The Trail of the Grick

Let's get back to Thorgun, E's new half-orc.

After handily defeating the first giant centipede, and battling the next till he passed out, E went on another monster browse in the ol' Monster Manual. This time his eye lit on a creature called a grick, a loathsome crack-dwelling tentacled horror. (I could describe them further but, alarmingly enough, you can find out the same things in the Wikipedia entry). He decided it was Thorgun's mission in life to hunt them. So off went T into the dank forests around Bladesbat cave, in search of likely cracks.

Another systems digression

Monsters in the newer Monster Manuals are each assigned a Challenge Rating. Apparently, a monster's CR is intended to indicate that the creature is a fair fight for about 4 PCs of that level. A monster with CR 8 should give a good fight to 4 eighth-level PCs, supposedly.

E and I picked up on challenge rating, but I did not pick up on the number "four". As a result I had the tendency early on to send him up against creatures with a CR equal to about his level, oblivious to the fact that, at least per the game designers he was outmatched as much as four to one.

This further explains why I had to fudge some rolls to keep him alive in the early going. It also further explains why he seemed to be leveling up at an alarming rate! The DMG explains to us that monster challenge and awarded XP are intended to be balanced in such a way that a PC will require about 13 encounters of a CR equal to their level, in order to advance a level. Thorgun on the other hand was advancing every 3-4 encounters! Hmm.

On reflection, I have to admit, alarmingly, that my gaming senses have been deeply affected, and likely dulled, by the horribly addictive World of Warcraft. WoW has, in effect, two challenge modes. Certain types of monster can be handily mastered by a character of the same level as the monster. In fact, when fighting "regular" monsters, a skilled player can generally take on 2-3 monsters of the same level as himself, and survive. A second kind of monster, known as an elite, generally has triple the hit points and hands out a great deal more damage than a regular monster of that level. Most players will be hard pressed to defeat an elite of their level single-handed. So a level 35 player can take on several level 35 monsters, or a single monster of level 37 or 38, and prevail. The same player will likely barely make it through a fight with a 35 elite.

I have a feeling that this system was on my mind in looking at Challenge Rating. Hence, in evaluating monsters for Thorgun to tackle, when he was level 1, I figured a CR 1 monster would be a fair fight, and a CR 2 monster a reasonable stretch with some good rolls.

That turned out to be not quite the case.

There was one further wrinkle with the grick: it has four tentacles, each with significant damage potential. Soon I understood why a create with weak hit points had a challenge rating of 2 or 3. (Thorgun was level 2 by now, on the strength of 3 small and one medium giant centipede). Alas, I didn't understand how monster multiple attacks worked ... I gave the creatures four attacks at full bonus, whereas each additional attack after the primary is supposed to sugger a -5 penalty ...

It all added up, as you can imagine, to a tough challenge.

Well, I'll admit it's been so long I don't remember all the details of the grick encounters. I do know that I needed to teach E the wisdom of running away. Alas, once he picked up on this tactic, he began using it at the slightest hint of danger, after even one hit from a monster! So I then had to advise him on the wisdom of how to stand and fight.

In the end it turned out grick was a half-orc delicacy, and the larders at Bladesbat received several deliveries. More, these monsters had actual treasure! Now that was a thrill.

From Bladesbat cave, then, the sounds of contented gnawing and the clatter of picked Grick bones ...