Converting Creatures from Other Campaign Settings

Big Mac · Jul 25, 2008

I could be pursuaded either way too. I was just hoping their would be a clue in the blurb.

Shade · Jul 29, 2008

Echohawk said:
However, Jakandor's arid bloodthorn is clearly based on the Planescape version. It shares much of the descriptive text, for one thing. It may indeed make sense to develop updates of the Planescape and Jakandor versions of the bloodthorn at the same time.

Agreed. Int 2 then?

freyar · Jul 30, 2008

Int 2 sounds good. Probably Wis 11-12, Cha 9-10, roughly like the CC bloodthorn. How many HD do we want to start this thing with? Might make some difference in physical stats.

Big Mac · Jul 31, 2008

freyar said:
Int 2 sounds good. Probably Wis 11-12, Cha 9-10, roughly like the CC bloodthorn. How many HD do we want to start this thing with? Might make some difference in physical stats.

I think the other conversions are a tiny bit limiting for a monster that originally had 3-8 HD in 2nd edition. I think the "1 attack per HD" thing is probably one of the most distinctive abilities of this plant.

Can't we treat this a bit like a hydra and do 6 sets of stats (3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 HD)? The extra HD will boost the BAB of all the attacks, but we can also add in more skills/feats as we go along.

Improved Critical, Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple, Stunning Fist, Toughness, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, Ability Focus (on its blood draining or the blood draining pain), Improved Natural Armor and Improved Natural Attack are all possible feats to add in there somewhere along the way.

A variety of stats can also mean that we can make the high HD plants into "adults" and the low HD plants into "children" (or "seedlings").

I infer from the original blurb that the collective noun for Arid Bloodthorns is a patch. I can see a patch of arid bloodthorns being a 7 or 8 HD plant surrounded by a circle of 3 or 4 HD plants. I wouldn't especially make a patch of plants co-operative. I'd have the seedling plants grow at roughly equal distances from the parent plant. The instinctive behavior should set off all the attacks of the plants in a patch at round about the same time. In fact as the child plants grow (and gain more attacks) they should become more effective at fully draining victims than the parent plant. Eventually, they should grab the vast majority of the food and the parent plant should normally starve to death before it can advance into a 9 HD plant. (I think that 2nd generation patches should expand into larger circles with a barren area in the middle. A really large patch could then "repopulate" that barren area with a low HD plant.

freyar · Jul 31, 2008

Treating these like a hydra is an interesting idea. We had something similar with one attack per HD in the gravewatcher conversion earlier this year, I think, too. I think the alternative is noting that these have some unique advancement (ie, extra attacks).

Shade · Jul 31, 2008

Yeah, the multiple stat block approach might work well in this case.

Big Mac · Aug 2, 2008

Shade said:
Yeah, the multiple stat block approach might work well in this case.

How about starting with the 3HD beastie and adding extra HD, skills and feats (to generate the other versions) after the monster is finished?

freyar · Aug 2, 2008

Big Mac said:
How about starting with the 3HD beastie and adding extra HD, skills and feats (to generate the other versions) after the monster is finished?

I think that's exactly the right approach. Also, typically when there are monsters like this in the SRD, there's some nonstandard ability score improvement along with the HD advancement.

For 3HD version, how about stats of Str 14, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 9? These are similar to the CC version (which has 5HD).

Big Mac · Aug 3, 2008

freyar said:
I think that's exactly the right approach. Also, typically when there are monsters like this in the SRD, there's some nonstandard ability score improvement along with the HD advancement.

I've noticed some monsters that break the rules. I can't recall any of them now, but have seen discussions about them over at the forums attached to the Hypertext d20 SRD.

freyar said:
For 3HD version, how about stats of Str 14, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 9? These are similar to the CC version (which has 5HD).

Personally, I'd be happy to use those stats (along with the standard stat bumps for increased levels) for all of the versions. I think this needs several stats, but I don't want to slow the conversion down any more than necessary.

Shade · Aug 4, 2008

One of the most common applications I've seen is to keep the Dex constant (rather than dropping) with increased size, which often makes perfect sense.

So we'll start with 3 HD and Str 14, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 9.

Added to Homebrews using these stats and the blood drain and improved grab abilities from the FF bloodthorn as placeholders.