Converting Forgotten Realms monsters

[Shade]

The weight ranges sound good.

For the eggs, what duration for the bonus/penalty? Original text implies a week, but is that too potent?

[demiurge1138]

How about an hour?

[freyar]

An hour works for me. Are we going with a penalty or bonus?

[Shade]

I have no preference. Anyone else?

[freyar]

Well, I think I prefer that these give a -2 penalty on saves vs psionic (or maybe any compulsion) effects for an hour. We could treat sha'az eggs as a poison kind of, so ingestion or sufficient injury triggers the penalty.

[Shade]

Look who just agreed to write it up!

[demiurge1138]

I second the motion!

[freyar]

Ok, ok. I'm not sure if the poison mechanic is too clunky, but here's a first pass at a sidebar.

Sha'az Eggs: Sha'az eggs are a potent means of lowering a creature's resistance to compulsion effects. This is typically administered by feeding a sha'az egg to the victim or else injecting the egg's liquid interior. It is possible to refine the sha'az egg into an injury poison. If a full egg's contents are injected into the creature, the victim does not receive a save to avoid the effects of the poison. Haun are natural enemies of the sha'az because they often inject sha'az eggs into their haundar mounts to keep them malleable.

Sha'az egg poison: Ingested or injury; Fort DC 15?; primary damage -2 penalty to saves vs compulsion effects for 1 hour, no secondary damage.

[Shade]

Nice work!

I'd extend compulsion effects to "telepathy [mind-affecting] powers and abilities" just to cover everything the haun do with them, but otherwise it looks great.

[freyar]

Works for me!

On to the knights?

[Shade]

Updated.

Sure, time for the knight.

For each ten sha’az warriors, one has a limited empathic ability which allows it to communicate with his queen, when it is away from the hive. It is a knight with maximum hit points. The ability can be used at will within 900 feet. Within a mile, the knight has a 10% chance of failure per round of usage, which increases another 1% for each extra mile of distance between the knight and his queen. The maximum chance of failure is limited to 90%, regardless of the distance. When failing an empathic roll, the knight loses its empathic ability for the remainder of the day.

[demiurge1138]

Knights are 4th level fighters? Or do we want to do something more exciting and make them psionic warriors?

[freyar]

Nice idea! 4th level psychic warriors with this extra telepathic link? Some additional stat bonus or the elite array? Another option is extra racial HD, too.

[demiurge1138]

I like using the elite array.

[freyar]

Ok, then. Let's maybe make the favored class for regular sha'az psychic warrior, too, in this case, which might mean we want to shuffle stats a little in the nonelite array. (Or maybe not, I guess the racial bonus is about all that matters.)

So, knights are 4th level psychic warriors with the elite array. How about Str 15, Dex 13+4, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 14+2, Cha 8-2?

[demiurge1138]

Those stats look good. I don't think we should change the non-elite array around, but I agree that psychic warrior makes for a pretty good favored class.

[freyar]

So let's leave the basic sha'az stats but just change the favored class.

Assuming we're making a knight statblock, it gets 4 feats, 2 of which must be fighter or psionic. How about Psionic Weapon and/or Psionic Fist, Weapon Finesse, Speed of Thought, Psionic Charge? I'm open to suggestions, though.

[demiurge1138]

Let's go with Psionic Meditation rather than Psionic Charge, and I'm good with that.

[freyar]

Psionic Weapon or Psionic Fist in that case? I guess it depends if they want to use their bite much. Probably Psionic Weapon makes more sense.

[demiurge1138]

Agreed to Psionic Weapon.