Converting First Edition monsters from DRAGON magazine

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Echohawk said:
Relax. To finish in a year would only require 3.9 a day :].

Oh, well, seems like there will be plenty of people sticking with 3.X to enjoy the fruits of our labors for a while still. ;)
 

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Here's one I've been wanting to tackle for awhile. :D

This is from the Demon Generation article.

All demons have the following properties:
a) Hit dice and Gate Ability appropriate to their level.
b) Vunerability to normal weapons at Level III or less, but magical weapons only at higher levels.
c) Magic Resistance of 50% at Level I, which increases by 5% for each additional level of the demon.
d) Special abilities as determined on the tables below. Note that no demon may have both fire and ice powers.

EXAMPLE: Putting it all together, I shall now create Nasthrapur, a 6th level demon. Assume the following rolls: LI 2,6,6; LII 1,1,10; LIII 10,12,12; LIV 10,12; LV 4,10; LVI 5. Since a roll for MU level came up “3”, the demon has the MU capabilities of a 12th Level MU/Cleric.

LEVEL I: Darkness 5’ radius.
Magic Missiles (from 2-6 per day possible. Assume 4.)

LEVEL II: Fear, twice the normal range (of wand). -2 on saving throws. Read magic.

LEVEL III: Hypnotise as Illusionist.
Regenerate (2-6 pts per melee round. Assume 5 points)

LEVEL IV: Firestorm, l/day. (Since whether the demon has fire or ice powers has not been determined, this was decided randomly.) Magic Resistance raised to 80%.

LEVEL V: Fireball of 12 dice. Magic Resistance raised to 90%.

LEVEL VI: Mass Charm. In addition, he receives the normal benefits of being a 6th Level
demon: eight 10-sided hit dice, a 70% chance of gating in a Level 3 or 4 demon, and can be hit by magic weapons only.

Assume his appearance is a cross between a Red Dragon and Wild Cattle. Such a creature might have a bull’s head and hooves, but a scaly body and leathery wings. A dragon’s taloned forelegs take the place of arms. This combination will give the demon the following special abilities: bite/butt/claw attacks, flight, and a breath weapon of fire usable
three times per day that does 24 points of damage (assuming the dragon maturity roll was a 2).

Originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #13 (1978).
 

So as a "Type VI" demon, we'll be using a balor as the base stats.

So...

20 HD
Abilities: Str 35, Dex 25, Con 31, Int 24, Wis 24, Cha 26

We can play with those ability scores if we'd like, but that will provide a baseline.
 


Shroomy said:
Is this supposed to be a race of demons or a unique demon?

It could be either, as it was just a sample creature. Since the article also allowed for the creation of princes, I'd prefer to go with a race of demons.
 

I don't think I understand the example. Does this have all the special abilities listed under all the levels?
 



Spell-Like Abilities: At will—deeper darkness, fireball (DC 20), greater teleport (self plus 50 pounds of objects only), hypnotism (DC 18), magic missile; 1/day—fire storm (DC 26), mass charm monster (DC 26). Caster level 20th. The save DCs are Charisma-based.

The double-strength fear with the save penalty could probably be best represented with a modified form of the pit fiend's fear aura:

Fear Aura (Su): A nasthrapur can radiate a 20-foot-radius fear aura as a free action. A creature in the area must succeed on a DC X Will save or be affected as though by a fear spell (caster level 18th). A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by the same nasthrapur's aura for 24 hours. Other demons are immune to the aura. The save DC is Charisma-based.
 

Added to Homebrews. I used much of the balor as a placeholder. We can adjust the ability scores to differentiate a bit.

This combination will give the demon the following special abilities: bite/butt/claw attacks, flight, and a breath weapon of fire usable
three times per day that does 24 points of damage (assuming the dragon maturity roll was a 2).

Assuming an age category 2 (very young) red dragon, that should be a 40-ft. cone of 4d10 fire damage. Do we want to stick with 3/day or change it to once every 1d4 rounds like dragons?
 

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