Special Conversion Thread: Moldvay's Undead

[freyar]

I like keeping the Wisdom and Charisma the same, but that opens up a can of worms with the spell save DCs, since I imagine that they'll be Cha based. Or will they? I can see determining the spell save DC on the minimum stat to cast the spell, like a scroll. Either that, or gem eyes with a high Charisma should receive a boost to CR.

Well, hmm. We can handle this as so: since Int comes from the magic of the gems, maybe Wis and Cha should also. I'm going to go ahead and suggest that CL for all spell effects be 9th, so let's peg Wis 10 and Cha 14. This is almost the same as the scroll idea, but it doesn't differentiate so much between spell levels.

What about creatures with more than two eyes? I can sort of envision multiheaded gem eyes getting multiple spells from different heads. Can we put that into a sidebar, or is that too big a can of worms to open?

Oooh, this would be nice to do in a sidebar. Maybe each extra head will be worth +1 CR or something.

Also, just thought of something: there's an FR skeleton thing with magic missile (either banedead or baneguard, can't remember) that I'll look up tonight for comparison.

Edit: It's the baneguard. These are basically human skeletons with 4HD, Int 9, Wis 12, Cha 13, and the SLAs magic missile (every 3 rounds) and blink (every 10 minutes) (both CL 4), CR 2. Interestingly, they get Combat Casting as a feat, so maybe we should suggest that instead of Imp Init. Anyway, I think dropping one of the SLAs but bumping the CL might average out, so we might be aiming at a CR 2-3 critter for the lowest HD level. What do you think?

Edit Edit: Looking at the other improvements we've made to this, maybe at least CR 3 at the minimum.

 

[demiurge1138]

CR 3 at minimum, and I like the Combat Casting/Skill Focus (concentration) suggestion.

 

[freyar]

Let's try those again starting at Abilities based on the discussion in posts 200-202.

Abilities: A gem eye's Dexterity increases by +2, it has no Constitution score, and its Intelligence changes to 3, Wisdom to 10, and Cha to 14.

Skills: Recalculate the gem eye's skill ranks based on its new HD and Int.

Feats: A gem eye keeps the feats of the base creature and gains one, usually Skill Focus (Concentration).

Environment: Any, usually same as base creature.

Organization: Any.

Challenge Rating: Depends on Hit Dice. See table.
Hit Dice Challenge Rating
4-5 3?
6-7 4?
8-9 6?
10-11 7?
12-14 8?
15-17 9?
18-20 10?

Treasure: None, but each gem from the gem eye's eye sockets is worth 1000 gp once the monster is destroyed.

Alignment: Always neutral evil.

Advancement: As base creature (or — if the base creature advances by character class).

Level Adjustment: None.

Nothing special there, just pasted in the treasure from the original text. CRs are still a guess. Need to work out the Spell SA next.

 

[Shade]

Added to Homebrews.

 

[freyar]

A formatting comment: you need spaces between the entries from Environment on down.

Looking back, we should write the HD line like this:

Hit Dice: Drop any Hit Dice gained from class levels (to a minimum of 1) and raise remaining Hit Dice to d12s. Increase the number of HD by 3 and round down if there are a fractional number of HD. If the final creature has more than 20 Hit Dice, it can’t be made into gem eyes by the create undead spell.

 

[Shade]

Updated.

 

[freyar]

Ok, now for Spells. Let me know how this looks.

Spells (Sp): Each gem eye has a single spell-like ability corresponding to a spell up to 4th level, caster level 7. The number of times the gem eye may use this ability depends on the spell level, as follows: 0th - at will, 1st - every 3 rounds, 2nd - 3x/day, 3rd - 2x/day, 4th - 1x/day (but not more than once every 3 rounds except for 0th level).

The school of spell is determined by the type of gem in the gem eye's eye sockets, as follows: ruby - evocation, sapphire - abjuration, diamond - transmutation, amethyst - illusion, opal - conjuration, pearl - enchantment, obsidian - divination, emerald - necromancy. The task a gem eye is assigned usually depends on the spell-like ability it possesses.

 

[demiurge1138]

I don't think I'd give them the once every three rounds qualifier, but other than that, it looks good.

 

[freyar]

I just don't want them to be able to whip out the 2nd or 3rd level spell more in a battle than the 1st level spell. Maybe make the 1st level every other round and same for the others?

I'll note that I had to fudge a little on a couple of the gems (opal & obsidian), since they were repeated schools.

 

[demiurge1138]

I think every other round works better. They're not great melee combatants, after all.