Cliff Raptor

[Cleon]

Heh, I can DnDbeyond it posthaste...should the 'bite' be slashing or piercing damage? And the claw damage - "6 (1d4 + 3)" --> "5 (1d4 + 3)"?

Should be 5 (1d4 + 3).

For 6 average damage it'd have to be (1d6 + 3) but I prefer the claw's damage dice to be 1d4 like the 5E SRD Panther.

Updated the "Cleon Version" Cliff Raptor.

Bite should be piercing damage.

The slashing bite was deliberate.

The Cliff Raptor is described as having "razor-sharp teeth" in the original text, meaning its jaws have flesh-cutting teeth like a real-world dromaeosaur.

It's not stabbing its prey with its canines like a dog or cat would.

So I made the Bite do slashing damage rather than the piercing damage of a standard 5E bite attack.

Did consider renaming the action to "Razor Bite" to emphasize the sharpness.

Incidentally, I had the talons do piercing damage since one interpretation of the foot-claw's function was the velociraptors pushed the point into prey to hook into their flesh and pierce organs, rather than simply scratching, which could explain why the talon is so long.

and the damage average should be 6. 1d4 averages to 2.5 but rounds to 3, then add the 3 from DEX.

You round halves down for average damage in 5E, so the 5½ of 1d4 + 3 is 5 not 6.

 

[Casimir Liber]

voila

 

[Cleon]

voila

The Claw is missing the grappling special features, e.g. the sentences "If the target is Large or smaller, it must succeed at a DC 13 Dexterity (Athletics) or Strength (Acrobatics) check (target's choice) or be grappled (escape DC 13). Until this grapple ends, the cliff raptor gains advantage on attack rolls with its talons against the target."

The Talons do piercing damage, not slashing.

Also, do you like the proposal to rename Bite to Razor Bite in order to emphasize the nonstandard damage type?

 

[Casimir Liber]

gah! I even miss things direct copying! Yeah I like razor bite

 

[Casimir Liber]

Cliff Raptor

Death from Above. If the cliff raptor drops at least 10 feet while moving straight toward a creature and then hits it with a talons attac...

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I threw your description in an AI art generator (while I personally have a problem with corporations using AI to take jobs away from real living people, I have no issue with playing with the tool to see what monsters might look like):

 

[Cleon]

Cliff Raptor

Death from Above. If the cliff raptor drops at least 10 feet while moving straight toward a creature and then hits it with a talons attac...

www.dndbeyond.com

That looks fine.

Updated the "Cleon Version" Cliff Raptor with more razors.

Updated the Index of 5th Edition Conversions of 3E Monsters and added the Cliff Raptor to the Completed Fifth Edition Creatures Index.

I threw your description in an AI art generator (while I personally have a problem with corporations using AI to take jobs away from real living people, I have no issue with playing with the tool to see what monsters might look like):

View attachment 341960

Hmm, like a lot of current AI art it looks OK at first glance but a close examination finds problems.

It doesn't really resemble a cliff raptor at all.

Those don't have pint-sized wings on their shoulders, their arms have big feathers that make them winglike.

Hands are way too big and have too many fingers. Dromaeosaurs have four fingers, not five.

Their feet are completely wrong. It's like the AI has never seen Jurassic Park!

Would prefer a straighter "balancing pole" feather-lined tail than a flexible whiplash tail, but most movies get that bit wrong too.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Hmm, like a lot of current AI art it looks OK at first glance but a close examination finds problems.

It doesn't really resemble a cliff raptor at all.

Those don't have pint-sized wings on their shoulders, their arms have big feathers that make them winglike.

Hands are way too big and have too many fingers. Dromaeosaurs have four fingers, not five.

Their feet are completely wrong. It's like the AI has never seen Jurassic Park!

Would prefer a straighter "balancing pole" feather-lined tail than a flexible whiplash tail, but most movies get that bit wrong too.

I agree with everything you say, but on the other hand, "Cliff Raptor" (in this case) is a made-up monster for D&D, and therefore could look like just about anything. It's not really a dinosaur (from Earth), is it?

In some ways, I think the alienness that that the AI creates is a feature, not a flaw. As long as the AI pulls off something that looks like something that could be called a "Cliff Raptor" and looks like something that would be fun to fight, I'm okay with it. YMMV.

 

[Cleon]

I agree with everything you say, but on the other hand, "Cliff Raptor" (in this case) is a made-up monster for D&D, and therefore could look like just about anything. It's not really a dinosaur (from Earth), is it?

In some ways, I think the alienness that that the AI creates is a feature, not a flaw. As long as the AI pulls off something that looks like something that could be called a "Cliff Raptor" and looks like something that would be fun to fight, I'm okay with it. YMMV.

Yeah, it's more a matter of verisimilitude than anything.

While it's not a known real-world dinosaur, it's presented more as a "speculative species" than a fabulous creature. A big Velociraptor that specialized in mountain-dwelling is no great stretch of the imagination.

Plus the illustrations of dinosaurs in the current version of D&D are relatively close to modern reconstructions, e.g. their Deinonychus is all feathery, so it seems reasonable to assume that the Cliff Raptor doesn't look that different from a "realistic" 'raptor.

If it had giant retractile second toe claws and got rid of those stubby wings so it resembled a proper Dromaeosaur I'd be far more accepting of it. I can forgive the floppy tail and wrong number of digits. As it's not supposed to be a real dinosaur it doesn't have to be scientifically accurate.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yeah, it's more a matter of verisimilitude than anything.

While it's not a known real-world dinosaur, it's presented more as a "speculative species" than a fabulous creature. A big Velociraptor that specialized in mountain-dwelling is no great stretch of the imagination.

Plus the illustrations of dinosaurs in the current version of D&D are relatively close to modern reconstructions, e.g. their Deinonychus is all feathery, so it seems reasonable to assume that the Cliff Raptor doesn't look that different from a "realistic" 'raptor.

If it had giant retractile second toe claws and got rid of those stubby wings so it resembled a proper Dromaeosaur I'd be far more accepting of it. I can forgive the floppy tail and wrong number of digits. As it's not supposed to be a real dinosaur it doesn't have to be scientifically accurate.

All true. I'm fine with the stubby wings, myself. A surprisingly lot of creatures in D&D worlds seem to have grown a third pair of limbs! OTOH, it's just one take that the AI shot out when I cut-and-pasted the description from the first post, without any changes. I could probably come up with something closer with a much shorter description. How's this: A velociraptor (with feathers) clinging to a cliff, ready to pounce: