Converting Monsters from Polyhedron Magazine

[freyar]

Ugh. I just read all that and can't come up with a great solution.

What's the precedent on treating a manufactured weapon like a natural attack?

I think the weapons should probably increase the damage, but changing types is some improvement also.

 

[Cleon]

Ugh. I just read all that and can't come up with a great solution.

What's the precedent on treating a manufactured weapon like a natural attack?

I think the weapons should probably increase the damage, but changing types is some improvement also.

Well if I remember rightly, Monks are the only SRD precedent for mixing up natural and wielded weapons. That's one reason I quite like the notion of giving Houhnhnym a flurry of blows type ability with its specialist weapons.

 

[Shade]

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)?

I'd prefer flavor. Since they are akin to monks, many monk weapons are nothing more than flavor. In about half the cases or more, a weapon is actually suboptimal to the monk's unarmed strike damage, but offers the option of different damage types and possible extra properties (like flaming, frost, and so forth).

 

[freyar]

I'd say let's allow them to treat armor spikes and/or spiked gauntlets as monk weapons.

 

[Cleon]

I'd say let's allow them to treat armor spikes and/or spiked gauntlets as monk weapons.

OK, we seem to be getting somewhere with the Monk model.

I'd add gauntlets to the list, and give them kama as a weapon proficiency as well (they're practically identical to sickles, after all).

What about the Flurry of Blows idea?

If we say they can Flurry as a 4th or 5th level monk the Base Attack Bonus will match (3HD magical beast = +3 BAB = 4th or 5th level Monk), and it gets two attacks with gauntlets/kamas/spikes at -2 (4th level) or -1 (5th level) attack, each doing 1d6+3 (gauntlets) or 1d8+3 (kama/spike).

I'd go for 4th level, myself.

I would think that they would just get the Flurry of Blows attacks without any other monk abilities like improved Unarmed Strike damage, unless they actually get levels in Monk of course.

Should levels in Flurry stack? So a Houyhnhnm 2nd level Monk flurries as a 6th (+3/+3) or 7th (+4/+4) level one?

I'm also wondering whether it is wandering into Challenge Rating 3 territory. If we give it armour proficiency (light) and armour spiked studded leather, its full-attack damage is only a little weaker than an ogre and it has better saves plus much better speed and missile range.

Armor Class: 16 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +3 armour, +3 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 15
Full Attack: 2 hooves +5 melee (1d4+3) or armour spikes +3/+3 melee (1d8+3)[maybe +4/+4 melee?] or light crossbow +3 melee (2d6)

 

[freyar]

If we go with flurry, then it should stack with monk levels. I guess I can see flurry for the gauntlets, at least. Hmm. I wouldn't go with any other monk abilities, though.

 

[Shade]

During the multi-day outage, I worked on flavor text for these guys. After re-reading the entry, I think we are focusing far too much on making these fellows adequate combatants.

Based on the original text, few, if any, would be warriors. Most houyhnhnm should be Experts. I'm still fine with giving the special monk weapons and whatnot to houyhnhnm monks, but I think we should back off on flurry of blows and similar mechanics for standard houyhnhnm. This is a race of peaceful philosophers, who have only engaged in battle once in their history.

 

[freyar]

This sounds right to me. So let's leave off weapons and armor and note that they have a kind of "weapon familiarity" to treat armor spikes and spiked gauntlets as monk weapons. Also that they often wear barding if they aren't monks but are forced to fight.

 

[Cleon]

During the multi-day outage, I worked on flavor text for these guys. After re-reading the entry, I think we are focusing far too much on making these fellows adequate combatants.

Based on the original text, few, if any, would be warriors. Most houyhnhnm should be Experts. I'm still fine with giving the special monk weapons and whatnot to houyhnhnm monks, but I think we should back off on flurry of blows and similar mechanics for standard houyhnhnm. This is a race of peaceful philosophers, who have only engaged in battle once in their history.

Well I was aiming at a 'D&Dish interpretation' of the Houyhnhnm rather than an close simulacrum of their culture & history as they appear in Swift's novel. So they may not live in a lost world with no dangers, but may need the ability to cope with external threats.

As mentioned earlier, just giving them a few additional special monk weapons doesn't do much to help them with that.

 

[Shade]

It looks like this one is going to get a faithful conversion and a "Cleon enhanced version".