Grayscale Sword & Sorcery
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Monsters
Monsters are a staple of classic fantasy fiction. They reinforce the idea that the setting is dangerous and test the strength of heroes who oppose them. Large monsters are often physically superior to humanoids and require teamwork to bring down. Normal monsters use the statistics found in the bestiary. They are intended to present a challenge and take the given amount of damage to kill. Monsters are broken into the following categories:
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Beasts are non-magical animals. While most are drawn from real life, animals from other worlds also qualify. Primordial forces sometimes cause them to grow huge, creating dire animals.
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Celestials originate from the higher planes. They are benevolent, honest, and progressive. Most celestials have powers related to whatever virtues they embody. As celestials grow in power they develop a stronger sense of self-identity.
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Chimerics are magical mutants blending the characteristics of multiple animals. Some breeds can reproduce but are also created when folkloric conditions are met. Such phenomena are a major source of monsters in the world.
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Draconids can trace their origins back to dragon kind. While true dragons are rare, degenerate breeds have higher fertility. All draconids are tough, and some possess magical abilities adapted to their native environment.
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Fey originate from the plane of Faerie. They possess supernatural abilities, powerful emotions, and require both food and emotional energy to survive. Evil fey feed on negative emotions and seek to inspire such feelings in their victims.
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Fiends originate from the lower planes (demons, devils, etc). As manifestations of evil, they are selfish, manipulative, and highly destructive. Most possess supernatural abilities related to the vices they embody. As fiends grow in power they develop a stronger sense of self-identity.
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Giants are massive humanoids with Titan ancestry. While true titans are rare, their degenerate mortal offshoots have greater fertility. All giants are tough, and their primordial ancestry grants them magical traits adapted to their native environment.
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Humanoids are the most populous civilized creatures in the cosmos. There are dozens of races out there, but in most fantasy settings only a handful dominate.
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Qlippoth are aliens from beyond the scope of the known planes. Most are predatory and possess psychic powers. The more stable breeds are called “Servitor Races” because they were created by godlike entities known as “Old Ones” to do their unfathomable bidding.
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Plants are monstrous flora and fungi originating from the realm of Faerie. Most possess limited intellect and are independent, though certain breeds serve the fey. Like chimerics, some form spontaneously when folkloric conditions are met.
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Spirits are natives of the astral, ethereal, or elemental planes. They draw their essence from natural creatures or forces and are organized into broods with complex hierarchies. As spirits grow in power they develop a stronger sense of self-identity and innate knowledge of all matters concerning whatever they represent.
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Undead creatures are trapped in a state of continued animation after death. Primordial entropy influences the cosmos through them, eroding their surroundings over time and making them prone to acts of destruction. As undead grow in power they develop a stronger sense of self-identity.
Hordes
Bosses
Minions
Some opponents are designated as minions to reinforce the dynamic that one blow should be sufficient to kill certain types of creatures. A minion can be defeated by any earnest attack. An earnest attack is one that would be lethal under normal circumstances; a successful blow from a sword, a blast of magical energy, a well-shot arrow, being thrown off a balcony, etc. The minion mechanic is intended to speed combat and allow a party to face weak enemies without unnecessary health tracking. Minions are expected to die easily, but there remains a chance they can land a lucky hit and damage a party member. The rules for bounded health and combat chaos favor minions by restricting the punishment characters can take and increasing the odds of a successful hit regardless of defense.
A boss is a powerful opponent that must be defeated to accomplish a plot objective or obtain a specific reward. In addition to better statistics, every boss can take multiple reactions and has a set of special abilities that can be used as reactions. This allows a boss to mitigate incoming damage, dish out punishment, and counter disabling effects the party might use to trivialize the threat it poses. To prevent a boss from being mobbed and killed too easily, add minions and/or environmental threats to the combat. Characters must use their actions to address these threats instead of simply piling damage onto the boss.
When minions are insufficient to speed combat against large numbers of opponents, groups can be treated as a horde. The health of a horde is tracked collectively, representing the idea that enemies are grouped close enough that multiple individuals could be harmed with one swing. A horde is identical to the base creature type with several exceptions;
It has more health.
It takes triple damage from area attacks.
It is immune to single-target powers and abilities.
It has an infinite number of reactions.
It can use a reaction to make a single attack against a character who takes a standard action.
The overall effect of these rules is that after each character takes a turn on their initiative, they are immediately attacked once. So unless they gain surprise, it is impossible for a high initiative party to overwhelm and wipe out a horde before it can retaliate. Being attacked continuously (being mobbed) is extremely dangerous, so hordes are something to be avoided. If a horde must be fought, destroying it as fast as possible using area attacks is vital. It is also possible to minimize the exposure of certain party members by fighting in doorways, surrounding vulnerable spellcasters, etc. Your narrator has the final say on which tactics are feasible.
Kaiju
Some creatures are simply too large to fight conventionally. If a creature is listed as a Kaiju, it means that players cannot physically challenge it in melee. Such monsters are treated as plot devices rather than opponents. The narrator is REQUIRED to inform players when they are facing a Kaiju. It should be obvious that they cannot defeat such a monster head-on, and any attempt to provide physical statistics for these opponents runs the risk of players figuring out a rule exploit to kill them. This defeats their plot function, so they are not provided. Mind effects may work on a Kaiju at the narrator's discretion. Still, because saving throws are influenced by the strength of a creature's life force it is also justifiable to claim that a Kaiju is spiritually too strong to affect with standard mind magic. Killing a Kaiju should be done narratively by extraordinary means: ramming it with a ship, burying it in a landslide, collapsing a bridge to dump it into a chasm, a mountain of black powder barrels, hundreds of crossbowmen, etc. The heroism of the party should rest in cleverly arranging these things, not in rolling combat dice.
Monster Puffery
Monster puffery is a gaming sin.
Speed and ease of use are paramount when running a tabletop RPG. As soon as the narrator sits down and starts telling a story, every available information resource should be as easy to access as possible. This is what gaming screens and dice jars are for. Computers make this somewhat easier, but what about monster stats? What about groups of different monsters? Combat needs to be fast and interesting. It needs to flow gracefully, without pauses or confusion.
This creates a conflict of interest between publishers and gamers. Publishers want complex stat blocks with big impressive illustrations because they take up lots of space. Big books are easy to bind and give the impression of value, so more can be charged for them. But once the wow factor of seeing a cool monster and reading an essay on its culture and mating habits wears off, narrators are left fumbling to use them in an actual game. There is no ease of reference for the gaming table, where it matters the most.
There is no perfect answer to this problem, short of sitting down and playing a video game where monster statistics are all calculated seamlessly by a machine in real-time. But some things can be done to condense statistics and make them easier to read. In simple terms, the more you can fit in front of your eyes as a narrator the less you will stumble when running combat.
In GSS this is accomplished by converting monster stats into line items and using abbreviations to keep things compact. This requires learning what the abbreviations mean. Doing so may seem like a bother, but once you build a mental lexicon of all the acronyms it saves a ton of time and energy. So it is an effort worth making. Here are the big ones:
INIT = initiative modifier
HP = health points
SPD = speed
DEF = defense
SOK = soak
ALR = alertness
MOR = morale
F/R/W = bonuses for Fortitude, Reflex, and Will saves shown as A/B/C
STAT = bonuses (not values) for Might, Agility, Endurance, Spirit, Charisma
IQ = intelligence tier (1-5)
ATT = hit bonus and damage for each type of attack
Every creature has a set of special abilities or traits. Some are supernatural, while others are purely physical. Listing these for every single creature is a huge waste of space, and some abilities work the same way for multiple creatures. So GSS keeps a master list of special traits and what they do in table form. As you reference this table you will begin to memorize what the different traits do and need it less and less.
Monster Intelligence
Monster intelligence can be broken down into five basic categories.
Unintelligent [T1]. The monster has no guile. If it is violent the creature moves to attack as soon as it becomes aware of potential victims, fighting to the death or until its morale fails. Some of these monsters have the instinct to lay in wait and ambush prey from hiding, but generally they attack the nearest target.
Animal Intelligence [T2]. The monster understands the area well enough to identify ambush points and paths of escape and uses these to its advantage. It can gauge strength in a simple way and avoids confronting victims if it doesn’t think it can win.
Humanoid Intelligence [T3]. The monster has the capacity to understand language. It can plan for the future and alter the terrain to its advantage. It can also gauge strength and identify who in a group appears most vulnerable. Creatures with this level of intelligence can stage distractions or attempt to lure their prey into dangerous environments to even the odds.
Advanced Intelligence [T4]. The monster has the foresight to alter its environment in sophisticated ways. It keeps multiple plans in mind to deal with different types of threats and can gauge strength and vulnerability well. Monsters with this level of intelligence are able to set traps and lures proficiently, and rarely engage opponents without multiple advantages.
Dangerous Intelligence [T5]. This is the worst type of intelligence a monster can have. It understands the dynamics of adventurers and what the different classes are capable of, taking advanced steps to counter or neutralize them before they can use their abilities to good effect. The monster also understands humanoid psychology and terror tactics. It can plan multiple steps ahead by predicting how its enemies will react to various stimuli and has extremely sophisticated problem-solving abilities.
Monster Heuristics
Heuristics are guidelines that can be used to solve a problem pretty well most of the time. They are policies that allow large groups of people to quickly do the “right thing” in situations where they cannot afford to go running to a manager or look up a rule. Unless a monster has strange or unique abilities requiring a lot of explanation (undesirable), this block of information and a basic description of the creature is enough to work.
Size Matters
Oversized monsters hold a tremendous advantage when attacking smaller humanoids. They are significantly heavier and more massive, particularly if they move on four legs instead of two. Animals this big normally kill their prey by knocking them prone and mauling them to death. Monsters of size large or greater can use the maneuvers listed below against smaller opponents. These rules add an element of realism and terror that would otherwise be lacking if the creature traded blows like a smaller opponent. They also emphasize the value of polearms, missiles, and spells when fighting huge beasts.
Tackle (standard)
The monster makes a single attack roll this round. If successful it deals damage and forces the target to make an athletics or acrobatics check with disadvantage against its maneuver DC. Failure incurs the attacker's MIGHT bonus +1d12 crushing damage per size category of difference, and the target is knocked prone. This maneuver provokes an attack of opportunity, and the monster counts as charging for purposes of polearm damage.
Overrun (standard)
The monster dashes in a straight line. All in its path must roll athletics or acrobatics with advantage against the monster's maneuver DC, beginning with the closest target. Failure incurs the attackers MIGHT bonus +1d8 crushing damage per size category of difference, and the target is knocked aside. A defender may instead elect to accept this damage and make an athletics check with disadvantage to stop the monster's charge. Overrunning provokes an attack of opportunity from every creature struck, but only AFTER each roll is made and damage is done. If the defender has a polearm, the attack is made BEFORE these rolls.
Trample (bonus)
The monster attacks a prone target as a bonus action, dealing its MIGHT bonus +1d10 crushing damage per size category of difference. This may be done as part of a move action while passing through a space occupied by a smaller prone enemy. This does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
It is a common tactic for large monsters to tackle a target and use trample as a bonus action in the same turn. Narratively this can be described as a big creature knocking a smaller target prone and then mauling it. This one-two punch can deal a lot of damage if successful.
Crush (move+bonus)
The monster leaps onto a creature 2+ size categories smaller than itself. Only huge (5’ radius, 1 target max), gargantuan (10’ radius, 2 targets max), or colossal (15’ radius, 3 targets max) creatures can do this to a small or medium humanoid. Targets must make an athletics or acrobatics check against the monster’s maneuver DC. Those that fail suffer the attacker's MIGHT bonus plus 1d10 crushing damage per size category of difference. The target is also knocked prone and pinned. The monster does NOT count as grappled.
Each round a pinned target suffers the attacker’s MIGHT bonus +1d6 crushing damage per size category of difference on their turn. A pinned creature can roll athletics against the monster's maneuver difficulty to escape on its turn. If successful, it takes no damage that turn. If the monster moves away, the pinned creature is also released. This maneuver provokes an attack of opportunity from the defender(s). If a braced polearm is used, it lands a critical hit dealing triple damage.
Fling (standard)
The monster makes an attack roll to grab and fling a target 2+ size categories smaller a # of feet equal to its MIGHT static +1d10 per size category of difference. The target suffers the attacker's MIGHT bonus +1d6 points of crushing damage per 10 feet thrown. If the monster hurls its opponent at another creature, it makes a ranged-throwing attack. On a successful hit, both the target and the creature take this damage and are knocked prone.
AUTHORS NOTE. These maneuvers are very dangerous, and players should be made aware that large monsters can perform them. Because many of these maneuvers may only be resisted by athletics or acrobatics, non-martial characters are at increased risk.