Converting World of Greyhawk monsters

[Echohawk]

The original adventure doesn't include a save, but I think that's because it wants to railroad the PCs into solving the adventure in a particular way (by recalling Keraptis back to the material plane, IIRC). But for the purpose of the conversion, I think the save is a sensible addition.

What happens to the Subsumed minds if a False Keraptis is killed?

 

[freyar]

The original adventure doesn't include a save, but I think that's because it wants to railroad the PCs into solving the adventure in a particular way (by recalling Keraptis back to the material plane, IIRC). But for the purpose of the conversion, I think the save is a sensible addition.

What happens to the Subsumed minds if a False Keraptis is killed?

It did have the save, actually. Here's the quote from your post (I've italicized the save parts).

Death
The death of a False Keraptis forces the hierarchical mind to make a successful saving throw vs. death magic as a wizard of its current level or instantly cease to exist. Success indicates that the hierarchical mind has 1 turn to reseat itself in a new body; if it cannot, it dies. The hierarchical mind can automatically assume control of any subsumed mind in its own infrastructure, so it preferentially selects the nearest one. If none are available, it can try to force its way into an imprinted (but not yet subsumed host), who must then make a successful saving throw vs. spell to resist. Should the hierarchical mind fail to reseat in its selected host, it can try for another on each subsequent round, until either it is successful or it dies. It cannot make a second attempt on any single host, however.
Successful reseating grants the hierarchical mind all the powers or benefits of its new body, though it loses those associated with the old one. Its spell-like abilities and “memories” remain intact, as do its connections with its remaining subsumed minds--in essence, the new host immediately ”becomes” the old False Keraptis.
The death of a hierarchical mind immediately releases all its subsumed minds, but does not restore the lost personalities, levels, or free will of those victims. Another False Keraptis can automatically add those subsumed minds to his own hierarchy by physically touching the husks; if that does not occur, the husks remain utterly devoid of mental capacity until retrained from scratch.

That last paragraph seems to tell us what to do with Subsumed Minds, but maybe that should go in the Subsumed Mind template. What a beast of a conversion!

 

[Echohawk]

It did have the save, actually. Here's the quote from your post (I've italicized the save parts).

Gotcha. I have become confused by some of the other descriptive text from the adventure, which seems (on first read) to indicate that the False Kerapti always make the leap to a new mind. But now that I check that again it does actually say "likely".

That last paragraph seems to tell us what to do with Subsumed Minds, but maybe that should go in the Subsumed Mind template. What a beast of a conversion!

Agreed on both counts. So I'm going to avoid suggesting that we do another template to cover the partial K-imprints, even though they're probably complicated enough to warrant a template of their own

 

[freyar]

Let's please just leave the partial imprints as covered by these abilities! Yikes!

Thoughts on the save to avoid destruction?

Shall we wrap up the final things on the template before doing the sample?
SR = HD +x. I confess I don't remember the % magic resistance for this.
Organization: Solitary or Hierarchical Mind (false Keraptis plus 3-40 Subsumed Minds)
CR = base plus 3? It grants a lot of extra SLAs, but other SAs don't seem to affect the combat ability much.
Treasure: same as base creature?
Alignment: Changes to XE?
I think advancement like base creature works.
Don't ask me about LA, Shade's the guy with Savage Species.

 

[freyar]

Given lack of input, I'm going to tie up the loose ends here. I also realized I forgot the "SLA channeling" part of the Hierarchical Mind (sigh). I'm simplifying that a bit, also. See what you all think.

Hierarchical Mind (Su): The consciousness of a false Keraptis spreads throughout its Subsumed Minds. The false Keraptis has access to all the perceptions of all of its Subsumed Minds on the same plane of existence, and a false Keraptis cannot be flanked unless all its Subsumed Minds within line of sight are flanked. The false Keraptis may direct the actions of one of its Subsumed Minds as a swift action, three as a move action, five as a standard action, or ten as a full-round action. Instead of directing the Subsumed Minds, the false Keraptis may channel its spell-like abilities through the Subsumed Minds; these take effect as if the Subsumed Mind had used them using the false Keraptis's statistics. The false Keraptis may channel as many spell-like abilities as it can use during a round, but each must originate from a different Subsumed Mind.

For each 10 Subsumed Minds in the Hierarchical Mind of a given false Keraptis, the false Keraptis gains a positive level and a +1 bonus to Intelligence. In addition, for each 10 Subsumed Minds, the false Keraptis gains one additional daily use of a single spell-like ability granted by the template.

When the body of a false Keraptis is killed, the Hierarchical Mind must make a DC 20 Will save or be destroyed utterly (using the save bonus of the false Keraptis). If the save succeeds, the Hierarchical Mind may jump to the body of one of the Subsumed Minds, and that body immediately transforms into the false Keraptis (essentially, the Subsumed Mind is replaced by the false Keraptis). If there is no Subsumed Mind available, the false Keraptis may attempt to possess any victim of its partial imprint that does not yet have the Subsumed Mind template. In that case, the partial imprint victim may make a Will save to resist the Hierarchical Mind (the DC is based on the Charisma of the false Keraptis); on a failed save, the partial imprint victim gains the false Keraptis template and acquires the memories of the previous false Keraptis. The Hierarchical Mind may only attempt to possess each victim one time, and it may attempt only one possession per round. If the Hierarchical Mind is unable to reseat itself into a Subsumed Mind or a partial imprint victim within one minute, it is destroyed utterly.

 

[Echohawk]

I think that this is looking good, but I'm wondering if the description of what happens when a False Keraptis dies needs to be as detailed. What you have is now an excellent model of the original, but I think it could also stop just before the "If there is no Subsumed Mind available..." part, without losing terribly much. Put another way, I think this is such a complicated conversion that it could stand to be simplified a little.

Other than that minor comment though, I think the Hierarchical Mind write up is done.

 

[freyar]

That's a valid point. I'm interested to hear what anyone else thinks (if they're brave enough to read the thread!). OTOH, I kind of like the idea of transfering to a new false K with a slightly different version of the template. After all, that's what happened to Mossmutter, right?

 

[Shade]

I'm sorry for the sporadic responses. This conversion(s) fatigues me.

Your writeup looks good, and I agree with both of you. It could definitely use any simplification we can give it, but the transference that resulted in Mossmutter is interesting.

<takes seat on fence>

 

[freyar]

Here's what my gut tells me: this is such a complicated beast of a template (heck, it has nonuniform effects and at least one associated template also with nonuniform effects, along with "standard" and nonstandard examples for each) that no DM crazy enough to use it will shy away from another couple sentences in this ability.

You know, on the Advanced Bestiary template difficulty scale of 1-3, this thing is probably turned up to 11.

 

[Echohawk]

Oh, right. I'd forgotten all about Mossmutter. Better keep that extra bit then