Converting Greyhawk monsters

[freyar]

I love it! I'd just change the last paragraph a little:

This monster is so vicious and malevolent it seldom breaks off from combat, usually retreating only if its enemy is so powerful and resistant to stunning and poison attacks that continuing to fight would be suicide. On these rare occasions, the monarch scorpion usually just runs away as fast as it can.

 

[Cleon]

I love it! I'd just change the last paragraph a little:

This monster is so vicious and malevolent it seldom breaks off from combat, usually retreating only if its enemy is so powerful and resistant to stunning and poison attacks that continuing to fight would be suicide. On these rare occasions, the monarch scorpion usually just runs away as fast as it can.

That change is fine by me.

Updating Monarch Scorpion Working Draft.

 

[freyar]

I guess we're down to background and description. Do you have anything in mind?

 

[Cleon]

I guess we're down to background and description. Do you have anything in mind?

I'd rather finish the Master Scorpion's stats before worrying about that stuff.

 

[freyar]

OK, sure! To start with, let's deal with the PLAs. It needs a few more compared to the monarch. The originals have

Telepathy: Sciences: domination; Devotions: contact, invisibility, life detection, psionic blast
Metapsionics: Sciences: ultrablast; Devotions: psionic sense, psionic inflation, psychic drain

vs

Telepathy: Sciences: domination, mindwipe; Devotions: contact, ESP, inflict pain, mind thrust, psionic blast
Metapsionics: Sciences: ultrablast; Devotions: magnify, prolong, psionic inflation
Psychometabolism: Sciences: life draining; Devotions: body control, ectoplasmic form, immovability, suspend animation
Psychokinesis: Sciences: project force, telekinesis; Devotions: ballistic attack, control body, create sound, inertial barrier

Mindwipe and inflict pain would stay the same, while ESP goes to read thoughts. Psionic inflation goes to catapsi, while the other metapsionic devotions become feats (bonus?). We're going to have to think about life draining, but the psychometabolism devotions become adapt body, ectoplasmic form, immovability, suspend life. Under psychokinesis, we have telekinetic maneuver, telekinetic force, telekinetic thrust, control body, create sound (metacreativity), and inertial barrier. Does that work for a start?

 

[Cleon]

Does that work for a start?

Yes, that looks pretty good.

Hmm... we could give it claws of the vampire PLA to represent the life draining discipline? It's not a very exact match - vampiric touch is far closer, but we'll have to leave that for the SLA version.

I'm still finding it weird that the Master version lack some of the Monarch's psionic disciplines. If the Monarchs are pale reflections of the Master, surely the Master should have all their PLAs and then some?

 

[freyar]

I like claws of the vampire there. That'll work.

I agree with you on the weirdness. It's missing invisibility, life detection, magnify, prolong compared to the monarch. I don't have a problem adding our equivalents to the master.

 

[Cleon]

I like claws of the vampire there. That'll work.

I agree with you on the weirdness. It's missing invisibility, life detection, magnify, prolong compared to the monarch. I don't have a problem adding our equivalents to the master.

Well let's do that then!

Okay so we're taking the "upgunned" version of the Monarch Scorpions PLAs:

Psi-Like Abilities (Sp): greater concealing amorpha, detect hostile intent, detect psionics, personal mind blank, psychic vampire; 3/day—catapsi, psionic dominate; 1/day—psionic blast, ultrablast. These abilities are as the powers manifested by a 12th-level psion. The save DCs are Charisma-based.

and adding the following additional PLAs.

read thoughts, catapsi, claws of the vampire, adapt body, ectoplasmic form, immovability, suspend life, telekinetic maneuver, telekinetic force, telekinetic thrust, control body, create sound (metacreativity), inertial barrier plus some metapsionic feats (possibly/probably bonus feats).

All we need to do is decide which are At-Will, 3/day or 1/day.

* * *​

For the SLA equivalent, we're talking:

Psionics (Sp): At-Will—alarm (mental alarm only), detect magic, displacement, mind blank (self only), vampiric touch; 3/day—dominate monster, spell resistance; 1/day—greater shout. These abilities are as the powers manifested by an 12th-level psion. The save DCs are Charisma-based.

For the additional SLAs, we have some fairly obvious matches in detect thoughts, vampiric touch, gaseous form, telekinesis, sculpt sound plus some Metamagic Feats, which leaves the following:

adapt body, catapsi, immovability, suspend life, control body, inertial barrier plus some metapsionic feats (possibly/probably bonus feats).

I suppose lesser globe of invulnerability is a sort-of match to catapsi, and statue is a decent match to suspend life, while stoneskin is not that far off inertial barrier (as they're both DR-. The others are more problematic. I vaguely remember there being some spells with similar functionality to adapt body, but they're not SRD ones, and control body is pretty much dominate humanoid, which is a bit redundant if you've already got dominate monster - although the same applies to control body when the Master's got psionic dominate.

Hmm... how about it we give it control body/dominate person as an At-Will, since the psionic dominate/dominate monster are 3/day?

 

[freyar]

Wait a sec, shouldn't the psionic Psi-Like Abilities be (Ps), not (Sp)? Also, I think we need to say "at will" before the first group on the monarch.

As for frequency, let's say
at will -- control body, claws of the vampire, read thoughts, adapt body, inertial barrier, immovability, telekinetic force, telekinetic maneuver, telekinetic thrust, create sound
3/day -- psionic dominate, ectoplasmic form
1/day -- suspend life
Does that work ok for you? I don't mind shifting some of those around if you prefer.

Your proposed SLA equivalents are fine by me. I don't quite know how to match to adapt body, either. Maybe resist energy plus water breathing?

 

[Cleon]

Wait a sec, shouldn't the psionic Psi-Like Abilities be (Ps), not (Sp)? Also, I think we need to say "at will" before the first group on the monarch.

That's odd. I thought I'd corrected that (Ps) error months ago.

And yes, it should have an At-will in it.

Updating Monarch Scorpion Working Draft.

...upon reflection, I think I corrected the Monarch Scorpion's PLA/SLAs but didn't fully correct the Master version.

As for frequency, let's say
at will -- control body, claws of the vampire, read thoughts, adapt body, inertial barrier, immovability, telekinetic force, telekinetic maneuver, telekinetic thrust, create sound
3/day -- psionic dominate, ectoplasmic form
1/day -- suspend life
Does that work ok for you? I don't mind shifting some of those around if you prefer.

Hmm... that's an awful lot of At-Wills. We've got 10 of them to two 3/days and a single 1/day. I think we'd better move at least some of the At-Wills to 3/day to spread the fun about.

Let's sort them out by level:
1st: create sound
2nd: read thoughts
3rd: claws of the vampire, ectoplasmic form, telekinetic force, telekinetic thrust
4th: control body, immovability, inertial barrier, psionic dominate, telekinetic maneuver
5th: adapt body
6th: suspend life

Hmm... how about if we make adapt body, ectoplasmic form, immovability and psionic dominate 3/day?

I'd also considered moving the three telekinetic disciplines to 3/day and shifting ectoplasmic form to At-Will. Mainly because the SLA equivalent telekinesis is two levels higher than gaseous form, but at-will telekinesis seemed more appropriate for this beastie.

Your proposed SLA equivalents are fine by me. I don't quite know how to match to adapt body, either. Maybe resist energy plus water breathing?

Well ideally we need a 5th-level spell that does something more-or-less-similar since adapt body is a 5th-level power.

Unfortunately, there is no such ability in the SRD andresist energy is only 2nd level versus the 5th level of adapt body.

Maybe make up the difference with metamagic? Hmm... I suppose quickened resist energy would be a pretty close match out of what's available. That's allow the SLA version of the Master Scorpion to "instantly" switch to a particular form of environmental damage.

However, adapt body does not include energy resistance as such, it just reduces the damage from the environment - so arguably it provides no protection from a fireball. It's more like an extra-strong version of endure elements plus water breathing.

Maybe we should give it this as a special SLA of some sort rather than try to fit a square peg into a round hole?