Converting Greyhawk monsters

[Cleon]

Wow...I really botched that.

1/6 for Diminutive, 1/4 for Tiny is my recommendation, since both are better than 1/8 rats.

So, same as they currently are!

I could live with that...

Updating the Working Draft.

 

[Shade]

Looks good. Ready for transfer to Homebrews.

 

[Cleon]

Looks good. Ready for transfer to Homebrews.

We seem to be done, yes.

 

[Shade]

Transferred.

The only unconverted Greyhawk critter I see on Echohawk's list is "Raven (Crow) Huge". I'm not sure it needs converting, as we already have a giant raven in one of the FR books. I suppose we could make a "Dire Raven". I don't believe I've seen one yet.

 

[Cleon]

Transferred.

The only unconverted Greyhawk critter I see on Echohawk's list is "Raven (Crow) Huge". I'm not sure it needs converting, as we already have a giant raven in one of the FR books. I suppose we could make a "Dire Raven". I don't believe I've seen one yet.

There's a Large-sized Giant Raven in Frostburn.

The AD&D "Huge Raven" is a man-sized intermediary between the (Large-size) Giant Raven and a regular Small-sized raven.

It'd be easy enough to stat up as a "Dire Raven". Just take an Executioner's Raven and transmute it from Extraplanar Magical Beast to Animal, then remove its Aligned Sight and darkvision:

Executioner's Dire Raven
Medium Animal
Hit Dice: 2d8+2 (12 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 10 ft. (2 squares), fly 70 ft. (average)
Armor Class: 16 (+4 Dex, +2 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 12
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+0
Attack: Bite +5 melee (1d6-1)
Full Attack: Bite +5 melee (1d6-1) and 2 claws +0 melee (1d3-1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Eye gouge
Special Qualities: Evasion, low-light vision, resistance to disease
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +4
Abilities: Str 8, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills: Spot +8, Tumble +6
Feats: Flyby Attack, Weapon Finesse (B)
Environment: Temperate forests
Organization: Solitary, pair, or flock (3-8)
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 3-6 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment: —

A raven as big as a small human.

Dire ravens have the same habits and diet as normal-sized carrion crows and ravens. Like their smaller cousins, these scavenger birds are remarkably intelligent animals. A young dire raven can be tamed and taught tricks. In the wild, dire ravens sometimes learn cunning stratagems to find food or deceive predators.

Dire ravens show little fear of humanoids. They normally only fight if they feel their lives or nests are endangered. However, a hungry enough flock might try to kill and eat man-sized creatures.

Dire ravens are about 5 feet long and have wingspans of about 10 feet.

COMBAT
Dire ravens tend to strike at their opponents' eyes, attempting to blind them. They usually fly away as soon as a battle turns against them.

Eye Gouge (Ex): If a dire raven scores a critical hit with its bite attack, the target must succeed on a DC 15 Reflex save or lose the sight in one eye, becoming permanently dazzled (or blinded if they lose the use of all its eyes). A remove blindness/deafness spell can heal the injury. The save DC is Dexterity-based.

Resistant to Disease (Ex): A dire raven has a cast-iron stomach. It has a +2 bonus on Fortitude saves to resist normal diseases, but not supernatural or magical diseases such as mummy rot.

Skills: A dire raven has a +4 racial bonus on Spot checks.

 

[Cleon]

Alternatively, we could make it a Magical Beast like the Frostburn Giant Raven.

However, I prefer it as a Dire Animal, since the original Huge Raven was Semi-intelligent, which was within the range for normal animals.

 

[freyar]

I'd prefer to go the dire animal route, as there's already a giant raven magical beast. This looks pretty good, though I don't know if there's particular real-world reasoning to give it an eye gouge or disease resistance. I guess they do eat carrion, so disease resistance could make sense, I'm just not so sure about the eye gouge, other than to make them tougher.

 

[Cleon]

I'd prefer to go the dire animal route, as there's already a giant raven magical beast. This looks pretty good, though I don't know if there's particular real-world reasoning to give it an eye gouge or disease resistance. I guess they do eat carrion, so disease resistance could make sense, I'm just not so sure about the eye gouge, other than to make them tougher.

Huge Ravens have an "Eye Peck" special attack in all of the AD&D sources I could find - the 2E Monstrous Manual and Greyhawk Compendium for 2nd edition, plus the 1st edition Monster Manual II.

Therefore I'd rather keep the Eye Gouging for the Dire Raven.

I am thinking about cutting out the disease resistance though, since that derived from the Executioner's Raven's adaptations for eating decomposing fiends.

 

[freyar]

Let's just keep both. I'm pretty happy with it as is.

 

[Shade]

Let's just keep both. I'm pretty happy with it as is.

Same here, and I agree there's no need for a magical beast version.