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Author
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Comment
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Ordos1
Here for a while
(3/9/03 7:18 am)
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Huge Howler, too powerful?
Hi,
I was wondering if the revised stats for the Huge Howler (as posted on this Message Board) are correct? It seems that a 4d6+9 damage (with power attack and +19 on BAB) seems a BIT too powerful for the 6th room of the CRM?
I think this thing is INFINITELY more powerful than the Big U since it will just tear through anyone in a matter of seconds and it almost gets no attention.
I know as a DM i have the option of changing the stats, but i was just wondering how this went down when your players encountered it? Also, i don't want to change the stats if this is REALLY what Monte intended for this thing to be 
Thanks
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Cordo Crowfoot
Here for a while
(3/9/03 8:30 am)
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Re: Huge Howler, too powerful?
Killed two players in my campaign. It's a very good question whether Monte would have included it had he realized the stats of the beast properly advanced. I have wondered that myself.
I think its a call you have to make. I felt I was fair to my players as I really emphasized the massively powerful jaws and the size of the beast (when they were scouting invisibly) and one player was mart enough to pick up on it and highly recommend against the Rogue's course of action of sneak attacking it while invisible (which got him killed).
"They were immediately and absolutely recognizable as adventurers. They were hardy and dangerous, lawless, stripped of allegiance or morality, living off their wits, stealing and killing, hiring themselves out to whoever and whatever came... They were scum who died violent deaths, hanging on to a certain cachet among the impressionable through their undeniable bravery and their occasionally impressive exploits" China Mieville, Perdido Street Station |
The guy from Belgium
Here for a while
(3/9/03 2:23 pm)
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Re: Huge Howler, too powerful?
theoretically, it killed one of my chars, but as a dm, i cut him some slack (i critted on the bite attack... 4d6+9 * 2 was a bit over the top... 50+damage...)
it is very powerful when engaged in melee... it's defenseless when properly handled... fireball it while it's chained to the wall...
so it is powerful, especially when assisted by mereclar and the other bad boy (ogre)
your call, i played it in the advanced version and it would have killed one player for sure, and with him down, probably another afterwards...
you could play it in the advanced version, and when you find it too powerful (like when it's about to kill a player which you dont want it to kill, cheat with the dice and state that it misses or reduce the damage it dealt)
tough "little" critter!
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madfox
Still here? Wow.
(3/10/03 2:05 am)
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Re: Huge Howler, too powerful?
The howler did not kill any PCs in my game, though I did give the PCs some slack in getting away from it. When they first saw it, I described it as looking very dangerous. After all, it has the size of an elephant. So in my game the PCs immidiately fled into an area where the howler could not reach them to fight the lower level mooks there. It served as a great warning that the adventure is dangerous for people if they do not flee now and then.
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Elisyum
Here for a while
(3/10/03 8:30 am)
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elephant?
Is it really the size of an elephant? I knew it was a bit oversized but I didn't think it was that exaggerated. I don't have the book right with me, otherwise I would not ask.
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madfox
Still here? Wow.
(3/10/03 8:39 am)
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Re: elephant?
It is huge, which an elephant is as well. Of course, there is a rather huge increment between the smallest huge creature and the biggest huge creature.
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Tribal28
Here for a while
(3/10/03 12:31 pm)
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Re: elephant?
I felt the same way about the Howler. I checked out the errata and shook my head a bit. Then did a conversion myself and came out with the same info. I changed things up alot after that.
I advanced it but kept it Large size (5X10). I also decided that Meric wouldn't be riding it since he didn't have any ranks in ride anyway. I checked out other CR 5 creatures to compair it against and tried to model it after them. I upped its hit dice to 10d8 (although in the Monster Manuel it skips that rank altogether 9 is large and 11 is huge....) and gave it 80 hp, kept it as large, gave it 4 points of Str, no dex penalty, 2 points of Con and 1 extra point of natural AC. That right there was enough to pump up its abilities to about where many other CR 5 creatures are (I may be missing out on a few adjustments I made)
I may have made it to week, however. It nearly killed the druid's advanced Ape (who also has special armor to boost its AC a bit) but it didn't do anything else besides provide some cover. Maybe not as my group is fairly powerful (2 6th level & 2 5th level) and they were prepaired for the battle since they had bluffed their way past this group before.
Tribal
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maddman75 
Here for a while
(3/11/03 11:21 am)
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Re: elephant?
I used the improved Howler. It is IMHO too powerful. In my group, it killed one player outright and nearly dropped another. They didn't even defeat it - they hid in side tunnels and killed of Mereclar when he got off it to 'deal with them personally'. They stayed into the tunnels until the thing wandered off into the Lortmils.
If I were to run the module again, I wouldn't use the modified stats.
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"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." -- Buddha
"Nothing's a cliche when it's happening to you." -- Max Payne |
Boden Blagden
Here for a while
(3/11/03 11:32 am)
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Re: elephant?
My group took out the Huge Howler like it was practically nothing. It does however pack a good punch and tkaes a lot of hps away in one hit, but before it even really got to do a full attack it was hit with a scintilating sphere that did pretty good damage to it. And then the PCs did hit and run tactics.
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