New Monsters: Mana Constructs & "Design Dials"

Alright guys, I'm excited about these new monsters! A really cool take on your typical clockwork constructs, these are created by mages— Mana Constructs. Enchanted armors flowing with living mana, they are automata that react to mana being spent, so they can be particularly dangerous against Mages and other spell casters. They gain additional attacks—which is BAD news for the heroes…unless they can position themselves intelligently, in which case they can force the Mana Constructs to attack one another!

I love how difficult these guys feel (until they are "figured out"), and how it can feel like a subtle chess game for the heroes (they're still dead simple to run as the GM). The mechanics give extra value to spells and abilities that force movement and for heroes who can move quickly.

They also each have a unique "On Death" feature that rewards you for taking them down. They leave a powerful magical essence that can be used to grant one of the heroes a brief boon to give them an edge in battle.

Design Dials

One really cool thing I'm particularly happy with is a new "design dial" I've come up with. Design Dials are existing triggers or hooks a designer can use to add interest to the game without adding any additional complicated systems. Examples of existing Design Dials are: Hit Points (and there are even nested HP design dials such as Bloodied, Dying, When healed, etc), Wounds, Hit Dice, Conditions, etc.

The design dial I've added with these monsters have to do with the Hero core stats. A hero who primarily mitigates damage by being very strong and wearing lots of armor is "Tanky" while a hero who wears lighter armor and has high DEX is "Evasive" (the same is tru for the other stats INT & WIL). A monster such as the Spire Hulk is designed specifically to strike swiftly so they deal extra damage VS "Evasive" targets; on the other hand, Breaker Hulks are designed to swing monstrous hammers the size of a small vehicle. A "Tanky" target who plans on just standing there and raising their shield is going to have a bad day against such a monster.

These are super simple mechanics that do not add any additional complexity to the character sheet, but adds a good amount of extra design space for monsters, traps, and other exploration situations—and without the extra steps and slowness of saves.

And it need not be only drawbacks. You could imagine a terrifying monster that has some powerful effect on all heroes except those who are particularly Courageous (WIL>INT — perhaps it takes an additional action for the non-courageous to Defend or Interpose, or the Courageous could do so more easily!). Or a master of Illusions who would have little power over someone who was particularly Logical (INT>WIL). This is a very new design space, lots or room to create some cool things!

There could even be some benefits/drawbacks for well-balanced heroes where the 2 competing stats are equal. Or even apart from comparing stats, any hero with a stat of X or higher is immune to the effect.

Hope you guys enjoy these Mana Constructs, and I hope even more to see some cool creations you guys come up using these brand new Design Dials!