Converting Greyhawk monsters

[Cleon]

These are supposed to be 2 inches in diameter, which feels more like diminutive to me. That gives us

Abilities: Str 4, Dex 13, Con 10, Int —, Wis 11, Cha 2
Claw damage of 1d2-3

Though I might consider a nonstandard advancement to toughen them up a little.

Their flavour text describes them as being even smaller, actually half the size ("1-inch-diameter"). If anything, they're Fine-sized.

It just seemed a bad match to their 1-1 Hit Dice and their stat blocks allowing PCs to attack them individually.

 

[Shade]

Their flavour text describes them as being even smaller, actually half the size ("1-inch-diameter"). If anything, they're Fine-sized.

It just seemed a bad match to their 1-1 Hit Dice and their stat blocks allowing PCs to attack them individually.

So we're sticking with the Tiny version for the component creatures?

 

[Cleon]

So we're sticking with the Tiny version for the component creatures?

I'd rather make them Tiny, yes.

If we Diminutize them the swarm can't be harmed by weapon attacks, which seems contrary to the original.

 

[Shade]

I'd rather make them Tiny, yes.

If we Diminutize them the swarm can't be harmed by weapon attacks, which seems contrary to the original.

OK, that makes sense.

 

[Cleon]

OK, that makes sense.

Good!

So, how many Hit Dice for the Swarm?

 

[Cleon]

Incidentally, I've come across a Giant Crab from X13 - Crown of Ancient Glory (1987) that looks different enough from the standard Monstrous Crab it might be worth converting.

 

[freyar]

I still prefer Diminutive or even Fine. It doesn't call them out as immune to weapon damage, but it makes them vulnerable to area effects. I'd say that the strength of that vulnerability is closer to a Fine/Diminutive swarm rather than a Tiny swarm.

 

[Cleon]

I still prefer Diminutive or even Fine. It doesn't call them out as immune to weapon damage, but it makes them vulnerable to area effects. I'd say that the strength of that vulnerability is closer to a Fine/Diminutive swarm rather than a Tiny swarm.

Erm, Fine and Diminutive swarms are no more or less vulnerable to area attacks than Tiny swarms are, and I'm against making the swarm invulnerable to weapons.

To repeat my last post, how many Hit Dice for the Swarm?

 

[freyar]

My point is that the difference between vulnerability to area attacks and vulnerability to weapons is greater for Diminutive/Fine swarms. And the size of the spiders is clearly smaller than Tiny; making them larger seems like a clear contradiction to me. And it would be totally useless to attack them individually, as there are "at least 500" of them.

I like 2 or 3 HD for them, make them pretty basic.

Are we dropping the anomalous immunity to fire?

 

[freyar]

Let me put it another way. If you attack them one by one, that's 500 different melee attacks you have to make. You could say, that's 1hp each, so 500 hp. With the proposed Con 10 and d8 HD, that works out to 111HD. But to be more realistic, 500 successful attacks against 1 creature (like you treat a 3.X swarm) is many more HD. Let's just say you're a human using a dagger; you'll average 2.5 hp per hit even with no Str bonus. So the crab swarm should really have 277HD by that logic.

In other words, if you insist on making them Tiny, so they can take weapon damage, I'll insist on giving the swarm 277HD to fit the original mechanic better. It just really seems like the Fine/Diminutive swarm rules make way more sense for these in 3.5. It's clearly what the original design was aiming for.