Siune Spider - d20 Starwars Predator

[Arandmoor_Keet]

I made this guy to have some fun with my Starwars players soon as they start meeting pirate bording parties (spiders domesticated with the dark side serve the pirates) and eventually hit planetside.

I hope someone here is reasonably well versed in Starwars creatures...think one of them would be a reasonable opponent for a group of 3rd or 4th level characters?

Siune Spider
Predator 3 VP/WP 28/20
Str 20 Dex 12 Con 20 Int 5 Wis 10 Cha 9
Fort +8 Ref +4 Will +1

Size: Medium (2-2.5m); Speed: 10m; Defense 18 (+1 Dex, +7 natural)

SQ: DR 5, Low-light Vision, Poison, and Webbing
Feats: Track, Multiattack
Skills: Survival +6, Jump +11, Balance +8, Climb +12

(Was: Survival +6, Jump +11, Balance +11)

Attacks: 1 Tongue-lance +4 ranged, 4 Claws +6 melee
Damage: Tongue-lance (1d6+5+poison), Claws (1d6+2)

Was: Tongue-lance (1d6+7+poison+3d6+7)

Description: These large, six-legged, gray spider-like creatures are known to the Jung Go pirates as the planet Siune's top predators. Utilizing vicious pack tactics and their own potent poison there is no creature on Siune that is safe from a pack of hungry Siune Spiders.
The Siune Spider is at home in the mid reaches of the branchy Spider Trees indigenous to Siune, and it is there that they spend the vast majority of their lives. Their legs are long but quite delicate below the first joint, and while perfect for clinging to the spongy bark of the native spider trees they make them quite ungainly on the ground unless they tuck them in towards their bellies and walk on the spike of chitin that juts out from their knees.
Deadly predators because of their intelligence, if given another few thousand years of evolution the Siune Spiders would probably become a new space faring race.

Combat: Siune Spiders favor ambushing from high ground when their prey is stationary, and they are masters of splitting up groups. They prefer to strike fast and fade away letting their poison finish their targets while they track their doomed prey.
Should their poison be unable to take down their prey, Siune Spiders are fully able to kill prey in melee combat with their poison injecting tongues, sharp talons, and tough chitin armor.

Tongue Lance: The Siune Spiders’ body has a singularly powerful muscle on the underside of their head that is directly connected to their digestive system. When used as a weapon, a Siune spider can project its tongue at opponents up to four meters away. Additionally the end of the tongue sports chitin spikes attached to independent muscles. Strong and sharp enough to pierce durasteel, the spines on the tongue can be fanned out once inside the Spider’s prey. Hardly the worst part of the attack, the spines are fanned, not as barbs intended to tear flesh, but instead to open the wound wider and allow the tube running the length of the tongue to inject massive amounts of the spider’s potent poison.

Poison DC was 16, and damage used to be 2d6 str/2d6 str

Poison: The Siune Spiders’ potent poison is actually stomach acid intended to digest their prey once they have been wrapped in webbing. It has a fort save DC of 18, and deals
1 str + 1 dex damage, and again after one minute. Damage to strength and dexterity is permanent as the poison actually digests muscle tissue, and is irreparable by anything short of a bacta tank. Treatment in a bacta tank will repair ability damage at a rate of one point per stat per six hours.

Webbing: Siune Spiders are excellent web spinners able to spin some 100 meters of webbing every ten minutes. The webbing they spin is extremely strong although it is not sticky in the least after it has had a chance to dry for a minute or so.
Siune Spiders like to spin webs to block escape routes and set extremely primitive traps such as covered pits and net-drops.

Edit: incorperated changes...but kept origional for comparison
Arandmoor Keet

 

[DnDChick]

Siune Spider
Predator 3 VP/WP 28/20
Str 20 Dex 12 Con 20 Int 5 Wis 10 Cha 9
Fort +8 Ref +4 Will +1

Size: Medium (2-2.5m); Speed: 10m; Defense 18 (+1 Dex, +7 natural)

SQ: DR 5, Low-light Vision, Poison, and Webbing
Feats: Track, Multiattack
Skills: Survival +6, Jump +11, Balance +11

It seems to me that your Balance skill has too many ranks. The maximum ranks for a skill is Level + 3. The Balance skill, at the maximum of 6 ranks plus the Dex modifier, should only be +7. Now, you could give them a +4 racial modifier to climb (they are spiders, after all!) which would bring the total back up to +11.

Attacks: 1 Tongue-lance +4 ranged, 4 Claws +6 melee
Damage: Tongue-lance (1d6+7+poison+3d6+7), Claws (1d6+2)

The damage for the tongue lance is a little much for a 3rd level predator, IMHO.

Also, if a creature has more than one natural attack, the Strength bonus is not multiplied by 1.5 for the primary attack. The +7 damage has to be +5.

But still that still leaves the tongue lance inflicting 4d6+10 points of damage per hit. Thats way to much for its size and level.

Consider this: as big and as nasty as the Rancor is, its claws only do 2d6+8. So, a low damage roll for the tongue lance will be almost as much as the maximum damage from the claws on a hand big enough to pick up a human! If the extra 3d6 damage tacked onto the tongue lance is meant to represent the flaring inside a target, see how this sits with you:

Tongue Lance: The tongue lance of a siune spider has flaring barbs on the tip, which expand when buried in an opponent's body. The critical threat range for a siune spider's tongue lance is 18.

Then, you could leave the base damage at 1d6+5, with a high crit chance for it to go straight to Wounds. 1d6+5 to Wounds is a nasty hit!

Poison: fort save DC of 16, and deals
2d6 str/2d6 str damage. Strength damage is permanent.

Your DC is off for the poison. The DC should be 10 + Con Modifier + level*. The DC for the siune spider's poison is therefore DC 18: 10 + 5 Con Mod + 3 level.

*for those of you familiar with DnD, this may seem wrong. Its not. The rules in the SWD20 revised states this to be the correct formula for poison DC. I dont know why its changed from other D20 games.

But if you ask me, your poison damge is also way too high. The way you have it now, any time someone is hit by the tongue, they lose 2d6 points of permanent strength even if they make their Fort save. What you might consider is changing the poison to Initial damage 0 strength, secondary damge 2d6 strength. 2d6 permanent points of ability damage is devastating, though, so you should consider bringing down the damage, and not making it permanent for the sake of balance.

With the damage as you have it now, and the massive poison damage, the challenge code for this little beastie would probably pretty high... maybe around Challenge Code E: LOTS of damage that is difficult to avoid. That means the siune spider as you have it, unchanged, would be an extreme challenge for characters of 6th to 8th level. Using my suggestions on bringing down the tongue lance damage and poison damge...around Challenge Code B. Thats a simple challenge for characters of the levels you are suggesting, but if you use lots of them, you can increase the challenge code to C or maybe even D (for a swarm of 'em!)

The rest of it looks OK.

 

[Arandmoor_Keet]

Jeze...how could I forget the max ranks...Teach me for typing that part at 1 in the morning...

Fixing the skills, I'm going to give them a +4 racial to balance and Climb, then divert some points to climb.

That comes to...

Skills: Survival +6, Jump +11, Balance +8, Climb +12

Lets make sure my math's right...

Survival (+6 rank, +0 stat, +0 Racial)
Jump (+6 rank, +5 stat, +0 racial)
Balance (+3 rank, +1 stat, +4 racial)
Climb (+3 rank, +5 stat, +4 racial)

Tongue Lance...
I could have sworn I took out the 3d6+7 tear damage...guess I didn't. Ignore that. Shouldn't be there.
Thanks. I've been confused about the whole "what attacks get what str damage bonus"...actually I still am, but I'll take your word for it.

Tongue Lance: +4 ranged 1d6+5+poison

Poison: The poison should give a fort save to negate the str damage on both the primary and secondary hits. What did I say in my description?

Also, damage might be better if it were waaaay lower...considering the save is so high (i'm going to double check the DC stuff...post again later...) although the semi-permenent nature will stay.
If you want my reasoning, if you've ever seen the movie Seven when he locked that guy up for a year...
Imagine finding one of your companions trapped in a cocoon looking something like that while still being alive...

Maybe something like simultaneous strength and dex damage...like 1d2 points unless they crit? then pump the damage...

Arandmoor Keet

 

[DnDChick]

I've been confused about the whole "what attacks get what str damage bonus"...actually I still am, but I'll take your word for it.

If you have the SWD20 revised, check page 330, the section on Damage.

"A creature's primary attack damage includes its full Strength modifier (or 1.5 × Strength bonus if it's the creature's sole attack). Secondary attacks add one-half the creature's Strength bonus."

In other words, if a creature only has a single attack type (not including Special Attacks, etc) it gets StrBonus × 1.5. If it has any other attack types, the primary attack gets normal StrBonus and any others get 1/2 StrBonus.

For example, a critter that has only a claw attack would add its StrBonus ×1.5 to damage, because it only has one attack type. If the critter could claw AND bite, or claw OR bite, the claw would get only the normal StrBonus while the bite would get 1/2 StrBonus.

Also, damage might be better if it were waaaay lower...considering the save is so high (i'm going to double check the DC stuff...post again later...) although the semi-permenent nature will stay.

The poison DC formula can be found on pg. 331 of SWD20 revised, in column 1. It can also be found on pg. 8 of the Alien Anthology.

The Alien Anthology also has nifty templates you can add to your critters, one of which is "force-using." If you dont have the book, I would suggest you try to get a copy-- adding the force-using template to your spiders would make them nasty nasty critters in league with the Dark Side!

If you want my reasoning, if you've ever seen the movie Seven when he locked that guy up for a year...
Imagine finding one of your companions trapped in a cocoon looking something like that while still being alive...

That movie gave me nightmares.

kewl critter! Mind if I swipe it when I get my SWD20 game off the ground?

 

[Arandmoor_Keet]

>> That movie gave me nightmares.

God I love that movie. One of the best I've ever seen...

>> kewl critter! Mind if I swipe it when I get my SWD20 game off >> the ground?

Go right ahead...I plan to design the entire planet of Siune along with another half-dozen baddies for it. All of them quite nasty too!

I'm going to have to pick up the alien anthology now...just for the force-using template...(bad DnDChick bad bad! making me want a book other than the SLHC...)

Does it have stats for the Krayt Dragon? (sp?) The big guy from Tatooine that Kenobie imitates in A New Hope to scare off the Tusken Raiders...

Arandmoor Keet

 

[DnDChick]

Nope no Krayts...

the have wamp rats, though... lol

 

[Arandmoor_Keet]

Woo...death by wamprats!

I never would have expected Gundarks to be so...so...so MEAN!

Can you tell I love my new Alien Anthology?

Updated Siune Spider...

Siune Spider
Medium Armored Forest Predator 3
HD: 3d8+15; CP/WP 28/20
Str 20
Dex 12
Con 20
Int 5
Wis 10
Cha 9

Fort+8
Ref+4
Will+1

Speed: 10m, 12m climb
Initiative +1 (+1 Dex)

Attacks: +4 ranged (1d6+7+poison, tongue-lance) or +8 melee (2d8+5, bite) and +6 melee (2d6+2, 4 claws)
Defense 18 (+1 dex, +7 natural) DR 7

Skills: Climb+19, Jump +11, Listen +2, Survival +5

Feats: Track, Multiattack

SQ: Low-light Vision, Poison, Webbing, Sulfur Tolerant

Description:
These large, six-legged, gray spider-like creatures are known across Siune as the planet’s top predators. Utilizing vicious pack tactics and their own potent poison there is no creature on Siune that is safe from a pack of hungry Siune Spiders.

The Siune Spider is at home in the mid reaches of the branchy Spider Trees indigenous to Siune, and it is there that they spend the vast majority of their lives. Their legs are long but quite delicate below the first joint, and while perfect for clinging to the spongy bark of the native spider trees they make them quite ungainly on the ground unless they tuck them in towards their bellies and walk on the spike of chitin that juts out from their knees.

Deadly predators because of their intelligence, if given another few thousand years of evolution the Siune Spiders would probably become a new space faring race.

Combat:
Siune Spiders favor ambushing from high ground when their prey is stationary, and they are masters of splitting up groups. They prefer to strike fast and fade away letting their poison finish their targets while they track their doomed prey.

Special Quality Descriptions:
Low-light Vision: Due to its multiple eyes and the world where it evolved, the Siune Spider can see twice as far in areas of near-darkness.

Poison: If struck by a Siune Spider's Tongue-lance, the target must make a fort save (DC 18) or suffer 1d2 points of ability damage to both their strength and dexterity. A second save one minute later must be made or the target takes one point of permanent ability damage to both strength and dexterity. Permanent ability damage can only be treated in a bacta tank and it takes six hours of submersion to restore one point of both dexterity and strength.

Webbing: Siune Spiders are excellent web spinners able to spin some 100 meters of webbing every ten minutes. The webbing they spin is extremely strong and it loses all adhesiveness after it has had a chance to dry for a minute or so. Siune Spiders like to spin webs to block escape routes and set extremely primitive traps such as covered pits and net-drops.

Sulfur Tolerant: The Siune Spider has evolved on a planet frequently swept by "Sulfur Storms” deadly to creatures that cannot breath sulfur for varying lengths of time. A Siune Spider can breathe in a sulfur atmosphere for a number of hours equal to three times its constitution score.

Should their poison be unable to take down their prey, Siune Spiders are fully able to kill prey in melee combat with their poison injecting tongues, sharp talons, and tough chitin armor.

I like these guys better. I removed some of their more usless skills (balance...) simply because the stability bonus for having six legs will more than make up for not having any ranks...

Arandmoor_Keet

 

[DnDChick]

Arandmoor_Keet said:

I never would have expected Gundarks to be so...so...so MEAN!

Yup! And now, when you watch Empire Strikes Back and Han says to Luke, "You look strong enough to tear the arms off a gundark," you know how much he is exaggerating!

The new Siune Spider looks great!