Help Me Stat a "Sheep"

[Infiniti2000]

Not quite a sheep, but the size of one with reddish brown fur like a cow. The working name is "semblit." A semblit is also special in that as it eats it builds up an internal gas (hydrogen?) that allows it to float up to 300m in the air. This floating is uncontrollable by the (stupid) creature, and is exploited by people to build air ships that have essentially inverted pens. As the semblit expels this gas, it obviously loses lift and gently floats back down to the ground.

The downside is that they're explosive. If they're ruptured, they blow up, possibly causing adjacent semblits to similarly detonate.

1. What would be the general stats? I was thinking of minions, but that would obviously making them very dangerous.

2. How much damage when they die and what area?

3. Feel free to chime in on any other particulars, like the ships or how the pens are controlled, or how the people move the semblits around (refueling as it were).

Thanks! Any other suggestions you have are also welcome.

 

[Nightson]

If they're ruptured, they blow up

Why?

 

[keterys]

Sounds like a hazard that explodes under as much damage as you want (sounds like 1+) for as much damage as is convenient for the level of the party and number of them around.

 

[fissionessence]

Once I made an encounter full of 'fire zombies' and a fire elemental in the back, calling the shots. The zombies had an ability that if they were destroyed by fire damage, they would explode in fire. The elemental's tactics were that if the zombies got into a good position, it would ignite one of its allies (a zombie) in order to incite a chain reaction that would cause all of the fire zombies to explode, and hopefully significantly wound the PCs.

This didn't work out at all, but I thought it seemed somewhat relevant.

~

 

[Nytmare]

So am I to understand that by "sheep" what you really mean is "tactical Hindenburgs?"

I think I'd go with a plant that made gas filled pods before I went with four-legged fart jokes. I also think that I'd go with non-explosive, magical flight before I gave D&D players flocks of pyrotechnic sheep to play with.

From a logistical standpoint, if these things were that unstable and dangerous, a civilization would be hard pressed to find a way to put them to any kind of real use. People would stay as far away from them as possible, and keep them as far away from civilization as they could.

 

[cmbarona]

Well, I think it's a clever and funny little idea. Minions actually seem to work well for what you have in mind (detonating adjacent semblits), although I'd generally advise you to stat these up based on what you intend to do with them in relation to the PCs themselves. Will they face them in combat? Do they only detonate in the presence of some form of spark? Etc. The rest can be taken care of with the DM's magic plot wand.

You should probably use the DMs Toolbox (chapter 10, DMG) "Limited Damage Expression" values if you want them to be dangerous, or use smaller values, like a minion's damage of a comparable level, if you mean them to be more of a humerous nuisance.

Oh, and if PCs are ever caught in the field of the explosions, be sure to include the whole messy description. I'm sure they'll appreciate the grossness. If possible, insert such an incident before they appear before some form of nobility.

 

[doctorhook]

So am I to understand that by "sheep" what you really mean is "tactical Hindenburgs?"

I think I'd go with a plant that made gas filled pods before I went with four-legged fart jokes. I also think that I'd go with non-explosive, magical flight before I gave D&D players flocks of pyrotechnic sheep to play with.

From a logistical standpoint, if these things were that unstable and dangerous, a civilization would be hard pressed to find a way to put them to any kind of real use. People would stay as far away from them as possible, and keep them as far away from civilization as they could.

Why the hate? You're crapping on a perfectly hilarious idea with logistical realities and seriousness.

I like the idea! FWIW, have you checked out the Pit Fiend? IIRC, it has a "minion explode" ability (of a much higher level than you're looking for, I'm sure) which could serve as a template for these semblits' exploding idea. Personally, I like the idea of them being minions, with perhaps a Close Burst 1 explosion radius -- large enough to cause problems, but small enough not to accidentally destroy all of your monsters at once.

(Also, I anyone wants to talk about logistics, I assume that these creatures would probably reach maturity at an alarming rate, and that they would also be unable to explode prior to sexual maturity, for genetic reasons. Additionally, it's likely that any civilization which domesticates these creatures would have developed a simple and inexpensive form of "semblit proofing". Lastly, the sheep idea is hilarious, but if you fear for the innocent souls of these poor, short-lived mammals, it's much easier to imagine them as large, mindless, invertebrate vermin which have simply evolved to resemble livestock.)

 

[Nytmare]

Why the hate? You're crapping on a perfectly hilarious idea with logistical realities and seriousness.

Feel free to chime in on any other particulars, like the ships or how the pens are controlled, or how the people move the semblits around (refueling as it were).

He asked for logistics and I think that campaign built around a concept that will, quite literally, blow up in his face is a bad idea. Combat happens a lot in D&D. If your campaign is about airships that blow up whenever someone pops one of the balloons holding them up, the campaign will be about a lot of airships (not to mention farms, shipping yards, city markets, and anywhere else you can lead a herd of sheep and a bunch of hay) that blow up a lot of the time.

 

[FadedC]

Well logistics aside, the new undead book is full of minions who explode or do other bad things when they die. Some can potentially cause chain reactions, for example I think there's a zombie minion that blows up doing 7 in a radius when it dies, including to other zombie minions (at least as written). Kind of reminds me of the exploding zombies in the old myth computer game.

Anyway the point of all this is that this mechanic is probably the most apropriate for exploding sheep. It will mean one good sword blow could destroy or disable the ship, but presumably the point is your up in the air away from people swinging swords. Kind of reminds me of the old hot air observation balloons which were also extremely vulnerable, but yet people still used them in war.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Brief background: We rotate DMs and the other guy had these in his campaign world. He never statted them out and simply used hand-waving, which as players we were fine with. There's a lot of trust in our group, so it worked for us. We're also not really into a lot of potty humor, so a lot of fart jokes really never came up. As a group, we're far more into geek-related humor, specifically around the names of characters and places (e.g. the other DM named a range of hills the Semtax Hills -- he's an amateur military historian -- and we exhausted every joke about it, such as "let's go Forth to the (mispronouncing) Syntax Hills and C the dragon." Yeah, not funny written down, but you get the idea.)

The the semblit was just a fun, new concept to have a relatively interesting and yet somewhat dangerous airship that wasn't magic-based like every other airship (e.g. Death Gate Cycle).

I can hand-wave it in 4E, too, which will probably work. But, I was hoping the very best D&D minds could help stat them out and thus also probably lend additional ideas of maintenance, ship repair, and all the other things about handling these animals that would lend a little more interesting flavor to the airship. Are the creatures held in floating airdocks at specific refueling points (aka FARPs)? Is each ship heavily barded at the bottom to protect itself from inadvertent explosions? How is the ship protected from attack? Is each individual semblit barded such that if it explodes it won't impact neighboring semblits? Maybe some very good farmer has invented a special form of grass that enables semblits to float even higher or with such force that fewer are required to raise a ship. Are there special ground-based vehicles to recover ships that run out of "fuel"?

Fwiw, I like the ideas so far of both the plant and the vermin. Those are both excellent alternatives for people who don't like exploding sheep or potential fart jokes, but there's still the same number of questions for handling them. Also, I don't particular think they should even have a bite. I'd make them do minimal damage, if any, on a bite. I don't know if there's any other power they might have, but perhaps something like the deathjump spider's prodigious leap would fit.

Nytmare, your last post is exactly the train of thought I want to explore. I agree that such an idea could have a huge impact on the campaign world, and that's okay. I want to explore this and see how much of an impact and, if necessary, design the mechanics to limit it. For example, doctorhook's excellent idea of semblits not exploding prior to puberty is a very good one. They could even change colors (e.g. an emperor angel fish is a real-world test case of an extreme color-changer) or have some significant characteristic, and towns/cities could have laws that disallow adults from entering the town limits.

Once again, thanks!