Cleon
Legend
I'd rather keep the Reflex save, but don't mind using standard Improved Grab if you all really loathe the idea.
Spelljammer Converting Spelljammer creatures
- Thread starter Shade
- Start date
I'd rather keep the Reflex save, but don't mind using standard Improved Grab if you all really loathe the idea.
Shade
Monster Junkie
How about this?
Envelop (Ex): A blazozoid that hits a creature smaller than itself with its firetouch attack can attempt to envelop the target as a swift action. The opponent must succeed on a DC x Reflex save or be enveloped. An enveloped creature may make a Reflex save each round to escape. Each round it remains enveloped, a creature is automatically hit by the blazozoid's firetouch, but is otherwise unhindered in its actions; if the victim moves, the blazozoid moves with it. The blazozoid may not make touch attacks agains other creatures while enveloping a victim. The save DC is Dexterity-based.
Cleon
Legend
That looks pretty good. There's a t missing in "touch attacks agains other creatures".
Maybe modify it so the blazozoid can keep up with a faster creature, and say how it lets go of a victim:
Envelop (Ex): A blazozoid that hits a creature smaller than itself with its firetouch attack can attempt to envelop the target as a swift action. The opponent must succeed on a DC x Reflex save or be enveloped. An enveloped creature may make a Reflex save each round to escape. Each round it remains enveloped, a creature is automatically hit by the blazozoid's firetouch, but is otherwise unhindered in its actions; if the victim moves, the blazozoid moves with it (even if the victim has a higher speed than the blazozoid). The blazozoid may not make touch attacks agains other creatures while enveloping a victim. A blazozoid can release an enveloped victim as a free action. The save DC is Dexterity-based.
Big Mac
Explorer
I've not been here for a while, but the conversion you are doing at the moment is really exciting! I'm so glad I surfed by. 
I would concur with this, but there is something very odd about the blazozoids. They approach ships for one of two reasons:
I can understand a monster wanting to eat PCs (as that is a very good motivation) but these critters need to be imprisoned in a flame-proof container in order to take them into the flow. It does not seem logical that they would demand that non-sentient creatures entomb them*.
* = The obvious way to avoid being eaten by the blazozoid at the destination would appear to be to toss the fire proof box over the back of the ship and try to get one mile away before the critter breaks out.
Anyhoo, if blazozoids are elementals, then relying on this weird S&M relationship with food would seem much less logical than hopping over to the Elemental Plane of Fire (or a transitive plane where fire creatures can live) and crossing from sphere to sphere that way.
I'm sure that a planewalking blazozoid could cross to most parts of the Material Plane and that the need to be locked up in a box would just be there to cover the fact that some suns were hard to find from the other planes.
My guess is that I does not realise that the Plane of Fire exists, that it does not realise that the Plane of Fire allows travel beyond its own crystal sphere or that it does not realise that there is actually a universe beyond its own crystal sphere (and that the blazozoids have knowledge that they have not thought to pass back to it).
Perhaps they are only inflexible with non-fire based creatures. This seems to be connected with the attitude of their parent (I). I reminds me of the Zats from the Cloakmaster Cycle novels. They could not believe that the "parasites" on spelljamming ships were sentient and "helped" a lot of ships by removing the parasites. When they were actually convinced of the truth they suffered a culture shock and after they recovered their attitude was turned around.
I has a "I think therefore I am" attitude - literally!
I is a sun and therefore probably expects other living creatures to be suns. It does not recognise the intelligence of conventional living creatures and does not even consider them to be alive. I guess that as a sun it expects living beings to be formed of flame. PCs and similar sized creatures probably look to I what atoms look like to us. I can understand how I could refuse to believe that tiny freezing objects were not alive.
Blazozoids have picked up this "inflexible attitude" during their creation. I believe that they are created with the same personality as I. I think perhaps they are a bit like an avatar (or perhaps a brain golem.)
In the case of I itself the refusal to accept small creatures as being alive is perhaps something that could be challenged. Given the right amount of proof, I may have the same sort of culture shock as the zats and may then change its viewpont. I think the situation with the blazozoids is different because they have been sent out to test I's theory (by searching for living suns) and have not been sent out to challange their parent's view of the universe.
A blazozoid that is told that a human or a dragon is alive is not just being confronted with the chance that it is wrong, it is being confronted with the chance that I is incorrect. Even if you could convince one blazozoid that you were alive, I would wonder what the reactions of other blazozoids would be. Perhaps they would be convinced that their sibling had become infected with some sort of mind-altering disease.
I wonder if fire-based creatures, like azer or efreet might have more chance of convincing a blazozoid that they are similar enough to them to be considered living creatures.
I think that in that context, they could be seen as Chaotic Neutral, rather than Lawful Neutral. Perhaps I itself is Chaotic Neutral. Perhaps the chaotic element of their alignment means that each blazozoid does whatever it thinks it needs to do to discover a sentient sun. Maybe they have no concept of cooperation and rarely work together or share information. Maybe they end up replicating the work of other blazozoids.
But to be honest, I don't think the alignment is that important to these creatures. I'm arguing mostly from the position of devil's advocate.
I think I would be more concerned about getting a description of I (and its relationship to the blazozoids) into the conversion than the alignment. That is something that I do think is important to this monster. (I figure that somewhere there is an "Ispace" crystal sphere that is packed out with blazozoids who are constantly searching for a way to escape the crystal sphere without touching the phlogiston and exploding.)
The description says they are like huge white elmarin. Perhaps it might be worth looking to see if they have similar abilities.
Blazozoids have a "raming attack" that causes 8d6 points of damage. There are rules for ramming on page 64-65 of Concordance of Arcane Space. Blunt rams cause 1 hull point of damage for every 10 tons of ship and if you look at the rules for "Ramming Gargantuan Creatures" that has every hull point of ship damage convert to 1d6 of critter damage. With the blzozoid causing 8d6 damage, I wonder if it has the "bulk" of an 8 ton spelljamming ship and is surrounded by an "air envelope" that consists entirely of fire.
Actually, with them being described as spheres, but also being described as having a tail - like a comet - that turns blue when they move at spelljamming speed, I think that a spherical body surrounded by fire could help make both statements true.
Looking again at the description we see that they ram for 8d6 damage but then try to use their "flametouch" ability to remain in contact for a further 5d6 damage per round. With the difference between the two being 3d6, I wonder if that is the actual physical damage caused by the critter's ramming attack and that it adds on 5d6 of fire damage when it hits (and then adds another 5d6 of fire damage per round by remaining in contact).
If the blazozoid was treated a bit like a 3 ton spherical ship, that had a flame atmoshere, maybe that could help with the way that "flametouch" works. Maybe this might help sort out the "swallow whole"/"grapple" issue. All the critter would need to do is maintain contact - literally a flame-touch.
They are "sentient balls of energy". Their "fiery bodies are so hot they burn up any matter (including air and water) that they contact".
I is also made up of "living energy". The blazozoids were created from its body.
They "eat" or "refuel" by turning matter into energy and their bodies are "made entirely of energy". A well fed blazozoid may be 60 foot across and a hungry blazozoid may only be 10 foot across.
I think that material from the Plane of Radiance would possibly be the best fit for what blazozoids are made from. It is a mixture of positive energy and fire, and I can imagine a sun being made from radiance. And if they are not fire, that might fit in with the way that they need to burn stuff to gain energy.
Stars in some spheres are portals to the Plane of Radiance, so this might fit in well with your Living Star concept.
Actually, these guys do not react normally with the phlogiston. Page 87 of Concordance of Arcane Space shows that a fire elemental taken into the flow explodes inflicting 1d8 damage for every HD it has to everybody within 20 feet. In contrast a blazozoid come into contact with the flow the exploasion "vaporises everything within one mile" (including itself) and anyone not killed by this explosion is thrown 1d10 miles away from the blast and takes 1d10 damage per mile thrown. This is a much much higher explosion than normal.
On top of this, if a blazozoid comes within 100 feet of phlogiston they cause it to ignite. Fire elementals do not do anything like that. They have to physically touch the stuff.
I think it would be best to include some sort of "Ignite Phlogiston" ability that "causes any phlogiston within 100 feet to ignite" and "causes a blazozoid to explode in a one mile wide nova if it actually comes into direct contact with phlogiston". This could be a bit similar to a draconian's death throes, but with the explosion happening from the outside in.
How do you feel about the fact that a blazozoid that has not "eaten" can shrink down to 10 feet in width (as opposed to a well fed one that is 60 foot across)? I don't know if there is a precedent for it, but I wonder if these guys could "consume" their own hit points and slowly shrink down from colossal and gargantuan and perhaps become even smaller.
If you were to do it that way, you could treat a starving blazozoid as "wounded" and allow it to "heal" its own damage as it causes damage to other objects. That could allow a GM to have a starving 17d8 creature that is encountered with only 5d8 hit points remaining. As it wants energy, and burns matter to create it, it could perhaps even be fed with fireball spells.
I'm thinking of a soccer ball coated in alcohol, set fire and then booted at somone's head at full force.
I'm actually not thinking that it is "engulfing" or "enveloping" the thing it is attacking. I'm thinking that they are actually consuming it!
How about an "Immolate (Ex)" ability, where a blazozoid that remains in contact with an object or creature for more than one round can attempt to set fire to it, so that it can consume the energy (or some of the energy) released from the fire.
If you had something like this, then a hungry blazozoid that burned six NPCs to death might absorb enough energy to become sated and then attempt to fly away. A firetouch-based ability that converts "stuff" touched by the critter into energy that can be eaten might fit in the critter's ecology better than a firetouch that is not tied into its food cycle.
I can't see a good way to get rid of this, short of manhandling it onto a catapult and firing it overboard.
I figure that it can only "feed" from a single target at a single time. With the original stats it can actually do more damage if it flies away from the first target and rams a second target. I reckon it can start to set light to a target, but only starts to absorb energy when it is hot enough to start to vaporise. Tie the two together and you give the critter a reason to focus on a single person (or even a single object) to the exclusion of other targets. But make it want to fight for its life and it could zip about bashing into lots of targets and starting several fires.
One tactic the original monster entry does not cover is the possibility of knocking a PC or NPC overboard and then engaging in zero-g attacks, where the victim is going to find it a lot harder to flee or even push the blazozoid away.
I compared the critter to a flaming soccer ball before. How about comparing it to a soccer ball coverted in burning velcro?
I hear that firestorms suck in so much air that they can create a vaccum. How about if the blazozoid can cause some sort of "Thermal Suction" effect? Perhaps someone could get out of the effect several ways (so that you could allow a reflex save, grapple check or a strength roll - depending on how the PC attempts to escape).
(I'm looking forward to seeing you create the stats for I. 
)
I would concur with this, but there is something very odd about the blazozoids. They approach ships for one of two reasons:
- a ride through the phlogiston or
- a meal.
I can understand a monster wanting to eat PCs (as that is a very good motivation) but these critters need to be imprisoned in a flame-proof container in order to take them into the flow. It does not seem logical that they would demand that non-sentient creatures entomb them*.
* = The obvious way to avoid being eaten by the blazozoid at the destination would appear to be to toss the fire proof box over the back of the ship and try to get one mile away before the critter breaks out.
Anyhoo, if blazozoids are elementals, then relying on this weird S&M relationship with food would seem much less logical than hopping over to the Elemental Plane of Fire (or a transitive plane where fire creatures can live) and crossing from sphere to sphere that way.
I'm sure that a planewalking blazozoid could cross to most parts of the Material Plane and that the need to be locked up in a box would just be there to cover the fact that some suns were hard to find from the other planes.
My guess is that I does not realise that the Plane of Fire exists, that it does not realise that the Plane of Fire allows travel beyond its own crystal sphere or that it does not realise that there is actually a universe beyond its own crystal sphere (and that the blazozoids have knowledge that they have not thought to pass back to it).
Perhaps they are only inflexible with non-fire based creatures. This seems to be connected with the attitude of their parent (I). I reminds me of the Zats from the Cloakmaster Cycle novels. They could not believe that the "parasites" on spelljamming ships were sentient and "helped" a lot of ships by removing the parasites. When they were actually convinced of the truth they suffered a culture shock and after they recovered their attitude was turned around.
I has a "I think therefore I am" attitude - literally!
I is a sun and therefore probably expects other living creatures to be suns. It does not recognise the intelligence of conventional living creatures and does not even consider them to be alive. I guess that as a sun it expects living beings to be formed of flame. PCs and similar sized creatures probably look to I what atoms look like to us. I can understand how I could refuse to believe that tiny freezing objects were not alive.
Blazozoids have picked up this "inflexible attitude" during their creation. I believe that they are created with the same personality as I. I think perhaps they are a bit like an avatar (or perhaps a brain golem.)
In the case of I itself the refusal to accept small creatures as being alive is perhaps something that could be challenged. Given the right amount of proof, I may have the same sort of culture shock as the zats and may then change its viewpont. I think the situation with the blazozoids is different because they have been sent out to test I's theory (by searching for living suns) and have not been sent out to challange their parent's view of the universe.
A blazozoid that is told that a human or a dragon is alive is not just being confronted with the chance that it is wrong, it is being confronted with the chance that I is incorrect. Even if you could convince one blazozoid that you were alive, I would wonder what the reactions of other blazozoids would be. Perhaps they would be convinced that their sibling had become infected with some sort of mind-altering disease.
I wonder if fire-based creatures, like azer or efreet might have more chance of convincing a blazozoid that they are similar enough to them to be considered living creatures.
I think that in that context, they could be seen as Chaotic Neutral, rather than Lawful Neutral. Perhaps I itself is Chaotic Neutral. Perhaps the chaotic element of their alignment means that each blazozoid does whatever it thinks it needs to do to discover a sentient sun. Maybe they have no concept of cooperation and rarely work together or share information. Maybe they end up replicating the work of other blazozoids.
But to be honest, I don't think the alignment is that important to these creatures. I'm arguing mostly from the position of devil's advocate.
I think I would be more concerned about getting a description of I (and its relationship to the blazozoids) into the conversion than the alignment. That is something that I do think is important to this monster. (I figure that somewhere there is an "Ispace" crystal sphere that is packed out with blazozoids who are constantly searching for a way to escape the crystal sphere without touching the phlogiston and exploding.)
The description says they are like huge white elmarin. Perhaps it might be worth looking to see if they have similar abilities.
Blazozoids have a "raming attack" that causes 8d6 points of damage. There are rules for ramming on page 64-65 of Concordance of Arcane Space. Blunt rams cause 1 hull point of damage for every 10 tons of ship and if you look at the rules for "Ramming Gargantuan Creatures" that has every hull point of ship damage convert to 1d6 of critter damage. With the blzozoid causing 8d6 damage, I wonder if it has the "bulk" of an 8 ton spelljamming ship and is surrounded by an "air envelope" that consists entirely of fire.
Actually, with them being described as spheres, but also being described as having a tail - like a comet - that turns blue when they move at spelljamming speed, I think that a spherical body surrounded by fire could help make both statements true.
Looking again at the description we see that they ram for 8d6 damage but then try to use their "flametouch" ability to remain in contact for a further 5d6 damage per round. With the difference between the two being 3d6, I wonder if that is the actual physical damage caused by the critter's ramming attack and that it adds on 5d6 of fire damage when it hits (and then adds another 5d6 of fire damage per round by remaining in contact).
If the blazozoid was treated a bit like a 3 ton spherical ship, that had a flame atmoshere, maybe that could help with the way that "flametouch" works. Maybe this might help sort out the "swallow whole"/"grapple" issue. All the critter would need to do is maintain contact - literally a flame-touch.
They are "sentient balls of energy". Their "fiery bodies are so hot they burn up any matter (including air and water) that they contact".
I is also made up of "living energy". The blazozoids were created from its body.
They "eat" or "refuel" by turning matter into energy and their bodies are "made entirely of energy". A well fed blazozoid may be 60 foot across and a hungry blazozoid may only be 10 foot across.
I think that material from the Plane of Radiance would possibly be the best fit for what blazozoids are made from. It is a mixture of positive energy and fire, and I can imagine a sun being made from radiance. And if they are not fire, that might fit in with the way that they need to burn stuff to gain energy.
Stars in some spheres are portals to the Plane of Radiance, so this might fit in well with your Living Star concept.
Actually, these guys do not react normally with the phlogiston. Page 87 of Concordance of Arcane Space shows that a fire elemental taken into the flow explodes inflicting 1d8 damage for every HD it has to everybody within 20 feet. In contrast a blazozoid come into contact with the flow the exploasion "vaporises everything within one mile" (including itself) and anyone not killed by this explosion is thrown 1d10 miles away from the blast and takes 1d10 damage per mile thrown. This is a much much higher explosion than normal.
On top of this, if a blazozoid comes within 100 feet of phlogiston they cause it to ignite. Fire elementals do not do anything like that. They have to physically touch the stuff.
I think it would be best to include some sort of "Ignite Phlogiston" ability that "causes any phlogiston within 100 feet to ignite" and "causes a blazozoid to explode in a one mile wide nova if it actually comes into direct contact with phlogiston". This could be a bit similar to a draconian's death throes, but with the explosion happening from the outside in.
How do you feel about the fact that a blazozoid that has not "eaten" can shrink down to 10 feet in width (as opposed to a well fed one that is 60 foot across)? I don't know if there is a precedent for it, but I wonder if these guys could "consume" their own hit points and slowly shrink down from colossal and gargantuan and perhaps become even smaller.
If you were to do it that way, you could treat a starving blazozoid as "wounded" and allow it to "heal" its own damage as it causes damage to other objects. That could allow a GM to have a starving 17d8 creature that is encountered with only 5d8 hit points remaining. As it wants energy, and burns matter to create it, it could perhaps even be fed with fireball spells.
I'm thinking of a soccer ball coated in alcohol, set fire and then booted at somone's head at full force.
I'm actually not thinking that it is "engulfing" or "enveloping" the thing it is attacking. I'm thinking that they are actually consuming it!
How about an "Immolate (Ex)" ability, where a blazozoid that remains in contact with an object or creature for more than one round can attempt to set fire to it, so that it can consume the energy (or some of the energy) released from the fire.
If you had something like this, then a hungry blazozoid that burned six NPCs to death might absorb enough energy to become sated and then attempt to fly away. A firetouch-based ability that converts "stuff" touched by the critter into energy that can be eaten might fit in the critter's ecology better than a firetouch that is not tied into its food cycle.
I can't see a good way to get rid of this, short of manhandling it onto a catapult and firing it overboard.
I figure that it can only "feed" from a single target at a single time. With the original stats it can actually do more damage if it flies away from the first target and rams a second target. I reckon it can start to set light to a target, but only starts to absorb energy when it is hot enough to start to vaporise. Tie the two together and you give the critter a reason to focus on a single person (or even a single object) to the exclusion of other targets. But make it want to fight for its life and it could zip about bashing into lots of targets and starting several fires.
One tactic the original monster entry does not cover is the possibility of knocking a PC or NPC overboard and then engaging in zero-g attacks, where the victim is going to find it a lot harder to flee or even push the blazozoid away.
I compared the critter to a flaming soccer ball before. How about comparing it to a soccer ball coverted in burning velcro?
I hear that firestorms suck in so much air that they can create a vaccum. How about if the blazozoid can cause some sort of "Thermal Suction" effect? Perhaps someone could get out of the effect several ways (so that you could allow a reflex save, grapple check or a strength roll - depending on how the PC attempts to escape).
(I'm looking forward to seeing you create the stats for I.
)
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Cleon
Legend
I don't mind some kind of "Phlogiston Death Throes" ability, but would prefer to scale down the original's nuclear-level blast.
We could have it be based on a multiple of the Blazozoid's hit points, like a staff of the magi, but I'd prefer something like 2d6 fire damage per Hit Dice up to 20 ft., with one fewer d10 per 20 ft. beyond that (e.g. a 13 HD specimen does 26d6 at 0-20 ft, 25d6 at 21-40 ft. et cetera down to 1d6 at 501-520 ft.
Hmm, 10 ft. across is a third the size of the regular Gargantuan version, so it ought to be Huge.
Some kind of temporary negative levels for a "starving" Blazozoid?
Size reduction to Huge (as per reduce person) if it drops below 8 or 12 HD?
(I'm looking forward to seeing you create the stats for I.
If I has AD&D stats we can convert it, and then the PCs can try to kill it!
I doubt cooling plasma is very valuable as loot, though.
Cleon
Legend
I knew you two would get along.
So: where are we with these things?
Scalable death-novas and shrinking from hunger.
Shade
Monster Junkie
That could work.
