Converting First Edition Monsters
Cleon
Legend
Updating the Pungi Ray Working Draft.
So what next?
The Environment, Organization, Treasure, Alignment and Level Adjustment look fine to me. That just leaves CR and Advancement.
I'd eyeball the CR as being a strong 2 or a weak 3, but could see it going either way.
For the Advancement, I'd be fine allowing it to increase a size category following the usual ratio thus:
Advancement: 5-8 HD (Large); 9-12 HD (Huge)
Cleon
Legend
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
Looks good.
Tactics: A pungi ray hides in sand on the sea floor, waiting for some prey creature unlucky enough to pierce itself with the ray's poison spines. If forced into a fight, a pungi ray will ram, but they greatly prefer to stay at a distance and let their poison do its work.
Tactics: A pungi ray hides in sand on the sea floor, waiting for some prey creature unlucky enough to pierce itself with the ray's poison spines. If forced into a fight, a pungi ray will ram, but they greatly prefer to stay at a distance and let their poison do its work.
Cleon
Legend
Hmm… How about:
A pungi ray hides itself in the silt of the sea floor and waits for a victim unlucky enough to pierce themselves on the ray's poison spines. Once it spines a victim, it prefers to keep its distance and let its poison do its work, but if forced into a fight it attacks with its spines and ram attacks.
Cleon
Legend
Updating the Pungi Ray Working Draft.
Hold on a second! We're missing something. The AD&D sources say pungi rays flee if attacked - both the 2E sources say "If a pungi ray is attacked it will try to swim away" and the 1E Monster Manual has "If a pungi ray is attacked it will try to escape by flight".
We'd better incorporate that in some revised tactics.
Nothing specific. I presumed we were just going to repurpose the rather basic description in the original material.
How's this:
A mottled-green ray at least twice as wide as a human is tall. A dozen or so spines that resemble stalks of seaweed protrude from its back.
Pungi rays live in shallow tropical waters, where they conceal themselves in the silt and seaweed of the seabed. They widely feared for the deadly poison in their iron-hard back spines. Most pungi rays have a dozen or so spines, but exceptional specimens may have up to thirty or more.
A pungi ray lying on the sea floor is exceptionally well camouflaged, and many creatures have stepped upon their venomous spines before noticing the threat. Pungi rays prefer to eat molluscs and crustaceans, but may feed on any creature that falls victim to their venom.
A typical pungi ray is 6 feet long, excluding its tail, and 15 feet wide from tip-to-tip of its broad pectoral fins. Their back spines normally cover a 3-foot by 4-foot area. They generally weigh about 2,000 to 3,000 pounds.
Combat
A pungi ray hides itself in the silt of the sea floor and waits for prey to pierce themselves on its poison spines. Once it spikes a victim, it prefers to keep its distance and let its poison do its work. A pungi ray will try to swim away if attacked, but if forced into a fight it defends itself with its spines and ram attacks.
Cleon
Legend
Updating the Pungi Ray Working Draft.
Yes, I think we're good to proceed.
I'm thinking we'd upgrade it to a Magical Beast and add Improved Grab plus an Energy Drain or Con Drain attack it can inflict with a successful grapple check.
Maybe tweak it a bit here and there and add some additional flavour.
Shouldn't take very long.
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