Converting Al-Qadim creatures

Cleon said:

Feed on Emotions (Su): An al-jahar can feed off emotional energy, but it can only feed off intelligent creature gripped by strong negative emotions (rage, lust, greed, et cetera), although such emotions can be natural or induced by such spells such as domination, fear or rage. An al-jahar can attempt to feed off all creatures within a 30 ft. radius. Any creature gripped by a hateful passion must attempt a DC X Will save, if they fail they take 1 Charisma damage and can not be affected by any al-jahar's feed on emotions attack for the next 24 hours.

Al-jahar must feed on emotions to sustain their powers. One point of Charisma damage is enough to sustain an al-jahar for a day. If an al-jahar goes hungry for more than a week it is unable to use its 1/day spell-like powers, if it goes hungry for a month its 3/day powers become 1/day powers, after 3 months it can only use its at-will powers and is fatigued, and if it goes hungry for a year it cannot use any of its spell-like or psionic powers and is exhausted (although it can still change shape and sense and feed on emotions). It is impossible for an al-jahar to starve to death, they can linger for centuries without the strength to cast a spell. An al-jahar can recover from a stage of starvation by feeding off Y [10? 5?] points of Charisma.

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Upon reflection, I prefer "sense or feed" over "sense and feed" in the Feed on Emotions description. I think I'll revise it.

Plus, I am leaning towards having 5 points of Charisma feeding being enough to revive a starving al-jahar one stage.

Revising...

Feed on Emotions (Su): An al-jahar can feed off emotional energy, but it can only feed off intelligent creature gripped by strong negative emotions (rage, lust, greed, et cetera), although such emotions can be natural or induced by such spells such as domination, fear or rage. An al-jahar can attempt to feed off all creatures within a 30 ft. radius. Any creature gripped by a hateful passion must attempt a DC X Will save, if they fail they take 1 Charisma damage and can not be affected by any al-jahar's feed on emotions attack for the next 24 hours.

Al-jahar must feed on emotions to sustain their powers. One point of Charisma damage is enough to sustain an al-jahar for a day. If an al-jahar goes hungry for more than a week it is unable to use its 1/day spell-like powers, if it goes hungry for a month its 3/day powers become 1/day powers, after 3 months it can only use its at-will powers and is fatigued, and if it goes hungry for a year it cannot use any of its spell-like or psionic powers and is exhausted (although it can still change shape and sense or feed on emotions). It is impossible for an al-jahar to starve to death, they can linger for centuries without the strength to cast a spell. An al-jahar can recover from a stage of starvation by feeding off 5 points of Charisma.

Looking good!

freyar said:

Looking good!

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Okay, I'll stick the skills and revised Feed on Emotions in my working draft since I've seen no objections to them.

What do you fancy for the Feats?

Combat Casting? Persuasive or Negotiator?

EDIT: I've Updated my working draft.

Are we OK with "Always neutral evil" for the alignment? We could go "Always evil, usually neutral" instead.

Since they feed of negative emotions, a non-Evil Al-Jahar doesn't feel right to me, but I could see them being Chaotic or Lawful.

Either way on alignment suits.

Combat Casting and Persuasive work for me.

freyar said:

Either way on alignment suits.

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Might as well leave them NE then.

freyar said:

Combat Casting and Persuasive work for me.

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As you like. It doesn't make a wild amount of difference.

I'll update the working draft.

Updated.

I'm not sure I like this bit:

Change Self (Su): An al-jahar can assume the form of any Small or Medium humanoid. It cannot use its blindness, dominate person or rainbow pattern spell-like abilities when it is in humanoid form.

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Why prevent only the use of three of its SLAs? I'd rather make it all or nothing on the SLAs while in a different form.

Shade said:

Why prevent only the use of three of its SLAs? I'd rather make it all or nothing on the SLAs while in a different form.

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Because those abilities come from their luminous bodies... they are motes of light.

So, when in a different form, those abilities cannot be manifested as they are visual in nature. Their other Spell-Like and Psi-Like Abilities apparently do not come from their light.

It might not even mean that the target needs to see the light, but the ability apparently comes from their motes of light.

Shade said:

Why prevent only the use of three of its SLAs? I'd rather make it all or nothing on the SLAs while in a different form.

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Basically because that's how the original monster worked.

One possible solution we proposed earlier was to make these Supernatural powers rather than SLAs, something like:

Bewitching Light (Su): An al-jahar in its natural form can blind, dominate and fascinate opponents with its light. It can perform each of these functions once per day, with the same effects as the spells blindness/deafness (blinding only, Fort DC 19), dominate person (Will DC 19) and rainbow pattern (Will DC 19). The save DCs are Charisma-based and include a +2 racial bonus.

Change Self (Su): An al-jahar can assume the form of any Small or Medium-sized humanoid. It can not use its bewitching light powers (see above) while in humanoid form.

I think that makes better sense since they are differentiated from the other abilities.

Umm, can we turn "change self" into either "alternate form" or "change shape" for rules clarity?