In part one, we talked a little bit about shared traits for the Taheen cohort. They're immune to the frightened condition, and they're resistant to poison. But one thing we didn't really go deep into was what a fight against the Taheen should feel like. As we talked about earlier, Goblins are slippery and will probably involve a lot of movement on the battlefield. Kobolds work well with one another, tending to move in coordinated phalanxes. Orcs will close distance with the party and get up in your face, and require committed attacks to take them down.
Our Taheen are fearless, but not brave in the way that an Orc is (as many have pointed out, you can only be brave if you feel fear, and the Taheen are just kind of numb to that kind of emotion). What I think that might represent, though, is that beyond being immune to the frightened condition, they're also cool under pressure - every job is just a job, after all. What is a mechanic that could reflect this?
Well, we also know that a lot of Taheen are going to be using firearms. We could just give them the Gunner-like trait where they don't get disadvantage for attacking with ranged weapons with an enemy in melee range, but what if, perhaps, we gave them a universal trait that let them step out of the way of hostile creatures. Not a full dash, but just enough to get distance and set themselves up for success. Here's my proposal:
Cautious Step: When an enemy ends its turn within 5 feet of the Taheen, the Taheen can use up to 5 feet of its movement without provoking opportunity attacks.
The reason I phrase it "up to 5 feet of its movement" is in case the Taheen's been grappled or otherwise had its speed reduced to 0. Now, we could also have this come as soon as a creature enters melee range, but in that case, I think we would need to make this a reaction. That could easily be our final design, but for now I like the idea that the player can get in, swing their attacks on the Taheen, and then the Taheen slips back far enough to shoot them. It also means they can do this multiple times per round, becoming aggravatingly difficult to pin down, and encouraging players to arrange themselves around a target to avoid giving it a path to escape.
Now, thematically, our Taheen fight with guns. But D&D is also a game that tends to push for melee combat (even if the optimizier community basically thinks anyone who gets into melee is a fool) and even if our Taheen are showing up with anachronistic tactics and weaponry, we probably want some to be powerful in melee. Still, I think we could give all of them guns.
As I said in an earlier post, I homebrewed a melee firearm for my friend's Giff Paladin (it uses Strength, can work with melee abilities like Divine Smite, and has a range of 5/10 and a d12 damage die), and I think we could use that design here. Alternatively, of course, we could just give them combat knives, batons, and such modern melee weapons.
Ok, we've got our universal Taheen traits. Now let's talk about what kind of creatures we might create (this won't produce full stat blocks, but we're going to get a sense of how each of these would work).
It seems pretty easy to simply look at the FM creature categories and just come up with a stat block for each role. Taheen are not terribly ambitious for themselves, so I'd say for our "Villain" creature we're likely looking at a Leader rather than a Solo monster. The Taheen are definitely more coordinated in their efforts than out for personal glory (they probably lean Lawful) and so I think our villain is probably a kind of manager.
So, let's go down the list:
Ambusher: The Taheen are beings of the Shadowfell, which means that they do have some innate magic. Pulling on more modern, sci-fi ideas, I like the idea that our Ambusher uses Illusion magic to hide in plain sight. We can imagine that they have some kind of device that projects illusions to camouflage themself. I like to think that they can appear as other creatures, though admittedly that's not nearly as powerful in the heat of battle. I like the idea that they can become invisible in a weird way - like, the players need to make a Wisdom saving throw, and on a failure, the Taheen becomes invisible to them - so you could have a situation where the Cleric still sees our Taheen and calls out "he's over there!" but the Fighter (who actually stands a chance of taking them down) is looking right at them and going "where!?"
Artillery: Given the Taheen's use of firearms, Artillery is a natural fit. Artillery creatures aren't just ranged, though - they also need some way to open the distance between themselves and the party. We could give them "concussive rounds" that slow targets they hit, or give them a bonus action that lets them throw a grenade that slow targets (maybe even inflicting a status effect instead of creating difficult terrain). We could also enhance their Cautious Step to let them move farther.
Brute: This one is a little tough, which is funny because I think Brutes are typically the simplest design. We could have some beefy Taheen with big melee-firearms. Brutes often have kind of compounding attacks - hitting once makes them deal more damage with a second strike, such as by dropping a target prone. (Though not always.) I think we probably enhance our Brute's attacks with some kind of "obsessive assault," like if they hit twice with a multiattack, they get to make a third attack.
Controller: This will, of course, probably be a bit more complex. In a previous design, I made a high-CR Taheen that was a kind of "anti-Druid," who used the Taheen's association with pollution (the casual waste of the corporate thoughtlessness they kind of represent) to defile the land. I think a Taheen controller can use poison and call upon bubbling tar to emerge from the ground and drag foes down, restraining them. Actually, I'm pretty happy with that.
Leader: Leaders are, of course, one of the Villain options. We'll revisit this.
Minion: Minions are simple - but they typically have some effect that makes them more powerful when three or more are involved in an attack. What I'm noticing here is that we've got an emerging theme of Taheen slowing down enemies or stopping them in their tracks. I could see something similar to the Rotting Zombie's ability to slow nearby creatures, but in this case, our minions are using ranged attacks and probably need to hit the target to slow it down.
Now, two things to consider: first, is this theme going to get redundant if we use it too much? Second, is slowing down movement going to make for a fun encounter? We'll keep these questions in mind.
Skirmishers: Honestly, Cautious Step already gives Taheen a bit of Skirmisher-like power. But Skirmishers are typically melee fighters - their mobility a remedy to the danger of getting up close. It might be enough to just give these creatures reach weapons and high speed.
Soldier: A Soldier is like a Brute in that it can typically get up in melee and take a beating, but rather than pumping out damage, a Soldier is more interested in locking down foes. I like the idea that these guys have something a bit like the Ancestral Guardian or Armorer Artificer's "taunt attack," where if they hit you, you get disadvantage on targets other than it. A kind of "hey buddy, you gotta deal with me first." I'd attach a rider that it doesn't give disadvantage on other Taheen Soldiers so you can't just get two of these to screw over a player character.
And given that we're not doing a Solo monster, that kind of fills us out.
I think we're going to save our Villain for the end of this process. Next time, I'm going to start playing around with some actual stat blocks, or at least putting down the actual wording of the traits and abilities we've come up with here.
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