Decency Fail

Well, I've joined the big leagues now, I guess: I banned a would-be advertiser from Suburban Jungle.

The website being advertised? A dating service specifically for people looking to have illicit affairs. Not just "swingers," mind you. But for people looking to cheat on their S.O.

I mean, honestly. When a company's key selling point is "we won't tell your wife/husband," you're getting into some seriously icky territory.

What a stupid world.

-The Gneech

Valkyrie is a Cheeky Wench

-The Gneech

Back to Minions!

Before switching over to Pathfinder, you may recall I was talking about 4E-style minions in 3.x. After a lot pfutzing around with various ideas, I finally settled on this as my working model, at least for Pathfinder:

To minionize a monster, they get 1/4 hp, their attack dice and damage bonuses are halved (any result less than 1 is treated as 1), their CR stays the same but their cost from the encounter budget is 1/4. Thus, to make a "minion" version of a standard PfRPG ogre, you get:

Ogre Minion (CR 3, XP 200)

CE Large humanoid (giant) minion
Init –1; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +2

---

AC 17, touch 8, flat-footed 17 (+4 armor, –1 Dex, +5 natural, –1 size)
hp 7 (4d8+12 / 4)
Fort +6, Ref +0, Will +3

---

Speed 30 ft. (40 ft. base)
Melee greatclub +7 (2d4+3)
Ranged javelin +1 (1d4+2)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.

---

Abilities Str 21, Dex 8, Con 15, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 7
Base Atk +3; CMB +9; CMD 18
Feats Iron Will, Toughness
Skills Climb +7, Perception +2
Languages Giant

Regarding things like spells or spell-like abilities, special attacks like rend or swallow whole, and so on, the same basic rules apply. Save DCs don't change, but damage or other effects are halved. 1d4+1 Con drain, for example, would become 1d2+1 Con drain. Draining 1 level would stay 1 level, but draining 2 levels would become 1 level, and so forth.

This works best with soldier- and brute-type critters, who tend to have very simple stat blocks and are there mostly to fight-fight-fight -- really that's what minions are about anyway. Making something like a dragon or a mind flayer into minion not only doesn't work real well mechanically, it just doesn't make much sense thematically either. You could use this technique to make some sort of "glass cannon" creature I suppose ... I remember Young Sherlock Holmes had a very nifty "stained glass golem" for instance. The only problem is that with the reduced damage it's more like a "glass pea-shooter."

Whattya think, sirs?

-The Gneech

In Other News...

Something Awful pilloried a book I worked on! And only one of my entries was a target. And mostly for the art, which I didn't do. Fun. :)

Nice to know I didn't suck as much as the rest of the team. ;P

-The Gneech

Yikes!

I just wrote up an encounter for the OMG Giants! game that gave myself the willies. Going by the numbers, the players should be able to handle it, but I admit I'll be behind the screen doing a little sweating on their behalf. Not just because the critters involved are tough, but because of the synergy their abilities create and a certain amount of "Oh poopie, where did THAT come from???" going on.

-The Gneech