Monsters in the shadows

[SnowyCragrat]

What home made monsters and characters have the fatemaster's made so far?

 

for example- I added high fantasy style elves and faries to the Malifaux setting in a previous TTB campaign I ran as a subtype of neverborn.

What has everyone else added, if anything?

[LordZombie]

In my campaign, there is a 200+ year old vampire that looks like a 12 year old girl and an outcasted Neverborn master that other neverborn try to hunt down. Just noticed you said characters also. There is a woman trying to become a Resurrectionist master, a young nun that know old Malifaux language, a necro botanist, and a guy who got his spirit trapped in a voodoo doll.

[Guest]

IS there a way to create unique monsters? I've just been taking the creatures and describing them differently to increase the bestiary...

[SnowyCragrat]

INot officially- but what I have done to create new creatures, is find a base monster or minion I wanted to use, and transfer to it abilities I wanted them to have from others in the range.

This is possibly the best way to do it for now until/ if Wyrd release an official way of doiny it.

[LordZombie]

Just give them the stats and abilities you want. Your mind is the only limit. You don't need official rules for that.

[bowchikawowers]

In the back of the fatemaster's Almanac there's a chapter with story ideas, complications etc. One of them is The Lord of Bits and Pieces, who I've dubbed Bitsy Pieces because I'm a lazy typer. we just finished it last night, actually, and I wound up building Bitsy Pieces from scratch because there was NOTHING like him in the bestiary that would challenge my rather munchkiny players. One of them likes to one shot guild witchling handlers. So I just gave him stats that I thought would make him a little tougher. He lasted half a round, so I'm not sure I was successful, but he did manage to actually hit one of my fated and cause some noticeable damage. 

 

Here's the stats if anyone wants him tho: 

 

Bitsy Pieces: level 10 Neverborn, Living 3AP

 

Might 2, Grace 0, Speed -1 Resilience 3

 

Charm 2 Int -1 Cun 2 Ten 3

 

Df  3 (13) WP 5 (15)  Wounds 12 Walk 3 Charge 4 

 

Skills

 

Melee (2) Toughness (3) Whatevercontrollingknicknackswouldbe (3)

 

(1)Swarm of Knick-knacks 

Av 4 (14) Rng 12 1/2/3

 

(2) "Got your nose" 

Av 3 (13) Rng 2 3/4/5 

 

DF Trigger (M) Shild of things -Knick Knacks absorb 1/2/3 damage. 

 

He looks pretty scary but he fell really fast. Might have lasted longer if the group hadn't wiped out his knick-knack swarms before they opened the sarcophagus. 

[sephiroa]

what i would have done

 

Bitsy Pieces: level 10 Neverborn, Living 3AP

 

Might 2, Grace 0, Speed -1 Resilience 3

 

Charm 2 Int -1 Cun 2 Ten 3      (just leaves these out of them afterwards)

 

Df 5  (15-17) WP 5 (15)  Wounds 12 Walk 5 Charge 5 

 

armor 2  (he is made out of bits and things anyway)

 

Skills

 

Melee (2) Toughness (3) Whatevercontrollingknicknackswouldbe (3)

 

(1)Swarm of Knick-knacks 

Av 5 (15) Rng  12  dmg 2/4/6  rst def

 

(2) "Got your nose" 

Av 5 (15) Rng  2 dmg 4/5/8    rst def

 

(1) "oooh! shiny things!"

Av 7 (17)   rng 10      rst wp   target of this attack gets the following condition: disarmed: this character loses the weapon he was using when he got this condition.

this attack can be done once per activation

(and afterwards when they kill bitsy pieces they can retreive their weapons)

 

DF Trigger (M) Shild of things -Knick Knacks absorb 1/2/3 damage. 

 

also let this master be accompannied by at least 5-6 "spiders" (just use spider stats but they are creations of this lord) so this will be a much bigger threat

[bowchikawowers]

He's not actually made out of bits of things, but I get what you're saying. Interesting rewrite, I like it. I'm not sure armor would have helped him any as the player who did pretty much all the damage ignores armor.

[sephiroa]

He's not actually made out of bits of things, but I get what you're saying. Interesting rewrite, I like it. I'm not sure armor would have helped him any as the player who did pretty much all the damage ignores armor.

 

he orders the bits and things, so there may be some on him or give him a hard to wound.

the player who did al the damage: look at "ooh shiny things" this basicly requires them to take an alternate approach, if off course the one who did al the damage is a mage, give him a kind of magic resist/counterspell ability 

i happen to find that a party who can defeat a master that is really tough to battle and they nearly died themself, love that battle much more than if they defeat said master in like 2 turns.. 

for the defence of innocence penny dreaffull, i'm going to create my own special nephilim in the final battle. why? because

no serious, i have 3 dedicated fighters and they all have the ability to kill a mature in 1 activation, i think i'm going to put something like a mature on steroids in there (or a mature with a high dosage of blood in his body) like a veteran that is ht 4 has 14 wd's and can punch holes right through the party. to give them something extra in the final battle

 

[bowchikawowers]

I'd love to see the stats for those when you're done with them. I might use them on my group. 

[Malsqueek]

I just ran an adventure with a giant multi-hit location beastie that worked pretty well.

 

Did a great job of evening out the social-focused players with the combat monsters in terms of contribution to a fight.

[sephiroa]

I just ran an adventure with a giant multi-hit location beastie that worked pretty well.

 

Did a great job of evening out the social-focused players with the combat monsters in terms of contribution to a fight.

 

can you post the stats of that beastie? i would be happy to use that i can always learn more since i'm a starting FM

[sephiroa]

Ancient nephilim, Living, 2AP

 

Might 5, Grace 0, Speed 2 Resilience 5

 

Charm -2 Int 0 Cun 2 Ten -3      (just leaves these out of them afterwards)

 

Df 5  (15) WP 4 (14)  Wounds 14 Walk 7 Charge 10 

initiative: 4 (14)

 

armor 1  (his hide is as tough as steel)

hard to kill

hard to wound

 

Skills

 

Melee (5) Toughness (4) survival (3)  wilderniss (4)  track (3) notice (4)

 

abilities:

nephilim rage: this model always attacks the enemy model that is closest to it  ( is closest a word i'm not sure but you get the point ^^)

 

blood regeneration: when wounding an opponent this model heals 1/2/4 damage  

 

black blood: (no explanation here)

 

"thats a lot of blood": when this model has 7 or fewer wounds left, his black blood ability does 1 extra damage and the range is increased to 2

 

terrifying (living) 14

 

attacks:

 

+1 melee expert 

 

(1) enormous claws

Av 7 (17) Rng   3  dmg 5/6/8    rst def

this attack has   on the attack flip

 

(2) wind cyclone

6   all models make a TN 13 toughness duel, if they fail they are pushed in base contact with this model

 

 

allright so this is my big nephilim i'm gonna use, players will have a hard time fighting it. its henchman potential and near master potential, why isn't it a master? well i also wrote a bit of lore for them

 

these ancient nephilim are so bloodlusted and full of rage, they can't think straight and always need a stronger will beside them to guide them and give them directions. they will always listen to the weaker but respected blood shamans and to stronger neverborn such as nekima, pandora, lilith, etc

how ever when they see an enemy they will rush forward with the power of a steam train and won't stop until their target is dead. because their body has a greater affinity than the other nephilims (yeah it is possible) they heal when human blood touches their skin, immediatly absorbing the blood and their body regenerates instantly.

 

it takes a very good nephilim hunter to take something like this head on. Even the Ortega's has seen only 2 of these in their hunt, always ending in a bloody battle and a lot of casualties.

 

have fun and you can always use this model if you like you can tweak a bit to the level of your party, i made this because my party is a heavy combat party. they will take him down, altough i think someone will collapse or lose an arm or leg. 

[Swiglitz]

I just ran an adventure with a giant multi-hit location beastie that worked pretty well.

 

Did a great job of evening out the social-focused players with the combat monsters in terms of contribution to a fight.

 

This is a great idea for running big monsters, give each location its own wound pool and attacks/actions and as the wounds get reduced the location gets crippled and can't fight as gets reduced stats. Kinda like some raid bosses in MMO's or Dragon fights in DA:I.

 

A lovely idea ... One that I think I'm going to steal ... Er, I mean borrow. Yes Borrow

[bowchikawowers]

That is one scary Nephilim Sephiroa! I love it!

[sephiroa]

That is one scary Nephilim Sephiroa! I love it!

 

thanks be free to use it

[Malsqueek]

So, the critter I used was an abomination which was made of animated amalgams of meat and metal who lashed themselves together into a building-tall beastie.

 

It was an answer to having a couple non-combat folks in a group with someone who can one-shot a Mature Nephilim (yes, that's right. One-shot)

 

Hit locations:

 

Head x1

Torso x1

Arms x2

Legs x4

 

Df: 9

Wp: 12

Mv: 5

Chg: 10

 

Armor 1 all locations.

 

Immune to Critical Hit Effects, Immune to Horror Duels. When a limb is killed, creature continues to live. If head is killed, creature gains reactivate, takes full next turn with [-] on all flips, and then dies. Torso killed kills creature.

 

The players choose a location to attack, and then toss a card. All locations have triggers off this card, this card is NOT part of their attack flip.

 

Head: Rams, Masks, Black Joker = Miss; Crows = Hit Torso instead, Tomes, Red Joker = Hit Head as normal.

Torso: 1-5: +3 Armor, 6-10: +2 Armor, 11-14: +1 Armor, Black Joker: +4 Perfect Armor

Arms: Rams, BJ = Miss, Other Suits = Hit as normal

Legs: Rams, BJ = Miss, Other suits = Hit as normal.

 

Each hit location has 2 entirely separate health tracks. The "Shell" and the "Meat".

These damage tracks are entirely separate, and work kinda like hard to kill. do 45 points of damage to the Shell when it has 3 left? 42 of those are lost. Next hit damages the Meat.

Shell has about 20 wounds per limb and head, torso has 30.

Meat has about 15 wounds per limb, 30 for torso, 30 for head.

 

Creature does not suffer disengage strikes.

 

Creature has the following attacks (roughly):

 

(0) Roar: Wp 12 ,  10 (pulse). succeed or be knocked prone - used when surrounded.

(0) Slap: Df 12, 2/3/4. 5 Melee. Used against a single target.

 

(1) Bash: Df 14, 3/3Blast/3DblBlast Melee 5. Hits lotsa things when it hits hard. This is used to bypass hard to hit players by hitting softer ones, and blasting over. The "Blast" is actually more of a sweep.

(1) Dismissed: Df 16, 2/4/6. Melee 5. Target is knocked back 1 yard for every point of damage they suffer. Used to force hard hitters to disengage.

(1) Spit: Df 10, 2/3/4. 20 Yard Rng. Used when not in range.

 

You can do a lot with this framework, but mostly, keep the overall damage output lowish but hard to avoid, and make sure the abilities are causing tactical movement as well as just being attacks. It makes the fight more interesting and forces the players to use AP moving instead of attacking.

 

I tried randomizing the "where critter was hit" but the players actively disliked that, so I recommend the suit system indicated above.