Wandering Monsters: Fish- And Frog-Men

As a fan of Lovecraftian things the basic premise of ancient fish-people living underground, surfacing only to kidnap people for sacrifice, makes me feel that I should like kuo-toa more than I do, but as with last’s weeks batch of assorted evil humanoids they–along with the rest–just come across as confusing and boring.

Let us go down the list:

• They are evil, but “only” neutral evil, which actually seems odd given that they hate discipline and are largely insane. 
• They worship a naked, female, half-lobster, half-human deity. At least with drow their iconic god can look like a drow, spider, or some mix thereof.
• Their bodies are coated in a slippery substance that makes it difficult to pin them down, but they coat their shields in a sticky substance so that weapons stick to them.
• They are immune to poison and paralysis, resistant to lightning, and some can join their hands to create lightning bolts.

Like drow and their spell-like abilities, there is no underlying theme going on, and this is without even taking the monks into consideration. Do they get all the monk things? If so I am so going to set them up with the Path of Four Storms so I can have schools of flying fish(people). Also, why are they medium level? What about kuo-toa makes them so much tougher than the other humanoids?

I like the idea of kuo-toa as an ancient race, because it helps tie them together with aboleths and/or Dagon, which is always a plus in my book. I do not think that they need to have lived on the surface, certainly not in any kind of great or advanced civilization, but I guess if you really wanted to go with them as former surface-dwellers, why not have some sort of disaster drive them underground, instead of having humans show up and take their land? Maybe they were forced underground when the sun was created/born/whatever, or the oceans receded?

As for their alignment, this is where I could see a divide. The crazy, inbred kuo-toa would be Chaotic Neutral (including some of the nobles, which gives me a kind of Charles II vibe), while the rest that follow Blibdoolpoolp would range from Neutral to Neutral Evil, depending on how they perceive her doctrine and follow through with it. This could add to social role-playing, where not all kuo-toa want to eat and sacrifice humans just because.

While I am not a fan of Blibdoolpoolp’s name (while writing this I kept writing poop), I otherwise think she is actually fine as an object of crazy fishman-worship. I imagine clerics not choosing their path, but instead being born into it: they are more eel-like, with jaws filled with jagged teeth and elongated heads. They wear headdresses made of layered plates that give them a somewhat lobster-like appearance, and they can channel lightning.

Sahuagins are not as confusing, but still have their share of problems. Why are they lawful evil? Essentially as humanoid sharks I would have pegged them for neutral or even chaotic. I guess they could also be evil, but I do not see why that is necessary. Maybe some just think of everything not-sahuagin as prey?

How do they even maintain crossbows? If their jaws and claws work well enough, why do they even use weapons at all? Why are they vulnerable to fire? Is that going to be a thing that aquatic creatures have, now? Having them go into a frenzy when wounded is fine, but I preferred it in 4th Edition when they gained bonuses against wounded creatures. You know, like a shark smelling blood.

I have only used bullywugs twice: once in the first encounter of the first adventure of an Eberron campaign, pretty much because they were in the Shadow Marches and I had never used them before, and the other when I ran Stick in the Mud.

In 3rd Edition there was not much to differentiate them from other 1 HD evil humanoids. They were not hampered by marshes and mud, instead gaining a bonus to Hide checks, and I guess their clerics had a random chance to summon an extra monster?

4th Edition mixed this up by penalizing you if you used a healing surge while standing too close, and regain hit points if you critically hit one. Interesting if limited, and certainly different from other monsters, but the best additions were the various leap-attacks–especially the ones that could hurt them if they missed–and ability to belch poison gas at you.

It sounds like they are cribbing a bit from each edition, which is nice, but I would give them optional powers that let them add various poison effects to their attacks. Given that only one kind of frog seems to have claws at all, I would remove them (or make it another optional power, which could include a multiattack).

Another thing that I recall from their 4th Edition lore, which might have been in Stick in the Mud, was about how they could corrupt or warp reality when they gathered in an area for too long. I dunno, something to consider.

Swamp Ambush Map

I’m a fan of doing the random encounter bit while players are going from plot-pertinent area A to plot-pertinent area B, or at least making my players think that its random. I’m not really a fan of actually random encounters because all too often they are not relevant to the plot at all, and when the players know that it seems like so much padding and pointless grindage. Since 4E isnt a fan of throwing out ludicrous amounts of treasure, in most cases you can’t even throw them a +1 enchanted bone to tickle their fancy.

The first encounter in At The Mines Of Madness appears to be a random encounter, but is in actuality carefully planned. Well, its not “carefully” planned, but I at least but enough forethought into it to draw up a map and populate the encounter ahead of time.

The caravan that the party is on gets ambushed by bullywugs and their trained battle-frogs (Monster Manual 3). The caravan is being guarded by more than just them (since the party might not all be hired to protect the caravan), so I decided to make it pretty damned hard.

Swamp Ambush (858 XP)

• 8 bullywug croakers (level 3 minion brute)
• 3 bullywug muckers (level 1 brute)
• 2 murklord frogs (level 2 skirmisher)

Treasure: crude gold bracelet (20 gp), crude gold necklace (15 gp), 3 gp, 20 sp. The jewelry is graven with an abstract fish motif (these were taken from the characters killed during the prologue).

The bullywugs will leg it if reduced to half their number or less. The frogs will also book it if they are bloodied and no bullywugs are within 3 squares of them. Depending on the player’s character, I will have the players control some or all of the guards (minion soldiers) and just give them the stat blocks to make it easier on me (in particular characters with a history of making caravan runs, Shadow Marches guides, or leader-types).

Lets talk about terrain features.

• Shallow Water: Difficult terrain for anyone without a swim speed. It also grants an attack bonus to creatures with the Aquatic keyword (ie, bullywugs and frogs). Characters taking ongoing fire damage can fall prone to immediately end the effect.
• Deep Water: Characters in deep water need to make Athletics checks to swim, and it still grants the aforementioned attack bonus. Creatures in deep water gain resist 5 fire, and ongoing fire damage automatically ends at the end of their turn.
• Trees: The large black dots are big trees that fill the entire square. Characters can climb them, and particularly devastating attacks might destroy them or knock them over. They also grant cover. The small dots are smaller trees that count as difficult terrain for everyone, and can also be destroyed.
• Bridge: Its mostly level with the ground. Characters pushed off of it make a save to avoid falling prone, but dont take damage if they fall in the water. It could be lit on fire, I suppose.

Stick in the Mud Review

I realize that when I like something, I dont use swear words nearly as much.

Stick in the Mud is the first official adventure for Chaos Scar. Its for level 1 characters, and actually wont provide enough XP to net a level (a bit over half, I think). There’s only about five encounters, making it a little longer than your typical delve. All in all it has this nostalgic feel of when I played Diablo 2 and went into the Den of Evil: it was sweet, short, and I got some levels and loot for my troubles.

I’m curious if Wizards is going to go this route for all their adventures, as it seems sufficient for a night of gaming (five encounters is about what I’d expect my group to plow through given 3-4 hours time), but also has the preparation advantage since the backstory isnt super complex or necessarily linked to larger events. If you have the prep time then you as a DM could link it into future adventures or other events, but if you dont then I think its great for people without a lot of time on their hands.

There are three suggested hooks to get the players going. One is for them to retrieve a staff for an ancestor of the dude that made the keep, and another gives you a cash bounty per bullywug head (the XP reward is also boosted if you kill them all). My favorite though is the second hook where a NPC asks you to scrape mud off of them and bring it back for some kind of magical experiment.
I really like how one of the quests is that a NPC wants you to bring back mud samples taken from various bullywug types. He gives you a one time payment of 30 gp for each individual monster (croaker, mucker, twitcher, and mud lord). It’ll be interesting to see how people react to this sort of immersive monster harvesting project. Also? The XP reward goes up if you collect it from all four.

Its got my interest so far, but how does the actual adventure part hold up?

The first encounter was surprisingly engaging despite its simple layout. It takes place in the ruined foundations of the keep build by the sorcerer-dude, and is a square area with lots of missing walls and debris. The missing rooms make it somewhat like a maze, which would let players use some dynamic movement and tactics. Since the outer walls are also damaged, you could approach this encounter using stealth try and net surprise, but you could also launch a pincer attack by coming in from two ways. I think that it caters to both tactical players and the ones that just want to kick in the door and start hacking…or both.

The next encounter occurs after you go underground, in a study. Its much more narrow than the ruined keep, but its underground so thats to be expected. There are a few terrain features that players can manipulate: braziers, tables, and bookshelves (oh my). The braziers can be toppled over to provide concealment, the tables can be used as cover, and the bookshelves can be…hopped onto with a…DC 20 Athletics? Whaaa?
Mind you, these shelves arent standing up, they are already knocked over. I dont know about you, but if I knock my shelves over that I could get on them extremely easily. I mean, even if I couldnt jump on top I can still fucking climb something thats barely a foot-and-a-half high. The author also makes a not to remember the -2 penalty for the mud, but I’m not sure if he’s already included it or what. The old DM screen lists a level 1 hard DC as 20, but I’d say its more of a moderate thing. I would drop the DC to 15 and then up it to 17 because of the mud.

I dont want to spoil the rest of the encounters, but the author does a good job of repeating terrain features so that players can learn what to do with them in one encounter and use it in the immediate future. Also, there is a slight mix up on monsters, so its not just a repetitive grind of bullywugs. Better yet? Unlike the first Scales of War adventure the composition makes sense. He includes narrative bits for the bullywugs, such as by having them taunt players in Primordial. Its sweet, its short, and it delivers. This is bad for me since I’m on a DMing hiatus because of school, and I really want to fucking run this.

-Fin T.T