Cleon
Legend
No, but Cleon can't help himself...and it might make a nice familiar.
I just thought he looked so cute. I'm going to call him Little Nippy.
So to repeat myself. How Many Hit Dice!
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Converting Greyhawk monsters
- Thread starter Shade
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I just thought he looked so cute. I'm going to call him Little Nippy.
So to repeat myself. How Many Hit Dice!
Shade
Monster Junkie
I just thought he looked so cute. I'm going to call him Little Nippy.
<Homer Simpson mode>Ohhh, Pinchy....</Homer mode>
I'd like 'em slightly more than a spider swarm. How about 3 HD for Diminutive and 6 HD for Tiny?
Cleon
Legend
I'd be OK going higher than that. The Centipede Swarm is Diminutive and has 9 HD.
For that matter, why give the Tiny one more HD than the Diminutive one? Their doesn't seem to be a hard-and-fast rule for a Swarm's HD increasing as the constituent beasties increase in size.
Indeed, a Diminutive Swarm has five (5) times as many creatures as a Tiny Swarm, but each creature probably has half the HD. That suggests their total hit points should be 250% that of a Tiny Swarm.
Shade
Monster Junkie
I'm comfortable anywhere between a spider and centipede swarm.
But...but...<head expodes>
Cleon
Legend
Sponges off monitor.
Boy, debates on this forum sure get messy.
Anyhow, I'd rather have the Diminutive version have more HD than the Tiny one.
Shade
Monster Junkie
I think I know the answer to this, but do you have any precedent to support this?
Cleon
Legend
Unfortunately, there seems little rhyme or reason to the Hit Dice allocations of the Swarms. The SRD examples of Animal/Vermin swarms are plain confusing.
Just consider the Diminutive Swarms.
The Centipede Swarm is 9 HD and the Spider Swarm 2 HD, but Monstrous Spiders have twice as many Hit Dice as Monstrous Centipedes of the same size.
The Bat Swarm has 3 HD and 1d6 damage, half the Locust Swarm's 6 HD and 2d6. However, flocks of bats eat swarms of insects all the time. With those stats the eating would end up the other way around!
So, I wouldn't place much reliance on the extant examples. Just pick some Hit Dice numbers that feel right. I'm thinking 6 HD for Diminutive Crab Swarms, same as the Locusts, and maybe 4 HD for the Tiny version.
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
I have to agree with Cleon about the sense swarm HD make, unfortunately.
Well, let's make Cleon happy this time. Rather than making them exactly the same as locusts, how about 7HD for the Diminutive ones (since we don't seem to have a 7HD swarm off-hand) and 3 or 4 for the Tiny ones?
Well, let's make Cleon happy this time. Rather than making them exactly the same as locusts, how about 7HD for the Diminutive ones (since we don't seem to have a 7HD swarm off-hand) and 3 or 4 for the Tiny ones?
Cleon
Legend
I suggested 6 HD because the original swarm had 600 hit points, but I don't mind 7 HD either. It's half (rounded down) the Hit Dice of their parent, the White Plume Mountain Giga-Crab.
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