Converting Oriental Adventures creatures

[freyar]

You're right, helpless is too much, full-round action should be ok.

Feats: Weapon Finesse for one. Maybe Combat Reflexes as the second fighter bonus, or else Point Blank Shot. That leaves the 5 regular feats. Combat Casting, Spell Focus (evocation), Spell Focus (conjuration) perhaps. Could go for a skill booster, like Magical Aptitude. Not sure what else seems right for something that's kind of hybrid fighter/sorc. Improved Counterspell? Another melee feat?

 

[Cleon]

You're right, helpless is too much, full-round action should be ok.

Feats: Weapon Finesse for one. Maybe Combat Reflexes as the second fighter bonus, or else Point Blank Shot. That leaves the 5 regular feats. Combat Casting, Spell Focus (evocation), Spell Focus (conjuration) perhaps. Could go for a skill booster, like Magical Aptitude. Not sure what else seems right for something that's kind of hybrid fighter/sorc. Improved Counterspell? Another melee feat?

Let's see, as it gets fighter bonus feats as if it were a 12th level fighter that is … seven fighter feats. That ought to be enough!

Hmm…

Fighter Feats: Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus (rattle), Weapon Specialization (rattle), Weapon Finesse

I fancied giving it Sidestep Charge or maybe Reckless Offense, but those turned out not to be Fighter Feats. Oh well.

For the regular we ought to focus on spellcasting. Let's see, for Spell Focus considerations we have:

Conjuration - fog cloud, stinking cloud
Evocation - burning hands, gust of wind, fireball, shout
Enchantment - sleep, hideous laughter
Illusion - ventriloquism
Necromancy - vampiric touch
Transmutation - haste (harmless), telekinesis (object)

Looks like your proposed Spell Foci of Evocation and Conjuration make sense, although I'm also tempted by Enchantment.

Shall we just give 'im all three? It's already got a respectable +2 DC to the "air" spells from Air Mastery of course, but in the grand tradition of 3E caster cheese we might as well munchkin-up a bit.

Wouldn't bother with Magical Aptitude since, like most skill feats, it's pretty useless. Combat Casting seems appropriate though. I'd suggest Eschew Materials for the last one, although we could assume the Screamer just has a spell component pouch like a regular caster if there's another feat you fancy.

Oh, and we might as well toss in the standard wizard's Scribe Scroll bonus feat in their for flavour.

That makes:

Feats: Combat Casting, Combat Reflexesᴮ, Eschew Materials, Improved Initiativeᴮ, Point Blank Shotᴮ, Rapid Shotᴮ, Scribe Scrollᴮ, Spell Focus (Conjuration, Evocation, Enchantment), Weapon Focus (rattle)ᴮ, Weapon Specialization (rattle)ᴮ, Weapon Finesseᴮ*
*fighter bonus feat

Incidentally, I was seriously tempted by Energy Substitution [sonic] so it could "scream" a fireball or burning hands since it seemed so appropriate but I didn't fancy the extra Metamagic feat we'd need to waste as a prerequisite since it'd never get used.

That said, we could add it as a Special Ability…

Sonic Substitution (Sp): When the Screaming Child casts a spell with the acid, cold, electricity, or fire, it can modify the spell to use the sonic type of energy instead. The altered spell uses a spell slot of the spell’s normal level and works normally in all respects except the type of damage dealt.

Hmm… I like that. It does help explain the fellow's "Screaming" moniker.

 

[Cleon]

Not sure what else seems right for something that's kind of hybrid fighter/sorc. Improved Counterspell? Another melee feat?

That makes:

Feats: Combat Casting, Combat Reflexesᴮ, Eschew Materials, Improved Initiativeᴮ, Point Blank Shotᴮ, Rapid Shotᴮ, Scribe Scrollᴮ, Spell Focus (Conjuration, Evocation, Enchantment), Weapon Focus (rattle)ᴮ, Weapon Specialization (rattle)ᴮ, Weapon Finesseᴮ*
*fighter bonus feat

Incidentally, while I like Improved Counterspell in theory, in practice no-one ever used Counterspell since it requires a readied action and thus locks the caster into just (maybe) neutralizing the enemy's spell instead of actually doing anything harmful to them so it very rarely gets used. Plus it's a waste of a spell if there's the option to just blast/smash the enemy and disrupt their spell the old-fashioned way. It'd be especially problematic for the Child since it has to fight a party solo.

Counterspelling needs serious revision to become a viable strategy in 3E.

 

[Thirteenspades]

I can't wait for the next CC update!

 

[Cleon]

I can't wait for the next CC update!

I'll probably do another update once we've finished another conversion. At the moment I've just got minor corrections to existing conversions so it didn't seem worth doing an update.

Shouldn't take long since the Mystaran Kraken's almost done. Unfortunately things have been going achingly slowly since Freyar's been so busy. It'd help if we had a few more collaborators for these collaborative conversions.

Might start making some more Cleon Specials just to have something to do…

 

[freyar]

Yes, life + work + recently extra COVID work = not much EN World time.

Anyway, I can go for your suggested feat selection as well as Sonic Substitution.

That seems to do it on the base mechanics. What do you think for CR? An ogre mage is a similar hybrid caster/fighter but has a horrible CR, so that's not much use. I think I'd go with CR 9 --- it's a 9th level caster, and the additional fighting ability should get the CR that high for real.

 

[Cleon]

Yes, life + work + recently extra COVID work = not much EN World time.

Currently I have the opposite "problem". Too much spare time and little to do due to the Covid lockdown.

Anyway, I can go for your suggested feat selection as well as Sonic Substitution.

Updating The Screaming Child Working Draft.

Took me a while to make sure I'd accounted for all the feats, but I think I've got everything. I also tweaked the "Rattle" in the attack lines to "rattle mace" to match the "rattle ball" of the ranged application.

That seems to do it on the base mechanics. What do you think for CR? An ogre mage is a similar hybrid caster/fighter but has a horrible CR, so that's not much use. I think I'd go with CR 9 --- it's a 9th level caster, and the additional fighting ability should get the CR that high for real.

Thing is, a vanilla 9th level spellcaster is supposed to be CR 9 and our overly loud infant is basically a 9th level caster with a spell-boosting special abilities AND is also a fighter.

So I'd lean towards Challenge Rating 10. The Couatl is a 9th-level spellcaster plus having some meaty combat abilities and its CR 10, although it's too different a creature to be a solid basis of comparison.

Oh, the SRD Ogre Mage is pretty horrible to figure out what CR is appropriate. If run deviously (i.e. by cheesing its invisibility, darkness, flight and regeneration abilities) it can whittle away opponents with hit-and-fade attacks and could be frustratingly lethal to low-ish level parties, especially if they don't have see invisibility. But then that's a tactic that most smart regenerating monsters should use but often don't if the DM thinks it's anti-fun for the party.

 

[Cleon]

Oh, the SRD Ogre Mage is pretty horrible to figure out what CR is appropriate. If run deviously (i.e. by cheesing its invisibility, darkness, flight and regeneration abilities) it can whittle away opponents with hit-and-fade attacks and could be frustratingly lethal to low-ish level parties, especially if they don't have see invisibility. But then that's a tactic that most smart regenerating monsters should use but often don't if the DM thinks it's anti-fun for the party.

Challenge Rating 8 is still too high for the Ogre Mage though.

 

[freyar]

Yeah, like I said, the Ogre Mage has a horrible CR. It's a nice iconic character but entirely mis-evaluated.

I'm ok with CR 10 for the screaming child, but I do think that CR 9 for a generic 9th level caster is too high (except maybe for a cleric).

Let's look at the special weakness. The rattle should be Diminutive, so AC 7. Since it's metal (and magic), hardness should probably be at least 10, maybe 12 or so. I'd probably go with a break DC around 30, a bit better than masterwork manacles. And those are coincidentally a bit tougher than the Paper Warrior's desk!

 

[Cleon]

Yeah, like I said, the Ogre Mage has a horrible CR. It's a nice iconic character but entirely mis-evaluated.

I'm ok with CR 10 for the screaming child, but I do think that CR 9 for a generic 9th level caster is too high (except maybe for a cleric).

Updating The Screaming Child Working Draft.

I'd tend to agree that a generic caster is only really CR = level if it's been min-maxed and has PC grade equipment. A mediocre 9th level wizard with skills, spells and feats that are actually commercially useful outside the Murder Hobo business such as scrying, crafting, communication & transport is a poor match to many CR 9 monsters.

Course the majority of casters suck as solo encounters since they may have cool tricks but tend to either get mincemeated before they can use many (or any) of them or win initiative and knock the party out of the fight with some unbalanced spell or other.

Let's look at the special weakness. The rattle should be Diminutive, so AC 7. Since it's metal (and magic), hardness should probably be at least 10, maybe 12 or so. I'd probably go with a break DC around 30, a bit better than masterwork manacles. And those are coincidentally a bit tougher than the Paper Warrior's desk!

The AC only matters if the Rattle is unattended, normally targeting it would require a Sunder attack that uses an opposed attack roll rather than a "striking a carried object" roll vs its attended AC.

Incidentally, the Rattle is a light weapon so should be two sizes smaller than the Child, meaning it's Tiny rather than Diminutive and would have AC 9 unattended or AC 17 attended (10 + 2 size + 2 object + 3 Dex).

Hmm, the Shadow Walker also has its weapon as its Special Weakness so shouldn't we crib from that SQ:

Special Weakness - Shadowless Blade (Ex): Each of the seven swords have a different special weakness. The Shadow Walker's is that its existence is tied to its shadowless blade. Whenever an attack would normally inflict damage to that scythe-chain (hardness 12, break DC 30) the Shadow Walker suffers double that amount of damage instead. In addition, whenever the shadowless blade is damaged the Shadow Walker must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 15 plus damage inflicted) or be stunned for 1 round.​

Dang it, the Shadowless Blade should have hardness 14 being a +2 weapon. It's +2 hardness per enhancement plus, not +1.

Since the Rattle is a +3 weapon it ought to have hardness 16.

Hmm… I'm thinking DC 15 plus damage for the stun check was too high. Maybe make it DC 10 instead?

Actually, why did we make it stun the Shadow Walker? The original item weaknesses for ALL the Seven Swords said they take double damage plus suffer a -2 on initiative for the next round if their special item is damaged, so I'm thinking maybe it should be the Shaken condition instead?

So how about adding the following to all the Seven Swords:

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.