Converting "Real World" Animals and Vermin

[Cleon]

Skills: 7
All in Spot?

I'd prefer 3 in Spot and 4 in Listen (or vica-versa).

Feats: 2
Improved Initiative, Power Attack?

Don't like Improved Initiative for them, what about Cleave or Reckless Offense?

 

[freyar]

Either of those two feats (R.O. or Cleave) sound appropriate for these psycho scallops. Reckless Offense would probably be better with the charge, though.

Spot and/or Listen or fine.

I'd like to expand the tactics a little:
A giant carnivorous scallop can swim by making a butterfly movement with its shell. The scallop prefers to hide using its camouflage ability, then surprises its prey with its paralyzing cloud. When prey avoids the paralysis, it often releases a sudden expulsion of water, jetting backward and slamming its victim with great force as a charge attack.

 

[Cleon]

Either of those two feats (R.O. or Cleave) sound appropriate for these psycho scallops. Reckless Offense would probably be better with the charge, though.

Spot and/or Listen or fine.

I'd like to expand the tactics a little:
A giant carnivorous scallop can swim by making a butterfly movement with its shell. The scallop prefers to hide using its camouflage ability, then surprises its prey with its paralyzing cloud. When prey avoids the paralysis, it often releases a sudden expulsion of water, jetting backward and slamming its victim with great force as a charge attack.

I's put the butterfly swimming bit in the regular description and reword the tactics a bit, something like:

A huge scalloped shellfish, at least as wide as a human is tall. Two rows of tiny blue eyes interspersed with short, thin tentacles peek from between its shells.

Giant carnivorous scallops are a dangerous shellfish with a rudimentary, animal intelligence. They can swim by making a butterfly movement with its shell, but spend most of their lives lying motionless while waiting for prey.

A typical giant carnivorous scallop has a shell 6 feet across and weighs 1500 pounds.

Combat
A giant carnivorous scallop lies camouflaged on the sea bed until a creature wanders close enough to attack. The scallop then releases a cloud of paralyzing poison and tries to tries to trap a victim in its shell. They can also charge up to 30 ft. to slam into an opponent with the sharp edges of their shell.

 

[Shade]

I dislike Cleave for 'em, but Reckless Offensive sounds appropriate.

I like Cleon's description and flavor text, but prefer freyar's tactics.

Updated.

I think they're finished, unless we want to work on a psionic underbar.

 

[Cleon]

I dislike Cleave for 'em, but Reckless Offensive sounds appropriate.

I like Cleon's description and flavor text, but prefer freyar's tactics.

Updated.

In that case you might as well remove one of the "butterfly movement" swimming descriptions, e.g.:

This huge scalloped shellfish is at least as wide as a human is tall. Two rows of tiny blue eyes interspersed with short, thin tentacles peek from between its shells.

Giant carnivorous scallops are a dangerous shellfish with a rudimentary, animal intelligence. A giant carnivorous scallop can swim by making a butterfly movement with its shell, but spends most of its life lying motionless while waiting for prey.

A typical giant carnivorous scallop has a shell 6 feet across and weighs 1,500 pounds.

COMBAT

A giant carnivorous scallop prefers to hide using its camouflage ability, then surprises its prey with its paralyzing cloud. When prey avoids the paralysis, it often releases a sudden expulsion of water, jetting backward and slamming its victim with great force as a charge attack.

I think they're finished, unless we want to work on a psionic underbar.

I would quite like to do a psionic version, but I think it needs a full writeup so might be a separate creature rather than an underbar.

All we've got to work with it "Unconfirmed rumors suggest the possibility of intelligent, or even psionic clam and oyster colonies", so we can pretty much do what we like.

The big question is are the individual scallops psionic/intelligent or is the mind distributed among the entire colony? I fancy giving them a "collective mind" of some sort, maybe like the Horde.

As for their abilities, We could apply the Phrenic Creature template to a giant carnivorous scallop, boost the intelligence a little and maybe expand the PLAs. Maybe have them increase their PLAs according to the size/HD of the colony, so a small colony can only attack with mind thrust, but a large one can use brain lock or psionic domination on opponents?

What do you think?

 

[freyar]

I was going to say that mostly just adding the phrenic template wouldn't require more than a mention, but perhaps doing a hive mind would be interesting. But I think we could do this with an underbar.

Psionic Carnivorous Scallop Colonies
Some clusters of giant carnivorous scallops develop a hive mind similar to formians, gaining an Intelligence of X. Furthermore, the cluster gains the phrenic creature template, using the total HD (or total number of scallops????) of the cluster as the effective HD of the creature for determining the psi-like abilities granted by the template.

 

[Shade]

I was going to say that mostly just adding the phrenic template wouldn't require more than a mention, but perhaps doing a hive mind would be interesting. But I think we could do this with an underbar.

Psionic Carnivorous Scallop Colonies
Some clusters of giant carnivorous scallops develop a hive mind similar to formians, gaining an Intelligence of X. Furthermore, the cluster gains the phrenic creature template, using the total HD (or total number of scallops????) of the cluster as the effective HD of the creature for determining the psi-like abilities granted by the template.

Yeah, I fancy this. I'd rather not do a full-blown new creature.

 

[Cleon]

Yeah, I fancy this. I'd rather not do a full-blown new creature.

Spoilsport.

I was thinking of going a bit further than just a Phrenic template. Mainly I'd have their collective mind share one set of SLAs, and only one of the scallops would cast an SLA per round.

As for what those SLAs would be, I'm leaning towards giving them a HD-equivalent equal to either the clam with the largest HD or the number of clams in the collective, whichever is greater. That would beg the question of what happens when members of the collective are killed, though.

 

[freyar]

Oy, you're getting into subsumed mind territory there!

 

[Shade]

Oy, you're getting into subsumed mind territory there!

Yeah, I don't ever want to venture down that road again!

It sounds like a Cleon Special (TM) is in the works...


Anyway, let's just filll in the x's in freyar's writeup and call it a day for the CC version.