Converting monsters from Dragon magazine

[Cleon]

Hmmm, I keep thinking of it having a mouth because of the bags.

I'm not seeing Drag for these, though. A roper's strands are 50 ft long vs 15 ft for the ihagnim's tentacles. I'm just thinking that the tentacles get Imp Grab. On a round that they have a critter grappled, they can take a grapple check to start Devouring it, a lot like Swallow Whole when a grapple victim is held in the mouth.

Yeah, I can go along with that. The original monster only gave the victim one Strength check to escape once they were grabbed by a pseudopod.

 

[freyar]

OK, so edit to
Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, an ihagnim must hit with a tentacle 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 attempt to devour its foe the following round.

and start out

Devour (Su): An ihagnim can try to devour a grabbed opponent of a smaller size than itself by making a successful grapple check. ...

So shall we work out the devour next?

 

[Cleon]

OK, so edit to
Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, an ihagnim must hit with a tentacle 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 attempt to devour its foe the following round.

That's acceptable.

Updating the Ihagnim.

Devour (Su): An ihagnim can try to devour a grabbed opponent of a smaller size than itself by making a successful grapple check. ...

So shall we work out the devour next?

The devour presumably works just like a bag of devouring as redded in the Working Draft. It completely consumes the victim's body in 1 round.

I'm undecided on the type as it could be (Ex) due to incredibly potent acids rather than (Su) due to weird dissolution magic.

It doesn't make any difference mechanically.

Hmm… it's a biological process so I'm leaning towards (Ex).

If I remember correctly, a Ihagnim's stomach doesn't destroy all the victim's equipment. Doesn't the text mention it spitting indigestible remains out into the Astral void?

That suggests it only devours organic materials.

 

[freyar]

Hmmm. The fact that even the most powerful magic only has a 50% chance of returning the victim to live says "Su" to me, actually.

As for the equipment: "The bag can hold up to 30 cubic feet of matter. It acts as a bag of holding type I, but each hour it has a 5% cumulative chance of swallowing the contents and then spitting the stuff out in some nonspace or on some other plane." So I agree with you about organics.

 

[Cleon]

Hmmm. The fact that even the most powerful magic only has a 50% chance of returning the victim to live says "Su" to me, actually.

As for the equipment: "The bag can hold up to 30 cubic feet of matter. It acts as a bag of holding type I, but each hour it has a 5% cumulative chance of swallowing the contents and then spitting the stuff out in some nonspace or on some other plane." So I agree with you about organics.

Supernatural it is then. As I said above, it makes no difference mechanically.

Updating the Ihagnim.

Will we be giving them the standard "cut your way free" of Swallow Whole?

Devour (Su) Swallowing: An ihagnim can try to devour a grabbed opponent of a smaller size than itself by making a successful grapple check. Once devoured, the opponent is consumed in 1 round. The ihagnim destroys the victim's body and prevents any form of raising or resurrection that requires part of the corpse. There is a 50% chance that a wish, miracle, or true resurrection spell can restore a devoured victim to life. Check once for each destroyed creature. If the check fails, the creature cannot be brought back to life by mortal magic. A devoured creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 20 points of damage to the ihagnim's interior (AC 20), but only have 1 round to escape before being consumed. Once the creature exits, the ihagnim's flesh closes the hole; another devoured opponent must cut its own way out.​

​

An ihagnim's interior can hold 4 Medium, 16 Small, 64 Tiny, or 256 Diminutive or smaller opponents.​

I'm thinking it's more like the "Engulfed creatures are subject to the cube’s paralysis and acid, and are considered to be grappled and trapped within its body" of a Gelatinous Cube.

Devour (Su) Engulfing: An ihagnim can try to devour a grabbed opponent of a smaller size than itself by making a successful grapple check. Once devoured, the opponent is consumed in 1 round. The ihagnim destroys the victim's body and prevents any form of raising or resurrection that requires part of the corpse. There is a 50% chance that a wish, miracle, or true resurrection spell can restore a devoured victim to life. Check once for each destroyed creature. If the check fails, the creature cannot be brought back to life by mortal magic. Engulfed creatures are considered to be grappled and trapped within the ihagnim's body. They have one round to escape or kill the ihagnim before being consumed, and can only use light slashing or piercing weapons to attack its interior (AC 20).​

​

An ihagnim's interior can hold 4 Medium, 16 Small, 64 Tiny, or 256 Diminutive or smaller opponents.​

 

[Cleon]

Updating the Ihagnim.

You know, it helps if you click "Save" after typing an update.

Rather than the "An ihagnim can try to devour a grabbed opponent of a smaller size than itself by making a successful grapple check" I'd prefer it if the Ihagnim could devour a Large creature, i.e.:

Devour (Su) Swallowing #2: An ihagnim can try to devour a grabbed opponent its own size or smaller by making a successful grapple check. Once devoured, the opponent is consumed in 1 round. The ihagnim destroys the victim's body and prevents any form of raising or resurrection that requires part of the corpse. There is a 50% chance that a wish, miracle, or true resurrection spell can restore a devoured victim to life. Check once for each destroyed creature. If the check fails, the creature cannot be brought back to life by mortal magic. A devoured creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 20 points of damage to the ihagnim's interior (AC 20), but only have 1 round to escape before being consumed. Once the creature exits, the ihagnim's flesh closes the hole; another devoured opponent must cut its own way out.​

​

An ihagnim's interior can hold 1 Large, 4 Medium, 16 Small, 64 Tiny, or 256 Diminutive or smaller opponents.​

​

Devour (Su) Engulfing #2: An ihagnim can try to devour a grabbed opponent its own size or smaller size by making a successful grapple check. Once devoured, the opponent is consumed in 1 round. The ihagnim destroys the victim's body and prevents any form of raising or resurrection that requires part of the corpse. There is a 50% chance that a wish, miracle, or true resurrection spell can restore a devoured victim to life. Check once for each destroyed creature. If the check fails, the creature cannot be brought back to life by mortal magic. Devoured creatures are considered to be grappled and trapped within the ihagnim's body. They have one round to escape or kill the ihagnim before being consumed, and can only use light slashing or piercing weapons to attack its interior (AC 20).​

​

An ihagnim's interior can hold 1 Large, 4 Medium, 16 Small, 64 Tiny, or 256 Diminutive or smaller opponents.​

I'm also wondering whether we should reference the 30 cubic foot capacity of a bag of devouring in the ability, maybe by making the final paragraph "An ihagnim's interior can hold 1 Large, 4 Medium, 16 Small, 64 Tiny, or 256 Diminutive or smaller opponents, or up to 30 cubic feet of material."?

 

[abe ray]

Maybe for the next batch of monsters to convert we should do the sladd lords?

 

[Cleon]

Maybe for the next batch of monsters to convert we should do the sladd lords?

Since this is the Dragon Magazine thread, do you mean the Slaad Lords in Dragon #221?

All the AD&D Slaad Lords already have 3E stats in the Creature Catalog apart from Wartle. The CC versions are 3.0 but updating them to 3.5 doesn't seem a high priority.

 

[abe ray]

Your correct

 

[Cleon]

Devour (Su) Engulfing #2: An ihagnim can try to devour a grabbed opponent its own size or smaller size by making a successful grapple check. Once devoured, the opponent is consumed in 1 round. The ihagnim destroys the victim's body and prevents any form of raising or resurrection that requires part of the corpse. There is a 50% chance that a wish, miracle, or true resurrection spell can restore a devoured victim to life. Check once for each destroyed creature. If the check fails, the creature cannot be brought back to life by mortal magic. Engulfed creatures are considered to be grappled and trapped within the ihagnim's body. They have one round to escape or kill the ihagnim before being consumed, and can only use light slashing or piercing weapons to attack its interior (AC 20).

Just noticed there was a stray "Engulfed" in Devour Engulfing #2, which has been fixed.

So which of the two do you prefer, the Swallowing or the Engulfing?

The former obviously gives the victim a better chance of escaping since they don't have to do as much damage to escape. The 20 hp damage threshold was a placeholder, I'm open to tweaking it (e.g. 10 points, 15 points, 25 points) to make it easier or harder to cut a path out of the thing.

The latter appears closer to the original monster design, since it was a "kill it or die!" deal.

I like the idea of adding the "or up to 30 cubic feet of material" to the Ihagnim's stomach capacity.

 

[freyar]

I think I prefer the Swallow Whole version since it has a well-defined "stomach" organ. Plus the original does say that the victim can induce the ihagnim to spit it out (with the example of poison).

We also need to add hp gain from devouring. I just saw that again!

 

[Cleon]

I think I prefer the Swallow Whole version since it has a well-defined "stomach" organ. Plus the original does say that the victim can induce the ihagnim to spit it out (with the example of poison).

Okay we'll use that.

Updating the Ihagnim.

We also need to add hp gain from devouring. I just saw that again!

I was thinking it'd be easier if it advanced by a Hit Dice once it devoured enough mass, or splits into two 8 HD Ihagnim if that'd exceed its maximum of 16 HD.