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

[Cleon]

ok added Legendary resistance - its con (27) is +8 so CON save bonus is +14.

Dang it, forgot to change the bonus when we modified the number.

Updated the Gurgohemoth.

Dammit! I just noticed that the Gurgotch had a "mammoth" in its Trampling Charge:

Trampling Charge. If the gurgotch moves at least 20 feet straight toward a creature and then hits it with a gore attack on the same turn, that target must succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, the mammoth can make one stomp attack against it as a bonus action.

Must have forgotten to change it during a copy-paste. I've fixed the Enworld Gurgotch, but the one on D&D Beyond probably has the same error.

So trampling charge is only at a single creature of size L or larger?

I'm OK leaving it as is (i.e. the Elephant/Mammoth version without the Size limitation).

We can reserve the size consideration for the "trampling through a mass off opponents" area of effect attack. When/if we get around to it!

 

[Casimir Liber]

I must have caught it - can't find any mammoths in dndbeyond one....

 

[Cleon]

I must have caught it - can't find any mammoths in dndbeyond one....

Yup, it's not in the D&D Beyond Gurgotch.

Good! That saves us having to reindex it.

On to the Actions, I guess…

 

[Cleon]

Dang it, juse realized its CON should be 25 not 27 to get the desired 525 hit points.

30d20+210 = 525.

Updated the Gurgohemoth to match, including making the CON save +13.

 

[Cleon]

Also, I've put some of the Damage Resistance/Immunities the wrong way around.

It should be:

Damage Resistances fire, lightning; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from magical damage by creatures of size Large or smaller as well as nonmagical damage not caused by siege engines or creatures of size Huge or larger
Damage Immunities poison; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical damage by creatures of size Large or smaller​

Not:

Damage Resistances fire, lightning; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical damage by creatures of size Large or smaller
Damage Immunities poison; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from magical damage by creatures of size Large or smaller as well as nonmagical damage not caused by siege engines or creatures of size Huge or larger​

Just corrected the Gurgohemoth.

 

[Cleon]

Okay, according to the CR calculator, it its Hit it +15 we need to keep the Damage/Round between 39 and 50 hit points if we're keeping it at Challenge 18.

That seems a little low.

Your current draft does 36 or 39.5 with its gore plus 42 with its stomp for 78 points of damage, or 70 with its breath weapon (35, times 2 as it's an AoE), which works out to about 64 DPR.

That comes to around Challenge 20, so I think we'd better bump the CR up to that.

The CR calculator says that matches a DPR of between 63 and 80, so we can increase the average damage a bit and still keep it within CR 20.

So shall we increase the Challenge Rating to 20?

 

[Casimir Liber]

okay - yes to CR 20, and pondering how to up damage a little "hurled for 4d10 feet and 10 (3d6) damage"? up the breath weapon to 45 (10d8) damage....?

 

[Cleon]

okay - yes to CR 20,

Updating the Gurgohemoth.

and pondering how to up damage a little "hurled for 4d10 feet and 10 (3d6) damage"? up the breath weapon to 45 (10d8) damage....?

It seems prudent to decide what Damage-Per-Round we're aiming at before we start pondering how to produce that.

How about 72 DPR, that's the middle of the 63 to 80 range the CR calculator?

Rather than radically increasing the existing attacks' damage, I'd rather add some Legendary Actions to its repertoire.

If it had, say, three Legendary Actions that averaged about 7 damage per Action. For example: a 2d6 damage "Toss Aside" for one Action, a 4d6 damage "Tail Lightning" that uses two Actions, or a 21 point damage "Earthshaking Bellow" or "Lightning Blast" that used all three Legendaries, then we can need an average of 51 damage for its regular actions.

That'd mean its regular Actions are a little too damaging and need to be toned down a little to hit an average of 51.

Something like:

Round 1 (62 average): Trampling Charge: Gore (31?) plus Stomp (31?)
Round 2 (45 average): Multiattack Gore (31?) plus Tail or Trunk (14?)
Round 3 (44 average): Breath Weapon (22×2 AoE?) or Trample Path (22×2 AoE?)​

That's 153 damage over three rounds, which is 51 per round from the regular Actions. Add another 21 from the Legendary Actions makes 72 DPR in total, which is dead on target.

 

[Cleon]

Just out of curiosity, I ran the Ancient White Dragon through the CR calculator as it's also a Challenge 20 monster like our boy, and I could get it to come out with the book-official CR 20 using:

Challenge Rating: 20
Offensive CR: 21
Defensive CR: 19
Proficiency Bonus: +6
Effective HP: 333 (18d20+144)
Effective AC: 22
Average Damage Per Round: 133
Save DC: 22
Experience Points: 25,000

Expected CR: 20

Defensive:
Hit Points: 333
Armor Class: 20

Size: Gargantuan
Hit Dice: 18d20
Constitution: 26
Offensive:
Damage Per Round: 133
[Multiattack 58 [bite 28 + two claws 30] for two round, Breath Weapon 144 [72×2] for one round PLUS Legendary Actions [tail attack 17 + wing attack 15×2] for three rounds]
Attack Bonus/Save DC: DC 22
[for Breath Weapon as it's by far the deadliest attack

Vulnerabilities: None
Resistance/Immunities: None
Flies: (irrelevant as CR over 9)
Save Proficiencies: 4

Monster Features
Frightful Presence
Legendary Resistance×3

The interesting thing is how much of its CR is from the breath weapon.

 

[Cleon]

Updating the Gurgohemoth.



It seems prudent to decide what Damage-Per-Round we're aiming at before we start pondering how to produce that.

How about 72 DPR, that's the middle of the 63 to 80 range the CR calculator?

Rather than radically increasing the existing attacks' damage, I'd rather add some Legendary Actions to its repertoire.

If it had, say, three Legendary Actions that averaged about 7 damage per Action. For example: a 2d6 damage "Toss Aside" for one Action, a 4d6 damage "Tail Lightning" that uses two Actions, or a 21 point damage "Earthshaking Bellow" or "Lightning Blast" that used all three Legendaries, then we can need an average of 51 damage for its regular actions.

That'd mean its regular Actions are a little too damaging and need to be toned down a little to hit an average of 51.

Something like:

Round 1 (62 average): Trampling Charge: Gore (31?) plus Stomp (31?)​

Round 2 (45 average): Multiattack Gore (31?) plus Tail or Trunk (14?)​

Round 3 (44 average): Breath Weapon (22×2 AoE?) or Trample Path (22×2 AoE?)​

That's 153 damage over three rounds, which is 51 per round from the regular Actions. Add another 21 from the Legendary Actions makes 72 DPR in total, which is dead on target.

Incidentally, I used Stench and Web to represent the noxious effect of the Gurgohemoth's Breath Weapon on the assumption we were keeping that from the Gurgotch.

However, we were thinking about making the Breath Weapon damage only and adding Frightful Presence to the creature.

If we did that it increase the Damage Per Round to a range of 75 to 86, or about 80 or 81 on average, for a Challenge of 20 according to the CR Calculator (keeping the DPR 72 makes it CR 19 with those changes).

I'd rather increase the average DPR by 8 or 9 points and drop the tetraplegia effect for the juggernaut version.

After all, the Legend of the Sword heffalumps we were using as inspiration didn't have a paralyzing breath!