Converting Al-Qadim creatures

[Shade]

I'm still not fond of the idea of PCs having something so massive as a pet. At least an iron golem can travel through a dungeon with 'em.

I'd rather leave the potential for training up to the DM, rather than set out the rules for it.

Sorry!

 

[Cleon]

Alright then, I don't mind dropping the Training Rules.

Since this leaves the Common Roc pretty well done as it is, shall we move on to the Great Roc?

We can get most of the way there by upsizing the Common Roc to a 24 Hit Dice Colossal Magical Beast, increasing its Intelligence to Int 6 and having it speak Common and Auran.

It gets an extra 6 skill points and 2 feats from its higher Hit Dice. The skill points should probably be equally divided between Listen and Spot, but what do you fancy for the feats? It's got enough HD to be eligible for Epic Feats, so I'm tempted by Epic Will (to give it a +16 Will save) plus Hover (so it can make mid-air full attacks while blasting opponents with its downdraft).

The Great Roc's a slower flier (30" vs 24") so I'd drop its speed to fly 60 ft.

It also has a 2 point better AC, so I'd better up the NA up a bit - I think I'll aim for AC 20, for the sake of argument.

Apart from that, I'm thinking it could deserve an increase to its Wisdom and Charisma (maybe +2 apiece for Wis 15, Cha 13?) and it has a couple of special abilities - rock-dropping and communicating with Common Rocs.

Boulder-Dropping - are we making these boulders 3d10 damage like the entry says, or shall we have them do heftier damage? Hmm, a cloud giant throws a Huge rock for 2d8 damage, if we scale it up from that a Great Roc would drop a 6d8 damage boulder and Two-Headed Roc drops 2 4d8 boulders. That seems more appropriate to me.

I'm also wondering whether the Boulder-Dropping damage is doubled in a dive - solely because I like the idea of a dive bombing Colossal Roc!

Communicating with Common Rocs - maybe we could expand this so it can talk to any predatory bird (Giant Eagles, Owls, et cetera)?

Putting it all together, I'm suggesting:

Roc, Zakharan, Great Roc
Colossal Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 24d10+216 (348 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), fly 60 ft. (average)
Armor Class: 20 (–8 size, +2 Dex, +16 natural), touch 4, flat-footed 18
Base Attack/Grapple: +24/+58
Attack: Talon +34 melee (4d6+18) or boulder +18 ranged (special)
Full Attack: 2 talons +34 melee (4d6+18) and bite +32 melee (4d8+9) or boulder +18 ranged (special)
Space/Reach: 30 ft./20 ft.
Special Attacks: Boulder-dropping
Special Qualities: low-light vision
Saves: Fort +23, Ref +16, Will +12
Abilities: Str 46, Dex 15, Con 28, Int 6, Wis 15, Cha 13
Skills: Hide -7, Listen +13, Spot +17
Feats: Alertness, Flyby Attack, Hover, Iron Will, Multiattack, Power Attack, Snatch, Wingover plus one more (Epic Will?)
Environment: Warm mountains and island forests
Organization: Solitary or pair
Challenge Rating: 13
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 25-72 (Colossal)
Level Adjustment: —

A Zakharan great roc has brilliant, multicoloured plumage. Their wings and backs are typically a shade of green or gold and their beaks range from pale ivory to a rich shade of brass. The leading edge of their wings is a glorious azure blue. Male great rocs have crests of the same bright blue hue, while females have snowy white breasts. The egg of a great roc is the colour of ivory, dappled with beautiful patterns of turquoise and indigo.

These enormous creatures are 120 feet long from their beak to the tip of their 40-foot long tail feathers, with wingspans as wide as 270 feet. A typical Zakharan great roc weighs between 200,000 and 250,000 pounds.

Zakharan great rocs speak Auran and Common and can speak with any avian creature (as if using a speak with animals spell).

Combat
A roc attacks from the air, swooping earthward to snatch prey in its powerful talons and carry it off for itself and its young to devour. A solitary roc is typically hunting and will attack any Medium or larger creature that appears edible. A mated pair of rocs attack in concert, fighting to the death to defend their nests or hatchlings.

Zakharan great rocs like to crack tough opponents, ships or fortifications by dropping boulders from the sky.

Boulder-Dropping (Ex): ?

Skills
Rocs have a +4 racial bonus on Spot checks.

 

[Shade]

Definitely Hover...I'm not as keen on Epic Will. Let's see if we can find something more dynamic.

The Colossal mountain giant has this ability, somewhat reminiscent of the boulder dropping:

Fling (Ex): A mountain giant who sucessfully grapples a foe two or more size categories smaller than itself can hurl the creature as a standard action. A flung creature travels up to 120 feet and takes 12d6 points of damage. A creature that is flung off a mountain takes this amount of damage or the appropriate falling damage, whichever is greater. The giant also can throw the flung creature as though it were a boulder. In this case, the flung creature takes 12d6+16 points of damage, and any opponent it strikes takes 4d8+16 points of damage.

I think we might emulate this, giving a flat base damage for the boulder, or using falling damage if the amount is greater (when dropped from great heights).

We can borrow this, replacing "serpentine" with "avian"...

Serpent lords speak Common and can speak with any serpentine creature (as if using a speak with animals spell).

 

[Cleon]

Definitely Hover...I'm not as keen on Epic Will. Let's see if we can find something more dynamic.

That's pretty close to my feeling. I'll add hover but leave Epic Will as a questionable.

Oh blast, I forgot to modify the Hide skill for its greater size, better fix that as well.

The Colossal mountain giant has this ability, somewhat reminiscent of the boulder dropping:

Fling (Ex): A mountain giant who sucessfully grapples a foe two or more size categories smaller than itself can hurl the creature as a standard action. A flung creature travels up to 120 feet and takes 12d6 points of damage. A creature that is flung off a mountain takes this amount of damage or the appropriate falling damage, whichever is greater. The giant also can throw the flung creature as though it were a boulder. In this case, the flung creature takes 12d6+16 points of damage, and any opponent it strikes takes 4d8+16 points of damage.

I think we might emulate this, giving a flat base damage for the boulder, or using falling damage if the amount is greater (when dropped from great heights).

So the boulder does, say 6d8+18 or 1d6 per 10 feet it's dropped, whichever is greater?

Hold on a moment, there's damage for falling objects rules in the SRD...

Here we are, 1d6 per 10 feet per 200 pounds, max 20d6.

A Great Roc (Colossal Str 46) can fly with a load up to 78,336 pounds which works out as...

391d6 per 10 foot dropped, to a maximum of 7820d6.

Think we'd better drop that idea, seven thousand eight hundred and twenty six-sided dice of damage is a bit more than even I was contemplating.

Maybe if we change the dice size. The original version does 3d10, so we could set it to 1d10 per ten feet (minimum 3d10). 20d10 damage is quite a bit, but not too bad for 13th level PCs. If we give it a poor range increment (say, 20 feet) it would not have a good chance of hitting its target at that range.

Another problem is the Two-Headed Roc drops two boulders simultaneously. Do we want its boulders to potentially do double the Great Roc's damage? Perhaps we should have the Bicephalic Roc's rocks' do 1d6 per 10 feet instead? That's still more than the Great Rock, but it's only 27% more instead of 100% more.

We can borrow this, replacing "serpentine" with "avian"...

Serpent lords speak Common and can speak with any serpentine creature (as if using a speak with animals spell).

Works for me, I'll add it in.

 

[Cleon]

Oh, and here's a minor question.

Since the Great Roc is a sapient being, do we want to change its alignment from "Always neutral" to "Usually neutral"?

I'm thinking we can keep it "Always neutral" - it has the same Intelligence and Type as a Griffon, and that's Always Neutral.

 

[freyar]

On the dropping damage, I think we should use the SRD falling objects rules. Remember, there's a 20d6 max. Perhaps add double Str bonus to dropping due to the roc pushing it off? Let's worry about the 2-headed one later.

Always neutral works for me. I don't mind relatively rigid alignments.

 

[Cleon]

On the dropping damage, I think we should use the SRD falling objects rules. Remember, there's a 20d6 max. Perhaps add double Str bonus to dropping due to the roc pushing it off? Let's worry about the 2-headed one later.

Reading the SRD again, it looks like I misinterpreted it. Rather than 1d6 per 10 feet per 200 pounds (max 20d6), instead it is:

1d6 per 200 pounds for the first 10 feet (no max) plus 1d6 per additional 10 feet (max 20d6).

That gives it a maximum boulder damage of 391+20 = 411d6, which is a little more reasonable.

I think the easiest thing to do is just assume it's dropping much littler boulders (pebble-sized to the Roc) so the base damage is lower.

So, how many d6s do you fancy?

How about we peg it to roughly the average damage of its full attack routine.

Two talons @ 4d6+18 plus a beak @ 4d8+9 averages... 2*(14+18) + (18+9) = 91 hit points of damage.

91 / 3.5 => 26d6 damage!

Round it down to 25d6 damage plus 1d6 per additional 10 feet, or make it 20d6 plus 1d6 per 10 feet for a maximum of 40d6?

20d6 would mean it's dropping a 4000 pounds boulder, 25d6 a 5000 pound boulder.

Always neutral works for me. I don't mind relatively rigid alignments.

Suits me.

 

[Shade]

20d6 seems too high. It is on par with a CR 21 ancient green dragon's breath weapon, although it won't hit multiple targets.

40d6 would roughly equate to an ancient red dragon's breath. At CR 26, that is waaaaay out of this great roc's league.

So I'd propose we either retool the dropped boulders ability to not account for weight (just using a flat amount or normal falling damage, whichever is better), or raise the HD on the bird and make it a truly epic monstrosity.

 

[freyar]

Yes, let's just say it only drops rocks of up to PC weight, so the damage is just normal falling damage. That can still get pretty high, but we can make it a ranged attack with a smallish range increment to make it hard to hit.

 

[Cleon]

20d6 seems too high. It is on par with a CR 21 ancient green dragon's breath weapon, although it won't hit multiple targets.

I agree 20d6 is a lot, but remember it can do the equivalent of 26d6 full-attacking with its claws and bite and only affects one target.

We can keep the max damage down by cutting its range. If it is treated as a missile weapon with a 10 ft. range increment, it can do a max of 29d6 with a 100 foot drop, but at -10 to hit, and any higher than that it can't reliably hit something.

Alternatively, we allow the target a Reflex save to dodge the boulder AND have an attack roll.

So I'd propose we either retool the dropped boulders ability to not account for weight (just using a flat amount or normal falling damage, whichever is better), or raise the HD on the bird and make it a truly epic monstrosity.

Well I have nothing against making it an epic monstrosity...