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

[Cleon]

looking interesting

...how about a Hold as a reaction on anyone who comes within melee range of it?

(this gives it more options - presumably is not automatically a pack creature, so some reactions help it if outnumbered if 1-2 encountered by party.)

Could add it as a Reaction if you like. Remember it can only grab one creature at a time, so if it has an opponent in its mitts when a Reaction is provoked it'd have to release them to use Hold.

The original adventure mentions four Gray Sqaargs: one in each of two pairs of mine entrances, but there might have been more around as the sqaargs are described as "the guardians of the mines who patrol the entrances and the surrounding river banks." That suggests there could be others on patrol that weren't visible.

It's worth mentioning the White Dwarf #21 stat block gives them "No. Appearing: 1" which conflicts with the 4+ Gray Sqaargs at the mine, but that's no big deal.

also when might it use hold over seize - if it is an automaton?

Hmm, guess I didn't make myself clear in earlier posts.

My idea was a Gray Sqaarg starts with non-damaging restraint (i.e. Hold) since it "will try to grapple with its foes in order to incapacitate them" but begins doing bludgeoning damage with its Crush and Seize attacks if they violently resist.

Hmm, since "It will use its strength to kill only as a last resort if sorely pressed" does it need a nonlethal attack to incapacitate intruders without killing them? How does nonlethal damage work in 5E again…

Oh yes, it's Knocking a Creature Out…

Knocking a Creature Out
Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable​

Hmm, that's ridiculously simplistic but it makes it mechanically easy: a Gray Sqaarg can just sleeper hold its opponents into unconsciousness with Seize and Crush attacks.

So strictly speaking it doesn't really need a nondamaging Hold attack since it can automatically soften Seize so it knocks out instead of kill, but I like the idea of it harmlessly holding an intruder in its hands at first and only getting rough if that's necessary.

As to when it uses Seize or Crush instead of Hold, as a nonsapient automaton it'd faithfully follow whatever its operating orders are. So maybe if a Gray Sqaarg is damaged to a third of its hit points or less that flips a "last resort" flag and it starts breaking spines and pulverizing skulls instead of gently putting its opponents to sleep with nonlethal wrestling moves?

We can describe the sqaarg's standard tactics when we get to its Description.

 

[ilgatto]

So maybe if a Gray Sqaarg is damaged to a third of its hit points or less that flips a "last resort" flag and it starts breaking spines and pulverizing skulls instead of gently putting its opponents to sleep with nonlethal wrestling moves?

lol.

As far as I can understand what you are doing because 5E, it seems to me that your Might ability only being 'activated' when creatures are actually engaging in aggressive moves against the grey sqaarg may lead to clever players simply sending in their strongest Fighter to avoid it from becoming 'too strong' - with the rest hanging back until the dust has settled. Defeating the creature may well turn out to be easier than it would seem if you are aiming for CR5, which I assume may be about equal to an AD&D 5th-level party?

Wouldn't this sort of spoil the effect?

While I agree that this may also be possible in the AD&D version, I wonder whether this was the intention of Mr. Head - hmm... the author.
Remember that 'the party' was typically seen as a unit of sorts back in the olden days and I wouldn't be surprised if the author meant 'as strong as the number of creatures facing it', which may explain why the thing isn't going to kill the PCs despite the fact that it was made by a [fill in word] of evil dwarves.

Mayhap the 'fighting' bit is the result of some editing? It would seem that more editing went on, for the text also seems to suggest that its fighting prowess increases the more PCs face/fight it?

The monster can have a maximum strength of 40, and 6th level fighter.

Or would you consider this to be guesswork and therefore irrelevant?

 

[Casimir Liber]

Well the fighting prowess is represented by the "to hit" bonus I guess. Fighters were pretty simple in early AD&D.

re reaction, yeah my idea is that it grabs people on a reaction and then squeezes on its go and either lets go or grabs another on next reaction. Tempted to add "can react to grab anyone who misses it" as alternative/additional.

re grab/subdue/kill - my idea would be that each sqaarg is programmed depending on circumstances. e.g. an outer guard in (say) a temple complex in a town might just be to hold/push away nosey townspeople and hence only start hurting as last resort, whereas those in inner sanctum might attack to harm hostile interlopers at first instance - each one placed should have parameters listed beforehand.

 

[Cleon]

As far as I can understand what you are doing because 5E, it seems to me that your Might ability only being 'activated' when creatures are actually engaging in aggressive moves against the grey sqaarg may lead to clever players simply sending in their strongest Fighter to avoid it from becoming 'too strong' - with the rest hanging back until the dust has settled. Defeating the creature may well turn out to be easier than it would seem if you are aiming for CR5, which I assume may be about equal to an AD&D 5th-level party?

Wouldn't this sort of spoil the effect?

While I agree that this may also be possible in the AD&D version, I wonder whether this was the intention of Mr. Head - hmm... the author.

Well I was trying to hew fairly closely to the original monster, in which case that's a feature not a bug. If the party decide to settle this mano-a-mano and only send one strong guy to fight the Gray Sqaarg, the Sqaarg's "Might" only matches that single opponent.

One way I did that was to make its Might build by any ability score, not just strength. So if a Gray Sqaarg only gets blasted by spells and cantrips it still waxes mightily. That plugged an obvious hole in the ability.

As for that potentially throwing off the Challenge, the CR of 5 (or whatever) I can see it going either way. If only one member of an entire group is actually fighting the construct then they will only be doing a fraction of the damage the party could do. If they did, say, a third what the entire party would do then if the sqaarg did more than that third with its lower Might score then the combat would be biased in its favour. If, say it did 2d6 damage with seize, then its damage range is from 7 with Might 0 and 15 with Might 8, or it does about double damage at full power. It it were 1d8 base damage for 4½ the range is 4 to 12 for a threefold increase.

One work around I toyed with the idea of was giving the Gray Sqaarg the option to take an Action to apply its own +5 Strength bonus to its Might. That gave me the mental image of the Sqaarg punching itself in its own face to juice itself up, but I suppose it could strike heroic body builder poses instead…

It felt a bit silly, but I left a remnant in the example by suggesting other Sqaargs could wrestle their companions to lend them their Strength.

 

[Cleon]

Well the fighting prowess is represented by the "to hit" bonus I guess. Fighters were pretty simple in early AD&D.

re reaction, yeah my idea is that it grabs people on a reaction and then squeezes on its go and either lets go or grabs another on next reaction. Tempted to add "can react to grab anyone who misses it" as alternative/additional.

re grab/subdue/kill - my idea would be that each sqaarg is programmed depending on circumstances. e.g. an outer guard in (say) a temple complex in a town might just be to hold/push away nosey townspeople and hence only start hurting as last resort, whereas those in inner sanctum might attack to harm hostile interlopers at first instance - each one placed should have parameters listed beforehand.

Well, and I quote: The sqaarg were intended as a purely defensive device for the dwarves’ cave complex, and as such will not initiate a battle unless somebody tries to go past them (they will of course fight back if attacked.).

So I'd have the Description say its normal tactics are always defensive and start out nonlethally as per the original monster.

Hmm, I wonder if there are other colours of Sqaarg? White Sqaargs that are simple labourers without effective attacks. Red Sqaargs that are always at Might 8 and use lethal force. Purple Sqaargs that can talk and tell awful rude jokes in Dwarvish. The entire spectrum is your oyster!

 

[ilgatto]

Well I was trying to hew fairly closely to the original monster, in which case that's a feature not a bug. If the party decide to settle this mano-a-mano and only send one strong guy to fight the Gray Sqaarg, the Sqaarg's "Might" only matches that single opponent.

One way I did that was to make its Might build by any ability score, not just strength. So if a Gray Sqaarg only gets blasted by spells and cantrips it still waxes mightily. That plugged an obvious hole in the ability.

Elegant.

As for that potentially throwing off the Challenge, the CR of 5 (or whatever) I can see it going either way. If only one member of an entire group is actually fighting the construct then they will only be doing a fraction of the damage the party could do. If they did, say, a third what the entire party would do then if the sqaarg did more than that third with its lower Might score then the combat would be biased in its favour. If, say it did 2d6 damage with seize, then its damage range is from 7 with Might 0 and 15 with Might 8, or it does about double damage at full power. It it were 1d8 base damage for 4½ the range is 4 to 12 for a threefold increase.

I've been rethinking my own 2E conversion of the grey sqaarg as a result of this thread and I have to admit that I can't think of a way to prevent PCs from sending in the troops one-by-one other than by assuming that the sqaarg's Strength is equal to that of all PCs in the party combined regardless of aggression - which, I agree, seems a bit strong.
What's more, the players probably wouldn't know about the Strength-raising ability of the sqaarg under normal circumstances - or at least they will have to pretend they don't know. It may therefore take the PCs some time before they realize what's going and by then the DM will have had his fun and can reward them for coming up with clever solutions. Solving problems was also a staple of early D&D, after all, so I guess it's gonna be "fighting" instead of "facing".

re Immutability: I still think the grey sqaarg shouldn't be immune to form-changing effects. I think the argument that it is 'golem-like' in this respect doesn't play, for (WD#21):

The sqaarg do not mate, but, similar to golems, they live for ever (or until killed!).

In my book, this says that grey sqaargs only resemble golems in that they do not procreate and live forever or until killed.

 

[Casimir Liber]

I'd say tactics are default defensive (not "only"), otherwise no indication for damaging attacks. Also limiting to make them strictly follow a formola (damage attacks at bloodied etc.) - like all automata, they are given orders by their masters (in this case evil dwarves, which suggests to me there may be some nastiness in instructions)

 

[Cleon]

The monster can have a maximum strength of 40, and 6th level fighter.

This reference to a 6th level fighter is just baffling. A Gray Sqaarg is a 6 HD monster so fights way better than a 6th level fighter in 1st Edition Ad&D already.

A 6 HD monster has a THAC0 of 13 (the equivalent of a +7 to hit in 3E/4E/5E terms) while a 6th level fighter has THAC0 16 or 3 points worse. AD&D fighters don't get more than one attack until 7th level in 1E and the Strength modifiers should be the same for both fighters and monsters (assuming a monster uses Strength modifiers, that is).

It makes no sense!

re Immutability: I still think the grey sqaarg shouldn't be immune to form-changing effects. I think the argument that it is 'golem-like' in this respect doesn't play, for (WD#21):

Frankly, I'm not bothered about the Immutability one way or the other, but if Casimir wants it I won't rain on their parade.

I'd say tactics are default defensive (not "only"), otherwise no indication for damaging attacks. Also limiting to make them strictly follow a formola (damage attacks at bloodied etc.) - like all automata, they are given orders by their masters (in this case evil dwarves, which suggests to me there may be some nastiness in instructions)

We can leave this issue for when we get to the Description.

So we're adding a Reaction action Hold attack to it, right?

I'm game for that.

 

[Casimir Liber]

(in yoda voice) yes! - reaction it needs!

 

[ilgatto]

This reference to a 6th level fighter is just baffling. A Gray Sqaarg is a 6 HD monster so fights way better than a 6th level fighter in 1st Edition Ad&D already.

A 6 HD monster has a THAC0 of 13 (the equivalent of a +7 to hit in 3E/4E/5E terms) while a 6th level fighter has THAC0 16 or 3 points worse. AD&D fighters don't get more than one attack until 7th level in 1E and the Strength modifiers should be the same for both fighters and monsters (assuming a monster uses Strength modifiers, that is).

It makes no sense!

Maybe it does, though.

I've always thought of it as being a remnant of the "original" grey sqaarg getting better at fighting when more people attack it, just as it gets stronger when this happens. So fights as F1 when one PC fights it, as F2 in case of two, and then all the way up to F6 - and perhaps originally even higher until it was nerfed by someone, perhaps the author, perhaps Albie Fiore or even Don Turnbull (not unusual) if he was still around at the time.

There reminds me of perhaps one of the earliest examples of an entity like it: Robert Kuntz's Advancing Veteran from the original Greyhawk/El Raja Key/Bottle City dungeon (pics), which would rise a stronger fighter each time it was brought down. Note that Kuntz's original notes read "up to 40th, is at 35th" and that it was nerfed in the 2007 version of the Bottle City.

(from El Raja Key Archive; 1972)

(from RKJ1 The Original Bottle City, p. 10; 2007)

So perhaps the grey sqaarg was meant to start out as "a statue", which would just stand there doing nothing until approached or snuck past, upon which - surprise surprise - it would animate and attack, getting stronger and stronger?

I guess we'll never know what the grey sqaarg is truly about, though, unless someone can contact the author.