Converting monsters from Second Edition Monstrous Compendiums

[Shade]

SIZE: L (7’ long)

Since 7 foot long is Medium now, do we want to keep 'em Medium or make their proportions better fit Large?

 

[demiurge1138]

Let's make them Large.

 

[Shade]

Added to Homebrews.

I left the bog hound's rejuvenation and construction as placeholders, but they will need to be changed.

 

[freyar]

The moor hound can be hit only by magical weapons of at least +1 enchantment; however, it only seems to suffer real damage from them. It can be destroyed only after it has been exposed to sunlight; otherwise, once it has been reduced to 0 hit points or below the moor hound bounds off to regenerate. It always leaves a trail of blood that leads directly to a bog or pool of quicksand, but no further trace of the moor hound can be found until the next night, when it comes back fully regenerated.

Rather than rejuvenation, these guys seem to have something more like a strange form of regeneration like the vampire's strange fast healing. I'll write that up soon.

 

[demiurge1138]

I think it'd be easier to give them rejuvenation, unless we want to come up with a way to kill a moor hound while it's buried in quicksand.

 

[freyar]

The idea is that they are only destroyed in sunlight. Here's what I propose:

Daily Regeneration (Su): Damage done to a moor hound is only nonlethal damage. Whenever a moor hound would become unconscious due to nonlethal damage, it flees, trailing ghostly blood to the nearest swamp or bog, where it disappears into the ground. The next night, it re-emerges, completely healed. This ability is negated in natural sunlight (see Vulnerability to Sunlight).

Vulnerability to Sunlight (Ex): If exposed to natural sunlight (but not a daylight spell or other artificial light) to the slightest degree, a moor hound loses its Daily Regeneration ability until the following sundown. Any nonlethal damage the moor hound has instantly becomes lethal damage, and any further damage (that is not prevented by the moor hound's DR) the moor hound takes is lethal or nonlethal as normal.

It's a little clunky still, but I think it's faithful to the original and not any weirder than the vampire.

 

[Shade]

That seems like a good start. What do you think, Demiurge?

 

[demiurge1138]

I'm still not a huge fan. There's nothing a group of PCs can do to actually kill the damn thing. It escapes into the bog, there's no way to drag it out into the sunlight, it comes back tomorrow with no penalty. At least you can track a vampire to its coffin and stake it.

 

[freyar]

I'm still not a huge fan. There's nothing a group of PCs can do to actually kill the damn thing. It escapes into the bog, there's no way to drag it out into the sunlight, it comes back tomorrow with no penalty. At least you can track a vampire to its coffin and stake it.

What would be the criterion for stopping the rejuvenation, if we do that? I'm open to suggestions, but I don't know what you'd prefer. I think it should be difficult to kill these things and should involve sunlight somehow.

 

[demiurge1138]

I think there should be a way to exhume them from the bog to expose them to sunlight.