4e Godzilla on the website

[Khisanth the Ancient]

Cool!

The atomic damage rules are interesting too.


Why do all the extra effects for Mega size affect <30 level characters, not <20? While Godzilla is Level 35, it seems like Level 31-32 Mega creatures should be viable foes for high Epic Tier characters.


A nitpick:

The term Megasaurs can be taken as refering to any creature larger than Titanic size (also known as Colossal+).

Presumably this should say 'any creature Mega size or larger' or 'larger than Gargantuan'.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

Cool!

To be honest I am not happy with it, I may revisit it after the Vampire Bestiary. Expect a far more interesting Godzilla after the Vampire Bestiary.

The atomic damage rules are interesting too.

I hope I explained them right? Its Vulnerability as an energy type (in a nutshell).

I initially (a few months ago) had it something ridiculous like: Fire, Force, Poison, Radiant, Thunder...but t just started looking silly. So I did some moving around with powers and gave him the Atomic energy source. I sort of already had this created (before I did the Godzilla 4E stats) but I wasn't sure at the time if I was going to use that mechanic for a different power source.

Why do all the extra effects for Mega size affect <30 level characters, not <20? While Godzilla is Level 35, it seems like Level 31-32 Mega creatures should be viable foes for high Epic Tier characters.

I should point out that those are not my mega size rules, I just got carried away going off at a tangent. I was just curious to see what they looked like typed up.

I don't really like the whole if you are 'x' level you are automatically dead type caper, although its weird to note a Level 1 PC could possibly survive being trod on by Godzilla. So it may be an unnecessary evil.

I have tested some different methods of making Mega creatures more powerful, flat bonuses, multipliers, cut off levels and so forth. So far the best method (which I haven't mentioned*) is the one that will be in the Vampire Bestiary.

*

So I basically know how I am handling attacks for mega monsters, I'm still sort of mulling over a few defensive options.

One idea that probably will hold is that Mega size monsters are immune to status effects from non-mega size opponents. The way I really want to handle this is with seperate Health bars for different parts of the monster. Think of this as a Primary and Secondary Hit Point Totals. Primary counts towards slaying the monster, while you can attack the secondary to induce a status effect or cause the creature to lose an attack.

ie. Attack Godzilla's legs to immobilize it and stop him using stomp attacks.

A nitpick:

Presumably this should say 'any creature Mega size or larger' or 'larger than Gargantuan'.

Indeed. A little bit of copy-pasting there.

 

[Khisanth the Ancient]

I hope I explained them right? Its Vulnerability as an energy type (in a nutshell).

Makes sense.

A simple nuke *could* be Radiant (radiation), Thunder (sonic, i.e. overpressure), and Fire (heat) ... but this is somewhat simpler.

I have tested some different methods of making Mega creatures more powerful, flat bonuses, multipliers, cut off levels and so forth.

To play devil's advocate: why does there need to be one? Why does a Mega creature need to be any more mechanically different from a Gargantuan creature than a Gargantuan creature is from a Small creature?

Mechanics for fighting *on* monsters (as terrain), weak spots (your attacking Godzilla's legs idea), etc. sound *awesome* - but as for straightforward powerups (the +damage against sub level 30) ... why should Level 35 Solo Godzilla be any more of a threat than a Level 35 Solo demon that's Medium?

 

[Raithe the Dreamer]

Mechanics for fighting *on* monsters (as terrain), weak spots (your attacking Godzilla's legs idea), etc. sound *awesome* - but as for straightforward powerups (the +damage against sub level 30) ... why should Level 35 Solo Godzilla be any more of a threat than a Level 35 Solo demon that's Medium?

From what I understand about 4E's basic design principles, it shouldn't be any more of a threat, unless U_K intends the Mega tag to be another tier above "Elite" or something, but that might get a bit strange.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

Makes sense.

A simple nuke *could* be Radiant (radiation), Thunder (sonic, i.e. overpressure), and Fire (heat) ... but this is somewhat simpler.

Exactly, there are too many aspects to atomic power to break it down and still keep it simple enough to be used at pace in a game.

To play devil's advocate: why does there need to be one? Why does a Mega creature need to be any more mechanically different from a Gargantuan creature than a Gargantuan creature is from a Small creature?

Mechanics for fighting *on* monsters (as terrain), weak spots (your attacking Godzilla's legs idea), etc. sound *awesome* - but as for straightforward powerups (the +damage against sub level 30) ... why should Level 35 Solo Godzilla be any more of a threat than a Level 35 Solo demon that's Medium?

Its a very good question. Let me repeat that the sub level 30 damage feature, or whatever, almost certainly won't appear in the Mega size rules in the Vampire Bestiary.

But as to the point of 'why' such monsters need mechanically different attacks and defenses. I think first and foremost because they are a waste of time if they are not notably different. The difference between something 30 feet tall and something 300 feet tall or 30,000 feet tall or 30,000,000 feet tall must be something other than pure Level, otherwise those sizes make no sense. Metatron is meant to be as tall and wide as a planet. But if battling him just 'feels' the same as if he was 30 feet tall, then whats the point?

Secondly, from a lot of what I've been reading, epic players of 4E are saying that monster damage isn't high enough and epic characters have so much synergy and 'outs' (healing, epic destiny revival and so forth) that they need tougher challenges to compensate. Now this is partly because WotC aren't following their own rules...especially with regards limited damage capacity. But examining a lot of basic mega-monsters, they can be fairly 'vanilla' in terms of attacks. Which means a lot of their attacks are generally straightforward damage. So the question is how can we make a mega-monster feel different, without unbalancing the game.

Godzilla stepping on you should deal more damage than a storm giant stepping on you, but mechanically the difference is probably going to be about 10 damage. That just seems unsatisfactory to me. So I have sort of thought of a way around it without breaking the rules.