Converting Oriental Adventures creatures

[Cleon]

Paper Warrior Original Stats

Fifth is the paper warrior, whose weapon is mightier than the blade. His strength comes from his office of power.

A special note for the DM: each of the seven swords possesses a special weakness. If the characters specifically attack the item or achieve the condition, the weapon master suffers double damage from hits scored and has a -2 on initiative for the next round. The weaknesses are:

Paper Warrior: His desk (AC 7).

43. Paper Warrior
This chamber holds a large mahogany table with moldering cushions to sit on. Upon the table are several sheets of colorful paper, an ink dish, and a 2 foot long white plume, tipped with silver.

This is the den of the fifth weapon master Ito Chomei, a shukenja and steward of the clan. If the papers or the quill pen are disturbed, they are snatched away by an invisible force and the ink flows from the dish forming words on a clean sheet of paper. These words spring from the page and take the form of a tattooed man. With a wave of his hand, the door to the chamber slides shut and bolts.

Ito Chomei: 8th level shukenja (AC 5; MV 9”; hp 36; #AT 2; THAC0 16; Dmg 1-4 and special; ki: +3 on saves

Chomei first acts to protect himself while speaking to the characters about disturbing him, and then seeks to cause confusion.

His spells include:
First Level: curse, cause light wounds (x4), deflection;
Second Level: hold person (x2), obscurement, speak with animals, snake summons;
Third Level: cause disease, dispel magic, bestow curse;
Fourth Level: tongues (reversed)

Ito Chomei is known as the Paper Warrior, because he can fold and animate origami weapons. He can fold two per round (four using his special martial arts maneuver speed) and can even do so while being attacked. These devices each possess AC 8 and 15 hit points, and suffer double damage from fire. He has 14 pieces of paper. Once an item is folded, his breath enlarges it to double size. The items he can fold are:

Shield Beetle: Absorbs all damage from a single blow. Excess damage is lost.

Bee Warrior: Acts as a second level bushi, but does 1d6 points of damage.

Vipers: These have MV 6”; #AT 1; THAC0 18; Dmg 1 + poison; poison damage 2-8, save negates.

Pinwheel: Razor-sharp blades slash at legs as it rolls along the floor (#AT 1; THAC0 15; Dmg 2-5).

Leaping Locusts: Distract one foe a round, treat as a protection from good (-2 to PCs attacks, +2 to shukenja saves).

Octopus: Attacks one character within 10’. If a save vs. spells is made, the victim takes 1-4 points of damage and the octopus is destroyed. If failed, the victim takes 2-8 the first round and 3-12 in all later rounds.

An effective way to stage this is to have the origami devices coming in from different directions at different heights to create maximum PC confusion.

Chomei’s martial arts special maneuvers are: pain touch, prone fighting, one finger, fall, missile deflection, iron skin and speed.

Chomei’s weapons include a kiseru (iron pipe) and the quill pen. The latter is special.

Quill Pen: Characters struck by the pen do not suffer damage, but must make a save vs. breath weapon or have their perception of reality “rewritten.” The DM may choose from the following confusion effects: a friend looks like a foe; the victim believes the battle is over; sees the foe as his friend, etc.) This effect lasts for 6 rounds.

When the Paper Warrior is defeated there is the sound of crumpling paper as he collapses into a ball. Within a drawer in his desk there is a prayer cloth with two cure disease and three cure serious wound spells. There is also a box of eight pen nibs, but one is really a katana charm that fits into the medallion.

Note: OA2's monster appendix table lists his alignment as LE.

Originally from OA2 Night of the Seven Swords (1986).

 

[freyar]

OK, I think the easiest thing to deal with first will be the spells. Casts as 8th level cleric? That's 6/5+1/4+1/4+1/2+1 spells/day. I guess we should figure out what domain we want, but we have a decent start on the spell selection (at least making some guesses at spell conversion).
0: 6 TBD
1: doom, entropic shield, 3+1 TBD since inflict light wounds can be cast spontaneously
2: hold person, summon monster II, 2+1 TBD (or 1+1 if we take 2x hold person) due to lack of good equivalents
3: bestow curse, contagion, dispel magic, 1+1 TBD
4: tongues, +1 TBD (though I don't know what reversing does to tongues)
Any thoughts on the domain? Darkness, Evil, Artifice, or Creation all seem like possibilities.

 

[Cleon]

OK, I think the easiest thing to deal with first will be the spells. Casts as 8th level cleric? That's 6/5+1/4+1/4+1/2+1 spells/day. I guess we should figure out what domain we want, but we have a decent start on the spell selection (at least making some guesses at spell conversion).
0: 6 TBD
1: doom, entropic shield, 3+1 TBD since inflict light wounds can be cast spontaneously
2: hold person, summon monster II, 2+1 TBD (or 1+1 if we take 2x hold person) due to lack of good equivalents
3: bestow curse, contagion, dispel magic, 1+1 TBD
4: tongues, +1 TBD (though I don't know what reversing does to tongues)
Any thoughts on the domain? Darkness, Evil, Artifice, or Creation all seem like possibilities.

Hmm… I'll need to check my copy of Oriental Adventures to see how some of the spells work but most of those look OK.

Reversing tongues renders the target incapable of coherent speech, meaning they can't use spells with verbal components.

I'm thinking silence or confusion would be the closest equivalent spells in the SRD.

We could give it the Trickery domain and cover both bases by giving it both those spells - we have a free 2nd level spell slot for the silence.

The snake summoning causes serpents within range to move up to the shukenja and follow them around wherever they go, without harming the shukenja or anyone else unless attacked, as long as the shukenja concentrates or until the duration expires - whereupon the serpents resume their natural behaviour. The serpents are not otherwise controlled by the spell.

That's a bit special-case. I suppose we could write up a special ability or new spell that does that, but I'd be more inclined to give it Animal as its second domain, since that would give it access to speak with animals like the original creature, albeit as a spell-like ability. It would also allow us to give it summon nature's ally IV as its level 4 domain spell which it could use to summon a Huge viper, or we could have it summon fiendish vipers with regular summon spells.

I think we're better with the normal summon spell though. Upon reflection the Animal domain spell of calm animals has a similar but weaker effect to snake summoning so we could use that as a representation of it.

Obscurement creates a mass of mist "reducing all vision to 2 to 8 feet", so it's basically the same as fog cloud. We could give it fog cloud if it had the Water domain instead of Trickery, or we could just go the cheap option and substitute obscuring mist.

I prefer the obscuring mist option.

I'd be inclined to give it two hold person spells like the original.

The deflection spell grants the cleric a save vs. death magic whenever an enemy makes a "to hit" attack against them. A success causes a ranged attack to miss and a melee attack to do half damage. I guess the entropic shield you suggested is the closest 3E SRD spell.

The spell curse is a multi-target combat debuff that gives enemies a -1 penalty to hit, so it's equivalent to bane rather than doom.

Putting that together would give us…


Speak With Animals (Sp): The paper warrior can use speak with animals once per day as a spell-like ability. This is a granted power from the Animal cleric domain.

Spells: The paper warrior has the spellcasting ability of an 8th level cleric with the Animal and Trickery domains. It gains the granted powers of its cleric domains.

Typical Cleric Spells Prepared (6/5+1/4+1/4+1/2+1; save DC 13 + spell level):
0—one, two, three, four, five, six;
1st—bane, calm animals*, entropic shield, obscuring mist, five, six;
2nd—hold person (×2), invisibility*, summon monster II, silence;
3rd—bestow curse, contagion, dispel magic, dominate animal*, five;
4th—confusion*, two, three.
*Domain spell. Domains: Animal and Trickery.

 

[freyar]

I like that list pretty well. How about the following for the remainder of the spells?
0 - detect magic, guidance (x2), read magic, resistance (x2)
1 - shield of faith, summon monster I
3 - summon monster III
4 - air walk, poison (I'm kind of amused by the idea of him standing in the air and tossing down origami death)

Does that work?

 

[Cleon]

I like that list pretty well. How about the following for the remainder of the spells?
0 - detect magic, guidance (x2), read magic, resistance (x2)
1 - shield of faith, summon monster I
3 - summon monster III
4 - air walk, poison (I'm kind of amused by the idea of him standing in the air and tossing down origami death)

Does that work?

Looks OK to me.

That's a lot of summon monster spells though. I guess as a solo spellcaster it has to make its own allies, but its origami helpers are probably going to be more effective than any of the creatures on the summon monster I or II lists, especially considering it can create two or four of them at a time.

Perhaps we should just give it summon monster III and give it something different for the I and maybe the II. How about sanctuary? Wouldn't that protect it while it's creating origami allies. Failing that, protection from good is a reliable fallback.

Incidentally, what precisely is a "nonattack spell" for purposes of sanctuary?

Maybe desecrate, hold person, owl's wisdom or silence for the other spell? There are plenty of useful 2nd level spells.

 

[freyar]

True, lots of summon monsters, but it did seem kind of like his schtick. Sanctuary and hold person would be fine as alternatives to summon monster I and II. That work for you?

 

[Cleon]

True, lots of summon monsters, but it did seem kind of like his schtick. Sanctuary and hold person would be fine as alternatives to summon monster I and II. That work for you?

Come to think of it, it's already got two hold person spells so a third would be extraneous. I'll give it sanctuary though.

It's also already got silence, which leaves desecrate or owl's wisdom among my proposed replacements for summon monsters II. I think I'll go for desecrate since it's a bit more unusual choice than owl's wisdom. Besides, not many of its spells have saves and its immune to mind-affecting spells, so the undead benefits from desecrate might be more useful to the Paper Warrior.

That makes it:

Speak With Animals (Sp): The paper warrior can use speak with animals once per day as a spell-like ability. This is a granted power from the Animal cleric domain.

Spells: The paper warrior has the spellcasting ability of an 8th level cleric with the Animal and Trickery domains. It gains the granted powers of its cleric domains.

Typical Cleric Spells Prepared (6/5+1/4+1/4+1/2+1; save DC 13 + spell level):
0—detect magic, guidance (x2), read magic, resistance (x2);
1st—bane, calm animals*, entropic shield, obscuring mist, sanctuary, shield of faith;
2nd—desecrate, hold person (×2), invisibility*, silence;
3rd—bestow curse, contagion, dispel magic, dominate animal*, summon monster III;
4th—air walk, confusion*, poison.
*Domain spell. Domains: Animal and Trickery.

Are you OK with the above? If so I can update the Working Draft.

 

[freyar]

Yes, desecrate is good. I can go for that.

I have a feeling that the origami will take a while, so let's do the weapons next. I think during the period we lost to the crash, you'd said a kiseru is a lead-pipe kind of weapon. Should we base that on a quarterstaff?

 

[Cleon]

Yes, desecrate is good. I can go for that.

Updating the Paper Warrior Working Draft.

I have a feeling that the origami will take a while, so let's do the weapons next. I think during the period we lost to the crash, you'd said a kiseru is a lead-pipe kind of weapon. Should we base that on a quarterstaff?

That's OK by me. We might as well sort out all the fighting-related stuff while we're at it, like Martial Artistry and Unholy Toughness.

As for the "lead quarterstaff" idea I'm afraid you're way off the mark.

A kiseru is a tobacco pipe. As in you can smoke tobacco in it. Normally the ends are made out of metal and the middle is wood, but a "melee weapon version" like the one under discussion could be all-metal and one or two feet long. It'd most likely be made out of iron. The 1E AD&D Oriental Adventures gave it the following writeup:

From Oriental Adventures (1E)

Basic Equipment and Supplies Cost
Kiseru (iron pipe) 50 yuan [see note]

Weight and Damage

Weapon Type	Approximate Weight	Damage vs. S or M	Damage vs. L
Kiseru	5	1-4	1-2	f

f These weapons can be used to perform the martial arts weapon style maneuvers.

Hand Held Weapons, General Data

Weapon Type	Length	Space Req.	Speed Fac.	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Kiseru	2'	1'	3	-7	-6	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	-1	0	0	+1

Kiseru: The kiseru is a tobacco pipe made of metal. Its innocent appearance disguises its use as a clubbing weapon. It is popular with peasants and monks, because it is cheap and easy to make and does not appear as a dangerous weapon. It can also be used for smoking.

[Note] According to the original Oriental Adventures, 50 yuan has a "real value" of 250 copper pieces but an "exchange value" of only 50 copper pieces. In standard 1E AD&D currency terms that real value equals 25 sp or 1.25 gp and the exchange value equals 5 sp or 0.25 gp.

It doesn't have any exact equivalents among the SRD weapons. I guess a light mace is closest, but that is a LOT heavier and does more damage.

Maybe modify the jitte from the 3E version of Oriental Adventures? That's sort-of-similar in its stats, although we likely would want to remove or alter the jitte's disarm ability:

From Oriental Adventures (3E)
Exotic Weapons—Melee
Small

Weapon	Cost	Damage	Crit	Range Inc.	Weight	Type
Jitte*	5 sp	1d4	x2	—	2 lb.	Bludgeoning

Jitte: With a jitte, you get a +2 bonus on your opposed attack roll when attempting to disarm an enemy (including the opposed attack roll to avoid being disarmed if you fail to disarm your enemy).

A monk using a jitte can strike with her unarmed base attack bonus, including her more favorable number of attacks per round, along with other applicable modifiers.

That ought to work with a bit of tweaking. I'd keep the monk weapon bit and drop the +2 on disarm checks.

Additionally, I'd be inclined to downstep it to a martial or simple weapon. It's hardly a complicated weapon that requires complex techniques. it's a metal-tipped or all-metal rod you wack your enemy with.

 

[freyar]

Ok, so how about 1d4 damage, 2lb, bludgeoning, simple weapon? If we want to keep the cost at 5 sp, we could say that it can pass as a non-weapon. How's that?

Then we have

Quill Pen: Characters struck by the pen do not suffer damage, but must make a save vs. breath weapon or have their perception of reality “rewritten.” The DM may choose from the following confusion effects: a friend looks like a foe; the victim believes the battle is over; sees the foe as his friend, etc.) This effect lasts for 6 rounds.

So... touch attack that causes the effects of a confusion spell for 6 rounds? Maybe 2d6 or 1d12 rounds would be acceptable as a random value with a similar average.