Please rate my first monster and say how i can improve it

White Lady Butterfly swarm
Fine Vermin (swarm)
Hit Dice: 3d8
Initiative: +3
Speed: walking 5ft and flying 30ft (poor)
AC: +20
Base Attack:+2
Attack: Swarm (1d6) + poison
Full Attack: Swarm (1d6) + poison
Space/Reach: 10ft/0
Special Attacks: Distraction, Poison and Suck blood
Special Qualities: Immune to weapon damage and Hatch eggs
Saves: Fort + 2 Ref +6 Wis +2
Abilities: Str 2 Dex 14 Con 14 Int - Wis 13 Cha 3
Skills: Hide +8 Spot+10
Feats:
Environment: Temperate plains
Organization:-
Challenge Rating:3?

From the other end of the corridor comes a faint fluttering, flapping sound, like leafs rustling gently in an Autumn breeze. You peer into the darkness and suddenly stare in astonishment as a large group of white butterflies emerges from the shadows. As you notice them they suddenly focus their direction and start flapping slowly towards you. As they come closer you can make out what looks like large splatters of blood dotted randomly on their wings. Suddenly they are on you.

These butterflies are carnivorous beasts that live in large colonies. They prefer in attack to suddenly ambush their prey and overwhelm them with sheer numbers. The butterflies have two rows of teeth in their mouths, ideal for sucking blood. The bites also cause blisters and are venemous. They are called white ladies because of their distinctive white colour.
Often they kill prey so that they can hatch their eggs on it for their caterpillars. The victims of these seemingly harmless foes are often completely eaten away and over run by fat caterpillars before they are found by anyone.

Combat
Poison
The save is a DC18 Fortitude check. The White lady butterfly uses a poison similar to that of a hellwasp although it is significantly less potent. Another added effect of the poison is to cover the enemy in small, sore blisters. These half the opponent's movement until the poison's secondary damage has been dealt and also mean that the opponent must pay one life point to move because of the pain of walking on them. Flying creatures or familiars are unaffected by the blistering effects when in the air because they are not walking on the blisters.
The initial damage is 1d6-2 hit points and the secondary damage is 1d6 hit points


Suck Blood
To sustain itself for its relatively short life (approximately 2 weeks) a white lady butterfly sucks the blood of its victims. Each time the white lady butterfly swarm attacks and deals damage, it gains +1 Hp

Distraction
Any living creature that begins its turn with this swarm in its space must succeed on a DC11 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round. The save DC is Constitution based

The Special Ability Hatch eggs allows the swarm to create butterfly eggs that will hatch in 1d6 hours. They may only hatch the eggs once per week. The eggs must be hatched within a short distance of food such as a corpse if they are to be hatched as otherwise the caterpillars will die. Also the eggs need to be in a place of sufficient warmth because otherwise the caterpillars die of cold. The caterpillars are extremely sensitive to cold and may not be hatched anywhere with a warmth of cold.

I really don't know if this creature is any good. This is my very first creature and to be perfectly honest I don't really understand the rules in MM3.5 for creature building because they are very badly written and don't really make sense to me (Call me an idiot if you like) but I would really appreciate some HONEST criticism of my creature.

Most obvious thing here, certainly, to me, is the fact that the type is wrong. Insects, like butterflies, are classified as vermin, not animals.

You are absolutely right. I have no idea why I even considered calling it an animal.
But it will be changed. Thanks

There. I've changed the entry. Anything else?

God I really am RUBBISH! I just reallised - I put in the feat Hatch eggs without explaining what it actually does! Woops. God forbid if I was writing Monster Manual 4...
I better edit that as well. I hope it doesn't exist already...

Catapilla said:

There. I've changed the entry. Anything else?

Click to expand...

Vermin are mindless, so oust the Intelligence score.

Vermin are not automatically mindless. most are, but in 3.5 the type was clarified so that (like oozes and constructs) there is now room for vermin with an intelligence score.

however, despite that, i would argue that butterflies are likely in the Mindless category. the OP should be the final judge of that.

Yeah. I think I did that because I wanted the creature to be slightly be more intelligent than the average swarm of locusts but now that I look back on the statistics there isn't really much to support that point. I'm gonna change that too. Thanks! Anythin' else?(That's my favourite line. I really don't know why.)

question

Just one question.... Why did you make the fact that they can lay eggs a feat? Why not an Extraordinary (Ex) ability?

good question, and a bit of advice on that front.

a feat should be something that is available to more than one type of creature/character, generally (there are a small few exceptions). Lightning Reflexes, for example, is available to any creature that can move. Spell Focus is available to any spellcaster. if the Hatch Eggs feat can only be taken by one specific creature (and not, say, other egglaying creatures), then why would it be a feat?

i agree that this sort of an ability should be an Extraordinary ability.