Converting monsters from Dragon magazine

[Cleon]

Skills: it gets 5 ranks, and it currently has 4 in Climb based I assume on copying from other spiders. How about Climb 2, Hide 3?

Then make Weapon Finesse a bonus and give it Skill Focus (Hide)?

Why so much emphasis on Hide? They're not bred for stealth, but to jump out of airships and drop on your enemies' heads!

Wouldn't Tumble make better sense?

Failing that, I'd go for Move Silently and Spot like a Phase Spider.

 

[freyar]

I was thinking to make it harder to spot them before they jump on your head, but I guess the bit about airships makes sense. How about Climb 2, Tumble 3, and swam the Skill Focus to Tumble?

 

[Cleon]

I was thinking to make it harder to spot them before they jump on your head, but I guess the bit about airships makes sense. How about Climb 2, Tumble 3, and swam the Skill Focus to Tumble?

How about Move Silently 2, Tumble 3 and Acrobatic for +2 on Jump and Tumble?

I don't mind a few points in Move Silently, since the Phase Spider has it, but I think their default Climb +12 and Hide +8 are enough.

 

[freyar]

Not sure I care to use the feat for a Jump bonus, since they should mostly prefer to fall from above rather than jump. But I'm not too bothered. If you want to use Acrobatic, why not change the ranks to Jump 2, Tumble 3, so at least the feat and skill ranks have some synergy?

 

[Cleon]

Not sure I care to use the feat for a Jump bonus, since they should mostly prefer to fall from above rather than jump. But I'm not too bothered. If you want to use Acrobatic, why not change the ranks to Jump 2, Tumble 3, so at least the feat and skill ranks have some synergy?

It's already got a hefty speed bonus and racial bonus to Jump, so I don't want to spend and skill points on it.

Acrobatic just seems thematically appropriate.

 

[freyar]

Move Silently 2, Tumble 3 is fine if you think it has a good enough Jump, but then I think it makes more sense to go with SF (Tumble) for the feat.

 

[Cleon]

Move Silently 2, Tumble 3 is fine if you think it has a good enough Jump, but then I think it makes more sense to go with SF (Tumble) for the feat.

Apart from not sounding as nice as "Acrobatic", Skill Focus give a point less total bonus. Since we aren't maxing out any of its skills, we might as well squeeze every plus we can out of the feat.

 

[Shade]

Apart from not sounding as nice as "Acrobatic", Skill Focus give a point less total bonus. Since we aren't maxing out any of its skills, we might as well squeeze every plus we can out of the feat.

But it needs the extra point in Tumble far more than Jump, so I'm siding with Skill Focus (Tumble).

 

[freyar]

But it needs the extra point in Tumble far more than Jump, so I'm siding with Skill Focus (Tumble).

That's my thought exactly. If it's already got a great Jump, get the most you can for the other skills.

 

[Cleon]

That's my thought exactly. If it's already got a great Jump, get the most you can for the other skills.

But the only way to get Tumble higher using Skill Focus is to max out the skill, e.g.:

Tumble 5 ranks +3 Skill Focus, Move Silently 0 ranks, Jump 0 ranks.

Otherwise, can could get the same Tumble modifier with Acrobatic by just shifting 1 more point in Tumble and end up with an extra +1 in Jump.

e.g.
Tumble 3 ranks +3 Skill Focus, Move Silently 2 ranks, Jump 0 ranks
Tumble 4 ranks +2 Acrobatic, Move Silently 1 ranks, Jump 0 ranks +2 Acrobatic

Oh, and as I said earlier Open Minded offers them the same Tumble modifier as 3 skill ranks plus Acrobatic with an additional point left over:

Open Minded gives +5 SPs, for 10 in total.
Tumble 5 ranks, Move Silently 3 ranks, Jump 2 ranks (or variations thereof).

So why do you think Skill Focus is such a good deal? You didn't seem to want to max out the Tumble skill.