Liminal stat blocks

Recently I wrote that I don’t run published adventures, and I promised myself I would run some before the year is out. I backed Paul Mitchener’s Liminal on Kickstarter in 2018, and I now have a small handful of scenarios to run with it.

I’ve started with Prodigal Son, and follow on with The Haunting (featuring some of the same characters) if that’s a success. However, I’m finding Liminal’s stat blocks a bit frustrating.

Vampire stat blocks

The first encounter is a battle with two vampires, and their stat block looks like this:

So first off, there are two vampires. So we should have Vamp #1 and Vamp #2. At the very least, the stat block for Endurance should be repeated (as that’s the only bit that’s going to count).

Second, how tough are these vampires? What’s the unmodified Challenge Roll to hit a vampire in melee? Or shoot one? Or dodge their attack? And is the Brawny damage bonus already included (I assume yes, but it’s not clear).

I appreciate that once you’ve mastered the system then it’s obvious, but for anyone learning the game (and this is an introductory scenario) then it’s a nightmare. So here’s what I’ve added to make the stat blocks easier to use:

• Initiative modifier: +4 (Awareness and Quick Reflexes)
• CL to beat vampires in melee: 13 (Base 8 + Melee 3 + Quick Reflexes)
• CL to beat vampires in ranged combat: 13 (Base 8 + Athletics 3 + Quick Reflexes)
• CL to avoid taking melee damage from vampires: 11 (Base 8 + Melee)

These two vampires are tough! Unless the PCs have a powerful werewolf with them (such as Stephen Dunstan, one of the pregenerated characters) I can see a lot of Will being spent in that encounter to take the two vampires out.

My revised this stat block looks like:

Two Vampires

• Drive: Thirst for blood
• Physical Skills: Athletics 3, Awareness 2, Melee Combat 3
• Mental Skills: Education 2
• Social Skills: Rhetoric 1, Taunt 3
• Traits: 
• Brawny (+2 damage, +2 athletics for feats of strength)
• Night Sight
• Rapid Healing (Weakness: Silver)
• Quick Reflexes (+2 initiative, +2 to any defence, spend 1 Will to make an extra action before anyone else)
• Limitations:
• Weakened by Sunlight (-1 to all rolls)
• Vulnerability (Garlic, Mirrors—extra 2 damage, requires 2 Will to face)
• Obliged (to Ariadne, see below)
• Endurance: 
• Vampire #1: 11
• Vampire #2: 11
• Will:
• Vampire #1: 8
• Vampire #2: 8
• Damage (inc all bonuses): d6+3 (natural weapons or silver knife)
• Initiative modifier: +4 (Awareness and Quick Reflexes)
• CL to beat vampires in melee: 13 (Base 8 + Melee 3 + Quick Reflexes)
• CL to beat vampires in ranged combat: 13 (Base 8 + Athletics 3 + Quick Reflexes)
• CL to avoid taking melee damage from vampires: 11 (Base 8 + Melee)

As well as adding the extra sections, I’ve also provided brief mechanical effects of the traits and limitations so I don’t have to look everything up in the heat of the moment.

PC stat blocks

Similarly, PC stat blocks look like this:

This is Stephen Dunstan, Liminal’s pregen werewolf.

It’s not clear from this (unless you’re an expert) how tough Stephen really is. He’s a werewolf, but is he tough enough to take on the two vampires above?

So I’ve added this:

• Initiative modifier: +2
• Attack modifiers: +3 (+2 if in Rage, +2 if in wolf form) Melee / +0 Ranged
• Defence modifiers: +3 (+2 if in Rage, +2 if in wolf form) Melee / +2 Ranged
• Damage modifier: +2 (+2 Rage)

I’ve not expanded on the mechanical impacts of traits and limitations, but that’s because I will include their full description on the character sheets.

(Stephen will need to go into wolf form (and Rage) to have any chance against the two vampires. If he does that then he will only need to roll 6+ to hit them and 4+ to block their attacks.)

Summary

So those two changes make the vampire NPCs much easier for me to run, and hopefully will make the PC easier for the character to run.

Update: Following a successful run of Prodigal Son I changed the stat blocks as I found providing the different challenge levels slightly less intuitive than simply turning them into a modifier. That changes the vampires to:

• Attack modifier (melee only): +3 (Melee 3)
• Defence modifier (melee): +5 (Melee 3 + Quick Reflexes)
Defence modifier (ranged): +5 (Athletics 3 + Quick Reflexes)

This is also simpler when you have NPCs or monsters attacking each other—it’s easier to see who has the advantage.