Converting monsters from Dragon magazine

[Cleon]

Yeah, most of the 3E precedents I can think of offhand are size category based. Making it mass based would be fiddly.

So maybe +1 HD for a Small creature, +2 HD for Medium, +4 HD for Large and so on?

Which'd mean a Colossal creature is +32 HD and results in one Ihagnim becoming five Ihagnim…

Hmm…

Maybe have it go exponential at some stage? So a Huge meal just splits one Ihagnim into two, a Gargantuan meal splits it twice into four 8 HD Ihagnim and a Colossal one results in eight of them.

Alternatively we could introduce a random element so eating size X adds Yd# HD and if that exceeds 16HD you just take away 1 HD and divide the result by 8 to determine how many Ihagnim result?

Actually, I like that idea. After all, if a 15 HD Ihagnim gets a meal worth 7 HD that's two Ihagnim with 5 or 6 HD worth of meat left over, which ought to go somewhere.

EDIT:

How about +1 HD for Small, +2 HD for Medium, +2d4 HD for Large (average +5), +2d6+6 HD for Huge (+13 => average 2.5 ihagnim)[2-3], +2d12+20 HD for Gargantuan (+33 => average 5 ihagnim)[3-6] and +2d20+50 for Colossal (+71 => average 9.75 ihagnim)[7-12]?

Come to think of it, the Ihagnim can only Devour creatures up to Large size, since anything Huge or bigger won't fit inside their annihilating stomach.

So we either don't need to worry about the bigger sizes or give the Ihagnim some way to slowly nibble away meals too big to swallow. Maybe they can evert their stomach like a starfish and do low low amount of typeless damage per round of digestion?

Also, rereading the original monster it needed to consume 800 pounds of "living material" to gain a Hit Dice, suggesting our version would need to devour multiple Medium creatures per HD as a Medium sized being is usually in the 60-500 pound range, or maybe around 175 lb on average?

Better give this a bit more thought.

 

[freyar]

Wait a sec, they can only devour up to Large critters. So I think I'm fine with it being +1 HD for Small, +2 for Medium, and +4 for Large rather than anything random. And we're saying it splits at 17 HD into two 8 HD ihagnim? But perhaps if it reaches 18 or 19 HD, it can split into two 9 HD ihagnim and into two 10 HD ihagnim if it jumps from 16 to 20 HD in one devouring. Does that work for you?

EDIT: oops, missed your last post. This almost makes it too rare of an ability to write up. I guess we could do 1 Large, X Medium, .... per gained HD. Or make it easier, like originally planned.

 

[Cleon]

Wait a sec, they can only devour up to Large critters. So I think I'm fine with it being +1 HD for Small, +2 for Medium, and +4 for Large rather than anything random. And we're saying it splits at 17 HD into two 8 HD ihagnim? But perhaps if it reaches 18 or 19 HD, it can split into two 9 HD ihagnim and into two 10 HD ihagnim if it jumps from 16 to 20 HD in one devouring. Does that work for you?

EDIT: oops, missed your last post. This almost makes it too rare of an ability to write up. I guess we could do 1 Large, X Medium, .... per gained HD. Or make it easier, like originally planned.

How about the simple approach?

It grows a Hit Dice whenever it eats a "stomach full" of food (i.e. one Large, four Medium, sixteen Small et cetera) and a 16 HD specimen that grows a HD splits into two 8 HD.

That leaves the question of how fast it grows, which'll decide whether it takes place during combat or inbetween combat.

The former would require its HD advancement take place more-or-less immediately or at most over a few rounds. If it usually grows between combats it would be a slower process so might take minutes, hours or even longer.

 

[freyar]

Hmmm, thought I'd responded already. Must have forgotten.

Anyway, yes, I like that. I'd say between combat, like a few minutes. The other question for me is whether it has to eat the four Medium (sixteen Small, etc) critters at the same time or whether it can digest one completely before moving on to the next one and still grow the HD. I'd vote for the latter.

 

[Cleon]

Hmmm, thought I'd responded already. Must have forgotten.

Anyway, yes, I like that. I'd say between combat, like a few minutes. The other question for me is whether it has to eat the four Medium (sixteen Small, etc) critters at the same time or whether it can digest one completely before moving on to the next one and still grow the HD. I'd vote for the latter.

Agreed.

How's this.

Devour (Su): 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, or up to 30 cubic feet of material.

Once an ihagnim has devoured creatures equal to its internal capacity (i.e. one Large creature, 1 Medium creature plus 12 Small creatures, or any other arrangement) it gains a Hit Dice. A 16 Hit Dice ihagnim that gains a Hit Dice splits into two 8 HD ihagnim instead of growing larger. Ihagnim can also grow by devouring other organic matter than living creatures or their corpses.​

Does it need any more than that?

 

[freyar]

It just needs an amount of hp damage to cut your way out, I think. Tentatively, how about 15 hp? I don't want it to be too much of a glass canon, so I think it should be significantly less than a purple worm or tendriculos, which both have 25 hp stomachs. We can mark it in red to check after we've finished more of the monster.

 

[Cleon]

It just needs an amount of hp damage to cut your way out, I think. Tentatively, how about 15 hp? I don't want it to be too much of a glass canon, so I think it should be significantly less than a purple worm or tendriculos, which both have 25 hp stomachs. We can mark it in red to check after we've finished more of the monster.

Can't you cut your way out of a bag of devouring before dissolving? That will tell us its stomach's hit points…

…hmm, the 3E version has no hit points. A regular bag of holding can be pierced by sharp objects but isn't given hp, although it would presumably be treated as cloth (hardness 0, 2 hit points per inch of thickness, so presumably 2 hp).

That's way too fragile, especially considering the original version was impossible to cut out of:

The only way to avoid being digested is to expose the stomach lining to some sort of poison,which (if it doesn’t kill the ihagnim) will cause it to “spit out” its stomach contents immediately. This could only be done on the round in which the ihagnim is trying to digest its meal; if the attempt to introduce poison fails (the character has no poison potions or misses an attack against the AC 0 stomach wall with a poisoned dagger), the character is lost. Afterward, there is a 5% chance per turn that the ihagnim will “spit out” any nondigestible items (armor, weapons, equipment, etc.).​

That leans me towards making its gut's HP pretty hefty. How about 20 hit points?

Oh, and do we want to add a "vomiting reflex" when its stomach is poisoned as per the original?

 

[freyar]

How about we put 20 hp in red and revisit it later? Like after we decide on the basic ability scores, how difficult the monster as a whole should be, etc? I do like the poison vomiting idea, though, but I'd expand it to include any sort of poison, not just those delivered by a weapon (so a spell should work, etc).

About those abilities: Str 7 and Int 8 seem ok to me. Wis 10, Cha 11 or vice versa? Dex seems like it should be fairly low but Con pretty good. Something like Dex 7, Con 14?

 

[Cleon]

How about we put 20 hp in red and revisit it later?

We could leave it at them having to kill the Ihagnim to cut their way out, as per the current draft of Devour. That'd follow the original, but would be more lethal.

If we do implement a cutting their way out option, presumably we'll follow the Swallow Whole formula and change the text from:

Devour #1 (Su): 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).​

To:

Devour #2 (Su): 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. 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). Once the creature exits, amorphous flesh closes the hole; another devoured opponent must cut its own way out.​

I do like the poison vomiting idea, though, but I'd expand it to include any sort of poison, not just those delivered by a weapon (so a spell should work, etc).

So add the following?

If an ihagnim is damaged by poison from any source, it reflectively vomits out any creatures or objects it is devouring.​

Seems simple enough.

About those abilities: Str 7 and Int 8 seem ok to me. Wis 10, Cha 11 or vice versa? Dex seems like it should be fairly low but Con pretty good. Something like Dex 7, Con 14?

I'd go for a higher Constitution than that. It's Ooze-like and they tend to be hardy. Wouldn't go as far as the Con 22 of an Ochre Jelly or Con 26 of a Gelatinous Cube, but 14 seems a bit miserly.

Maybe Con 18 for Hit Dice of 8d8+32 (68 hp) or Con 16 for 8d8+24 (60 hp)?

Dexterity 7 is fine.

Wisdom 10 is fine too, as is 11.

Not sure about Charisma.

I could see it being very low, like 3 or 5 (à la an Ooze), or extraordinarily high, like 15, 17 or better (on the theory that it's extradimensional lure ability is a Charisma-powered ability).

Having Cha be a mediocre 11 is, well, a bit dull.

Also, remember that the original monster had Intelligence average to exceptional, since its INT went up to 16 (it had INT = HD and a speed of 1″ per HD). Will we be mentioning that in a special Advancement section?

 

[Cleon]

So add the following?

If an ihagnim is damaged by poison from any source, it reflectively vomits out any creatures or objects it is devouring.
Seems simple enough.

I did wonder about making it a Special Quality, probably like so:

Vomiting Reflex: If an ihagnim is damaged by poison from any source, it immediately vomits out all creatures or objects being devoured in its interior (see Devour).​

On the theory that DMs are less likely to forget it during play if it's listed as a separate trait.

 

[freyar]

Yeah, let's make the Vomiting Reflex a separate SQ.

I think I prefer to go with Devour #2, though actually shouldn't we also allow the victim to try to escape the grapple like in the SRD swallow whole rule too? It's more 3.x standard, and I worry that devouring a PC early in combat makes it a bit too hard to escape, yet at the same time the ihagnim itself is not so tough. It just seems like a bit of a glass cannon.

Hmm, how about Str 7, Dex 7, Con 18, Int 11, Wis 10, Cha 8? They don't seem particularly charismatic to me. Also, is there a reason the working draft has/had Int 8 in it?

I don't think we really need an advancement section other than the bit in devour about gaining HD.

 

[Cleon]

Yeah, let's make the Vomiting Reflex a separate SQ.

Agreed.

I think I prefer to go with Devour #2, though actually shouldn't we also allow the victim to try to escape the grapple like in the SRD swallow whole rule too? It's more 3.x standard

But it does follow the 3.5 standard for Swallow Whole, as per the SRD Purple Worm:

Swallow Whole (Ex): A purple worm can try to swallow a grabbed opponent of a smaller size than itself by making a successful grapple check. Once inside, the opponent takes 2d8+12 points of crushing damage plus 8 points of acid damage per round from the worm’s gizzard. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 25 points of damage to the gizzard (AC 17). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out. A Gargantuan worm’s interior can hold 2 Large, 8 Medium, 32 Small, 128 Tiny, or 512 Diminutive or smaller opponents.​

The Ihagnim needs to hit with a tentacle attack, then succeed at its Improved Grab grapple check to grab hold, and then needs to succeed at a second grapple check to Devour. If an opponent escapes the grapple the Ihagnim can no longer attempt devouring.

and I worry that devouring a PC early in combat makes it a bit too hard to escape, yet at the same time the ihagnim itself is not so tough. It just seems like a bit of a glass cannon.

There's not much we can do about that and keep compatibility with a bag of devouring, it IS pretty much a glass cannon.

Hmm, how about Str 7, Dex 7, Con 18, Int 11, Wis 10, Cha 8? They don't seem particularly charismatic to me. Also, is there a reason the working draft has/had Int 8 in it?

The original monster had an Intelligence score equal to its Hit Dice, which also determines its speed in astral space as per standard astral travel rules.

So an AD&D Ihagnim with 8 Hit Dice also has Move 8″ and Intelligence 8.

So maybe Str 7, Dex 7, Con 18, Int 8, Wis 11, Cha 8 for the abilities?

That'd require NA +13 to provide AC 20, assuming we exact match the Dragon Bestiary version's Armor Class 0.

Its Move 8" would be Fly 20 ft. (perfect) in 3E terms, but only works on the astral plane.