Slaad Farming

Hypersmurf · Feb 4, 2002

The only Hps it would've taken are those bestowed by Con hitpoints, right?

Well, your current hit points are always your total rolled points per die, plus your Con bonus x Hit Dice, less any damage sustained.

The example I'm using is a Young Adult Blue Dragon. 19 Con, 18 hit dice, 189 hit points average.

That's a Con bonus of +4 : 4 points per hit die. So it's hit points could be considered 117, + 72 bonus points.

If it sustains two points of Con damage, its bonus drops to 3 points per die. Its hit point total is now 117 + 54, or 171.

If its Con drops to 6, then its Con bonus is -2. Its hit point total is now 117 - 36, or 81.

Any damage sustained is subtracted from that. So if the dragon has taken 100 hit points of damage, and then gets its Con drained to 6, then its current hit points are 81 - 100, or negative 19. Dead, in other words.

The potential problem for DMs to keep track of, if they can be bothered, is that no hit die can be worth less than 1 hit point.

So with a Con modifier of -4 (say a 2 Constitution), a roll of 6 is worth 2, a roll of 5 is worth 1, and a roll of one through 4 is also worth 1. But figuring out what the dragon rolled for each d12 can be a headache

-Hyp.

Wolfspider · Feb 4, 2002

Ahh, yes. Hit points. Hadn't thought of that.

In defense of my overzealousness, the way I read the description was that the dragon lost 8 points of constitution and fell out of the sky directly
because of that loss ("The Dragon fell out of the sky as it sufferd 8 points of con damage."), not because it was dead.

Carry on....

Vaxalon · Feb 4, 2002

Caliban said:
Poison and Disease may be an exception, I just don't see anything that indicates that they would be.

How often do your enemies live long enough to worry about the secondary poison damage anyway?

I don't know whether it's a house rule or a correct interpretation of the existing rule, but in my game, the poison hangs around long enough to cause secondary damage.

green slime · Feb 4, 2002

I would have had the poison (and disease) hang around as well...

But Caliban does have a legitimate point. I'll have to ponder this. In a team of mostly good PCs, this really affects them more than it does the bad guys.

BTW, great thread: Slaad farming! You guys are all mad I tell you!

Hand of Vecna · Feb 4, 2002

Well, if you wanted to be really anal about it, you could rule that any summoned critter that normally has a Disease attack doesn't have the attack form when summoned, since the spell only summons the critter, not the thousands of bacteria/virii that cohabitate it's body...

HeavyG · Feb 4, 2002

Gromm said:
A cool idea for an adventure though. Crazy sorceror summons some "pets" and looses control and the PCs have to clean it up.

Yeah, kind of a Island of Doctor Moreau/Alien crossover.

*Cue movie preview announcer voice*

A power-mad sorceror living alone on a remote island has gone too far. Summoning a slaad to impregnate cows and create an unbeatable army of mad cow slaadi n1njaz, the sorcerer was killed when his uncontrollable minions turned on him.

A few weeks later, in a terrible storm, a group of adventurers is shipwrecked and lands on ...

Mad Cow Island

Caliban · Feb 4, 2002

HeavyG said:
Yeah, kind of a Island of Doctor Moreau/Alien crossover.

*Cue movie preview announcer voice*

A power-mad sorceror living alone on a remote island has gone too far. Summoning a slaad to impregnate cows and create an unbeatable army of mad cow slaadi n1njaz, the sorcerer was killed when his uncontrollable minions turned on him.

A few weeks later, in a terrible storm, a group of adventurers is shipwrecked and lands on ...

Mad Cow Island

Hmmm... I may have just found the first storyline for a Dragonstar campaign I promised to run (because it does look like it would work with Calling a Slaad)...

Caliban · Feb 4, 2002

green slime said:
I would have had the poison (and disease) hang around as well...

But Caliban does have a legitimate point. I'll have to ponder this. In a team of mostly good PCs, this really affects them more than it does the bad guys.

BTW, great thread: Slaad farming! You guys are all mad I tell you!

It may have been the intent that poison and disease attacks work normally for summoned creatures, and they just didn't think to spell it out. Or they may not have intended them to work normally, and didn't think to spell it out.

I really don't get a strong impression one way or the other from reading the information on Summoning in the PHB, other than it stating that the creature leaves when it dies or the spell ends, and I believe that means anything the creature brought with it leaves.