Ye Olde Inn

Has any one tried making up some rules for an Ettin?
I was thinking something like:
5 attack---D6 defense---2D6 move---2mind---2body

The Ettin might seem like a creature with a lot on its mind but infact it has a lot on two minds.
The D6 defense gives it represents this by it not being able to decide what to do under pressure, the same for movement, as one head will often want to go one way and the other another.

Also I want it to be a bit more of a fun monster for the gm to play with, and the heros against.

Thoughts?

That's very spooky. I was updating my chaos monsters yesterday ettins were the next thing I was going to add today.

I'm not sure whether I like the random stats idea of not. It implies each head thinks independently and controls one half of the body, that's not how I imagine ettins. I'm not sure about the mythology/D&D lore though and how specific it is, maybe that is how they work.

I don't think 2BP is enough, it should be at least 4.

When you write D6 defense... what does that mean?

Do you:
1. roll a D6, and then roll an amount of combat dice equal to your d6 roll?
Or:
2. do you just roll a D6 and that's the amount of black shields rolled?

If it's option 2, 2BP might actually be fine as he'll be very hard to hit.

Let me translate the basic Ettin from old school first edition AD&D into HQ:

Attack: 7 Dominate Arm - 6 Off Hand
Defense: 4
Move: 8
Body: 12
Mind: 2/1
Ettin are giant (13+ feet tall aka about 4 meters give or take) relatives of the Ork. They are physically very powerful, but rather dim witted. Their left hand is controlled by the left head and the right head controls the right hand. Ettin are found in groups of 1-4 individuals. Their treasure will typically be small amounts of coins on their person and occasionally a larger collection of coins will be found in their lair.

Add my 2centavos to say that a sleep spell can only effect one head, so only one arm will be incapacitated.
These dudes are HUGE. They would not fit into many dungeons. Chasing heroes through corridors would be difficult for this guy, so I would limit movement to 6 indoors where space is tight.

This is not a trifling monster. In the source book for D&D old school it is listed as a 10 Hit Dice monster. That means it is going to be difficult. That monster can kill 10, level 0 peasants a melee round. With two very stout attacks per round (2-16/3-18) it kills anything level 2 or lower pretty much at will. For HQ this would be a very difficult monster for a hero group. Put in a few orks with this dude and it would be a brutal room.

And I am going easy on the attack dice!
At 3-18 for their primary attack translate this into HQ and it is the equivalent of 3 Short Swords! That would be 9 Dice. The off hand attack being 2-16 is the equivalent of 2 long swords! Thus that would be 8 Dice.

Only that 9 dice easily kill a hero in one stroke...

maybe calming him down to ogre values plus a very small bit extra would be good?

Some Ettin miniatures available are not as tall as a scaled-down 13 feet, so BOB's stats might actually fit.

This is a raid boss type bad-guy. Hire all 12 Mercenaries', stock up at the alchemist and be sure everyone is well rested, for tomorrow many of us shall die.

Also occurs to me:
Reach of arm and weapon. This monster should be able to hit all targets within 2 squares of it and diagonal targets as well.

This is what I'm going for:

M10 A6 D3 BP6 MP1

Easier to kill than ogres, more powerful than standard ogres (same as lords and chieftains) and fast.