Let's do something together!

So, I was thinking about some ways to get more active in the community and maybe get a few others in on it too. I was thinking of maybe a Group Project or two that anyone here could contribute too. Anyone have any ideas they want to throw in the ring? Here is one of mine to start it off...

I've been a major advocate of Custom Content, Especially Custom Monsters. I would love to help make a Custom Monster Collection. I've got a couple of hundred or so of my own but I would love to have a selection of other peoples creations, too.

So, if anyone have an idea or likes one that is already posted, put up a post in this thread telling us about it.

Good luck and hope we have many great projects to choose from:)

GF

Creating custom monsters sounds pretty cool to me! Although I'm not as good at getting the new idea started, once I have a starting point, I can run with it usually pretty well.

Cool. Then one vote for Custom Creature Collection.

Come on guys and gals. Join the Fun:)

GF

It would help if there were a tool available to people to do it with. Formatting monsters in HTML is an ugly process...

There are several tools available out there. I have the WotC Adventure Tools that has the Monster Builder (the only tool that was developed). I know there are others out there.

AbdulAlhazred,
I have the Offline Adventure Tools installer that I can Upload somewhere for others to use. I've got MediaFire and Dropbox among other ways to upload.

GF

Oh, I think I have a copy dating all the way back to the way back. Now what would be cool is if we had our own compendium. That's what 4e really needs.

I also have an Offline Compendium too! I'll see about sharing it too.

GF

Yeah, I have a copy of the offline compendium that has been floating around. Its a Java app from the looks of it. Not bad, but I don't see that it offers web access, nor does it seem to have any source code that I can find anywhere.

I have an offline compendium that is supposed to be able to be installed on Linux system. I'm not *that* tech savvy, so I haven't gone through the process yet. It can be installed on Mac OS X, which is why I have it in the first place. But I think there is a lot of code and whatnot for it. So I don't know if this would be helpful for a "custom" compendium.

What I think would be nice is if we could add these things to our regular offline compendium and possibly the offline character builder as well.

OK, that may be a different one from the one I have, which seems to be a JavaFX application. I did hear a rumor that there was a web-based version. Could be handy! I mean it seems to me that one which is online somewhere where everyone can collaborate on populating it with custom stuff would be cool. I'm not what the logistics exactly would be, but its worth looking at.

One thing is for sure, 4Enclave needs SOME sort of 'shtick' to get it going...

AbdulAlhazred wrote:

It would help if there were a tool available to people to do it with. Formatting monsters in HTML is an ugly process...

Agreed!  CBLoader works perfectly for building characters, the offline compendium does its job nicely but I've not been able to find a good tool for building monsters.  The Adventure Tools Monster Builder is way too buggy to be useful (frustratingly painful would best describe my experience with it).  A solid monster builder is pretty much the only thing missing.

Has anyone tried this?

http://www.asmor.com/programs/monstermaker/index.php

And does anyone use Masterplan? Does that work for building monsters and such? I've never really looked into it very closely, so I'm not sure what it actually does.

Interesting, but the .NET requirement is usually somewhat of a killer for us Linux guys. Not INSURMOUNTABLE mind you, but I've not gotten Masterplan or other 3.5 stuff to work, though I haven't tried TOO hard. There are a lot of various WINE patches and tricks out there...

I've been very interested in the possibility of getting a WINE implementation of the CBloader, the Adventure Tools, and the Compendium. Unfortunately, I have neither the knowledge to make it work nor the patience to learn. (I'm a grumpy old guy, I guess). But I think that I do need to investigate further into finding that solution. That way I can house it all on my MacBook instead of jumping back and forth between my Windows laptop and my MacBook when I'm designing adventures.

skwyd42 wrote:

I've been very interested in the possibility of getting a WINE implementation of the CBloader, the Adventure Tools, and the Compendium. Unfortunately, I have neither the knowledge to make it work nor the patience to learn. (I'm a grumpy old guy, I guess). But I think that I do need to investigate further into finding that solution. That way I can house it all on my MacBook instead of jumping back and forth between my Windows laptop and my MacBook when I'm designing adventures.

Well, I actually have the online CB running on my Linux box. In other words Silverlight (actually 'Pipelight') DOES work on Linux! It works REALLY well nowadays, now that SL is pretty much done of course. You have to load a tweaked version of WINE that can load the runtime for it, but at least that's available from a standard repo, pretty much. Now and then updates break it and I have to fiddle, but its been decent!

However, getting DESKTOP .NET 3.5 or 4.x stuff to work is pretty much a non-starter. Unless it was written with Mono in mind it is very unlikely to run, and WINE just doesn't really implement enough of Win32 etc to run that kind of stuff. I think its more a matter of installer support than anything.

All of that is like a foreign language to me... I know those words mean things. I just don't know the things that the words mean. This is why I need to have a computer tech living near me...

So, Updates. Been busy over the last couple weeks. First, I had to reinstall my LapTop's OS. That took a while. Then got distracted by a Local Convention, Sci-Fi Valley Con. Enjoyed going to that. Also, Finished the Prize Minis for the European Champs and sent them to the Organizer for it. More progress has been made on the Displacer Beast and the other minis for the North Americal Champs are started. And to top it all off, My FLGS had its 20th Anniversary on Int.Tabletop Day! AND Made a Huge Announcement there that They will be moving into a New, Bigger Location soon!!!! So, I'm hoping that after the move, I might be able to get a monthly or so Paint Day started now that there will be room for it! So yeah stuff happened.

But I'm back to see what we can do together here.

GF

I think what I'd really like to see basically is an OSS Compendium that people can edit.

Most of my custom monsters are just level adjusted versions of the standard monsters. Or I have applied custom themes. Like I'll take a level 10 standard monster and turn it into a level 4 elite (I adjust 6 levels) so later when the party is level 10 and face the same monster they really notice how much stronger they've gotten.

Though honestly as far as custom content I would prefer filling up the gaps in player options. Like maybe more than 2 vices for black guard.

But I wuld only give a damn about such if everything was vetted by the community for balance. And masterplan is great. Export the monster files either as html or as the same kind of monster file the adventure tools uses.

I would be interested in filling in gaps in player options. Although, I would also need to learn how to add custom material to the OfflineCB/CBloader software. I basically require all of my players to build their character with that so that I can import the .dnd4e file into my initiative tracker.

As for custom monsters, I also typically just adjust existing creatures in the adventure tools. I have worked on building a couple of custom enemies more or less from scratch, but this was when I was converting a short adventure from 3.x edition.

I have a number of true customs, to fill in gaps in the campaign or for major creatures. The hardest part was learning to make custom elites and solos, I now have a system that garuntees me a balanced one of either every time.

Verbannon wrote:

...I now have a system that garuntees me a balanced one of either every time.

I'd be interested in that system if you'd be willing to share it. I have tried my hand at making some elites and solos, but I haven't always achieved something that is satisfying and balanced.

Oh well its pretty simple. Lets see.

How to create a solo.

First select the name level and other minor details. In my case I'm making a Solo Priestess of Torog. For my campaign. Pick the role roughly on the style of combat you picture. In my case I picture this Priestess as all about channeling her own suffering to the players so I made her a brute. An immortal because she has spent time in the torture pits. And a construct becaue large portions of her body have been replaced with artificial limbs. Most of Her bones were ripped out and steel ones forced in their place, her skin is still skin except where spikes jut out and she resembles a wrackspawn a bit.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f35/19/36/34/71/exampl10.png

Now I'll pick the powers. First her basic attack. I kind of picture her breaking her own hand in a way that allows a bit of the steel bone to jut through so we'll call it. Steel Bone. Nothing special about it comes to mind so it'll just be a basic damage for now. She is a brute so remember to add the extra weapon die.

Now a solo represents 5 creatures so it needs a way to do a total of 5 attacks a turn. But before we worry about that I'll just fill out the powers that come to mind first and count how many attacks they are worth.

Her backstory is well she had a hereditary disease that gave her a great, great amount of pain.  So great that every single member of her family killed themselves to escape it.Desperate to find salvation from the pain she sought out Torog, who's teaching taught her how to embrace the pain of her own body and manage it. So she eventually entered a torture pit to become a Priestess of Torog. So if she is in constant pain how about a minor action that lets her share the pain she constantly feels with the players.

Minor action of course, psychic, vs fortitude because its just pain. Close blast 1 (one target) so no one oas her and As its just pain we'll actually make it do a bit less damage but make up for it by making it a daze until save. On first failed save we'll say the pain was just so overwhelming they couldn't handle it and became stunned until save. So we don't knock out the whole party in a round of bad saves we'll limit this power to once a turn. And this will count as two attacks not one.

One attack is the damage and dazed together. But it counts as a second attack because it has the potential to take a player out of the battle possibly for multiple turns. That counts as a second attack. Because negating a player's attack is just as good as having an extra attack. Better even as if the solo just hits 5 times that solo is going to be koing a party member per turn.

So we have the basic attack and the minor. Now its important to remember to account for party dazes, blindings and stuns. The usual way to do this is to make sure that the solo can do at least two attacks worth of damage off turn even while dazed and stunned.

But in this case with her being such a pain junkie, we'll make her immune to dazes and stuns. Make it a named trait so the players don't feel you are just arbitrarily cheating them.

Two more attacks to account for but that should be simple, we'll give her a free action triggered by an attack. Normally this would just be some sort of attack but I think sticking with the theme of pain junkie instead I'll make an attack that only triggers when a character scores a critical on her and it will give her temporary hp equal to the critical hit thus negating it. But as that happens so rarely it doesn't seem to quite make it worth a full attack, I'll have it trigger a pain link as well. That should do it. I'll name it paingasm.

And for the last attack well, she has two arms, so we'll just make her arm stabbing a double attack. But taking inspiration from paingasm.  And have each hit grant her 5 tmp hp cumalative limit 10. Now there is a problem now as 6d8+12 damage is probably too much against a single target. So to keep our brute damage instead we'll break it up. so it does 2d8 extra damage if both attacks hit. Making that extra brute damage, spike damage.

Now its a heroic tier monster so it only gets one utility, I'm going to pull the wrackspawn trait, bloodwrack to act as her utility. Bloodied enemies suffer a -4 to saves. That is a bit much for heroic tier though so I'll drop it to -2. And that'll be her heroic tier utility.

Almost done now the fun part, what I like to call the solo "F*** you" ability. This is basically the solo encounter power, because they aer a solo you are free to go a little crazy and make it something memorable. There are ways of doing these that aren't encounter but they generally have some other way of limiting them so they aren't abusable.

In this case I already know what I want. To compound on pain link, a rechargable power that attacks someone dazed or stunned by pain link and knocks them unconiounce with pain.Make a note not to coup de grace the affected character, and the aftereffect leaves them dazed as in pain link. Because being  knocked out without risk of coup de grace isn't really a threat we'll have it do some serious ongoing damage as well. I made it rechargable because although it can be pretty nasty it is a bit natively limited and its effect kind of overlaps with the stunned effect. But it should hopefully make at least one player totally freaking pissed off.

Lastly is the bloodied trait. The bloodied trait should make the creature more dangerous but you don't want it to slow the battle down so nothing defensive. I contemplated having er bloodied effect cause the -2 to effect even unbloodied characters but decided nobody wants that as it could potentially freeze the encounter.

I decided instead to give her a minor action that lets her expend all her tmp hp as damage.

And thats all the powers. Now for the minor of minor details. Immunities, fear. Alignment, Chaotic Evil, skills, intimidate, heal, religion and streetwise, languages, common and supernal, equipment, harlot's dress, charisma primary, con secondary, so will her high defense, reflex her low and I'll give her a boost to initiative because it just feels right.And because one of her eyes was gouged out and because her eyes were gouged out and in her head are actually just two realistic looking glass eyes. I'll give her blindsight 10.

And now the creature Bloc is too large for screen shot so.

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=30870836429548660461

Thats the Link to the HTML file of it.

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=82579230731079664532

Thats the link to the /monster file if you want to upload it to your monster builder instead.

And for elites as above but account for only two attacks and no need for an Eff you attack.