Converting Creatures from Other Campaign Settings

Cleon · Feb 11, 2016

freyar said:
Ughh, yes, I guess that's essentially the same. I don't think I quite followed your proposal earlier. Well, I think it's going to be fiddly and weird however we do it, so we can just take your suggestion.

Underbar: Pilot Advancement
When determining the XP earned by the pilot, determine an effective CR for each opponent the juggernaut fights. First, subtract the juggernaut's opponent's CR from the juggernaut's CR, then the effective CR is the sum of that difference and the pilot's CR. Then use the opponent's effective CR to determine the XP earned by a character of the pilot's level.

That looks fine to me.

Shall I update the draft with that?

freyar · Feb 18, 2016

Yes, and I think we agreed to dropping some of the question marks. The CR and LA should probably also depend on the base construct, don't you think?

We're about done with the mechanics of these if you agree, I think.

Cleon · Feb 20, 2016

freyar said:
Yes, and I think we agreed to dropping some of the question marks. The CR and LA should probably also depend on the base construct, don't you think?

Updating the Guardian Juggernaut Working Draft.

The question marks for Environment, Organisation, Treasure, Alignment and Advancement can be removed methinks.

I guess that technically speaking the Level Adjustment is covered by the Pilot Advancement mechanic, so should we just put "see Pilot Advancement" in there?

The Challenge Rating entry will presumably be along the lines of "Equals base creature's challenge rating plus a modifier for the base construct as indicated in the Base Construct CR Adjustment Table. The standard base construct modifiers are +W for stone, +X for wicker, +Y for winged, or +Z for wooden." Then we have a little table with modifiers for base constructs of particular Hit Dice and/or Challenge Ratings.

It might be easier if the modifier is just equal to the base construct's Challenge Rating, which is what would happen if the monster was an intelligent construct with associated class levels (which is sort of what it is, at least as far as its effectiveness goes).

freyar said:
We're about done with the mechanics of these if you agree, I think.

Except for the CR we're about done. We do need to insert damage values for its Stomp attack.

I guess we ought to write up the spell used to animate temporary guardian juggernauts, and I was tempted to add an option for permanent guardian juggernauts that could be piloted via a linked magical item - maybe a helm or mask?

freyar · Mar 1, 2016

Yes, I think I'd agree to your simple CR (ie, + base construct's CR).

The original is 5d10. That's an odd damage number in 3.X, but what if we do 2d6, 1d10, 2d8, 2d10, 3d8? Or just 1d10 to 5d10?

Cleon · Mar 3, 2016

freyar said:
Yes, I think I'd agree to your simple CR (ie, + base construct's CR).

So shall I update it with "Equals the sum of the base creature's challenge rating plus the base construct's challenge rating. The standard base construct challenge ratings are CR W for stone, CR X for wicker, CR Y for winged, and CR Z for wooden."?

Are you OK with the "Level Adjustment: See Pilot Advancement?" proposal?

freyar said:
The original is 5d10. That's an odd damage number in 3.X, but what if we do 2d6, 1d10, 2d8, 2d10, 3d8? Or just 1d10 to 5d10?

Since we're putting the damage in a lookup table it doesn't seem to matter so much if it's a non-standard progression. We don't have to worry about some smart alec trying to use Improved Natural Attack on it, since it's a Trample special attack rather than a natural weapon.

Come to think of it, that points out a minor error in the current draft: The table in question should no be named "Guardian Juggernaut Natural Attack Table", but just "Guardian Juggernaut Attack Table".

I guess it could be "Guardian Juggernaut Damage Table", but I like "Attack" better.

For the damage, the original creature's Stomp attack does roughly twice the damage of a stone juggernaut's slam attack (5d10 averages to 27.5, a stone juggernaut's fist does 3d6+1d2+Str bonus, or 12+Str bonus). Since we're giving the creature two slams, I reckon we should set the damage to roughly the same proportion.

Dang it, we should include Strength in the Stomp special attack's damage. I propose a modification to "If the victim fails a Reflex save, the opponent takes bludgeoning damage as listed in the "Stomp" column of the Guardian Juggernaut Natural Attacks Table plus 1½ times [or 2 times?] the juggernaut's Strength bonus, following which the juggernaut may either pin or kick the opponent."

While we're at it, I fancy reducing the size cap of the Stomp to allow Large juggernauts to use the attack.

So, how about we use a "1½ times Strength bonus" and set the damage to:

Large: 2d10
Huge: 4d8
Gargantuan: 6d8
Colossal: 8d8

freyar · Mar 8, 2016

That should all work for me!

Cleon · Mar 13, 2016

freyar said:
That should all work for me!

Updating the Guardian Juggernaut Working Draft.

freyar · Mar 15, 2016

Whew, these are quite a handful! Want to do description and flavor first or tackle the base constructs?

Cleon · Mar 17, 2016

freyar said:
Whew, these are quite a handful! Want to do description and flavor first or tackle the base constructs?

Let's do the base constructs.

We've still got the "activate guardian juggernaut spell" to figure out too, remember - but I'm OK leaving that for later.