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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
D&D 3E/3.5 Creature Catalog 3.5 Overhaul Project
- Thread starter BOZ
- Start date
Leopold
NKL4LYFE
BOZ said:the caiveh? naaaah... they're pussycats.seriously, they're not mean, it even says they work with other races well... as mercenaries of course, but that doesn't mean they'll threaten you just cause you looked at em funny.
see i am waiting for Dungeon Siege: LOA and they got mean kitties in there! that's why i said what i said
BOZ
Creature Cataloguer
BEHOLDER-KIN, Hive Mother
Large Aberration (Beholder-kin)
Hit Dice: 20d8+100 (184 hp)
Initiative: +4 (Dex, Improved Initiative)
Speed: 5 ft, fly 20 ft (perfect)
AC: 20 (+10 natural)
Attacks: Eye Ray +14 ranged touch, bite +9 melee
Damage: Eye Rays, bite 2d4
Face/Reach: 5 ft by 5 ft/5 ft
Special Attacks: Eye rays, improved grab, swallow whole
Special Qualities: All-around vision, create and control beholder-kin, anti-magic cone, fly, SR 12, darkvision 60 ft
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +6, Will +17
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 11, Con 20, Int 18, Wis 17, Cha 23
Skills: Hide +8, Intimidate +18, Knowledge (arcana) +18, Listen +17, Search +16, Spot +17
Feats: Alertness, Flyby attack, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Leadership, Shot On The Run
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
Organization: Solitary, cluster (hive mother plus 1d3 beholders, examiners, directors, or overseers), or troupe (hive mother plus 4-9 beholders or 3d6 examiners, directors, lensmen, overseers, or watchers)
Challenge Rating: 18
Treasure: Double standard
Alignment: Always lawful evil
Advancement: 21-40 HD (Large); 41-60 HD (Huge)
Hive mothers are referred to as the ultimate eye tyrants. Each is the supreme ruler of an individual beholder “kingdom.”
A hive mother is an 8-foot-wide orb dominated by a central eye, and a large toothy maw. Unlike the normal beholder, a hive mother has no eyestalks. Its magical eyes are protected by hooded-lids in the flesh of its body.
Combat
Hive mothers rarely fight, but when they do, they fight in a similar manner to standard beholders.
Eye Rays (Su): The eye rays of a hive mother are identical to those of standard beholders. A hive mother’s eye’s effect resembles a spell cast by a 20th-level sorcerer but follows the rules for a ray (see Aiming a Spell, page 148 in the Player’s Handbook). All rays have a range of 150 feet and a save DC of 20.
Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a hive mother must hit a Medium-size or smaller opponent with its bite attack. If it gets a hold, it can try to swallow the foe.
Swallow Whole (Ex): A hive mother can try to swallow a Medium-size or smaller opponent by making a successful grapple check. The swallowed creature takes 2d4 points of crushing damage and 4 points of acid damage per round from the hive mother’s digestive juices. A swallowed creature can climb out of the gullet with a successful grapple check. This returns it to the hive mother’s maw where another successful grapple check is needed to get free. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using claws or a light piercing or slashing weapon to deal 25 points of damage to the hive mother’s gut (AC 20). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out. The hive mother’s interior can hold one Medium-size, two Smaller, or four Tiny or smaller creatures.
Create and Control Beholder-Kin (Su): A hive mother has the ability to reproduce asexually, generating one beholder or beholder-kin per week. All of the beholder-kin generated by a hive mother are under her direct control, and she communicates with them telepathically at a range of 10 miles. She can extend her Leadership feat through her telepathy to aid in directing the actions of those beholders under her control.
If the hive mother is destroyed, the beholders and beholder-kin will turn on each other, or seek their own lairs.
The Hive Mother first appeared in the Spelljammer Lorebook of the Void.
Here are a couple of 3.0 Hive Mother (and Orbus) conversions done by Spelljammer fans:
http://www.shatteredfractine.com/critters/monsters/35beholder.html
http://www.darkwood.org/sj/monsters/conversions/Beholder.html
I don’t know if the hive mother needs to be subject to the same alterations that the mainstream beholder went through – it was always very different after all. One thing I noticed is that here it is given a nonexistent “beholder-kin” subtype. This appears to be a fluke, as it wasn’t even given to any of the other beholder-kin!
I do think at least the Int and Dex need a bump, to keep it superior to standard beholders. It doesn’t gain or lose any feats, but we can switch the ones we have if necessary.
Otherwise, this doesn’t seem like too complex of a fixer-upper (so he says, little does he know… heheheh!)
Large Aberration (Beholder-kin)
Hit Dice: 20d8+100 (184 hp)
Initiative: +4 (Dex, Improved Initiative)
Speed: 5 ft, fly 20 ft (perfect)
AC: 20 (+10 natural)
Attacks: Eye Ray +14 ranged touch, bite +9 melee
Damage: Eye Rays, bite 2d4
Face/Reach: 5 ft by 5 ft/5 ft
Special Attacks: Eye rays, improved grab, swallow whole
Special Qualities: All-around vision, create and control beholder-kin, anti-magic cone, fly, SR 12, darkvision 60 ft
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +6, Will +17
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 11, Con 20, Int 18, Wis 17, Cha 23
Skills: Hide +8, Intimidate +18, Knowledge (arcana) +18, Listen +17, Search +16, Spot +17
Feats: Alertness, Flyby attack, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Leadership, Shot On The Run
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
Organization: Solitary, cluster (hive mother plus 1d3 beholders, examiners, directors, or overseers), or troupe (hive mother plus 4-9 beholders or 3d6 examiners, directors, lensmen, overseers, or watchers)
Challenge Rating: 18
Treasure: Double standard
Alignment: Always lawful evil
Advancement: 21-40 HD (Large); 41-60 HD (Huge)
Hive mothers are referred to as the ultimate eye tyrants. Each is the supreme ruler of an individual beholder “kingdom.”
A hive mother is an 8-foot-wide orb dominated by a central eye, and a large toothy maw. Unlike the normal beholder, a hive mother has no eyestalks. Its magical eyes are protected by hooded-lids in the flesh of its body.
Combat
Hive mothers rarely fight, but when they do, they fight in a similar manner to standard beholders.
Eye Rays (Su): The eye rays of a hive mother are identical to those of standard beholders. A hive mother’s eye’s effect resembles a spell cast by a 20th-level sorcerer but follows the rules for a ray (see Aiming a Spell, page 148 in the Player’s Handbook). All rays have a range of 150 feet and a save DC of 20.
Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a hive mother must hit a Medium-size or smaller opponent with its bite attack. If it gets a hold, it can try to swallow the foe.
Swallow Whole (Ex): A hive mother can try to swallow a Medium-size or smaller opponent by making a successful grapple check. The swallowed creature takes 2d4 points of crushing damage and 4 points of acid damage per round from the hive mother’s digestive juices. A swallowed creature can climb out of the gullet with a successful grapple check. This returns it to the hive mother’s maw where another successful grapple check is needed to get free. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using claws or a light piercing or slashing weapon to deal 25 points of damage to the hive mother’s gut (AC 20). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out. The hive mother’s interior can hold one Medium-size, two Smaller, or four Tiny or smaller creatures.
Create and Control Beholder-Kin (Su): A hive mother has the ability to reproduce asexually, generating one beholder or beholder-kin per week. All of the beholder-kin generated by a hive mother are under her direct control, and she communicates with them telepathically at a range of 10 miles. She can extend her Leadership feat through her telepathy to aid in directing the actions of those beholders under her control.
If the hive mother is destroyed, the beholders and beholder-kin will turn on each other, or seek their own lairs.
The Hive Mother first appeared in the Spelljammer Lorebook of the Void.
Here are a couple of 3.0 Hive Mother (and Orbus) conversions done by Spelljammer fans:
http://www.shatteredfractine.com/critters/monsters/35beholder.html
http://www.darkwood.org/sj/monsters/conversions/Beholder.html
I don’t know if the hive mother needs to be subject to the same alterations that the mainstream beholder went through – it was always very different after all. One thing I noticed is that here it is given a nonexistent “beholder-kin” subtype. This appears to be a fluke, as it wasn’t even given to any of the other beholder-kin!
I do think at least the Int and Dex need a bump, to keep it superior to standard beholders. It doesn’t gain or lose any feats, but we can switch the ones we have if necessary.
Otherwise, this doesn’t seem like too complex of a fixer-upper (so he says, little does he know… heheheh!)
BOZ
Creature Cataloguer
the original stats only give it 5% resistance for some reason... what would you bump it up to?
speaking of the original stats...
from the Spelljammer boxed set:
Hive Mother
CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Any space
FREQUENCY: Very rare
ORGANIZATION: Solitary/ship
ACTIVE CYCLE: Any
DIET: Omnivore
INTELLIGENCE: Genius (17-18)
TREASURE: I, S, T
ALIGNMENT: Lawful evil
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 0
MOVEMENT: Fl 6 (A)
HIT DICE: 20
THAC0: 3
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 5-20
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Anti-magic ray
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 5%
SIZE: L (8' across)
MORALE: Fanatic (18)
XP VALUE: 24,000
Hive Mother
The hive mother is also called the ultimate tyrant, or just "Ultimate" a form of greeting that seems to please their pride. They are twice the size of typical beholders, and differ in appearance as well. Their mouths are larger, such that they can gulp down a man-sized target on a natural die roll of 20. Once swallowed, the prey takes 5-20 points of damage (5d4) each round until it is dead or escapes. The beholder's mouth is not very deep, so a victim can escape by stating this intention and making a successful attack roll.
The ultimate has no eyestalks, either, but its eyes are protected by a hooded cover in the flesh of the creature's body. The central eye has a similar hood, such that the chance of striking the central eye is reduced to 10%, the remainder striking the body.
The ultimate's true ability is in controlling the actions of its brood, the common beholders that make up its crew. While a hive mother can survive groundside, it is not as effective as when it is linked up in a tyrant ship.
A tyrant ship allows the hive mother to focus the energies of her crew through the structure of the ship's shell itself. The tyrant ship shells are made by the arcane, who thus profit from the beholders despite the fact that the tyrants have their own genetic helms.
Habitat/Society: The beholders of space would be the greatest menace of the void, more deadly than the neogi, more sadistic than the mind flayers, were it not for one thing: they are rampant racists.
They are not true xenophobes in that humans and other races are considered subservient - it is not known if the beholders of space consider humanity anything other than one more item in space. Rather, the beholders war against their own species.
Within the basic body-type of beholder (a sphere with a mouth and a central eye, ten eye-tipped tentacles on the top), there is a great variety of beholder subspecies. Some have obvious differences, such as those covered with overlapping chiton plates versus those with smooth hides, or those with snakelike eye tentacles versus ones with crustaceanlike joints. But something as small as a change in hide color or size of the central eye can make two groups of beholders sworn enemies. Every beholder nation declares its own unique body-form to be the "true ideal" of beholderhood, the others being nothing but ugly copies, fit only to be eliminated.
The ultimate of a beholder tyrant ship shares the same bodyform as its brood. The orbi, however, remain a curious exception to this idea of racial purity and remains exempt from the beholders' subspecies warfare. This may be because the beholders need the orbi to survive, or they recognize the similarities of the orbi over those obvious differences. When beholder ships battle, the victims will take on the orbi from the losers for their own ships, while the other beholders and the ultimate will be slain and eaten by the victors.
As a result, the most common recipient of an attack by a beholder ship is another beholder ship. This allows most spaceborne races to breathe easier, but there are still enough cases of tyrant ships attacking other races (for reasons real or imagined) that most races stay away from the beholders.
In addition to the beholder ships themselves, there are often beholder outcasts, individuals that have survived the elimination of the rest of their nest, or that were cast out for having some odd mutation (ranging again from different colored hides to an eyestalk that functions differently). One beholder whose death ray functions like a detect lie spell fled from his fellows and operates as a bartender on the Rock, his alignment slipping toward neutrality. The beholder-barkeeper, named Large Luigi by its patrons, uses its telekinetic eye to mix drinks, and its sleep and charm eyes to keep the peace.
Ecology: The reproductive process of the beholder is unknown, and for those who are interested in continued life, probably will remain so. The core racial hatred of the beholder race is likely based in the nature of reproduction, which seems to produce identical (or nearly so) individuals with only slight margin for variation.
and text from the Monstrous Manual (stat block was essentially the same):
Hive Mother (beholder-kin)
The legendary hive mothers are also called the "Ultimate tyrants", or just "Ultimates". They are twice the size of typical beholders, and differ in appearance as well.
Their mouths are larger, so large that they can gulp down a man-sized target on a natural die roll of 20. Once swallowed, the prey takes 5-20 points of damage (5d4) each round until it is dead or escapes. The beholder's mouth is not very deep, so a victim can escape by making a successful attack roll.
The ultimate has no eyestalks, but its magical eyes are protected by hooded covers in the flesh of the creature's body, so that they cannot be severed. The central eye has 15 hit points.
Roll Location AC Hit Points
01-90 Body 0 20 HD
91-00 Central Eye 7 15 hp
The ultimate's true ability is in controlling the actions of large numbers of beholders and beholder-kin. A hive mother may have 5-10 ordinary beholders under its command, or 5-20 abomination beholder-kin (see below), which it communicates with telepathically. A nesting hive mother spells disaster for the surrounding region, as it can apparently create a community of beholders, beholder-kin, and abominations. If destroyed, the beholders and beholder-kin will turn on each other, or seek their own lairs.
Hive mothers may be the ancestral stock of the better known beholder, the next step of its evolution, a magical mutation, or a separate species. The reality remains unknown.
speaking of the original stats...
from the Spelljammer boxed set:
Hive Mother
CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Any space
FREQUENCY: Very rare
ORGANIZATION: Solitary/ship
ACTIVE CYCLE: Any
DIET: Omnivore
INTELLIGENCE: Genius (17-18)
TREASURE: I, S, T
ALIGNMENT: Lawful evil
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 0
MOVEMENT: Fl 6 (A)
HIT DICE: 20
THAC0: 3
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 5-20
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Anti-magic ray
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 5%
SIZE: L (8' across)
MORALE: Fanatic (18)
XP VALUE: 24,000
Hive Mother
The hive mother is also called the ultimate tyrant, or just "Ultimate" a form of greeting that seems to please their pride. They are twice the size of typical beholders, and differ in appearance as well. Their mouths are larger, such that they can gulp down a man-sized target on a natural die roll of 20. Once swallowed, the prey takes 5-20 points of damage (5d4) each round until it is dead or escapes. The beholder's mouth is not very deep, so a victim can escape by stating this intention and making a successful attack roll.
The ultimate has no eyestalks, either, but its eyes are protected by a hooded cover in the flesh of the creature's body. The central eye has a similar hood, such that the chance of striking the central eye is reduced to 10%, the remainder striking the body.
The ultimate's true ability is in controlling the actions of its brood, the common beholders that make up its crew. While a hive mother can survive groundside, it is not as effective as when it is linked up in a tyrant ship.
A tyrant ship allows the hive mother to focus the energies of her crew through the structure of the ship's shell itself. The tyrant ship shells are made by the arcane, who thus profit from the beholders despite the fact that the tyrants have their own genetic helms.
Habitat/Society: The beholders of space would be the greatest menace of the void, more deadly than the neogi, more sadistic than the mind flayers, were it not for one thing: they are rampant racists.
They are not true xenophobes in that humans and other races are considered subservient - it is not known if the beholders of space consider humanity anything other than one more item in space. Rather, the beholders war against their own species.
Within the basic body-type of beholder (a sphere with a mouth and a central eye, ten eye-tipped tentacles on the top), there is a great variety of beholder subspecies. Some have obvious differences, such as those covered with overlapping chiton plates versus those with smooth hides, or those with snakelike eye tentacles versus ones with crustaceanlike joints. But something as small as a change in hide color or size of the central eye can make two groups of beholders sworn enemies. Every beholder nation declares its own unique body-form to be the "true ideal" of beholderhood, the others being nothing but ugly copies, fit only to be eliminated.
The ultimate of a beholder tyrant ship shares the same bodyform as its brood. The orbi, however, remain a curious exception to this idea of racial purity and remains exempt from the beholders' subspecies warfare. This may be because the beholders need the orbi to survive, or they recognize the similarities of the orbi over those obvious differences. When beholder ships battle, the victims will take on the orbi from the losers for their own ships, while the other beholders and the ultimate will be slain and eaten by the victors.
As a result, the most common recipient of an attack by a beholder ship is another beholder ship. This allows most spaceborne races to breathe easier, but there are still enough cases of tyrant ships attacking other races (for reasons real or imagined) that most races stay away from the beholders.
In addition to the beholder ships themselves, there are often beholder outcasts, individuals that have survived the elimination of the rest of their nest, or that were cast out for having some odd mutation (ranging again from different colored hides to an eyestalk that functions differently). One beholder whose death ray functions like a detect lie spell fled from his fellows and operates as a bartender on the Rock, his alignment slipping toward neutrality. The beholder-barkeeper, named Large Luigi by its patrons, uses its telekinetic eye to mix drinks, and its sleep and charm eyes to keep the peace.
Ecology: The reproductive process of the beholder is unknown, and for those who are interested in continued life, probably will remain so. The core racial hatred of the beholder race is likely based in the nature of reproduction, which seems to produce identical (or nearly so) individuals with only slight margin for variation.
and text from the Monstrous Manual (stat block was essentially the same):
Hive Mother (beholder-kin)
The legendary hive mothers are also called the "Ultimate tyrants", or just "Ultimates". They are twice the size of typical beholders, and differ in appearance as well.
Their mouths are larger, so large that they can gulp down a man-sized target on a natural die roll of 20. Once swallowed, the prey takes 5-20 points of damage (5d4) each round until it is dead or escapes. The beholder's mouth is not very deep, so a victim can escape by making a successful attack roll.
The ultimate has no eyestalks, but its magical eyes are protected by hooded covers in the flesh of the creature's body, so that they cannot be severed. The central eye has 15 hit points.
Roll Location AC Hit Points
01-90 Body 0 20 HD
91-00 Central Eye 7 15 hp
The ultimate's true ability is in controlling the actions of large numbers of beholders and beholder-kin. A hive mother may have 5-10 ordinary beholders under its command, or 5-20 abomination beholder-kin (see below), which it communicates with telepathically. A nesting hive mother spells disaster for the surrounding region, as it can apparently create a community of beholders, beholder-kin, and abominations. If destroyed, the beholders and beholder-kin will turn on each other, or seek their own lairs.
Hive mothers may be the ancestral stock of the better known beholder, the next step of its evolution, a magical mutation, or a separate species. The reality remains unknown.
