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

[Casimir Liber]

Yeah - I was aware and had forgotten until I saw them in the fiendish folio.

Just realised - was looking at one eye canyon and it described the enslaver as having treasure type Qx5 (i.e. 5-20 gems) and the illustration has it nestled among a few gems....initialy thoughts are that it is hard to shoehorn into the description somehow. "The enslaver collects gems as it likes them/metabolises them/feels good with them" ...or just drop it.

Long descriptions are great if they are pertinent and give flavour that helps a DM make an engagig meaningful encounter with players I reckon...so size is no limit if good (bring on Elminster...)

 

[Cleon]

Just realised - was looking at one eye canyon and it described the enslaver as having treasure type Qx5 (i.e. 5-20 gems) and the illustration has it nestled among a few gems....initialy thoughts are that it is hard to shoehorn into the description somehow. "The enslaver collects gems as it likes them/metabolises them/feels good with them" ...or just drop it.

Hmm… problem is, as far as I can tell 5E monster writeups usually don't bother with specifying what type of treasure they collect, it's usually nothing or something vague like "loves treasure", "will fight if given treasure" or "collects treasure to give X as tribute."

It seems easier to just drop it.

If you want to add some treasure comment in the Description, I'd go for the collecting jewels approach rather than the enslaver eating them. While there's no mention of a mineral dietary requirement in the original monster, the flavour text does say they "conceal themselves in rocky areas, in small niches where they collect gemstones."

So it's not all about enslavement and wanting to kill nice people!

Perhaps they just appreciate the aesthetics of gemstones? They could serve as bait to lure intelligent creatures within pseudopod reach, but other types of treasure could serve that purpose just as well.

Oh, and the original text says "They have a little-understood sensory system that makes them very highly aware of their physical surroundings within 30′ of their position" so maybe they deserve blindsight 30 ft. if you're editing in a Gemstones paragraph?

Dang it, I've just noticed something else "They are 90% likely not to be detected by sight because of their ability to appear to be part of a rock or large stone." That sounds like a special trait to me! So does "They may flatten themselves to pass under doors or through cracks" for that matter.

 

[Cleon]

Heck, let's rough something out.

It looks like the Enslaver wasn't as Completed as we thought!

Senses blindsight 30 ft. (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 14

For the traits, I'd just steal borrow those of the Gray Ooze.

Amorphous. An enslaver can move through a space as narrow as one-eighth of an inch wide without squeezing.

False Appearance. While an enslaver remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a shiny rock.

Split. [unchanged]

Description

 In Nooks piled with Jewels. Enslavers live in rocky terrain and prize shiny stones for reasons of aesthetics and camouflage. They collect precious gemstones and worthless but attractive crystals in their lair – usually a simple niche in a rock wall or cave – and then conceal themselves among their stones to wait for victims.

 

[Cleon]

Heck, let's rough something out.

Okay, so shall I edit any of the above into the Enslaver?

If so, how much of it?

 

[Cleon]

Okay, so shall I edit any of the above into the Enslaver?

If so, how much of it?

Dang it, we also forgot that they're "grey-coloured mercury", not the mirror-sheen of actual mercury.

How about changing the first line of the Description to "Also known as a Puppet Lord, the enslaver is an amoeba-like creature about 9 inches across, its dull gray body can flow like a blob of mercury."

 

[Cleon]

Senses blindsight 30 ft. (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 14

False Appearance. While an enslaver remains motionless, it almost indistinguishable from a shiny rock.

 Crevices scattered with Jewels. Enslavers live in rocky terrain and prize gemstones for unknown, possibly aesthetic reasons. They collect gems in their lair – usually a simple niche in a rock wall or cave – and then conceal themselves among the stones to wait for victims.

Alternatively, we could keep them as being able to see like the current version:

Senses blindsight 30 ft., passive Perception 14

I've realised that False Appearance had a typo from an earlier draft left in it, and changed it to:

False Appearance. While an enslaver remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a shiny rock.

I also tweaked the "Crevices scattered with Jewels" bit to "In Nooks piled with Jewels":

 In Nooks piled with Jewels. Enslavers live in rocky terrain and prize shiny stones for reasons of aesthetics and camouflage. They collect precious gemstones and worthless but attractive crystals in their lair – usually a simple niche in a rock wall or cave – and then conceal themselves among their stones to wait for victims.

 

[Cleon]

I was tempted to use "one-twelfth of an inch" or "one-tenth of an inch" in Amorphous instead of "one-eighth of an inch."

A gray ooze isn't given a size in 5E but in earlier editions they are usually 4 to 12 feet long and 6 to 8 inches thick, averaging about 8 feet. The 1E AD&D version specifies they are long and narrow (the largest are "fully 3′ wide and 12′ long") but they're just "long" in 2E. They are round in BECMI.

The 5E gray ooze is Medium size, so if it it were, say 6 feet in diameter while being able to easily fit through a one inch gap, an enslaver is eight times smaller at nine inches diameter. Which suggest it can manage gaps of one-eighth of an inch without squeezing.

If a gray ooze 8 feet like in BECMI, a nine-inch blob is 10⅔ smaller, which means one-tenth of an inch if we keep the proportions, but that just seemed an odd ratio to me, which led me to wonder about using 1/12th.

Checking around the doors in my house, most of them have at least some areas with 1/8th inch gaps, but a few are tighter fitting than that.

Come to think of it, the Enslaver can just use "Squeezing into a Smaller Space" to fit through a narrower gap, so I'm not sure why I'm fussing so much.

Apart from that I've got too much spare time today!

 

[Cleon]

..actually given the original had no colour described, we could say they have orange-brown or grey teselated skin with deep crusty furrows (like pine bark). And have amber-brown resin - forget all the green as a trope!

Upon reflection, I'll just drop the colour and have "gnarly skin like the bark of a pine tree" instead. then it can be whatever colour and texture the local pine trees are…

…Okay, that's in the Pine Kindred now.

 

[Casimir Liber]

I was tempted to use "one-twelfth of an inch" or "one-tenth of an inch" in Amorphous instead of "one-eighth of an inch."

A gray ooze isn't given a size in 5E but in earlier editions they are usually 4 to 12 feet long and 6 to 8 inches thick, averaging about 8 feet. The 1E AD&D version specifies they are long and narrow (the largest are "fully 3′ wide and 12′ long") but they're just "long" in 2E. They are round in BECMI.

The 5E gray ooze is Medium size, so if it it were, say 6 feet in diameter while being able to easily fit through a one inch gap, an enslaver is eight times smaller at nine inches diameter. Which suggest it can manage gaps of one-eighth of an inch without squeezing.

If a gray ooze 8 feet like in BECMI, a nine-inch blob is 10⅔ smaller, which means one-tenth of an inch if we keep the proportions, but that just seemed an odd ratio to me, which led me to wonder about using 1/12th.

Checking around the doors in my house, most of them have at least some areas with 1/8th inch gaps, but a few are tighter fitting than that.

Come to think of it, the Enslaver can just use "Squeezing into a Smaller Space" to fit through a narrower gap, so I'm not sure why I'm fussing so much.

Apart from that I've got too much spare time today!

Been offline - went with this....
Nice buff

 

[Casimir Liber]

Ok pine kindred looks good - words after hyphens nest not capitalised. Alos the resin-brute?