Challenging Challenge Ratings...again

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

You're forgetting the Golden Ratio. A 4-foot-tall human would have an upper body roughly 2 feet tall, which is nowhere near long enough for six arms. Unless you meant the torso is 4 ft. tall?

Having Medium arms makes more sense all around, but having two different Strength ratings (one overall and one for the arms) is just odd. Give it an overall Strength of 18-20; it's at the upper range for Medium creatures, but the marilith has a lot of mass behind those arms, despite the fact they're smaller than normal for its size.

Well the thing of it is this. If I use two arms (in 3E) for wielding a weapon I get x1.5 my strength bonus. So you one armed strength is a subdivision of your full strength.

The question then becomes do I get more strength for additional arms or do I still have the same total strength lessened for each arm. I favour the latter idea.

If you take a Hekatonchiere and a Titan (3.5). They are both the same size, but the Titan's arms are far more massive. If anything the Hekatonchiere has medium sized arms and the Titan has Huge arms.

4th Edition neatly solves this by giving an average damage for monsters of a certain level. Then dividing the damage up between attacks. So it will be interesting to see the difference in damage output between the 4E Balor and 4E Marilith. Although I am sure the Marilith will have some interesting opportunity attacks.

 

[Kerrick]

Well the thing of it is this. If I use two arms (in 3E) for wielding a weapon I get x1.5 my strength bonus. So you one armed strength is a subdivision of your full strength.

The question then becomes do I get more strength for additional arms or do I still have the same total strength lessened for each arm. I favour the latter idea.

Yeah, we're pretty much in agreement.. my only issue was the size of the torso.

 

[dante58701]

I think were forgetting that with each additional pair of arms on a torso comes a slendering of the arms, rather than a shortening. While each arm is just as long as a normal arm, it is far more slender. This factor above all is why -5/Arm Str/Extra Pair of arms makes perfect sense.

Even if the arms of a Marilith (or similar creature) are the same size as the creature (Medium for Medium). They simply lack the bulk of regular arms and are typically spaced below the shoulders and along the sides of the torso.

So...a 4 ft. (Medium) person would have slender (Medium) arms, albeit they would be rather scrawny since they are more slender. It's not like were taking BUFFED UP BEYOND ALL REASON arms and putting them on a dinky individual.

It could be argued, however, that for each -10 to arm Strength the arms are considered 1 size smaller for damage purposes, if not for reach.

I honestly think creatures with multiple arms also need a climb speed. I fail to see why they aren't getting one with all those useful arms.

Sidenote (somewhat related) - Abnormality is still in need of some corrections. You have Extra Tail, but each time you take it...you get two tails (while 2 is cool...1 makes a lot more sense), rather than just one and you didn't really explain what having an extra tail does for you.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey dante mate!

I think were forgetting that with each additional pair of arms on a torso comes a slendering of the arms, rather than a shortening. While each arm is just as long as a normal arm, it is far more slender.

I don't think thats necessarily the case with most multi-armed monsters. I mean a Marilith may have normal sized arms for a woman her (torso) size. She just has an extra set or two bolted on underneath her existing arms. But its simply that you won't be able to get all your body mass behind each swing* as you could do with a pair of arms.

Unless you move each arm on one given side in tandem with the others and that would be then impossible to accurately aim each individual attack seperately.

I vaguely recall the Sinbad movie with the six-armed statue (can't remember what it was called offhand - maybe SInbad and the Eye of the Tiger?) that the statue often lunged with three arms 'as one'. So If sinbad blocked the attacks of one arm on one side he was pretty much blocking all the attacks from that one side.

Sidenote (somewhat related) - Abnormality is still in need of some corrections. You have Extra Tail, but each time you take it...you get two tails (while 2 is cool...1 makes a lot more sense), rather than just one and you didn't really explain what having an extra tail does for you.

Extra tail would give an additional slam attack. It wasn't balanced offering merely one tail and two arms, but I understand your point. Tail also doubles for tentacle though.

 

[dante58701]

1 tail is perfectly balanced. It does damage + 1 1/2 x Strength modifier, whereas tentacles do damage + Strength modifier.

Additionally, tentacles would be a separate category altogether. They might look similar, but they are VERY different in other regards. A tentacle would be more like an extra limb that doesn't detract from limb strength due to it's inherent flexibility.

You should extend abnormality to include tentacles as a separate category.

You might also want to consider Extra Ears, Extra Eyes, Extra Mouths, and Extra Nose as separate Abnormalities.

This way we can have our biblical "creatures covered in eyes, ect." without resorting to the pseudonatural templates.

 

[Kerrick]

UK, got a question about SLAs. The table (and accompanying notes) say that you gain x number of SLAs based on HD. Can I combine a number of lesser SLAs into one or more higher-level SLAs so as to cut down on the total number? For example, a 5 HD creature gets two 1st, two 2nd (or lower), and one 3rd (or lower). Would it be unbalancing to combine the two 1st into a 2nd, or the two 2nd into a 3rd?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey there Kerrick dude!

UK, got a question about SLAs.

Fire away amigo!

The table (and accompanying notes) say that you gain x number of SLAs based on HD. Can I combine a number of lesser SLAs into one or more higher-level SLAs so as to cut down on the total number? For example, a 5 HD creature gets two 1st, two 2nd (or lower), and one 3rd (or lower). Would it be unbalancing to combine the two 1st into a 2nd, or the two 2nd into a 3rd?

I'd treat each higher level spell as two spells of the level below it. So exactly as you have written it.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

1 tail is perfectly balanced. It does damage + 1 1/2 x Strength modifier, whereas tentacles do damage + Strength modifier.

You know when I initially thought about it I had it more of a Lizardman's tail than a Dragon's Tail. But thats a good point, one tail (under the x1.5 str ruling) is technically balanced.

Additionally, tentacles would be a separate category altogether. They might look similar, but they are VERY different in other regards.

Here you go again with the VERY different. I do not think it means what you think it means*.

*Which reminds me - I haven't watched the Princess Bride in a while.

A tentacle would be more like an extra limb that doesn't detract from limb strength due to it's inherent flexibility.

You should extend abnormality to include tentacles as a separate category.

Possibly.

You might also want to consider Extra Ears, Extra Eyes, Extra Mouths, and Extra Nose as separate Abnormalities.

Technically it does, I just didn't include everything and the kitchen sink.

This way we can have our biblical "creatures covered in eyes, ect." without resorting to the pseudonatural templates.

Such a thing would add a bonus to certain skills, but otherwise not change anything drammatically.

 

[Kerrick]

I'd treat each higher level spell as two spells of the level below it. So exactly as you have written it.

Sweet, thanks.

Got another one for you. I'm working on tweaking the save progressions, and I've got some data now, but I'm not sure what a reasonable chance of success would be for high saves and low saves. Right now, high saves succeed about 50% of the time, and low saves slowly decline from 45% to 35%. I was thinking something closer to 60-65% for high saves and 40-45% for low saves. What do you think?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Sweet, thanks.

Got another one for you. I'm working on tweaking the save progressions, and I've got some data now, but I'm not sure what a reasonable chance of success would be for high saves and low saves. Right now, high saves succeed about 50% of the time, and low saves slowly decline from 45% to 35%. I was thinking something closer to 60-65% for high saves and 40-45% for low saves. What do you think?

The easiest method might be to ape 4th Edition.

So you have 55% succes rate (standard saves), 45% (vs. elites) and 30% (vs solo monsters).