Spelljammer Converting Spelljammer creatures

[Cleon]

The working draft is pretty good. The numbers Cleon suggests for Swallow Whole are ok.

So, after typing all that out, I'm fine with big swallow whole. (And I agree with using length or 'ship size' - for the CC version/this thread, that is good enough - and what I was expecting. I was going to switch it to tonnage on my own.)

Good, I'll change the working draft to the 50/100 ft. Swallow Whole then.

Updating Gammaroid Working Draft.

Not sure I'd keep Hold Breath now that we're giving them Starborn.

I agree that hold breath probably is a bit redundant with the starborn ability.

I was planning on removing it, but upon reflection it does no harm to leave it in - it is still a turtle, after all.

Come to think of it, it doesn't have a Swim speed like a regular turtle. Maybe it's actually a tortoise?

That reminds me, it might not have a Swim speed, but shouldn't we add a burrow speed? The flavour text mentions they dig miles underground to hatch their eggs.

Burrow 20 ft., like the Dire Tortoise from Sandstorm?

We also need a Fly speed. A Spelljamming speed of SR 9 is pretty fast, so it ought to be fairly impressive.

Sorry, I have to remember to check this thread more frequently.

Yes you do!

 

[Cleon]

The other number I'm concerned about in the Working Draft is the AC of 35.

The original Gammaroid had AC -10, which in AD&D terms is about the toughest Armour Class you can get.

AC 35 is acceptable for a CR 20 creature (it's what a Tarrasque or http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm#angelSolarBalor have), but it isn't that impressive for an Epic-level creature like this beastie.

Devastation Vermin have Armour Classes from AC 55 (centipede) to AC 72 (beetle), and the aforementioned Colossi go from AC 44 (stone) to AC 60 (iron).

Would anyone object to a substantial increase to its natural armour bonus?

I'm concerned that the Strength may too low.

The Gargantuan template is for a creature roughly 8 times larger (longer) than the original, but a Gammaroid is up to 125 times larger than an average-sized Giant Snapping Turtle going by the shell diameters (2,500 feet vs. 20 feet).

Consider it in terms of Carrying Capacity vs. body weight.

A Giant Snapping Turtle weighs 15+ tons and has a heavy load of 12,480 pounds (Str 32 = 2040 lbs carry, Huge quadruped = ×6 load), a load-to-bodyweight ratio of 0.416.

The Working Draft Gammaroid has a heavy load of 1,413,120 pounds, (Str 36 = 58,880 lbs carry [Str 26's 920 lbs ×64 for +30 Str], Colossal quadruped = ×24).

That's 706 short tons, which seems pretty impressive - until you realize how massive a Gammaroid is.

So how much does a Gammaroid weigh? If it has the same proportions and density as the Snapping Turtle, it's a simple matter of scaling it up.

Let's see...

2,500 ft. Gammaroid shell divided by 20 ft. Turtle shell is a length ratio of 125. Cube that 125 gets a volume ratio of 1,953,125. Multiply that by the 15 ton weight of the Giant Snapping Turtle and we find the Gammaroid weighs...

Almost thirty million tons!

29,296,875 tons, to be precise.

That makes a 706 ton carrying capacity woefully low. It's a load-to-bodyweight ratio of 0.000024098, or a shade more than one part in forty thousand of the Gammaroid's bodyweight.

Now I'm going on the assumption that the 2,500 foot shell is for a particularly big Gammaroid. If our base Gammaroid is "only" 1,000 feet in shell diameter it'll still weigh around two million tons (the above sum works out to 1,875,000 tons).

For the sake of argument I'll be using that assumption for the working draft. A 1000 foot shell plus 2 million ton weight.

If it has the same load-to-bodyweight ratio as the Snapping Turtle, it'll need to be able to carry about 832,000 tons. For a Colossal quadruped to carry that much with its ×24 size multiplier it'll need a Strength of...

...about 107.

[A Str 107 Colossal quadruped has a carrying capacity of 1,635,778,560 pounds (817,899 tons)]

That's too high for me - I don't want them to be stronger than a Draeden! Although a Str around 70 or 80 like a Stone Colossus or Iron Colossus would be acceptable.

So, how about we give the Gammaroid an ability to lift exceptionally heavy loads, like we did the Ferry Turtle while also increasing its Strength score?

e.g.:

Str: 74

Carrying Capacity: Due to their prodigious size and sturdy build, gammaroids can bear immensely heavy loads. Their carrying capacity is a hundred times that of an ordinary creature with their size and Strength. A typical gammaroid can carry a light load of up to 286,720 tons, a medium load of 286,721-573,440 tons, a heavy load of 573,441-860,160 tons, and can drag 4,300,800 tons.

 

[Arnwyn]

No objections for me (both for higher AC and Str). (All this is why I'm sure glad I requested a conversion here instead of attempting these massive monstrosities myself.)

And yeah - burrow and fly. Burrow looks fine (pretty much like its land speed). And yes - a tactical spelljamming speed of SR 9 is *extraordinarily* fast. Not sure how you would convert that here, but it's a minimum of Fly 1,350 ft. if you use the spelljamming combat rules with 150 ft. hexes (more if you use larger hexes). Not saying that's what it should be converted to, but just to give an idea of magnitude.

Clumsy maneuverability, IMO.

 

[freyar]

I'm happy with increasing Str to 74 and your fix for carrying capacity. I don't think I'd looked at the working draft in enough detail to catch that.

Total AC should probably be 80 to 90ish, I'd think, just based on its size. It's bigger than just about anything but a draeden, plus it's got a shell. That should just about all be natural armor, too, though I wouldn't object to some kind of DR to represent the shell.

I don't really like hold breath; it's not going swimming, after all, and starborn must cover that. I do agree to a burrow speed.

I was wondering about the fly speed. 250 ft, maybe, like a fast dragon? EDIT: just saw Arnwyn's post. That speed may not be sufficient!

 

[Cleon]

No objections for me (both for higher AC and Str). (All this is why I'm sure glad I requested a conversion here instead of attempting these massive monstrosities myself.)

I'm happy with increasing Str to 74 and your fix for carrying capacity. I don't think I'd looked at the working draft in enough detail to catch that.

Okay, I'll add the new Str to the Gammaroid Working Draft and update the derived stats to match.

No objections for me (both for higher AC and Str). (All this is why I'm sure glad I requested a conversion here instead of attempting these massive monstrosities myself.)

Total AC should probably be 80 to 90ish, I'd think, just based on its size. It's bigger than just about anything but a draeden, plus it's got a shell. That should just about all be natural armor, too, though I wouldn't object to some kind of DR to represent the shell.

I couldn't decide what would be an appropriate Armour Class, but was thinking something around AC 60 would do (like a Devastation Scorpion or Iron Colossus), since those are both in roughly the same "Colossal Epic Hardcase" niche and have similar Hit Dice.

I was thinking of giving it DR too, but was wondering whether some of it would come from Damage Reduction feats. My preference would be to not give the base creature the DR Epic Feat, but it's got so many feats I'm not sure we'll be able to use them all up otherwise.

Something around DR 15/— or DR 20/— would do, like the tougher Devastation Vermin.

How about DR 18/—?

I don't really like hold breath; it's not going swimming, after all, and starborn must cover that. I do agree to a burrow speed.

Actually no, it doesn't. The Starborn trait only prevents suffocation in space. It offers no protection from suffocation in water.

I'd be OK dropping the Hold Breath if Arnwyn has no objections, but currently I'm in favour of keeping it.

Seems we're agreed on Burrow. Is the 20 ft. speed for that alright?

And yeah - burrow and fly. Burrow looks fine (pretty much like its land speed). And yes - a tactical spelljamming speed of SR 9 is *extraordinarily* fast. Not sure how you would convert that here, but it's a minimum of Fly 1,350 ft. if you use the spelljamming combat rules with 150 ft. hexes (more if you use larger hexes). Not saying that's what it should be converted to, but just to give an idea of magnitude.

I was wondering about the fly speed. 250 ft, maybe, like a fast dragon? EDIT: just saw Arnwyn's post. That speed may not be sufficient!

In AD&D Spelljammer sources, Tactical Spelljamming speed is 500 yards per SR per round, so an SR 9 is 13,500 feet per round. If that were a "Run action" with the Run feet for 5×move, at first glance that translates to a Speed of 2,700 ft., but the Gammaroid can fight while moving at that speed, so it is most likely equivalent to a 2×move Charge action, which translates to a Speed of 6,750.

However, AD&D rounds are one minute long, and 3E are only 6 seconds, so I would feel justified in dividing that by ten, for a Speed of 270 ft. (or 675 ft.).

If we averaged those two speeds to 472.5 and rounded it to the nearest 50 feet, we'd get a Fly speed of 450 ft.

I'd also be OK using the 250 ft. or 300 ft. Speed of a fast dragon, but favour the 300 ft. (as it's the closer to 270 and is also divisible by 3, like SR 9 is). We could always argue that Fly speeds through an atmosphere are necessarily slower than Spelljamming speeds.

In conclusion, either 300 ft. to 450 ft. would be fast enough for me.

Alternatively, we could give it a more modest Fly speed (say 90 ft.) and say it massively boosts its speed when using its Flame Shroud ability, since it's virtually rocket-propelling itself.

 

[Cleon]

Clumsy maneuverability, IMO.

I thought about making it Clumsy, but decided on Poor since the original was class E, which is the second-from-worst class of Spelljamming Maneouvrability. If it was Class F I'd certainly make it Clumsy.

...oh dang it, I just checked the MC9 entry again and I misread/misremembered the MC class. Gammaroids are F, not E.

I'll change the Gammaroid Working Draft to Fly XX ft. (clumsy).

 

[Arnwyn]

I'm good with the AC either way - not sure between 60-80 - as long as it's reasonable for whatever CR this thing ends up being.

The DR sounds fine (any of those, really! I'm not much qualified to guess which is best for the CR we're likely to get...!).

I like the Fly speed of 300 ft. (or 450 ft.). It would work best for me, personally, if it was divisible by 150, so either of those are good for me. (While I do realize that 2e's Spelljammer had 500 yds for hexes, some of the 3e resources - including the best one - uses 150, which is what I use. I just used 150 ft. hexes noting it's the *lowest* out there, and higher if you used 'other' sources [obliquely referring to the now-much-too-large-IMO original 2e hex size]. I think, if it were up to me, Fly 450 ft. (clumsy) would be best. [Because then for my purposes I could reduce it's tactical speed down to 3, which I think is fast enough for something this big... and then give it some type of charge ability to increase its tactical speed in space].)

Alternately, I'm okay with a slow Fly speed in atmosphere, and something faster in space, but that might be pointless in a general stat block. (Though, I think I will do that for my own purposes, now that I think about it...) I'm unsure if a speed distinction is needed for its Flame Shroud ability - just being able to charge is good enough, IMO.


I see both sides of hold breath... For me, personally, I'm okay with dropping it for 3 reasons: 1) I'm including it under the Wildspace subtype for my own purposes, so I've got it covered (again, me only), 2) one less thing to put in the special ability descriptions, 3) It's Con is likely big enough that it can hold it's breath "long enough" if it deigns to ever go underwater.

I like 20 ft. for burrow (just like it's land speed). I could *see* it going faster (just due to its own size - and its claw size!), but I'm not picky.

 

[freyar]

Fly 450 ft (clumsy) works for me.

As for Hold Breath, it's not a normal turtle, it's a space turtle. So that's why I'd drop Hold Breath. As noted, it has a plenty high Con anyway.

 

[Cleon]

Fly 450 ft (clumsy) works for me.

I like the Fly speed of 300 ft. (or 450 ft.). It would work best for me, personally, if it was divisible by 150, so either of those are good for me. (While I do realize that 2e's Spelljammer had 500 yds for hexes, some of the 3e resources - including the best one - uses 150, which is what I use. I just used 150 ft. hexes noting it's the *lowest* out there, and higher if you used 'other' sources [obliquely referring to the now-much-too-large-IMO original 2e hex size]. I think, if it were up to me, Fly 450 ft. (clumsy) would be best.

Since everyone appears to be willing to accept 450 ft., let's use that for the Fly speed.

I'm unsure if a speed distinction is needed for its Flame Shroud ability - just being able to charge is good enough, IMO.

Come to think of it, the "rocket propelled" idea doesn't fit the original description, which says the flame sheath is caused by its incredibly fast rotation. So the speed causes the flames, not vica versa.

As for Hold Breath, it's not a normal turtle, it's a space turtle. So that's why I'd drop Hold Breath. As noted, it has a plenty high Con anyway.

I don't mind dropping it, I just wanted to hear from Annwyn first. Since...

personally, I'm okay with dropping it for 3 reasons:

I'll remove it while updating the Gammaroid Working Draft.

 

[Cleon]

I'm good with the AC either way - not sure between 60-80 - as long as it's reasonable for whatever CR this thing ends up being.

I'd be satisfied with AC 60, but Freyar prefers something higher, around 80-90.

How about we satisfy both of us by giving it a split AC like the original's –2/–10?

All we need to do is give its "Withdraw" SA the property of increasing its NA and DR.

We'll need to modify that ability anyway, because a Gammaroid can move and attack while withdrawn.

How about this. I've changed the name from "Withdraw" to distinguish it from the regular giant turtle version:

Withdraw Limbs (Ex): A gammaroid can pull in its head and limbs to protect its vulnerable areas. While withdrawn, the gammaroid can still fly, but is unable to use its land or burrow speed. A withdrawn gammaroid can sense its surroundings normally and attack by ramming or flame shroud, but cannot use its bite or claw attacks. Withdrawing into its shell also grants the gammaroid heavy fortification, giving it 100% resistance to critical hits, plus a +X ?? bonus to its natural armor bonus, a +Y ?? bonus to its damage reduction and a +Z ?? bonus to all saving throws.

I like 20 ft. for burrow (just like it's land speed). I could *see* it going faster (just due to its own size - and its claw size!), but I'm not picky.

Is burrow 20 ft. OK by you, Freyar?