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Creating monsters,

There are hosts of websites out there talking about how to create great monsters and what their philosphy on how to do it is.  I think I'm going to skip all that and just go straight to an example of mine.  This is one part of solos monster's powers who will be hunting the party down.
Minor Actions
R Soul Quarry • At-Will

Effect: Range 10 (Targets 1 living mortal creature in range.); The Crature is marked until the end of the monster's next turn. While marked the Soul Reaver does +2 damage when he hits his quarry.

R Power Word: Cripple • At-Will
Requirements: Must not have used Soul Quarry this round.
Attack: Range 10 (Targets 1 Marked enemy in range); +17 vs. Will
Hit: The target is weakend, slowed and only recieves 1/2 healing from healing effects(save ends all).

So this what I like to call powers that trigger off each other.  Not a very flashy name, but you get the idea.  I have my people working on that name. Basically, what this allows is really powerful abilities to be used by the monster while still retaining a semblance of fairness for the player.  In this example the first ability marks the creature, but because this guy is a solo he also quarries his target, but not an over powerful quarry.  The second ability has to target that same character in order for it to work.  When it hits the marked target it's like both powers full stregth come to fruition.  It will literally cripple the target until they save. 

Now this is a blatent example of one power triggering off of another but what I'm not showing you here is that this solo has another ability that triggers off this which really makes things scary for the character.  The monster can summon som minions that have an aura which gives a -2 penalty to saving throws for any enemy in the aura. Which just means that crippling power will be harder to remove.

This is how I like to create monsters.  I make their powers play off each other.  I make their powers play off other monster's powers.  And why not?  The players create their character to do just the same thing.  We DM's need to take a page from their book. 

I think my next blog will be about creating powers that go outside the normal limits of what the monster manual uses.
Here is a teaser: Death Checks!
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