CURSE YOU, ADAM DAIGLE!

Last night, I sat at my computer, watching Criminal Minds and Billy the Exterminator (waiting to re-watch Star Trek: TNG), expecting to do nothing useful. So I opened my email and there it was. An email from Adam Daigle with the stats of the monster we designed in his workshop at Neoncon (see my previous article on Neoncon here). I hastily opened it and scanned through the stats looking for changes (he did a few I really liked), read through the prose, ecology and all of the good stuff.

Okay. I DID NOT LIKE THEM. I hate them! They creep me out! Totally! I mean, I wasn't able to sleep without seeing the horror in mind nightmares. I just lurks there beyond the scope of my active perception... It waits for me to make a mistake before it grabs me. Am I wishing a duck on Adam's head for that? No.

What he did is WAY worse than that.

It was a comment so innocent yet so insidious, that only slowly and too late, does one grasp the horror of it all.

In his email, Adam challenged me (and Mike who also attended) to produce a 4e version of the monster! Yes! Me creating a 4e monster. I felt challenged! I had to respond! Honor demanded I try my hand at it! For the first time in some eleven months, I open my 4e books and rose to the challenge. My intimate knowledge of 4e is blissfully going away, but I think I came up with a creature that can be of interest to 4e players and DMs.

Thus I curse you with a chicken upon your head, Adam! Because of you I opened book I did not look at in 10 months.

Come to think of it... I could have merely said “no” and be done with it...

Come to think of it some more... Adam helped me remember why I disliked 4e so much: the mindless stats, the powers, the lack of damage, the situations that make little sense, the monsters that do not scare anyone, the conditions that suddenly stop without reason.

Thanks Adam! The exercise helped me remember why I love Pathfinder so much. Hmmm, Pathfinder...

JP