Dr_Rictus
First Post
By way of preamble: nothing against a generally fine book, and having worked on plenty of game which had their bugs I know nothing turns out perfect. That said, here are my "bug reports."
The ormyrr (a huge frog-slug which happens to have a few hands) is reeeallly pushing the definition of a "monstrous humanoid."
Since no modifiers pertain to the random chance of an automaton functioning normally in any given round, it should have been given as a d% chance, not a d20 check. This looks like a holdover from Chainmail, where dice other than the d20 are not expected.
No method of construction is given for automatons, as would be usual for constructs, even though the supporting fiction leads one to believe that they are not uncommonly created. Again, a probable holdover from Chainmail, where such details would be irrelevant.
I'm willing to say that it's a Bad Decision to have special-case half-devil creatures such as the durzagon when one already has a half-fiend template. I suspect it's a conversion from a previous edition when the template did not exist, but I don't see where any serious harm would have come of simply saying that durzagons were half-fiend duergar which were consistent with all other half-fiends out there, or writing some special fiction for the circumstances under which such a union produced a novel creature.
We are informed that the worms that issue from a spawn of Kyuss have an AC of 10, but not what the bonuses and penalties that resulted in that AC were, which could be necessary information for some situations. Moreover, since a creature of Fine size would have an AC of 13 even if it had 0 Dexterity, it's a little mysterious where the additional -3 penalty is coming from. The other properties of this creature, although needed only occasionally, are completely unstated; an entire entry would have been overkill, but a simple stat block would have been appropriate.
The artist seems to have misunderstood the description of the Galeb Duhr (a "living boulder" with "appendages that serve a hands and feet"), depicting it as basically humanoid. It should look like a boulder, and its appendages should serve as both hands and feet. Similarly, the loxo's trunks are much too long given its description: 2-foot trunks on a Large creature should look much stubbier. Instead, they are proportioned like an elephant's, for obvious reasons.
The ormyrr (a huge frog-slug which happens to have a few hands) is reeeallly pushing the definition of a "monstrous humanoid."
Since no modifiers pertain to the random chance of an automaton functioning normally in any given round, it should have been given as a d% chance, not a d20 check. This looks like a holdover from Chainmail, where dice other than the d20 are not expected.
No method of construction is given for automatons, as would be usual for constructs, even though the supporting fiction leads one to believe that they are not uncommonly created. Again, a probable holdover from Chainmail, where such details would be irrelevant.
I'm willing to say that it's a Bad Decision to have special-case half-devil creatures such as the durzagon when one already has a half-fiend template. I suspect it's a conversion from a previous edition when the template did not exist, but I don't see where any serious harm would have come of simply saying that durzagons were half-fiend duergar which were consistent with all other half-fiends out there, or writing some special fiction for the circumstances under which such a union produced a novel creature.
We are informed that the worms that issue from a spawn of Kyuss have an AC of 10, but not what the bonuses and penalties that resulted in that AC were, which could be necessary information for some situations. Moreover, since a creature of Fine size would have an AC of 13 even if it had 0 Dexterity, it's a little mysterious where the additional -3 penalty is coming from. The other properties of this creature, although needed only occasionally, are completely unstated; an entire entry would have been overkill, but a simple stat block would have been appropriate.
The artist seems to have misunderstood the description of the Galeb Duhr (a "living boulder" with "appendages that serve a hands and feet"), depicting it as basically humanoid. It should look like a boulder, and its appendages should serve as both hands and feet. Similarly, the loxo's trunks are much too long given its description: 2-foot trunks on a Large creature should look much stubbier. Instead, they are proportioned like an elephant's, for obvious reasons.
