Monsters: The Motion Picture In 3D (MM2 Reviews Part 8)

The above is an anime rendition of a transforming owl, a real life monster much like you’d find in the Monster Manual 2. However, killing one won’t get you XP. Just a huge fine and wicked stares from everyone you know, as well as a mark on your criminal record, and in most states it might even take away your voting rights. Kids, being an adventurer sucks. Don’t go around attacking endangered species. Value life, or at least, value pre-moral caveman “I don’t want to hurty” logic.

We return from a long absence to continue our peaceful cruise through the Monster Manual 2. Last time, I (and Mr. Colbert) promised Moon Hunting Bears. We will have none of that though, because this is the Monster Manual 2, not the Monster Manual Awesome. So until the release of that most awaited tome, we’ll make do with the next monster in line for review. And that means Lizardfolk. Siiiiiiigh.

If the Monster Manual 3 comes out and I’m reading lizardfolk again I will go nuts. These guys are basically kobolds but with poison. They’re poisonous Kobolds. They even look sort of like kobolds. Basically it’s the same “low level fodder” roles that the kobolds play, levels 1 through 3, only every other attack does ongoing damage. Because this is the poisonscale tribe of lizardfolk. Can you guess what they do? It’s a test of your cunning.

Moving on we have Lycanthropes. The first one is the Wereham. It gives you Swine Flu Moontusk Fever. This level 6 brute is armed with a maul in humanoid forms, and a gore with its tusks deals minor damage, ongoing damage, and moontusk fever, which screws with your saving throws a bit. It has a death throes and when bloodied deals more ongoing damage with its gore. It is ultimately pretty boring, unlike the Weretiger, a level 11 elite skirmisher armed with katars.

HUGE Katars apparently since they deal 2d6+6 damage.

It has a double attack feature that lets it shift between attacks, and its pounce rechargeable attack allows it to push and knock prone its target in addition to damage. Whenever an attack misses, it can smash back the guy who missed and shift. It’s not very sophisticated, but shifting and moving around is much more fun in 4e than static creatures like the Wereboar who just sit there smashing. Finally, the Werewolf Lord is pretty reminiscent of the Weretiger, except higher level and with a leader move that grants temporary HP and lets basically all of its allies make bite attacks if they have them. Wereboar is out of that game because it has a gore, but the Werewolf and Weretiger can join in on that action.

Next up is the Mammoth. The stat block calls it the Nyfellar Mammoth, because Nyfell is a place where demon mammoths grow. So this is a demon mammoth. It is a level 17 brute and it can straight up toss dudes into the air. I mean it seriously, it throws you 5 squares forward and 30 feet into the air and you take falling damage if you don’t roll something. The tusk toss itself only deals a bit of damage, but movement is cool.

The fact that the Mammoth is a standard creature means you can throw a fight against your PCs with 5 mammoths. This is cool because just a single mammoth has a power that lets it shift through PC spaces, trampling every PC it moves through. Doing that five times in a row would knock each PC prone and deal 10d6+50 damage to each if all five mammoths manage to connect with all five PCs each time. That’d be awesome. This mammoth is pretty cool.

These guys are also possible mounts. It’d be pretty metal to ride a demonic frost mammoth around.

Maruts are a cross between spartans and easter island heads. Because Maruts are a “race” now, you’ll be getting a bunch of them every monster manual. I’d rather not, but at least they’re more interesting than getting Eladrin every manual. The Marut Castigator can prevent teleportation and deal huge damage by double-striking with is lightning doublesword, as well as teleporting all over the place dealing extra damage.

The Marut Prosecutor returns with an old friend, the Dictum spell from 3.5. Unlike its old incarnation, it’s rather low-key now, only able to immobilize (save ends), but as a minor action. The Prosecutor basically stacks penalties unto the enemy and beats it up with its fists. Finally, the Marut Executioner just deals tons of damage, and if it criticals or kills targets it gains action points or inflicts status effects. They’re in the level 21-22 range. Nothing altogether very special, but you can throw them all together for a decent encounter in a pinch.

Next up we have Myconid. They are…they are mushroom people. Mushroom. People.

The big thing about the Myconids is that they can trade damage between each other, which seems like a pretty poor ability in my opinion, particularly because none of the myconid really have huge HP to begin with. It’d be interesting if there was a myconid “sponge” around that had much more HP than the others, and perhaps powers that went along with its theme of soaking damage. I suppose if you apply a template to a myconid to make it an elite, and have it soak up damage for the other guys, it could be cool. Otherwise they’re pretty standard “fodder tribe” creatures. By the way, they look really dumb.

The Neogi I remember well from Lords of Madness for D&D 3.5. I noticed that they got a couple fluff changes that make them a lot less horrifying.

It used to be that the Neogi reproduced by taking the elderly of their tribe, hunting them down and laying their eggs inside them. They poisoned them, enfeebled their minds and bodies, and kept them around to at some random point in time explode into Neogi babies. These egg-carriers were sarcastically titled “Great Old Masters” and the neogi children would eat their way out of them. In 4e, the Great Old Masters are “undisputed rulers of their trade clans” who willingly carry Neogi eggs and children inside of them, and are powerful combatants. Ooooookay…

In 4e, the Neogi Swarm and Slaver are nothing too hot, but the Great Old Master is (counter to what they’ve always been in Neogi lore) pretty badass. Its enslaving bolt could potentially take away your character until you take an extended rest, and it shoots babies at you. Neogi babies, but babies nonetheless. All of the Neogi are standard creatures, and they’re meant to be surrounded with tough guys. All of them have some controllery or leader-like quality to them.

I’m pretty sure I liked them being grandma killers better.

The Nothic is some lizardy weirdo with a giant eyeball. The Nothic Cackler, a level 16 artillery, is oodles of fun. At-Will, it can slide a PC SIX SQUARES and force them to make a basic attack against another PC, as well as doing some minor psychic damage. The stronger Nothic Eyeblight can dominate its targets, but that’s not as fun. The Eye of Vecna is the least interesting Nothic, eschewing all the mindscrew to be a melee lurker that turns invisible. The Cackler should be your go-to Nothic, paired up with some larger creatures. In fact, the sample encounter with the Mind Flayer and War Trolls, along with 2 Nothic Cacklers, looks like it could be pretty interesting to see.

Oni are here again for some reason. The Devourer can give things a pretty heavy penalty to saving throws, and like all Oni it can make itself look like any humanoid, though Insight can pierce this disguise. In fact, the Devourer has a lot of status conditions it can inflict, all of which are pretty potent when it’s stuck with a -5 penalty to saving throws. Particularly, the Dazed looks pretty bad. The Oni Overlord can cause a few minor status effects such as vulnerability to necrotic and poison and granting combat advantage with its attacks, but it will mostly throw its weight around. Its greatclub does pretty weird damage.

That about does it for this installment. Join us next time when we look at…oozes.