Designing your own Adversaries

[Timmity Took]

Have you made your own stats for specific monsters or other enemies in your game?
If so, how did you do it, what guidelines have you used, and how did it go?
It seems simple enough, but are there some traps I should look out for?

[Otaku-sempai]

A foe that I created for the region of East Lune was Carchelek, a Warg/White Wolf hybrid who leads White Wolf pack. I statted him as a Wolf Leader, but substituting the Deadly Elusiveness special ability in place of Strike Fear. The White Wolves I treated as though they were Wild Wolves, just tweaking the description.

In my version of the Blue Mountains there is a Dragon that lairs north of Forlindon. She is Aguta, a Cold-drake of the First Age, much diminished after a long sleep recovering from injuries suffered during the ruin of Angband. The Lossoth of Forochel believe that she is an evil spirit; none have seen her and lived. I revised my write-up of Aguta after the Erebor book came out.

[Indur Dawndeath]

Have you made your own stats for specific monsters or other enemies in your game?
If so, how did you do it, what guidelines have you used, and how did it go?
It seems simple enough, but are there some traps I should look out for?

You should avoid Great Size, favoured armour, high attribute and low weapon skill. Will get very boring fast.

Minions should not have more than 3 ranks in weapon skill, or you will soon kill the party.

Foul breath, or what it’s called can be VERY dangerous combined with Seize foe, if the players need to escape from overwhelming numbers.
I gave my March dwellers Seize foe and Foul breath, and sent 50 against the players. They could not get away...
Other than that, do your worst

[Timmity Took]

You should avoid Great Size, favoured armour, high attribute and low weapon skill. Will get very boring fast.

I should avoid great size and favoured armour? Ok.
But I want my 3 adversaries to last the first round and not go down with a wound before they are even able to attack. The 3 are a bit special and have had some build with campfire tales, so I want them to leave an impresion...



Bitch Barren & Brothers Broken.

Song
- Bitch is barking, breathing, biting.
Breaking bone, breaking back!
- Brothers are beating, bruisng, blinding.
Bleeding dry, bleeding black!
- Bitch is barking, Brothers are breaking.
Brace yourselves - Attack!

Poem
Brothers nightly prowling.
Bitch forever howling.
Eye of darkness, always scowling.

[atgxtg]

THe thing to keep in mind is that it's much better for an NPC adversary to get cut down before getting an attack than it is for a PC hero to get cut down.

This isn't D&D where a fight isn't a fight unless everybody is down half their hit points. So you half to be very careful with just how much you throw at the PCs. It's better to put in something that is too weak than something that is too strong. The laws of probability are already working against the players.

[Timmity Took]

THe thing to keep in mind is that it's much better for an NPC adversary to get cut down before getting an attack than it is for a PC hero to get cut down.

This isn't D&D where a fight isn't a fight unless everybody is down half their hit points. So you half to be very careful with just how much you throw at the PCs. It's better to put in something that is too weak than something that is too strong. The laws of probability are already working against the players.

Be careful with how much I throw at the players. Got it!

I gave my March dwellers Seize foe and Foul breath, and sent 50 against the players.

This guy threw 50 swamp things at them... too much?
:p

I was thinking about throwing a Wolf Leader, an Orc Guard and a Goblin Archer at my 4 players.
They have bit of a build up as a campfire scary story, so I was hoping they might pose a challenge... Though I don't have much experience with this system. We are still in our first adventuring phase and have only had a combat once, when 2 of the players fought 3 spiders in the first session, only with their daggers.
Will it be a challenge or should I adjust the stats a bit?


Oh, btw. I do play many other systems, but NOT D&D. I am done with d20!...

[atgxtg]

Be careful with how much I throw at the players. Got it!

Yeah. In the big shceme of things it doesn't matter in a NPC adversary survives the adventure to return for another game session, but it is kinda important that the player characters do. At least usually.

With the limited amount of healing and no resurrection magic (Gandalf and Glorfindel excepted), it very hard to bounce back when a PC gets killed or disabled. And an unexpected loss of a PC hero can lead to a domino effect as other heroes start getting double teamed. And even fairly easy encounters can cause problems as characters lose more Endurance, or injuries accumulate.

Some thing you can do is have the bad guys get reinforcements of some type during an encounter. That gives you a bit more control over what the PCs have to face at any one time, and lets you tailor things to so that you can challenge the heroes they want you want and not accidental throw too much at them.

[Indur Dawndeath]

Be careful with how much I throw at the players. Got it!

I gave my March dwellers Seize foe and Foul breath, and sent 50 against the players.

This guy threw 50 swamp things at them... too much?
:p

I was thinking about throwing a Wolf Leader, an Orc Guard and a Goblin Archer at my 4 players.

My players are very tough. 100xp, famous weapons and 5ranks +1 mastery dice in weapon, so called shot swift stroke is very popular. They can take down Many enemies fast.

But the 50 enhanced Marsh dwellers were meant to be too much.
They needed to get into their stronghold and retrieve the final piece of the Wolfbiter Axe, and get out before getting killed.
However, I did not anticipate how difficult it would be to escape. Impossible really.
Instead they defeated all 50, but only one man standing with 1 endurance remaining.

Regarding your planned combat. It seems to be a fair challenge for a new group, where they will suffer minimal endurance loss if they have at least 3 ranks in weapon and high parry. If they only have 2 ranks and low parry, it may be a close call.

[Timmity Took]

Regarding your planned combat. It seems to be a fair challenge for a new group, where they will suffer minimal endurance loss if they have at least 3 ranks in weapon and high parry. If they only have 2 ranks and low parry, it may be a close call.

They all have only 2 in their highest weapon skill.
The woodman has very high parry, but I guess he will use his bow in rearward or rally comrades with song.
The three others, I am not sure about parry just now. But the beorning has a closefitting armour and one of the dwarves has a keen axe.

[Timmity Took]

I am looking at the different adversaries in the book, using them as inspiration and templates for my own potential designs.
I see that a couple of them have favoured armour, great size and high attribute.... With my limited experience with combat in ToR I have to ask. How are the companions meant to dfeat these monsters in combat?
Like great orc with 4d, great size and Attribute Level 7.
Isn't it likely that this orc will make protection rolls forever and never go down? And that is if it is encountered alone....
Are there foes in this game that aren't meant to be defearable in combat, but has to be overcome in other ways or just avoided?
As I said, I am new to combat in this system.