Boto Ocota-de-Rosa


Round 3: Create a Bestiary entry

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 aka Danish Trumpter

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A large pinkish river dolphin cocks its head and seems to be studying you with remarkably intelligent eyes.

Boto Ocota-de-Rosa CR 3
XP 800
CN Medium magical beast
Init +3; Senses blindsight 180 ft.; Perception +12

----- Defense -----
AC 15, touch 13, flat-footed 12 (+3 Dex, +2 natural)
hp 26 (4d10+4)
Fort +5, Ref +7, Will +3
Immune gaze attacks, visual effects, illusions, and attacks relying on sight

----- Offense -----
Speed swim 80 ft.
Melee slam +8 (1d4+2)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 6th; concentration +8)
At will—silent image (DC 15)
3/day—major image (DC 17)

----- Statistics -----
Str 14, Dex 16, Con 13, Int 11, Wis 14, Cha14
Base Atk +4; CMB +6; CMD 19
Feats Spell Focus (Illusion), Weapon Finesse
Skills Perception +12, Swim +16; Racial Modifiers+4 Perception
Languages Cetacean, Common (can't speak)
SQ augmented echolocation, born blind, hold breath

----- Ecology -----
Environment rivers and swamps
Organization solitary, pair, or family (2 adults, 1-4 young)
Treasure none

----- Special Abilities -----
Augmented Echolocation (Su) A boto is treated as being blind but without the negative effects of the blinded condition. The magical nature of this augmentation also allows their blindsight to extend onto land and into the air. Sonic damage dealt to the boto can interrupt this ability, negating the effects of the augmented echolocation and causing the boto to be nauseated for 1d4 rounds.
Born Blind (Ex) Boto are born practically blind, losing low-light vision and darkvision.
Hold Breath (Ex) A boto can hold its breath for a number of minutes equal to 6 times its Constitution score before it risks drowning.

Also known as Hanspur's children, the boto ocota-de-rosa appear to simply be pinkish river dolphins, slightly larger than an average human. However, beneath this innocuous surface lies a keen mind capable of complex thought and magical acumen. Boto can potentially be found in any river system but are particularly abundant in lowland rivers with extensive floodplains such as in the Mwangi Expanse near Lake Ocota and the River Kingdoms.

Though born for all intents and purposes blind, the botos' augmented echolocation allows them to hunt unimpeded. Additionally they can use their illusion magic while hunting without hindering themselves or other botos as they are immune to its effects. The boto have also been known to utilize their illusions to interact with landlubbers, creating humanoid simulations and communicating using symbolism or hand gestures or the major image's sound component (making it possible for them to "speak" common, with most boto having at least a smattering of ability to "speak" in such a way).

The humanoid residents of areas where boto are common regard them as anything from capricious sorcerers to nonthreatening or even helpful creatures. Folklore in these regions speak of shapeshifters whose natural form is that of the boto but who transform into beautiful men and women, showing up at gatherings to seduce the unwary and produce children who may someday be called back to the river. These stories are likely based solely on the botos' use of illusion magic and as a means of explaining illegitimate children in tight-knit communities. There are however numerous recorded instances of boto rescuing women and children from drowning or other river hazards. Chillingly, boto are as likely as not to just allow men to drown, with the very few survivors of such instances telling tales of the boto congregating and watching with cold eyes as the man slowly gasps out his last breath in an almost ritualistic manner, giving rise to their epithet of "Hanspur's children".

Designer, RPG Superstar Judge

Welcome to Round 3! I'm posting this little blurb at the top of my reply for everyone. FYI, I'm not going to crunch all the math in your stat block, for several reasons. One, I don't have an hour for each monster. :) Two, I'm sure you've been very diligent about this and if anything is wrong, it's probably only off by a little bit. Three, if you were writing this for publication in a Paizo book, you'd be using our stat block spreadsheet, which takes care of the math for you--your job is to understand the rules and bring the mojo. :) My focus in this review is on the overall coolness and balance of your monster, with an eye on how efficiently you put it together and a spot-check of stat block elements that catch my eye.

Okay, your monster is an intelligent river dolphin with some illusion abilities.

The name is a crazy mouthful. "Rosa" makes me wonder if it actually has links to the Spanish language... perhaps because they're pink? If so, we try to avoid using descriptor words from other languages that way. For example, we wouldn't call a big white undead troll "blanco muerto troll."

Stat block nitpicks: If this creature is blind, it should have "Weaknesses blind" and a Special Abilities callout for that at the end, like the yrthak does. The word "illusion" in "Spell Focus (illusion)" should be lower case. Don't invent new languages (like "Cetacean," which implies that whales and dolphins in the game can communicate with humanoid-level language and vocabulary).

Augmented Echolocation: This ability doesn't appear in the main part of your stat block at all. Having blindness + blindsight effectively gives it normal senses, which negates the need to call out "as blind but without the negative effects of the blinded condition." (The yrthak's "blind" ability covers this, btw). Also, there's nothing limiting a creature's blindsight ability to just the water (the standard dolphin doesn't have that limitation.

Born Blind: See the yrthak for how to describe this ability (copying a rule from an existing monster is better than creating a similar, but slightly different version of a rule).

You use "landlubbers" in the descriptive text, which is slang, and should be avoided (unless the creatures themselves use this term, which would be weird because their habitat doesn't overlap with pirates much).

My biggest complaint about this monster is that it's not much more than a standard dolphin, advanced to 4 HD, and given two illusion SLAs. It's a perfectly functional monster, but it doesn't feel very superstar to me.

I do NOT recommend this monster for advancement.

Founder, Legendary Games & Publisher, Necromancer Games, RPG Superstar Judge

Initial Impression: A whatey-what-what-now? Huh? Ryan Dancey once said name is 50%. I don't always agree, but I do here. That is a just a real big design misstep, in my view. Don't make a monster as a superstar submission that has a name no one wants to say and doesn't make any sense. And I don't even mean not make sense in a strange fantasy way, I mean not make sense. At all. In the end its a smart illusion-using dolphin with a horrible name. Just not superstar.

The Exchange Contributor; Publisher, Kobold Press; RPG Superstar Judge

I know the Boto or Amazonian river dolphin in Brazil is one of those real-world monsters that seems strange enough to be a fantasy beast. But Sean nailed it: because Boto is the Portugese name for these dolphins, this seems like a real-world animal with some illusions tacked on. We've got real-world animals elsewhere in this round (killer frogs etc), but they lean more heavily on fantasy.

I feel there's a second misstep from the start: dolphins are not a great choice for a monster that PCs are meant to fight, simply because most people have a positive view of dolphins. The mechanical elements here are fine, but would a GM drop this monster into their game? I suspect a dangerous river turtle might have made a better base.

NOT recommended to advance.

Founder, Legendary Games & Publisher, Necromancer Games, RPG Superstar Judge

Rorik, welcome to Round 3!

Now that I’ve read all 16 entries, I can say that there are some real strong entries here—more strong entries than spots, unfortunately. Some good submissions won’t make the cut. I am only going to recommend 8 of you since only 8 can advance. In close cases, I took into account your prior work.

What I am looking for: I’m a big picture guy more than a minute details guy. I don’t think just seeing if you crunched out the rules properly is the right way to judge a good entry for this round. Of course you need to execute the stat block properly. Luckily, Sean and Wolfgang are way more qualified than I am to talk about the nit picks and issues with the stat block so I will leave that to them. My comments to you will be more “big picture.” For me, I want to see a monster that is fun and playable—a monster that leaps of the page and makes me find a way to incorporate it at the game table. That, to me, is a superstar monster. So here we go…

You got my Initial Impressions above. Again, having read all the others I still feel the same. This one doesn’t hold up for me.

Design (name, overall design choices, design niche, playability/usability, challenge): C
I don’t want to dog you too hard, but I think you really missed the mark with the core design issue—both from the bad name and from the fact that this is a dolphin. I think the overall design choices were poor, I’m really sorry to say.

Execution (quality of writing, organization, Golarion-specific, use of proper format, quality of content—description, summary of powers, rules execution, mechanics innovation): B
It also doesn’t do much other than add illusion magic, so the slate of powers to me is not that impressive. That said, I’m giving you some props because as I’ve mentioned not every monster has to be a combat foe. But this isn’t a book of monsters, it’s your Superstar entry.

Tilt (did it grab me, do I want to use one in an adventure?, mojo, just plain fun factor): C+
Not feeling the dolphin mojo, my friend. I’m sorry to say.

Overall: B-
Rorik, you know my view on this so I don’t need to say it again.

Final Verdict: I DO NOT RECOMMEND this monster advance.

Your trick shot glove was one of my favorites from Round 1 and your archetype was really sold. I just don’t think your monster measured up. That said, it’s up to the voters!

Good luck!

Contributor

My impression of this monster is that you made a relatively low-word count creature and tried to prop it up with interesting flavor to make us enjoy it. One problem is that you give the colloquialism, "Hanspur's children" to a pink dolphin when Hanspur's title and holy symbol is the water rat. My second problem is that this creature really doesn't have any interesting combat mechanics going for it; its blind, but then you provide a way to remove all of the penalties of the blindless while gaining the handful of benefits its provides. It would have been easier to simply add your improved echolocation and add "immune to gaze attacks and sight-based effects" somewhere. You didn't need to announce that the creature didn't get low-light vision or darkvision.

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32, 2011 Top 4 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka DankeSean

I fing myself not hating this name; I don't love the fact that it basically just translates into a real foreign language, since that's kind of contrary to most monster naming conventions, but as far as a name? I don't hate it. It actually drew me to look at this entry as one of my first views. Still, you probably could have done better than directly lifting it from the Portugese; I remember Matt Goodall discussing the naming origins of his 2010 monster entry, the churjiir, and how 'jiir' is Somali for rat, and he just blended that with 'churr' as being similar to a noise they might make; I think taking an approach like this might have worked here, if you'd wanted to stick with 'boto' as your naming root, you could have done a funky phonetic blend of some kind and had a one word name that wouldn't have raised hackles. Just a thought for future critter names.

I LOVE the fact that they're mean, nasty dolphins, though. First of all, regardless of how people feel about the dolphins of the real world, the fact is that they're a species of murderous, rapey, sociopaths. That your players might not be aware of this and be expecting the whole 'dolphins- mankinds laughing buddies!' approach makes it a wonderful subversion of expectations, IMO. I can see it now as they boat down the river 'Oh, look, there's more of those magical, pink dolphins! They're so kind, it was great when they told us this was the swiftest branch of the river to the ancient temple. Aww, look, thy're standing up on their tails and smiling and clicking at us, how cute! Hey... wait, is that a WATERFALL?"

Now, that said, I do think you could have done a bit more with them than give them a couple of illusion powers. Maybe some teleporting funkiness (blink dolphins? okay, terrible idea, nevermind...)or something else a little out of the blue. Somethingt hat actually can make them a danger should push come to shove. Aside from that, though, for me, this entry isn't the automatic turnoff that it seemed to be fore the judges. I'm still reading and weighing entries, but this has a shot at my vote.

And seriously, people. Dolphins? Evil. Don't eat 'dolphin-safe' tuna! The rest of the sea life will thank you.

Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Clouds Without Water

Naming: I think I see why it's named the way it is, but it's more than a little unwieldy. The name hurts.

Cool Factor: Well, they're blind dolphins that cast illusions. Reading the wikipedia entry on them, I can see where that comes from, given the myths. But it doesn't work for me. I think most players would think the whole thing seemed pretty random.

This one will be a pass, unfortunately.

Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 9

I had a strange reaction to the name, because I read 'ocota' as 'octa', so I kept excpecting it to be some sort of monster octopus.

After realizing it was a dolphin, however, I still didn't like it that much. Big pink dolphins who sometimes allow men to drown. And they have blindsight despite being blind. And they can't speak, but often use their daily illusion abilities to speak, or at least make sign language. One "drawback that isn't a drawback" is poor design. Two? Awful.

And also, other than watching people drown? It won't ever be a threat to the party. OH NO, 3-6 DAMAGE! That's way off kilter. Even a monster that isn't supposed to fight the party needs to have some sort of balance for it's level. silent image at will doesn't make up for it.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka Epic Meepo

@Rorick: I've been pulling for you as one of my possible Top 4 since Round 1, but I think you dropped the ball here. This is more of an advanced dolphin that it is a new monster. Replace a few Hit Dice with sorcerer levels and it could literally be a dolphin with the advanced template and class levels, no more, no less.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16 , Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka JoelF847

I have to agree with what's been said - ok, so it's a dolphin that lives in rivers and has minor illusions. What exactly would this do in an encounter (other than rescue drowning female PCs.) Most of the time, PCs would ignore this if they encountered it - and nothing in the description made me think that it would actively seek out adventurers for help or anything.

While such a beast might exist, I don't want or need a monster entry that's this basic - either give me something the PCs will fight or ally with - not a non-threatening animal with relatively boring minar SLAs.

Liberty's Edge Contributor , Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9

I don't have much to add to what's been said above. I could see myself using this because it subverts the players' expectations on a meta level ("Oh look at the friendly dolphin..."), but it doesn't do enough for me to set itself apart from a round of excellent monsters. Good luck in the voting!

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 aka Danish Trumpter

I just wanted to thank everyone for their critiques and support in getting me this far. The only thing I can say is that I wanted to try something a little different this round. I didn't realize that combat worthiness was going to be of significant importance in this round so I had fun creating something a bit more fluffy, otherwise I probably would have gone another route. I do think this is a solid critter but i definitely understand the issues with the name and that it may well not be of Superstar quality. Mostly I wanted to wish all those moving on to the next round the best of luck!!

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 6 aka Transylvanian Tadpole

I once swam with pink river dolphins in the Amazon. Couldn't really see them, except when they occasionally broke the surface - the river water was a black soup of sediment. I tried not to think about the piranhas and anacondas.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka GM_Solspiral

or the dreaded Canderu (sp) fish

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 6 aka Transylvanian Tadpole

I made sure my bladder was empty before entering the water :-)

Star Voter Season 7

Rorik Moore-Jansen wrote:
I didn't realize that combat worthiness was going to be of significant importance in this round so I had fun creating something a bit more fluffy,

It's not so much that combat worthiness was critical, as that it needs to have a hook for interesting interactions with the PCs. Combat is the easiest way to do that, but a combination of interesting abilities and good flavor can make for interesting non-combat interactions.

Unfortunately, your monster didn't really have any interesting abilities, and no flavor hook that would give it a reason to use it instead of (for example) a merfolk.

Good luck for next year!

Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 9

It doesn't have to be 'combat worthy', but it does, absolutely, have to be able to hold its own in a stat-matching contest with other monsters of its CR. It feels like this would be best as a much lower CR monster.

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