Converting Epic Level Creatures

[Shade]

Tactics: General Tiger arrives; people die.

Updated.

 

[Shade]

I've added a basic framework for General Ox to Homebrews using General Tiger's ability scores.

Higher Str and Con than Tiger, lower Dex, Wis, and Cha?

His +5 mace will need additional properties. Since it unleashes a meteor swarm once per day, I could see fiery blast as a good fit. Do we want to stick with heavy mace (a one-handed weapon) and give him the fancy shield Cleon suggested for Tiger, or give him a special two-handed mace (I believe we've statted one up before for another creature), so he can really dish out the damage?

 

[Cleon]

Tactics: General Tiger arrives; people die.

Updated.

Looks good, the only error I could find was the rake is missing a space in "+40melee".

On to Ox!

 

[Shade]

I'll fix the spacing issue.

See my post above yours for the beginning ox volley.

 

[Cleon]

I've added a basic framework for General Ox to Homebrews using General Tiger's ability scores.

Higher Str and Con than Tiger, lower Dex, Wis, and Cha?

That's pretty much the physical stats I was thinking of. The SRD Tiger has a Dex 5 points higher than the SRD Bison, which I think is a decent benchmark - knock 5 off Dex, add 3 to Str and Con?

I would rather keep the Wisdom and Charisma bonuses the same, but we could lower one or both of them to 28 for the sake of appearances. I wouldn't mind lowering Ox's Intelligence a point too.

That works out:

Abilities: Str 36, Dex 25, Con 33, Int 23, Wis 28, Cha 28

His +5 mace will need additional properties. Since it unleashes a meteor swarm once per day, I could see fiery blast as a good fit. Do we want to stick with heavy mace (a one-handed weapon) and give him the fancy shield Cleon suggested for Tiger, or give him a special two-handed mace (I believe we've statted one up before for another creature), so he can really dish out the damage?

I'd like to keep the suggested epic shield (a heavy adamantine +5 shield of exceptional arrow deflection) plus a heavy mace. We can always add a "wield oversized weapon" ability to make it a Huge Heavy Mace if we want to increase the damage.

I also suggested giving Ox heavy armour (to explain his slow speed) with a "Heavy Armoured Mage" SQ:

Heavy Armored Mage (Ex): The Ox General does not have an arcane spell failure chance when wearing light, Medium or Heavy armor.
​

Do we want to give Ox a Powerful Charge attack with his horns?

 

[Shade]

Updated.

Powerful charge? HELL YEAH!

We'll probably be fine without the oversized weapon. Thoughs on fiery blast?

Suggested gore damage? Double on a powerful charge like a rhino?

 

[freyar]

Well, tiger looks pretty impressive.

Fiery blast looks pretty good to me. Is a total +11 bonus (the +5 enhancement plus the +6 fiery blast) allowed though?

 

[Cleon]

Updated.

Powerful charge? HELL YEAH!

We'll probably be fine without the oversized weapon. Thoughs on fiery blast?

Suggested gore damage? Double on a powerful charge like a rhino?

I was thinking the same as a minotaur, which does increases the damage by one step and then doubles it. However giving it a 2d6 gore attack like a Rhino suits me:

Powerful Charge (Ex): General ox typically begins a battle by charging at an opponent, lowering its head to bring its mighty horns into play. In addition to the normal benefits and hazards of a charge, this allows the general to make a single gore attack with a +48? attack bonus that deals 6d6+18 points of damage.

Here's my latest thoughts.

Most of General Tiger's feats seem a good fit, with mace instead of longsword, obviously, except I'd give him Improved Bull Rush instead of Improved Trip (it seems appropriate ) and he can't have the Multiattack feats, since he only has 1 natural attack.

How about adding 2 slam attacks so he's eligible for Multiattack, but I think I'd rather give him Improved Critical (gore) than Improved Multiattack.

Ox has 2 more feats due to his higher HD, so I'd add another Auto-Quick Spell and Dire Charge - since he doesn't have Tiger's Pounce he'll definitely need the latter!

Feats: Automatic Quicken Spell (x3), Combat Expertise, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Devastating Critical (heavy mace), Dire Charge, Great Cleave, Greater Weapon Focus (heavy mace), Greater Weapon Specialization (longsword), Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (gore), Improved Critical (heavy mace), Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Multiattack, Overwhelming Critical (heavy mace), Power Attack, Quicken Spell, Weapon Focus (heavy mace), Weapon Specialization (heavy mace), Whirlwind Attack

Attack: +5 heavy mace +47 melee (2d6+18) or gore +x melee (xdx+13)
Full Attack: +5 heavy mace +47/+42/+37/+32 melee (2d6+18) and gore +x melee (2d6+6); or gore +x melee (2d6+13/19-20) and 2 slams +x melee (1d6+6)

As for the mace, fiery blast seems a great fit for its meteor swarm but I do really like the idea of it being Oversized. Speaking of that meteor swarm, I think we'd better give it a bit more "oomph" since Ox can cast regular quickened meteor swarms with his sorcerer spellcasting. I'm thinking empowered and widened.

I think we should give it the same +14 value as Tiger's longsword. A +5 fiery blast is already +11, leaving +3. How about ghost touch, throwing and returning? I thought about thundering instead of returning, but then Ox would be throwing his weapon away.

Something like this:

Meteoric Mace: This huge +5 adamantine fiery blast ghost touch returning throwing heavy mace has a head mace from a lump of meteoric iron in a cage of adamantine, set upon a shaft of adamantine steel. Once per day, the wielder of a meteoric mace can use it to hurl an empowered widened meteor swarm (CL 28). A meteoric mace is treated as being both adamantine and cold iron for purposes of penetrating damage resistance.

Caster Level: 28th; Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Epic Magic Arms and Armor, Empower Spell, Widen Spell, fireball, magic stone, meteor swarm, plane shift, telekinesis; Market Price: 5,100,048 gp; Cost: 2,551,048 gp + 61,000 XP.

I think the cost is correct - 3048 [adamantine Huge heavy mace] +3,920,000 [+14 bonuses] + 1,176,000 [use-activated 14th lvl CL 28 meteor swarm, +50% for additional ability] and I threw in an extra 10k for the "adamantine AND cold iron" bit.

For the armour, I was thinking +2 ghost touch heavy fortification full plate. That keeps it just in the non-epic category so it won't cost that much. I'm also tempted to make the plate adamantine too, just for the DR 3/- when he's facing Epic Weapons, but frankly that probably won't make difference.

Putting that all together:

Armor Class: 52 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +16 natural, +9 deflection, +10 armour +2 ghost touch heavy fortification [adamantine?] full plate, +7 shield +5 heavy adamantine shield of exceptional arrow deflection), touch 19, flat-footed 51
Attack: meteoric mace +55 melee (3d6+18+3d6 fire/19-20 6d6+36+9d6 fire) or gore +48 melee (2d6+13) or meteoric mace +49 thrown (3d6+18+3d6 fire/19-20 6d6+36+9d6 fire)
Full Attack: meteoric mace +55/+47/+45/+42 melee (3d6+18+3d6 fire/19-20 6d6+36+9d6 fire) and gore +46 melee (2d6+6/19-20); or gore +48 melee (2d6+13/19-20) and 2 slams +46 melee (1d6+6); or meteoric mace +49/+44/+39/+34 thrown (3d6+18+3d6 fire/19-20 6d6+36+9d6 fire)

 

[Cleon]

Well, tiger looks pretty impressive.

Fiery blast looks pretty good to me. Is a total +11 bonus (the +5 enhancement plus the +6 fiery blast) allowed though?

It is when it's an Epic Weapon.

 

[Cleon]

As for the mace, fiery blast seems a great fit for its meteor swarm but I do really like the idea of it being Oversized. Speaking of that meteor swarm, I think we'd better give it a bit more "oomph" since Ox can cast regular quickened meteor swarms with his sorcerer spellcasting. I'm thinking empowered and widened.

I think we should give it the same +14 value as Tiger's longsword. A +5 fiery blast is already +11, leaving +3. How about ghost touch, throwing and returning? I thought about thundering instead of returning, but then Ox would be throwing his weapon away.

Something like this:

Meteoric Mace: This huge +5 adamantine fiery blast ghost touch returning throwing heavy mace has a head mace from a lump of meteoric iron in a cage of adamantine, set upon a shaft of adamantine steel. Once per day, the wielder of a meteoric mace can use it to hurl an empowered widened meteor swarm (CL 28). A meteoric mace is treated as being both adamantine and cold iron for purposes of penetrating damage resistance.

Alternatively, if you don't like returning, I'd give it either axiomatic or shock and thundering instead. That'll increase the damage, but I prefer the versatility of being able to attack anything within 50 ft.

Meteoric Mace: This huge +5 adamantine fiery blast ghost touch returning throwing heavy mace has a head mace from a lump of meteoric iron in a cage of adamantine, set upon a shaft of adamantine steel. Once per day, the wielder of a meteoric mace can use it to hurl an empowered widened meteor swarm (CL 28). A meteoric mace is treated as being both adamantine and cold iron for purposes of penetrating damage resistance.

Attack: meteoric mace +55 melee (3d6+18+3d6 fire/19-20 6d6+36+9d6 fire)

Meteoric Mace #2: This huge +5 adamantine fiery blast ghost touch shock thundering heavy mace has a head mace from a lump of meteoric iron in a cage of adamantine, set upon a shaft of adamantine steel. Once per day, the wielder of a meteoric mace can use it to hurl an empowered widened meteor swarm (CL 28). A meteoric mace is treated as being both adamantine and cold iron for purposes of penetrating damage resistance.

Attack: meteoric mace +55 melee (3d6+18+3d6 fire+1d6 electricity/19-20 6d6+36+9d6 fire+1d6 electricity+1d8 sonic)

Meteoric Mace #3: This huge +5 adamantine axiomatic fiery blast ghost touch heavy mace has a head mace from a lump of meteoric iron in a cage of adamantine, set upon a shaft of adamantine steel. Once per day, the wielder of a meteoric mace can use it to hurl an empowered widened meteor swarm (CL 28). A meteoric mace is treated as being both adamantine and cold iron for purposes of penetrating damage resistance.

Attack: meteoric mace +55 melee (3d6+18+3d6 fire plus 2d6 vs chaos/19-20 6d6+36+9d6 fire plus 2d6 vs chaos)

Oh, and how's this for combat tactics:

COMBAT
General ox loves to blast away hosts of lesser opponents by simultaneously casting two meteor swarm spells, an empowered widened meteor swarm from his meteoric mace and a quickened meteor swarm from his sorcerer spellcasting. For worthy foes, he prefers to Dire Charge into them and unleash full attacks using his mace in combination with quickened spells - usually implosion or polar ray.