Converting monsters from Dragon magazine

[freyar]

10 or 20 ft climb speed? That could free up some skill ranks too.

They should have Imp Grab (after 2 claw hits in one round) to go with Maul.

 

[demiurge1138]

I sort of like them just having ranks in Climb without a climb speed, but it appears that giving them that speed is the consensus.

I like the Pandaemonic abilities.

 

[RavinRay]

Possible stats
Type: Outsider (chaotic)?
Powerful grip = rend
Poisonous bite: no secondary effect?
Damage reduction n/magic

 

[Shade]

How about DR 10/lawful? DR /magic is so weak, especially once characters are traveling the planes.

The bite of a tener is venomous and causes paralysis for 6-36 turns (save at -2).

Rather than making its bite inject poison, how about just modifying the carrion crawler's paralysis ability?

Paralysis (Ex): Those hit by a carrion crawler's tentacle attack must succeed on a DC 13 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 2d4 rounds. The save DC is Constitution-based.

6-36 turns equates to 1 to 6 hours!

The save at -2 implies Ability Focus or a racial bonus to the save DC.


For the improved grab/maul, which approach do you prefer?

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a tener must hit an opponent of any size with a claw attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can maul.

Maul (Ex): A tener grappling an opponent with two or more of its claws deals automatic bite damage each round it maintains the grapple.

-OR-

Maul (Ex): A tener that hits an opponent with two or more of its claw attacks immediately hits with its subsequent bite attack.

This is how we did it with the mara...no improved grab at all. More like rend. We can still give it improved grab, but needn't tie the maul to it.

 

[demiurge1138]

I like the mara version.

Agreed to Ability Focus as one of the feats. Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack might also be good choices, but we can put that off a bit, perhaps.

 

[freyar]

Now that I think about it, I think we called the improved grab version "chew." Too confusing. I would go with maul (rend version), but I think the original text supports improved grab with the whole bend bars bit:

The tener has a powerful grip. If it scores a hit with two of its hands, it holds its victim, striking at +3 “to hit” with its other two sets of claws and biting (at +3 “to hit”) for 1-2 points of damage. The bite of a tener is venomous and causes paralysis for 6-36 turns (save at -2). Individuals held by a tener attack at -3 “to hit”. A character’s chance of breaking a tener’s grasp is equal to his chance of bending bars, checked on any round that the attempt is made. No other action is possible for the character during such a round.

I like the carrion crawler version of paralysis for the venom.

Those feats appeal, but we can revisit them when we're done with SAs.

 

[Shade]

Updated.

PSIONIC ABILITY: 140
Attack/Defense Modes: ED/G

Give 'em psi-like abilities (or "psionics" for the non-psionic version), or discard the psionics like most 3e outsiders did?

 

[freyar]

I'd like to give them something, but "psionics" seems kind of redundant with the SLAs they have. I say either make them fully psionic with Ps abilities or else just add on appropriate SLAs.

 

[RavinRay]

Psionics in this case most likely refers to mind-affecting charm spells. We can label it as psionics (sp) like the couatl for instance.

 

[freyar]

Right, but the couatl doesn't also have regular SLAs. Having both Spell-like Abilities (Sp) and Psionics (Sp) seems redundant to me.