Spelljammer Converting Spelljammer creatures

[freyar]

Remember they have a 50% miss chance from being incorporeal on the energy damage. I like Immunity to Material Magic, but we might want to spell out how it interacts with the incorporeal traits and think what we actually want to do. Honestly, I think I'd be satisfied with regular incorporeality and chalk up the difference to the lack of standardization in older editions.

 

[Cleon]

Remember they have a 50% miss chance from being incorporeal on the energy damage. I like Immunity to Material Magic, but we might want to spell out how it interacts with the incorporeal traits and think what we actually want to do. Honestly, I think I'd be satisfied with regular incorporeality and chalk up the difference to the lack of standardization in older editions.

Hmm, it'd be easy enough to account for the incorporeal trait:

Immunity to Material Magic (Ex): A porton ignores damage or obstruction caused by the material manifestation of spells even if they penetrate its incorporeality, although energy damage and force effects from spells affect it normally. For example, an ice storm spell (3d6 bludgeoning and 2d6 cold) only does cold damage to a porton, and a black tentacles cannot grapple a porton.

I'd be OK just using regular incorporeality, but the original seemed to make a big deal about energy components from spells affecting it while the same spells "material" effects blow through.

Hmm, maybe we should have it so that energy damage always affects it, regardless of incorporeality? That seems closer to the original intent.

Immateriality (Ex): A porton's incorporeal subtype does not protect it from energy damage, but does allow it to ignore any physical damage or obstruction caused by spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. A black tentacles spell cannot grapple a porton, for example, and a porton's incorporeality does not give it a 50% chance to ignore the 2d6 cold damage from an ice storm spell, but it always ignores that spell's 3d6 bludgeoning damage.

I like the Immateriality better.

 

[freyar]

Of the two options, I like Immateriality better, but I think I like straight incorporeality most of all. These things have enough exceptional mechanics.

 

[Cleon]

Of the two options, I like Immateriality better, but I think I like straight incorporeality most of all. These things have enough exceptional mechanics.

Yeah, it's just that they went to the trouble of spelling out that magics that "pour damaging energy" harm them.

Blast it, I just realized we're doing this backwards. It's not a matter of them having a special "immaterial" trait, it's that their incorporeality's 50% to ignore damage does not apply to energy damage.

That suggests something like:

Susceptible To Energy Damage (Ex): A porton's incorporeal subtype never protects it from energy damage. For example, a porton's incorporeality gives it a 50% chance to ignore the 3d6 bludgeoning damage from an ice storm spell, but it does not ignore the ice storm's 2d6 cold damage. The porton's spell resistance still applies.

 

[freyar]

That's fair enough, I just think that the only reason they spell that out is due to inconsistencies in how incorporeality worked back then. 3.X codified a lot of things that varied from case to case earlier. Still, I'll let you decide.

 

[Cleon]

That's fair enough, I just think that the only reason they spell that out is due to inconsistencies in how incorporeality worked back then. 3.X codified a lot of things that varied from case to case earlier. Still, I'll let you decide.

I'd rather give 'em the Susceptible To Energy Damage. It makes them a bit more distinctiveness and gives the PCs a reliable method of damaging them without having to use force effects or ghost touch attacks. Besides, it'll make Evokers feel a bit more worthwhile.

 

[freyar]

Very well, Susceptibility it is.

I think we should put a touch attack with damage (Void Field) in their attack lines.

Speed originally was 12 for flight. Does that translate well?

 

[Cleon]

Very well, Susceptibility it is.

I think we should put a touch attack with damage (Void Field) in their attack lines.

Updating the Porton Working Draft.

Speed originally was 12 for flight. Does that translate well?

Let's see, the original text says Portons "float slowly through the skies" at a speed of "about 12", which combined with their manoeuvrability of (D) translates to Fly 30 ft. (clumsy), plus Hover as a bonus feat.

However, it also says that "they can achieve a maximum speed of 12, but they will not do so without a good reason", suggesting they won't/don't/can't move faster than a standard move.

I'm thinking we'd best add "cannot run". I can see several possibilities.

Fly 60 ft. (12 squares, clumsy, cannot run) would give them a max speed exactly as fast as an average running human.
Fly 30 ft. (6 squares, clumsy, cannot run) would give them a max speed equal to a hustling average human, but a human can outrun one.
An inbetween speed - e.g. Fly 30 ft. (6 squares, clumsy, cannot run) - means a human would have to Run to get away from one.

I'd be OK with any of those, which would you prefer for a "clumsy, cannot run" flight speed?

I'm currently leaning slightly towards a "slow but inexorable" 30 ft.

 

[freyar]

I could go with 30 ft, or I could do 15 ft without the "cannot run" restriction. That works out to the same max speed, but they only move that fast when they have special reason (running for a full round vs double movement at 30 ft).

 

[Cleon]

I could go with 30 ft, or I could do 15 ft without the "cannot run" restriction. That works out to the same max speed, but they only move that fast when they have special reason (running for a full round vs double movement at 30 ft).

The original wording suggests a Porton normally moves at speed 12, which is also about its top speed. If we gave it Fly 15 ft. it'd have to be running everywhere to travel that fast, which doesn't seem right - the description suggests they don't tend to "hurry".