Converting monsters from Dragon magazine (Part Two)

[demiurge1138]

Gargantuan.

 

[Shade]

Cool. So how about...

Str 34, Dex 10, Con 26, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 10?

I didn't want to penalized Dex due to the "deadly accuracy" of their fired thorns.

 

[demiurge1138]

Ability scores appeal.

 

[freyar]

Seem good to me too.

 

[JiCi]

I see this plant can strike with its roots... the Crystal Sunflower in a Mind's Eye article had the similar abilities, so we could adapt that to this monster as well.
--
Reach (Ex): The bohun tree has an extended reach with its root stab. Its normal reach is doubled for this attack.

Root Stab (Ex): The bohun tree's primary attack is to stab with a sharpened root from under the ground. Unless the target has a means of seeing through the ground or has the tremorsense special quality, treat this attack as if the attacker is unseen. The target cannot use its Dexterity bonus (if any) to Armor Class, and the bohun tree gains a +2 bonus on the attack roll.
--

These could do the trick:

Thorn barrage (Ex): The bohun tree can launch up to 6 thorns as a full round action. A typical bohun tree has 1d4+2 x 10 thorns at any time, and thorns regrow after 1d4 days. Thorns have a range increment of 50 ft.

Fruit barrage (Ex): When thorns have been used up, the bohun tree can as a desperate measure launch its fruits instead. treat this attack as a greande-like thrown weapon, and targets hit suffer the effects of the fruits as they bursts on impact.

Hope that helps !

 

[freyar]

Hmmm, instead of root stab, I think the original reads something like an entangle effect. What do you think?

 

[Zarahon]

Wait, sorry to barge in on this conversion, but was overjoyed to see this request I made being developed in each post! I had a mild suggestion at the last minute: what about a strength check requirement to pry the jaws apart from the outside if the person didn't want to accidently injure his pal trapped inside its jaws? Or would that just be a simple roll against its str score and I'm just thinking in 2nd edition rules?

 

[JiCi]

Hmmm, instead of root stab, I think the original reads something like an entangle effect. What do you think?

Well, root stab is only the name of the attack for the Crystal Sunflower, yet it only indicates according to what I've found that it only treats that attacker as unseen. It doesn't say that the root deals X points of damage of X type. A root snare works as well, like this: "root +X melee (grab)".

Now that you mention it, if the roots act as an entangle effect, should we just instead replace it with Constrict ?

 

[freyar]

Wait, sorry to barge in on this conversion, but was overjoyed to see this request I made being developed in each post! I had a mild suggestion at the last minute: what about a strength check requirement to pry the jaws apart from the outside if the person didn't want to accidently injure his pal trapped inside its jaws? Or would that just be a simple roll against its str score and I'm just thinking in 2nd edition rules?

Did you mean the flytrap? Now that you mention it, we should put in a line about how a sunder attempt could injure a creature trapped by the jaws. And allow for an extra grappler to open currently closed jaws. Shade, what do you think?

Well, root stab is only the name of the attack for the Crystal Sunflower, yet it only indicates according to what I've found that it only treats that attacker as unseen. It doesn't say that the root deals X points of damage of X type. A root snare works as well, like this: "root +X melee (grab)".

Now that you mention it, if the roots act as an entangle effect, should we just instead replace it with Constrict ?

Well, I was actually thinking of replacing it with entangle, but as an Ex instead of Sp ability. The -4 Dex penalty would provide the loss of AC to the thorn attack.

 

[JiCi]

Well, I was actually thinking of replacing it with entangle, but as an Ex instead of Sp ability. The -4 Dex penalty would provide the loss of AC to the thorn attack.

How about the effect of Briar Web instead ? It does the same as entangle but does 1d4 points of damage per round.