I'm writing an article concerning this, so I'll keep it short to not screw myself over :P If you're new to monster design, I recommend you don't sweat it too much about the creature's attributes - they're simply a numerical/rules representation of it's abilities, and they're what's important. Think about what you want the monster to feel like: how it should look and move and sound, and what emotions it should evoke. If you're a visual thinker (like me), try imagining a "movie" scene where protagonists encounter the monster. Key elements are: What it's good at, what it's excellent at, creepy special powers, and how to kill it. If it's good at something, it should roll at 40 or 60 depending on circumstance, and 60 to 80 if it's excellent at it - but only roll when absolutely necessary in either case - you're rolling it's ability to resist the attempts of the PCs, not it's ability to succeed. Creepy special powers help make monsters memorable - think "what is the difference between fighting this monster, and fighting a Bear". Giving the monster's attack some special feature is a powerful tool here - a 1d10 damage attack which ignores or reduces the victim's armor, deals SV, or applies wound penalties will often be more memorable and have greater effect than simply increasing the damage or AP. Finally, consider how you want the monster defeated. If the threat comes because there's a lot of them, simply give them a durability and armor value and run with it, but if they're supposed to be able to shrug off normal weaponry then give them some sort of resistance against it - for example dealing half damage, minimum damage or only a single point of damage depending on how much effect the weapon should have. That should give you enough to run your monster for a single scenario or adventure - and running the adventure should help you round out the concept and nail down some values should you want to use it again. Hope this helps :D

ORCACommander wrote:

You could do what i did and start them on the devotees :P

Heh. That's mean. :)

jackgraham wrote:

ORCACommander wrote:

You could do what i did and start them on the devotees :P

Heh. That's mean. :)

they accorded themselves fairly well actually apart from loosing an entire session to my friends making Dong jokes :P Biggest wrench they threw into the works though was that they managed to capture her. Good thing they had real trouble taking down one of her guards. I retroactively made him a synth with fleshmask and a ghost rider in his belly. It really got me to play up some body horror :)

In complete seriousness, Lego models are very useful for "maps" in 3D. Even if it's just a handful of random color bricks together, explaining each brick as a different module or capsule can be very useful. For cluster habs in particular, K'Nex could also be useful, since they're less square-bias than Lego, though prepare for hand pain.

I sometimes have booths at artist alleys in Chicago-based cons, so that might happen.

For 3D mapping ideas that are simple in 2D, check out the really old OD&D DM book (forget which one). We all grew up on top-down grid maps, but it seems like Gygax early on was in to doing cross-sections, as well. Up & down would be the z-axis (depth of the dungeon), and then each level's length or width on the x or y axis would be translated into the cross section. The limitations on this are that you have to pick between x & y, and that overlapping sections at the same z depth are hard to draw. But it's a simple way to get your own head around a 3D space you're mapping using good old-fashioned graph paper, so I find it pretty handy at times. YMMV.