Converting Oriental Adventures creatures
- Thread starter Shade
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Shade
Monster Junkie
Lower Soul (P'o)
#Appearing: 1-6
AC: 2
Move: 9
Hit Dice: 7-9
% in Lair: 20%
Treasure: 1-4 gems
The P’o is the traditional ordinary Chinese vampire, and should be treated as such, except that it cannot fly, or turn into a bat or mist. In their undisguised forms P’o have green hair, white face, claws, and body, and glowing eyes.
This is the closest thing I could find in Wikipedia:
Jiang Shi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
#Appearing: 1-6
AC: 2
Move: 9
Hit Dice: 7-9
% in Lair: 20%
Treasure: 1-4 gems
The P’o is the traditional ordinary Chinese vampire, and should be treated as such, except that it cannot fly, or turn into a bat or mist. In their undisguised forms P’o have green hair, white face, claws, and body, and glowing eyes.
This is the closest thing I could find in Wikipedia:
Jiang Shi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
The Jiang Shi sound a little more interesting just from the stories, though there's not much mechanically there. We could add a leap or Jump bonus due to the hopping. The one thing I picked up on is that they seem to be mindless, which would be an interesting difference and would seem to imply dropping domination also.
Shade
Monster Junkie
Hopping Vampire
Medium Undead
Hit Dice: 7d12+3 (48 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)
Armor Class: 16 (+6 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+6
Attack: Claw +11 melee (1d4+3)
Full Attack: 2 claws +11 melee (1d4+3)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Curse of vampirism
Special Qualities: Breath sense, damage reduction 10/honorable, darkvision 60 ft., resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10, spell resistance 15
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +4
Abilities: Str 17, Dex 10, Con -, Int 6, Wis 9, Cha 12
Skills: Climb +10, Intimidate +7, Jump +10
Feats: Power Attack, Toughness, Weapon Focus (claw)
Environment: Any land
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: 8–21 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: -
Curse of Vampirism (Su): Any humanoid hit by a hopping vampire’s claw attack must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 13) or contract a curse that turns her into a hopping vampire herself. Over the course of 1d4+1 days, the victim slowly transforms into a vampire, growing fangs and long fingernails and becoming more bestial. To stop the transformation, the character must receive a remove curse spell before the process is complete. Each hour spent hopping or dancing on pure sticky rice delays the curse’s onset by 1 day. (As with any physical exertion, a character can only dance on sticky rice for so long before tiring: After moving around for an hour, each additional hour inflicts 1 point of subdual damage on the character, cumulative—-1 point the second hour, 2 points the third hour, 3 points the fourth hour, and so on.) Once the transformation has run its course, it cannot be reversed by any means short of a wish or miracle. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Breath Sense (Ex): Hopping vampires cannot see living creatures. They can only detect their presence by their breath. In the vampires’ favor, this means that they are not fooled by invisibility or other magic used to trick the sight. Treat this ability like the blindsight special quality as far as living and breathing opponents are concerned; its effective range is 120 feet. On the other hand, a living creature that is not breathing (including a character holding her breath) is effectively invisible to the vampire. (See The Drowning Rule in the Dungeon Master’s Guide for rules on holding breath. Once a character is unconscious, he starts breathing. A character is unable to kill himself by holding his breath.) Unliving creatures that do not breathe, including undead and constructs, are visible to the hopping vampire’s undead sight.
Medium Undead
Hit Dice: 7d12+3 (48 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)
Armor Class: 16 (+6 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+6
Attack: Claw +11 melee (1d4+3)
Full Attack: 2 claws +11 melee (1d4+3)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Curse of vampirism
Special Qualities: Breath sense, damage reduction 10/honorable, darkvision 60 ft., resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10, spell resistance 15
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +4
Abilities: Str 17, Dex 10, Con -, Int 6, Wis 9, Cha 12
Skills: Climb +10, Intimidate +7, Jump +10
Feats: Power Attack, Toughness, Weapon Focus (claw)
Environment: Any land
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: 8–21 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: -
Curse of Vampirism (Su): Any humanoid hit by a hopping vampire’s claw attack must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 13) or contract a curse that turns her into a hopping vampire herself. Over the course of 1d4+1 days, the victim slowly transforms into a vampire, growing fangs and long fingernails and becoming more bestial. To stop the transformation, the character must receive a remove curse spell before the process is complete. Each hour spent hopping or dancing on pure sticky rice delays the curse’s onset by 1 day. (As with any physical exertion, a character can only dance on sticky rice for so long before tiring: After moving around for an hour, each additional hour inflicts 1 point of subdual damage on the character, cumulative—-1 point the second hour, 2 points the third hour, 3 points the fourth hour, and so on.) Once the transformation has run its course, it cannot be reversed by any means short of a wish or miracle. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Breath Sense (Ex): Hopping vampires cannot see living creatures. They can only detect their presence by their breath. In the vampires’ favor, this means that they are not fooled by invisibility or other magic used to trick the sight. Treat this ability like the blindsight special quality as far as living and breathing opponents are concerned; its effective range is 120 feet. On the other hand, a living creature that is not breathing (including a character holding her breath) is effectively invisible to the vampire. (See The Drowning Rule in the Dungeon Master’s Guide for rules on holding breath. Once a character is unconscious, he starts breathing. A character is unable to kill himself by holding his breath.) Unliving creatures that do not breathe, including undead and constructs, are visible to the hopping vampire’s undead sight.
Cleon
Hero
As far as I'm concerned, the Oriental Adventures Hopping Vampire is pretty good, although I don't think Hopping Vampires should have electricity resistance.
As far as the mindlessness goes, that's because the "lower soul" (Po) is like an anima, it's the "physical soul" or vital force that energizes a living (or occasionally undead) body, a person's intelligence resides in their "spiritual soul" or "upper soul" (Hun), which moves on to the afterlife upon death. A hopping vampire results when the lower soul does not leave the body and disperse, but instead reanimates the corpse and starts feeding on the breath (lifeforce) of humans to sustain itself. Since the upper soul has left, there's no intelligence remaining to guide the Jiang Shi.
demiurge1138
Inventor of Super-Toast
I think the hopping vampire is good enough for this application. Let us move on.
Shade
Monster Junkie
Lost Soul (Pr’eta)
#Appearing: 1-6
AC: 5
Move: 12
Hit Dice: 4
% in Lair: 0%
Treasure: Type F X2
The Pr’eta is the soul of a suicide who to go to his rest must kill a replacement. He has an attack of 1-10 plus drain two levels. When someone is killed by damage or drainage by a Pr’eta, both will then vanish — the victim of a Pr’eta does not himself become a Pr’eta. Clerics turn Pr’eta as Vampires, except that a Pr’eta can never be dissolved: if a Dissolve result is rolled, it will merely turn away.
Preta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
#Appearing: 1-6
AC: 5
Move: 12
Hit Dice: 4
% in Lair: 0%
Treasure: Type F X2
The Pr’eta is the soul of a suicide who to go to his rest must kill a replacement. He has an attack of 1-10 plus drain two levels. When someone is killed by damage or drainage by a Pr’eta, both will then vanish — the victim of a Pr’eta does not himself become a Pr’eta. Clerics turn Pr’eta as Vampires, except that a Pr’eta can never be dissolved: if a Dissolve result is rolled, it will merely turn away.
Preta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cleon
Hero
The description here does not match the name, at least according to my understanding of chinese myth.
A Preta is a hungry ghost like the Japanese Gaki, spirits of folk cursed to roam the earth with unsatisfiable hunger for their greed and jealousy in life. They are generally pretty harmless.
The description sounds like a Shui Gui ("Drowned Ghost") or Diao Si Gui ("Hanged Ghost"). These are the ghosts of someone who has died by violence (often, but not necessarily suicide) who tries to lure a person to their death to become their replacement. They don't have a grotesquely large head, scrawny body and pencil-thin neck like a Gaki or Pr'eta, they usually look like they did when they died or shortly afterwards (e.g. sodden wet corpse, broken-necked corpse, gruesomely-chopped-up corpse et cetera). Most of them try to trick or frighten their victim to drive them to their deaths, I don't recall them sucking the life out of folk like a Hopping Vampire, although I think there are stories of Chinese ghosts slowly leaching the life or will to live out of a victim (a bit like the Vrykolakas's "Oppress Sleeper" power we did), it's a process that takes days. Frightening a potential replacement into falling into a torrent to drown, or tumbling off a cliff, is far faster.
Anyhow, as far as their stats go a suicide ghost could just be a Wraith with a makeover, the SRD Ghost's Rejuvenation ability, and a "Create Replacement" SQ instead of Create Spawn.
demiurge1138
Inventor of Super-Toast
We've done a lot of conversions over the years. Welcome to the bottom of the barrel. Aren't allips also the spirits of suicides? I'm not saying we should just call these allips, but it's not a bad place to start thinking of ideas. Perhaps some sort of despair ability?
Shade
Monster Junkie
Indeed. I still find a few gems every now and then, but much of what is left are variations on other creatures, yet more animal-headed or just-slightly-different humanoids, hazards, and mundane animals and vermin.
Interesting. I'd never paid much attention to allips...that makes 'em cooler.
Yeah, despair would help jazz 'em up a bit.
Also, as for the name, let's not use "lost soul" either, as we have another "lost soul" from Ravenloft coming up that is a bit more interesting. "Suicidal Spirit" or somesuch would probably work.
GrayLinnorm
Explorer
We could keep the ability to assume the form of a ball of smoke or fire (as mentioned in Wikipedia). The fireball form could act as a flaming sphere.
demiurge1138
Inventor of Super-Toast
I like the fireball form and a despair aura.
