Creatures By Poll - Monster #3's special attacks

[BOZ]

hi! you're in the middle of this creature creation process, but that's no reason you can't get in on it now! go here for more information on this creature.

at this stage, we are now developing just what this creature does. take your pick from the above options, to determine just what this creature's special attacks are. feel free to expound on your ideas of what it should be able to do, and suggest ideas not found on the list above. discussion will follow.

 

[Krishnath]

Hmm.... well have to differentiate from the reason stealer so...

 

[Geocorona]

Reason Stealer

Can you give us a brief breakdown of the RS for those of us who don't have MM2?

 

[BOZ]

i'm bringing MM2 to work. i'll do it later today.

 

[Knight Otu]

Spell-likes, Ability Drain, Energy Drain.

 

[Krishnath]

Spell-like abilities and Ability drain is in the lead, with poison coming in as a very close third.

 

[BOZ]

well, geocorona, if you honestly came up with this idea on your own, then you're forgiven. i can't harp on you; my living caltrops matched up with the jumping caltrops from song & silence. it's not hard at all to come up with an idea independantly from someone else, and find out you basically came up with the same thing. but knowing about this problem creates a challenge for us, in that we must now differeniate our creature from this established one. so:

Advantages:
Different type. The Reason Stealer (RS) is an ooze, but the “alien aberration” (AA) is just that.

Intellect: The RS is as stupid as any ooze, however we’ve established that the AA is highly intelligent.

Size: the RS is medium, the AA is huge.



Disadvantages:
Similarity. Basically, they’re both oozy-things that eat people and drain their life/aspect. It hunts underground – maybe the AA can hunt in forests too or something? We can probably work around this though, by making the AA more distinct.

 

[Krishnath]

Huge, eh? <Imagines it mimic-ing a wyvern or Ogre Mage> Ouch!

 

[Geocorona]

The fearsomeness factor won't depend too much on what it tries to duplicate, since it will always be a huge and grotesque version. Frightful presence would make sense in that regard. Imagine seeing a huge deformed version of your friend who just got whammied come bursting out of the ground.

If it does drain abilities as a side effect of its info-gathering, I wasn't thinking it would be any permanent loss--I was thinking the real damage would come from being a huge intelligent brute with stolen spells, combat skills, and knowledge about the party.

The challenge is going to be in simplifying the process for generating the monster's stats and attacks.

If being oozelike when dormant is too much like the reason stealer, it could always be a nanotech powder.

 

[Krishnath]

Geo: I think the two abilities you listed differentiates it quite a lot from the reasonstealer, so no need to change it to powder.