Converting monsters from Dragon magazine (Part Two)

[freyar]

Resistance 15 or 20, either way.

I like corrupt water, as well. More elegant.

 

[Shade]

Updated.

The swamp wyrm’s favored hunting method is to lie barely submerged in murky water (it can see perfectly through it), then grab anything that comes down to drink. This tactic gives it a +2 bonus to surprise

Shall we borrow this?

*Swamp landwyrms have a +4 racial bonus on Hide checks when in swamp environments. This bonus on Hide checks increases to +8 when the landwyrm is immobile.

Skills: 84
Upthread, Leopold suggested Spot, Listen, Hide, Knowledge (Nature)

I'd recommend replacing Knowledge (nature) with Move Silently.

Feats: 7
Upthread, Leopold suggested Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Over Power, Awesome Blow, Combat Reflexes, Alertness, Snatch

I like Awesome Blow, Combat Reflexes, Improved Bull Rush, and Power Attack from that list. I think Improved Overrun (is that what you meant by Over Power?) isn't too beneficial for its typical tactics, and Snatch is a bit redundant with its improved grab ability. Alertness is fine if we can't find something more exciting.

I'd recommend adding to that list Improved Critical (bite) and Weapon Focus (bite), since its combat success hinges almost solely on a successful bite. Improved Initiative seems a good fit, too.

 

[freyar]

It's looking good.

I agree to the Hide bonuses from the landwyrm.

Either set of skills is fine. Or we could compromise on Hide 17, Knowledge (nature) 16, Listen 17, Move Silently 17, Spot 17 for ranks. With the racial bonus, it should be ok on Hide, I'd think.

I like Shade's feat list with Improved Init. If we're worried about hiding, we can drop Imp Init for Stealthy.

Constrict damage, maybe 2d8+8 like a behir? The behir has fewer HD, but the swamp dragon will also have the cold/fire damage.

 

[Cleon]

Resistance 15 or 20, either way.

How about we set the resistance so it stops half the average damage of its breath weapon, thus riffing off the original's "half damage".

An adult Black Dragon has 19HD and does 12d4 with its breath weapon. That averages out to 30 hit points (12*2.5) of damage, so I vote for Fire/Cold Resistance 15 and a breath weapon that does 6d10 damage (assuming we want to preserve the original's ten-sided dice at breath weapon damage).

I like corrupt water, as well. More elegant.

Corrupt Water works for me, although I would argue for increasing the volume. At 10 cubic feet a day it would take it sixteen years to corrupt a pool 50' in diameter and 30' deep. If it wanted to corrupt a 180' radius hemispherical pool (the largest size it could manage if it follows an adult dragon's Frightful Presence radius) it would take over 3300 years to corrupt!

I would suggest it corrupts a 10 foot cube (i.e. 1000 cubic feet) a day, then it would take 60 days to corrupt the aforementioned 50' dia. pool.

 

[Shade]

I agree with all the above suggestions. I was a bit bothered by the relatively weak breath weapon.

Updated.

Advancement: 19-30 HD (Huge); 31-38 HD (Gargantuan); 39-45 HD (Colossal)? This follows the stomrdrake and wardrake progressions rather closely.

CR 10-11? It's somewhere between a wardrake (CR 9) and a hill landwyrm (CR 12). It's fairly comparable to a CR 10 forest landwyrm, although it can dish out more overall damage.

 

[Cleon]

It's looking good.

I agree to the Hide bonuses from the landwyrm.

Either set of skills is fine. Or we could compromise on Hide 17, Knowledge (nature) 16, Listen 17, Move Silently 17, Spot 17 for ranks. With the racial bonus, it should be ok on Hide, I'd think.

I'd prefer Survival instead of Knowledge (nature), and rearranging the points to max out its Hide as it's primarily an ambush hunter. How about:

Hide 21, Listen 17, Move Silently 17, Spot 17, Survival {or Knowledge (nature)} 12

I like Shade's feat list with Improved Init. If we're worried about hiding, we can drop Imp Init for Stealthy.

Let me just check I have this straight, Shade's proposed feats are Awesome Blow, Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack and Weapon Focus (bite)?

Those work for me.

If we wanted to modify them, the Improved Initiative feat is arguably the least useful. Maybe swap it for Blind-Fight?

Constrict damage, maybe 2d8+8 like a behir? The behir has fewer HD, but the swamp dragon will also have the cold/fire damage.

Actually, a Behir is probably nastier, since it adds those six +15 melee 1d4+4 claw rakes to its 2d8+8 Constrict damage.

Constrict damage often adds 150% Strength bonus, so how about 2d8+12 plus 2d8 fire/cold?

 

[Cleon]

Advancement: 19-30 HD (Huge); 31-38 HD (Gargantuan); 39-45 HD (Colossal)? This follows the stomrdrake and wardrake progressions rather closely.

That's a bit of an odd progression, since it goes +12HD; +8 HD; +7HD. Why not just even it out to +9HD; +9HD;+9HD or +6HD; +9HD; +12HD?

Hmm, the latter option would give it 19-24 HD (Huge); 25-33 HD (Gargantuan); 34-45 HD (Colossal) the former, 19-27 HD (Huge); 28-36 HD (Gargantuan); 37-45 HD (Colossal):

Actually, I prefer +9HD; +9HD; +18HD so it ends up with the normal *3 max HD. That works out:

Advancement: 19-27 HD (Huge); 28-36 HD (Gargantuan); 37-54 HD (Colossal)

CR 10-11? It's somewhere between a wardrake (CR 9) and a hill landwyrm (CR 12). It's fairly comparable to a CR 10 forest landwyrm, although it can dish out more overall damage.

I was thinking a CR around 11-12, so how about splitting the difference and saying 11.

 

[freyar]

I can see swapping Survival for Knowledge (nature), sure. And swapping a few more ranks to hide. So Cleon's suggestion is good.

Probably following the landwyrms' advancement progression makes sense, if there's a common one.

CR 11 is ok.

Can someone tell me where to find the wardrake?

 

[Shade]

Odd progressions are OK, and fairly common. If everything fell into the common "up to double HD (same size)/up to double HD triple HD (next size)" progression, the world would be a boring place.

CR 11 works.

Survival does make more sense than Knowledge (nature), considering the monster's low intellect. It doesn't strike me as "scholarly".

Updated.

Freyar, if I told you where to find the wardrake, you'd have to fight it. And you don't want that. (Aw, what the hell...Dragon #309).

 

[freyar]

Looks pretty good.

Let's set the radius of damage from the secretion to 30 ft, sure.

On the guivre sidebar, just note the places to replace cold with fire?

About that wardrake --- don't you think all those years of school got me at least a few levels of expert?