Converting First Edition monsters from DRAGON magazine

[freyar]

Remember that they can cast cure spells spontaneously, since they cast like good clerics. Good and healing domains sound about right. Prepped spells (do we need to add bonus spells?):

0(6) -- Purify Food and Drink, Detect Poison (x2), Detect Magic, Read Magic, Resistance
1(6+1) -- Bless, Comprehend Languages, Divine Favor, Endure Elements, Protection from Evil, Remove Fear; Cure Light Wounds
2(5+1) -- Aid, Align Weapon (good), Calm Emotions, Lesser Restoration, Status; Cure Moderate Wounds
3(5+1) -- Create Food and Water, Daylight, Dispel Magic, Remove Disease, Magic Vestment; Magic Circle Against Evil
4(4+1) -- Control Water, Death Ward, Neutralize Poison, Sending; Cure Critical Wounds
5(3+1) -- Break Enchantment, Hallow, Raise Dead; Dispel Evil
6(2+1) -- Banishment, Wind Walk; Heal

Edit: Finished. I erred on the side of protective and curative spells, rather than offensive ones. Any comments?

 

[Shade]

I'd like to work in flame strike and insect plague (since they were specifically mentioned), and probably a few other offensive spells since they fight evil with magic.

Suggested revision...

0(6) -- Purify Food and Drink, Detect Poison (x2), Detect Magic, Read Magic, Resistance
1(6+1) -- Bless, Comprehend Languages, Divine Favor, Endure Elements, Remove Fear, Shield of Faith; Protection from Evil
2(5+1) -- Align Weapon (good), Calm Emotions, Lesser Restoration, Shield Other, Status; Aid
3(5+1) -- Create Food and Water, Daylight, Dispel Magic, Remove Disease, Magic Vestment; Magic Circle Against Evil
4(4+1) -- Control Water, Death Ward, Neutralize Poison, Sending; Holy smite
5(3+1) -- Flame strike, insect plague, Raise Dead; Dispel Evil
6(2+1) -- Banishment, Wind Walk; Heal

I replaced most of the Healing domain spells with those from the Good domain. Since it can cast spontaneously, they aren't really needed otherwise.

 

[freyar]

Hehehe, I missed those spells. Need to read more carefully. The reasoning on the healing domain spells was to give a greater number of healing spells (at higher level) or when the good spells seemed to offensively oriented. Looks pretty good now.

 

[Shade]

Updated.

Let's revisit the feats: Empower Spell, Hover, Maximize Spell, Spell Focus (?)

If we're gonna use those metamagic feats, we'll need to represent them on the spell list.

Spell Penetration would probably be more useful than Spell Focus, since few of the spells allow saves, and many of the evil opponents they'd be fighting would probably have spell resistance.

For Psionic Koodjanuks, I'd recommend we simply add psi-like abilities rather than replacing divine spellcasting with psion manifestation. The divine magic is simply too important to their nature.

 

[freyar]

Spell Penetration vs Focus sounds good to me. Maximize and Empower are fine to change, but not much else really struck me as appropriate unless we want to go for a +2 on 2 kind of feat.

I agree with the psionics, since that sounds like the original intent. Maybe just enough to bump CR+1?

 

[Shade]

For the feats, how about Flyby Attack, Greater Spell Penetration, Hover, Spell Penetration?

Here are the Attack/Defense Modes and Equivalent 3.5 Powers:

Ego Whip (2nd, save)

Empty Mind (1st, no save)

Id Insinuation (2nd, save)

Intellect Fortress (4th, no save)

Mind Blast = Psionic blast (3rd, save)

Mind Thrust (1st, save)

Mental Barrier (3rd, no save)

Psychic Crush (5th, save)

Thought Shield (2nd, no save)

Tower of Iron Will (5th, save [harmless])

Since the koodjanuk had all, we could simply change them all into psi-like abilities and make the lower-level ones at will, and the higher ones 3/day or 1/day.

 

[freyar]

Sure, let's give it all of them, with the 1st and 2nd level ones at will, 3rd & 4th level ones 3/day, and 5th level ones 1/day. What do you think for the CR bump of that? +2?

 

[Shade]

I think it will only increase the CR by 1, since they can only be used 1/round, and not in the same round as spells.

Finished?

 

[freyar]

Looks done to me! At this rate, I feel like we can actually get all the conversions finished! 'Course, we'd need to do 4-something a day to finish in a year...

 

[Echohawk]

'Course, we'd need to do 4-something a day to finish in a year...

Relax. To finish in a year would only require 3.9 a day .