Corrections to Monsters in the CC

[Cleon]

I've noticed something else about the Giant Sheep. It's described as "larger than a horse" but only weighs 700-900 pounds, which is light for a horse. An average riding horse is about 1000-1200 pounds and a heavy horse weighs 1500-2000 pounds or even more, with the world record estimated to be 3,360 pounds.

Scaling up some regular sheep breeds to be 6 feet at the shoulder (the height that AD&D gives Giant Rams) I came up with figures ranging from ~1400-2000 pounds.

Dire Animals are often portrayed as burlier than their normal counterparts, so I'll say an "average" Dire Sheep is 2,000 to 3,000 pounds.

EDIT: Hopefully I'll whip up a Dire Sheep later today but I have stuff to do over the next couple of hours.

I've whipped up a Dire Sheep and amended the Weresheep.

I added an additional tweak to the by increasing its speed to 40 ft., since the original Giant Ram had move 15.

Oh, I thought this factsheet on Cotswold sheep was a useful basis for the size. I pretty much just doubled the dimensions of this large breed of sheep and added a bit for luck and direness.

I guess we should consider amending either the weight or the description of the Giant Sheep.

Either keep "larger than a horse" in the description by making the "A giant sheep is about 8 feet long and weighs 1800 to 2400 pounds" or keep the existing weight and make the description "This massive sheep is as big as a horse."

Either works for me, but I lean towards keeping the "larger than a horse" version.

 

[freyar]

Either way on the size.

And the Dire Sheep looks good!

 

[Cleon]

Either way on the size.

Okay, in that case I've updated my master archive's Giant Sheep with the "about 8 feet long and weighs 1800 to 2400 pounds" version so it'll be included in the next update I send you & Darjr.

And the Dire Sheep looks good!

Good! That's gone into my archive too.

 

[Cleon]

Just came across a note about a typo in the Gigantopithecus conversion.

Its Hit Dice is 6d8+13 when it should be 6d8+24.

 

[Cleon]

Just noticed some transcription errors in the Elven Horse (Yyllethyn).

It appears its Challenge Rating of 2 has been duplicated and slipped the rest of the stat block down one row, giving it "Treasure: 2", "Alignment: None" and "Advancement: Always neutral".

Obviously, it should be "Treasure: None", "Alignment: Always neutral" and "Advancement: —".

Another thing for the next update!

 

[freyar]

I kind of like "no alignment"!

But mark 'em down for the next update, whenever that will be...

 

[Cleon]

I kind of like "no alignment"!

In older editions of D&D that was actually a thing, with some monsters having Alignment "None". If I remember correctly, they were mainly things like insects on the basis they didn't have the brainpower to support any alignment.

But mark 'em down for the next update, whenever that will be...

I've already made the changes to my archive, but I'm inclined to hold off on sending an update until I've got a few newly finished creatures to add to the CC.

 

[Cleon]

Just noticed an error. The 3.5 version of the Moon-Horse is credited to Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume Two (1995) when it should be FOR5 - Elves of Evermeet (1994). Oddly, the 3.0 Moon-Horse is correctly credited.

Easy enough to fix for the next update.

 

[Cleon]

Just spotted a minor error in the Silislithis conversion.

Somehow when the Sea Drake was upgraded to 3.5 it lost the cold resistance 5 of Johnathan Richards' 3.0 version despite keeping the note in the Rivislithis subspecies that "it lacks the silislithis’ cold resistance".

Oops!

Also, the Rivislithis was spelled Rivilithis in the original Dragon #260 article. Is that worth bothering adding a note about?

 

[Cleon]

Just noticed a typo in Ythog-Nthlei's Beyond Time and Space ability.

The "target each other attacks or spells" should be "target each other with attacks or spells".