Converting Monsters from Polyhedron Magazine

[Shade]

All sounds good.

Updated.

Freyar, do you still want weapons added parenthentically to the attack lines?

 

[Cleon]

All sounds good.

Updated.

Freyar, do you still want weapons added parenthentically to the attack lines?

How shall we handle it, just substitute the damage of large-sized spiked gauntlets or armour spikes for its hooves? That's stretching the rules though, if we strictly follow the rules the Houyhnhnm only gets one attack with a weapon, even with a full attack, unless it takes two-weapon fighting penalties, but that would mean its better off just using hooves for a full attack.

Something like:

Full Attack: 2 hooves +5 melee (1d4+3) [or 2 spiked horseshoes +5 melee (1d6+3) or crossbow +3 ranged ()]

Do you prefer light crossbows (2d6) or heavy crossbows (2d8)? I'm thinking a light crossbow makes most sense, as they'll get twice the fire rate.

 

[freyar]

You know, instead of spiked horseshoes, we could do armor spikes on the barding, which sort of looks better in my mind's eye. Then we don't have to worry about the two-weapon fighting rule, and the base damage is 1d8. But you're right, the two hoofs seem like they'd be better anyway, and the armor spikes have the disadvantage of being martial weapons.

Sigh. We've really started to hit the complicated ones. I suppose the best weaponry for these is really the light crossbow. We could just go with two hoofs or a light xbow and forget the parenthetical weapons (could still do parenthetical armor).

 

[Cleon]

You know, instead of spiked horseshoes, we could do armor spikes on the barding, which sort of looks better in my mind's eye. Then we don't have to worry about the two-weapon fighting rule, and the base damage is 1d8. But you're right, the two hoofs seem like they'd be better anyway, and the armor spikes have the disadvantage of being martial weapons.

Personally, I'd just stretch the rules and give them 1d6 damage horseshoes without any attack penalties. They weapons are pretty useless with the RAW -4/-8 two-weapon attack penalty.

As for armour spikes, we'd also have to give the Houyhnhnm an Armour Proficiency feat in order to wear the armour the spikes are attached to, or it will suffer an even greater penalty.

We could note somewhere in the Weapon Nonproficiency SQ that Houyhnhnm can use use spiked gauntlets to increase their damage on hoof attacks without a two-weapon attack penalty? I fancy a base Houyhnhnm does not have any proficiency in armour or martial weapons (i.e. armour spikes), but only a few simple weapons.

Speaking of which, are there any other simple weapons a Houyhnhnm could be skilled in? If I remember my Swift correctly, they farmed crops so could know how to use sickles. Since they're cavalry it may sound like they should be skilled in lances, but a horse rearing onto its hind legs and charging into battle with a spear is too silly for my tastes.

Hold on, there is precedent for a monster making a normal iterative attack with an artificial weapon and then using a natural weapon as a secondary attack. A Houyhnhnm using armour spikes could become:

Full Attack: Armour spike +5 melee (1d8+3) and hoof +0 melee (1d4+1)
​

That still works out worse, with a -5 attack on the hoof and no increase in average damage if both attacks hit. Maybe if we say a Houyhnhnm counts armour spikes and gauntlets as natural weapons, which would make it:

Full Attack: Armour spike +5 melee (1d8+3) and armour spike +0 melee (1d8+1)
​

That's potentially an extra two points of damage if both attacks hit, but still isn't optimal except against low AC targets. I think that's excusable.

Alternatively, we could apply a rather liberal interpretation of "The Two-Weapon Fighting feat lessens the primary hand penalty by 2, and the off-hand penalty by 6." so it cancels out the -5 secondary attack penalty to become:

Full Attack: Armour spike +5 melee (1d8+3) and armour spike +5 melee (1d8+1)
​

The TWF could be a racial bonus ability applied only to two weapon fighting with hoofs, gauntlets or armour spikes, analagous to a Ranger's TWF, or we could swap the Endurance or Run feat for Two Weapon Fighting.

That's two points extra damage on average (2d8+4 averages 13, 2d4+6 average 11), while a horse with spiked gauntlets would do the same damage average, but piercing (1d6+4 plus 1d6+1 = 2d6+4 averages 11).

I quite like that.

EDIT: If they get TWF as a bonus feat, then they can buy Improved TWF for an extra secondary attack, which I like the idea of. What out for those high level Horse Monks with Flurry of Blows!

I still fancy statting up a Houyhnhnm Warrior with armour spiked studded leather as a 'Militia Horse'. Make it 3rd level, so it gains an iterative attack and an extra +3 BAB:

Full Attack: Armour spike +8/+3 melee (1d8+3) and armour spike +8 melee (1d8+1)
​

(Assumes the TWF proficiency option, it can use its 3rd level feat to get TWF if we decide all Houyhnhnm don't have it, otherwise it would have another feat such as Weapon Focus (armour spikes) for an extra +1 to hit.

Sigh. We've really started to hit the complicated ones. I suppose the best weaponry for these is really the light crossbow. We could just go with two hoofs or a light xbow and forget the parenthetical weapons (could still do parenthetical armor).

EDIT: Complicated? What makes you think that?

 

[Cleon]

OK, lets try to boil it down into some actual rules text. Upon reflection, giving them TWF as a bonus feat is probably too open to abuse so I think something like:

Weapon Nonproficiency (Ex): Although they can use weapons, houyhnhnms are only able to become proficient in simple weapons due to their hooflike hands, with the exception of armour spikes, which they can learn to use as martial weapons. All Houyhnnms are proficient in light crossbow, gauntlet, spiked gauntlet, kama and sickle.

A houyhnhnm using a gauntlet, spiked gauntlet or armour spikes to make a full attack action can make an single additional attack with an off-hand hoof, gauntlet (spiked or otherwise) or armour spike at its full attack bonus, applying full strength bonus for hoof attacks and half strength bonus for gauntlet or spike attacks. It can increase the number of off-hoof attacks with the Greater Two Weapon Fighting feat and subsequent entries in the two-weapon fighting feat chain, but must still purchase Improved Two-Weapon Fighting as per the normal rules, despite the limited advantage of the latter feat.
​

What do you think?

 

[Shade]

Rather than a bunch of exception-based design, why don't we just state that houyhnhnms treat spiked gauntlets and armor spikes as special monk weapons? Since most are going to become monks, they'll be able to use their unarmed attack sequence and damage and flurry of blows with them.

 

[Cleon]

Rather than a bunch of exception-based design, why don't we just state that houyhnhnms treat spiked gauntlets and armor spikes as special monk weapons? Since most are going to become monks, they'll be able to use their unarmed attack sequence and damage and flurry of blows with them.

They wouldn't be able to use flurry of blows with armour spikes, since they'd be wearing armour.

Also, being Large creatures even a 1st level Hoyhnhnm monk has a 1d8 unarmed strike, so they get no damage advantage from using armour spikes or spiked gauntlets, just the option to do piercing damage.

Plus, it's no benefit to all the non-Monk horsefolk. I'm thinking only a minority of Houyhnhnms will be adventurer-worthy and not all of those will have levels in monk.

 

[Cleon]

Another approach would be to say all Houyhnhnm have the flurry of blows ability with hooves, gauntlets or armour spikes, and let their 3 levels of magical beast stack with any monk levels for purpose of flurry of blows attacks, but not with a Monk's unarmed strike damage?

Then a base Houyhnhnm would have 2 hooves +5 melee (1d4+3) or flurries with spiked gauntlets at +3/+3 melee (1d6+3), a 1st level Warrior would add armour spikes due to martial weapon proficiency so gets 2 hooves +6 melee (1d4+3) or flurries with +4/+4 melee (1d6+3 gauntlets or 1d8+3 armour spikes), and a 1st level Houyhnhnm monk would get 2 hooves +5 melee (1d4+3) or flurry of blows +3/+3 (1d8+3 unarmed strike).

Decisions, decisions.

 

[Shade]

Yet another approach would be to note that they create specially-designed horseshoes that allow them to deal either piercing (spikes) or slashing (sickles) damage instead of bludgeoning with their hoof attacks. These could be exotic weapons and they could have weapon familiarity with them (thus treating them as martial weapons).

 

[Cleon]

Yet another approach would be to note that they create specially-designed horseshoes that allow them to deal either piercing (spikes) or slashing (sickles) damage instead of bludgeoning with their hoof attacks. These could be exotic weapons and they could have weapon familiarity with them (thus treating them as martial weapons).

That's more or less how I imagined their gauntlets and sickles would be designed, since they're formed for hoof-hands rather than humanoid hands.

Are we OK with the light crossbow proficiency?

We seem to be having trouble reaching any consensus on the melee weapons, so we're throwing out ideas to see what sticks.

At the moment, the two most up-to-date proposals are:

Full Attack: 2 hooves +5 melee (1d4+3) or primary weapon +3 melee (1d6+3 gauntlet/1d8+3 sickle or armour spike) and off-hoof weapon +3 melee (1d6+1 gauntlet / 1d8+1 armour spike)

or

Full Attack: 2 hooves +5 melee (1d4+3) [bludgeoning, can use spiked or bladed horseshoes to convert to piercing or slashing damage]

Plus the crossbow +3 ranged (2d6 light / 2d8 heavy)

Maybe we should try a different tack - do we want the melee weapons to be a definite boost to the Houyhnhnm's melee capacity (a couple more points of damage), or more flavour (switching damage types)?