Converting "generic setting" Second Edition monsters


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Ahh, that's what I get for not going back to the original. :p

By the way, I kind of like the tactics as written. Non-traditional, but I think they're comprehensible.

Description:
This looks like a harmless enough frog-sized tadpole with wing-like fins sprouting from its pectoral area. As it begins to croak, its lips pull back, revealing a mouthful of long, sharp teeth.

Frog-sized? They're a yard long. That's a pretty big frog!

I've never heard of llamhigyn y dwr being described as "harmless" in appearance. "Ugly", "slimy" and "loathsome" seem more popular descriptions.

Also, their wings are usually described as resembling a bat's, or occasionally a bird's. I can't recall any versions apart from the AD&D HR3 one that compares them to flying fish's fins.
 


Yeah, reading it over again, Cleon's revisions seem apt.

How's this scrap o' poesy I wrote up on the train yesterday:

A grotesque creature resembling a legless, winged toad with a long tail. The beast has a broad mouth filled with sharp teeth, slimy skin, and a body covered in warts. Its flattened tail is like an eel or lizard, and ends in a barbed fork. The wings are shaped like a bat's, but have a transparent membrane and fan of rays like a fish's fins.
 

I clearly just had the wrong mental picture of these. :erm:

Are we agreed with leaving tactics as "Shriek! Leap!! Bite Bite Shriek Bite!!!"?
 


As long as that is translated into a more traditional sentence structure. ;)

Still refusing to recognize the brilliance of exception-based syntax, I see. :p

How's this...

A grotesque creature resembling a legless, winged toad with a long tail. The beast has a broad mouth filled with sharp teeth, slimy skin, and a body covered in warts. Its flattened tail is like an eel or lizard, and ends in a barbed fork. The wings are shaped like a bat's, but have a transparent membrane and fan of rays like a fish's fins.

Water leapers, known as llamhigyn y dwr in their native land, are named after their propensity for leaping out of the water to attack passers-by. These half-fish, half-frog creatures are much loathed for their destructive habits. They prefer to live in lakes, but are also found in slow-flowing rivers and freshwater swampland such as bogs, fens or marshes.

Llamhigyn y dwr prefer to eat land animals, but mostly have to satisfy themselves with fish. Their favorite meats are human, sheep and cattle. Water leapers are malicious creatures who often attack livestock, fishing folk and swimmers. They regularly destroy nets and fish traps, as much out of spite as to eat any fish caught in them.

A large school of water leapers will attack almost anything, and its appetite is so voracious they can quickly decimate their lake or river's fish stocks. They prey on animals who come to the water to drink. No normal animal eats water leapers, their only enemies are more powerful water monsters and hostile humanoids.

A water leaper is some 3 feet in length from nose to tail and weighs about 20 pounds.

COMBAT

A single water leaper poses little threat to a human-sized victim, but a school of water leapers attacks like a wolf pack. One member of the pack stands aside and uses its shriek attack every round, while the others make bite attacks. They typically concentrate their attack on a single victim.

Water leapers can use their Water Leap special attack to attack an opponent within 60 ft. of the water. However, water leapers prefer to fight in the water. They have many tricks to get a victim into the water, such as pulling on a fishing line, making a bull rush attack against an opponent on a boat or bridge, or using a shriek special attack near the bank of a river or lake and hoping the startled prey will fall in.
 




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