Creature Catalogue Overhaul Project Revisited
- Thread starter Shade
- Start date
Cleon
Legend
A nether bird is 3 feet long, including its foot-long tail feathers, and has a 6 to 7 foot wingspan. It weighs about 10 pounds.
That's a fairly typical size & weight for a big flying bird like a golden eagle or swan.
Shade
Monster Junkie
Oculon
Oculon
FREQUENCY: Very rare
NUMBER APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVE: 15”
HIT DICE: 7 (30 hit points)
% IN LAIR: Nil
TREASURE TYPE: Nil
NUMBER OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: By weapon type
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Average (with considerable cunning)
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
SIZE: M
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil (immune to psionic attacks)
The oculon is an enchanted monster created by a high-level magic-user to act as an assistant or guardian. The process of creating one is long and quite involved, but the resulting being is fairly powerful because of the many special skills it has. An oculon is humanoid in shape, though only vaguely so, and is 4 feet tall at the shoulder. Instead of a human head, the oculon has a flexible neck about 3 feet in length with a single large eye at the end. The neck is 2” in diameter and the eye is 4” across.
There is no rigid internal skeleton; the oculon’s movements appear somewhat rubbery, and it can flatten into a mobile blob of matter only 9” high, covering 6 square feet. When flattened oculons move at one-third normal speed and do not attack.
An oculon can only be hit by weapons of a magical nature. In addition, the lack of a skeleton allows this creature to take only half damage from falls and from attacks made by blunt weapons when in its semi-humanoid form. When in its flattened form, the cannot be damaged at all by falls or blunt weapons, because the body will “give” and absorb the impact of the blow.
An oculon will take verbal commands only from the magicuser who helped create it. It can understand and obey a reasonably complex set of instructions and may operate on its own for a considerable period of time.
Small-sized melee weapons may be handled by an oculon in combat, but they cannot use missile weapons. If an oculon succeeds in attacking from behind it will do double damage to the victim. Also, the large eye may fire up to seven magic missiles per day at a maximum rate of one per round. These missiles do 1-6 points damage each and strike opponents as if launched by a 7-hit-dice monster; they have a 180’ range but there are no penalties “to hit” when firing upon a target at medium or long range.
Oculons may hide in shadows with 80% success. They can move about in complete silence, surprising opponents on a score of 1-4 on a 6-sided die. They cannot be caught in a Web or snared, netted, or grasped in any way; treat as if they were coated with Oil of Slipperiness.
Creation of an oculon requires the services of an alchemist and spells cast from a magic-user of at least 18th level. Many exotic materials are required by the alchemist, and the total cost of his services will be 30,000 gp. The three most important substances necessary are a gland from a purple worm, an eye from a beholder, and the brain of a thief. Two to five weeks are required for the alchemist to prepare the mixture, after which the Wizard must cast these spells upon the fluids, in this order: Unseen Servant, Magic Missile, Protection from Normal Missiles, Geas, Mind Blank, and Wish. The oculon then assumes its semi-humanoid form and is ready to take on assignments.
The body of an oculon is light grey in color, and slightly glossy. The cornea of the eye is dark grey, and the pupil of the eye is black.
Originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #53 (1981).
Oculon
FREQUENCY: Very rare
NUMBER APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVE: 15”
HIT DICE: 7 (30 hit points)
% IN LAIR: Nil
TREASURE TYPE: Nil
NUMBER OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: By weapon type
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Average (with considerable cunning)
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
SIZE: M
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil (immune to psionic attacks)
The oculon is an enchanted monster created by a high-level magic-user to act as an assistant or guardian. The process of creating one is long and quite involved, but the resulting being is fairly powerful because of the many special skills it has. An oculon is humanoid in shape, though only vaguely so, and is 4 feet tall at the shoulder. Instead of a human head, the oculon has a flexible neck about 3 feet in length with a single large eye at the end. The neck is 2” in diameter and the eye is 4” across.
There is no rigid internal skeleton; the oculon’s movements appear somewhat rubbery, and it can flatten into a mobile blob of matter only 9” high, covering 6 square feet. When flattened oculons move at one-third normal speed and do not attack.
An oculon can only be hit by weapons of a magical nature. In addition, the lack of a skeleton allows this creature to take only half damage from falls and from attacks made by blunt weapons when in its semi-humanoid form. When in its flattened form, the cannot be damaged at all by falls or blunt weapons, because the body will “give” and absorb the impact of the blow.
An oculon will take verbal commands only from the magicuser who helped create it. It can understand and obey a reasonably complex set of instructions and may operate on its own for a considerable period of time.
Small-sized melee weapons may be handled by an oculon in combat, but they cannot use missile weapons. If an oculon succeeds in attacking from behind it will do double damage to the victim. Also, the large eye may fire up to seven magic missiles per day at a maximum rate of one per round. These missiles do 1-6 points damage each and strike opponents as if launched by a 7-hit-dice monster; they have a 180’ range but there are no penalties “to hit” when firing upon a target at medium or long range.
Oculons may hide in shadows with 80% success. They can move about in complete silence, surprising opponents on a score of 1-4 on a 6-sided die. They cannot be caught in a Web or snared, netted, or grasped in any way; treat as if they were coated with Oil of Slipperiness.
Creation of an oculon requires the services of an alchemist and spells cast from a magic-user of at least 18th level. Many exotic materials are required by the alchemist, and the total cost of his services will be 30,000 gp. The three most important substances necessary are a gland from a purple worm, an eye from a beholder, and the brain of a thief. Two to five weeks are required for the alchemist to prepare the mixture, after which the Wizard must cast these spells upon the fluids, in this order: Unseen Servant, Magic Missile, Protection from Normal Missiles, Geas, Mind Blank, and Wish. The oculon then assumes its semi-humanoid form and is ready to take on assignments.
The body of an oculon is light grey in color, and slightly glossy. The cornea of the eye is dark grey, and the pupil of the eye is black.
Originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #53 (1981).
Cleon
Legend
Well the 3.0 version looks like a good start.
Apart from adjusting it for 3.5 (i.e. skills, feats and bonus hp) I would like to quantify its Malleable Form a bit (i.e. say it can squeeze through spaces as if it were 2 sizes smaller) any give its magic missile a boost - either increase the number of missiles (a 7th level wizard would get 4 1d4+1 missiles with the spell) or increase the damage.
It does need to make an attack roll with its missile as written, so it ought to be a bit more effective. At the moment it'll do more damage with a light crossbow.
Maybe 2d6 or 3d6 force damage? A scorching ray is 4d6 fire, after all.
Oh, and we should probably give it a different name from the spell if it's going to be mechanically different.
Either that or keep the magic missile name and have it function like the spell (e.g. 2 or 3 auto-hitting 1d4+1 force missiles).
Apart from adjusting it for 3.5 (i.e. skills, feats and bonus hp) I would like to quantify its Malleable Form a bit (i.e. say it can squeeze through spaces as if it were 2 sizes smaller) any give its magic missile a boost - either increase the number of missiles (a 7th level wizard would get 4 1d4+1 missiles with the spell) or increase the damage.
It does need to make an attack roll with its missile as written, so it ought to be a bit more effective. At the moment it'll do more damage with a light crossbow.
Maybe 2d6 or 3d6 force damage? A scorching ray is 4d6 fire, after all.
Oh, and we should probably give it a different name from the spell if it's going to be mechanically different.
Either that or keep the magic missile name and have it function like the spell (e.g. 2 or 3 auto-hitting 1d4+1 force missiles).
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
Skeletons switched from half-damage from slashing/piercing to DR 5/bludgeoning in 3.5, so I'd suggest switching these to DR 5/magic and (piercing or slashing). (Parentheses inserted to show the logical flow. 
)
I agree with Cleon on the Malleable Form and magic missile. Either make it work as the spell or bump the damage and change the name. For inspiration, there's a 3.0 spell called arcane bolt from an old WotC web article. At CL 7, it would be 4 bolts at 1d6+1 force damage each (but counts like a magic missile otherwise). We could also look at the DCv1 force missile mage PrC for other inspiration.
The original text says they can't use ranged weapons. Should we put that in to the new version?
)I agree with Cleon on the Malleable Form and magic missile. Either make it work as the spell or bump the damage and change the name. For inspiration, there's a 3.0 spell called arcane bolt from an old WotC web article. At CL 7, it would be 4 bolts at 1d6+1 force damage each (but counts like a magic missile otherwise). We could also look at the DCv1 force missile mage PrC for other inspiration.
The original text says they can't use ranged weapons. Should we put that in to the new version?
Cleon
Legend
Skeletons switched from half-damage from slashing/piercing to DR 5/bludgeoning in 3.5, so I'd suggest switching these to DR 5/magic and (piercing or slashing). (Parentheses inserted to show the logical flow.
I'd just keep it piercing or slashing. Aren't they resistant to bludgeoning simply because they're elastic, not due to any resistance to non-magical weapons?
Arcane bolt is fine, but I'd prefer fewer than 4 bolts. Either 2 or 3.
Well with one eye they might have lousy depth perception, so it's hardly surprising.
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freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
The original text says that, indeed, they are resistant to bludgeoning because of their elastic nature. But it mentions that they also can't be hit except by magical weapons.
Ok, then (perhaps we should change the name?):
Arcane Arrows (Sp): Once per round (?), an oculon can fire three missiles of force energy as ranged touch attacks against upto three different targets. On a successful hit, each missile does 1d6+1 points of force damage. In all manners otherwise, these arrows are treated as magic missiles per the spell. This ability is equivalent to a first level spell.
Well with one eye they might have lousy depth perception, so it's hardly surprising.
But should we give them a penalty, perhaps? Only avoided by their arcane bolts?
Shade
Monster Junkie
Not bad at all. I don't mind the name, but "arcane bolt" or "force bolt" also works for me.
I'm fine with that. I'd rather not prohibit ranged weapons altogether, for not only is it odd rules-wise, it doesn't make sense when cyclopes and other one-eyed critters use 'em just fine.
