Converting Planescape monsters
Cleon
Legend
You liked that idea so much you said it twice!
So are you proposing some sort of mini-template and apply it to a 2nd, 4th and 5th level Astral Construct as sample creatures?
That'd match the size and HD apart from the 5th level Astral Construct, which has 7 HD rather than the 8 of a Large Figment.
There's a bunch of differences, though,
Figments are Intelligent, meaning they have Skills and Feats unless they have some SQ that removes them.
Their AC and speed are noticeably lower than Astral Constructs.
The description suggests their attacks are bites, tentacles or scimitar-arms rather than the hands of an Astral Construct. Oh, and the Large Figment has three natural attacks instead of two.
I'm inclined to stat them up as separate creatures, although we could base them on the Astral Construct and maybe create some ability or magic item that allows someone to create them with the astral construct power?
I'd aim for a power equivalent that's roughly:
Small Figment = 2nd level Astral Construct (CR 1)
Medium Figment = 4th level Astral Construct (CR 3)
Large Figment = 5th level Astral Construct (CR 5)
That way the +2 CR difference between each size matches the "calls forth four small figments, two medium figments, or one large figment" of the original, since two CR X monsters are supposed to be equivalent to a CR X+2 monster.
Cleon
Legend
Figment Working Draft
Figment, Astral
Astral Figment, Small
Small Construct
Hit Dice: 2d10+2 (13 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)
Armor Class: AC 12 (+1 size, +1 Dex), touch 12, flat-footed 11
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/–3
Attack: Appendage* +4 melee (1d4+1)
Full Attack: Appendage* +4 melee (1d4+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Appendages, demand credence
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 5/magic, darkvision 60 ft., illusory form, living figment construct, low-light vision
Saves: Fort +1, Ref +1, Will +1
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 1, Wis 8, Cha 11
Skills: Hide +5* (+9 in shadows), Spot +4
Feats: Iron Willᴮ, Weapon Focus (appendage)
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary or delusion (2–16 figments of various sizes)
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
Astral Figment, Medium
Medium Construct
Hit Dice: 5d10+10 (37 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)
Armor Class: 16 (+2 Dex, +3 NA, +1 deflection), touch 13, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+5
Attack: Appendage* +6 melee (1d6+2)
Full Attack: 2 appendages* +6 melee (1d6+2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Appendages, demand credence
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 10/magic, darkvision 60 ft., illusory form, living figment construct, low-light vision
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +3
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 3, Wis 10, Cha 13
Skills: Hide +2* (+6 in shadows), Spot +8
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Iron Willᴮ, Weapon Focus (appendage)
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary or delusion (2–16 figments of various sizes)
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
Astral Figment, Large
Large Construct
Hit Dice: 8d10+24 (68 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 20 (–1 size, +3 Dex, +6 NA, +2 deflection), touch 14, flat-footed 17
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+14
Attack: Appendage* +10 melee (1d8+4/19–20)
Full Attack: 3 appendages* +10 melee (1d8+4/19–20)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Appendages, demand credence
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 15/magic, darkvision 60 ft., illusory form, living figment construct, low-light vision
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +6
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 17, Con 16, Int 5, Wis 12, Cha 15
Skills: Hide –1* (+3 in shadows), Spot +12
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical (Appendage), Iron Willᴮ, Weapon Focus (appendage)
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary or delusion (2–16 figments of various sizes)
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
An entity of solid darkness as if a creature's shadow had gained life and substance of its own. Its outline is constantly in flux but is approximately humanoid, but the head and limbs are monstrous, lethal appendages for rending or crushing opponents.
Astral figments are semi-illusory beings created when an amazingly rare combination of magical forces interacts with a lunatic mind. Despite being at least partially formed from mental energy they are unrelated to the psionic entities known as astral constructs. An astral figment looks like a "solid shadow" that may literally take any shape that can be imagined. However, they are mostly shaped like nightmarish mockeries of whatever creature created them – typically a humanoid or humanoid-shaped outsider. Even maniacs tend to imagine other beings resemble themselves.
Astral figments can freely change their height and length within the normal ranges of a creature their size. A Small astral figment can alter its dimensions between 2 feet and 4 feet, a Medium astral figment can shift from 4 feet to 8 feet, and a Large astral figment ranges from 8 feet to 16 feet.
An astral figment is weightless in its natural illusory form. When using Demand Credence to assume physical reality they generally weigh 15 pounds for Small astral figment, 125 pounds for a Medium astral figment and 1,000 pounds for a Large astral figment.
COMBAT
Astral figments open combat by attacking opponents with their Demand Credence ability in the hope of gaining material form. They prioritize gullible looking opponents who are more likely to fail a Will save against Demand Credence. If the figments gain material form they fight until destroyed. Astral figments use pack tactics and are clever enough to adjust their appendages to forms that more effectively damage their opponents.
Appendages (Ex): An astral figment can alter its head and other limbs to any shape it likes as a free action. Its attacking appendages can take any form imaginable — claws, tentacles, scimitars, shark-toothed maws or whatever — and inflict whatever type of damage (slashing, piercing and/or crushing) the astral figment desires. Astral figments can freely swap damage types when making multiple attacks, including attacks of opportunity. For example, a Large astral figment could use its three appendages to make two slashing "scimitar" attacks and a piercing or slashing "dagger" bite attack and perform attacks of opportunity with both a crushing "tentacle" and piercing "horn" in the same round.
Demand Credence (Ex): The first time an astral figment hits an intelligent opponent with an attack, that opponent must make a Will save. If the opponent fails the save they take damage from the attack and their belief in the reality of the astral figment grants it a material form. If the opponent succeeds on its Will save, it takes no damage and becomes immune to that astral figment's Demand Credence ability for 24 hours. The saving throw is normally DC 13 for Small astral figments, DC 15 for Medium figments and DC 18 for Large figments. The save DCs are Charisma-based and include a +2 racial bonus.
An astral figment in material form is not an illusion and can interact with and attack creatures and objects as a physical creature with the statistics presented above. The astral figment can remain in material form for up to 1 hour per hit dice is possesses before it must revert to its illusory form. It can dismiss its material form as a free action. An astral figment will return to illusory form if there are no intelligent creatures present for it to interact with.
Illusory Form (Ex): An astral figments' natural state is an insubstantial illusion, though they can gain a material form through their Demand Credence special attack (see above).
The illusory form functions as the spell programmed image with the following exceptions. Astral figments are permanent and capable of self-directed action and intelligible speech. The illusory form has the AC and hit points presented above but has no Strength score and is incapable of attacking or even touching anything. Successful attacks against the astral figment deal damage to it normally, and the astral figments will be destroyed if its hit points reach zero.
Living Figment Construct (Ex): These creatures are living constructs formed from astral shadow-stuff which grants them the following traits:
—Unlike other constructs, a living figment has a Constitution score.
—Unlike other constructs, a living figment is not immune to mind-affecting spells and abilities.
—Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, effects that cause the sickened condition, and energy drain.
—A living figment cannot heal damage naturally.
—Living figments are not truly alive and cannot be raised or resurrected.
—Unlike other constructs, living figments are subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, stunning, ability damage, ability drain, and death effects or necromancy effects.
—Living figments can be affected by spells that target living creatures as well as by those that target constructs. Damage dealt to a living figment can be healed by a cure light wounds spell or a repair light damage spell, for example, and a living figment is vulnerable to disable construct and harm.
—A living figment always treats spells with the Shadow descriptor as if they were 100% real with no Will save to recognize the spell's true nature.
—A figment does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, but he can still benefit from the effects of consumable spells and magic items such as heroes’ feast and potions.
Mutability (Ex): An astral figment can freely change form to look like literally any imaginable living creature, although it always looks like it's made of moving shadows.
Skills: *An astral figment gains a +4 racial bonus on Hide checks in areas of shadowy illumination.
New Magic Item
The following item can conjure astral figments.
Cloak of Figments: A ragged black cloak woven from wispy strands of shadow, the cloak of figments is a cursed minor artifact that grants its wearer spell resistance 16 and immunity to mind-affecting effects. When worn, the cloak appears to be a cape formed from tiny humanoid shadow-creatures that crawl over the wearer's back and shoulders. These "creatures" are actually illusions. They constantly chatter nonsense as they transform from one monstrous shape to another.
As an at-will standard action, the wearer of the cloak of figments can cause some "shadow creatures" to separate from the cloak and become conjured astral figments in any adjacent space. The cloak can conjure four Small astral figments or an equivalent number of larger figments. A Medium astral figment counts as two Small figments and a Large astral figment as four. A maximum of twelve Small astral figments (or equivalent larger ones) can be in existence at any one time. The wearer can dismiss any number of figments as a free action.
Unfortunately, the wearer becomes permanently insane as per the spell insanity as soon as they put on the cloak of figments (in campaigns using sanity rules, treat the character as having -10 sanity points). This insanity cannot be cured or limited as long as the cloak is worn. The cloak can only be removed if its wearer is dead or unconscious. In other circumstances the cloak of figments becomes insubstantial to prevent its removal.
Strong conjuration, enchantment, abjuration; CL 20th; weight 2 lbs.
Originally appeared in Harbinger House (1995)
Figment, Astral
Astral Figment, Small
Small Construct
Hit Dice: 2d10+2 (13 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)
Armor Class: AC 12 (+1 size, +1 Dex), touch 12, flat-footed 11
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/–3
Attack: Appendage* +4 melee (1d4+1)
Full Attack: Appendage* +4 melee (1d4+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Appendages, demand credence
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 5/magic, darkvision 60 ft., illusory form, living figment construct, low-light vision
Saves: Fort +1, Ref +1, Will +1
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 1, Wis 8, Cha 11
Skills: Hide +5* (+9 in shadows), Spot +4
Feats: Iron Willᴮ, Weapon Focus (appendage)
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary or delusion (2–16 figments of various sizes)
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
Astral Figment, Medium
Medium Construct
Hit Dice: 5d10+10 (37 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)
Armor Class: 16 (+2 Dex, +3 NA, +1 deflection), touch 13, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+5
Attack: Appendage* +6 melee (1d6+2)
Full Attack: 2 appendages* +6 melee (1d6+2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Appendages, demand credence
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 10/magic, darkvision 60 ft., illusory form, living figment construct, low-light vision
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +3
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 3, Wis 10, Cha 13
Skills: Hide +2* (+6 in shadows), Spot +8
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Iron Willᴮ, Weapon Focus (appendage)
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary or delusion (2–16 figments of various sizes)
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
Astral Figment, Large
Large Construct
Hit Dice: 8d10+24 (68 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 20 (–1 size, +3 Dex, +6 NA, +2 deflection), touch 14, flat-footed 17
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+14
Attack: Appendage* +10 melee (1d8+4/19–20)
Full Attack: 3 appendages* +10 melee (1d8+4/19–20)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Appendages, demand credence
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 15/magic, darkvision 60 ft., illusory form, living figment construct, low-light vision
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +6
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 17, Con 16, Int 5, Wis 12, Cha 15
Skills: Hide –1* (+3 in shadows), Spot +12
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical (Appendage), Iron Willᴮ, Weapon Focus (appendage)
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary or delusion (2–16 figments of various sizes)
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
An entity of solid darkness as if a creature's shadow had gained life and substance of its own. Its outline is constantly in flux but is approximately humanoid, but the head and limbs are monstrous, lethal appendages for rending or crushing opponents.
Astral figments are semi-illusory beings created when an amazingly rare combination of magical forces interacts with a lunatic mind. Despite being at least partially formed from mental energy they are unrelated to the psionic entities known as astral constructs. An astral figment looks like a "solid shadow" that may literally take any shape that can be imagined. However, they are mostly shaped like nightmarish mockeries of whatever creature created them – typically a humanoid or humanoid-shaped outsider. Even maniacs tend to imagine other beings resemble themselves.
Astral figments can freely change their height and length within the normal ranges of a creature their size. A Small astral figment can alter its dimensions between 2 feet and 4 feet, a Medium astral figment can shift from 4 feet to 8 feet, and a Large astral figment ranges from 8 feet to 16 feet.
An astral figment is weightless in its natural illusory form. When using Demand Credence to assume physical reality they generally weigh 15 pounds for Small astral figment, 125 pounds for a Medium astral figment and 1,000 pounds for a Large astral figment.
COMBAT
Astral figments open combat by attacking opponents with their Demand Credence ability in the hope of gaining material form. They prioritize gullible looking opponents who are more likely to fail a Will save against Demand Credence. If the figments gain material form they fight until destroyed. Astral figments use pack tactics and are clever enough to adjust their appendages to forms that more effectively damage their opponents.
Appendages (Ex): An astral figment can alter its head and other limbs to any shape it likes as a free action. Its attacking appendages can take any form imaginable — claws, tentacles, scimitars, shark-toothed maws or whatever — and inflict whatever type of damage (slashing, piercing and/or crushing) the astral figment desires. Astral figments can freely swap damage types when making multiple attacks, including attacks of opportunity. For example, a Large astral figment could use its three appendages to make two slashing "scimitar" attacks and a piercing or slashing "dagger" bite attack and perform attacks of opportunity with both a crushing "tentacle" and piercing "horn" in the same round.
Demand Credence (Ex): The first time an astral figment hits an intelligent opponent with an attack, that opponent must make a Will save. If the opponent fails the save they take damage from the attack and their belief in the reality of the astral figment grants it a material form. If the opponent succeeds on its Will save, it takes no damage and becomes immune to that astral figment's Demand Credence ability for 24 hours. The saving throw is normally DC 13 for Small astral figments, DC 15 for Medium figments and DC 18 for Large figments. The save DCs are Charisma-based and include a +2 racial bonus.
An astral figment in material form is not an illusion and can interact with and attack creatures and objects as a physical creature with the statistics presented above. The astral figment can remain in material form for up to 1 hour per hit dice is possesses before it must revert to its illusory form. It can dismiss its material form as a free action. An astral figment will return to illusory form if there are no intelligent creatures present for it to interact with.
Illusory Form (Ex): An astral figments' natural state is an insubstantial illusion, though they can gain a material form through their Demand Credence special attack (see above).
The illusory form functions as the spell programmed image with the following exceptions. Astral figments are permanent and capable of self-directed action and intelligible speech. The illusory form has the AC and hit points presented above but has no Strength score and is incapable of attacking or even touching anything. Successful attacks against the astral figment deal damage to it normally, and the astral figments will be destroyed if its hit points reach zero.
Living Figment Construct (Ex): These creatures are living constructs formed from astral shadow-stuff which grants them the following traits:
—Unlike other constructs, a living figment has a Constitution score.
—Unlike other constructs, a living figment is not immune to mind-affecting spells and abilities.
—Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, effects that cause the sickened condition, and energy drain.
—A living figment cannot heal damage naturally.
—Living figments are not truly alive and cannot be raised or resurrected.
—Unlike other constructs, living figments are subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, stunning, ability damage, ability drain, and death effects or necromancy effects.
—Living figments can be affected by spells that target living creatures as well as by those that target constructs. Damage dealt to a living figment can be healed by a cure light wounds spell or a repair light damage spell, for example, and a living figment is vulnerable to disable construct and harm.
—A living figment always treats spells with the Shadow descriptor as if they were 100% real with no Will save to recognize the spell's true nature.
—A figment does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, but he can still benefit from the effects of consumable spells and magic items such as heroes’ feast and potions.
Mutability (Ex): An astral figment can freely change form to look like literally any imaginable living creature, although it always looks like it's made of moving shadows.
Skills: *An astral figment gains a +4 racial bonus on Hide checks in areas of shadowy illumination.
New Magic Item
The following item can conjure astral figments.
Cloak of Figments: A ragged black cloak woven from wispy strands of shadow, the cloak of figments is a cursed minor artifact that grants its wearer spell resistance 16 and immunity to mind-affecting effects. When worn, the cloak appears to be a cape formed from tiny humanoid shadow-creatures that crawl over the wearer's back and shoulders. These "creatures" are actually illusions. They constantly chatter nonsense as they transform from one monstrous shape to another.
As an at-will standard action, the wearer of the cloak of figments can cause some "shadow creatures" to separate from the cloak and become conjured astral figments in any adjacent space. The cloak can conjure four Small astral figments or an equivalent number of larger figments. A Medium astral figment counts as two Small figments and a Large astral figment as four. A maximum of twelve Small astral figments (or equivalent larger ones) can be in existence at any one time. The wearer can dismiss any number of figments as a free action.
Unfortunately, the wearer becomes permanently insane as per the spell insanity as soon as they put on the cloak of figments (in campaigns using sanity rules, treat the character as having -10 sanity points). This insanity cannot be cured or limited as long as the cloak is worn. The cloak can only be removed if its wearer is dead or unconscious. In other circumstances the cloak of figments becomes insubstantial to prevent its removal.
Strong conjuration, enchantment, abjuration; CL 20th; weight 2 lbs.
Originally appeared in Harbinger House (1995)
Last edited:
Cleon
Legend
Okay, I've started up a mostly empty Working Draft as a placeholders.
We ought to decide on what we're calling these things since there's another monster called a Figment in D&D that appear in Dungeon #81 and are similar in concept:
Figments
Aristeos’s spells call into being strange creatures formed of illusion, shadow, and negative energy. Called figments, these creatures are free-willed and malevolent, though they appear in the forms shaped by Aristeos’s illusion spells. The figments imbue his illusions with reality, however, making them truly dangerous to the PCs and other living creatures.
Originally from Dungeon Magazine #81 ("The Door to Darkness" by James Wyatt, July/August 2000).
That was published five years before Harbinger House, so the one we're currently working on has first dibs on the name "FIgment" and we could convert the Dungeon #81 as a "Darkness Figment" since they're weaker manifestations of creatures called Darknesses.
That said, we could call the Harbinger House version an "Astral Figment" to distinguish it more clearly.
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
Stupid double posts...
We could call these "Tomin Figments" or something, too, though maybe that gets into murky copyright areas. "Astral Figment" is probably safer.
Anyway, the basic framework in your working draft is sound, I think. I'm trying to figure out if they should be incorporeal based on the original description. Making them "shadow" creatures and the magical weapons to hit suggests yes, but it's really not clear. What do you think?
We could call these "Tomin Figments" or something, too, though maybe that gets into murky copyright areas. "Astral Figment" is probably safer.
Anyway, the basic framework in your working draft is sound, I think. I'm trying to figure out if they should be incorporeal based on the original description. Making them "shadow" creatures and the magical weapons to hit suggests yes, but it's really not clear. What do you think?
Cleon
Legend
I'm inclined to just give these ones the "Figment" name and the other variety "Darkness Figment" but would be fine calling them "Astral Figments" if you prefer that title.
There's no mention of them having any abilities associated with incorporeality, like "walking through walls" and the like so I'm inclined to make them corporeal.
They might be fundamentally-amorphous and near weightlessly incorporeal, like an Air Elemental, but I think there's at least some substance to them, if only a "shadowy" substance.
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
"Astral" or not doesn't really matter to me.
Leaving them corporeal but "thin" is ok. Just throwing the idea out there.
If we take the damage bonus in the original monsters to indicate Str, we could have something like Str 12, Str 13, Str 16, which is a bit wimpy for 3e size advancement but might make sense for shadowy figments. The HD bonus suggests Con 12-13, Con 14-15, Con 16-17, which is pretty reasonable. And we're given Int. So something like average Dex, Wis, Cha for all of them to fix the abilities?
Leaving them corporeal but "thin" is ok. Just throwing the idea out there.
If we take the damage bonus in the original monsters to indicate Str, we could have something like Str 12, Str 13, Str 16, which is a bit wimpy for 3e size advancement but might make sense for shadowy figments. The HD bonus suggests Con 12-13, Con 14-15, Con 16-17, which is pretty reasonable. And we're given Int. So something like average Dex, Wis, Cha for all of them to fix the abilities?
Cleon
Legend
That suits me.
We've got plenty of precedent for boosting Strength to up the damage when doing these conversions.
How about giving them half the normal size increase to Str, so +2 for Small => Medium and +4 for Medium => Large.
That'd work out as, say, Str 12-13/14-15/18-19 for S/M/L figments.
Yup, that's what I had in mind too.
I can see Dexterity being high enough to give them an ability bonus going by the flavour of them scurrying about. It'd also help account for the impressive Armour Classes the larger varieties have.
Maybe use similar numbers to your Con proposals - Dex 12-13, Dex 14-15, Dex 16-17?
Then we'd need NA of +0/+3/+8 to match the original AC.
As for Wisdom or Charisma, I'm tempted to give them, say, 4 points lower Wisdom than their Con/Dex and Iron Will (maybe as a bonus feat?) so they have the same saving throws in all three categories.
i.e. Wis 8-9/10-11/12-13.
Cleon
Legend
What are we doing about the "only damages people if at least one opponent believe it is real" ability? That seems a bit wonky. Why should a creature take damage from the figment if someone else believes in it? Also, if EVERYONE in the fight has to succeed on a save against EVERY figment the chances of at least one failure are so great it's not really worth bothering.
It was quite a common mechanism for AD&D illusions, except it was only those who failed the saves who risked taking the damage!
Also, it'd require a ridiculous amount of dice rolling. In the adventure Tomin can summon four figments per round - that's four saving throws per PC each round!
Maybe rationalize it a bit so only one Will save per person for a group of figments is required, and if ALL succeed no one will take damage, but if anyone fails the figments gain enough "substance" to inflict damage, but do reduced damage (maybe half?) to those who made their saves.
It'd need to be a non-standard saving throw, maybe calculate it based on the total HD of figments plus the highest Charisma modifier amongst the figments?
Hmm… if we gave them all the same Charisma modifier that'd mean a group of four 2 HD Small figments would require the same saving throw to disbelieve as a single 8 HD Large figment, but 1 point lower than two 5 HD Medium figments.
Alternatively, if we used the proposed +2 step progression of their Dex, Con & Wis (to go with their Int 1/3/5) then a single 8 HD Large figment would have the same disbelieve DC as two 5 HD Medium figments, since the 2 HD difference will be balanced out by the 2-point higher Charisma. Contrariwise, four 2 HD Small figments would have a 2-point lower disbelieve DC.
Hmm… I think I like the progressive Cha approach better. If the lower disbelief DC of a group of 2 HD figments is bothersome we could make the standard Small figments 3 HD creatures, but I'm OK with them being 2 HD. We could always arbitrarily give them something that grants a +2 to the DC, but that doesn't seem necessary.
It was quite a common mechanism for AD&D illusions, except it was only those who failed the saves who risked taking the damage!
Also, it'd require a ridiculous amount of dice rolling. In the adventure Tomin can summon four figments per round - that's four saving throws per PC each round!
Maybe rationalize it a bit so only one Will save per person for a group of figments is required, and if ALL succeed no one will take damage, but if anyone fails the figments gain enough "substance" to inflict damage, but do reduced damage (maybe half?) to those who made their saves.
It'd need to be a non-standard saving throw, maybe calculate it based on the total HD of figments plus the highest Charisma modifier amongst the figments?
Hmm… if we gave them all the same Charisma modifier that'd mean a group of four 2 HD Small figments would require the same saving throw to disbelieve as a single 8 HD Large figment, but 1 point lower than two 5 HD Medium figments.
Alternatively, if we used the proposed +2 step progression of their Dex, Con & Wis (to go with their Int 1/3/5) then a single 8 HD Large figment would have the same disbelieve DC as two 5 HD Medium figments, since the 2 HD difference will be balanced out by the 2-point higher Charisma. Contrariwise, four 2 HD Small figments would have a 2-point lower disbelieve DC.
Hmm… I think I like the progressive Cha approach better. If the lower disbelief DC of a group of 2 HD figments is bothersome we could make the standard Small figments 3 HD creatures, but I'm OK with them being 2 HD. We could always arbitrarily give them something that grants a +2 to the DC, but that doesn't seem necessary.
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