Converting monsters from Dragon magazine
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Cleon
Legend
Looking even better.
Just thought of another thing, Spiders usually have "can use either their Strength or Dexterity modifier for Climb checks, whichever is higher" in Skills.
If we add that trait to the Spider Cat it will get Climb +14 from its really impressive Dex.
I only seem to be noticing these things one at a time.
Sorry about that, I'm not trying to work up my post count, honest.
Shade
Monster Junkie
I'll add that. Here's the next conversion. Feel free to continue commenting on the spider cat if you find we've missed anything else.
Golem, Nyraala
CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Subterranean
FREQUENCY: Very Rare
ORGANIZATION: Solitary
ACTIVITY CYCLE: Any
DIET: Special (See Below)
INTELLIGENCE: Non-(O)
TREASURE: Nil
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVEMENT: 8
HIT DICE: 10
THACO: 11
NO. ATTACKS: 3
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2d8/2d8/1d10
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Surprise
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Golem Immunities, +1 or better weapons to hit, tentacle parry
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 70%
SIZE: L (10')
MORALE: Fearless (20)
XP VALUE: 9,000
Nyraala golems are a melding of humanoid flesh, psionically active illithid mucous; and a special form of Underdark fungus that can be harvested only once every ten years. From the waist up, the creature has a purple humanoid torso with two powerful humanoid arms. The skin is moist and gives off a faint odor of spoiled meat. In place of a neck and head is a very long, thick tentacle. Below the waist, these psionic creations are supported by three large tentacles in place of legs. Nyraala golems also have a second form; they can break down into mounds of seemingly inactive fungal growth. These mounds cannot move except to assume their golem form.
Nyraala golems never speak but can understand the mental commands of their mind flayer creators. When moving, their bodies make a sickening, liquid squishing sound.
Combat: Nyraala golems are effectively mindless, like other, lesser golems. However, the illithids' psionic engineering allows them to program the constructs to execute efficient, preset tactics in the heat of battle. When an enemy is detected, nyraala golems reanimate their bodies in a gory implosion of mucous and flailing limbs, imposing a -3 penalty to their opponents' surprise rolls. Opponents who survive this first encounter may recognize the distinctive appearance of nyraala fungal mounds in the future (with an Intelligence check at a -2 penalty). Much like brain golems, nyraala golems instinctively sense and focus their attacks on opponent spellcasters. They may strike each round with their fists to deliver two smashing punches and then whip their head-tentacles around for a powerful strike. When facing opponents with superior melee abilities, the nyraala golems are programmed to attempt to foil damaging close range attacks. They may forfeit the next rounds' tentacle strike and use their head-tentacles to parry anyone melee attack. To do so, the golem must make an attack roll against their opponent. The roll is made after their attacker makes their own attack roll. If successful, no damage is done to the golem from that attack. If the golem's attack roll falls short by no more than four, only half damage is done.
Nyraala golems are immune to poison, death magic, and all forms of mental attacks.
Habitat/Society: These automatons are popular with illithid communities for two reasons. One, they provide a level of protection almost equal to the enormously powerful brain golems (q.v.) without making it necessary to petition the elder brain for one and having it available for only one task. Two, nyraala golems can break their bodies down into a peculiar mound of fungal growth, providing them with a very effective form of camouflage. It is in this form that they are usually set to guard the dwellings and treasure chambers of their illithid masters. Nyraala golems have also been programmed to retrieve items from hostile areas, protect travelling mind flayers and the bodies of astral projecting ones, and capture specific targets. Programming any action into a particular golem takes at least a day, and each may be set to perform only one task at a time. The psionic programming process allows for only very specific actions to be set, and it is not unknown for a nyraala golem to stop and remain motionless when unforeseen circumstances complicate its currently assigned task.
Ecology: Nyraala golems are artificial lifeforms. They neither contribute to nor expend the resources of their environment. They do, however, provide a measure of status to their illithid owners as the cost in resources to create them is usually quite high and must be provided to a member the Creative Creed by their potential owner.
Originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #255 (1999).
Golem, Nyraala
CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Subterranean
FREQUENCY: Very Rare
ORGANIZATION: Solitary
ACTIVITY CYCLE: Any
DIET: Special (See Below)
INTELLIGENCE: Non-(O)
TREASURE: Nil
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVEMENT: 8
HIT DICE: 10
THACO: 11
NO. ATTACKS: 3
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2d8/2d8/1d10
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Surprise
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Golem Immunities, +1 or better weapons to hit, tentacle parry
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 70%
SIZE: L (10')
MORALE: Fearless (20)
XP VALUE: 9,000
Nyraala golems are a melding of humanoid flesh, psionically active illithid mucous; and a special form of Underdark fungus that can be harvested only once every ten years. From the waist up, the creature has a purple humanoid torso with two powerful humanoid arms. The skin is moist and gives off a faint odor of spoiled meat. In place of a neck and head is a very long, thick tentacle. Below the waist, these psionic creations are supported by three large tentacles in place of legs. Nyraala golems also have a second form; they can break down into mounds of seemingly inactive fungal growth. These mounds cannot move except to assume their golem form.
Nyraala golems never speak but can understand the mental commands of their mind flayer creators. When moving, their bodies make a sickening, liquid squishing sound.
Combat: Nyraala golems are effectively mindless, like other, lesser golems. However, the illithids' psionic engineering allows them to program the constructs to execute efficient, preset tactics in the heat of battle. When an enemy is detected, nyraala golems reanimate their bodies in a gory implosion of mucous and flailing limbs, imposing a -3 penalty to their opponents' surprise rolls. Opponents who survive this first encounter may recognize the distinctive appearance of nyraala fungal mounds in the future (with an Intelligence check at a -2 penalty). Much like brain golems, nyraala golems instinctively sense and focus their attacks on opponent spellcasters. They may strike each round with their fists to deliver two smashing punches and then whip their head-tentacles around for a powerful strike. When facing opponents with superior melee abilities, the nyraala golems are programmed to attempt to foil damaging close range attacks. They may forfeit the next rounds' tentacle strike and use their head-tentacles to parry anyone melee attack. To do so, the golem must make an attack roll against their opponent. The roll is made after their attacker makes their own attack roll. If successful, no damage is done to the golem from that attack. If the golem's attack roll falls short by no more than four, only half damage is done.
Nyraala golems are immune to poison, death magic, and all forms of mental attacks.
Habitat/Society: These automatons are popular with illithid communities for two reasons. One, they provide a level of protection almost equal to the enormously powerful brain golems (q.v.) without making it necessary to petition the elder brain for one and having it available for only one task. Two, nyraala golems can break their bodies down into a peculiar mound of fungal growth, providing them with a very effective form of camouflage. It is in this form that they are usually set to guard the dwellings and treasure chambers of their illithid masters. Nyraala golems have also been programmed to retrieve items from hostile areas, protect travelling mind flayers and the bodies of astral projecting ones, and capture specific targets. Programming any action into a particular golem takes at least a day, and each may be set to perform only one task at a time. The psionic programming process allows for only very specific actions to be set, and it is not unknown for a nyraala golem to stop and remain motionless when unforeseen circumstances complicate its currently assigned task.
Ecology: Nyraala golems are artificial lifeforms. They neither contribute to nor expend the resources of their environment. They do, however, provide a measure of status to their illithid owners as the cost in resources to create them is usually quite high and must be provided to a member the Creative Creed by their potential owner.
Originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #255 (1999).
Cleon
Legend
I can't think of anything to further, but you needn't worry about me piping up if I want to add something!
By the way, would you mind if we do the Metal Mimic from Dragon 101 once we've finished the Nyraala Golem.
I fancy "Finishing off the Mimics", so to speak.
Anyhow, these Golems look fairly like they'll be a fairly straightforward conversion.
They have the same movement, slam attacks and Intelligence as an AD&D Flesh Golem, but 1 more Hit Dice and magic resistance instead of spell invulnerability, plus an AC that's 5 points better (AC 4 vs AC 9).
So I'm thinking we can take the SRD Flesh Golem and modify it a bit.
So, I'm thinking we could modify the SRD Flesh Golem as follows:
Size/Type - leave it at Large Construct
Hit Dice - +1HD to make it 10d10+30
Attack/Attacks - add a tentacle secondary attack (1d10) to the Flesh Golem's 2 slams? Might want to give it Multiattack or Improved Multiattack as a bonus feat, since it appears very adept with that tentacle, as it can parry blows with it. We could make its slams the secondary attacks, but the Combat entry reads like they're primaries.
Armour class - increase natural armour by 5 to NA +15.
Special Qualities - remove immunity to magic, add SR X.
Abilities - It is a bigger than a Fleshie (10' vs 7 [FONT="]½[/FONT]') but is still Large, so I'm thinking it needs a higher Strength. Maybe Str 25?
The two main features we need to work out are its tentacle-parry ability and its "mound of fungus" alternate form. We've already got a number of SAs and SQs that are similar to that.
Speaking of that tentacle, shall we give it extra Reach?
Space/Reach - 10 ft./10 ft. (tentacle 20 ft.)
I'm tempted to give it a modified version of my Neo-Otyugh conversion's Wield Foe special attack so not only can it parry blows with its tentacle, it can pick up a foe and smash its enemies with them or deflect their attacks, but we can just cut it down to a "Parry Blow" SA if you'd rather.
Wield Foe (Ex): With a successful grapple check, a neo-otyugh can wield a Small or Medium sized creature as a weapon or shield.
Used as a weapon, the neo-otyugh makes a single attack roll against both the AC of the target and the flat-footed AC of the creature it is wielding. It inflicts 1d6+4 damage if it hits either.
Used as a shield, the neo-otyugh gains a +1 shield bonus (AC 21, touch 8, flat -footed 21) and can attempt to block one melee attack from any creature within its reach. The otyugh makes an attack roll with its shield, if this roll equals or exceeds the attack roll of its opponent, the opponent's melee attack hits the wielded creature instead of its intended target, inflicting damage if the opponent's attack roll would hit the wielded creature's flat-footed armour class. The opponent need only roll its normal damage against the wielded creature, they do not add any extra damage from criticals or special combat manoeuvres such as the Power Attack feat or a rogue's Sneak Attack.
Used as a weapon, the neo-otyugh makes a single attack roll against both the AC of the target and the flat-footed AC of the creature it is wielding. It inflicts 1d6+4 damage if it hits either.
Used as a shield, the neo-otyugh gains a +1 shield bonus (AC 21, touch 8, flat -footed 21) and can attempt to block one melee attack from any creature within its reach. The otyugh makes an attack roll with its shield, if this roll equals or exceeds the attack roll of its opponent, the opponent's melee attack hits the wielded creature instead of its intended target, inflicting damage if the opponent's attack roll would hit the wielded creature's flat-footed armour class. The opponent need only roll its normal damage against the wielded creature, they do not add any extra damage from criticals or special combat manoeuvres such as the Power Attack feat or a rogue's Sneak Attack.
Cleon
Legend
It might help to look at a picture of the beast and see how long the head-tentacle is, but the Dragon mag DCs only go up to #250 and I don't fancy digging through my two cupboards of back-issues to find my hardcopy of #255.
As for the parry SA, I remember seeing other versions of it around, most use a simple attack roll vs attack roll to determine success, something like:
Tentacle-Parry (Ex): A nyraala golem can use an immediate action to try parrying a single melee attack by any opponent within reach of its tentacle. The golem makes a tentacle attack roll and, if the result is equal to or higher than the opponent's attack roll, it successfully parries the blow and takes no damage. The golem can not make a regular tentacle-attack in a round it uses tentacle-parry.
That should be enough to cover it, although it leaves out a few issues (such as parrying objects that cause damage by contact, like flaming weapons; whether it can parry siege-engine scale attacks, et cetera), but I don't think we need cover every eventuality.
Echohawk
Shirokinukatsukami fan
A quick question on the phoenix spiders. The small variety are listed as CR9, but there aren't CRs listed for the medium to huge versions. Are they all supposed to be CR9 or is that an oversight?
Cleon
Legend
I believe the assumption was all the rebirth stages were considered to be part of the same encounter, so the challenge of defeating the phoenix spider was rolled together into the CR9 of the Small initial stage.
Now I'm still not sure that's was the right way of going about it - giving each stage its own CR makes more sense to me.
[For any readers you have just joined us, the phoenix spider starts out Small, when killed it goes 'poof' and reforms in its Medium form. Kill that and it reforms Large, and kill that and it reforms Huge. After that, it reforms in smaller forms in reverse order until it gets back to Small, then dies if you kill it in that form.
E.g. a phoenix spider goes through the following progression of rebirths each time it is slain (unless killed with cold, in which case it stays dead):
Small -> Medium -> Large -> Huge -> Large -> Medium -> Small -> Dead]
Shade
Monster Junkie
That was intentional. The CR is front-loaded to account for all iterations. Essentially, we based the CR on the toughest version, and can think of the lesser incarnations as summoned creatures (and thus not affecting CR).
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