Vampire Moss

[Shade]

i'm not bothered by the decreasing difficulty, though it might be a good idea to moderate it somehow or slow it down - after 10 rounds, it's only a DC 10, and 10 more rounds there is no DC.

In 20 rounds a low-level party is probably dead, anyway, so they won't be doing much spotting.

If you want to slow it down, maybe drop the DC by 1 every five rounds?

 

[BOZ]

actually, i really don't care, and basically for the reasons you just stated.


i care much more about this:

one question i need an answer to on these guys - as written, is it clear that they can form a vampiric link and then begin life drain in the same round? if not, how can i rewrite it so that it is clear?

 

[demiurge1138]

It's not clear, because it doesn't list the action the life drain takes. If you state it, say, as a swift action, then it'd be clear.

Demiurge out.

 

[BOZ]

is a swift action a core rule? i've heard people refer to it, but i'm not sure where that one is.

 

[Shade]

Although it doesn't appear in any of the core books, it is officially core now (and is in the SRD).

 

[BOZ]

like so?

Life Drain (Ex): As a swift action, a vampire moss can use negative energy to cause a persistent energy loss in a creature to which it has established a vampiric link. Such a creature loses 1 hit point each round. This continuing hit point loss cannot be stopped by a Heal check, cure spell, or heal spell, though these methods can restore drained hit points. The vampire moss gains temporary hit points equal to the number of hit points drained. If the vampiric link is severed, the hit point loss ceases immediately.

etc...

 

[Shade]

That outta work.

 

[BOZ]

good deal. updating once more. is this one done?

 

[demiurge1138]

Looks so to me.

Demiurge out.

 

[Conaill]

i'm not bothered by the decreasing difficulty, though it might be a good idea to moderate it somehow or slow it down - after 10 rounds, it's only a DC 10, and 10 more rounds there is no DC.

Actually, there's no way it's going to take 10 rounds, assuming a party of 4.

Let's assume the average 1st level party has spot checks something like +5, +3, +1 and -1, For the first round of checks against DC 20, the probability that nobody makes the spot check is only about 50%. The second round, the probability goes down to about 40%. The third round, it's down to 30%, the fourth round 23%, etc. The probability that they make it through four rounds of Spot checks without noticing the moss is just over 1%.

It's mainly the sheer number of Spot rolls that causes this, not so much the decreasing DC (the probability of failing four rounds against a fixed DC 20 is only 6% - not much better). Increasing the starting DC would help. Reducing the number of check would help a lot more.

Ah... how about this:

After the vampire moss has gained X temporary hit points, every round the moss spends draining life energy entitles characters to make another check to notice it, with a cumulative +1 bonus on the check per round after the first.

I would suggest picking X<10, maybe 5?