How would one go about stating an carnotaurus dinosaur in pathfinder? Alternatively does anyone already have homebrew stats for such a beast? I would think that it would most likely involve scaling a tyrannosaurus down to large size, giving it some manner of sprint/speed surge ability, and removing powerful bite.
Up until recently there was a site run by a guy on the ENWorld forums called Creature Catalog. It's been taken down (I'm not sure when it happened) but he had statted up a ton of dinosaurs for 3.0 and 3.5. I'm still looking to see if he's moved his page somewhere else. It was a great resource.
Yeah, I know. No help at all.
EDIT: Try this one.
This is an interesting dinosaur -- it's like a smaller tyrannosaurus, but it had a small pair of horns on top of its head that may have helped to absorb the shock of head-butting opponents.
Here's my take. It's mostly a variation on an allosaurus, with a bigger bite attack and an ability to head butt.
XP 3200
N Huge animal
Init +5; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +28DEFENSE
AC 19, touch 9, flat-footed 18 (+1 Dex, +10 natural, –2 size)
hp 93 (11d8+44)
Fort +11, Ref +8, Will +7OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee bite +16 (2d8+15/19–20 plus grab) or slam + 16 (1d8+15)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks rushing charge, rake (2 talons +16, 1d8+10)STATISTICS
Str 30, Dex 13, Con 19, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10
Base Atk +8; CMB +20; CMD 31
Feats Alertness, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Nimble Moves, Run
Skills Perception +28; Racial Modifiers +8 PerceptionSPECIAL ABILITIES
Rushing Charge (Ex)
When a carnotaurus hits a target with its slam attack at the end of a charge, it can initiate a bull rush as a free action to move the struck target back in the same direction as the dinosaur's charge.ECOLOGY
Environment warm forests and plains
Organization solitary, pair, or pack (3–6)
Treasure none
Good job. I might dial the damage back on the bite, though. Their lower jaws weren't as heavy and able to hold the muscles needed for a really strong bite. It's believed by some paleontologists they either ate small prey or attacked larger animals like sauropods with quick, small bites that inflicted bleeding wounds. Just my two cents.
Yeah, looking at the stats for this thing, it seems it was actually a little smaller than allosaurus, so maybe the thing to do is to scale down the bite damage, the hit dice, and the challenge rating.
XP 3200
N Huge animal
Init +5; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +24DEFENSE
AC 19, touch 9, flat-footed 18 (+1 Dex, +10 natural, –2 size)
hp 67 (9d8+27)
Fort +9, Ref +7, Will +7OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee bite +10 (2d8+9 plus grab) or slam + 10 (1d8+9)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks rushing chargeSTATISTICS
Str 22, Dex 13, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10
Base Atk +6; CMB +15; CMD 26
Feats Alertness, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Nimble Moves, Run
Skills Perception +24; Racial Modifiers +8 PerceptionSPECIAL ABILITIES
Rushing Charge (Ex)
When a carnotaurus hits a target with its slam attack at the end of a charge, it can initiate a bull rush as a free action to move the struck target back in the same direction as the dinosaur's charge.ECOLOGY
Environment warm forests and plains
Organization solitary, pair, or pack (3–6)
Treasure none
I gave it 2d8 base damage on its bite (one higher than is typical for a huge monster -- the tyrannosaurus is the same way) but lowered its Strength to 22 because of the weak jaw. I also took away the rake attacks. The attack and damage are now pretty much in line with the monster creation guidelines for a CR 5 creature, and the hit points are slightly higher, which seems to be typical for dinosaurs.
You also mention that its bites caused bleeding, but was there anything special about its bites or teeth that caused its opponents to bleed more than usual? Some monsters in Pathfinder do bleed damage, but it seems to be pretty rare for normal animals.
The teeth were pretty long and slender, unlike the teeth of other, related abelisaurids. It may have used it's strong upper jaw like a sort of serrated club, inflicting slashing wounds on its prey, rather like an allosaur. So maybe your bite damage was more on target. I do like the Rushing Charge ability!
I know there are a couple of bona fide paleontologists who haunt the boards. Maybe one of them will chime in. I'm just an avid, enthusiastic amateur.
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Hey guys! I'm the brain behind Cold Dinosaur Games, and I just wanna say I'm flattered for being mentioned! I will say I based the size off its length at approximately 9m vs Parasaurolophus at 9.5m (which paizo classes as Huge). I also opted for bleed damage based on the aforementioned slashing wounds.
The camouflage is a tribute to Micheal Chrichton's Carnotaurus in The Lost World-much like my venomous Dilophosaurus, even if it doesn't spit.
I'll admit my site is a little derelict as setting up pages is much harder than I gave my friends who are good at it credit for. I can get some more stats up on blog posts if you guys are interested.
You're quite welcome. I like what I saw on your page. I personally don't use dinosaurs in my homebrew, though there are many extinct species from our world that live there (mostly mammals). I also love the workup you did for the Ropen. I'd love to see more cryptids statted out. Keep up the good work!