5E: Converting Monsters from White Dwarf Magazine for Fifth Edition

[ilgatto]

shadow dancer updated

While you're at it (where's the "ducks-for-cover" emojiticonsmiley when you need one?):

Inhumanly tall and slim creatures of fiendish origin, an inactive shadowdancer is indistinguishable from a ebon statue of unearthly dark beauty (...)

Shouldn't that be "an ebon statue"?

I do believe that we have now found them all.

Unless:

When animated by moonlight they set out to shed humanoid blood for their master. Shadowdancers prefer to capture living victims (...)

Isn't it true that someone is only a "victim" after they've been captured? So maybe "creatures" if you want to avoid the "humans" mentioned in the original?

Also unless:

While the shadowdancer is not animated by moonlight, it is indistinguishable from an ebon statue.

Doesn't the use of "while" risk suggesting something like "because" or "although" rather than "when" or "as long as"?

And perhaps (must... get... rid... of... ring... of... pedantry...):

Once their unholy sacrifice is complete, the ebon fiends celebrate by dancing and exulting in the moonlit night.

I can see that this is probably there because "dancers" or even to add some flavor, but Mr. Fiore explicitly states that their elegant, skipping gait explains the "dancer" part of their name.

And what's with the weird break-offs following Challenge and Proficiency Bonus?

 

[Cleon]

Was musing on Fighter Student of War Maneuvers such as Brace, Riposte, Parry, or some other moving thing. Otherwise it's just cannon fodder.

Mentioned that possibility a couple of pages ago:

It might as well have the equivalent of some other abilities a 6th level fighter would have, like Fighting Style or Martial Archetype.

As for the type question:

"Monstrosities are monsters in the strictest sense — frightening creatures that are not ordinary, not truly natural, and almost never benign. Some are the results of magical experimentation gone awry (such as owlbears), and others are the product of terrible curses (including minotaurs and yuan-ti). They defy categorization, and in some sense serve as a catch-all category for creatures that don’t fit into any other type." - when it says not truly natural, it implies a creature that sort-of has a biology, such as an owlbear or medusa, that breathes and eats.

"Constructs are made, not born. Some are programmed by their creators to follow a simple set of instructions, while others are imbued with sentience and capable of independent thought. Golems are the iconic constructs. Many creatures native to the outer plane of Mechanus, such as modrons, are constructs shaped from the raw material of the plane by the will of more powerful creatures." - they are not born but created from teeth, and are nonintelligent in the DnD version (though not original myth). Happy to drop some immunities as I vuew them organic - I see them as made of a tooth-like substance with scales, and a claw-like sword and large scale-like shield

I'd only give them a few condition immunities, not the piles common to a construct. Would fancy adding frightened to the list, so they have Condition Immunities charmed, frightened, paralyzed and leave it at that.

The only Damage Immunities I would support are those of the base dragon: so lightning for a Blue Dragon Warrior and so on. The original made no mention of them being immune to psionics or the like, which were a thing in D&D back then, and there's no statement that poison damage doesn't affect them, or that they have no need to breathe like an undead, golem or other unliving creature.

If the text included words like "automata", "construct" or "golem like" I'd have no problems making them Constructs.

The original saying they are "created" isn't entirely convincing to me. There are plenty of monsters created by magic in D&D that aren't Constructs. All kinds of horrible living monstrosities, alchemical oozes and undead have existed in the rules over the editions.

The most convincing evidence for them being Constructs is the "Note that hit points lost by a dragon warrior cannot be restored by means of a spell or a potion." which means that cure wounds wouldn't work on them, since in 5E "This spell has no effect on undead or constructs" is in its spell description.

However, that could easily be achieved with a Special Trait. For all we know, Dragon Warriors could heal naturally or through use of the Heal skill, it's just cure wounds that doesn't work on them due to some quirk in their nature.

Really, it doesn't make that much difference to these monsters mechanically. The difference between Construct and Monstrosity is more a matter of flavour.

Maybe we should see if Ilgatto has a preference for the type?

 

[Cleon]

Oh, I'm thinking there should be permanent versions of Dragon Warriors, not just than ones that only exist briefly when a one-use magic item is expended. Having them only be around for a period of 10 to 80 rounds severely limits their game uses.

 

[Cleon]

Shouldn't that be "an ebon statue"?

Damn it, yes it should.

Isn't it true that someone is only a "victim" after they've been captured? So maybe "creatures" if you want to avoid the "humans" mentioned in the original?

Also unless:

Nah, a villain can victimize someone before capturing them.

Doesn't the use of "while" risk suggesting something like "because" or "although" rather than "when" or "as long as"?

And perhaps (must... get... rid... of... ring... of... pedantry...):

Odd, I'm sure I used When not While in that sentence, although upon reflection "If" is a bit better.

Also, I'm changing the preceding Special Trait name from Alive in Moonlight to Animated by Moonlight, so:

Animated by Moonlight. A shadowdancer "comes alive" when touched by moonlight. When it is out of moonlight, the shadowdancer is paralyzed and gains immunity to all forms of damage.​

​

False Appearance (Statue Form Only). If the shadowdancer is not Animated by Moonlight, it is indistinguishable from an ebon statue.​

That's a bit more consistent, don't you think?

Updating the Shadowdancer.

I can see that this is probably there because "dancers" or even to add some flavor, but Mr. Fiore explicitly states that their elegant, skipping gait explains the "dancer" part of their name.

That wording's because Shadowdancers are big fans of Tim Burton films.

And what's with the weird break-offs following Challenge and Proficiency Bonus?

What break offs? It looks fine on my browser.

 

[ilgatto]

Nah, a villain can victimize someone before capturing them.

OK. Personal taste, then.

Also, I'm changing the preceding Special Trait name from Alive in Moonlight to Animated by Moonlight, so:

Animated by Moonlight. A shadowdancer "comes alive" when touched by moonlight. When it is out of moonlight, the shadowdancer is paralyzed and gains immunity to all forms of damage.​

​

False Appearance (Statue Form Only). If the shadowdancer is not Animated by Moonlight, it is indistinguishable from an ebon statue.​

That's a bit more consistent, don't you think?

Yup. As long as the "comes alive" stays in I'm OK with it. I've always been a huge fan of shadow dancers so it matters.

That wording's because Shadowdancers are big fans of Tim Burton films.

Huge fan of Tim Burton but I'm missing the point. Haven't seen any of his earlier films in a while though.

What break offs? It looks fine on my browser.

I meant the stat block on DnDBeyond.

 

[ilgatto]

As for the type question:

I'd only give them a few condition immunities, not the piles common to a construct. Would fancy adding frightened to the list, so they have Condition Immunities charmed, frightened, paralyzed and leave it at that.

The only Damage Immunities I would support are those of the base dragon: so lightning for a Blue Dragon Warrior and so on. The original made no mention of them being immune to psionics or the like, which were a thing in D&D back then, and there's no statement that poison damage doesn't affect them, or that they have no need to breathe like an undead, golem or other unliving creature.

If the text included words like "automata", "construct" or "golem like" I'd have no problems making them Constructs.

The original saying they are "created" isn't entirely convincing to me. There are plenty of monsters created by magic in D&D that aren't Constructs. All kinds of horrible living monstrosities, alchemical oozes and undead have existed in the rules over the editions.

The most convincing evidence for them being Constructs is the "Note that hit points lost by a dragon warrior cannot be restored by means of a spell or a potion." which means that cure wounds wouldn't work on them, since in 5E "This spell has no effect on undead or constructs" is in its spell description.

However, that could easily be achieved with a Special Trait. For all we know, Dragon Warriors could heal naturally or through use of the Heal skill, it's just cure wounds that doesn't work on them due to some quirk in their nature.

Really, it doesn't make that much difference to these monsters mechanically. The difference between Construct and Monstrosity is more a matter of flavour.

Maybe we should see if Ilgatto has a preference for the type?

It's a tricky one. Like I said upthread, a point could be made for any of one of Monstrosity, Construct, and Humanoid.
I used to have DWs as Constructs in my original 2E conversion because "non-intelligence", "created", and "no curing" all seemed to point to that. However, that conversion has always remained a draft, exactly because I couldn't really place them among the more regular constructs. When DWs came up in this thread - and reading your discussions in earlier conversions - I reopened the file and abandoned the whole construct thing. It just doesn't fit imho, and leads to many, many, many immunities that are not in the original and I therefore find undesirable for my conversion.

I tend to agree with Mr. Liber that "Monstrosity" doesn't fit the bill either, mainly because I think it doesn't follow the spirit of the text that defines them in 5E MM.

So that leaves "Humanoid", even though that, too, isn't in the spirit of the 5E MM definition.

However:

1. The "real" DWs from "Greek" myth seem to me to have very human qualities and even physical aspects. Since WD21 also features the cyclops from the same Jason legend, I think it would be fair to assume that the DWs are based on the "real Greek" DWs.
2. Added to that, and importantly so in my purist approach to monster conversions, is the fact that making them Humanoid doesn't lead to all manner of "automatic" immunities that are not in the original.
3. Following Cleon's upthread suggestion that the teeth may be like figurines of wondrous power, I checked the item in the 5E DMG and, lo and behold, that has the giant fly as a "Beast". Fly = Beast, so Man = Humanoid.
4. I've also picked "Humanoid" for micemen... oh, wait...

So I see them as "magical human warriors called forth by sowing/throwing dragon's teeth" and have treated them as such in my new 2E conversion. You can do that in 2E and still allow them to be non-intelligent ("Not ratable" is a term once used to explain it, I believe), make them immune to curing effects, and so on, and so on, all for reasons that need not necessarily be explained (although I still tend to do so).

From what I've read of the rules so far, 5E doesn't really allow for such intricacies, so my vote is going to have to be for "Humanoid" and then explain away their "non-intelligence" because of magic, alien mind, singlemindedness, aggression, Spartan prowess, divine drive (Greeks were big on gods), take your pick.

However, I don't know enough of the rules yet to come up with suggestions for such explanations.

 

[Cleon]

Huge fan of Tim Burton but I'm missing the point. Haven't seen any of his earlier films in a while though.

I was inspired by the Joker's "have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight" line in Batman (1989).

I meant the stat block on DnDBeyond.

Oh, should have realized.

Unfortunately D&D Beyond has a tendency to frell up the formatting of monsters posted there, especially the paragraph formatting.

Poor Mr Liber has had to repost monsters multiple times in an effort to get them to look like they're supposed to, and sometimes it just doesn't work.

 

[Cleon]

It's a tricky one. Like I said upthread, a point could be made for any of one of Monstrosity, Construct, and Humanoid.
I used to have DWs as Constructs in my original 2E conversion because "non-intelligence", "created", and "no curing" all seemed to point to that. However, that conversion has always remained a draft, exactly because I couldn't really place them among the more regular constructs. When DWs came up in this thread - and reading your discussions in earlier conversions - I reopened the file and abandoned the whole construct thing. It just doesn't fit imho, and leads to many, many, many immunities that are not in the original and I therefore find undesirable for my conversion.

I tend to agree with Mr. Liber that "Monstrosity" doesn't fit the bill either, mainly because I think it doesn't follow the spirit of the text that defines them in 5E MM.

So that leaves "Humanoid", even though that, too, isn't in the spirit of the 5E MM definition.

However:

1. The "real" DWs from "Greek" myth seem to me to have very human qualities and even physical aspects. Since WD21 also features the cyclops from the same Jason legend, I think it would be fair to assume that the DWs are based on the "real Greek" DWs.
2. Added to that, and importantly so in my purist approach to monster conversions, is the fact that making them Humanoid doesn't lead to all manner of "automatic" immunities that are not in the original.
3. Following Cleon's upthread suggestion that the teeth may be like figurines of wondrous power, I checked the item in the 5E DMG and, lo and behold, that has the giant fly as a "Beast". Fly = Beast, so Man = Humanoid.
4. I've also picked "Humanoid" for micemen... oh, wait...

So I see them as "magical human warriors called forth by sowing/throwing dragon's teeth" and have treated them as such in my new 2E conversion. You can do that in 2E and still allow them to be non-intelligent ("Not ratable" is a term once used to explain it, I believe), make them immune to curing effects, and so on, and so on, all for reasons that need not necessarily be explained (although I still tend to do so).

From what I've read of the rules so far, 5E doesn't really allow for such intricacies, so my vote is going to have to be for "Humanoid" and then explain away their "non-intelligence" because of magic, alien mind, singlemindedness, aggression, Spartan prowess, divine drive (Greeks were big on gods), take your pick.

However, I don't know enough of the rules yet to come up with suggestions for such explanations.

Right, so between the three of us we have one vote for Construct, one vote for Monstrosity and one vote for Humanoid.

That doesn't help!

Updating the Dragon Warrior with three type possibilities…

…let's just start work on the rest of its stats and try to resolve the type later. At least in 5E a Monster's type has no mechanical effect on its game stats, unlike 3E.

 

[Cleon]

Alot of options for AC. if we all insist on mulitple ACs, maybe make 3 different related to parent dragon age...rather than....alot....?

I'd make the Armour Class depend on the source dragon's species rather than age.

Maybe make it 4 points lower than an Ancient Dragon of its colour/metal, so White & Brass Dragon Warriors are AC 16, Green & Copper are AC 17, and Black, Blue, Red, Bronze & Gold are AC 18?

Can go either way on the Shields. It's only the illustration that shows shields, the only equipment mentioned in the Description is Scale Mail and Broadsword.

If they did have shields and we have an AC range from 16 to 18 that matches Scale (AC 14) plus a Shield and DEX (+0 to +2). Since +2 is the maximum DEX bonus for Medium Armour like Scale that sort of fits.

However, if we're doing multiple ACs I'm tempted to go the whole hog and do six steps like the AD&D originals and give them a range of Challenge Ratings.

Let's see, the CRs of 5E SRD Dragons are…

Fifth Edition Dragons Challenge Ratings

Dragon​	Wyrmling​	Young​	Adult​	Ancient​
Black	CR 2	CR 7	CR 14	CR 21
Blue	CR 3	CR 9	CR 16	CR 23
Green	CR 2	CR 8	CR 15	CR 22
Red	CR 4	CR 10	CR 17	CR 24
White	CR 2	CR 6	CR 13	CR 20
Brass	CR 1	CR 6	CR 13	CR 20
Bronze	CR 2	CR 8	CR 15	CR 22
Copper	CR 1	CR 7	CR 14	CR 21
Gold	CR 3	CR 10	CR 17	CR 24
Silver	CR 2	CR 9	CR 16	CR 23

That's interesting. I thought the Chromatic Dragons and Metallic Dragons were similarly powerful in 5E across the age spectrum, but Metallics Wyrmlings are noticeably weaker than Chromatic Wyrmlings.

In AD&D of course (and 3E) Metallics were slightly stronger than Chromatics (for an equivalent rank in the dragon hierarchy obviously: an Ancient White is not quite as nasty as an Ancient Brass but still way meaner than a Hatchling), but in 5E a Chromatic Dragon has a definite edge at the Wyrmling stage.

I wonder this precociousness is due to the evil dragons having poor parental care, so they've evolved tougher wyrmlings better able to look after themselves?

Anyhow, for most of the ages the 5E Dragons have a five step spread of CRs, so maybe we could do the same for the Dragon Warriors? Perhaps use a five step spread of ACs too, for the sake of symmetry? For example, AC 15–19 or 16–20. Although a six step spread would follow the original source material precisely and might make it easier to tweak the Challenge Ratings.

Using a five-step CR spread would require us to vary the Hit Dice and DPR of the Dragon Warriors more than the White Dwarf versions though. There'd be quite a difference between, say, a CR 3 Brass or White Warrior and a CR 7 Gold or Red Warrior.

It might be better to use a three point Challenge spread like the 5E Wyrmlings, so if a Brass Warrior is CR 3 a Gold one might be CR 5? Or perhaps four points Challenge spread like that from a CR 1 Brass or Copper Wyrmling to a CR 4 Red Wyrmling?

Anyhow, I'm just spitballing ideas here.

The original One-Eyed Canyon adventure features four Dragon Warrior Teeth "donated" by an Adult Gold Dragon.

If we do do the full range of standard Dragons, it shouldn't take that much longer than doing one since we'd presumably give them all the same or similar "Warrior powers" and it'd just be some numbers and their dragon's breath-based immunities (and maybe damage type?).

It would be tempting to tweak some of their stats to reflect the idiosyncrasies of a particular type of dragon. For example, Black and Gold Dragons have DEX 14, Copper and Green have DEX 12 and the rest of the standard True Dragons have DEX 10.

 

[Casimir Liber]

ok shadowdancer now here

yes is amusing seeing how each edition they've tweaked the dragon 'league table', as it were.

wamring to idea of temporary and permanent ones...but how to link them...maybe a wish spell cast on one while temporary makes it a free-willed living humanoid with the intelligence and wisdom of the dragon that spawned it.

Actually maybe not needing a spell as strong as wish as wish could be used on anything...Greater Restoration?


Then the temporary version is a construct and long-lived free-willed one a monstrosity as it as a biology