Converting Greyhawk monsters

freyar · Sep 16, 2011

Wait, I was just looking for the general rule on training magical beasts in the SRD. Where is that? I don't see it under Handle Animal.

Anyway, that looks pretty good. I'm in favor of the red text, but I want to be sure of what it means.

Cleon · Sep 17, 2011

freyar said:
Wait, I was just looking for the general rule on training magical beasts in the SRD. Where is that? I don't see it under Handle Animal.

Anyway, that looks pretty good. I'm in favor of the red text, but I want to be sure of what it means.

It's in the Epic Rules version of Handle Animal.

freyar · Sep 20, 2011

Hmm, I'm not sure that's what Shade meant. I'm guessing that he meant to boost the DC by +5 or so; you know, giant eagles (etc) have a training DC of 25 vs 15 or 20 for animals. But there's of course not a specific rule for that. Let's see what he meant. DC of 30/40+HD seems pretty high.

Cleon · Sep 20, 2011

freyar said:
Hmm, I'm not sure that's what Shade meant. I'm guessing that he meant to boost the DC by +5 or so; you know, giant eagles (etc) have a training DC of 25 vs 15 or 20 for animals. But there's of course not a specific rule for that. Let's see what he meant. DC of 30/40+HD seems pretty high.

I thought you asked about the generic rule regarding Handle Animal and Magical Beasts, so that's what I answered.

I'd prefer a lower DC as per "Training a Griffon" and the like.

Shade · Sep 20, 2011

Yeah, you guys were reading my mind accurately. I was specifically thinking of the gryphon, though.

Cleon · Sep 21, 2011

Shade said:
Yeah, you guys were reading my mind accurately. I was specifically thinking of the gryphon, though.

Yes, shame that D&D didn't go for that spelling. :-S

Getting back to the flavour and tactics, it looks pretty good. I'd use a modifier to the Handle Animal check rather than include a reference to Magical Beasts. Of course I'll want to add a couple of personal tweaks...

A bear-sized elephant with foot-long tusks as straight and sharp as spearheads.

An onco is a small, aggressive relative of the elephant. Oncos wander the jungles in small family units, normally made up of a single male, 1-4 females, and possibly young. Solitary onco are generally lone males in search of mates. Oncos are herbivorous, grazing on the jungle floor, which clears paths for other big animals.

Onco are too aggressive to make good mounts or beasts of burden (add +10 to the DCs of Handle Animal checks to tame or train an onco). Their tusks are fine ivory, worth around 100 gp on the open market. [The SRD Elephant doesn't have a price for its tusks, suggesting we should cut that bit from the onco. However, if we do include it we'll need to modify the Treasure, e.g. "Treasure: 1/10th goods (ivory tusks, see below)".]

COMBAT
Oncos are highly territorial. They usually try to scare away intruders, but may charge anything they think threatens them. An onco fights by striking with its trunk and tusks. If it hits with its trunk, it often tries to pin its opponent to the ground and run them through with a tusk.

Shade · Sep 21, 2011

Cleon said:
Yes, shame that D&D didn't go for that spelling.

Indeed!

I agree with all the rest, including dropping the tusk value.

Cleon · Sep 21, 2011

Shade said:
Indeed!

I agree with all the rest, including dropping the tusk value.

Updating the Working Draft.

I added a height and weight (based on the Dwarf Elephant conversion we did, since that was Medium sized too, although I added a mention of "6 feet tall" in honour of the height of the original version of this monster).

Shade · Sep 22, 2011

Rather than the "(add +10 to the DCs of Handle Animal checks to tame or train an onco)", perhaps we should add a Training an Onco section like most creatures with special training rules?