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Converting First Edition monsters from DRAGON magazine

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Shade

Monster Junkie
Vampire bats live in "colonies".

We still need skills (it has 5 ranks). I can see Hide, Listen, Move Silently, and Spot.

I think it should gain a racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks.

Should we give it an ability for sensing warm-blooded creatures? Something like...

Bloodsense (Ex): A vampire frog can sense the presence of warm-blooded creatures. This ability functions like blindsense, but does not work against constructs, elementals, oozes, undead and other creatures that lack blood.
 

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freyar

Extradimensional Explorer
Let's go with colony.

Let's split the ranks between spot and listen and give the racial bonus to hide and move silently.

Bloodsense seems good, but I'm not sure if it's necessary. Could go either way, or it could simply be a racial bonus to spot vs warm-blooded creatures.
 

Shade

Monster Junkie
Let's modify this from the giant owl, since it seems to fit the "stealth glide" approach...

*When in flight, giant owls gain a +8 bonus on Move Silently checks.

We can leave off the bloodsense, since most other bloodsuckers lack a similar ability or bonus to noticing warm-blooded creatures.

Updated Homebrews.

Do we want to give them the usual frog racial bonus on Jump checks?

Otherwise, are we finished?
 


Shade

Monster Junkie
While we're going construct crazy, let's finish up another that I had nearly finished awhile back.

Golem, Hammer
CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Subterranean (dwarven kingdoms)
FREQUENCY: Very rare
ACTIVITY CYCLE: Any
ORGANIZATION: Solitary
DIET: Nil
INTELLIGENCE: None (0)
TREASURE: Nil
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 0
MOVEMENT: 6, Br 6
HIT DICE: 60 hp (14 HD)
THAC0: 7
NO. OF ATTACKS: 2
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2d10/2d12
SPECIAL ATTACK: Pounding force
SPECIAL DEFENSES: +1 weapon needed
to hit it, immune to spells
MAGIC RESISTANCE: See text
SIZE: L (9' tall)
MORALE: Fearless (19-20)
XP VALUE: 13,000

The nightmare of orcs and other dwarven enemies, this rare golem is constructed by dwarves themselves (though there have been instances in history of powerful High Ones creating clay golems).

The process is as rare and secretively kept as the manufacture of the most powerful ddwarven magical weapons. The hammer golem is definitely created by dwarven priests (or High Ones in the Forgotten Realms-see FR11 Dwarves Deep).

A hammer golem stands about 9' tall and weighs about 2,000 lbs. It resembles a gigantic stone dwarf (beard included) covered in adamantite plate mail. Its forearms have been replaced by two weapons--a hammer on the right arm and a pickaxe or axe on its left.
A hammer golem moves heavily and slowly. When encountering orcs and their kin, it gives out a hollow roar as it attacks.

Combat: This golem attacks only if ordered by its master, if it encounter orcs, or if it is kept from its assigned task. The latter condition allows it to attack if someone tries to get at what the golem is guarding when it is carrying out this task.

It can remember as many commands as the creator wishes, but at most the commands must total up to only twice the creator's Wisdom in words.

When without a master, a hammer golem attacks anything in front of it until the opponents leave it or its charge alone or are dead. If the opponents are goblinoids, only their death or the golem's destruction will break off its attack.

This golem attacks with its pick, for 2d12 hp damage, and hammer, for 2d10 hp damage. In addition, it can employ a pounding force every turn. This is similar to a repulsion spell, except that, in addition to the usual effects, it inflicts 4d6 hp damage if the save fails, or
2d6 hp otherwise.

A hammer golem is immune to every spell except for wish (which affects the golem as the
caster wants) and stone to flesh (which acts as a heal spell on the golem). In addition,
a weapon of +1 or more magical power is needed to hit this golem.

Habitat/Society: Hammer golems are made by dwarven priests (or High Ones in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting) for use as guards, warriors, or massive miners (they can tunnel through rock at MV 6). A hammer golem for war possesses an axe on the left arm, and one for mining has pickaxes on both.

Ecology: Hammer golems contribute nothing to deepearth ecology, except for the destruction of goblinoids and the mining of minerals.

Originally appeared in Dragon #182 (1992) and MCA1.
 

Shade

Monster Junkie
Here was the 3e conversion I did long ago...

Golem, Hammer
Large Construct
Hit Dice: 14d10 (77 hp)
Initiative: -1 (Dex)
Speed: 20 ft. (can't run), burrow 20 ft.
AC: 33 (-1 size, -1 Dex, +10 adamantine half-plate, +15 natural)
Attacks: Hammer +18 melee, pick +13 melee
Damage: Hammer 1d10+9 (crit x3), large pick 1d8+4 (crit x4) or greataxe 1d12+4 (crit x3)
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Pounding force
Special Qualities: Construct, magic immunity, damage reduction 20/+1
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +4
Abilities: Str 29, Dex 9, Con -, Int -, Wis 11, Cha 1
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
Organization: Solitary or gang (2-4)
Challenge Rating: 11
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 15-21 HD (Large); 22-42 HD (Huge)

The nightmare of orcs and other dwarven enemies, this rare golem is constructed by dwarves themselves. The process is as rare and secretively kept as the manufacture of the most powerful dwarven magical weapons.

A hammer golem stands about 9' tall and weighs about 2,000 lbs. It resembles a gigantic stone dwarf (beard included) covered in adamantine half-plate. Its forearms have been replaced by two weapons - a hammer on the right arm and a pickaxe or axe on its left.

Hammer golems are made by dwarven priests for use as guards, warriors, or massive miners (they can tunnel through rock at their burrow speed). A hammer golem created for war possesses a greataxe on the left arm, and one for mining has pickaxes on both.

Combat:

This golem attacks only if ordered by its master, if it encounter orcs, or if it is kept from its assigned task. The latter condition allows it to attack if someone tries to get at what the golem is guarding when it is carrying out this task. When without a master, a hammer golem attacks anything in front of it until the opponents leave it or its charge alone or are dead. If the opponents are goblinoids, only their death or the golem's destruction will break off its attack.

Pounding Force (Su): A hammer golem can employ pounding force once per minute. The pounding force inflicts 4d6 points of damageand pushes away all creatures within 60 ft. of the hammer golem. Treat this as a bull rush with a +15 bonus on the Strength check (+9 for Strength 29, +4 for being Large, and +2 for charging bonus, which it always gets). The force always moves with the creature to push it back the full distance allowed, and it has no speed limit.

Construct: Immune to mind-influencing effects, poison, disease, and similar effects. Not subject to critical hits, subdual damage, ability damage, energy drain, or death from massive damage.

Magic Immunity (Ex): A hammer golem is immune to all spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural effects, except as follows. A wish spell affects the golem as the caster wants. A stone to flesh spell restores the golem to full hit points.

Converted from Dragon Magazine #193 (Live Statues and Stone Men: Golems of the Underdark by John Power)

NOTES:
*The pounding force ability used to have the effects of a repulsion spell. However, this spell has changed drasticallly from 2e to 3e, so in order to capture the feel of the ability, I changed it to be similar to a Bigby's forceful hand spell and the ring of the ram.

The golem costs 100,000 gp to create, including 1,500 gp for the body and 11,200 gp for the adamantine half-plate. Assembling the body requires a successful Craft (sculpting or masonry) check (DC 20). The ritual requires a 16th-level dwarven creator who can cast divine spells. Completing the ritual drains 2,000 XP from the creator and requires animate objects, geas/quest, repulsion, prayer, and spiritual hammer.



I did this conversion in January '02, so we might need to start over. :heh:
 

Shade

Monster Junkie
For starters, it is exactly the same HD and size as a stone golem. Shall we just use the stone golem's ability scores (as I did the first time)?
 

Mortis

First Post
Shade said:
For starters, it is exactly the same HD and size as a stone golem. Shall we just use the stone golem's ability scores (as I did the first time)?
I think that it is just a modified Stone Golem anyway, so all we have to do is add the adamantine armor and replace the slam attacks with hammer and pick (or axe).

Regards
Mortis
 

Shade

Monster Junkie
Mortis said:
I think that it is just a modified Stone Golem anyway, so all we have to do is add the adamantine armor and replace the slam attacks with hammer and pick (or axe).

And work out the pounding force, of course. :p

Upsizing weapons to Large...

Warhammer 1d8/x3 --> 2d6/x3
Heavy pick 1d6/x4 --> 1d8/x4
Battleaxe 1d8/x3 --> 2d6/x3

These are all significantly less that the 2d10 damage provided by the stone golem's slams, but do provide greater crit multipliers and variable damage types. If this still seems too low, we could do the following:

Maul 1d10/x3 --> 2d8/x3
Dire pick 1d8/x4 --> 2d6/x4
Greataxe 1d12/x3 --> 3d6/x3

Adamantine half-plate armor would provide +7 armor bonus, -6 check penalty, and damage reduction 3/-.
 
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Mortis

First Post
Shade said:
And work out the pounding force, of course. :p
Missed that - it should probably replace the Stone Golem's slow ability.

Maul 1d10/x3 --> 2d8/x3
Dire pick 1d8/x4 --> 2d6/x4
Greataxe 1d12/x3 --> 3d6/x3

In my (warped) mind the weapons looked big, so I vote for the versions based on the 2H weapons - another option could be to use normal sized 2H weapons but in 1H (with maybe a special ability covering it). So

Maul 1d10/x3
Dire pick 1d8/x4
Greataxe 1d12/x3

Regards
Mortis
 

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