Converting Oriental Adventures creatures

[Cleon]

Reaper Working Draft

Seven Swords, The Reaper
Medium Undead (Spirit)
Hit Dice: 9d12+27 (85 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), burrow 5 ft. (see below)
Armor Class: 22 (+4 Dex, +2 insight, +6 natural), touch 16, flat-footed 18
Base Attack/Grapple: +9/+13
Attack: Masterwork scythe +16 melee (2d4+8/17-20×4)
Full Attack: Masterwork scythe +16/+11 melee (2d4+8/17-20×4)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.
Special Attacks: Martial training, scythe master, scythe parry, scythe sweep, scythe whirlwind, seven blades
Special Qualities: Burrowing, darkvision 90 ft., ghostform, gravesight, immune to turning, improved uncanny dodge, masterful combat reflexes, rejuvenation, special weakness - earth, undead traits, unholy toughness
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +10, Will +8
Abilities: Str 19, Dex 18, Con —, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 17
Skills: Intimidate +15, Jump +18, Listen +14, Spot +14, Tumble +18
Feats: Acrobatic ᴮ, Dodge ᴮ˟, Mobilityᴮ˟, Combat Reflexes ᴮ, Combat Expertise, Improved Critical (scythe) ᴮ˟, Improved Trip, Spring Attackᴮ˟, Weapon Focus (scythe), Weapon Focus (specialization), Whirlwind Attack ᴮ˟
˟ bonus fighter feat
Environment: Ruins
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 8
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always neutral evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: —

The gaunt figure of a man carrying a scythe. All you can see of his face is a mouth twisted into an evil leer, the rest is shadowed beneath a broad cane hat. Despite the peasant's hat and weapon, he carries himself proudly. His clothes are caked in blood and soil, but are once-noble garments of silk. What little skin you can see looks dirt-grey and wrinkled.

The Reaper is one of the Seven Swords, a group of seven weapon masters who were transformed into unique undead by an ancient curse that binds them to a castle they once guarded in life. If one of the Seven Swords is destroyed, the curse causes them to reform the following night and continue to haunt the castle.

The Reaper was once a nobleman who affected the habits of a peasant. He specialized in the scythe, with which he harvested men even more eagerly than he'd harvest wheat. Trapped in undeath, the Reaper still finds joy in bloodshed, and will whistle and grin evilly at the mere prospect of a fight.

The Reaper is 6 feet tall and weighs about 150 pounds. It can speak Common in an eerie whisper, but rarely does so.

Combat
The Reaper uses its burrowing and gravesight abilities to hide underground and await intruders, whereupon it leaps out of the ground to attack. The Reaper fights to the finish with no thought of retreat, trusting in its sword charm's power to restore it to unlife should it be destroyed.

Burrowing (Ex): The Reaper can burrow through soil, although this is a slow and laborious process. It does not leave a tunnel behind itself and can not burrow through rock.

The Reaper can burrow through 5 ft. of earth as a standard action and 10 ft. of earth as a full-round action. The Reaper can burst out of the ground as a swift action if it is within 5 feet of the surface.

Note that the Reaper's gravesight allows it to notice opponents on the surface while it is burrowing.

Ghostform (Su): A Seven Swords undead is normally invisible and intangible but senses its surroundings normally. Should the site it is haunting be disturbed, the spirit assumes a corporeal form as a swift action. The Reaper materializes by erupting from the ground, accompanied by earth tremors, a lightning flash and howling winds. Once materialized, the undead spirit can remain in solid form until the sun rises. It can resume ghostform as a full-round action.

Gravesight (Su): If it is buried in the ground, the Reaper can observe its surroundings just as if it were standing on the surface. Gravesight is blocked by 10 feet of earth, an inch of wood, or a thin sheet of any metal.

Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): The Reaper can react to danger before its senses would normally allow it to do so. The Reaper can not be flanked and retains its Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if it is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, it still loses its Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized.

This defense denies a rogue the ability to sneak attack the Reaper by flanking it, unless the attacker has at least four more rogue levels than the Reaper's base attack bonus (+9).

Martial Training (Ex): The Reaper was a master martial artist in life, and retains the martial skills it once possessed. The Reaper possesses the base attack bonus and bonus feats of a 12th level fighter. It is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and gains an insight bonus to AC equal to its Wisdom bonus. It adds its inherent fighter abilities to any fighter levels it might acquire. Thus, a Reaper 3rd-level fighter possesses the bonus feats of a 15th-level fighter.

Masterful Combat Reflexes (Ex): The Reaper adds its Wisdom bonus to the number of attacks of opportunity it can make in a round. It also has good Reflex saves.

Rejuvenation (Ex): The Reaper cannot be destroyed through simple combat. If "destroyed" its body and scythe shrivel into a husk and crumble away, leaving a small charm shaped like a sword. The following night, the Reaper reappears at full strength at whatever place it haunted and the sword charm vanishes. The Reaper can only be destroyed permanently if its sword charm is destroyed before the Reaper rejuvenates. A typical sword charm is a Fine sized object with 20 hp, hardness 12, and break DC 24.

Scythe Master (Ex): The Reaper has a +1 bonus to attack and a +2 bonus to threat range whenever it attacks with a scythe.

Scythe Parry (Ex): The Reaper can use its scythe to parry attacks from melee weapons or ranged weapons. The Reaper can make one parry attempt per round, plus additional parry attempts in place of Attacks of Opportunity.

To parry, the Reaper makes an attack roll with its scythe (+16 modifier). If this roll is equal to or greater than the opponent's attack roll, the attack is deflected harmlessly. Parrying causes no damage to the opponent's weapon (or to the opponent, if the latter was using a natural weapon).

The Reaper can parry while fighting defensively (+2 dodge, –4 attack rolls). The -4 attack penalty for fighting defensively does not apply to parry rolls. If the Reaper uses the total defense action, it can attempt to parry all attacks made against it in that round.

Scythe Sweep (Ex): If the Reaper hits an opponent up to two size categories larger than itself with a scythe attack, it can attempt to trip the opponent as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. The trip attempt has a +8 modifier, including the +4 bonus from Improved Trip. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip the Reaper.

Scythe Whirlwind (Ex): The Reaper gains a +2 dodge bonus to its AC when it uses Whirlwind Attack with a scythe. Furthermore, if the Reaper has deployed its Seven Blades (see below) it can use Whirlwind Attack as a standard action instead of the usual full attack action.

Seven Blades (Ex): As a standard action, the Reaper can split its scythe into seven separate blades that extend in a circle like the spokes of an umbrella. During this action, the Reaper can make a standard melee attack and a free disarm attack (+20 modifier) that is resolved as if it had the Improved Disarm feat (no attack of opportunity and +4 bonus on its opposed attack roll). It can make the melee and disarm attacks against different opponents or the same opponent.

Once deployed, the Reaper can whirl the Seven Blades like a buzzsaw, which gives its scythe a +2 bonus to attack and increases its damage to 2d6+8.

The Reaper can not make Scythe Sweep special attack while it has deployed its Seven Blades, but gains the use of its Scythe Whirlwind special attack. It can still use Scythe Parry (with a +16 modifier on the roll).

The Reaper can collapse its scythe back into a single blade as a free action.

Special Weakness - Earth (Ex): Each of the seven swords have a different special weakness. The Reaper's is that its existence is tied to the land. Any attack that hits the Reaper when it is not in contact with the ground (due to being levitated, thrown through the air, grappled and lifted up, et cetera) does 50% extra damage. In addition, whenever a Seven Swords is damaged through its special weakness it must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 10 plus damage inflicted) or be shaken for 1 round.

Unholy Toughness (Ex): The Reaper gains a bonus to its hit points equal to its Charisma modifier x its Hit Dice.

In Kara-Tur
The Seven Swords were the leading members of the Ito clan and lived in Ito-Jo castle. The malign influence of a krakentoa led to their rule becoming tyrannical and eventually brought down a dreadful curse upon the Swords and the entire castle, turning it into a haunted place of the damned. The Seven Swords of Ito-Jo cannot be destroyed simply by destroying their sword charms. The only way to permanently lay them to rest is to slay the krakentoa responsible for the curse.

Not even the Reaper can remember what its name was when he was alive, all that is known is he was a Kensei weapon master who lived in a stone gardener's hut next to the second gatehouse of the castle.

The Reaper's hut is surrounded by a rusting iron fence whose gate hangs loose and creaks in the wind. If anything touches the gate or fence it triggers a magical illusion of howling winds, flashing lightning and earth tremors that lasts for 1 round, which alerts the Reaper to erupt from the ground and "harvest" the intruders.

Originally appeared in OA2 - Night of the Seven Swords (1986).

 

[Cleon]

Do you think 9 Hit Dice is enough?

It doesn't seem that much for a solo "combat monster" in 3E terms.

I'm tempted to increase it to, say, 12 or 13 hit dice.

It also wouldn't hurt to give it a few more defensive abilities, such as evasion, damage reduction, an "improved" deflect arrows (say, it can use an AoO to deflect an arrow with its scythe, so it can do it an additional 6 times per round, not just one/round) or maybe even spell resistance to make it harder to defeat with ranged attacks and spells.

 

[freyar]

Well, no need to finesse the scythe with this Str anyway.

9HD is fine if we don't mind keeping the CR down. I'm fine with it.

 

[Cleon]

Well, no need to finesse the scythe with this Str anyway.

9HD is fine if we don't mind keeping the CR down. I'm fine with it.

Agreed on the HD.

What do you think about the notion of adding a few defenses?

 

[freyar]

DR 10/-?

Maybe we can fold the deflect arrows into the "parry" SA. Evasion is probably a good fit, also, but I think I want to see how the defenses from his scythe (in the original text) look. Should we start with the defensive options in that case?

 

[Cleon]

DR 10/-?

Maybe we can fold the deflect arrows into the "parry" SA. Evasion is probably a good fit, also, but I think I want to see how the defenses from his scythe (in the original text) look. Should we start with the defensive options in that case?

Yes, I'm thinking we could let its Parry work on arrows and similar missiles and cover most of that.

Alternatively, we could rework the Duelist prestige class's Deflect Arrows ability, but if I remember it correctly it's too weak for what I'm thinking off.

I'm also wondering whether it should be able to Parry rays & other ranged touch attacks.

 

[freyar]

Well, Deflect Arrows works automatically once per round if you have a hand free. What if he can trade an AoO to parry one attack (ranged or melee)? I'm a little sceptical about parrying rays and the like, but you could persuade me.

 

[Cleon]

Well, Deflect Arrows works automatically once per round if you have a hand free. What if he can trade an AoO to parry one attack (ranged or melee)? I'm a little sceptical about parrying rays and the like, but you could persuade me.

A scythe is a 2-handed weapon, so he won't have a hand free.

I was thinking something like 1 free parry plus 1 parry per AoO, but if it uses the "Total Defense" action he can make more Parry rolls (maybe against all attacks that round?).

 

[freyar]

That seems pretty good. I'm still leery of letting it parry magical attacks, but I might change my mind when I see how the rest of his abilities shape up. Should he have to make some kind of check to parry an attack successfully?

Parry (Ex): The Reaper can use his scythe to parry attacks made against him as an immediate action. He can make one parry attempt per round plus additional parry attempts in place of Attacks of Opportunity (if the Reaper uses the total defense action, he can attempt to parry all attempts made against him in that round). A successful parry....

 

[Cleon]

That seems pretty good. I'm still leery of letting it parry magical attacks, but I might change my mind when I see how the rest of his abilities shape up. Should he have to make some kind of check to parry an attack successfully?

Parry (Ex): The Reaper can use his scythe to parry attacks made against him as an immediate action. He can make one parry attempt per round plus additional parry attempts in place of Attacks of Opportunity (if the Reaper uses the total defense action, he can attempt to parry all attempts made against him in that round). A successful parry....

The Deflect Arrows feat requires no check, but I never liked that rule. I'd have it make an attack roll with its scythe, and it parries successfully if it matches or beats the attack roll of opponent.

That reminds me, I've got a homebrew SA that we could probably cannibalize part off...

Multiparry (Ex): A derghodaemon can use its weapons to deflect an enemy's blow instead of attacking. The derghodaemon can Multiparry with any melee weapon, except for flexible weapons like whips and chains, or any shield except for a tower shield. It can also Multiparry with a solid object like a barstool or a ranged weapon like a crossbow, but such objects are likely to be damaged or destroyed by the opponents' blows and have a –4 penalty to their Parry checks (see below) due to non-proficiency. A derghodaemon can start Multiparrying as an immediate action, whereupon it must declare which weapons or shields it is using as Parrying Weapons for that round. It cannot attack with a weapon it is using to Multiparry, so if it has already attacked with a weapon earlier in a round it cannot make Weapon Parry rolls with it until the following round.

A Multiparrying derghodaemon gains a bonus to its shield bonus equal to the number of shields or weapons it is using to Parry with. Nnote that this stacks with the shield bonus from a shield or the Two Weapon Defense feat. A derghodaemon with a shield almost always uses it to Parry, gaining a +1 bonus to its shield bonus.

In addition to the above increase to AC, the derghodaemon can Parry an attacks from melee weapons or thrown weapons. It can Parry ranged weapons such as arrows or sling stones if it has the ability to Deflect Arrows with a weapon or shield (e.g. a 9th level Duelist). To Parry, the derghodaemon makes a Parry roll (+18 modifier for a typical derghodaemon), and if this roll is equal to or greater than the opponent's attack roll, the attack is deflected harmlessly. Parrying causes no damage to the opponent's weapon (or to the opponent, if the latter was using a natural weapon). A derghodaemon can Parry as many attacks as the number of Parrying Weapons it has declared. It can make additional Parries, but each additional Parry counts as an Attack of Opportunity. Thus, a typical derghodaemon can Parry up to 8 attacks in a round (5 Parrying Weapons plus 3 Attacks of Opportunity).

The Parry modifier is equal to the derghodaemon's melee attack modifier with the Parrying Weapon. If it is Parrying with a shield, the derghodaemon's Shield Parry modifier is Base Attack Bonus + Strength or Dexterity modifier (whichever is higher) + size modifier. A masterwork shield provides a +1 enhancement bonus on Parry rolls. A magic shield adds its enhancement bonus to Parry rolls; if it has an enhancement bonus to AC and melee attack rolls (e.g. a +1 light metal shield with a +2 shield spike), it adds whichever enhancement bonus is higher.

A derghodaemon can Multiparry while fighting defensively (+2 dodge, –4 attack rolls) or when it makes a Total Defense action (+4 dodge, no attacks). The -4 attack penalty for fighting defensively does not apply to Weapon Parry checks.​

A "single weapon" version of that should cover most of it.

The Reaper probably can only Parry with its scythe.

Let's see...

Parry (Ex): The Reaper can use its scythe to parry attacks from melee weapons or ranged weapons. The Reaper can make one parry attempt per round, plus additional parry attempts in place of Attacks of Opportunity.

To parry, the Reaper makes a attack roll with its scythe (+X modifier). If this roll is equal to or greater than the opponent's attack roll, the attack is deflected harmlessly. Parrying causes no damage to the opponent's weapon (or to the opponent, if the latter was using a natural weapon).

The Reaper can parry while fighting defensively (+2 dodge, –4 attack rolls). The -4 attack penalty for fighting defensively does not apply to parry rolls. If the Reaper uses the total defense action, he can attempt to parry all attacks made against it in that round.