Converting original D&D and Mystara monsters

freyar said:

Well, I meant increasing by 2 empowerment points for each line on the table. That's not quite the same as points per HD, but I think we settled on basing the empowerment points on the sin ratio, right?

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I don't follow you. Are you suggesting it gains however many EP is listed on its current sin ratio row every time it eats Sins or that it gains those EPs when it hits a new sin ratio? I don't much care for either, preferring the original approach of basing the EPs on the level/HD the sin-eating target had in life.

I've restored the Ovinaur Working Draft as best I can but unfortunately we've lost most of the work on the sin-eating SA, which is highly unfortunate since we were finally making progress on it.

When I have the time I'll try to rewrite a rough draft of what I remember the ability being and we can continue to argue debate this conversion from there.

Okay, here's a new rough draft for Sin-Eating. It's mostly based on what I remember of where we were when the Great Database Hiccup occurred:


Sin-Eating (Su): Ovinaurs have the ability to absorb spiritual contaminants from a recently deceased creature, a process known as sin-eating. Folklore claims that a dead being will suffer fewer punishments in their afterlife if their sins have been eaten, but most clerics say this is unsubstantiated nonsense. Sin-eating only works on the corpse of a creature that was evil in life or under the effect of a curse of some kind and must take place within a week of the subject's death. Constructs, elementals and outsiders can't be sin-eaten. The destroyed body of an undead creature can't be sin-eaten, but a corpse that is doomed to turn into an undead (such as a victim of an undead with the Create Spawn ability) can be sin eaten and this will prevent its transition into undeath.

To perform sin-eating, someone with a connection to the deceased, usually a relative, hands the ovinaur a bowl of ale and piece of bread over the corpse to be sin-eaten. The ovinaur then performs a brief ceremony and consumes the food and drink. The ceremony takes 1 minute to perform.

Sin-eating grants the ovinaur a number of bonus empowerment points equal to the Hit Dice or level the deceased had when it died. The maximum number of bonus empowerment points the ovinaur can amass from sin-eating equals the HD of the deceased it has sin-eaten or 5 times [?] the ovinaur's HD, whichever it highest.

Corruption
Sin-eating comes with serious costs. The ovinaur retains the spiritual contaminants it absorbed from the corpse, measured in corruption points. This corruption produces afflictions which penalize the ovinaur's Charisma or Constitution. A more terrible risk is that an ovinaur who dies while carrying corruption points will become an undead creature (see the Undeath section for details).

Whenever an ovinaur completes a sin-eating ceremony it gains corruption points equal to the HD or level of the evil creature whose sins it absorbed. These corruption points are cumulative. Each time the ovinaur eats sins, it must compare its current corruption total to its own Hit Dice on the Sin Ratio Table and roll the indicated affliction dice, then look up the result of the affliction dice roll on the Sin-Eating Affliction Table to determine the affliction penalty it has received. Affliction penalties are not cumulative but Con and Cha penalties are counted separately. For example, an ovinaur with a –3 Cha affliction penalty that rolls a –2 Cha penalty stays at a –3 Cha penalty, but if it rolled a –2 Con penalty it would now have both –3 Cha and –2 Con penalties.

Sin Ratio Table
Sin Ratio* .Affliction Dice . Purification DC
up to 0.25 . . . .XdX . . . . . . . DC XX
up to 0.5 . . . . XdX . . . . . . . DC XX
up to 0.75 . . . .XdX . . . . . . . DC XX
up to 1.0 . . . . XdX . . . . . . . DC XX
up to 1.5 . . . . XdX . . . . . . . DC XX
up to 2.0 . . . . XdX . . . . . . . DC XX
up to 2.5 . . . . XdX . . . . . . . DC XX
up to 3.0 . . . . XdX . . . . . . . DC XX
up to 4.0 . . . . XdX . . . . . . . DC XX
more than 4.0 . . XdX . . . . . . . DC XX
* To determine the Sin Ratio, divide the ovinaur's corruption points by its Hit Dice. For example, a 5 HD ovinaur that has accumulated 12 corruption points has a sin ratio of 12 divided by 5 or 2.4, so uses the "up to 2.5" row of the Sin Ratio Table.

Sin-Eating Affliction Table
Affliction Roll . Penalty
. X . . . . . . .-X Cha
. X . . . . . . .-X Con
. X . . . . . . .-X Cha
. X . . . . . . .-X Con
. X . . . . . . .-X Cha
. X . . . . . . .-X Con
. X . . . . . . .-X Cha
. X . . . . . . .-X Con
. X . . . . . . .-X Cha
. X . . . . . . .-X Con
. X . . . . . . .-X Cha
. X . . . . . . .-X Con
. X . . . . . . .-X Cha
. X . . . . . . .-X Con
. X . . . . . . .-X Cha
. X . . . . . . .-X Con

Affliction penalties manifest as degradations to the ovinaur's apparent health and behaviour. Constitution penalty afflictions manifest as boils, pox marks, incontinence and other health problems. Charisma penalty afflictions manifest as involuntary swearing, crazed bleating, kleptomania and other antisocial acts. The higher the affliction penalty the more repulsive the symptoms. An ovinaur PC should collaborate with their DM on what affliction symptoms they will display.

An ovinaur's corruption points cannot be transferred to another creature by any means, including sin-eating. The only way to remove corruption points and their associated afflictions is the lunar purification ceremony (see below).

Lunar Purification Ceremony
An ovinaur can cleanse itself of its corruption points and their associated afflictions by performing a purification ceremony on a night of the new moon (one of the first three nights in a lunar month). The ovinaur can attempt this ceremony once each new moon night. If it fails the ceremony and survives the ovinaur can try again on another night.

The lunar purification ceremony is long and extremely strenuous. To complete the purification, the ovinaur must perform the ceremony for a duration equal to 10 minutes times the result of a roll of its current affliction dice according to the Sin Ratio Table. If its concentration is interrupted during this time the ceremony fails. At the end of each 10 minute period the ovinaur suffers 1 point of Strength damage (thus, the total Strength damage it will receive at the end of the ceremony is equal to the affliction dice result). If this ability damage reduces the ovinaur's Strength to 0 the ovinaur must make a DC 10 Constitution check or suffer a fatal heart attack. The DC of this check increases by +1 for each previous attempt during the purification ceremony. Should the ovinaur fail one of these Constitution checks, they fail unconscious (0 hit points in the first round), in the second round they drop to –1 hit points and are dying, and in the third round they die and transform into an undead (see Undeath). The ovinaur can be saved from this fate by any ability that will restore the life of a dead or dying creature, such as the revivify spell.

If the ovinaur manages to reach the end of the purification ceremony's duration they must make a Wisdom check against the Purification DC indicated in the Sin Ratio Table. If they succeed, the ovinaur has completed the ceremony and removes all corruption points, affliction penalties and affliction symptoms they have accumulated. If the ovinaur fails this Wisdom check the lunar purification ceremony is a failure.

The ovinaur can attempt to cancel the lunar purification ceremony at any time with a DC 5 [?] Wisdom check. If any of the purification ceremony's Strength damage is healed during the ceremony, this breaks the ovinaur's concentration and the ceremony immediately fails. The ovinaur can use any means at its disposal to increase its chances of succeeding at the purification ceremony's Constitution and Wisdom checks (spells, Aid Another from allies, empowerment points, et cetera).

Undeath
If an ovinaur dies while it has corruption points it will rise as an undead [X hours? days?] after its death. To determine the type of undead it returns as, roll [X] on the Sin-Eating Undeath table and use the resulting undead if the ovinaur's Hit Dice fall within the undead's Hit Dice range. If the ovinaur's HD are outside the indicated HD range do the following: if the ovinaur's HD are too low for the resulting undead, go through the lower results on the Sin-Eating Undeath Table to find the closest undead whose HD range can encompass the ovinaur; if the ovinaur's HD are too high go through the higher results on the table.

The resulting undead has the same number of Hit Dice as the ovinaur. If the undead has an Intelligence of 10 [?] or higher it will retain the ovinaur's special abilities of discerp and empowerment as well as any empowerment points it may have accumulated by discerping. Undead ovinaurs are incapable of sin-eating, so always lose their sin-eating power and any corruption points, afflictions, or sin-eating bonus empowerment points they may have possessed when alive.

Sin-Eating Undeath Table
Score . . . Undead . HD Range
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name
. X . . . . Name

You have a good memory, since I think that mostly matches what I recall, too, except maybe we had a simplified form for the tables. Like maybe directly putting the Con/Cha penalties in the sin ratio table --- they could still be randomized, though. I also don't think we'd finished the undeath bit, and I think we could perhaps simplify that a bit by tying the type of undead to the sin ratio rather than making it a separate roll. What do you think?

freyar said:

You have a good memory, since I think that mostly matches what I recall, too, except maybe we had a simplified form for the tables. Like maybe directly putting the Con/Cha penalties in the sin ratio table --- they could still be randomized, though. I also don't think we'd finished the undeath bit, and I think we could perhaps simplify that a bit by tying the type of undead to the sin ratio rather than making it a separate roll. What do you think?

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I remember us discussing the possibility of having a direct roll to determine the Sin Eating penalty rather than using a lookup table like the original, but I prefer to keep them separate since having the affliction dice cover a wider range than the affliction penalty makes it easier to use the affliction dice for how much Strength damage the Lunar Purification inflicts.

Yes, you're right about the Undeath bit. We'd only just started talking about using some kind of table to determine the undead type based on the HD of the deceased ovinaur. I remember you saying you'd like it to be corporeal-only undead and me saying I'd rather include both types. There's nothing in the original description that precludes the ovinaur returning as a ghost or spectre.

OK, I'll go along with that. So we can have a separate Ratio and Affliction table but fold the Undeath stuff into the Ratio table. For the Affliction dice in the Ratio table, maybe take a standard dice progression starting with 1d4 for a ratio up to 0.25?

freyar said:

For the Affliction dice in the Ratio table, maybe take a standard dice progression starting with 1d4 for a ratio up to 0.25?

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I remember we'd sorted out something we both like for the affliction dice progression, but unfortunately I can't recall what it was!

For the "random undead table" I was thinking of doing something like "Affliction Dice plus HD".

We could do something like "Affliction Dice result (minimum equals HD)"or "Affliction Dice (minimum equals twice HD)" I suppose.

freyar said:

For the Affliction dice in the Ratio table, maybe take a standard dice progression starting with 1d4 for a ratio up to 0.25?

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Let's see, that'd be…

up to 0.25 . . . .1d4
up to 0.5 . . . . 1d6
up to 0.75 . . . .1d8
up to 1.0 . . . . 2d6
up to 1.5 . . . . 3d6
up to 2.0 . . . . 4d6
up to 2.5 . . . . 6d6
up to 3.0 . . . . 8d6
up to 4.0 . . . .12d6
more than 4.0 . .18d6?

What's the standard progression after 12d6? The standard tables don't go any higher but the rule of 2d6 => 3d6 suggests it's 18d6 damage.

Anyhow, I think that's enough to make the point. Do you really want the ovinaur taking 12d6 ability damage?

From what I remember we ended up with a progression based on a dice plus a variable where the average affliction dice result was about equal to 1.5 times the affliction penalty. So it might have been something like:

Sin . . . . . . . Affliction . . Average
Ratio . . . . . . Dice . Range . Penalty
up to 0.25 . . . .1d3 . . 1-3 . . . -1
up to 0.5 . . . . 1d4+1 . 2-5 . . . -2
up to 0.75 . . . .1d6+1 . 2-7 . . . -3
up to 1.0 . . . . 1d8+2 . 3-10. . . -4
up to 1.5 . . . .1d10+2 . 3-12. . . -5
up to 2.0 . . . . 2d6+2 . 4-14. . . -6
up to 2.5 . . . .1d12+4 . 5-16. . . -7
up to 3.0 . . . . 2d6+5 . 7-17. . . -8
up to 4.0 . . . .1d12+7 . 8-19. . . -9
more than 4.0 . . 2d8+6 . 8-22. . . -10


Hmm… that doesn't quite match what I remember. I recall setting it up to an Ovinaur with average Strength (i.e. 9) only starts to risk its life sin-eating when it gets past the "up to 1.0" sin ratio, so the maximum result at that ratio would have to be 8 or lower.

I'll tweak it a tad:

Sin . . . . . . . Affliction . . Typical
Ratio . . . . . . Dice . Range . Penalty
up to 0.25 . . . .1d3 . . 1-3 . . . -1
up to 0.5 . . . . 1d4+1 . 2-5 . . . -2
up to 0.75 . . . .1d6+1 . 2-7 . . . -3
up to 1.0 . . . . 1d6+2 . 3-8 . . . -4
up to 1.5 . . . . 1d8+2 . 3-10. . . -5
up to 2.0 . . . .1d10+2 . 3-12. . . -6
up to 2.5 . . . .1d12+3 . 4-15. . . -7
up to 3.0 . . . . 2d6+4 . 6-16. . . -8
up to 4.0 . . . . 2d6+6 . 8-18. . . -9
more than 4.0 . . 2d6+8 .10-20. . . -10

Yes, that looks about right.

Oh, yeah, right, I was forgetting the affliction dice are also the Str damage. That last one will be fine, then. But we still need to work out the affliction table. We have possible affliction rolls from 1-20; what if we just have the affliction penalty be equal to 1/2 the affliction roll rounded up with the penalty to Con if odd and Cha if even? Then we don't even need a table.

freyar said:

Oh, yeah, right, I was forgetting the affliction dice are also the Str damage. That last one will be fine, then. But we still need to work out the affliction table. We have possible affliction rolls from 1-20; what if we just have the affliction penalty be equal to 1/2 the affliction roll rounded up with the penalty to Con if odd and Cha if even? Then we don't even need a table.

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Let's see, that'd reduce the typical penalties a bit:

Sin . . . . . . . Affliction . . Average
Ratio . . . . . . Dice . Range . Penalty
up to 0.25 . . . .1d3 . . 1-3 . . -1.0 [if min 1]
up to 0.5 . . . . 1d4+1 . 2-5 . . -1.5
up to 0.75 . . . .1d6+1 . 2-7 . . -2.0
up to 1.0 . . . . 1d6+2 . 3-8 . . -2.5
up to 1.5 . . . . 1d8+2 . 3-10. . -3.0
up to 2.0 . . . .1d10+2 . 3-12. . -3.5
up to 2.5 . . . .1d12+3 . 4-15. . -4.5
up to 3.0 . . . . 2d6+4 . 6-16. . -5.25
up to 4.0 . . . . 2d6+6 . 8-18. . -6.25
more than 4.0 . . 2d6+8 .10-20. . -7.25

That could work. The above assumes you round down (as per normal) with a minimum penalty of –1.

I'd prefer it if the odd results cause the Charisma penalty and the even results the Constitution penalty, because the lowest stage (1d3) will be two-thirds odd (result of 1 or 3) and one-third even (result of 2) and it feels better to have the weakest affliction be less likely to result in the material effect of physical afflictions.

Yeah, I like that pretty well. Making Cha odd and Con even is fine, too.

I think we still need to set the Purification DC for the Wis check at the end of the ritual. What about starting at DC 11 on the top line and increasing by 1 per line to DC 20 at the end?

And that just leaves the undeath part. I still have a slight preference toward corporeal only, but it's not a big deal. I do think sticking to template undead might make the table work a bit better, in that then the strength of the undead is influenced both by the ovinaur's HD and the sin ratio.