Cleon
Legend
Well, the swarms appear to be done, so do you prefer to write up the honey or the individual beetles first?
I think it makes sense to do the honey first then we'll have completed the swarm entry.
Well, the swarms appear to be done, so do you prefer to write up the honey or the individual beetles first?
Inside the hive there is a 75% chance of finding 1 to 6 ounces of whiz-bang “honey”. This honey has some very unusual properties. Roll percentile dice to determine its effect.
01 to 25: No effect
26 to 75: 1 oz. will give one person double speed for 1 turn.
76 to 90: 1 oz. will give one person double speed for 1 turn plus 1 side effect for the next turn*
91 to 100: 1 oz. will give one person 1 side effect for 1 turn with no increase in speed.
*side effects can include such things as half-speed, alignment change, explosive indigestion, food poisoning, etc.
Whiz-bang beetles can usually (75%) be subdued if found in their hive and kept from seeing light. In order to keep them alive outside the hive they must be fed 1 oz. of Whiz-bang honey per 50 beetles per day. In this manner they can be kept for up to two weeks. Queens cannot be removed from the hive without killing them.
OK, the original text is
Let's see. The "you have to feed them honey to keep them alive" can add to the flavor text, I think. I'm ok with the percentile rolls for the effects of eating the honey, but I'd just pick a side effect. Food poisoning and explosive indigestion suggest making the victim nauseasted. If it works, I guess we're talking about the effects of either haste or expeditious retreat for something like 2d10 minutes. Any thoughts?
And yes, I guess we'd better add a line or two to the original text about them needing honey to live in captivity.
The descriptive/flavor text looks good.
The mechanics would be ok, but they're a bit complicated especially with the table _and_ a Con check. Treating it like a poison with primary and secondary effects is a bit fiddly, too. And I do like your notion of using a Fort save. What if we do a percentile (or other) roll for whether it works and how many rounds the person is hasted and a Fort Save vs nausea? For example, we could have
"If a living creature who is not a whiz-bang beetle eats this magical foodstuff it causes peculiar and unpredictable symptoms, determined randomly on the Whiz-Bang Honey Effects table. One ounce of whiz-bang honey is enough of a dose to affect a Small or Medium creature, larger or smaller creatures may require different doses before they are affected by the honey. Additionally, the creature must make a DC X Fortitude save or be nauseated for XX rounds.
*SNIP*
We could mix in something besides haste or add a line where they are sickened also, if we like.
If you change the bit starting "larger or smaller creatures" in the first paragraph to a new sentence, it looks good!
As for the price, a potion of haste at minimum CL is worth 750 gp and lasts 5 rounds. This has a chance to be much better but usually comes with a fairly bad side effect and is quite often worse. 100gp is probably fair, but I could go as high as 200gp, I guess.
Let's keep the price at 100gp and give it an expiry date of 1 month --- less randomness is better in this case, since it's easier for the DM to track.
Using it as a potion means the only CL-dependent variable in haste is the duration, and that's set by the effects table. And while even wondrous items have a CL, this isn't created by a caster, so I say no need for a CL.