They are aggressive, subterranean scavengers, greatly feared for their paralysing attacks. And if you want even more variety, tweak a couple of powers here and there and you could turn the whole MM into armies and armies of Carrion Crawlers all the way up to level 33 (or even beyond) if you wanted.Surrounded by the stink of rotten meat, carrion crawlers are multi-legged aberrations with segmented, 10'-long bodies, eight writhing tentacles, and a tooth-filled maw. In order to mutliply the number of monsters available, simply start renaming them and describing them differently. I'd perhaps swap it's Body Shield with, say, the Deathjump Spider's poisonous bite, or look to the DMG on creating a new level appropriate attack.īut the main secret to monsters is that their stats are pretty basic.
![carrion crawler carrion crawler](https://i.etsystatic.com/27883358/r/il/436092/3093132780/il_1588xN.3093132780_g03j.jpg)
Change it up some more if you want to make it into a Controller, Soldier, or Brute. Rename it as "Ambush Carrion Crawler" or whatever you like if you care to and that's it. It's got some grabby tentacle attacks, matching the Carrion Crawler's theme. What I would do is point you a couple of pages down.
![carrion crawler carrion crawler](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_EVrjf81iiuA/S_rUgPV0-uI/AAAAAAAAAKs/OxHv5_iXOg0/s400/carrion_crawler_02.jpg)
The XP worked out to be balanced by the book, but that "No More than +4 in Level" is there for more than balance. But it was tough and, frankly, a little tedious. We fought a Level 9 Dryad and a level 9 Shambling Mound at level 2. Unfortunately I'm not skilled enough at the system to be able to make one for you.Ĭlick to expand.Well, it's doable, but it's not fun. Also it'll be worth 500 XP instead of 300, which will make them happy when they defeat it. That'll be a tough fight for three level 1 characters, but not impossible. What you want is a statistical reimagining of the carrion crawler as a level 1 solo monster. What'll happen when a group of level 1 PCs fight a carrion crawler is, it'll poison and immobilize them one by one, and then kill them at its leisure. Its attacks and defenses are too high (so it'll almost always hit, and the PCs almost never will), but it has too few attacks, so it won't engage with enough PCs at once. It's designed to fight as part of a group against a group of PCs at level six or seven - even though it falls within the XP budget for a tough level 1 encounter, it just doesn't behave like one. The carrion crawler isn't a solo monster. Normal monsters are designed to fight as part of a group elites are basically two monsters in one place and are designed to take the place of two monsters in an encounter, and solo monsters are designed to fight by themselves. Remember that D&D4e divides monsters into three rough types (well, along one of the axis of division): Normal, Elite, and Solo. So.thoughts? Is the carrion crawler still something a group of starting characters can deal with, or should I drop its level a bit? It feels weird that carrion crawlers might be killing machines in the new edition, but I guess as far as changes go that wouldn’t be the most drastic. Then I remember this is the group that once had their all-Human party try to infiltrate a group of 3 meter tall mutants by wearing the bloodstained, bullet-ridden clothes of the first mutants they met, making no attempt to hide their lack of mutation or plan ahead for the fact they didn’t speak the mutants’ language, and I’m thinking I might have a TPK the first time I run.
![carrion crawler carrion crawler](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/1bEAAOSwOqtgDVoZ/s-l300.jpg)
I fear this means that despite the XP total being a perfect fit it’s going to slaughter them, but then I also think that the adventure is big on describing terrain and encourages out-of-the-box thinking, so maybe they’ll be able to use that to their advantage. Since a basic carrion crawler is worth 300XP in 4E, I’m thinking it'll be fine.īut a hard encounter is “two to four levels higher than the party’s level,” and the crawler is going to be six levels higher than the party. There will be three 1st level characters, which gives me an XP pool of 300 to play around with to buy monsters. The adventure has the party confronting one as their very first combat, and at first glance at the DMG it would seem the perfect fit for a bunch of 4E 1st level characters. I’ve got fond memories of the critter from all the iterations of D&D, and I also recall it as being the kind of thing parties fight at low-levels, then never see again. My confusion comes from the carrion crawler. Now I’m confused when it comes to determining if a critter is merely a threat to my PCs, or if it’s going to slaughter them. I decided to convert the adventure from the DM’s Guide in the Red Box D&D set to 4e, thinking it's a great adventure with a history of introducing people to gaming. My gaming group has decided to give 4E a try, and it’s been decided I’m going to be the one to run it.