Fearful Critters

[Wids]

The scenario:

1) Serrica was up on one side of a hill. Two ogrillons on the other side of the hill said "Dem be small like kitty! Me kick!" and came running.

2) They came over the crest of the hill, established line of sight and saw that their "kitty" was Serrica.

3) They both immediately rolled Fear saves, choked on them, turned right back around and bolted back down the hill.

4) I told Minion about it, laughing to myself.


We like the system; it simulates characters earning formidable reputations as they advance in Level. But a few questions which came from that exchange:

1) Is it indeed the character's Level which triggers Fear checks in these monsters, or is it something else? Ogrillons, xvarts and Beach Bums run right up to my Level 5-ish characters and don't think twice about it. But when faced with Serrica (who's a lot higher than Level 5), they usually flee.

2) Does that factor affect the DC of the Fear checks as well? A Level 10 character is scary to an ordinary xvart. Would a Level 20 character be maybe twice as scary?

3) These creatures alone make Fear checks (while the rest are pretty much fearless):
• Xvarts
• Goblins
• Beach Bum pirates
• Ogrillons

Am I forgetting any?


Thanks in advance, as always.

[luckbringer]

Some of the custom AI, like fleeing monsters, is not applied to all creatures consistently. At some point I need to consolidate the spawn/death event scripts to apply things like this globally, but based on creature attributes (slimes are not going to flee).

Scaling should also give you more options than fighting things for 1xp. Though Ilthan isle and some of the undersea scaling areas might already do that.

I don't recall the source of the dc of the fear check offhand.

[Wids]

Nov 27, 2011 23:43:09 GMT -5 luckbringer said:

Scaling should also give you more options than fighting things for 1xp. Though Ilthan isle and some of the undersea scaling areas might already do that.

And the gnoll caves. Dorkling once told me that Fog Island has a pretty broad scaling range (up to around Level 12 or 15 or so, at least in the Mad Druid's map), and I've seen that. Flamer Ants, Sneaky Ants, Artillery Queen Ants and so on.

But Serrica wasn't out hunting for ogrillons there. She was just walking from Uarhold to the Borderline Inn and she was low on coin from a very recent and very expensive purchase, so I took her off-road to shake some pocket change out of some loot piles and the ogrillons happened to get in her way. If I were out for XP, I would have instead steered her through the Plain of Lakes and beyond (after preparing some Banishments and Dismissals for the Vaasan Demonologists).

Scaling's good for making an area enticing to a broad variety of ranges, but I do like certain aspects of Dorkling's scaling system as well; a 3-Hit-Dice koalinth and a 12-Hit-Dice koalinth should be two radically different creatures, reflected in their names (ie. Koalinth Marauder) if not their appearances.

But like we've discussed before, I don't think that every area should be made to scale up for mid- or high-level characters, especially if those areas are frequented by characters of all Levels; a pack of wild dogs which spawn for a Level 15 character sprinting from Palaggar to Bognar's shop are going to annihilate a Level 3 character who comes wandering along right behind him. Even some of the dungeons need not scale that high; every biosphere has "Omega" species of creatures which run from everything else, and not every dungeon is worthy of evolving into the next Tomb of Horrors. Sometimes, a kobold cave should just be a kobold cave.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

[luckbringer]

Nov 28, 2011 3:20:49 GMT -5 Wids said:

But like we've discussed before, I don't think that every area should be made to scale up for mid- or high-level characters, especially if those areas are frequented by characters of all Levels; a pack of wild dogs which spawn for a Level 15 character sprinting from Palaggar to Bognar's shop are going to annihilate a Level 3 character who comes wandering along right behind him. Even some of the dungeons need not scale that high; every biosphere has "Omega" species of creatures which run from everything else, and not every dungeon is worthy of evolving into the next Tomb of Horrors. Sometimes, a kobold cave should just be a kobold cave.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

The dynamic scaling is already bound at a max CR, so not every area will scale up to 20, 15 or even 10. Many dungeons will have base creatures of a certain CR and then use the dynamic scaling to let that increase 3-10 levels. "Along the road" areas likely won't ever scale, but I hope you meant walking to Bognar's ;D

[Wids]

Of course...unless I'm trying to beat Manus to the forge, that is. >:]

[DM Scurvy]

*oils his whip*

[Wids]

Good idea! Manus could use some motivation in racing people to the forge. ;D

[grivel]

Manus has a short leg handicap.

[DM Scurvy]

*readies his dwarf tosser*

[Wids]

Cheaters!

*uncorks a Potion of Haste*

[Wids]

*edits the first post*

Large bees don't make Fear checks. They just aometimes zip away in random directions, that's all.

[Wids]

Added goblins. They make Fear checks too.