Spelljammer Converting Spelljammer creatures

[Cleon]

Yeah, I like all that too.

Updating the Standard Gossamer Working Draft.

It looks like all we have left is the various descriptive bits.

 

[freyar]

Waves of color ripple across the mass of jellyfish-like creatures

 

[Cleon]

Waves of color ripple across the mass of jellyfish-like creatures

I'm not fond of "mass", since it suggests they're all together in one blob.

A pulsating cloud of light formed from a multitude of glowing jellyfish-like creatures, each the size of a buckler. Ripples of color spread from one jelly to the next, combining into a beautiful display of radiance.

In rare circumstances, standard gossamers will gather into tightly knit clouds able to attack to creatures larger than an individual gossamer. This is a desperate strategy, for a portion of the gossamers will die every time they attack a creature larger than Diminutive size. Sages believe that gossamers only swarm to protect their young or to avoid death from starvation. If a gossamer swarm manages to kill a large prey item it hovers far enough away that its individual gossamers do not make contact with its victim and collapse, then slowly picks away at its meal with the tips of its flesh-corroding tentacles.

Combat
A gossamer swarm simply flows around its opponents and uses its swarm attack. It instinctively focuses its attacks on its smallest enemy.

 

[Arnwyn]

Not bad, not bad at all.

"So... beautiful... ... ... GARRRRGH"

 

[freyar]

That's very good! I approve.

 

[Cleon]

That's very good! I approve.

Updating the Standard Gossamer Working Draft.

 

[Cleon]

Noble Gossamer Original Stats

Okay, so it's the Noble Gossamer next. Here's the original version:

Gossamer
Noble
CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Wildspace/phlogiston
FREQUENCY: Rare
ORGANIZATION: Flotilla
ACTIVITY CYCLE: Any
DIET: Carnivore
INTELLIGENCE: Animal (2-4)
TREASURE TYPE: Nil
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
NO. APPEARING: 1-8
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVEMENT: SR 4
HIT DICE: 58
THAC0: 3
NO. OF ATTACKS: 20
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1d6 (x20)
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Poison stinger
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: G (120′ to 250′ diameter)
MORALE: Champion (15-16)
XP VALUE: 49,000

Gossamer Noble
Actually a colony of specialized life forms, the gossamer noble is 10d10′ in diameter, with enormous sacs that act as sails, allowing it to navigate at spelljamming speeds. Cloudy currents and colorful lightning-like fashes fill its pearly, translucent body.

Hundreds of tentacles trail from the noble’s base. These are long (50-500′), supple hawsers with wicked spikes that inflict 1d2 points each on exposed flesh. The gossamer noble uses 1d20 of these tentacles in battle. Victims must save at –4 vs. paralyzation, and the spikes’ digestive enzymes inflict an additional 1d6 points of damage per round. These solitary predators live on spacefaring life forms (including smaller spelljamming ships) and are highly dangerous. They are the prey and natural enemy of gammaroids.

Originally found in MC9 - Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix (1991)

The lightning-like "fashes" is a typo from the original text that pretty obviously should have been "flashes".

 

[Cleon]

Okay, so it's the Noble Gossamer next. Here's the original version:

Okay then, let's sort out the basics.

Colossal Aberration with 58 Hit Dice and twenty tentacle attacks.

What Space/Reach shall we give it? The original dimensions suggest 120 ft./30 ft. (500 ft. with tentacles).

We gave the SR 9 Gammaroid a fly speed of 450 ft., suggesting we should give the SR 4 Gossamer Noble a fly speed of 200 ft. I doubt it's very agile, so I think maneouvrability (clumsy) is in order.

The AC 4 means it must have at least some natural armour.

Ability-wise I'm not so sure. Apart from having an Int of 1 or 2 we don't have much to go on. We could scale up the standard gossamer and tweak it from there.

 

[freyar]

58d8HD is 261 hp (base). Meanwhile, a gammaroid does 144hp avg damage per full attack (assuming all attacks successful w/a 10% chance of crit). OR it could do 168hp damage on average ramming with flame sheath. So if the gossamer noble is going to have any staying power against a gammaroid, we need to (a) bump the HD (b) give it a heck of a Constitution or (c) make its AC and other defenses quite good. And that's just to let it live a few rounds, never mind having a chance to kill a gammaroid once in a while, since gammaroids have 1850 hp, AC 60, Fort +71, and Hardened Abilities (meaning the gossamer's poison may not be very effective).

I think I'd boost the HD myself. That would help with the poison as well as the staying power.

 

[Cleon]

58d8HD is 261 hp (base). Meanwhile, a gammaroid does 144hp avg damage per full attack (assuming all attacks successful w/a 10% chance of crit). OR it could do 168hp damage on average ramming with flame sheath. So if the gossamer noble is going to have any staying power against a gammaroid, we need to (a) bump the HD (b) give it a heck of a Constitution or (c) make its AC and other defenses quite good. And that's just to let it live a few rounds, never mind having a chance to kill a gammaroid once in a while, since gammaroids have 1850 hp, AC 60, Fort +71, and Hardened Abilities (meaning the gossamer's poison may not be very effective).

I think I'd boost the HD myself. That would help with the poison as well as the staying power.

I'd rather not increase the Gossamer Noble's HD.

Gossamer Nobles are the preferred prey of Gammaroids, so it's quite plausible they can't match a Gammaroid in a one-on-one fight. They may only offer a real threat/challenge to a Gammaroid when the Giant Space Turtle is facing a bunch of Gossamer Nobles - they do live in "flotillas" of up to 8 individuals, remember.

Also, Gossamer Nobles have twenty attacks with a really ridiculous Reach, so if each has a respectable damage then they can easily outmatch a Gammaroid in basic damage output - e.g. if each tentacle does, say, 1d6 plus 2d6 acid that's 210 average damage if they all hit, and that's without including a Strength bonus.

Oh, and the hardened abilities is probably necessary to prevent the Gossamer Noble easily paralyzing the Gammaroid, who's Dex 6 means it wouldn't require that many points of Dexterity damage to paralyze.

P.S. A Gammaroid's natural weapons average 147 damage, so assuming they miss on a 1 and do a crit on a 19-20 a full attack would do roughly 154 average damage, not 144.