Savage Encounters: Preview 1

Greetings and Salutations, plastic addicts. Welcome to Savage Encounters previews! There’s a lot of goodness in this set, and I had a lot of fun working on it.

During my previews, I like to talk about design and thought processes—today, I am going to discuss design tendencies. All of us designers have certain strengths and weaknesses, and this is one reason designing as a team is so important. Each member can help point out and shore up weaknesses and tendencies that the others have.

For example, I often struggle with getting too creative, creating figures with too many powers for their cost and/or rarity (we call this “over-design”). This preview highlights some figures illustrating these design struggles and the pieces that result from them. First up for today is a pair of anthro-frogs, the Bullywug Guard and the champion Bullywug Mud Lord.

I aimed for simplicity above all else in the Guard, but still, an early version was very much over-designed with two or three extra abilities. Several revisions later, I submitted it for final review with a single power. However, as you can see, sometimes commons get to be a bit more complex, and development added a bit of a twist.

This guy is a nice, efficient brute for his cost. His Attack bonus isn’t horrible, and when activating first he can dish out quite a bit of damage. The Croak adds a nice little bit of tech, and some solid options at a blast, something rare on a brute. Finally, we see a great ability that offers some interesting trades. Bullying Protector protects against area and close attacks quite well, but at a cost. I think this guy will find a home in Underdark as it’s got a lot going for it in the low teen range.

In Wild, the lowly guard might just try to protect his boss, the Bullywug Mud Lord—one of my favorite designs out of all the figures I’ve done. I followed close to RPG on this one, using the game stats as a template. In the end, I felt that he might have been a bit over-designed, but the total package was just too fun for me to pair back on it.

Development saw it differently, killing a power, but he still came out as quite a interesting little package. So what does this bad boy do? His Fiery Croak is a solid reliable area attack that can add up over time. Why over time? Because going toe-to-toe with him might be a mistake—sure, you’re healed 5 HP, but you’re Weakened for your troubles. Ouch.

Finally, he is a Lord and therefore a champion—not a great one, but he gets a couple interesting options with that one use. I prefer the first—if you’ve managed to kill him (hopefully via ranged damage) he can choose to dictate board position quite a bit by sliding all enemies (hello, Merchant Guards) 2 squares.

My final figure for today’s preview is a bit bigger than a bullywug, but it also might give a nice boost to for purple. The Adult Purple Dragon is another example of the struggle of over-design. He is not a simple figure, but then again he is a dragon.

I was worried that there was simply too much going on with him, but sometimes too much design turns out as a good thing; sometimes it’s just fun. With solid defenses down the board this beautiful sculpt can control a board for quite some time.

He can also get into position to dish out maximum damage and controller carnage with Dark Phase. Both his bite and his breath cause save ends effects—and when you do fail a saving throw, he slides you 3 squares, controlling the battle field like the dark master he is.

That is all for this week, hope you enjoyed the look at these three figures and the little peak into the mind of this designer. Next week: Summoning. I swear.

Stephen Hagan (AesophDarkfable on the boards) has (over) designed more figures than a Mud Lord can shake a stick at, both for the DDM Guild and for Wizards of the Coast.

This is the new revision

And this is revision 2