The waking. You will never sleep again.

Ferret · Apr 14, 2005

The Waking
Medium Undead
Hit Dice: 9d12 (58 hp)
Initiative: +5 (Dex)
Speed: 50ft
Armour class: 24 (+5 dex, +5 natural armour, Chain shirt +4)
Base attack/Grapple: +4/+8
Attack: Bite +8 Melee (2d6+4) Or Bastard Sword +8 Melee (1d10+6) Or Slam +3 melee (1d6 +4)
Full Attack: Bite +8 Melee (2d6+4), Bastard sword +8 Melee(1d10+6) Or Slam +3 melee (1d6+4), Or Bastard sword +8 Melee(1d10+6)
Space/Reach: 5ft/5ft
Special Attacks: Dreamless
Special Qualities: Fatigue Aura, Sleepless, Fast healing 5, undead traits, Sans sleep.
Saves: Fort: +3, Refl: +8, Will: +9
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 21, Con --, Wis 16, Int 8 Cha 18
Skills: Climb +8, Hide +7, Jump +16, Listen +13, Move silently +7, Search +7, Spot +13, Survival +3 (+5 when tracking)
Feats: Alertness (B), Dodge, Mobility, Spring attack, Exotic weapon proficiency (Bastard sword), Improved Natural attack (bite)(B) twice.

Environment: Any land
Organization: Alone
Challenge Rating: 11
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Advancement: By character level
Level Adjustment: --

A pair of glazed eyes stair at you, as this skinless dried-out corpse shifts towards you. It’s unnatural speed giving an eerie and echoic creaking chorus to its movements. You begin to feel fatigued in its presence.

This remorseful creature has wasted into undeath by insomnia, unblinking and uncaring it roams the land with no aims or fears. Its skin has peeled with age, and the sinews beneath have hardened to a scarlet hide. The black-toothed grin screams an eternal and silence madness that has been etched in the being by years of unrest, and shows a set of predatory teeth.

The fiend is of straight stature, and grim repose. They stand well into 6 foot, and are around 200 pounds in weight.

Combat: Tireless even for an undead, combat against The Waking, is fast and continuous. Seemingly autonomous in efficiency and relentlessness they strike with the flowing motion of the sands of time.

Dreamless (Su): The Bite attack of The Waking deals 1d4 points of Wisdom drain, and is fatigued if it fails a Will save which is Charisma based DC of 18. On a success the drain turns to 1 point of Wisdom damage. If the victim fails by 10 or more the target slips into a coma (Unconsciousness lifted after 1 day) .

Sleepless (Ex): Tireless, unrelenting, everlasting. Reaching past the other side of fatigue the Waking always act with a lightning speed, and perceptive ken. This acts like an uncanny dodge and evasion effect. Along with this, the lack of sleep peels back many veils which manifest as a See invisible power.

Sans Sleep (Ex): The vile creature is unfatiguable and takes no detriment by max dex penalties or Skill check penalties.

Fatigue Aura (Ex): All living creatures within 30ft must make a Will save or take a -2 penalty on all checks due to fatigue.

It's quick, it's dirty, but that how I like it. What do you think? Any suggestions?

At one point I thought about adding Spell-like abilities, I'm not sure if that is a good idea, what with the creature being mainly an attack creature.

Krishnath · Apr 14, 2005

That is one nasty bugger, ain't it?

Very cool.

The Vorpal Tribble · Apr 14, 2005

*blinks*

This is 'REALLY' close to my Insomnius

DnDChick · Apr 15, 2005

Ferret said:
The Waking
Medium Undead
Hit Dice: 9d12 (52 hp)

The Waking's average hit points should be 58. WotC uses the mean average rather when calculating hp.

d4 = x2.5
d6 = x 3.5
d8 = x 4.5
d10 = x 5.5
d12 = x 6.5

So, 9 x 6.5 = 58.

Initiative: +5 (Dex)
Speed: 50ft
Armour class: 24 (+5 dex, +5 natural armour, Dodge +1, Chain shirt +4)

The Dodge bonus applies to only one chosen opponent, so it shouldn't be included in the AC line.

Base attack/Grapple: +4/+8
Attack: Bite +8 Melee (2d6+4) Or Bastard Sword +8 Melee (1d10+6) Or Slam +3 melee (1d6 +4)
Full Attack: Bite +8 Melee (2d6+4), Bastard sword +8 Melee(1d10+6) Or Slam +3 melee (1d6+4), Or Bastard sword +8/+3 Melee(1d10+6)

Its base attack bonus isn't high enough to give it iterateve attacks with its bastard sword. It would have to have a BAB of +6 or better to get iterative attacks.

Also, why is the bite damage so high? For a Medium creature, the bite damage should be closer to 1d3 or 1d4 without using the Improved Natural Attack feat. But never fear! Underdog is here! You can always use bonus feats to pump up the bite damage.

Space/Reach: 5ft/5ft
Special Attacks: Drain Rest, Dreamless
Special Qualities: Sleepless, Fast healing 5, undead traits, Sans sleep.
Saves: Fort: +3, Refl: +8, Will: +9
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 21, Con --, Wis 16, Int 8 Cha 18
Skills: Climb +8, Hide +7, Jump +8, Listen +13, Move silently +7, Search +7, Spot +13, Survival +5

It seems to have too many skill points. It should have 36 skill points and you've spent 38 ... unless I miscalculated somewhere which is entirely possible.

Climb 4 ranks, Hide 2 ranks, Jump 4 ranks, Listen 8 ranks, Move Silently 2 ranks, Search 8 ranks, Spot 8 ranks, Survival 2 ranks.

D'OH! I did miscalculate ... its 8 Search ranks give it a +2 synergy to Survival ... there we go. But remember that only applies when its following tracks so it should be listed thusly:

Survival +3 (+5 following tracks)

Also, its Jump skill is actually higher since its Speed is greater than 30 ft. It should have an additional +8 to its Jump. Check the description of the Jump skill to see what I am talking about.

Feats: Alertness (B), Dodge, Mobility, Spring attack, Exotic weapon proficiency (Bastard sword)

Environment: Any land
Organization: Alone
Challenge Rating:

What's its CR?

Drain Rest (Su): Any attack the Waking dead uses makes its opponent fatigued, and a round later must make a save or become exhausted (DC 18) The DC is con based. This effect lasts like natural Exhaustion or Fatigue.

The save DC should be 14. Save DCs for monster attacks are calculated as follows:

10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + relevent ability score modifier.

In this case, you've based the attack on the monster's Con.

10 + 4 (1/2 HD) + 0 = DC 14

But technically since Undead have no Con score they normally can't have abilities that use Con as the base stat. For undead, Charisma steps up to fill the void left by the absent Constitution. Even for abilities that sound like they *should* be Con-based, Undead use Charisma.

Given that, this ability should be Charisma-based and have a DC of 18.

Also ... is there a save against becomnig fatigued? If not, the CR should be pretty high if everything the Waking touches you with makes you fatigued with no save.

Ferret · Apr 15, 2005

DnDChick said:
The Waking's average hit points should be 58. WotC uses the mean average rather when calculating hp.

d4 = x2.5
d6 = x 3.5
d8 = x 4.5
d10 = x 5.5
d12 = x 6.5

So, 9 x 6.5 = 58.

Ok is that the official way? I've always made an average of the whole hitpoints.

DnDChick said:
The Dodge bonus applies to only one chosen opponent, so it shouldn't be included in the AC line.

It does, which is why it isn't calculated into the AC. i was going to put it like the touch and flat footed one but decided it would end up with a dodge version of all, so I scrapped that.

DnDChick said:
Its base attack bonus isn't high enough to give it iterateve attacks with its bastard sword. It would have to have a BAB of +6 or better to get iterative attacks.

D'oh! I must have thought the to hit was the BAB. And I really wanted two attacks.

DnDChick said:
Also, why is the bite damage so high? For a Medium creature, the bite damage should be closer to 1d3 or 1d4 without using the Improved Natural Attack feat. But never fear! Underdog is here! You can always use bonus feats to pump up the bite damage.

I wanted it to be, not big teeth but sharp ones. I will use the Improved natural to officiate it.

DnDChick said:
It seems to have too many skill points. It should have 36 skill points and you've spent 38 ... unless I miscalculated somewhere which is entirely possible.

Climb 4 ranks, Hide 2 ranks, Jump 4 ranks, Listen 8 ranks, Move Silently 2 ranks, Search 8 ranks, Spot 8 ranks, Survival 2 ranks.

D'OH! I did miscalculate ... its 8 Search ranks give it a +2 synergy to Survival ... there we go. But remember that only applies when its following tracks so it should be listed thusly:

Survival +3 (+5 following tracks)

Also, its Jump skill is actually higher since its Speed is greater than 30 ft. It should have an additional +8 to its Jump. Check the description of the Jump skill to see what I am talking about.

I didn't mean it like that... to have the bonus to survival work out like that. I think I was using cha not Wisdom.

DnDChick said:
What's its CR?

No idea, some where arround 11 I think.

DnDChick said:
The save DC should be 14. Save DCs for monster attacks are calculated as follows:

10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + relevent ability score modifier.

In this case, you've based the attack on the monster's Con.

10 + 4 (1/2 HD) + 0 = DC 14

But technically since Undead have no Con score they normally can't have abilities that use Con as the base stat. For undead, Charisma steps up to fill the void left by the absent Constitution. Even for abilities that sound like they *should* be Con-based, Undead use Charisma.

Given that, this ability should be Charisma-based and have a DC of 18.

It was meant to be charisma I think, thats why I put 18.

DnDChick said:
Also ... is there a save against becomnig fatigued? If not, the CR should be pretty high if everything the Waking touches you with makes you fatigued with no save.

I wanted it to be tough, what I might do is turn that back into what I planned to be, which was an aura of fatigue and make the bite do fatiguing, and the coma on a critical, although that is too rare...

DnDChick · Apr 15, 2005

You could have the coma come if the save is failed by 10 or more.

Also ... regarding average hit point caculation ... that's not really a rule, and for homebrew critters isn't really even necessary if you're going to roll hit points. The "official" monsters from WotC all have their HP calculated that way.