Converting Epic Level Creatures

[Cleon]

If he can spontaenously cast them, shouldn't he have access to them?

If he can spontaneously cast them why would he bother writing them down in his spellbooks? He never needs to prepare them.

I see no reason to deny him a spell PCs don't like. Besides, it's not typically prepared. I think that's generally ok, though.

As you like, I don't mind adding disjunction if you fancy it.

 

[freyar]

The Spells ability actually says, "Andromidus has access to the following wizard spells," not that they're in his spellbook. So it really needs to say he has access to them, otherwise he can't cast them spontaneously!

 

[Cleon]

The Spells ability actually says, "Andromidus has access to the following wizard spells," not that they're in his spellbook. So it really needs to say he has access to them, otherwise he can't cast them spontaneously!

Contrariwise, if he can cast them spontaneously he doesn't need to access them for spell preparation purposes.

Oh heck, I guess it'd be simpler to add "plus all Illusion spells" to the spells known list than circle through this argument yet again.

Shall we add disjunction while we're at it?

 

[freyar]

Yes, let's go ahead and add disjunction and the Sorc/Wiz spell lists to the working draft. I guess we should do the cleric spells next.

 

[Cleon]

Yes, let's go ahead and add disjunction and the Sorc/Wiz spell lists to the working draft.

Updating the Andromidus Working Draft.

I guess we should do the cleric spells next.

That'd seem the next logical step...

 

[freyar]

Well, let's see if we want to crib from Prometheus again. His cleric casting is

Prometheus
Spells: Prometheus can cast divine spells as a 13th-level cleric. Prometheus has access to the following domains: Good, Fire, Knowledge, and Protection. The save DCs are Wisdom-based.
Typical Cleric Spells Prepared (6/10/10/8/8/7/6/4; save DC 24 + spell level):
0 – create water, detect magic, light, mending, purify food and drink, read magic;
1st – bless (x2), bless water, burning hands*, detect evil, divine favor, entropic shield, protection from evil, remove fear, sanctuary, shield of faith;
2nd – aid, augury, bear's endurance, bull's strength, eagle's splendor, make whole, owl's wisdom, produce flame*, shield other, silence, status;
3rd – clairaudience/clairvoyance*, continual flame, daylight, helping hand, locate object, prayer, searing light, stone shape, water walk;
4th – air walk, death ward, dimensional anchor, dismissal, divination, freedom of movement, holy smite*, sending, tongues;
5th – commune, dispel evil, fire shield*, flame strike, mass cure light wounds, plane shift, scrying, true seeing;
6th, 7th not available for Andromidus

OK, those look like a decent start, but Prometheus has more casting. I say we cut what we need to cut, which is 0/1/1/1/1/1, then swap some stuff around. We also need to choose his domains! Anyway, I say we drop 1 bless, aid, locate object, tongues, flame strike. What do you think?

 

[Cleon]

Well, let's see if we want to crib from Prometheus again. His cleric casting is

*SNIP*

OK, those look like a decent start, but Prometheus has more casting. I say we cut what we need to cut, which is 0/1/1/1/1/1, then swap some stuff around. We also need to choose his domains! Anyway, I say we drop 1 bless, aid, locate object, tongues, flame strike. What do you think?

I'd like to keep the tongues but am not sure what to cut in their stead.

For the 2nd level I'd cut produce flames rather than aid.

For the 3rd level I'd cut searing light rather than locate object.

As for the Domains, Andromidus shouldn't have Fire like Prometheus because he's not mythologically linked to that element (Prometheus being the "Fire Bringer" and all).

Good and Knowledge are both good matches to his background as a neutral good being who acts as an oracle. We could cut Protection if we wanted to make room for a different Domain.

How about using the one of the SRD's additional domains? Artifice and Nobility are tempting. I toyed with the idea of Creation, but it has two illusion spells in it which are surplus to requirements.

 

[freyar]

I'm ok with cutting produce flames and searing light. If you want to keep tongues, I guess I'd drop death ward. He's known for wisdom and foresight, so he should definitely keep the divination spells, and the others just seem to fit. I guess I could possibly drop air walk, dimensional anchor, or dismissal instead.

The Artifice domain is also a bit redundant due to his Transmutation ability, though it is a thematic. Still, I think Nobility would work (cutting Protection). Do Good, Knowledge, and Nobility sound ok to you?

 

[Cleon]

I'm ok with cutting produce flames and searing light.

Suits me!

If you want to keep tongues, I guess I'd drop death ward. He's known for wisdom and foresight, so he should definitely keep the divination spells, and the others just seem to fit. I guess I could possibly drop air walk, dimensional anchor, or dismissal instead.

I'd argue death ward is one of the most useful of his 4th level spells. Immunity to energy drain is a life saver. Literally. The most extraneous of the spells looks to be air walk. How about swapping that?

The Artifice domain is also a bit redundant due to his Transmutation ability, though it is a thematic. Still, I think Nobility would work (cutting Protection). Do Good, Knowledge, and Nobility sound ok to you?

He can only use 100 pounds of transmutation a day, so some additional transmutation spells might come in handy. Besides, I suggested it for flavour reasons as much as anything.

Also, I presumed we were giving him four domains like Prometheus has, so how about Artifice, Good, Knowledge and Nobility?

 

[freyar]

Death ward is very useful if he's running into energy drain situations. It doesn't really bother me either way, but I think I'd rather have Andromidus provide transportation rather than protection if he's using his spells on behalf of PCs. It just seems more appropriate for him.

Those 4 domains will work!

 

[Cleon]

Death ward is very useful if he's running into energy drain situations. It doesn't really bother me either way, but I think I'd rather have Andromidus provide transportation rather than protection if he's using his spells on behalf of PCs. It just seems more appropriate for him.

Well air walk is a one creature deal, so it's not much use for parties of PCs. Generally speaking, wind walk is more applicable.

Those 4 domains will work!

Updating the Andromidus Working Draft.

 

[freyar]

Oh, you're right, I was getting air walk confused with wind walk. Hmmmm. OK, I could see dropping air walk in that case.

What domain spells do you want to give him?

 

[Cleon]

Oh, you're right, I was getting air walk confused with wind walk. Hmmmm. OK, I could see dropping air walk in that case.

Good! Applying the currently agreed changes to Prometheus's spell selection give us...

Typical Cleric Spells Prepared (6/8+1/8+1/6+1/6+1/5+1, save DC 24 + spell level, or 29 + spell level for Illusion spells.):

0 – create water, detect magic, light, mending, purify food and drink, read magic;
1st – bless, bless water, burning hands*, detect evil, divine favor, entropic shield, protection from evil, remove fear, sanctuary, shield of faith; ONE TOO MANY
2nd – aid, augury, bear's endurance, bull's strength, eagle's splendor, make whole, owl's wisdom, shield other, silence, status; ONE TOO MANY
3rd – clairaudience/clairvoyance*, continual flame, daylight, helping hand, locate object, prayer, stone shape, water walk; ONE TOO MANY
4th – death ward, dimensional anchor, dismissal, divination, freedom of movement, holy smite*, sending, tongues; ONE TOO MANY
5th – commune, dispel evil, fire shield*, mass cure light wounds, plane shift, scrying, true seeing. ONE TOO MANY

That's odd.

We appear to have miscalculated - there's still one too many spells.

Oh wait, it's the CC conversion of Prometheus that wrong. Its spells prepared have one too many spells at each level.

Prometheus Spells Prepared:

Spell Level	0	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th
Cleric Levels	6	5+1	5+1	4+1	4+1	3+1	2+1	1+1
Wisdom Bonus	—	4	4	3	3	3	3	2
Total	6	9+1	9+1	7+1	7+1	6+1	5+1	3+1

I think what happened is the domain bonus spell accidentally got folded in with the regular spells in the "Typical Cleric Spells Prepared" numbers.

The CC entry has "6/10/10/8/8/7/6/4" when it should have "6/9+1/9+1/7+1/7+1/5+1/3+1", and the actual number of spells is "6/10+1/10+1/8+1/8+1/7+1/6+1/4+1":

Typical Cleric Spells Prepared (6/10/10/8/8/7/6/4; save DC 24 + spell level):
0 (6) – create water, detect magic, light, mending, purify food and drink, read magic; SIX SPELLS = CORRECT
1st (9+1) – bless (x2), bless water, burning hands*, detect evil, divine favor, entropic shield, protection from evil, remove fear, sanctuary, shield of faith; ELEVEN SPELLS = ONE TOO MANY
2nd (9+1) – aid, augury, bear's endurance, bull's strength, eagle's splendor, make whole, owl's wisdom, produce flame*, shield other, silence, status; ELEVEN SPELLS = ONE TOO MANY
3rd (7+1) – clairaudience/clairvoyance*, continual flame, daylight, helping hand, locate object, prayer, searing light, stone shape, water walk; NINE SPELLS = ONE TOO MANY
4th (7+1) – air walk, death ward, dimensional anchor, dismissal, divination, freedom of movement, holy smite*, sending, tongues; NINE SPELLS = ONE TOO MANY
5th (6+1) – commune, dispel evil, fire shield*, flame strike, mass cure light wounds, plane shift, scrying, true seeing; EIGHT SPELLS = ONE TOO MANY
6th (5+1) – banishment, blade barrier*, greater dispel magic, heal, heroes' feast, mass cure moderate wounds, wind walk; SEVEN SPELLS = ONE TOO MANY
7th (3+1) – fire storm*, holy word, mass cure critical wounds, regenerate, resurrection. FIVE SPELLS = ONE TOO MANY

Oh, you're right, I was getting air walk confused with wind walk. Hmmmm. OK, I could see dropping air walk in that case.

What domain spells do you want to give him?

We've still got most of the ones on Prometheus's cleric list, so we'd better check which ones are for domains Andromidus doesn't have...

Okay now, we need to cut the burning hands and fire shield as domain spells, since Andromidus does not have the Fire Domain.

We can cut the aid and locate object spells you suggested earlier.

We can make protection from evil and true seeing domain spells.

We still need to remove a 2nd and 4th level spell - I suggest status and sending.

That makes the following:

Typical Cleric Spells Prepared (6/8+1/8+1/6+1/6+1/5+1, save DC 24 + spell level, or 29 + spell level for Illusion spells.):

0 [6] – create water, detect magic, light, mending, purify food and drink, read magic;
1st [8+1] – bless, bless water, detect evil, divine favor, entropic shield, protection from evil*, remove fear, sanctuary, shield of faith;
2nd [8+1] – DOMAIN*, augury, bear's endurance, bull's strength, eagle's splendor, make whole, owl's wisdom, shield other, silence;
3rd [6+1] – clairaudience/clairvoyance*, continual flame, daylight, helping hand, prayer, stone shape, water walk;
4th [6+1] – death ward, dimensional anchor, dismissal, divination, freedom of movement, holy smite*, tongues;
5th [5+1] – commune, dispel evil, mass cure light wounds, plane shift, scrying, true seeing*.

All that leaves is choosing the 2nd level domain spell.

The choices are aid, detect thoughts, enthrall, wood shape.

I'd prefer either detect thoughts or wood shape since those aren't on the standard Cleric spell lists.

 

[freyar]

OK, I will agree to all of that, and I would make detect thoughts the 2nd level domain spell.

 

[Cleon]

OK, I will agree to all of that, and I would make detect thoughts the 2nd level domain spell.

Updating the Andromidus Working Draft.

I think that's it for the special abilities.We've just got the AC, feats, skills, SR and CR to settle on.

 

[freyar]

Hmmm, let's look at AC. His original AC is -2. How does that compare to Prometheus, and what does our conversion of Prometheus have?

 

[Cleon]

Hmmm, let's look at AC. His original AC is -2. How does that compare to Prometheus, and what does our conversion of Prometheus have?

I'm not near to my sourcebooks at the moment. I should be able to check later today and post Forethought's AC.

 

[Cleon]

I'm not near to my sourcebooks at the moment. I should be able to check later today and post Forethought's AC.

Just remembered we should already have the answers on this forum somewhere.

This post by Boz lists the Deities & Demigods AD&D stats for the Greater Titans, which indicate that Prometheus's AC is -2, just like Andromidus.

The conversion of Prometheus we have archived on this forum has:

Armor Class: 55 (-8 size, +7 Dex, +32 natural, +14 insight), touch 23, flat-footed 48

I'll probably double-check my sources tomorrow, but that sounds about right.

 

[freyar]

Hmmmm. I think we probably want to reduce the AC a bit from that given that Prometheus has more HD and probably a greater CR (maybe). Just adjusting for size and Dex may take care of that: NS goes to +27, size adjustment to -4, Dex to +4, so we get a possible AC (leaving insight the same, since it's Wis-based) of
Armor Class: 51 (-4 size, +4 Dex, +27 natural, +14 insight), touch 24, flat-footed 47 .

That might work.

 

[Cleon]

Hmmmm. I think we probably want to reduce the AC a bit from that given that Prometheus has more HD and probably a greater CR (maybe). Just adjusting for size and Dex may take care of that: NS goes to +27, size adjustment to -4, Dex to +4, so we get a possible AC (leaving insight the same, since it's Wis-based) of Armor Class: 51 (-4 size, +4 Dex, +27 natural, +14 insight), touch 24, flat-footed 47 .

That might work.

Well, firstly Andromidus is "is powerful even in comparison to the major and elder beings of his mighty race" according to Dungeon #2, so I'd like him to have an AC that isn't that far off the other Greater Titans in the CC.

Secondly, your proposed NA is lower than the basic Greater Titan's +28.

At the very least he ought to have a NA equal to that; resulting in AC 52, touch 24, flat-footed 48.

I'd be game to increase the NA to +30, but the above is fine too.