First of all - amazing work on this, I think the community has been pining for a monster manual for a while now and it’s great to see someone taking on that challenge. (I’ve been away from the forums for a while so this post is completely new to me)
I’m curious about some of your stat choices though - now I’lll fully admit I don’t have a proper frame of reference because not only have I never played a high level campaign but I don’t have any experience with the official D&D rules either. That being said, why is it you’ve chosen to give creatures like dragons, which to my understanding are supposed to be the biggest baddest things you can encounter (besides gods and the like) hit-points near the 100 mark?
That seems quite low to me, I had my players fight a swordsman with 60HP last session, the idea that a dragon would only have 40 more HP than him seems pretty underwhelming to me. Not saying your stats are ‘wrong’ by any means, I’m genuinely wondering why you’ve made that decision - because maybe I’m being far too generous with my monsters and NPCs. (even though it feels like my PCs are cutting through them like butter)
I will say that a basic NPC, the highest amount of HP assigned to one would be 60 HP, and that’s if it was a level 20 NPC.
For a Boss NPC, the highest is 125 HP and that is for a level 20 Boss NPC (which actually is technically a level 80 NPC).
The thing with OL is that your Defense scores are a big part of a character b/c it is directly damage reduction on an attack. So that same Boss NPC has a Defense range of 26-31.
The other t hing is the ease and availability of healing in OL compared to other systems.
Part of the problem for you might be the way you are doing the encounter, it sounds like you had a lone swordsman against your PCs. That’s a huge action economy advantage to your players vs the NPC.
I tend to have more NPCs overall that are close to matching in number or quite a bit more in number than the PCs, albeit at a lower level.
Now I can’t say too much to the OP’s reasoning for their stats, but that’s what I can say about HP levels on “big” creatures.
Sometimes you have to be careful about copy monsters and stats over from another setting b/c mechanics are different, so the important thing is to capture the feel of the creature rather than exactly copy the abilities, stats, and HP.
All those numbers I got for HP and Defense, btw, was in Chapter 8: Running the Game part of the OL rules.
You’re dead right about the NPC in question (well, his level at least) - it was a level 20 NPC against a level 7 PC in a straight up duel. That being said - the duel was intended to be a friendly match and so the NPC wasn’t going all out.
I had specced him towards multi-attacking but gave him no magic whatsoever, he would take a single attack each turn and if the PC blocked or dodged then he would go in for a second strike so that he would at least draw blood with each round and keep the crowd entertained - but I had designed him to be able to take up to four attacks if he needed them.
The duel was interesting with the two character trading blows almost equally until the PC got a very good roll and took the NPC from 30HP to 5HP in a single attack. That’s when the NPC realised he needed to end the match as he had no way of healing, as luck would have it he also had some very good rolls and didn’t need anything more than the two strikes he had been using previously.
For context, this NPC was a Champion of a Dragonborn emperor - the final challenge of a larger tournament within the story, I don’t think the PC even expected to get that far in the contest.
That’s a bit of a tangeant I suppose but I thought I should give some context.
Anyway, I wrote up a huuuge post that no one will read so instead I’m going to try and just bullet point my concerns:
Unless a monster is known to be able to heal, it shouldn’t be able to do so (eg, a troll’s regeneration)
Healing effectively undoes the players progress and feels frustrating, whittling down a large pool of HP is less frustrating because your progress is consistently linear
Dragons, Krakens, Tarrasques - these creatures are ancient, unfathomable and powerful beyond belief. Fighting them should be like fighting titans and 125HP just doesn’t achieve that fantasy for me. These monsters take siege equipment to topple, what do you expect to do with that longsword?
I’m not saying they should have 550+HP like in the official rules but 200? Maybe 300? That feels more fitting for an ancient beast to me. I know the tables in Chapter 8 don’t go that high but these creatures should be exceptions.
As @Great_Moustache already mentioned, the point is to capture the “feel” of such powerful and often ancient creatures, rather than exact stats. Open Legend works quite differently than the 5th edition in both mechanics, builds, and character powers.
At the first glance, yes, 100 HP seems like not much, but if you pair it with:
Extremely high resistances
Notion that you DO NOT have advantage on the dice that you roll after the explosion
Boss Edge actions
Possible variant rules for the boss finale and a minimum of 3 hits to down a boss,
it becomes extremely, extremely deadly and, in my opinion, perfectly captures the feel of such an epic creature.
Also, just as a proof that I consider tactics are very important in every fight, here is an excerpt from the full Bestiary (currently in progress).
Running a kraken:
"If faced with an unchallenging fight, the kraken will take its time, slowly building terror within its victims while damaging the ship with a lightning storm and occassional bumps into its side. It will focus on the most vulnerable targets first; when sated, it will leave several survivors to spread the tale of its power…or die in the sea.
When faced with opponents able to kill it (perhaps make a Prescience roll to determine does the kraken know the exact strength of its enemies, but do note it is a highly intelligent creature and will be able to grasp their opponents’ strength within a round or two of combat), it dives underwater, attacking the most dangerous target with its lightning storm; not necessarily the most vulnerable one.
If that tactic fails, it turns to hit-and-run type of attack; it grabs one or more powerful opponents and dives underwater at full speed, thus dealing with one enemy at a time instead of an entire group.
The kraken flees to the safety of its lair if it’s brought to 50 hit points of fewer, preferring to swallow its pride rather than die. If chased there, it usually fights to the death to defend its home, using all of its powers against invaders. If brought to 20 hit points or fewer, the kraken goes to its lair (provided it’s safe) and enters a deep slumber that will last until it’s awakened again."
I think this is setting dependent, but even beyond that I don’t agree. Not agree is fine of course, different strokes for different folks.
“Healing” is a lose term, as damage and “hits” to HP aren’t really physical damage (though it can be). Their HP going up can just be them refocusing themselves for the battle before them (Presence heal). Narratively this can just be them taking in a deep breath and adjusting their footing as they seem to prepare themselves. The PCs don’t necessarily know that the creature/NPC is healing or that their HP is going up.
Healing coming from other NPCs (again, your example was a single foe) makes for more tactics and meaningful fights, b/c then the PCs can see who they need to target or disable so they don’t keep buffing and encouraging the other NPCs
Most of the players in my games recognize that they can heal, so they recognize the same can happen to an NPC
Now, I do agree that constant healing can have a negative impact, and it depends entirely on the situation as to whether I would have an NPC heal a lot. Also whether it was a more important fight, or just a simple one.
If this is actually true, then generally I don’t really give them stats. The PCs aren’t going to be able to touch them anyways, so its all narrative.
If you are going to give them stats and be beatable by the players, THEN, again, I have to say that HP is only 1 defense. You aren’t focusing on the right defenses, that of Guard, Toughness, Resolve, and Resistances (via boon or natural) that can be put on them.
You rolled a great 40~50? Against a normal foe that would have done a lot of damage, weakening them or out right knocking them out. Against THIS thing? Well a Guard of 30, and then a resistence to that forceful damage, you scratch their plated skin and aggrivated them slightly. That certainly makes them feel pretty epic and ancient and tough to me.
Then there is always the rule of common sense to come into play for certain things. A 50 foot x 50 foot creature, you aren’t going to be knocking it down with the Knockdown bane.
Naturally, you can give it more HP, or even, not give it any HP at all, and just record damage as it happens. Then decide that enough HP damage has been done, or that last epic attack that the player spent some extra legend points on and spent a round or 2 helping setup with the other in the party is the blow that finally fells the beast.
Was ecstatic when I found this thread to find some of my favorite monsters translated into OL.
I haven’t read the whole thing yet but one thing did jump out at me with regards to one of fav daemons
The Balors Death throes ability is… well.
"When the balor dies, it explodes, and each creature within 30 feet of it must make a DC 25 Agility check, taking 17 (5d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. "
Whats an ability check in OL?, Whats a DC?
This is probably just oversight, just posting here to let you know. Keep up the great work, im looking forward to the rest of the bestiary very much/
Definitely an oversight, and one that’s been fixed in the full version (playtest coming in 3 months or so); I thought it was fixed here too.
I’ll fix that oversight sometime today.
Will be making use of your T-Rex in tonight’s session - just wanted to point out that I think there’s a typo in its stat block.
The primary attributes are listed as 7 (2d10) but under ‘favoured actions’ the dice is listed as 2d8 - sorry if this has been pointed out already but I know stuff like this is easy to miss.
Awesome work on this so far, can’t wait to take one of your creatures for a test drive
