"Scream" monster, by Zancross (exploding creature)

Hey, so... I've been GMing a Pony Tales game for quite some time now, and I introduced to the players an enemy I made up called a "Scream" (I have no idea if someone else already used this as a monster, but if so, I'm sorry if it's been overused.), and decided to create a little lore around them (which they didn't bother to even learn, but that's a story for another board.) Anywho, here's the content:

Scream lore
A "Scream" is a creature that lives in caves, or really dark places where it feels safe. Due to living in complete darkness, they were thought to be invisible at first, but one explorer was unfortunate enough to discover that they do indeed have "bodies", of sort. Witness accounts say that a Scream can have multiple forms, almost like a Changeling, but they don't always seem... right. They can have glaring imperfections, like miss a bit of their body, or having a body part that is too large, or too short, almost as if they are confused; that is, if you can SEE them. Thing is, Screams hate light... a lot. It's still unknown if light hurts them, or if they just don't like it. They seem to always wander in groups, but don't make any sound while moving, nor does it seem like they even talk.

If scared -and they are frightened by the simplest of things- their self defense is to explode, probably in a suicidal attempt to kill a threat; even if said threat was just a pebble falling. Not only that, but there's also the reason why they are called like that: before exploding, a Scream... well, screams in a very high pitched voice, capable of stunning someone, probably in an attempt to make them unable to escape. One should never, EVER light up a cave where they are informed -or think- that's inhabited by Screams. Their explosions may cause a chain reaction if their in a group, which is usually the case, and greatly injure or kill someone that's not careful.

Scream
10 HP
Special skill: Immune to physical hits. Explodes once hit by a non-physical attack. Speed 3.
Special reaction: Screams and explodes once hit or frightened.
Gah!: Player adjacent to the unit is stunned (save ends). If caught in +2 Screams shout, they end up deaf for a full day. If caught in +4, they'll have a chance of permanent deafness.
Kaboom!: Players in the surrounding area of the monster receive 1d10 of damage. The explosion can trigger around other Screams, and increase their area for each reaction (for example, one exploding is a 3x3 area -with him in the middle, if another one is caught in said explosion it's 5x5, and so on. So you can already see the damage it can do).
Attacks: None. If caught in combat, they will attempt to escape as fast as they can.


So... yeah, hope you guys like it, and tell me what you think.

There's really no distinction between 'physical' and 'nonphysical'. I could easily reflavor Stab as a fireball. Other than that, I don't have time for a full in depth analysis at the moment.

logan for some reason there is distinction or something like it in the table top system.

I also can not do a analysis due to it being solely in the table top system.

ACtually, the distinction in the tabletop system is between "Melee" (Up close) and "Ranged" attacks as far as I know.

LoganAura wrote:ACtually, the distinction in the tabletop system is between "Melee" (Up close) and "Ranged" attacks as far as I know.

I think they might have elemental damage too... I think I recall seeing that somewhere.

I think that was just something in combat stances...

now for my best try at an analysis

Scream
10 HP
Special skill: Immune to physical hits. Explodes once hit by a non-physical attack. Speed 3.
Special reaction: Screams and explodes once hit or frightened.
Gah!: Player adjacent to the unit is stunned (save ends). If caught in +2 Screams shout, they end up deaf for a full day. If caught in +4, they'll have a chance of permanent deafness.
Kaboom!: Players in the surrounding area of the monster receive 1d10 of damage. The explosion can trigger around other Screams, and increase their area for each reaction (for example, one exploding is a 3x3 area -with him in the middle, if another one is caught in said explosion it's 5x5, and so on. So you can already see the damage it can do).
Attacks: None. If caught in combat, they will attempt to escape as fast as they can.

Right then the first two things should both be traits with the second being a reaction utility trait. The frightened thing I don't understand. Stun save ends is always a very powerful effect while the second part is rather iffy for combat. You could raise the damage to 1d12 or 2d8. Over all for some reason I feel that this would be better as a minon (1 hp).

Is it odd that two members of the old guard and a mod are ganging up on a newish poster?

I just put that comment in kind of to remind myself to look at this post once I finished what I was doing.

The monster itself is pretty neat. I haven't played the tabletop version yet, so I'm not that certain on my advice. Still, I'll give it a go:

Tyger has a good point about these being minions. Presumably there are going to be many of them, and it's easier to keep track of many of them if you don't have to track their HP. I imagine these as a sort of neutral monster that will spice up a battle by blowing up a large area of the field. So, you basically just want them to be tokens. You can make it so they still take a bit more punishment by giving them a trait like:
Hard to Hit: The Scream has 4 resistance and is immune to stun effects.
The immunity to (presumably melee/non-elemental) damage should be a trait as Tyger said, though I think it might work better if these creatures only have resistance.
I like that little out of combat addition. Presumably you'd be deafened until you can seek a good enough doctor. Maybe a heal check of DC:0 +10 for every Scream involved in the explosion. So someone surrounded by 5 will suffer deafness with a DC:50 to heal out of battle.

It could have these combat talents. For example:
[0] Out of the Way - Standard Utility - Melee
Move target creature 1 square. You take that creature's spot.
(Not sure if this system uses push, pull and slide of 4E or not.

[0] Explosive Burst - Interrupt Attack - Close Burst (3 + 2X)
Targets are stunned. Deal 1d10, (this attack ignores resistance) to all creatures in an area of 3 + 2X, (where X is the number of Area Counters it has), centered on this creature. Any creature caught in the area of this attack gains an Area Counter prior to receiving damage. Any creature that is hit by this attack is deafened until the recieve a healing check, DC: 10. If they are already suffering from this condition, increase the DC by 10.

I think that might work...

tygerburningbright wrote:Is it odd that two members of the old guard and a mod are ganging up on a newish poster?

Ganging up implies we're trying to target him specifically. We're giving him advice :I

Ganging up? Not at all xD You're all giving constructive advice, and like I said, it was a monster I kinda build on the spot, so it wasn't "refined" yet. If it was ganging up, it would be something like "0Mg ths monstr sucks dont mak munsttrs again, noob gtfo flutrshy 8ts u!"

Anyway, I feel like I owe an explanation about the whole physical and magical thing. The way I'm playing it, I'm adapting some stuff from D&D itself, since Pony Tales is kinda broken in certain aspects. The physical/magic attack thing was made because I was thinking about enemies that could counter attack, have spikes, and so on; the way we do this is look at the attack name and judge by that (stupid system, I know, but the attacks don't have descriptions on what the user does to use them). Draw Blood, for example, has been agreed it is a physical attack due to how it's in the Rouge section (even though the section titles are kinda meaningless and are there just to sort the moves out).

The other reason why I wanted this monsters was to see if I could snap my players into the freaking game, since they barely roleplay at all: it's those kind of players that arrive at a tavern and ignore all other NPCs that could give them quests, and go to sleep instead. The less I say about they use their "diplomacy" skills, the better. I was going to change these guys explosive damage to a 1d20 (and the ability to multiply for each step they gave), but realized it was too overpowered... in retrospective, I really think I should have, after one of the players decided it was a good idea to enter a dark cave where they knew there were monsters called SCREAM, everyone that lived there was scared of the cave and told them they could die there. But of course, before they bothered to ask the NPC what scared them so much about the cave, one guy decides he doesn't want to listen anymore and goes inside the cave. Out of pity, I put a healing NPC there to heal them before a boss monster, but the same guy ignored him. *facepalm*

...Crap, sorry about the rant. Anyway, thanks for the comments and suggestions guys.

Luckily, I actually do know a little something about the tabletop adventure - and I can assure you that there is no disctinction between physical/non-physical attacks as Logan mentions. There is also no elemental damage. Tabletop is just like skype, the only difference is the aspect of range and movement. Nothing else is different, it's an easy transition.

That's not to say that you can't bend the rules as a DM to account for player flavor. In general, I tend to make a lot of flavor-based rulings and such on the spot to address player flavor and keep things more cinematic (for example saying, "Okay your ice attack devestates the Flame Elemental... And hey, you know what, you're in an icy dominion of the elemental chaos - so your ice is so powerful right now that I'll let it chill this monster to its core - dazing the fire elemental too). You don't want to make it now a rule of the campaign that frost always dazes fire elementals, but creating a justification for there to be something cool happening *this* time, if it makes sense and is fun, is great.

As a core monster, you'll want to stick to the mechanics - but making a note to DMs that they can address the flavor this way is awesome, as is using it in your group in that fashion.