Comments on: King of the Monsters 3 Finalist: Karguth, the Hill That Eats

By: ObsidianCrane

ObsidianCrane — Wed, 30 May 2012 09:41:17 +0000

@DoomedPaladin – on the punctuation – this is why I learnt to love editors. I’m great at ideas, but my writing is only average at best.

By: ObsidianCrane

ObsidianCrane — Wed, 30 May 2012 09:39:30 +0000

Of all things this guy was inspired by driving through hills on a 13 hour drive.

The only thing he is missing is rules for standing on him and fighting him! (But word count…)

By: Doomedpaladin

Doomedpaladin — Wed, 30 May 2012 03:26:21 +0000

I also like the idea of a hill just moving along the ground eating people, like a cat under a blanket. This is a very evocative monster however. I imagine it would horrify my group. Some of the description seems to run together though. Could have used a little more punctuation.

By: Nic Quimbys

Nic Quimbys — Wed, 30 May 2012 01:26:06 +0000

@Darkjoy: some feel that 4e monsters in general have too many hitpoints, especially ones from the earlier Monster Manuals. Also, some groups can deal way more damage than others (even if they all have 1 leader, 1 controller, 1 striker and 1 defender. Party variance gets crazy if you throw that out)

I’m no judge of balance or tactics at epic tier, but I can tell you that this dude feels epic enough to be there. I actually didn’t picture him having feet until you mentioned his footsteps; personally, I think it’s more fun to imagine him as a literal hill, rumbling across the earth’s surface and eating people.

By: Alphastream

Alphastream — Tue, 29 May 2012 15:53:17 +0000

Love the monster! Great offensive powers. The death save bit is fantastic.

As for HPs, it is within the guidelines given it is a brute (a lev 23 normal brute has 257 HPs, so 4 of them would be 1028 HPs and 5 would be 1285). I don’t think it will be a grind with this monster, nor that it will be a problem for most parties. There are some crazy ways to hurt solos at high levels, so in some ways it means this can withstand 1-2 rounds of the incredible cheese PCs throw at it, then come back into the fight and still have enough resilience to last a few more rounds.

An interesting aspect is that this monster, befitting its nature, cannot really escape the PCs’ control easily (it lacks teleport, burrow, etc.). I like how the aura and other aspects make up for that. Very nice monster.

By: Darkjoy

Darkjoy — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:08:35 +0000

I bow to your experience, we never hit with our daily’s so every encounter became an at-will grind. And 1d10+x coupled with 1040 means several rounds.

By: Brian Liberge

Brian Liberge — Tue, 29 May 2012 12:12:05 +0000

We went all the way to 30. At early epic, 1040 hitpoints won’t slow the party down. The resistances might help a little, but I’d doubt this fight would last multiple sessions.

By: Darkjoy

Darkjoy — Tue, 29 May 2012 11:55:42 +0000

Well…

It is BIG

It will be memorable, because 1040 hitpoints just don’t disappear in one round. We never went beyond the 10s in 4e but this looks like a multi session grind.

Good luck with you monster!