Converting Monsters from D&D Official Video Games

[Shade]

Here's the quick treatment Filby recommended. I simply advanced a regular cockatrice beyond its normal limits:

Giant Cockatrice
Large Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 10d10+30 (85 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares), fly 60 ft. (poor)
Armor Class: 17 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +7 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +10/+18
Attack: Bite +14 melee (1d8+6 plus petrification)
Full Attack: Bite +14 melee (1d8+6 plus petrification)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Petrification
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +8, Will +4
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 13, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 9
Skills: Listen +9, Spot +10
Feats: Ability Focus (petrification), Alertness, Dodge, Weapon Focus (bite)
Environment: Temperate plains
Organization:: Solitary, pair, flight (3–5), or flock (6–13)
Challenge Rating: 6
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 11–15 HD (Large); 16–20 HD (Huge); 21–24 HD (Gargantuan); 25–30 HD (Colossal)
Level Adjustment: --

This avian creature is about eight feet tall. It has the head and body of a cockerel, bat wings, and the long tail of a lizard. Its eyes glow with a dangerous-looking crimson sheen.

These are rare mutated forms of the cockatrice. They stand eight feet tall and are even more fierce than the cockatrice. Due to their size, their diet consists of small mammals and large lizards. They are incredibly fast and, due to their petrifaction attack, extremely dangerous.

A male cockatrice has wattles and a comb, just like a rooster. Females, much rarer than males, differ only in that they have no wattles or comb.

A giant cockatrice weighs about 300 pounds.

Combat

Like its lesser cousin, a giant cockatrice fiercely attacks anything that it deems a threat to itself or its lair.

Petrification (Su): Creatures hit by a giant cockatrice’s bite attack must succeed on a DC 20 Fortitude save or instantly turn to stone. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Cockatrices (both the giant and lesser variety) have immunity to the petrification ability of other cockatrices, but other petrification attacks affect them normally.

The giant cockatrice first appeared in the SSI computer game Pools of Darkness, (1991).

 

[Shade]

Any requests? We don't have to continue with the same games until they are finished. Most of what is left are from the Black Isle/Interplay games, so they'll be a bit more based on in-game experiences, since these games didn't include the stat blocks. Alot of the stat blocks have been extrapolated by many of the walkthru sites, however. It just takes some Googling to find 'em.

Here are some choices:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=73170

 

[Krishnath]

I would honestly like to see the Demon Beliphet, but we should probably wait before doing him... so... How about some Baldurs Gate creatures?

 

[Shade]

Sounds good. Any in particular?

 

[Filby]

Hm, perhaps some of those beholder-kin? The names sound pretty interesting.

 

[Krishnath]

Fine by me.

 

[Shade]

Beholderkin it is, then. Here's what we've got. I've list all of the beholders as they appear in BG2 on the following table. This way we can guage the relative power levels of the new ones with the beholder and gauth. I also included some others that have already been converted for the same reasons:

Monster Hit Points Experience Points
Eagle eye 40 6,000
Seekers 40 6,000
Sentinel 40 6,000
Vigilant 60 7,500
Gauth 81 9,000
Gorgon eye 100 12,000
Eye of the dead 109 12,000
Beholder 95 14,000
Death tyrant 115 14,000
Elder orb 130 14,000
Eye of the beholder 100 15,000
Hive mother 180 50,000

Here's the 3E/3.5 Stats for those on the table above:

Monster Hit Points CR
Gauth 6d8+18 (45 hp) 6
Death tyrant 11d12 (71 hp) 13
Beholder 11d8+44 (93 hp) 13
Elder Orb 17d8+102 (178 hp) 19
Hive Mother 20d8+120 (204 hp) 18

It looks like the standard beholder in BG2 was pretty much on par with the 3.5 beholder. The gauth was considerably more powerful. Therefore, I suggest we use the beholder as our benchmark for estimating the power of the variants.

 

[Shade]

And here are the special abilities of the variants:

Eye of the beholder: Charm person, anti-magic ray, cause serious wounds, fear, death ray, slow, domination

Eye of the dead: "Undead attack"

Gorgon eye: flesh to stone central eye, no eye rays

Eagle eye: "Archer that fires multiple arrows"

Seekers: Aganazzar's scorcher, flame arrow, Melf's acid arrows, magic missile

Sentinel: None

Vigilant: None

I haven't played BG2 in ages, so I'm going by what I found in some walkthrus. Do any of you guys remember these critters better? The eagle eye and eye of the dead have particularly cryptic abilities.

Seekers, gorgon eye, and eye of the dead should be pretty straightforward.

 

[Shade]

I reinstalled BG2 and Throne of Bhaal, and found some cheat codes that let you create a monster, then make it a part of your party so you can view the statistics. Unfortunately, I can't locate the creature codes for any of these beholderkin.

I'm going to check out some of the BG message boards and see if I can learn the codes.

Does anyone who played this game remember actually encountering any of these variant beholderkin? I used another cheat code to send my party to the beholder city, where I'm guessing these guys should appear, and haven't had any luck finding them. I've only encountered beholders, gauths, and elder orbs.

The only reason I know these guys exist is from Desslock's walkthrough on Gamespot.

 

[Krishnath]

Let's start with the HD shall we?

Eagle Eye: 9d8
Seeker: 9d8
Sentinel: 9d8
Vigilant: 14d8
Gorgon Eye: 22d8
Eye of the Dead: 24d8
Eye of the Beholder: 22d8

This is by dividing their 2nd edition hp by 4,5. Compairing them to the common Beholder who with that formular would have 22HD, we can see that the results are way to high, so to bring them in line with the common beholder (who has 11 HD in the Monster Manual), we need to halve their HD, let's round the halves up, which gives us:

Eagle Eye: 5d8
Seeker: 5d8
Sentinel: 5d8
Vigilant: 7d8
Gorgon Eye: 11d8
Eye of the Dead: 12d8
Eye of the Beholder: 11d8

Sound good?