Special Conversion Thread: Finishing off the oozes

Cleon

Legend
+5 bonus to ranged attack rolls works. Wait, doesn't the size penalty also apply to the ranged attack roll? Then I get a total of +5 (-2 size, -5 Dex, +5 racial, +7 BAB) for the ranged attack vs +12 (-2 size, +7 Str, +7 BAB). Am I missing something?

The ranged attack is +5 in my latest post. It's the melee attack that's wrong (at +10) - it's because we increased the Strength from the Slug's Str 20 and I haven't adjusted all the numbers yet.

I don't really like making the ranged attacks Wis based without a good flavor reason that I don't see, though.

It doesn't really matter where the bonus comes from provided it's the right size. Incidentally, what type do you fancy? I suppose racial is most appropriate.

+2 NA bonus?

Certainly natural, although I'd fancy a bit higher than that as +2 only gives it AC 5.

To give it the equivalent of the original Megalium's AC it'll need AC 13, or +10 NA.
 

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Cleon

Legend
Looks good.

What do you think, maybe CR 8?

Well compared to the CR 7 Black Pudding it's got an impressive number of attacks which it's able to use all at once as a standard action. That's worth a good deal.

Its defenses aren't as good since it lacks Split, doesn't have weapon-destroying acid and is vulnerable to fire. The higher AC isn't good for much against level-appropriate opponents, although half-damage from slashing & piercing has some value.

I guess Challenge Rating 8 is about right.
 

freyar

Extradimensional Explorer
Looking at unfinished bits: do you really feel the need to spell out the advancement like that? I thought increasing damage, etc, is something DMs are supposed to figure out themselves? That said, I'm ok with increasing the number of pseudopods to 15 and 20 for G and C and just stepping up the damage one step per size category.
 

Cleon

Legend
Looking at unfinished bits: do you really feel the need to spell out the advancement like that? I thought increasing damage, etc, is something DMs are supposed to figure out themselves? That said, I'm ok with increasing the number of pseudopods to 15 and 20 for G and C and just stepping up the damage one step per size category.

There's nothing in the Monster Advancement rules about increasing the damage of special attacks, it only allows for increasing the damage of weapon attacks due to increased size or Strength. There's nothing about the DM increasing the damage themselves.

There are plenty of examples of advanced creatures published by WotC and Paizo whose special attacks still have the basic range and damage - e.g. the Maurid Advanced Chimera in Dungeon #112 has max Hit Dice for a Chimera (27 HD), making it Huge size, but its breath weapon is still a 20-ft. cone doing 3d8 damage like a standard 9 HD Chimera. It doesn't even do 4d8 damage for being a size larger, since it's not a natural weapon.

To make a monster's special attack damage increase with advancement it really needs to say so in their description, otherwise under RAW it'll do the same damage as a non-advanced creature.

I'd set the beamtorches' damage so they pretty much match the melee tool's damage, since the original monster did the same damage no matter the form of the pseudopod-tip it hit an opponent with.

A Gargantuan Silver Slime Megalium would do 2d6+11 plus 3d6 energy (or 2d8 energy if we have the energy damage size-scale as if it were a Fire Elemental), which suggests we should have its beamtorches do about 6d8 damage.

A Colossal Silver Slime Megalium would do 3d6+15 plus 4d6 energy (or 3d8 energy if we have the energy damage size-scale as if it were a Fire Elemental), which suggests 8d8 or 9d8 damage for the beamtorches.

The above does not allow for ability score increases from its Hit Dice increases, which it'll likely apply to Strength or Constitution.
 

freyar

Extradimensional Explorer
Hmm, that's strange, I would have sworn that the MM had a line or two about DMs using judgment in this sort of case, but, you're right, I don't see it. Very well, then. Let's use those values for the beamtorches. Presumably ability increases will not affect beamtorch damage values.
 

Cleon

Legend
Hmm, that's strange, I would have sworn that the MM had a line or two about DMs using judgment in this sort of case, but, you're right, I don't see it.

There might be something to that effect somewhere in the Monster Manual or a Dragon article, but it ain't in the SRD! :p

Very well, then. Let's use those values for the beamtorches. Presumably ability increases will not affect beamtorch damage values.

Good!

So do you prefer 8d8 or 9d8 damage for the Colossal beamtorch? The average slam damage is either 39 or 39.5, which works out to eight and two-thirds d8s, so personally I'd round up to 9d8. It'll have at least 5 points of ability increases at that advancement (12, 16, 20, 24 & 28 HD).

Its Strength is an odd number unlike its Con, so it'll most likely have +3 Str and +2 Con as that gives it a Strength modifier 2 points higher than a straight size-increase would provide.
 

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