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OK, the stat block for He-Who-Hums (the kaiju yrthak, page 68 in the otherwise outstanding Ecology of the Yrthak article) is obviously the 3.5 version, with 3.5 DR and attack stats, but the feats and skill points are all wrong, from what I can tell. My best guess is that the author used the (obviously) 3.0 template on the 3.5 yrthak and didn't make the proper conversions.
With 52 HD, He-Who-Hums should have 18 feats, not the 6 listed, or the 8 he has counting the Cleave and Great Cleave feats that are only included in the attack options section. The kaiju template in issue 289 says to give the templated creature all of the base creature's existing feats, plus one for every 4 HD beyond 32. (I thought the feat every 4 monster HD was 3.0 convention that was abandoned with 3.5.) Regardless of what edition he's under, at the very least our kaiju monstrosity should have a different Initiative modifier (+6 with Dex 14), since a normal yrthak has the Improved Initiative feat and so should He-Who-Hums.
The skill points seem to be off as well, along with the rather odd idea of giving a *blind* monster ranks in Spot. If we just max out the 2 base skills for a regular yrthak, I think it should have Listen +32 and Move Silently +30, following the base yrthak's skill point allocations, its 13 Wis and 14 Dex, and its +4 racial bonus to Listen checks.
Or am I just completely wrong and the kaiju template sort of transcends edition changes, overriding what might make for an even nastier big bad to terrify my players with?
They never did a 3.5 Kaiju yet. I wish they did already.
The damage reduction was DR 15/epic on a creature in a previous issue of Dungeon Magazine and now in this Dragon Magazine issue the DR is 25/magic (which is stupid, it should be DR 25/epic, a 1st-level character can bypass DR magic).
Hrm. I wrote that, but it must've been edited somewhere along the way. My version doesn't have ranks in Spot, a load more Feats and DR 15/adamantine...
Is it OK if I post the Feat list in my version here, or would that be against magazine policy?
Anyone else think it odd that an updated version of the kaiju template wasn't just included in the article? It doesn't seem like something that would get proper update attention elsewhere, and the He-Who-Hums entry would've been a perfect spot to pay such needed attention.
Too much word count.
Where's the Kaiju from?