Converting original D&D and Mystara monsters

[Shade]

Part Three.

Original thread closed due to exceeding 1,000 post count.

 

[Shade]

Chameleon Man
Climate/Terrain: Nonarctic woods, plains, or caverns
Frequency: Rare
Organization: Clan
Activity Cycle: Any
Diet: Omnivore
Intelligence: Average (8-10)
Treasure: E (Q,S)
Alignment: Neutral
No. Appearing: 2d4
Armor Class: 10
Movement: 12
Hit Dice: 2
THAC0: 19
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: By weapon
Special Attacks: Dimension door
Special Defenses: Nil
Magic Resistance: Nil
Size: M (7’ tall)
Morale: Average (10)
XP Value: 120
Bodyguard: 175
Leader: 420

The lizard-kin of Mystara share an ancient lineage. The chameleon men are the oldest of these races; some believe that caymen, gator men, sis’thik, and standard lizard men all descend from a common ancestor related to chameleon men. Relations between lizard men and the four lizard-kin races, however, range from indifferent at best to hostile at worst.

Chameleon Man
The reclusive chameleon men possess a bit of dragon ancestry. In their homes far from human and demihuman civilizations, they generally can avoid contact with strangers.

Chameleon men stand 7 feet tall, and their spindly arms and legs make them look quite thin. They move with a stride that other races find gangling and awkward. Chameleon men have multicolored, somewhat scaly skin with stripes of many colors: red, blue, green, yellow, brown, orange, black, and white (though few chameleon men have every possible hue). The colors seem to shift and swirl when the creatures walk (a trick of the light as it plays off their scales).

Combat: Chameleon men usually arm themselves with light weapons: daggers, spears, or dubs. They never wear armor, as it interferes with their natural abilities; they would rather blend in with the scenery than fight openly.

By far the most useful feature of the chameleon men remains their vanishing ability, which they use to avoid combat or to surround opponents. Each round, a chameleon man can vanish and reappear up to 120 feet away. This ability essentially mirrors the wizard spell dimension door, with a 120-foot range limitation. The creatures wield such precise control over this ability that they never reappear in midair or inside solid objects. Of course, a chameleon man cannot appear in the exact spot as someone or something else. These lizard-kin cannot attack in the round that they use this ability.

Chameleon man leaders – or Lords of Shade and Hue – have 4 Hit Dice and 1d20+10 constant bodyguards with 3 Hit Dice. Leaders can blend in with any natural background and have a 90% chance to remain undetected while unmoving. Lords and their bodyguards have a morale of Average (9).

Habitat/Society: All chameleon man settlements feature a magical site called a tookoo. The tookoo of a cave-dwelling clan might be a special grotto that glistens with arcane crystals. Forest dwellers might revere an ancient tree of strong magic. These sites always radiate magic and enable chameleon men to fight at a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls. When fighting for their tookoos or homes, their morale rises to Fearless (20).

Once a year chameleon men shed their skin, much as a lizard does. They save the skin for a vital purpose: reproduction. As this race has no female gender, chameleon men reproduce by placing their old skins in their clan’s tookoo. The offering has a 60% chance of magically transforming into a young chameleon man, which grows to maturity in just eight weeks.

Ecology: Chameleon men enjoy watching over old woods and caverns, maintaining the harmony of nature. They are sometimes hunted by lizard men, who fear their ability to vanish. These lizard-kin subsist on crops they cultivate and fish. Less scrupulous wizards prize a chameleon man’s skin as a component for making robes of blending.

Originally appeared in B8 - Journey to the Rock (1984). This is the Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix version.

 

[Mortis]

Chameleon Man (Wallara) coming soon...

Might as well copy my links over to the new thread.
2E Savage Coast Monstrous Compendium
More background info

It was only after looking again at the links that I realised that the first link was the 2E stats rather than a 3.x conversion.

<edit> Ah I see Shade has taken a level of ninja. ;-)

Regards
Mortis

 

[Shade]

Chameleon man leaders – or Lords of Shade and Hue

What?!? Who suggested this conversion? I didn't vote for a Lord? And who's Hue?

 

[Mortis]

I'll have to check my actual books, but the first link states that all chameleon men have the ability to blend in with their surroundings rather than just those Lords of (cough cough) Shade and Hue.

Some interesting bits from the second link.

At 3rd level, a wallara can truly mimic his surroundings. The Wallara effectively turns invisible like the wizard spell. Although a wallara can use this ability at will and any number of times in a day, he must remain absolutely quiet and motionless while doing so (he cannot cast spells, talk, attack, dodge, move, or vanish).
Wallaras have perfected the ability to remain motionless for extended periods of time (up to one hour per experience level), mimicking their surroundings. Mimicry only fools other races-wallaras can always see one another.

This seems to be a variant on their blend into their surroundings ability.

All wallaras have an uncanny ability to find their way back when within 10 miles of their homes or encampments. Keen powers of observation allow them to notice tracks, note the position of the stars, find landmarks. With a highly developed sense of smell, they are even able to utilise familiar odours for tracking and location finding.

Racial bonuses to Listen, Spot, and Survival? Scent special ability?

Wallaras are poor swimmers

Racial penalty to Swim (if there is such a thing).

They harbour a strong aversion to armour, since it cancels both their abilities to vanish and to mimic.

Just need to remember to add such a stipulation to the special abilities.

Regards
Mortis

 

[freyar]

Getting down to basics: Medium Humanoid (reptilian). Base abilities off the lizardfolk's Str 13, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 9, Wis 10, Cha 10? And changing the name to chameleon folk?

 

[Cleon]

Part Three.

Original thread closed due to exceeding 1,000 post count.

Hold on a second, there are a few minor problems with the Gargantua.

There are a few cases of a word getting doubled, get rid of the second:

Creating a Mystaran Gargantua
"Mystaran gargantua" is a template that can be added to any any corporeal, living creature of less than Colossal size with at least one racial Hit Die (referred to hereafter as the base creature). A Mystaran gargantua has all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Swallow Whole (Ex): A Mystaran gargantua gains a swallow whole attack if it has a bite attack and is Gargantuan size or larger. The creature can swallow opponents up to three size smaller than itself by making a successful grapple check. Once inside, an opponent takes takes crushing damage equal to the creature's bite attack plus 8 points of acid damage from the creature's gizzard. A Colossal Mystaran gargantua inflicts 12 points of acid damage. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 25 points of damage to the gizzard (AC 10 plus half the creature's natural armour). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out. A Mystaran gargantua's interior can hold 2 opponents of the base creature's size, 8 opponents 1 size smaller than the base creature, and 32 opponents 2 or more sizes smaller.

Feats: Feats: A Mystaran gargantua retains the feats of the base creature and gains additional feats according to its increased hit dice. If it gains epic feats, it can substitute epic equivalents of the base creature's feats instead of retaining the base creature's feats, provided it meets the prerequisites. For example, the Mystaran gargantua constrictor snake below may replace its Toughness feat with Epic Toughness, but cannot replace Alertness with Epic Skill Focus (Listen) and Epic Skill Focus (Spot), because it lacks the 20 rank prerequisite in those skills.

I'd like a "Mystaran Gargantua Size Table" and "Mystaran Gargantua Damage Table" in front of the relevant tables.

Finally, under Additional Mystaran Gargantua Abilities we've got "
CR Adjustment: +x" for both the SAs. I used +2 CR for the Gargantuan Carp, so shall we put "CR Adjustment: +2" in both?

I'm wondering whether a +1 CR might be more appropriate, but if we use that we'd need to adjust the Carp to CR 19.

 

[Cleon]

I'll have to check my actual books, but the first link states that all chameleon men have the ability to blend in with their surroundings rather than just those Lords of (cough cough) Shade and Hue.

Yes, all Chameleon Men can blend, the Lords are just better at it.

Also note that the Savage Coast version gains 10% Magic Resistance if they get old enough. Do we want to give the Lords Spell Resistance?

I think we should address the basics first. They look like a Lizardfolk should be a good start. Maybe remove the lizardfolk's NA and give them +2 Dex and +2 Wis?

 

[Mortis]

Here's the B8, B1-9, And AC9 version - as far as I can tell they are identical (text is actually take from AC9).

CHAMELEON MAN
Armour Class 9
Hit Dice: 2*
Move: 120' (40')
Attacks: 1 weapon
Damage: By weapon
No. Appearing: 2-8 (5-20)
Save As: Fighter 2
Morale: 7
Treasure Type: (Q+S) E
Intelligence: 10
Alignment: Neutral
XP Value: 25

Chameleon men usually live in deep caverns or in dense forests far
from civilization. They are 7 feet tall and quite thin, with spindly arms
and legs. They move with a gangling, awkward stride. They have
multi-coloured skin with tiger-like stripes of red, blue, green, yellow,
brawn, orange, black and white.

Each round a chameleon man can vanish and reappear in another
place up to 120 feet away from the spot where he vanished. This
vanishing move is instantaneous. The control of this ability is so
precise that they never reappear in mid-air or inside solid objects.
However, since the ability is instantaneous, a chameleon man cannot
reappear in the exact spot where someone else is standing when the
chameleon man vanishes. If several chameleon men use this ability in
the same area, they all reappear without bumping into each other.

A chameleon man cannot attack in the same round that he uses this
ability, because of the amount of mental concentration required to
vanish. A group of chameleon men will usually work in concert, using
their vanishing ability to surround opponents.

The warriors of this race are usually armed with daggers, spears or
clubs. They never wear armour, however, since they cannot carry
much weight when vanishing. Chameleon men leaders, known as
"Lords of Shade and Hue", have 4 hit dice and have 1d20+10
bodyguards who always accompany them. (HD 2). Both leaders and
bodyguards have a morale of 9.

------------------------------------------

Looking at their 'as characters/pc's' entry (in Dragon 186 and the Savage Coast Orc's Head Peninsula supplement) they get a -1 to Str and a +1 to Dex (or Wis if a cleric/shaman).

So I would suggest

Str 8, Dex 12 , Con 10, Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 10.

Yes to Medium Humanoid (Reptillian)

As they had a base AC of 9 in BD&D and 10 in 2E I agree that they should have no natural armour bonus.

Regards
Mortis

 

[Shade]

Hold on a second, there are a few minor problems with the Gargantua.

There are a few cases of a word getting doubled, get rid of the second:

Done.

I'd like a "Mystaran Gargantua Size Table" and "Mystaran Gargantua Damage Table" in front of the relevant tables.

You got it.

Finally, under Additional Mystaran Gargantua Abilities we've got "
CR Adjustment: +x" for both the SAs. I used +2 CR for the Gargantuan Carp, so shall we put "CR Adjustment: +2" in both?

I'm wondering whether a +1 CR might be more appropriate, but if we use that we'd need to adjust the Carp to CR 19.

+1 seems better. CR adjusted for carp.