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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Leatherhead" data-source="post: 6978207" data-attributes="member: 53176">Well killing one person via the mechanic you planed out will yield 140hp. In a timespan of about 7 min. And that's if they only have one person to grapple. So, it's entirely not useful for any sort of pacing you want to be using. You are operating with two scales of time here: The Dramatic scale, which takes place over the course how much time you want to tell a story. And the Combat Scale, which takes place in about 30 seconds (5 turns more or less) I would dare say that basing the transformation on HP just doesn't work in the system, you need a different counter of some kind.Your best bet is to divide the ability up into two usable bits: The Fluff bit "The Dagonspawn needs to feast on the souls of 108 humanoids in order to fully emerge from it's cocoon" And the Combat bit which is designed to happen in no more than 3 rounds "You drain X hp from the grappled target per round, and the Dagonspawn gains Y hp.  When the target reaches 0 hp, the Dagonspawn starts draining 2 exhaustion levels from the target per round instead. If the Target dies while the Dagonspawn has them grappled this way, it eats their soul." Something akin to that anyway.Yes, that means they can eat a lot of souls in a short order of time, but they need to eat an arbitrarily high number of souls before hand to get within that striking distance. Leaving plenty of time for plot to happen. Obviously, you want this thing to hatch in the middle of an encounter. A creature with 0hp is effectively out of the combat, so further draining it's stats has no real benefit for what you are trying to accomplish. And determining a random stat to drain for 12 different targets is just a chore. Keep the calculations simple, for your own sake.So you intend for this thing to get to full power in 6 rounds. That is a bit too slow, it really should be somewhere around 3.I'm going to have to break this down, because there is a lot of problems with this:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">That's really not how offensive CR works. Offensive CR is based on Maximum Burst Damage for 3 rounds at full resources. Which mean all the tentacle attacks are absolutely included. You can get around this by limiting the number of tentacles that attack per round, even if they can all drain every round. It's a bit of an artificial cap, but it works wonders.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Furthermore, nowhere in the stat block does it stay "Tentacles stop growing back after the Dagonspawn Hatches"  </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Also importantly, nobody is going to spend time chopping tentacles after they figure out they grow back, they will simply go full tilt at the core. You are teaching two different sets of rules here, and there isn't enough time to learn about the switch in one encounter. </li> </ul>This does bring up one important question, do AoE attacks hurt the tentacles or just the core creature? Because that can drastically change the dynamics of the fight.Start with making two stat blocks, combining them into one is causing too much confusion. And use precise numbers "the Cocoon starts combat with 45 hp. When it hits 113 hp, it transforms." Also don't be afraid to start by over-explaining the abilities, even if it seems obvious or a bit redundant to you. You can always cut them down later, but you have to start with something to cut from.</blockquote>

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