D&D 3E/3.5 Kraken Variants

[freyar]

Huh, I read it more as just of a natural coloration thing rather than an active ability, so more like camouflage. I think I'd rather stick to camo since they're not shapechangers like mimics. I'm up for boosting the camouflage DC, though.

Your skill option #1 looks pretty good, though putting the Hide ranks somewhere else would be fine, too.

You probably have the right feats for it, including the combat ones.

Got behind on this thread, the Displaced Critters got bumped a time or two, so I missed it.

 

[Cleon]

Huh, I read it more as just of a natural coloration thing rather than an active ability, so more like camouflage. I think I'd rather stick to camo since they're not shapechangers like mimics. I'm up for boosting the camouflage DC, though.

Your skill option #1 looks pretty good, though putting the Hide ranks somewhere else would be fine, too.

Okay I can live with that, how about we give it Skill Option #2 with Camouflage and just arbitrarily set the Camouflage DC to 30 since it's effectively the same DC as spotting an invisible living creature who's holding still as it's "identical" to kelp.

You probably have the right feats for it, including the combat ones.

Works for me!

Updating Mystaran Kraken Working Draft.

Got behind on this thread, the Displaced Critters got bumped a time or two, so I missed it.

These things happen. Especially when our threads wander away to other forums!

 

[Cleon]

Updating Mystaran Kraken Working Draft.

Well while updating the Working Draft I realized that I'd got the total skill ranks wrong in post #90 of this thread:

Skills #1: Escape Artist +13, Hide +5 (+13 kelp mimicry), Listen +38, Spot +39, Swim +29

Skills #2: Escape Artist +13, Hide +22 (+30 kelp mimicry), Listen +30, Spot +30, Swim +29

That's 18 more skill ranks than it should have - I forgot to apply the -16 Hide Penalty for it being Colossal and for some reason it has two excess points in Escape Artist (I suspect I used its Wis bonus).

To amend this I've changed the skills to:

Skills #3: Escape Artist +12, Hide +15, Listen +25, Spot +25, Swim +29

If you prefer it having Listen and Spot +30 like the standard Kraken I'd be fine swapping over 10 ranks to make it:

Skills #4: Escape Artist +12, Hide +5, Listen +30, Spot +30, Swim +29

 

[freyar]

I could go for skills option #4. But, you know, it doesn't really need Hide at all with a static camouflage DC. Would something like Climb be fun? I can just imagine a giant squid climbing onto an island mountain (while holding its breath, of course).

 

[Cleon]

I could go for skills option #4. But, you know, it doesn't really need Hide at all with a static camouflage DC. Would something like Climb be fun? I can just imagine a giant squid climbing onto an island mountain (while holding its breath, of course).

I gave it ranks in Hide because the SRD Kraken has ranks in that skill. There's no mention of it clambering about on land like a Sea Demon does.

How about we move some or all the Hide ranks to some other skills. I'd go for Escape Artist, Intimidate or Knowledge (nature) or (geography).

Maybe even a combination of the above.

Let's see, with an Intelligence of 5 it'd have crummy Knowledge skill anyhow so let's go for Intimidate. Let's set that skill to the same +16 as the SRD Kraken and see how that works.

That'd be:

Skills #5: Escape Artist +13, Hide –11, Intimidate +16, Listen +30, Spot +30, Swim +29

Ranks (67): Escape Artist 2 (+1Dex+10racial), Hide 0 (+1Dex+4racial– 16size), Intimidate 15 (+1Cha), Listen 25 (+3Wis+2feat), Spot 25 (+3Wis+2feat), Swim 0 (+21Str+8racial)

I like the idea of it having enough of a modifier in Escape Artist to auto-succeed (or only-fail-on-a-1) at the DC 30 "squeeze through tight spaces" check. Also wouldn't mind a few more ranks in Hide so it's closer to the Kraken's +0. We can only achieve that by moving ranks from Listen & Spot though.

So something like:

Skills #6: Escape Artist +19, Hide –11, Intimidate +16, Listen +27, Spot +27, Swim +29

Ranks (67): Escape Artist 8 (+1Dex+10racial), Hide 0 (+1Dex+4racial– 16size), Intimidate 15 (+1Cha), Listen 22 (+3Wis+2feat), Spot 22 (+3Wis+2feat), Swim 0 (+21Str+8racial)

or:

Skills #7: Escape Artist +18, Hide –6, Intimidate +16, Listen +25, Spot +25, Swim +29

Ranks (67): Escape Artist 7 (+1Dex+10racial), Hide 5 (+1Dex+4racial– 16size), Intimidate 15 (+1Cha), Listen 20 (+3Wis+2feat), Spot 20 (+3Wis+2feat), Swim 0 (+21Str+8racial)

Overall I prefer having its Intimdate, Listen and Spot skills be the same as the SRD Kraken though, so lean toward the Skills #5 option.

 

[Cleon]

I could go for skills option #4. But, you know, it doesn't really need Hide at all with a static camouflage DC. Would something like Climb be fun? I can just imagine a giant squid climbing onto an island mountain (while holding its breath, of course).

Oh, and with a Strength of 52 it has Climb +21 without putting any ranks in it, which ought to be enough for casual mountaineering.

 

[freyar]

I will go for your skills suggestion number 5. You're right about the Strength being sufficient for climbing should it decide to go for a stroll.

Let's go for Triple Standard treasure but maybe note in the flavor that the treasure is mostly in its lair, I guess other than a few (magic) items the kraken might be using.

I think advancement would be good at 65-192HD.

I always have a hard time with epic CRs. What do you think? Low 30s somewhere?

 

[Cleon]

I will go for your skills suggestion number 5. You're right about the Strength being sufficient for climbing should it decide to go for a stroll.

Updating Mystaran Kraken Working Draft.

Let's go for Triple Standard treasure but maybe note in the flavor that the treasure is mostly in its lair, I guess other than a few (magic) items the kraken might be using.

The original creature's has "G, H" treasure which isn't much better than an AD&D Kraken's "G, R, S (+A)" Considering it's so much more powerful than a Kraken, that implies it's got proportionally less loot – which I guess might be because the Mystaran variety is dimwitted compared to the Genius-level standard Kraken.

So I'm inclined to reduce the amount of treasure and, yes, I'd definitely mention that most of its loot is in its lair.

Maybe "Double Standard (mostly in lair, only useful magic items will be carried)"?

I think advancement would be good at 65-192HD.

I was fancying 65–96 HD (Colossal) since it's already ginormous enough for me, although I'd be content with the current draft's 65–128 HD.

How likely is it a 192 HD Kraken to see play anyway? At that size it's easier for a DM to just say "too big to harm with ordinary weapons" like some Spelljammer creatures that are treated as scenery or spelljammer ships rather than monsters.

I always have a hard time with epic CRs. What do you think? Low 30s somewhere?

Ugh! I too have a hard time with high-level CRs. The game is just broken at that level (well, it can start breaking down around the teens depending on the classes & gear the PCs can access).

Still, my gut is telling me "high 20s" rather than "low 30s". A simple freedom of movement spell negates its grappling ability and it doesn't have much else going for it apart from humongous size and damage output.

Put it this way, who would you rather face - this guy or Khalk'ru? Then consider we gave The Dissolver a CR of 25 after much agonizing debate. A creature that has twelve annihilating tentacle attacks, remember. The Mystaran Kraken seems a teddybear by comparison.

Hmm… did we give The Dissolver a too-low CR? I don't want to go back to that nest of thorns.

Let's see, a normal Kraken is CR 12. Its bigger Mystaran cousin has 52 more HD (+17) and is a size bigger (+1), which'd make him a nice round CR 30. However, he's real stupid and doesn't have any SLAs which might knock off a CR to 29.

That still feels a bit too high to me though, my gut feeling was the big guy's a CR 27 or 28 at most. I tend to guesstimate "big dumb brawler" monsters as being something like 3/5th their Hit Dice at epic levels, since they tend to have several (or many) easily exploitable weaknesses such as a weak Will save and vulnerability to charm spells or ability damage / energy-draining attacks. (Ability attacks are worse, since it usually has a couple of stats lower than 10 and knocking any of those down to 0 knocks it out of the fight).

2/5th HD for the Mystaran Kraken is CR 25 or 26 by the way, about what Khalk'ru has.

 

[Cleon]

2/5th HD for the Mystaran Kraken is CR 25 or 26 by the way, about what Khalk'ru has.

Hmm, how would a fight between Khalk'ru and the Mystaran Kraken play out? (Course this isn't exactly a good comparison to a PC party vs. monster conflict)

If the Kraken full-attacks Khalk'ru its +78 melee attacks will pretty automatically hit, so it's likely to do about 500 damage (its ten tentacle average 42 damage apiece and its bite 46 and it's likely to critical with one of them due to having Improved Critical) odds are, it won't quite do enough damage to overcome Khalk'ru's 555 hit points.

Contrariwise, Khalk'ru twelve +37 melee tentacles have a 90% chance of hitting the Kraken's AC 40, so he'll likely hit with 10 or so for about 300 damage (28.5 average), but then Mystie has to make ten +30 Will saves vs Touch of Destruction's DC 33, which statistics tells me is only 34.86% likely, so about 65% of the time the Mystaran Kraken will be drained to a lifeless husk. Although on the good side, Mystie will probably make the +46 Fort saves vs. Destruction so at least he'll leave a corpse!

However, if the Kraken's smart it'll power-attack Khalk'ru, it can power attack at -40 to hit and still have a 95% hit chance, almost doubling the damage-per-hit and tearing The Dissolver asunder with one round of full attacks. Even with only Intelligence 5 it's likely to figure that one out.

'Course Khalk'ru's exceptionally intelligent so would just keep greater teleporting out of the Kraken's reach and spamming enervation at the beast's tentacles until the Kraken's done for.

So basically if they both fight "smart" Khalk'ru wins, if they immediately jump into a all-tentacle brawl it's fairly close, and pretty much whoever wins initiative wins.

Although "whoever wins initiative wins" is pretty much the maxim of high-level 3E combat.

 

[Cleon]

Regarding the PC vs Mystaran Kraken scenario, the Kraken can only constrict a PC with a single tentacle for 6d6+21 which might reduce the threat it represents.

Unless it can hold a PC in a tentacle and "Megaslap" them with the other nine it might not be able to do the ridiculous amounts of damage its stats suggest (and remember freedom of movement negates its grappling ability.

Actually, that makes me wonder whether we should place some limit on the number of tentacles it can bring to bear. The Mystaran Kraken's original stats did not specify, unlike the 2E AD&D Giant Squid which has "As many as eight tentacles can attack one opponent, but only one at a time can constrict a man-sized opponent (the rest are free to attack anything else within reach)" - i.e. it can tentacle attack a Medium opponent up to eight times, but once it hits it can only make constriction attack with the tentacle that hit and must turn its other tentacles elsewhere.

So how about adapting my "Giant Cephalopod" Redux rule?:

A giant octopus can attack with all its tentacles simultaneously, dividing its attacks among as many opponents as it likes. A giant octopus can bring all eight tentacle attacks to bear against an opponent its own size or larger, it can attack a creature 1 size smaller than itself with up to 4 tentacles, a creature 2 sizes smaller with 2 tentacles, and smaller opponents with only one tentacle.

That'd produce something like:

A Mystaran kraken can attack with all its tentacles simultaneously, dividing its attacks among as many opponents as it likes. The kraken can bring all eight tentacle attacks to bear against a Colossal opponent, it can attack a Gargantuan creature with up to 4 tentacles, a Huge creature with 2 tentacles, and Large or smaller opponents with only one tentacle.