If I'm feeling like playing something in my 'safe zone' I'll play a human (plus the bonus feat's nice). If I want a little change, a dwarf. Lots of change typically equates to something I've never tried before (next on the chopping block is a spiker (Planar Handbook) samurai (homebrew variant)).
My favorite race by far, however, have to be the shadar-kai from the Fiend Folio.
Ray of Enfeeblement now allows for a Fort save that reduces this penalty by 1/2.
Solid Fog no longer reduces movement to 5', but to 1/2 movement.
Knew about the change to solid fog and it still serves its purpose just fine. As for ray of enfeeblement, while I didn't know about the change, I think it needed to be weakened a bit; it was pretty powerful for a 1st level spell.
As a player:
Fireball - 'Cuz I like things that go... boom.
Ring of Blades - Mostly on my clerics as I tend to play more melee-oriented clerics. Yay fighter levels!
Stretch Weapon - Use this one with duskblades, this and blade of blood are typically my work horses.
As a DM:
Mirror Image (1st and 2nd Edition) - 2nd level god mode. Except against magic missiles. :P
Ray of Enfeeblement - No save on a touch attack for a good deal of Strength penalty. Yes please!
Solid fog - Used to keep the party casters out of the hair of their opposition.
I'm just happy to be able to give something back to this awesome community. :)
Pax Veritas wrote:
My question is: what buffs or area spells should I drop as the GM to keep this fair but well-challenging? My PFRPG Bestiary minotaur minions got roached. Or, do you think I'm fairly set for an interesting battle that can tip either way? (which is what I'm going for... party failure here is fair/epic and would fit perfectly, so I'm not pulling punches.) Thoughts?
Personally, I'd have the minotaur greathorn sitting under the floor of the room with its earthglide (assuming the floor is stone or dirt, of course) then have it rise up as the party enters and use its earth warp ability to throw out a nice large area of rough terrain (which I'd say it'd ignore 'cause of its earthglide ability).
In regards to the thoon hulk; I would, of course, have it charge into melee and start brutalizing whatever is nearby. I assume your cleric is loaded to the hilt with buffing spells; if the group knows the party is coming (which, I suspect they would), I'd have him pump up the thoon hulk and himself as much as possible. Probably hit the thoon hulk with a bull's strength and bear's endurance spell followed by a group-wide prayer spell. Maybe cast a righteous might spell on himself followed by a nice divine power spell.
That alone should make the fight quite difficult and it's probably only used up a small amount of the cleric's spells (2 2nd level slots, 1 3rd level slot, and probably all of his 4th level slots).
You seem like a nice and friendly person, that's all I ask at my table (well, that and getting along with the other players).
I don't care about your choice in sexuality, your race, your religion, or whatever other outlooks you have; so long as you're nice and get along well with the other players you're welcome at my table.
Heh, yep, been a year since the 9th of this month; I wanted to do something special for the one year anniversary but it totally slipped my mind! I'll have to remember next year I guess! :p
Castle Blackmoor, eh? I feel sorry for you players; they've definitely got their work cut out for 'em, that's for sure. I'm sure it'll be a helluva session (or many sessions I would assume)! :D
Quick word of warning for those expecting a traditional take on this one; this isn't a desert dwelling dragon anymore, this one is a forest dweller and it's going to be at serious odds with the green dragons. Should prove interesting I think.
Up next are the iron dragons! Hopefully this update won't take me a month to get out of the door! :p
Thankfully, once the iron dragons are done I'll be moving onto 'normal' stuff again, the current 'list' of what's getting done is as follows:
Iron Dragon (CR Variable - Legendary Evils Mini)
- Elder mini
Minotaur Thug (CR 2 - Legendary Evils mini)
- This one's gonna be... interesting. Maybe base it on the Krynnish minotaurs?
Remorhaz 'Gene-style' (CR ~8 - I assume this means take the mini and tack its abilities onto a stock remorhaz)
Minotaur Battle Shaman (CR 10 - In the Works; have seperate stats) - Update Bestiary
Yochlol Tempter (CR 12 - Legendary Evils Mini)
Earth Archon Rumbler (CR 12 - Legendary Evils Mini)
Elder Green Dragon (CR 13 - Legendary Evils Mini)
- Huge-sized; adult (just add additional abilities and whatnot)
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The updates of all the older stat blocks are progressing, albeit slowly. I should have them out either later this month or sometime next month; barring catastrophe.
Please don't take my "rant" as hatin' on people. It was just a joke. I do dearly love my GS dice though and found a place online to get them for $6.80 a set. of course if I was buying for 28 kids even that would be a ridiculous price to pay.
I'll still say that GS gives the most random rolls I have ever seen.
Heh, I half-figured you were just joking around; I half was as well. I fully admit that GameScience does make some very nice dice and they seem to roll really well.
I've actually been meaning to pick up a set since I saw a demo from the owner on Youtube. He makes a convincing case against other dice manufacturers.
They're also for folks who don't have ten bucks to spend on a set of dice.
If I could buy GameScience dice for three bucks a set I would, but I'm not paying eight or ten bucks for dice, regardless of how nice they might be (and I won't lie, GameScience dice ARE nice).
So don't be hatin' on us folks who like our dice cheap. :p
I decided to go poking around, looking for inexpensive dice (I am teaching a group of 28 children Pathfinder, 4th and 5th graders) to give as a Christmas gift, and I found this site Dice! :)
Oh. My. Gawd! Super cheap dice!
Thanks much for that; I've been needing to refill my 'community' dice pot for the folks who forget to bring dice to my games. Definitely cheaper than a Pound-o'-Dice.
I'd also love to say I can get back to stating things soon. But alas I cannot; this week is hellishly busy, gotta prepare for halloween (gotta love how I live in the middle of nowhere but every year we get TONS of kids out here trick-or-treating), have some cleaning to do over at a relatives that I figure will take a few days, and on top of that I've got a D&D game to prep for on Friday/Saturday.
Sooooooo, no updates this week. If all goes well I should have some time next week to dedicate to writing up some new critters for folks to slay. I really should get back to updating all the old monsters as well, but that's time consuming and I'd rather get something new out than work on them. At least with new stuff you guys see what you get; with the old stuff I've probably got another couple days worth of work to do on them.
One bit of good news, though, is that since the Pathfinder SRD now has monster information on it, I can start working on my 3.5 to Pathfinder conversions. Those are going to be fun, I think.
I've been considering that, and there is no easy solution.
I think what I've decided to do is post the guide at WOTC or BG first, then post the same guide here with a disclaimer regarding editing at the beginning and a link to the guide at WOTC so people can check for updates if they wish to.
Google docs works well, too; host it on google docs and then link to it in your first post and mention when you update it. It makes printing easier for folks, too.
WARNING: This post contains Castle Whiterock spoilers, skip it if you are playing in a Castle Whiterock game!
Spoiler:
Tom Qadim wrote:
What's the idea/theme around Castle Whiterock?
This is actually mostly up to the DM. There is a bit of an overarching plot in that there's a dragon at the deepest level of the Whiterock dungeon and an NPC in town essentially wants it dead. It is, of course, more complex than this, but not by much.
In the long run there's not too much else to it. There are a lot of side-quests to be done and a good lure for low level PCs is presented in a bunch of slavers capturing folks from the town.
Tom Qadim wrote:
Do you think it's easily slipped into Golarion? How does it mesh with the Pathfinder rules?
I think it'd fit into Golarion just fine, you just need a big mountain that's a dormant volcano. The town that comes stock with the module, Cillamar, could be fit into almost anywhere just fine.
I think it'd mesh with the Pathfinder rules just fine as well, you'll likely have to do a bit of conversion, but likely not anything you wouldn't be doing anyways (notably making monsters a bit tougher and whatnot).
I recommend Castle Whiterock even though it does have some annoying errors to it.
Notably maps all have the directions wrong; north on the maps isn't the north used in room descriptions and on some occasions room descriptions have errors in them.
On top of that, if you have a thorough party when it comes to cleaning out dungeon levels, they'll level faster than the dungeon levels progress (for example, my current group has just started level 3 of the dungeon and their characters are all level 5). Scaling up encounters isn't too bad, though.
Well, y'see, the thing about grues is that they tend to never leave areas that are dark. As such, nobody has even seen one, and those that claim to have seen a grue are liars because if they had seen a grue, they'd be dead...
...
Man I need to play the old Zork games again. :D
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Apologies for the lack of updates, been having some computer troubles on my end. I'm working on getting everything sorted out so that I can get back to work on these things.
Magnataur
CR 16 (76,800 XP)
Usually CE Giant
Init: +0, Senses: Low Light Vision, Perception +13
AC 17, Touch 8, Flat Fppted 17 (-2 size, +9 natural)
hp: 243 (18d8+162), DR 15/Magic
Fort +19, Ref +14, Will +14
Cold resistance 5
Speed: 50 ft
Melee: Greatclub +22 (3d8+11)
Ranged: Harpoon +11 (3d8/19-20)
Space 15 ft, Reach 15 ft
Special Attacks: Frightful Presience (Save DC 18), Trample (1d8+16)
Str 32, Dex 10, Con 28, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 10
Base Atk +13, CMB +26, CMD 36
Feats: Cleave, Critical Focus, Great Cleave, Great Fortitude, Improved Overrun, Intimidating Prowess, Power Attack, Track
Skills: Craft (Weaponsmith) +10, Intimidate +11, Perception +13, Survival +22
Environment: Cold Mountains
Organization: Solitary
Treasure: Standard
Looks decent, though the greatclub damage should be 3d8+16; weapons wielded with two hands deal 1-1/2 times strength damage. Likewise, the harpoon should be dealing 3d8+11 damage as thrown weapons allow the wielder to add his strength modifier to damage dealt.
Aside from those minor quibbles; definitely a very nice monster! :D
The more I think of it though, the more I'm thinking the invisibility may need to go. If they had sneak attack and no invisibility, that would be ok. I'm almost wondering if maybe instead of invisibility they had a limited range teleport (moving faster than the eye could follow) for a ki point. Basically teleport in, sneak attack, and teleport back out. They wouldn't get iterative attacks, it would only be usable a few times a day. So, maybe teleport 40inches total. If they are 20 inches from a target, teleport in, stab, teleport 20 inches away. It gives them sort of a limited spring attack at 1st level, which would be unique, but not too overpowering if I limit it to teleporting to a target and sneak attacking until say 12th level, when it becomes like a spring attack...
I really dig this idea; kinda gives them a bit of a reputation as someone who's able to kill you before you can react.
Maybe give them Improved Feint and Greater Feint as they gain levels?
Or maybe some ninja-trickery (something like the eggs full of crushed pepper that they'd throw into peoples' eyes) that allows them to flank (or just deny their Dexterity bonus) an opponent without having to have someone flank with them?
I agree that the invisibility is a bit too powerful; but I agree that they need some mechanic to allow them to reliably get their sneak attacks in.
Beetle-y death has arrived for our desert-going heroes:
Blood Scarab
Nasty little buggers if they can swarm someone. :D
Should have the Creature Conversion Compendium updated later tonight/this morning. After that I'll be busy all weekend so I'll likely not be doing much in the way of monster stating.
Aaaaand the Creature Conversion Compendium has been updated! Here's a link for convenience:
Creature Conversion Compendium
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Would it make you feel better or worse, Gene, to hear today's mini buying story?
** spoiler omitted **
I have never wanted to turn you into mulch more than I do right now...
Spoiler:
:p
Seriously though, congrats on picking up the dragon. They did used to seem a bit rarer, but I s'pose it's good that they've been made seemingly more common.
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Should have a mini update in a bit. Not gonna be a dragon (sorry folks) but the brown dragon is taking a bit longer to stat than I'd thought it would so I figured I may as well get something out for you guys.
Sooooo... look forward to the blood scarab (dung beetle) within the next hour or so. Following that I'll make an update to the Creature Conversion Compendium.
I'm in the same boat; though I'm in it more so due to not having the money to spend on the plastic crack. Admittedly, some (okay, a good number) of the new minis interest me... I want one of those balors dammit! :D
Pax Veritas wrote:
But once Gene's book nears fullness after this wave, I'll go back and cross reference then pick up the singles I need to run Pathfinder Games using Gene's v.3.5 stats.
Speaking of this; after the next monster release I've got a bestiary update coming. Thanks for reminding me.
I doubt you'll have any trouble using my statblocks with Pathfinder; I doubt you'd even need to adjust the CR as most of my beasties are a bit more 'optimized' than core creatures are.
I wish they'd release the bestiary already; I'm kind of eager to start converting the 3.5 conversions over to Pathfinder.
MillerHero wrote:
This is a pretty sweet task you guys have undertaken.
Kudos to you.
Glad you're enjoying them and I think we all appreciate the praise. If you've got any suggestions for critters to stat, please feel free to make suggestions.
WotC took all downloads for all old edition materials down. I don't even think they're allowing folks to buy and download books for their current edition.
My old 2nd edition Monstrous Manual says that "bullywugs have their own language and the more intelligent ones can speak a limited form of the common tongue."
I love and hate this book so much. The ideas are nice, but taking penalties to use the weapon/item are not attractive to me at all. I would rather the ritual to unlock the sword's secrets be really hard, than me having to deal with penalties.
Edit: I was talking about Weapons of Legacy
That's pretty much my whole problem with it too. It doesn't help that some of the rituals are pretty out there in respects to what they require to complete.
The whole premise just bugs me: "Hey guys, let's reward the player with a cool item and then punish them for wanting to unlock all of its properties."
Epic Level Handbook - I agree with Courtfool on this one. Excellent concept; utterly terrible execution.
Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords - Love the flavor, can't stand the mechanics.
Weapons of Legacy - Another cool concept that falls flat on its face.
And that's really about it from the books I own. I'm sure there's a few third-party books that I have that I doubt have ever seen use, but I can't think of any at the moment.
This is magnificent! Thank you for the wonderful conversions!
Glad to know you're enjoying them! :D
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Here's the current To-do List in the order that they'll be worked on:
Brown Dragon (CR Variable - Legendary Evils Mini)
- Adult mini
Iron Dragon (CR Variable - Legendary Evils Mini)
- Elder mini
Blood Scarab (CR 2 - Dangerous Delves Mini) - Update Bestiary
Minotaur Thug (CR 2 - Legendary Evils mini)
- This one's gonna be... interesting. Maybe base it on the Krynnish minotaurs?
Remorhaz 'Gene-style' (CR ~8 - I assume this means take the mini and tack its abilities onto a stock remorhaz)
Minotaur Battle Shaman (CR 10 - In the Works; have seperate stats)
Yochlol Tempter (CR 12 - Legendary Evils Mini)
Earth Archon Rumbler (CR 12 - Legendary Evils Mini) - Update Bestiary
Elder Green Dragon (CR 13 - Legendary Evils Mini)
- Huge-sized; adult
If I missed any requests or someone would like me to add to the list, just let me know.
Depends; most of my friends (and family) know I play D&D/Pathfinder, so I just tell 'em straight up. If it's someone I don't know I'll just say something like 'I'm going to go hang with friends.'
I must say that I really like how you use feats to bring the minotaur up to its full specs. I'd most likely allow one of these fellas into my game with little to no fuss.
The first of the dragons has finally arrived; I give you the admantine dragon in all of its terrific glory:
Adamantine Dragons
This is actually the first two-page entry to be going into the Compendium. Included is all the information for all age categories of dragons as well as two sample dragons (both large-sized so that they can be used with the mini) for use in play.
And no, I didn't include their hoards. :p
Next up on the statblock front are the brown dragons followed by the iron dragons. Between working on the dragons I've been going through and updating older statblocks which is why these conversions are taking awhile longer than is usual.
Man, I couldn't tell you how many times I've thought about stating up some M:TG monsters or spells. Like you said, it's all there, it just needs the conversion.
As a player, I love it! One of my biggest peeves with 3.5 was that characters leveled too quickly (as a note, I suppose I should mention that I play in pretty combat-heavy groups).
Gene,
