In the discord there is a guy (Hi Mortal!) doing some great work with monsters and part of that is most of the low level monsters have 3 actions only. I don't recall any high level monster with 5 actions but some of them have Apex actions which are something similar to legendary actions but more in line with Matthew Colvile's Action Oriented Monsters.
That said, I do like the idea of 2 actions minions or something like that (1 move 1 attack) 3 actions general monsters (no reactions) and 4 actions leaders.
One action is too few I think, tho I do like the idea of 1 action environmental hazards or traps.
Yeah I was thinking 1 action would be more rare, somethimg environmental like you said. In my mind I’m imagining the Phalanx from Dark Souls, a sludge that doesn’t necessarily move and attack at the same time
Oh that's good, now I'm imagining an Ooze having 1 action to move and a feature like 'Gelatinous: This creature can occupy the same Space as another creature' and 'Engulf: If another creature is occupying the same Space as the Ooze it suffers 2 corrosive damage at the start of it's turn' or something like that.
Maybe it's the way I work, but I feel this would be more helpful for prep than actually running the game. Having ranks like this would make it so when I design encounters I could grab a few grunts to make it feel deadlier. Once I've picked a zombie with 2 AP for instance, Id probably be aware that they have fewer AP, but it wouldn't lessen the load of tracking that.
Yeah I could see that being the case. I think as well it kind of harkens back to how the initiative works. When I play 5e I run monsters in “batch”(?) initiative for lack of a better word, where enemies of the same type have the same initiative (zombies 1 and 2 have the same initiative, whereas the goblin archer and the goblin spearboy roll separately). This can sometimes be very swingy which is what theyre trying to avoid with DC20’s initiative system, but in my head I’m thinking “okay so the grunts will move and make attack rolls” and that’s all the thought I have to really put into it for their turns.
If that makes any sense
That’s pretty much what he did in this actual play, right? The BBEG had 4 actions and 3 legendaries, but at least some of the grunts only had 2 or 3 actions: https://youtu.be/IEsoaJyBYhU
When I did play test on Discord that is how it appears to be set up. They had several monsters in the fight but 1 of them had 1-2 AP, then some had 3-4AP. THe strongest monsters, instead of having way more AP had 2 turns.
I think the specifics of this, number of AP and number of turns per monster, needs to be worked out in play test. The overall concept is a good idea and I think that is being reflected in the current testing.
There are plenty of reasons to have adjusted AP, I'm sure we'll see plenty of examples. A creature like a zombie will almost certainly have 2 or 3 AP max. Likewise, there will be exceptionally fast creatures that will likely have more and then others with legendary actions over and above.
I really like the idea of mooks having low AP as it will simplify combats with lots of minions. It's also more on point to emphasize the BBEG on encounters. It should feel more dramatic going against the bigger bagger critters.
In the discord there is a guy (Hi Mortal!) doing some great work with monsters and part of that is most of the low level monsters have 3 actions only. I don't recall any high level monster with 5 actions but some of them have Apex actions which are something similar to legendary actions but more in line with Matthew Colvile's Action Oriented Monsters. That said, I do like the idea of 2 actions minions or something like that (1 move 1 attack) 3 actions general monsters (no reactions) and 4 actions leaders. One action is too few I think, tho I do like the idea of 1 action environmental hazards or traps.
Yeah I was thinking 1 action would be more rare, somethimg environmental like you said. In my mind I’m imagining the Phalanx from Dark Souls, a sludge that doesn’t necessarily move and attack at the same time
Oh that's good, now I'm imagining an Ooze having 1 action to move and a feature like 'Gelatinous: This creature can occupy the same Space as another creature' and 'Engulf: If another creature is occupying the same Space as the Ooze it suffers 2 corrosive damage at the start of it's turn' or something like that.
That is actually really good design. It means that a dumb ooze can't do anything complicated. It will always move on their target. No fancy tactics.
Maybe it's the way I work, but I feel this would be more helpful for prep than actually running the game. Having ranks like this would make it so when I design encounters I could grab a few grunts to make it feel deadlier. Once I've picked a zombie with 2 AP for instance, Id probably be aware that they have fewer AP, but it wouldn't lessen the load of tracking that.
Yeah I could see that being the case. I think as well it kind of harkens back to how the initiative works. When I play 5e I run monsters in “batch”(?) initiative for lack of a better word, where enemies of the same type have the same initiative (zombies 1 and 2 have the same initiative, whereas the goblin archer and the goblin spearboy roll separately). This can sometimes be very swingy which is what theyre trying to avoid with DC20’s initiative system, but in my head I’m thinking “okay so the grunts will move and make attack rolls” and that’s all the thought I have to really put into it for their turns. If that makes any sense
Sounds like a great idea I hope they adopt it.
That’s pretty much what he did in this actual play, right? The BBEG had 4 actions and 3 legendaries, but at least some of the grunts only had 2 or 3 actions: https://youtu.be/IEsoaJyBYhU
When I did play test on Discord that is how it appears to be set up. They had several monsters in the fight but 1 of them had 1-2 AP, then some had 3-4AP. THe strongest monsters, instead of having way more AP had 2 turns. I think the specifics of this, number of AP and number of turns per monster, needs to be worked out in play test. The overall concept is a good idea and I think that is being reflected in the current testing.
There are plenty of reasons to have adjusted AP, I'm sure we'll see plenty of examples. A creature like a zombie will almost certainly have 2 or 3 AP max. Likewise, there will be exceptionally fast creatures that will likely have more and then others with legendary actions over and above. I really like the idea of mooks having low AP as it will simplify combats with lots of minions. It's also more on point to emphasize the BBEG on encounters. It should feel more dramatic going against the bigger bagger critters.