Converting Monsters from Polyhedron Magazine

[freyar]

Make that extra cold damage on the slams be 1d6?

Are they more or less done after that?

 

[Shade]

Cleon had some interesting ideas upthread:

Yes, it's a dead tree so shouldn't have needles or enough twigs to carry enough snow.

I'm thinking an energy-draining attack, maybe one that does additional cold damage and leaves frozen solid corpses?

We've got the usual SRD cold spells to think of - cone of cold, fire shield (chill shield only), freezing sphere, ice storm, wall of ice or sleet storm.

Any of those would be handy.

Either unholy blight or blight would seem to be thematically appropriate. How about a special attack that combines both effects, doing extra damage to Good creatures, Outsiders and Plants?

Speaking of which, can they create spawn? Maybe they can only turn other plant monsters or just other treants into more of their kind?

 

[Cleon]

Make that extra cold damage on the slams be 1d6?

Are they more or less done after that?

1d6 cold's fine by me.

I'm still tempted to toughen them up a bit.

Maybe energy drain or some cold SLAs.

 

[Shade]

They are a bit weak compared to the standard treant (worse BAB, saves, hp). I'd go for either energy drain or SLAs, but not both. Preferences?

 

[Cleon]

They are a bit weak compared to the standard treant (worse BAB, saves, hp). I'd go for either energy drain or SLAs, but not both. Preferences?

Well how about giving it a couple of Su attacks and the ability to create spawn?

Something like:

Energy Drain (Su): Any living creature struck by a hoar-frost treant's natural attacks gains one negative level. For each negative level bestowed, the hoar-frost treant gains 5 temporary hit points.

Frozen Blight (Su): Once per day a hoar-frost treant can create a 20 ft. radius emanation of unholy cold. Any living creature within this area takes 3d6 damage (half cold, half unholy) and is sickened for 1d4 rounds, if they succeed at a DC 16 Will save they take half damage and are not sickened.

Any plant creature that fails its Will save against frozen blight must also make a DC 16 Fortitude save or contract a supernatural disease, unholy blight:

Unholy blight: Supernatural disease—emanation, Fortitude DC 16, incubation period 1 minute; damage 1d6 Con and 1d6 Cha.

Any intelligent plant creature killed by unholy blight will rise as a Hoar-Frost Treant 1d4 days later.

The save DCs are Charisma-based.

 

[Shade]

I like it all except calling the disease "unholy blight". Using already-established game terms for something else is generally a design taboo. How about "rime blight" or "frost blight"? Or if you want to keep an "evilish" name, how about "malevolent blight" or "profane blight"?

 

[Cleon]

I like it all except calling the disease "unholy blight". Using already-established game terms for something else is generally a design taboo. How about "rime blight" or "frost blight"? Or if you want to keep an "evilish" name, how about "malevolent blight" or "profane blight"?

Well since I was inspired by Mummy Rot, how about Hoar-Frost Rot?

 

[Shade]

That works. Plants tend to rot.

Updated.

 

[Cleon]

In that case all we have left is tactics.

COMBAT
Hoarfrost treants hate all animal life and are non too friendly towards plant life; they only tolerate the existence of plant creatures of evil alignment.

A hoarfrost treat spends most of its undeath standing immobile, pretending to be a mundane dead tree. If a living creature wanders nearby the hoarfrost treant charges into melee as quickly as possible. They prefer to save their frozen blight attack for multiple opponents, but will unleash it as a last-ditch strike against a single enemy if they are severely damaged.

 

[freyar]

Well, I guess you guys have pretty much finished this off!