Converting monsters from Second Edition Monstrous Compendiums

freyar · Jun 5, 2014

It wasn't a joint decision, just something I put in when starting the sample. What do you think would work best? I'm going to carve out a couple hours this week just to finish the sample, so tell me anything you'd like in it.

Cleon · Jun 5, 2014

freyar said:
It wasn't a joint decision, just something I put in when starting the sample. What do you think would work best? I'm going to carve out a couple hours this week just to finish the sample, so tell me anything you'd like in it.

OK, so which do you prefer?

If you want it to actually use its ranger Combat Style we'll have to switch to light armour (or medium armour made of mithral).

That suggests going for a greatsword wielder with ranged weapon Combat Style and light armor.

We've got a 35,000 gold equipment budget, which is enough for a +1 dragon bane greatsword (8,350 gp), a +1 composite longbow [+5 Str] (2,900 gp) plus either +2 elven chain (8,150) or a +2 adamantine chain shirt (9,250 gp) and leave about fifteen thousand gp for some miscellaneous items.

freyar · Jun 15, 2014

Ugh. Really wanted to get this done by now.

Let's switch to ranged combat style as you suggest. This may also suggest swapping some of the undead dragon slayer abilities. I'll take a look at this as soon as possible and update the working draft.

Cleon · Jun 15, 2014

freyar said:
Ugh. Really wanted to get this done by now.

Let's switch to ranged combat style as you suggest. This may also suggest swapping some of the undead dragon slayer abilities. I'll take a look at this as soon as possible and update the working draft.

I'd be fine keeping the full plate and not have him use his Ranger Combat Style in normal encounters.

Frankly, Rapid Shot is not all that useful for him compared to his "standard" full attack with a composite longbow. He'll still be able to use favoured enemy to add more damage to his dragon-killing.

Let's just switch him from greatsword to longsword instead.

Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares, base speed 30 ft.)
Attack: greatsword +19 melee (2d6+7/17-20) or composite longbow (+5 Str) +14 ranged (1d8+5/×3)
Full Attack: greatsword +19/+14/+9 melee (2d6+7/17-20) or composite longbow (+5 Str) +14/+9/+4 ranged (1d8+5/×3)

freyar · Jun 24, 2014

I assume you mean "to greatsword." And to add a shield. That all make sense to me. Will try to do that tonight (haha, we'll see).

Cleon · Jun 25, 2014

freyar said:
I assume you mean "to greatsword." And to add a shield. That all make sense to me. Will try to do that tonight (haha, we'll see).

Well I did most of the figuring for you, so it shouldn't be that arduous.

freyar · Jul 3, 2014

Finally updated.

On to spells?

Cleon · Jul 4, 2014

freyar said:
Finally updated.

On to spells?

Sure. Its blackguard spells are Wisdom-based, so with bonus spells it gets 3/2/1/1.

How about...

4th—freedom of movement;
3rd—protection from energy;
2nd—bull's strength, inflict moderate wounds;
1st—cause fear, corrupt weapon, inflict light wounds.

freyar · Jul 15, 2014

Those look good to me.

Anything else it needs mechanically aside from the anti-dragon statblock? Looking back at other templates, we don't usually include tactics, but I will give a description of the ability array used. I guess the other question is if we want to improve the equipment and give it other magic items. I say yes! We probably ought to give it some other weapons (to take advantage of TWF when unarmored).

Hey, I just noticed that my last update didn't take. I'll do that with the spells and equipment.

Cleon · Jul 15, 2014

freyar said:
Those look good to me.

Anything else it needs mechanically aside from the anti-dragon statblock? Looking back at other templates, we don't usually include tactics, but I will give a description of the ability array used. I guess the other question is if we want to improve the equipment and give it other magic items. I say yes! We probably ought to give it some other weapons (to take advantage of TWF when unarmored).

We'd better figure out its equipment. Do we use its character level of 13 to figure out its wealth or its CR of 14? The former gives us a budget of 35,000 gp and the latter 45,000 gp.

I'm thinking you normally use CR to determine wealth, which'll give us an extra 10k to play around with.

We're still using the greatsword primary weapon version, right? So my previous proposal for a +1 dragon bane greatsword (8,350 gp) and +1 composite longbow [+5 Str] (2,900 gp) as the main weapons seems a good start.

We're taking the "full plate" option. That's 1,500 gp. We might as well masterwork it for another 150 gp and it should be at least +1, for a total of 2,650 gp.

That's 13,900 gp, so we've still got plenty left from our 45,000 gp budget - 31,100 gp.

We could go for adamantine (+14,850), mithral (+8,850) or plain +3 (+9,000) armour, for example, and still have 15-20k left to improve the weapons or buy a few miscellaneous items.