Fate of the Norns

There was already a post on swarms, but it wasn't as helpful for me because I only have the CRB. I don't own LotA or DotN yet (so poor ), and I wan't to have my large-ish party go up against large numbers of enemies, but the are literally no rules for it in CRB. What can I do to play that swarm style?

_________________
Wise in measure let each man be,
but let him not wax too wise;
for never the happiest of men is he
who knows much of many things.

The Hávamál, verse 54

Easy way is to make a big monster and break him up into many attack points. They go down easy.

Another thing I did was make monsters who didn't have to spend a rune to move, had a bunch of passive, and only three options for actives. They each had one or two runes.

I for example did a Kraken fight. So one monster with 5 initiatives tiles, one for each tentacle. Then divide the essence and destiny any way you want around those 5 initiative tiles every round. This keep the players guessing what the monster will do and you can then make tentacle disappear as they take damage or re-appear as he heal himself. Also with some passive and it size the reach can be huge !

How do you get more passives than actives? Enchantments on armor and stuff?

_________________
Wise in measure let each man be,
but let him not wax too wise;
for never the happiest of men is he
who knows much of many things.

The Hávamál, verse 54

I wrote monsters. I ignored the monster creation rules. I eyeballed it quite a bit, but in my opinion, I didn't need to follow those rules, because I found them burdensome for monsters. Actually worked surprisingly well, especially for simple, lower end monsters, relatively speaking.

You can borrow what you like from https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2Dpi ... m1ZdC1LNkk

Of particular use are ones that are similar to https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... bls-ZMZuQU

I just had one power per color of rune, and one passive per color. I scaled the passives a bit (and inconsistently) as I leveled them up, but otherwise did not add any new powers. I would pick powers off the appropriate boards without following the placement rules - just picked ones hat conveyed the theme of the monster, no more than three. Essence and destiny were raised appropriately.

Also, since I hacked together this style, I also moved most of my Norn runes to small, colored, blank tiles that I ordered online from blankdominos.com. I found it much simpler and faster to deal with.

Bosses got a full build but those are rare

I kind of do the same as raleel. I build my monster, but i do follow some the rules, for essence and passive selection. So no more active and passive then the essence.

I use Beastly to even out the equipment rule from DotN (p353 table 18). If the denizen can possessed equipement, I go for 3 item of 1/2 level, so the equivalent of 1.5 times the level in QR. If for instance its a creature that could not use equipement, I go fo their level in QR (like the creature I share). look at this monster for example : Gargangjolp

I respecte the board but not the rule of creation,t that they need to be adjacent, etc... I never go for more then 6 Actives, even for Bosses. Depending of the encounter, I usually go for the full complement of passive and some beastly QR if needed.

Hope I was clear and helpful.

raleel, your stuff is great.
It would really be nice to have a couple of leveled denizen, espcially higher level ones with active/passive power synergy for norns to get ideas of sneaky combos. As yet, I've never managed to put a righteous fear in my players heart when facing opponents... Considering I do not want to kill them outright...

I would suggest taking my wolf https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... sp=sharing

this one has some little synergies in it that make it surprisingly rough. A pack is a lot stronger than it looks. Consider that one can initiate a Howl, and the others can drop on Reds and Greens to increase the effect and area. This in turn lets them heal, recover, and get a (potentially quite large) bonus to their next move action. Lets assume it's a Lunging Attack. Well, they get a weak move, but it gets augmented by half of the Howl bonus (it's weak, so add half). Because they have Leaping Striker, this makes Lunging Attack quite strong. Then have a second one do it against the same target, which triggers Mob Mentality.

For leveling him, don't do anything but 3 level increments - 12, 15, 18, etc. This way you can preserve an even split between your destiny and your essence. It makes things much easier to manage as a norn. It also makes them a bit glass cannon. With the healing, from the howl, though, this really helps neuter that a bit.

My Trolls https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... sp=sharing nearly ended a couple party members. Render Helpless + Amplified Attack from above makes it _really_ hurt to get hit with an attack. That vulnerable application really drains the runes - they can't use them to Deflect or Amplify a defense.

Other leveling advice - increase the passive powers according to Essence, but don't increase the number of active powers. You don't need more than a couple to get a feel for a Denizen. Increase the Essence and Destiny. Also, don't pick ADDITIONAL passive powers - just assume that he put points into Keen Aptitude on one of his powers. That's why the wolves have Leaping Striker x2 - it just makes it so it's simpler for you to manage, while still preserving the feel of the denizen. Nothing quite says wolf like working with his buddy to lunge in, attack, and gain strength from his howl.

Thank you!