HOME | DD

Description
Our intrepid adventurers were travelling, refugees from their home which had been destroyed by a ferocious dragon. But as nightfall came, the road became filled with a warm moist mist. And on the forest road, they noticed a strange green glow in the distance. Wolves had gathered around strange floating creatures. They almost looked like... Beholders. But they couldn't have been. The wolves were attacking it. One leapt and bit its eye, and it exploded. A torrent of green noxious gas exploded and doused the other wolves. Out of the fog stepped a wolf, much larger than the others. Its flesh was decorated with pulsating pustules, its mouth hung open and a tongue trailed along the ground, with teeth pointed in every direction. It looked towards the party....

So, this one used the base of the "forest road" map. But I uh... placed every individual goddamn tree. All manually. Because... go over the top, I guess. I found some models for mutated animals on Tabletop simulator and they're just these body horror creatures - pig, cow, lizard, rat, and... wolf. As far as I know, they don't have stat blocks, so I used the stat block for the dire wolf. There were four other wolves there, but they were hurt by the explosion, so they wouldn't be at full HP.

4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons gets a really bum rap. Maybe, I'm not the person to judge on that one. It was my first edition, and it's how I really learned to play the game and get into it. This game is fifth edition, but there are a lot of things from fourth edition that I like to adapt into future editions. Minions is the most genius thing that 4th edition ever did. If you've never played 4th edition, the monster manual gave each creature a specialized role, similar to the players' roles of leader, defender, controller, and striker. They varied from leader to controller to soldier/elite soldier to brute to skirmisher. Most of them are pretty self-explanatory, but could be used in any way the DM felt fit.

The minion role though was a little bit different. It didn't matter what CR they were - they had one hit point. If you hit them, they were dead. And in the case of this particular encounter, everything was essentially given that role except "the dire wolf." (Gas spores have 1 HP anyway, and we'll get to them later). Minions give the DM so much more versatility. You can use higher CR monsters, and it makes a lot of things more forgiving. The will-o-wisp's high AC and a bajillion resistances become a lot less annoying when the thing dies in one hit, for example. And this is a mechanic I used for a few enemies going through this - if it makes sense. The bears weren't minions.

Like I said, there aren't too many monsters that a low level party could handle. And definitely not a lot in one category. Unless you want the party to fight like... giant rats, or bandits or whatever. And that can be boring. Everyone's had that kobold or goblin experience, and I do like to mix things up a little bit. And... weirdly enough, a lot of low level monsters are all plants. Gas Spore, Violet Fungus, Tri-Flower Frond, and the aforementioned Shrieker. And you know what else is a low level? Zombies.

So uh... I guess we're doing "Last of Us" tonight, I thought to myself. A horrendous fungus had taken over a town, spreading with these gas spores, and mutating the animals and the people within it.

Gas Spores are... an interesting monster because they're not really. They have a fly speed of 10 (2 squares on most maps), an AC of 5 and 1 HP. They're supposed to die. That's what the monster itself wants. And if you're so bold to attack it in melee range, it will explode - doing a maximum of 18 damage (or 10 if you want to go with static damage), and it infects the creatures around it. It poisons them and it will automatically kill them in hours equal to 1d12 the character's CON score (less than 24 hours in all cases). It can be cured with a "remove disease" ability. But if they do die, their corpse sprouts more tiny gas spores.

This is another example of why DM foreshadowing is important. Because if you don't foreshadow this ability... you're gonna have a player try to melee that thing. And that's when all hell breaks loose. Speaking of which, this was only a mini encounter before the big one. Next time.

Description
Our intrepid adventurers were travelling, refugees from their home which had been destroyed by a ferocious dragon. But as nightfall came, the road became filled with a warm moist mist. And on the forest road, they noticed a strange green glow in the distance. Wolves had gathered around strange floating creatures. They almost looked like... Beholders. But they couldn't have been. The wolves were attacking it. One leapt and bit its eye, and it exploded. A torrent of green noxious gas exploded and doused the other wolves. Out of the fog stepped a wolf, much larger than the others. Its flesh was decorated with pulsating pustules, its mouth hung open and a tongue trailed along the ground, with teeth pointed in every direction. It looked towards the party....

So, this one used the base of the "forest road" map. But I uh... placed every individual goddamn tree. All manually. Because... go over the top, I guess. I found some models for mutated animals on Tabletop simulator and they're just these body horror creatures - pig, cow, lizard, rat, and... wolf. As far as I know, they don't have stat blocks, so I used the stat block for the dire wolf. There were four other wolves there, but they were hurt by the explosion, so they wouldn't be at full HP.

4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons gets a really bum rap. Maybe, I'm not the person to judge on that one. It was my first edition, and it's how I really learned to play the game and get into it. This game is fifth edition, but there are a lot of things from fourth edition that I like to adapt into future editions. Minions is the most genius thing that 4th edition ever did. If you've never played 4th edition, the monster manual gave each creature a specialized role, similar to the players' roles of leader, defender, controller, and striker. They varied from leader to controller to soldier/elite soldier to brute to skirmisher. Most of them are pretty self-explanatory, but could be used in any way the DM felt fit.

The minion role though was a little bit different. It didn't matter what CR they were - they had one hit point. If you hit them, they were dead. And in the case of this particular encounter, everything was essentially given that role except "the dire wolf." (Gas spores have 1 HP anyway, and we'll get to them later). Minions give the DM so much more versatility. You can use higher CR monsters, and it makes a lot of things more forgiving. The will-o-wisp's high AC and a bajillion resistances become a lot less annoying when the thing dies in one hit, for example. And this is a mechanic I used for a few enemies going through this - if it makes sense. The bears weren't minions.

Like I said, there aren't too many monsters that a low level party could handle. And definitely not a lot in one category. Unless you want the party to fight like... giant rats, or bandits or whatever. And that can be boring. Everyone's had that kobold or goblin experience, and I do like to mix things up a little bit. And... weirdly enough, a lot of low level monsters are all plants. Gas Spore, Violet Fungus, Tri-Flower Frond, and the aforementioned Shrieker. And you know what else is a low level? Zombies.

So uh... I guess we're doing "Last of Us" tonight, I thought to myself. A horrendous fungus had taken over a town, spreading with these gas spores, and mutating the animals and the people within it.

Gas Spores are... an interesting monster because they're not really. They have a fly speed of 10 (2 squares on most maps), an AC of 5 and 1 HP. They're supposed to die. That's what the monster itself wants. And if you're so bold to attack it in melee range, it will explode - doing a maximum of 18 damage (or 10 if you want to go with static damage), and it infects the creatures around it. It poisons them and it will automatically kill them in hours equal to 1d12 the character's CON score (less than 24 hours in all cases). It can be cured with a "remove disease" ability. But if they do die, their corpse sprouts more tiny gas spores.

This is another example of why DM foreshadowing is important. Because if you don't foreshadow this ability... you're gonna have a player try to melee that thing. And that's when all hell breaks loose. Speaking of which, this was only a mini encounter before the big one. Next time.