Last time I gave a bunch of rules for Shell Creatures, which had a bunch of mechanics to mirror the Stagger system of Final Fantasy 13. It was a bit complicated, which in my defense was because I was trying to mimic something from a Final Fantasy game.
A few comments and a playtest or two later I realized the extra complication wasn’t worth it when there was a simpler solution. So, only out for two weeks, I’m going to errata Shell Creatures. Top that, Wizards of the Coast.
-When summoned, a shell creature has hit points equal to the max of its summoner.
-There is no scaling vulnerability when a shell creature is attacked or a PC takes an action, nor does it lower its vulnerability at the beginning of its turn.
-A summoner can use powers with the enshelled keyword only after it has summoned a shell creature and the shell creature is above 0 hit points.
-A shelled creature can be bloodied, and be affected by any power that triggers off this property.
This removes all the bookkeeping, essentially giving the summoner temporary hit points equal to its starting hit point value, although they are temporary hit points that can be bloodied.
Now, I can see you out there asking you why you’d want to make a monster twice as tough as it normally is, given the trend of DMs, and in the Monster Manual 3 world, Wizards of the Coast, to lower monster hit points. Well, let’s take a look at a sample monster that summons a shell creature to answer that.
Da’Nis Culp is a human geomancer, channeling the raw fury of the ground to both harry his enemies and to shield him from harm. He’s got an evil plan to save the world, you understand. In game terms, he starts off as an elite artillery creature, using the Steam Fissure power to open the earth to both harm and to prevent foes from reaching him, then flinging bolts of magma as his foes are stimied. When the enemies break through his line, or if the enemy’s ranged offense is too much, he summons granite and stone from the ground and fuses it to his body. In game terms, he summons a shell creature of granite armor.
While the shell creature is alive, he can use powers with the enshelled keyword. These powers are strong, brute-like melee attacks, bring the full might of the planet’s core to his enemies.
The first interesting thing to note is that while listed as an elite, he has the hit points of a standard artillery creature. The remainder of the hit points are represented in the shell creature. An elite who summons a shell creature should have the hit points of a like-leveled standard creature, and a solo who summons a shell creature should have the hit points of a like-leveled elite creature.
I had mentioned earlier one of the reasons to use shell creatures was to give the combat more mechanical stages beyond the bloodied/not bloodied stages that pace 4e battles. By splitting the hit points of an elite into the creature and its shell, you give yourself, as a DM, the ability to make the battlefield more fluid and dynamic.
Imagine the looks on your player’s face when the robe wearing guy in the back of the combat all of a sudden magically wields slabs of solid stone to his body and fists, and comes charging right at your fighter, like Da’Nis here. Or what the demon possessing shaman takes control, so instead of firing lightning from his fingers it’s necrotic bolts. The obvious use for shell creatures is to change monster roles on the fly, like with Da’Nis, but moving parallel in a role, or buffing their existing abilities while the shell creature all provide ways to keep combat exciting for your players as well as trying new things.
So that’s it for Shell Creatures at the moment. I’d be curious to hear feedback if anyone uses something like this in their games, so feel free to comment below.
Mike Hasko .-._. psychopez
While I appreciate what you’re trying to do with this mechanic, it seems to me that instead of an entire subset of rules, you could give the monster a stance-like power which grants a chunk of temporary hit points and/or a defense boost or damage resistance, name the power to match your desired in-game “look”, and then give your “enshelled” powers the text: “Only usable when [stance power] is active.”
It’s a simpler way of handling the issue rules-wise. You can describe the in-game effect any way you like.
The problem with a stance is trying to limit when it ends. Most stances have an ‘lasts until end of encounter’ text. The design of this is to tie the powers to a certain hp range, so while I could say “This stance ends after taking 68 hps”, there is another way that exists in game where hp are limited, lifespan of a creature.
Also, since we are taking the hit point budget of a creature and shifting it around, using a stance will reduce the time a creature is bloodied from 50% of the time to 25% of the time. There are enough powers that trigger off creatures being bloodied that I don’t want to nerf it. With the shell creature, it is a creature, and it is bloodied, so instead of a 50/50 bloodied/unbloodied, we have 25/25/25/25.
Another advantage to shell creatures over a stance is keeping controllers involved when there is just one big bad left. Since there are technically 2 creatures in that space, a burst or blast power could doubly hit the shell creature, one for targeting the summoner and one for the shell creature itself. If you take a solo, split its hp in half so a solo can summon a shell creature, now the controller has a valid reason to use blast and burst powers. (This is in no way because my invoker has been fighting solo after solo in a campaign I’m in…)