Help! I need help updating the Heart of Nightfang Spire!

[Drew Baker]

Why not update the Girallons to 3.5 and use the squeeze rules while they're cramped for fighting space? They're slaves after all, so giving them enough room to fight wouldn't really be in their keepers' best interest.

--Drew

 

[Laman Stahros]

They are already updated to 3.5, I'm updating the adventure.

 

[stevelabny]

I just made the rooms bigger.
The girallons dont show up until a few levels down, and I just figured it made sense the tower was smaller on the upper levels than the lower levels.
You dont need to make the rooms THAT much bigger to fit them, until you get to their little base camp down below.

 

[Voadam]

I believe the dungeons down there have lots of alcoves, our DM modified the map and knocked out the alcove walls in their areas.

If you don't want to mess with actual girallion stats, here is an alternative from d20 arcana (in the d20 modern srd if you want it for free)

Grendelspawn Hunter medium size, CR 6.

They even have a huge queen.

Grendelspawn
Grendelspawn hiss and growl but seem to have no language of their own.
Species Traits
Grendelspawn have the following traits:
Acid Spit (Ex): Grendelspawn can spit acid up to 20 feet away as a ranged touch attack; if the acid hits, it deals 2d6 points of acid damage per round until it’s washed off with at least a gallon of water (a full-round action) or until 1 minute passes. A grendelspawn hunter can spit acid twice per day; a grendelspawn queen can spit acid at will.
Rage (Ex): A grendelspawn that takes damage in combat flies into a berserk rage the following round, clawing and biting madly until either it or its opponent is dead. An enraged grendelspawn gains +4 Strength and +4 Constitution, and it suffers a –2 penalty to Defense. The creature cannot begin or end its rage voluntarily.
Scent (Ex): This ability allows the grendelspawn to detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, and track by scent.
Keen Sight (Ex): Grendelspawn have darkvision with a range of 60 feet and low-light vision.

Grendelspawn Hunter
Hunters tend to travel in small packs of three to six. Though only marginally intelligent, they often display the cunning common to many predators.
Grendelspawn Hunter: CR 6; Medium magical beast; HD 9d10+27; hp 76; Mas 17; Init +2; Spd 40 ft., climb 20 ft.; Defense 18, touch 12, flat-footed 16 (+2 Dex, +6 natural); BAB +9; Grap +14; Atk +14 melee (1d6+5, bite) or +11 ranged touch (2d6, acid spit); Full Atk +14 melee (1d4+5, 2 claws), +12 melee (1d6+2, bite) or +11 ranged touch (2d6, acid spit); FS 5 ft. by 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.; SQ acid spit (2/day), rage, scent, keen sight; AL queen, master; SV Fort +9, Ref +8, Will +4; AP 0; Rep +0; Str 20, Dex 15, Con 17, Int 3, Wis 12, Cha 11.
Skills: Climb +13, Listen +6, Spot +6, Survival +5.
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Multiattack, Track.
Rage (Ex): When raging, a grendelspawn hunter gains 18 hit points. Its other statistics change as follows: Mas 21; Defense 16, touch 10, flat-footed 14; Grap +16; Atk +16 melee (1d6+7, bite); Full Atk +16 melee (1d4+7, 2 claws), +14 melee (1d6+3, bite); SV Fort +11; Str 24, Con 21.
Possessions: None.
Advancement: 10–15 HD (Medium); 16–27 HD (Large).

Grendelspawn Queen
Grendelspawn queens are generally solitary, although sometimes a small cluster of them will cooperate long enough to protect a joint clutch of eggs. They have a ruthless intellect devoted solely to the protection of their progeny.
The grendelspawn queen gains the following additional special qualities:
Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a grendelspawn queen must hit with its tentacle slam. If it gets a hold, it can constrict (see below).
Constrict (Ex): A grendelspawn queen deals automatic tentacle damage with a successful grapple check against creatures smaller than itself.
Grendelspawn Queen: CR 12; Huge magical beast; HD 14d10+70; hp 147; Mas 21; Init +0; Spd 20 ft.; Defense 22, touch 8, flat-footed 22 (–2 size, +14 natural); BAB +14; Grap +30; Atk +20 melee (2d6+12, bite) or +12 ranged touch (2d6, acid spit); Full Atk +20 melee (2d4+8, 2 claws), +18 melee (2d6+4, bite), +18 melee (1d6+4, 2 tentacle slams) or +12 ranged touch (2d6, acid spit); FS 15 ft. by 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft.; SQ acid spit (at will), rage, improved grab, constrict, scent, keen sight; AL eggs; SV Fort +14, Ref +9, Will +5; AP 0; Rep +0; Str 26, Dex 10, Con 21, Int 13, Wis 12, Cha 15.
Skills: Hide –8, Intimidate +15, Listen +14, Spot +14.
Feats: Blind-Fight, Combat Expertise, Frightful Presence, Multiattack, Power Attack.
Rage (Ex): When raging, a grendelspawn queen gains 28 hit points. Her other statistics change as follows: Mas 25; Defense 20, touch 6, flat-footed 20; Grap +32; Atk +22 melee (2d6+15, bite); Full Atk +22 melee (2d4+10, 2 claws), +20 melee (2d6+5, bite), +20 melee (1d6+5, 2 tentacle slams); SV Fort +16; Str 30, Con 25.
Possessions: None.
Advancement: 15–32 HD (Huge); 33–42 HD (Gargantuan).

 

[Voadam]

Oh, and wait till you get to the space conversions in Lord of the Iron Fortress.

 

[Lorillomar]

My party's experience with facing, 3.0->3.5 and The Spire

Our campaign has been going on for over two years, and the list of modules that I have taken the players through is as follows:

Death in Freeport
Terror in Freeport
Forge of Fury
Madness in Freeport
The Speaker in Dreams
The Standing Stone
The Rod of Seven Parts
The Heart of Nightfang Spire
Hell in Freeport
Deep Horizon
Lord of the Iron Fortress
And, finally,
The Bastion of Broken Souls.

Some of them required a great deal of squeezing, level-wise, in order to fit them all in, but I really wanted the players to get to experience a whole host of cool things in their lives.

But back to the topic at hand. 3.0 became 3.5 during the middle of the campaign, and it did cramp my style more than once. We have a cohort in the party which is a DM creature: The Mongbat. It started out as a tiny winged monkey that the party rescued from a troll while traveling through the jungle. At some point, the mongbat had a Maximized Awaken spell cast upon it, and it became the second smartest being in the party.

The Mongbat, as it gained in Hit Dice, also gained in size. Eventually, it maxed out as Size Large, similar to an ape but with wings. Of course, this happened right around the time that 3.5 changed all the sizing rules.

For a while, I decided that we would continue to use 3.0 size rules in the game, just to make my life easier. At the time that we played Heart of Nightfang Spire, we were still using these rules, so the Girallons (and Anders) only took up a 5’ space, so I did not have to mess with the maps.

However, during Lord of the Iron Fortress, I decided that it would be more fair to the players and more consistent as a whole if we adopted the entire 3.5 sizing rule and I simply doubled all map scales. So, when the map shows small box=5’ and large box = 10’, it now means small box=10’ and large box=20’. It makes for some very large rooms on my Battlemat, but it is much better this way.

SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR HEART OF NIGHTFANG SPIRE AND BASTION OF BROKEN SOULS!





You have been warned…










Incidentally, when the party finally encountered Thiff the Smart, the leader of the Girallons, she took a shine to Anders, who was the first pongoid who she had ever met who was smarter and stronger than her. She ended up leaving the basement of the spire, taking two of her female bodyguards, and following Anders back to the party’s home which was based in Freeport. Anders became their Alpha Male and all three turned up pregnant. At the beginning of Bastion of Broken Souls, all three gave birth to beautiful four-armed bat-winged babies, all bereft of souls due to Ashardalon’s occupation of the Bastion of Unborn Souls.