Converting Oriental Adventures creatures

[Shade]

I'll throw my support to Elemental as well, giving it an easy victory among the normal amounts of votes we receive on such things.

Now for the hard part...these things are essentially incorporeal, unless occupying stone. But...

A stone spirit may occupy any type of statue, but once it inhabits a particular statue, it never leaves.

...it sounds like it doesn't leave until destroyed. In that case, do we just stat them up in statue form, and leave the incorporeal bit to flavor text?

 

[freyar]

That's what I'd do. and we've done that kind of thing before.

 

[Cleon]

Yes, might as well stat them up in statue form, especially as it repeatedly says they die if the statue is destroyed rather than floating off to find another stone-carved body.

Definitely Elemental like the Flame Spirit, probably Earth and Extraplanar.

They don't have DR/magic like flame spirits, so do we want to give them DR X/- for their solid stone bodies?

Apart from that, they're basically Small/Medium/Large Earth Elementals with a single attack and the Small ones can have wings. I'm tempted to make the small ones always have wings rather than sometimes.

Let's see, they're a bit more intelligent, have a vulnerability to Earth magic (whatever we decide for that).

So, let's take an Earth Elemental and tweak it. I'd increase the Dex a bit, mainly for a bit of differentiation but also because the Small ones can fly, which suggests a slighting better agility to me.

The "Special Attack: See below" suggests something in the way of special attacks, but their combat entry only makes vague references to them attacking by ramming. Maybe give them Powerful Charge?

How's this for a start:

Stone Spirit, Small
Small Elemental (Extraplanar, Earth)
Hit Dice: 2d8+2 (11 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), fly 20 ft. (clumsy)
Armor Class: 15 (+1 size, +4 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+0
Attack: Slam +5 melee (1d6+4)
Full Attack: Slam +5 melee (1d6+4)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Powerful charge [2d6+6]
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 2/–?, darkvision 60 ft., elemental traits, vulnerability to Earth magic
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +0, Will +0
Abilities: Str 17, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 11
Skills: ?
Feats: ?
Environment: Any land or underground and Elemental Plane of Earth
Organization: Solitary or group (2-8)
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: Standard goods (gems only)
Alignment: Usually neutral evil
Advancement: 3 HD (Small)
Level Adjustment: —

Stone Spirit, Medium
Medium Elemental (Extraplanar, Earth)
Hit Dice: 4d8+12 (30 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)
Armor Class: 17 (+7 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 17
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+8
Attack: Slam +8 melee (1d8+7)
Full Attack: Slam +8 melee (1d8+7)
Special Attacks: Powerful charge [2d8+10]
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 3/–?, darkvision 60 ft., elemental traits, vulnerability to Earth magic
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +1, Will +1
Abilities: Str 21, Dex 10, Con 17, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 11
Skills: ?
Feats: ?
Environment: Any land or underground and Elemental Plane of Earth
Organization: Solitary or group (2-4)
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: None
Alignment: Usually neutral evil
Advancement: 5-7 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: —

Stone Spirit, Large
Large Elemental (Extraplanar, Earth)
Hit Dice: 8d8+32 (68 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)
Armor Class: 19 (-1 size, +10 natural), touch 9, flat-footed 19
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+17
Attack: Slam +12 melee (2d8+7)
Full Attack: Slam +12 melee (2d8+7)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Powerful charge [4d8+14]
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 5/–?, darkvision 60 ft., elemental traits, vulnerability to Earth magic
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +2, Will +2
Abilities: Str 25, Dex 10, Con 19, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 11
Skills: ?
Feats: ?
Environment: Any land or underground and Elemental Plane of Earth
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: None
Alignment: Usually neutral evil
Advancement: 9-15 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment: —

 

[freyar]

I say add Powerful Charge. Otherwise, the suggestion changes sound fine.

 

[Shade]

No argument here. Both the "Smalls always fly" and powerful charge suggestions appeal.

 

[freyar]

How much extra damage on powerful charge? Go for double slam + 2 Str like triceratops?

 

[Shade]

Sure, that seems reasonable.

 

[Cleon]

How much extra damage on powerful charge? Go for double slam + 2 Str like triceratops?

Sounds good. I'll stick it in the working draft and see what it looks like.

 

[Shade]

It looks just fine.

All stone spirits can understand the languages common to the areas they inhabit, as well as the language of the type of creature represented by their statues. However, only 10% of stone spirits actually can speak, and even they seldom do.

I'd just simplify it to Terran and Common. Any objections?

Combat: Stone spirits serve as guardians and protectors of specific buildings, landmarks, or rooms, a duty they take quite seriously. Stone spirits may attack all trespassers, or they may only attack certain characters, such as those of a particular race, sex, or alignment. In any case, stone spirits defend their territories to the death.

For skills, I suppose Spot and Listen make the most sense for their usual roles.

All spells affect stone spirits, but earth-related spells are particularly troublesome. As the target of earth-related spells, stone spirits save with a -2 penalty; they also suffer +2 hit points per die of damage inflicted by these spells.

Borrow this?

Vulnerability to Earth (Ex): An eolian takes half again (+50%) as much damage from spells and effects of the Earth descriptor.

The elemental burst spell heals stone spirits by 1-10 hit points.

That's not a core spell, so we can probably just drop it (or add as an underbar). Or perhaps we can find similar core effects...

Some stone spirits answer the petitions of evil wu jen and shukenja to occupy specific statues, while others are drawn to especially ornate statues.

Should we allow them to be summoned as earth elementals of a similar size, but with an added material component of a statue of the appropriate size for each stone spirit summoned?

 

[freyar]

No objections to any of that. Agreed to the summoning.

What does elemental burst do, exactly? I'm fine with leaving it out but am curious.