions of opposing player(s) and PH, the match will begin! Play the game exactly like you would any other game of Pony Tales. You can set whatever stipulations you'd like, be it location, time of day, specific enemies to fight, or what have you.]

[I bet you're also wondering: who are the gladiators I was talking about? Well, I'm working on developing some generic characters with specific builds and abilities. That way, you can have a monster fight that gladiator to see how your monster replies to different tactics. Those are still in construction, though, so... stay tuned! (Anyone want to help me with that?)]

When we get some gladiators built, I'll put them here.

Brilliant idea. We can playtest Monsters here for fun.

And the first playtest shall be against The Nameless. Strap some sanity meters to your characters, we're going to need a few good ponies to face off against this horrible thing.

Masterweaver wrote:And the first playtest shall be against The Nameless. Strap some sanity meters to your characters, we're going to need a few good ponies to face off against this horrible thing.

Let me make a character with a Sanity Meter, and I'll totally play.
Do you have any restrictions? I'm thinking I might want to be a changeling, but if you'd rather I stick to ponies, I'm cool wit dat.

Given that the system was designed for ponies, let's stick to ponies.

Also, irrelevant thought: Can we split Roleplay into "campaign" and "casual" subforums? This seems like a "casual" topic.

Uh possibly. I'm looking into options for handling this better ATM, while trying to also rewrite segments of my character sheet, and try to get back to writing Session 4 summary.

If you need DMs to simply run these, I'll offer my services. That's probably the best way to try this: Get a group of DMs, a group of players, and a stack of test Monsters - throw them against the wall and see what sticks and *rolls crit 1* what flies back and smacks you up the head.


Figure anyone who's making a monster should make it for an assumed group of 5x First Level ponies (or provide a full combat scenario for such) and we'll arrange from there. I'd like to offer my first Monster entrant for the Arena (though I'm sure the monster itself has been tossed around most everyone's head in at least one form or another. I don't see it in Handler's Guide, though, so I'm assuming it's otherwise undocumented)



Parasprite - 4HP
Trait: Paraspritic - The Parasprite has Resist 4 and begins the encounter with 0 PiP. A Critical Hit automatically defeats a Parasprite.
Maneuvers:
[+1] Devour: The Parasprite devours one edible object.
[--] Annoying Buzz: The Parasprite deals 4 damage to one target.
[-X] Multiply: The Parasprite creates X Parasprites with 0 PiP and 5HP.

Test Start Encounter: 5 Parasprites
Recommended Scenario Location: Picnic / Farmland / some place where the Parasprite can suitably utilize Devour

MirrorImage wrote:If you need DMs to simply run these, I'll offer my services. That's probably the best way to try this: Get a group of DMs, a group of players, and a stack of test Monsters - throw them against the wall and see what sticks and *rolls crit 1* what flies back and smacks you up the head.


Figure anyone who's making a monster should make it for an assumed group of 5x First Level ponies (or provide a full combat scenario for such) and we'll arrange from there. I'd like to offer my first Monster entrant for the Arena (though I'm sure the monster itself has been tossed around most everyone's head in at least one form or another. I don't see it in Handler's Guide, though, so I'm assuming it's otherwise undocumented)



Parasprite - 4HP
Trait: Paraspritic - The Parasprite has Resist 4 and begins the encounter with 0 PiP. A Critical Hit automatically defeats a Parasprite.
Maneuvers:
[+1] Devour: The Parasprite devours one edible object.
[--] Annoying Buzz: The Parasprite deals 4 damage to one target.
[-X] Multiply: The Parasprite creates X Parasprites with 0 PiP and 5HP.

Test Start Encounter: 5 Parasprites
Recommended Scenario Location: Picnic / Farmland / some place where the Parasprite can suitably utilize Devour

Sounds great. What's the middle ability cost btw?

Zero. Was that supposed to just be [0]?

Yeah, you guessed it. =)

I like your design for parasprites too. It looks really flavorful.

Do monsters/enemies start out with 0 PiPs or 4 PiPs like the players?

Demonu wrote:Do monsters/enemies start out with 0 PiPs or 4 PiPs like the players?

As I understood it, they start with 4, hence that trait on Parasprites. Starting them at zero means more control over the size of the initial swarm and doesn't make it sound like they've been floating around with 4 of them in their gullet (though I suppose that's ultimately the DM's call).

MirrorImage wrote:

Demonu wrote:Do monsters/enemies start out with 0 PiPs or 4 PiPs like the players?

As I understood it, they start with 4, hence that trait on Parasprites. Starting them at zero means more control over the size of the initial swarm and doesn't make it sound like they've been floating around with 4 of them in their gullet (though I suppose that's ultimately the DM's call).

Actually, I was planning to start them at 0 pips to make it easier to balance them.

Huh, I make all my monsters assuming 4 PiPs.

AlicornPriest wrote:
Let me make a character with a Sanity Meter, and I'll totally play.

Tada! Here he is! He's Vespin Marble, the sculptor. Hope he'll be a good opponent for you.

That's 1! Need three more.

Masterweaver wrote:Huh, I make all my monsters assuming 4 PiPs.

I like starting at 0 because it's easier to balance. You can more clearly chart the creatures' path in battle. However, we could easily include variable starting pip costs. But it seems unnecessarily confusing.

We should probably agree on what to do with starting pip costs for monsters ASAP.

I design my monsters with 0 pips, but give some traits that let them start with more pips. Also, I think that this is a great idea for a thread. I might participate later (with either monsters or characters).

So I'll loosely schedule a session for this Friday August 4th to test the handful of monsters that have been posted so far (unless it's too soon to start?). Ideally, I'd like to get 3 or 4 encounters worth of Monsters available just so we don't run out within 15 minutes or so.

Encounters(2/4* encounters)
1: The Nameless (Masterweaver)
2: Parasprites (MirrorImage)


Characters (1/5*)
Vespin Marble (AlicornPriest)


*loose guidelines - more or less as appropriate


The scene will be minor roleplay (described actions and minimal dialog) and assumed that the player characters ("player ponies"? "PPs?") already know each other through whatever contrived circumstances the players desire. If someone has a Teamspeak (et.al.) server available to use, we can use that. Otherwise, my fallback plan is to create a channel on Bronystate's IRC network. Dice rolls will be on the honor system - roll your own and call it out. Since this includes a Sanity monster and we're not going to have time to get everyone properly "desanitized" to some degree, we'll say that each player starts the session with 1d10+5 Sanity. Does that sound fair?

...I.... what?

The Nameless is a solo monster.

Masterweaver wrote:...I.... what?

The Nameless is a solo monster.

Never said they were going to be in the same encounter. The Nameless is one, Parasprites are another, not necessarily in that order. Probably could've made that more clear on my list though.

I'm sorry, what are you even trying to do with that post? I don't understand.

I was offering to DM a few of the monsters, unless I'm horribly misunderstanding the purpose of this topic. As I understood it, people post their monsters, we test them 'trial by fire' by actually using them. I'm offering to DM a session to use some of these monsters, and that post is just me keeping everything together basically - what Monsters are ready to be fought and what players are ready to fight them.

YOu should have just said that! I thought you were saying that I had to run a session on friday.

Masterweaver wrote:YOu should have just said that! I thought you were saying that I had to run a session on friday.

...Well you could if you want.