Converting monsters from Dragon magazine

[Shade]

Updated.

Organization: Solitary, kiln (5), or pyre? (10-100)

Treasure: Standard (non-combustible)?

Alignment: Usually lawful neutral?

Advancement: By character class?

Level Adjustment: +5?

An infernite stands 6 feet tall and weighs x pounds.

 

[Cleon]

Updated.

Organization: Solitary, kiln (5), or pyre? (10-100)

Pyre's good, I'd add a leader and a few magicians.

Organization: Solitary, kiln (5), or pyre? (10-100 plus 1 ruler plus 1-15 magicians)

Is the leader's arcane spellcasting innate or do they have character class levels? Shall we make the leaders cast spells as wizards or sorcerers?

I favour innate wizard-casting which stacks with any wizard levels they gain, since (a) it says they can develop and change their spells, (b) we won't have to worry about the wizard class's other abilities, like familiars and bonus feats, (c) Infernites are born (or, rather, moulded) with the basic fighting and magical abilities of their caste.

The standard magician has a 1/day improved phantasmal force SLA plus normal wizardly spellcasting. Maybe CL 4th for a "standard magician", to match the HD?

The ruler is a 10th level magician with a 1/day "mass plane shift"/"spelljamming" power. Should we stat it up separately, maybe as a magician with 6 levels of wizard?

Treasure: Standard (non-combustible)?

Alignment: Usually lawful neutral?

Advancement: By character class?

Level Adjustment: +5?

An infernite stands 6 feet tall and weighs x pounds.

That all looks good.

Since they're made out of lava they should be a lot heavier than a fleshy creature - 300 or 400 pounds?

EDIT: Upon reflection, I prefer "Alignment: Always lawful neutral" or "Always lawful, usually neutral" going by passages like "they are more rigid, structured, and single-minded of purpose than any humans", "infernite cultures developed very unyielding structures on turbulent, everchanging worlds" and "the individual infernite has very little freedom of choice, nor does it expect any".

 

[freyar]

So you favor innate wiz casting for the magician and extra racial HD for the leader with a corresponding increase in CL? I guess I can go for that, though I don't entirely see why we should buck the trend of sorc casting for them specifically. The reasons you give could apply to any monster, but the vast majority of innate arcane casters are sorc casters.

I definitely prefer always lawful, and I'd probably go with always lawful neutral.

The rest is good.

 

[Cleon]

So you favor innate wiz casting for the magician and extra racial HD for the leader with a corresponding increase in CL? I guess I can go for that, though I don't entirely see why we should buck the trend of sorc casting for them specifically. The reasons you give could apply to any monster, but the vast majority of innate arcane casters are sorc casters.

I favoured innate casting over class levels since infernite magicians appear to be created with spellcasting abilities, and the flavour text about them learning/developing spells sound much more like a wizard's spell ability than a sorcerer.

As for advancement, I was assuming "by character class" for both standard infernites and magicians, with the leader being a magician with 6 levels of wizard (and hence 10th level wizard casting, since I was assuming CL 4th for a basic magician).

I definitely prefer always lawful, and I'd probably go with always lawful neutral.

The rest is good.

Always lawful neutral it is then.

 

[Cleon]

So you favor innate wiz casting for the magician and extra racial HD for the leader with a corresponding increase in CL? I guess I can go for that, though I don't entirely see why we should buck the trend of sorc casting for them specifically. The reasons you give could apply to any monster, but the vast majority of innate arcane casters are sorc casters.

I favoured innate casting over class levels since infernite magicians appear to be created with spellcasting abilities, and the flavour text about them learning/developing spells sound much more like a wizard's spell ability than a sorcerer.

As for the leader, I was assuming "by character class" for both standard infernites and magicians, with the leader being a magician with 10th level wizard casting from gaining levels of wizard (assuming CL 4th for a basic magician). So the leader would have the standard 4 racial HD plus 6 levels of wizard.

However, reading between the lines it seems leaders are also created as 10th level casters, so we should consider making them 10 racial HD, CL 10 creatures.

I definitely prefer always lawful, and I'd probably go with always lawful neutral.

The rest is good.

Always lawful neutral it is then.

 

[freyar]

I guess I still don't see why they wouldn't be innate sorcerers advancing by sorc levels even if we go that way.

I could go either with racial HD and innate casting advancement or 4 racial + 6 class HD for the leaders.

 

[Cleon]

I guess I still don't see why they wouldn't be innate sorcerers advancing by sorc levels even if we go that way.

I could go either with racial HD and innate casting advancement or 4 racial + 6 class HD for the leaders.

I'm leaning to all racial HD plus wizard casting level 10 for the leaders now.

 

[Shade]

I defnitely favor sorcerer over wizard...I've not seen enough justification to bend them from other creatures that used to be "wizards".

As for advancement, I was assuming "by character class" for both standard infernites and magicians, with the leader being a magician with 6 levels of wizard (and hence 10th level wizard casting, since I was assuming CL 4th for a basic magician).

Replace "wizard" with "sorcerer", and that's what I was assuming.

I could go either with racial HD and innate casting advancement or 4 racial + 6 class HD for the leaders.

Yeah, I'm not strongly bothered either way, as long as they are sorcerers.

 

[freyar]

Since Cleon likes racial HD and we like sorcs, why don't we givee the magicians innate sorc casting and leaders 10 racial HD with boosted CL to 10?

 

[Shade]

I have no objections.