Salutations, first off allow me to introduce myself...I am Zarahon, the greatest fire genasi in all of Sigil. And one of my hobies aside from adventureing are collecting data on all sorts of strange creatures in my planar travels.
Off character now: This is my first time posting on the forums and I love seeing all these great obscure creatures from dragon magazine brought back to 3rd edition stats. I took a shot at converting a couple of my personal faves a while back but had not tried to post them here till now. Ironically one of them was the Amphitere but since it's getting converted by the pros already, I'll show you my other conversion, the Web-Spectre from an issue of Dragon which issue # escapes me at the moment. Now I know it's not perfect and really, it would make a better undead template in the long run I realize but have not gotten around to working on that yet.
Web-Spectre
Medium-size Undead (Amorphous)
Hit Dice: 5d12 (36 hp)
Initiative: +2 (Dex)
Speed: 30 ft.
AC: 15 ( +2 Dex, +3 Natural)
Attacks: Fists +5, Spiders +1
Damage: Fists 1d6, 1d6, Tiny Spider Poison 1 (Dex)
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft. /5 ft.
Special Attacks:
Special Qualities: Undead,
Saves: Fort: +1 Ref: +2 Will: +4
Abilities: Str: 11, Dex: 15, Con:--, Int: 16, Wis:18, Cha: 16
Skills: Hide: +15 Move Silently: +10 Knowledge (Arcana): +8 Spellcraft: +7 Listen: +7 Spot: +8 Bluff: +6 Intimidate: +7 Disguise: +6
Feats: Combat Casting, Spell focus (Necromancy), Alertness, Dodge,
Climate/Terrain: Temperate or Tropical
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure:
Alignment: Always Neutral Evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: 3
It is unclear whether the first web-spectre came into being from a greedy human sorcerer or wizard’s attempt at cheating death by becoming immortal gone awry, or one who so enraged the gods that his or her body was destroyed and spirit cursed to walk the earth as a loathsome tangible ghost who’ only company are the vermin that live within form.
A web-spectre appears as a humanoid-shaped mass of spider webs, dirty from collected dust and grit, complete with a colony of (3d4 x 10) tiny spiders living inside its body. Unlike some types of undead, it can shamble about in broad daylight. A particularly daring one can even pass for a human (albeit an old one), if it is fully clothed, wears gloves, and wears head-covering gear or a mask. A web-spectre specks whatever languages it knew in life.
COMBAT
Web-specres are physically weak and most often stealthily examine its victims from ten feet away, waiting for the right moment to strike. They mostly use their magic first to confuse a group of adventurers beforehand.
Spider swarm (Su): In order to use this ability, the web-spectre must first make a successful grapple check against an opponent, if it does, it mentally commands all the spiders living inside it to crawl on to and attack the grappled victim. Treat victim then on as if they were in a Summon Swarm spell (spiders only), except the spiders don’t dissipate like the spell duration and continue inflicting dexterity damage until they are all brushed off, killed, or ejected some other way. Spider poison: Fortitude save DC: 11, 1 point initial and secondary damage. The spiders all attack as one creature.
Spell-like abilities: 1/day: Teleport, Pass without trace; 3/day: Ghost sound, Mage hand, detect magic 6th level sorcerer.
Self-repair (Su): A web-specre can absorb any spider webbing within a hundred yard radius in order to repair its own body, at a rate of 2 hit points a round. (There are very few places on the Prime Material Plane totally free of cobwebs; even a grassy meadow is inhabited by thousands of fine spiders.) Any one area becomes depleted of webbing in 2d6 rounds (twice that if in well-webbed places like crypts and dungeons) giving incentive to the web-specre to end the conflict quickly, or at least shift the battle to a new location when hard pressed.
Self-preservation (Su): If reduced to 0 hit points, the web-spectre must make a will saving throw (DC 30); if it fails, the creature is destroyed permanently. If it succeeds, its unnatural life-force has abandoned its matted silk remains to reform a new cobweb body elsewhere within 1d4 days (it requires fresh cobwebs in order to do so). Casting a remove curse, or any type of spell can thwart this attempt that either destroys undead, banishes an outsider, or having a cleric or paladin turn undead will destroy it to (they cannot posses living creatures).
Undead: Immune to mind-influencing spells, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, and disease. Nor subject to critical hits, subdual damage, ability damage, energy drain, cold damage, or death from massive damage.
Amorphous: Can break itself down to slide under door cracks and other small crevasses. It takes no damage from any weapons in this form and cannot be flanked. Returning to its humanoid form takes a full round before it can do anything else.
Weapon resistances: Slashing weapons deal normal damage to a web-spectre, but bludgeoning weapons only do half-damage plus any magical bonuses, and piecing weapons only do 1 point plus any magical bonuses.
Fire Vulnerability: Fire (Magical or natural) does double damage to a web-spectre, normal water slows its movement by 15ft and causes its spiders inside to flee, freezing it with cold spells kills all its spiders and stuns it for 2d4 rounds (but deals no damage), but holy-water inflicts 2d8 points of damage when splashed on.
Skills: Because of its malleable, light form, a web spectre gains a +10 bonus to move silently checks and +15 bonus to hide checks while within the presence of other cobwebs (outside without other webs, it only gains +10).
Web-spectre Characters
The web-spectre’s favorite class is either wizard or sorcerer of 6th level or higher. Favoring the schools of Necromancy, Illusion, or Conjuration/Summoning but can have a wide variety of spells acquired before or after its transformation. When it gets to the spell level they will always have a web spell memorized.
Off character now: This is my first time posting on the forums and I love seeing all these great obscure creatures from dragon magazine brought back to 3rd edition stats. I took a shot at converting a couple of my personal faves a while back but had not tried to post them here till now. Ironically one of them was the Amphitere but since it's getting converted by the pros already, I'll show you my other conversion, the Web-Spectre from an issue of Dragon which issue # escapes me at the moment. Now I know it's not perfect and really, it would make a better undead template in the long run I realize but have not gotten around to working on that yet.
Web-Spectre
Medium-size Undead (Amorphous)
Hit Dice: 5d12 (36 hp)
Initiative: +2 (Dex)
Speed: 30 ft.
AC: 15 ( +2 Dex, +3 Natural)
Attacks: Fists +5, Spiders +1
Damage: Fists 1d6, 1d6, Tiny Spider Poison 1 (Dex)
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft. /5 ft.
Special Attacks:
Special Qualities: Undead,
Saves: Fort: +1 Ref: +2 Will: +4
Abilities: Str: 11, Dex: 15, Con:--, Int: 16, Wis:18, Cha: 16
Skills: Hide: +15 Move Silently: +10 Knowledge (Arcana): +8 Spellcraft: +7 Listen: +7 Spot: +8 Bluff: +6 Intimidate: +7 Disguise: +6
Feats: Combat Casting, Spell focus (Necromancy), Alertness, Dodge,
Climate/Terrain: Temperate or Tropical
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure:
Alignment: Always Neutral Evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: 3
It is unclear whether the first web-spectre came into being from a greedy human sorcerer or wizard’s attempt at cheating death by becoming immortal gone awry, or one who so enraged the gods that his or her body was destroyed and spirit cursed to walk the earth as a loathsome tangible ghost who’ only company are the vermin that live within form.
A web-spectre appears as a humanoid-shaped mass of spider webs, dirty from collected dust and grit, complete with a colony of (3d4 x 10) tiny spiders living inside its body. Unlike some types of undead, it can shamble about in broad daylight. A particularly daring one can even pass for a human (albeit an old one), if it is fully clothed, wears gloves, and wears head-covering gear or a mask. A web-spectre specks whatever languages it knew in life.
COMBAT
Web-specres are physically weak and most often stealthily examine its victims from ten feet away, waiting for the right moment to strike. They mostly use their magic first to confuse a group of adventurers beforehand.
Spider swarm (Su): In order to use this ability, the web-spectre must first make a successful grapple check against an opponent, if it does, it mentally commands all the spiders living inside it to crawl on to and attack the grappled victim. Treat victim then on as if they were in a Summon Swarm spell (spiders only), except the spiders don’t dissipate like the spell duration and continue inflicting dexterity damage until they are all brushed off, killed, or ejected some other way. Spider poison: Fortitude save DC: 11, 1 point initial and secondary damage. The spiders all attack as one creature.
Spell-like abilities: 1/day: Teleport, Pass without trace; 3/day: Ghost sound, Mage hand, detect magic 6th level sorcerer.
Self-repair (Su): A web-specre can absorb any spider webbing within a hundred yard radius in order to repair its own body, at a rate of 2 hit points a round. (There are very few places on the Prime Material Plane totally free of cobwebs; even a grassy meadow is inhabited by thousands of fine spiders.) Any one area becomes depleted of webbing in 2d6 rounds (twice that if in well-webbed places like crypts and dungeons) giving incentive to the web-specre to end the conflict quickly, or at least shift the battle to a new location when hard pressed.
Self-preservation (Su): If reduced to 0 hit points, the web-spectre must make a will saving throw (DC 30); if it fails, the creature is destroyed permanently. If it succeeds, its unnatural life-force has abandoned its matted silk remains to reform a new cobweb body elsewhere within 1d4 days (it requires fresh cobwebs in order to do so). Casting a remove curse, or any type of spell can thwart this attempt that either destroys undead, banishes an outsider, or having a cleric or paladin turn undead will destroy it to (they cannot posses living creatures).
Undead: Immune to mind-influencing spells, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, and disease. Nor subject to critical hits, subdual damage, ability damage, energy drain, cold damage, or death from massive damage.
Amorphous: Can break itself down to slide under door cracks and other small crevasses. It takes no damage from any weapons in this form and cannot be flanked. Returning to its humanoid form takes a full round before it can do anything else.
Weapon resistances: Slashing weapons deal normal damage to a web-spectre, but bludgeoning weapons only do half-damage plus any magical bonuses, and piecing weapons only do 1 point plus any magical bonuses.
Fire Vulnerability: Fire (Magical or natural) does double damage to a web-spectre, normal water slows its movement by 15ft and causes its spiders inside to flee, freezing it with cold spells kills all its spiders and stuns it for 2d4 rounds (but deals no damage), but holy-water inflicts 2d8 points of damage when splashed on.
Skills: Because of its malleable, light form, a web spectre gains a +10 bonus to move silently checks and +15 bonus to hide checks while within the presence of other cobwebs (outside without other webs, it only gains +10).
Web-spectre Characters
The web-spectre’s favorite class is either wizard or sorcerer of 6th level or higher. Favoring the schools of Necromancy, Illusion, or Conjuration/Summoning but can have a wide variety of spells acquired before or after its transformation. When it gets to the spell level they will always have a web spell memorized.
