Another Lord?!
Yes we have something more coming. Another 4 crown demon suzerain.
It’s a secret to everybody.
The Spider Mastermind
That’s right – we are doing a Keith Thompson version (assuming he’s willing – he has yet to respond!) of the humongous cyborg arachnid from when Sandy worked at id Software. If Keith is unable, we will find a good solution for the concept.
This was my favorite of all the enemies, frankly, which is why I placed it as the final boss (where, probably, it didn’t deserve to be. Cyberdemon should have been there.) I also pushed to get the mini-spiders in Doom 2 because of my love for this dude.
Anyway, we are doing our version of a spider cyborg brain thing and it will be in our game. No it won’t look exactly like the one in Doom, and not just for legal reasons. It will be our own original design and will blow you all away.
And yes it’s 4 crowns just like Cthulhu!
How the Spider Mastermind Works
MENACE – when you enter Hell Time, the Spider Mastermind gets a Royal token (the same that Orobas uses – if you don’t have Lord Orobas, who is in the Pack of the Pit, then you can substitute any convenient token).
The Spider Mastermind’s toughness is 3+3, one less than a Cacodemon, and its attack is 6d8. He has more health than any other lord, including even Geryon, and has 35 health in a 4 player game. So far he is not that impressive.
Here are his two threats.
ENRAGE – First, the Spider Mastermind attacks once PER ROYAL TOKEN. Since he earns one every time you attack him, this can build up if you attack him too many times. But since he has a lot of health, you’ll probably need to assault him several times over the course of the game, each time giving him another Royal Token … which never go away.
PANIC – Second, if at least one of the Spider Mastermind’s attack dice misses (and with an attack of 6d8, it’s not unlikely), then the targeted hero gets a choice, He must EITHER automatically retreat, right then (after taking any remaining damage), OR he must choose to allow the Mastermind to heal 1 per missed attack die. So if a lot of dice miss, it’s bittersweet – you don’t take much damage, but you may need to run away or let the Spider Lord heal a bunch.
Your reward is unusual – if you retreat voluntarily (i.e., not via the Panic power), then you get to immediately roll 1d4 and recruit. So this usually means you want to use up your patrol troopers in the battle, so you can take advantage of this bonus.
What does this mean in practice?
His doubled toughness means you can’t attack him too early. His ever-growing Enrage attack power means you need to make as few invasions of his area as possible. His Panic power means you don’t really want to have a lot of toughness against him – it’s better for you to take damage than to let him heal.
Really his threat isn’t so much that he’s going to kill the players – and in fact, he is not particularly lethal. The problem is that he is really hard to kill, and he keeps healing, and eventually he CAN kill you, or heal heaps. In the meantime, the invasion tokens keep growing and growing and scoring Doom.
Unlike some lords, when you face the Spider Mastermind, usually you lose because of Doom accumulated by the minions, not because the Lord wiped you out. This makes sense, because he is a Mastermind, after all.
Good luck. This is after all a four crown demon.