Basilisks are, like many D&D creatures, a solid mythological creature. Check the Wikipedia entry, it’s quite good. What’s particularly interesting is, apparently, a Cockatrice is a variant of a Basilisk, with more bird than lizard. Anyway, the important thing is, in D&D, they’re all reptiles. They’ve got eight legs (one of a variety of mythological descriptions), and can kill with a gaze. Specifically, D&D Basilisks turn you to stone, a technique known to us gamers as petrification. Basically, think of a crocodile with 8 legs that can look at you and you die.

Continue reading Monster of the Week: Basilisks

Goblins are like the eternal minion. Fireball fodder. Unlike Zombies, they can think for themselves, so are perfect for enlisting in huge quantities for random armies. Ever since The Hobbit they’ve been associated with being standard foes, and are thus included as such in D&D. However, like any monster, there are a few things to consider: there is definitely a right way and… a way that is still right (hey, D&D is pretty free-form), but not necessasrily as good.

Continue reading Monster of the Week: Goblins

Er. Yeah. They sneak up on unsuspecting blog writers, and Stun them for several hours.

Wraiths are incorporeal undead, pretty standard in just about any fantasy setting. Their very nature makes them very difficult to injure at all. For a DM, they are a handy monster as both a random encounter, and forcing the players to problem-solve a tricky encounter.

Wraiths are restless undead which basically serve no purpose in a game except to kill or be killed. They don’t really have motivation beyond killing the living. That’s fine. They’re pretty well suited to the task.

Continue reading Monster of the Week: Wraiths

Another classic creature born of human fear and storytelling, Vampires are a staple in a host of roleplaying games. They are inherently a strong opponent, and a puzzle, all at once. They are intelligent, and can serve in both combat and non-combat roles with ease. Oh, and they bite. Yeah.

Resistant to ordinary weapons, Vampires are only vulnerable to certain materials. Depending on the exact mythology, garlic, holy symbols, holy water, and silver weapons may help against them. Chopping off their heads often works, but there really is only one way of killing a Vampire properly: a wooden stake to its heart. Sometimes this has to remain there, otherwise the Vampire will reawaken, but this is less common in games where defeating a monster is expected to be kinda final. Actually, 4E specifically says you don’t have to stake them, but hey, 4E’s weird like that. Oh, and sunlight is bad.

Both usage and mechanics mirror a core concept: Vampires don’t exist in a vacuum. A Vampire is never just a Vampire, it is a noble, or a thief, or a merchant, or whatever. Do not waste a Vampire on a truly random encounter: give them a reason to exist. Vampires are smart, and they have goals. If there is a noble Vampire, what is his goal? Is it to conquer the kingdom? Gain it by subterfuge? Just live (as such) happily ever after?

Secondly, a Vampire should almost never get killed in regular combat. They are tough, and they can use Gaseous / Mist Form to escape almost anything. If players want to actually kill a Vampire, make them think. Hunt down the lair. Engage in a battle of wits. Nothing is as simple as just stabbing things with pointy sticks.

Does this not sound right? You wanted expendable Vampires, like the standard ones in Buffy, which go down in seconds? Ah, you must be looking for Vampire Spawn. They are minions: in 3.5, functionally; in 4E, actually. Vampire Spawn are what you normally get from a Vampire creating another, and they only exist to die. They are also a lot less dangerous.

Anyway, Vampires can be nasty out of combat: they are very smart, and can Dominate people. A clever Vampire will use this to get himself into a nice social position, with not too many peasants with torches and pitchforks. It’s good at dinner parties, too.

3.5 Edition

Vampire is a Template. Something I only realised after nearly wiping a party with a Vampiric Mouse is it can only be applied to Humanoids or Monstrous Humanoids. Oops. Sorry, guys.

Basically, make a base creature. Either pick one from the Monster Manual, or create a Humanoid one yourself. For tips on creating basic Humanoid monsters, you can refer to my post on Humans and other PC Race monsters.

Obviously, the increased stats help almost any class. Increased HD to d12s helps survivability a lot. Turning Undead means no Con score, which means a stack of immunities, including immunity to any Fort save unless the effect can target objects (so, immune to Finger of Death, but not Disintegrate). CR increases by 2.

Whilst Vampires have lots of neat abilities, their Slam Attack is where the real power is. 2 Negative Levels every round. Yeah. Hit a Wizard with that a couple of times, and he’s in trouble. Negative levels cause -5 HP, -1 to basically every roll, and you lose memorized spells; here, check the SRD link. Nasty stuff. Incidentally, it’s what makes Enervation such a great spell. Blood Drain is lame because it means working out the Grapple rules.

Vampire Spawn are naturally simpler: just read the monster entry. Similar idea: use the Negative Level attack. It’s only 1 Negative Level, but at CR 4 a pop, you can probably have a few Vampire Spawn.

Incidentally, the MM mentions Holy Wafers for keeping Vampires dead. These also make tasty snacks.

4th Edition

*sigh* Way to break consistancy. Apparently 4E Vampires aren’t actually vulnerable to most of the anti-Vampire stuff, including stakes.

While at first Vampires seem different to 3.5, they’re basically the same. Unlike 3.5, there’s an example Vampire, but they still operate through templates. Unlike 3.5, the template is in the wrong damn book! Honestly!

The Vampire Lord template is on page 182 of the DMG. Like the 3.5 version, you need to strap it to a base monster, although you could just use the sample Human Rogue. Choosing a base creature with good synergy with the Vampire’s powers is good; the sample Rogue is alright, but something that gives Combat Advantage for Blood Drain seems more sensical.

Remember that a Vampire is smart, and he knows what you as a DM knows. If the Vampire reduces a foe to 0 hp or less with Blood Drain, then they just aren’t getting up again in that encounter (see MM page 259: Creating Vampire Spawn). Heh. This is a perfect tool for DMing: the *best* encounter is one where nearly the whole party nearly dies. To ensure Blood Drain stays recharged, make the Vampire stand next to anyone taking damage. Some hired help pincushioning people may be handy here.

There is basically nothing to say about Vamprie Spawn. They’re Minions. Weak, pitiful. Meh.

Suffice to say, no matter which edition you’re playing, remember two constants: Vampires are smart, and Vampires don’t want to be destroyed. Make sure they escape when they can, or the world simply isn’t believable. Other than that, just make sure they play whatever role in society they have chosen for themselves, and things should just fall into place.

Remember to come back next week for another Monster of the Week!

By the way:

I am completely ignoring that silly Twilight series for all purposes, before someone leaves a comment. They’re not really Vampires, they just happen to be strong blood-sucking things.

Yay, Hellhounds! I’ve favoured them a little ever since DMing a solo game where the player used Handle Animal to tame one, and I let him keep it as his Animal Companion. Anyway, historically, Man has liked two things: dogs (“man’s best friend”), and fire. Well, how can you get better than DOGS… ON FIRE!!!???

Oh, you know, they’re also pretty good monsters, too.

Apart from being amusing pets, Hellhounds fit in nicely into a few roles. Basically, usage relies on the two factors that makeup their existance: being a dog, and being ON FIRE. Oh, and being from Hell helps too.

As a dog, a Hellhound (or many) make good companions for villains. Rather than having a traditional sidekick, they have a pet. They can also be used as uber guard dogs, which I have done before. Nothing like a dog ON FIRE to mix things up a little, and remind players that the world has such creatures, and is used to them.

As to the ON FIRE and Hell aspects, they fit in nicely with any situation that demands fiery creatures, or creatures from Hell. I recently ran an encounter involving a whole host of fire creatures summoned into a fire temple: Hellhounds were involved.

The neat thing about Hellhounds is you can use them believably either in packs (like wolves), or in an encounter with other creatures. It all depends what you’re trying to do.

For general random-encounter purposes, you’ll just want a pack of Hellhounds. If the terrain is appropriate (volcanic, Elemental Plane of Fire, Nine Hells, etc) it obviously makes more sense, but they can always have been summoned for some reason. Like wolves, Hellhounds are smart enough to use rudementary tactics against the party.

For companion purposes, it helps if the master is something that actually makes sense to have a Hellhound. Some sort of Demon obviously fits, but also any fire creature (Salamanders, say), or even something like a Cleric of an evil Fire god could do it. Maybe a familiar of an evil Wizard? Casters are obviously better than non-casters, because they have the ways to get a Hellhound and make it not eat them.

And then there’s the guard dog Hellhound. Just remember not to put it on a wooden floor, or near anything flammable. However, I believe it makes perfect sense for rich nobles to use Hellhounds as guard dogs: they are strong, aggressive, and smart. They’re certainly better than any real dog, assuming you can tame them. According to to 3.5 MM, Hellhounds have Int 6 and can understand the Infernal language, so negotiating may be more important than taming. Hmm. Next time someone in the party plays a Fighter or something with Int < 6, try to convince the DM to let you tame their character as a pet.

3.5 Edition

There’s two Hellhounds in the MM: a Hellhound, and a “Nessian Warhound”. Note that if you use the Nessian Warhound, it technically has +2 Chain Shirt barding. I let the Druid strap it onto his Wolf Animal Companion, but your milage may vary. If you don’t want it magical, subtract 2 AC, and if you don’t want it at all, subtract another 4 AC (total -6).

So what have these Hellpuppies got? Well, they’ve got very good damage for their level, and they have decent saves on all three types. They can also move fairly fast, and have VERY good bonuses for Hide and Move Silently. They can also track by scent. They also happen to have a Breath Weapon, but it has a low DC, so is only really useful against low level parties.

Assuming they have enough room to move around, you’re going to want the Hellhounds to sneak around and flank their prey. Then, they can rush in and gang up on a single target. Only use the Breath Weapon if you’ll catch at least 2 non-Rogues in it.

If the Hellhounds don’t have enough room to maneuver, then there’s not much you can do. They have low AC and HP (Nessian Warhound a bit better, for its level, due to much more Con), and can’t hold out in melee for long. Use the Breath Weapon if you can catch 2+ non-Rogues, but otherwise just try to use the Hellhound’s good damage to take down casters.

A note on the Nessian Warhound: like many advanced monster, the Feat choice is a bit lousy. Try swapping Alertness for Improved Natural Attack, for an extra +1d6 damage on its bite. For more cheese (particularly against cheesy parties), Hellhounds qualify for the Metabreath Feats in the Draconomicon, just like the Hydra from last week.

4th Edition

Firstly, before you ask: it’s under Hound. Two types of Hellhound, plus two other random Hounds.

Tactics are pretty similar to the 3.5 version, although they have more hitpoints, but can’t sneak.  They injure everyone who stands next to them, so exploit this: make sure the Hellhounds stand near the casters, if possible.

Using Fiery Breath, and, for the bigger Firebred Hellhounds, Fiery Burst, is basically reliant on how many people it can hit with the Area of Effect. The damage is similar to just attacking normally (bit better for Firebred), but hitting 2+ people really amplifies it. The Fiery Breath recharges on 4+ (50%), so spam it if there’s viable targets.

Other than that, there’s not much more to say. Hellhounds fit the same role in either edition, and there’s plenty of ways to use them. Have fun, and come back next week for another Monster of the Week.

Originally just a word for a giant, an Ettin is now a two-headed giant or ogre-like creature. The fit a nice niche in D&D: they’re stronger than Ogres, which are a good foe for a low-level party, but they are weaker than true Giants, which are better for high-level parties. Truly, a creature that’s worth using and fighting. Good for laughs, too, since the heads think independently.

As implied above, Ettins fit in basically the same part of society as Giants and Ogres. They’re random creatures in the wilderness, generally too stupid to amount to anything. They make a good random encounter, and are a general-purpose solution to all sorts of monster-induced problems. Like Ogres, their stupidity can lead to their imprisonment by lesser races, particularly goblins and the like, making them a form of heavy artillery, deployed for serious threats (such as adventurers). The easiest way to put an Ettin in is thus: oh no, a creature is terrorising the countryside, etc etc, please go kill it. Oh, yeah, and we’ll give you this magical longsword, which we couldn’t actually use ourselves and is worth more than the village.

Ettins are simply the in-between step from Ogres to Giants. Giants are great and all… but they’re mostly quite powerful. Ogres are nice… but once the party gets some decent weapons, they’re a speedbump at best. The actual levels of the Ogre -> Ettin -> Giant transitions vary depending on the edition and how strong the party is: as stupid creatures, a strong party has an escalatingly big advantage.

Like Ogres and Giants, Ettins are traditionally solitary creatures. Oh, sure, you can have more than one… but it doesn’t really make all that much sense. It’s not like they have a society, and besides, mythology says Giants and the like are solitary creatures.

3.5 Edition

There’s just one Ettin; it’s CR 6.  This fits nicely between the Ogre CR 3 and Giants, which range between CR 7 and 11. Usage is pretty simple: they don’t really have special abilities or strategy. Chuck one in front of the party, and roll some dice.

For a more interesting fight, using the Ettin when the party is only around level 2-4. This means they can’t go toe to toe with it: Ettins hit hard, have a lot of hitpoints, and Full Attack four times. By making a direct confrontation impossible, you encourage far more interesting combat, roleplaying, and creativity. D&D doesn’t have to be a hack and slash game. Ranged weapons, traps… that kind of thing. The players will have to use everything in their arsenal. I would advise getting rid of the Monster Manual’s listed javelins if you do this, because there’s nothing less fun than trapping a creature only to have it use ranged weapons on you.

4th Edition

Well, there’s two Ettins now… but one’s not really Ettin-y. I mean, it’s a caster.

The Ettins have more utility, now, with lots of Pushing stuff. They two-headed thing has also been taken further: they act separately, which has all sorts of nice side-effects. Ettins are also resistant to Daze, Stun, Charm, and, interestingly, being Flanked (for the Marauders only). Ettin Marauders suffer from lousy Reflex and Will, although the Spirit-Talker patches these up a lot.

Unfortunately, the damage has been lowered. A lot. Yeah, they get to attack twice, but 4E characters have more hitpoints than 3.5, and the Ettins’ basic attacks deal only 1d8 + 9 (1d8 + 7 for Spirit-Talker) damage! That’s pitiful! Ogres got errata’d with extra damage, but no love for Ettins, it seems.  The Spirit-Talker gets the Curse of Shattered Bone, which helps: spending an action to make the next attack 1d12 + 15. Since the Ettins get two actions a round, this isn’t a bad trade. Even so, don’t expect the Ettins to be doing much without backup.

Suffice to say, like many creatures in 4E, Ettins benefit from a bit of help. They’re tough, and they can push people around, but throwing in some Artillery (lots of Goblin Sharpshooters or Hobgoblin Archers, say) and the Ettin is more likely to be a real threat to the party.

That’s it for another Monster of the Week, then. Happy gaming; see you all next week.

Ah, Zombies. A classic creature from various mythologies that, like many others, has been revived through modern film and literature, and is thus standard fare for roleplayer gamers such as us. Ironically, many of the aforementioned reviving pieces are set in modern times: the standard way of killing a Zombie seems to involve a shotgun. For this article, however, I will be focussing on the use of Zombies in 3.5E and 4E D&D, so you’ll have to use a crossbow.

Unlike previous Monster of the Week entries, I will attempt to address this creature from both DM and player perspective equally, rather than the DM focus in the past. Hopefully this will prove useful to everyone.

As a DM, the use of Zombies is simply a no brainer (pun intended). You’ve used goblins, orcs, kobolds, and skeletons… you need some other random minor monster to fling at them. Or perhaps they fit with the theme of some necromantic magics in your story. However you come to them, the purpose of Zombies is fairly simple: they’re a speed bump. Their only purpose in existance is either for XP, or to distract the Player Characters from attacking a more important target, at least for a few rounds. They’re not intelligent, they don’t have tactics, they aren’t particularly damaging: but enough of them can cause the players to notice. If you do use them as distractions, make them get in the face of the vulnerable members of the party, and try to draw the heavy melee characters away from the (probably vulnerable) master.

On the flip side, if you’re a player, you’ll encounter zombies in one of two situations: as random chunks of walking XP, or as minions of some necromancer. The first situation is fine: blow a Turn Undead or something and Cleave through. No worries. The more dangerous kind of zombie occurs when they are a distraction. You have to be rather careful in dealing with this kind of Zombie, because every round you spend killing mindless undead is one less round spent killing the master. Specific tactics follow in the edition specific sections below.

3.5 Edition

Zombies in 3.5 are really best at quite low level. I tried to use them at higher level, but they don’t scale well, and the Cleric just nuked them. Huh. They make decent encounters by themselves up to about level 5. Beyond that, various spells and abilities make them simply too weak. A single Fireball or Hasted Cleaving Fighter makes short work of any amount of weaker Zombies, and the more powerful ones are easily outmaneuver.  If the Wizard casts Fly and Haste on anyone with a decent range weapon, there’s basically nothing the zombies can do. With that in mind, the Wyvern Zombie scales better than the others: its flight really helps.

Be careful when flinging Zombies at a party. Consider the party make up: if the party is a Rogue, Druid, Beguiler, and Bard, all level 4 or less, then they will have serious problems due to the Zombies’ various resistances and immunities, combined with the lack of Turn Undead. Higher than that, and the Druid can Wild Shape, so it’s not a problem any more, but you don’t want to accidentally wipe them.

As a distraction, the tougher Zombies are feasible until, oh, at least level 9. After about level 9 the spells in the game become powerful enough to handle any form of distraction, as I explain below. Since the Zombies are fairly tough, and immune to quite a number of nasty spells, they can  physically get in the way of the enemy in addition to simply swarming the casters. Note that if the party has a Cleric, Zombies become redundant faster: more so if the Cleric has Sun Domain.

For the players, dealing with Zombies is mostly simple. Before level 5, your best bet is to use heavy melee to take them down. Throw in a Bull’s Strength and the occassional heal, and your Fighter/Barbarian/whatever can probably handle it. If you don’t have heavy melee, buff up the best melee fighter you’ve got, and hope for the best. Preference order: Cleric, Druid, Bard, Rogue. At level 5 and up, a Haste, Fly, or Fireball makes almost all the Zombies easy by themselves.

If the Zombies are being used as a distraction, try to put as few characters into handling them as possible. Ideally, you want to handle them with a single Standard Action from one character, and then concentrate on the Zombies’ master. Turn Undead is handy here, but other than that, you may need to get creative. As commented above, Zombies, and basically all minions, become a non-issue at around level 9. You can just fling a Wall of Force or something similar at them, and suddenly, the Zombies are no longer an issue. For weaker Zombies, the level 4 spell Wall of Fire is also alright, but is a short-term solution.

4th Edition

Zombies have had a bit of an overhaul. No longer are they immune to Critical Hits, and the weaker ones actually die straight away if you do Crit them. Like the 3.5 versions, however, 4E Zombies are only useful at fairly low levels, although they do scale better.

Most of the Zombies suffer the same scaling problem as the 3.5 ones: their lack of maneuverability hurts more and more as the player characters become more powerful. Even early on, the characters can outrun even the toughest Zombies… bar one. The Gravehound is a very interesting addition that provides many more options for Zombies. Moving faster than almost all player characters, they are the fast cavalry of Zombies. By engaging an enemy with Gravehounds, you can then move in slower and tougher Zombies to mop up. Very cool. Unfortunately, the flying Rotwing Zombies are nowhere near as useful as the 3.5 Wyvern Zombies due to a very low Fly speed. If you use Zombies, just make sure you bring enough: they do tend to die fairly easily, especially if the players get clever.

Players, however, will soon realise that even Gravehounds have a very strong weakness, and it’s not the Critical Hits one. They’re dumb. Completely mindless, if fact. Superior tactics will always defeat Zombies, and once you get some good area control spells (Wall of Fog, Wall of Fire, Wall of Ice… get the picture?) the Zombies simply aren’t smart enough to do anything about it. Zombies also lack any particularly special attacks: yeah, they can grab, and a couple can knock people prone, but the only real status condition any of them cause is the Chillborn Zombies’ Immobilization. Exploit this! Push them, Pull them, Slow them! A Slow non-Gravehound Zombie has a Speed of just 2! Split them up, flank them, and kill them separately. Remember, tactics and teamwork are the names of the game in 4E.

That about wraps up another Monster of the Week. Come back next week, or Subscribe to our RSS feed, to get all the latest updates and a new Monster next week!

Public service announcement: if you use Inkscape, you may know it crashes… not infrequently. As I found yesterday, the crash recovery doesn’t always work. Save your drawings often!

Lycanthropes, or Werewolves, are a strong part of our standard mythology. Wolf attacks on humans combined with the human penchant for imagination lead to an obvious result. Oh, look, wolves ate my sheep. It was totally that next door neighbour I don’t like, he’s a Werewolf! Yeah! Burn him, he’s a witch, too!

In other mythologies, such as Indian, there are other shapechanging creatures, which, for simplicity, have been known to names such as Weretigers. Overall, despite the word “Lycanthrope” having its roots in the Greek word for wolf, we now use “Lycanthrope” for all Were-creatures, because saying “Were-creatures” is stupid, and Lycanthrope is such a good word.

Shiny. Anyway, in this article I will cover how to best use any Lycanthrope in your game of 3.5 or 4E D&D.

Setting up (the plot side):

Werewolves and other Lycanthropes are easy. Think of how much effort you need to include something like Mind Flayers. Hah! Throw Lycanthropes in as a random encounter and it makes sense! They’re roaming the countryside killing stuff, it’s what they do!

For a more useful comment, consider these options:

*Standard Werewolf deal: sheep/people/sheeple dying and players need to find out why
*Enclave of Lycanthropes hiding in forest away from civilization, get annoyed when pesky adventurers start trampling their territory
…hmm.

A special note goes for Wererats: they have much more plot potential. As sneaky bastards who fit right into a large city, they can, for example, be an evil Thieves’ Guild, or part of an assassination plot, or anything that you would normally use Rogues or Assassins for: but cooler. Being a Wererat would probably make it easier to escape from jail, too.

Alternatively, you can take basically any plot, involving anyone doing anything, then make them a Lycanthrope. Oh, look, we found the evil merchant responsible for messing up the economy. Oh look, he’s so helpless. Oh look, he bit your head off. The versatility of being a shapechanger really helps lead to versatilityof uses.

Running it (the rules side):

3.5 Edition:

In my last Monster of the Week: Golems, I hit the 3.5 Golems pretty hard because of all their resistances and huge DR. Same for Lycanthropes? No.

Lycanthropes are a well designed monster suitable for normal groups. Sure, they still have DR, but the DR is silver (in an emergency, hammer silver coins to your weapon), and they don’t have a stack of immunities a mile high. They’re still vulnerable to Critical Hits, Sneak Attack, Mind Affecting Spells, and so on, which gives rapier-wielding idiots*, Rogues, and Enchanters and Beguilers a combat option that does not involve sitting in the corner drinking tea. This is good.

*Disclaimer: one of my characters was a rapier-wielding idiot, and great fun

The great thing about the 3.5 Lycanthrope entry is there’s creatures for any situation, including advanced forms of the Wereboar and Werewolf. If you are trying to do a whodunnit and your players are too savvy, mix it up by using a Weretiger or Werebear (ignore the alignments if you haven’t already). Combined with the versatility mentioned above, you really can’t go wrong.

4th Edition:

Well, unfortunately 4E has trimmed us down to just Werewolves and Wererats, but they’re probably the main two that get used anyway, so no worries. Interestingly, it says Lycanthropy is genetic, and no mention of infection is mentioned: reflavour if you desire, I suppose. However, overall, I’m impressed with the monster entry.

Like many monsters in 4E, they have done away with a sensible-but-annoying mechanic (DR), and replaced it with a not-so-sensible-but-a-lot-more-fun mechanic (cancellable Regeneration). You’ve still got the whole “kill it with silver” thing, but without making anyone feel like they’re not doing something. In addition, the 4E Lycanthropes are a bit more DM friendly, because they have just one statblock instead of three. You no longer have to mess around with all sorts of things when they switch forms.

The Werewolves are pretty standard: you fight, someone dies. They work. The Wererats are more interesting: they fit the Rogue-ish role perfectly, including a weak form of Sneak Attack (1d6). A pack of Wererats fighting intelligently is quite dangerous, and if they think they’re losing they can just run down a drainpipe.

The disease is a nice touch, especially since they removed afflicted Lycanthropy. I do like how disease is handled in 4E. The Wererat disease is fairly standard, but the Werewolf one is kinda like Lycanthropy: it makes the target go nuts and attack people. Fun! Remember that a Lycanthrope is probably intelligent enough to target the squishy members of the group which are less likely to pass the Endurance check.

A note on 4E disease mechanics (my group got it wrong, so I expect others will):
If a diseased attack hits you, then at the end of the encounter, you make a Saving Throw to see if you contract the first stage of the disease. You then roll for disease progression at each Extended Rest. See page 49 of the DMG.

A note of the Lycanthrope disease:
There’s been errata that makes the disease a bit less cruel. Since only a few characters even have Endurance, the high DCs were a bit ridiculous. They dropped the DCs by 5, and added the “worsen DC” bit, which should have been in there anyway.

Filth Fever [Revision]
Monster Manual, page 180
Replace Endurance stable DC 16, improve 21″ with “Endurance improve DC 16, maintain DC 11,
worsen DC 10 or lower”.

Moon Frenzy [Revision]
Monster Manual, page 181
Replace “Endurance stable DC 20, improve 24″ with “Endurance improve DC 19, maintain DC
14, worsen DC 13 or lower”.

This means a level 3 character fighting a level 3 Wererat has a a 55/45 stable/worsen chance even with no training or bonuses: this is the same as a Saving Throw, which is a good baseline for this kind of thing.

Well, that wraps that up. Monster of the Week service will now resume at its intended 1/week schedule, after having been delayed by holiday, illness, blackouts, and jetlag. Happy gaming!

Behind the Scenes

Artist's impression of what the awesome Inkscape graphic could have looked like.

I draw all my images in Inkscape, a free vectored graphics program. The problem is that, like all semi-decent art, it takes some time. Getting the lines right, fiddling with nodes, adjusting colours, crying because the computer can’t handle this amount of blur (She cannae handle it, Captain!)… for this blog post, the Werewolf took so long that I had to scrap plans of doing a Wererat.