Special Conversion Thread: Unicorns

[Cleon]

That's all looking pretty good. Why the lower Dex, though? Both the standard unicorn and the almost-identical-statwise gray have Dex 17. If it was simply to lower the AC, I'd rather drop the NA by another notch than lower Dex.

I was thinking "narwhals are slow and ungainly but have real thick skin and blubber, so it should keep the NA and drop the Dex."

Upon reflection that wasn't so good an idea.

It give me visions of a sea unicorn in horse-form being a butterball!

So, I'll changed my vision of it to being a cross between a swordfish and a dolphin and restore it to standard Unicorn Dex.

Agreed to the higher CL for SLAs. I'm fine with either detect evil or detect chaos. They aren't particularly champions of law, so I can see where the greater threat of evil see creatures lends support to detect evil, though.

Yes, let's make it detect evil.

Should we give it magic circle as well? We could give it magic circle against chaos, just for variety.

And yes, the narwhal is apparently in bad need of an update! It's not in the Tome of Horrors, as I'd suspected, so it's fair game for an overhaul.

I've already got a (slightly exaggerated) homebrew of the narwhal, and practically every other type of Cetacean, but would be be happy to do a new take on the narwhal.

The SRD whales seriously needed fixing. The Cachalot is far too weedy, for a start.

 

[Shade]

Added to Homebrews.

I'd be fine with adding powerful charge to the "whale-fish" form. (I'm thinking we need a better name than "whale-fish", though. Any ideas?)

Organization: Solitary, pair, or x (3–10) x=School? Ordinance?

Challenge Rating: 3? (Does control weather boost it to 4?)

 

[Cleon]

Added to Homebrews.

I'd be fine with adding powerful charge to the "whale-fish" form. (I'm thinking we need a better name than "whale-fish", though. Any ideas?)

Fishwhale?

I'd suggest "Dolphin-form" since a dolphin is both a mammal and a fish.

Organization: Solitary, pair, or x (3–10) x=School? Ordinance?

I prefer school. Prevents people misreading ordinance and ask what calibre.

Challenge Rating: 3? (Does control weather boost it to 4?)

I'm not sure it does. If the sea unicorn's underwater it doesn't much matter what the weather above is like. On land or on the water's surface, any weather it raises will penalize the unicorn as much as it does its enemies. I suppose if its foes in a ship it could swamp them with a hurricane or the like.

Let's leave it CR3.

 

[freyar]

Powerful charge sounds reasonable, and so is CR 3. And dolphin form is probably the best we're going to get there.

 

[Cleon]

Powerful charge sounds reasonable, and so is CR 3. And dolphin form is probably the best we're going to get there.

Sounds good.

What damage should we give the powerful charge?

If we give it a full double-damage charge it comes out 4d6+20, which seems way too high. I'm thinking we should add 1d6 to the base damage and let it add double its Strength bonus instead of 1.5 times. That would make it 3d6+13, which averages 2 points more than the average damage if it hits with all three attacks of its horn/hoof/hoof routine.

Oh, and I just realized the equine/hippocampus form has a 1d6 damage horn. It should be 1d8 like the SRD unicorn, but I copy-and-pasted one of the low horn damage unicorns as a template and forgot to change it.

Putting that together, it makes the Alternate Form something like:

Alternate Form (Su): A sea unicorn can assume three forms: a "hippocampus" form (The front half of a unicorn with a fish's tail) with the stats given above; a "dolphin" form (a cross between a porpoise and a swordfish with a long unicorn's horn); or an "equine" form (a unicorn of normal shape). All three forms have a blue-white coloration and blue eyes. A sea unicorn can only change form if it is submerged in water. It does not change form if it is slain.

In dolphin form the sea unicorn's horn does 1d8 damage, its blindsight range increases to 120 ft and it loses water walking.

Dolphin Form
Speed: swim 80 ft.
Attack: Horn +10 melee (2d6+10)
Full Attack: Horn +10 melee (2d6+10)
Special Attacks: powerful charge 3d6+13
Special Qualities: Blindsight 120 ft., darkvision 60 ft., immunity to poison, charm, and compulsion, low-light vision, scent, spell-like abilities, wild empathy

 

[freyar]

Sounding fine to me!

 

[Shade]

Looks great! Updated.

Here's the penultimate one...

Unisus
CLIMATE: Temperate
TERRAIN: Mountains
FREQUENCY: Very rare
ORGANIZATION: Herd
ACTIVITY CYCLE: Day
DIET: Herbiv.
INTELLIGENCE: Average
TREASURE: Nil
ALIGNMENT: CG
NO. APPEARING: 1-10
ARMOR CLASS: 3
MOVEMENT: 24, Fl 48 (B)
HIT DICE: 4+4
THAC0: 17
NO. OF ATTACKS: 3
DAMAGE/ATTACK: l-6/1-6/1-12
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See text
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See text
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: L
MORALE: Steady
XP VALUE: 1,400

Unisi are unicorns with pegasi wings, the result of crossbreeding between the two species. A single such creature is called a unisus.

Combat: Unisi attack in a manner similar to unicorns. In a dive, a unisus does damage in a manner similar to a unicorn’s charge, but it needs only 15’ of space to launch the charge, as it relies on its falling momentum for the impact and can also propel itself forward with its wings if running. In such a dive, it can also use its hooves to attack at the same time. All these attacks are at +2 on the attack roll above all other bonuses (including the +2 for the horn), and the hoof attacks do double damage.

Habitat/Society: Unisi are identical in habitat and society to pegasi (see the Monstrous Compendium). Unisi may be ridden by maidens of any race who are pure at heart.

Ecology: Unisi are identical in ecology to pegasi. A unisi’s horn can be used to brew potions of flying.

 

[Cleon]

Sounding fine to me!

I've just had a horrible realization. Consider the sea unicorn. A shapechanger with a dolphin-form, a unicorn-form and a hybrid dolphin-unicorn form. It's not a normal unicorn...

It's a Unicorn Werewhale!

We should be grateful they are not biting every unicorn they encounter, to spread the Curse of Cetaceathropy.

 

[Cleon]

Looks great! Updated.

Why have you cut Jump out of the Hippocampus and Dolphin form's stats?

It's still got ranks in the Jump skill, so should have a skill modifier listed. Dolphins are renowned for their habit of leaping out of the water, so I think it's quite appropriate to list the Sea Unicorn's Jump skill in all three forms.

There's nothing in the Jump skill description that says the speed that modifies their jump can only be land speed, or that the height/distance of the jump is above the ground, so I think using Swim speed to jump out of water is within the rules.

Also, I just noticed I forgot to capitalize "Swim" and "Powerful charge" in the Dolphin-form's stat line. Furthermore I'm thinking the line "In equine form the sea unicorn gains the Amphibious quality so it can breathe air but loses its blindsight." reads a bit clumsily.

Could we change that passage to:

Dolphin Form
Speed: swim 80 ft.
Attack: Horn +10 melee (2d6+10)
Full Attack: Horn +10 melee (2d6+10)
Special Attacks: powerful charge 3d6+13
Special Qualities: Blindsight 120 ft., darkvision 60 ft., immunity to poison, charm, and compulsion, low-light vision, scent, spell-like abilities, wild empathy

In equine form the sea unicorn loses its blindsight but gains the Amphibious quality, allowing it to breathe air and water.

 

[Cleon]

Here's the penultimate one...

Unisus

That looks easy. It's just an SRD unicorn with a 120 ft. (good) fly speed slapped on to it and Temperate Mountains for an environment.

The only real question is what shall we change its collective noun to.

A flock on Unisus sounds a bit mundane.

A Flight?

An Ascension?

A Summit (as in a mountain peak)?