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Somensjev
2013-05-13, 03:50 AM
cephaloids

Cephaloids are a rare bread of humanoids, who inhabit underwater ruins, near a land, or island, or underwater cove, they can survive both on land and in the sea, they have the unnerving ability to fit into small places dues to their lack of bones, their bodies being supported entirely by muscles and organs

Personality
Cephaloids are very intelligent, and likeable people, they are also, despite appearance, very hardy, and can take more than their fair share of abuse before falling.
Cephaloids are compulsive hoarders, rivalled only by the hoarding skills of dragons, however, most Cephaloids will only hoard something with sentimental value, however, that's not saying much, since they might decide that, since they hurt themselves trying to fell a tree, the tree has sentimental value, and deserves a place in their treasury


Physical description
Cephaloids are 7 foot tall humanoids, with extremely long limbs, their body is only 5ft, from waist to head, however, their legs are 10 feet long, so they usually walk with them either curled up, folded, coiled, or squished, so as to reduce their height, and not scare people off, they have two different types of arms, their longer arms being 20 feet long, and their shorter arms being 10 feet, they have two long arms, and four short arms, all six arms end in a five fingered hand.
they usually walk around in large cloaks, with their four short arms wrapped around their body, and their two long arms partially coming out of the sleeve, giving the appearance of a more humanoid appearance
They have pale white skin, and brightly coloured eyes, they also have a small, sharp beak, with which they can be worryingly articulate

Alignment
Cephaloids don’t tend towards any one alignment


Language
Cephaloidian language incorporates, strange guttural sounds, clicking noises, the expulsion of ink, and body language, all into one language that all Cephaloids, even those who don’t speak the language, can at least understand the general undertones, and the intent of the conversation


names
Cephaloidian names usually have a low guttural sound, followed by a short series of clicks, followed by a short series of signals and ink, however, many of them will chose a name from another race that they're fond of, and ask every one to refer to them by that name, since only Cephaloids can truly speak Cephaloidian

Cephaloidian racial traits
• +4 dex, +6 con, +10 int, +10 wis, +10 cha
• Medium: as medium creatures, Cephaloids have no special bonuses or penalties because of their size
• Cephaloid base land speed 30ft, and their swim speed is 30ft
• +5 natural armour
• 20ft reach with long arm, 10ft reach with short arms
• Attack: Tentacle +0 melee (1d6+0/19–20)
• Full Attack: 2 tentacles +0 melee (1d6+0/19–20) and 6 arms +0 melee (1d2+0) and bite +0 melee (1d8+0)
• A Cephaloid can fit into any space that is at least 1/4ft wide, since they have no bones, they move through those areas at half speed, and while inside them they are classed as flatfooted and therefore do not have their dex bonus applied to their armour class
• +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.
• Special qualities
○ Darkvision 60ft
○ ink cloud
○ Jet
○ low-light vision
○ amphibious
• Special attacks
○ Improved grab
○ constrict 1d6+or 1d2
• Automatic languages: common and Cephaloidian. Bonus languages all (except secret languages like druidic)
• Favoured class: any, Cephaloids don’t get an experience point penalty from their class with the highest levels
• Level adjustment: +13



i need help with my old enemy, Level Adjustment, cause i tried an acid test, a level one cephaloid sorcerer, and a level 15 human sorcerer, and the human was obviously surperior ><

Debihuman
2013-05-13, 07:44 AM
There is no way these have LA +15 unless you forgot to mention they have racial Hit Dice.

Cephaloidian racial traits

How did you arrive at your racial stats? Reducing a Kraken to Medium size gives it these ability score adjustments: Str +0, Dex -4, Con +3, Int +10, Wis +10, Cha +10. Nevertheless, your scores are worth LA +1.

The first problem I have with your creature is that it clearly isn't an anthropomorphic kraken. It's a Monstrous Humanoid. The mere fact that they have 6 arms makes them Monstrous Humanoids. Humanoids have 2 arms generally. These creatures have more arms than the Thri-kreen have. You can make a case for a 4-armed Humanoid, but these are more than just Humans with 4 arms. These arms have extra reach on top of that. Two of their arms have a 20-foot reach and four of their arms have 10-foot reach. That fairly screams Monstrous Humanoid to me. I am calling shenanigans on the Humanoid type when clearly these should be Monstrous Humanoids. The mere fact that Humanoids are afraid of them should be indicative of this. Why does this fear not have a game mechanic to go with it? You shouldn't put something like that in a creature's description without a game mechanic that supports it or it is ignorable.

From your description, these should actually be Large size and not Medium at all. If they are 5 feet from head to waist and their legs are 10 feet long, they are actually 15 feet tall from head to foot which is how you measure size. 15 feet is near the maximum height for a Large creature.

You can either make them shorter or abide by the rules for Large creatures. One way to reduce their size penalties while keeping them Large is to give them Slight Build. Kobolds have this and there is no reason that your creature couldn't have it too. It would require a little reworking since it appears your creature doesn't have bones either (bones don't normally bend) and it appears the cephaloid has cartilage instead bones giving it the ability to bend in inhuman ways.

Here is how it would look:

Slight Build (Ex): The physical stature of cephaloids lets them function in many ways as if they were one size category smaller. Whenever a cephaloid is subject to a size modifier or special size modifier for an opposed check (such as Hide), the cephaloid is treated as one size smaller if doing so is advantageous to the character. A cephaloid is also considered to be one size smaller when "squeezing" through a restrictive space. A cephaloid can use weapons designed for a creature one size smaller without penalty. While a cephaloid takes up the space of a creature one size smaller, the reach of a cephaloid remain those of a creature of their actual size. The benefits of this racial trait stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject's size category.

Getting back to the extra arms. It seems that 6 arms is worth LA +4 for the extra limbs. They either have tentacles or arms that end in hands. Your description and your racial traits don't match.

If they have arms that end in hands, then they should lose their tentacle attack and have a slam attack instead or no natural attacks and only unarmed strikes. If you want to keep them as tentacles, you need to rewrite your description of them.

If you keep them as arms (you mention that their arms end in 5-fingered hands), then these creature can use standard weapons as well. One of its long arms is its primary hand and all others are secondary when it comes to using weapons. If it attacks (assuming it doesn't have multiweapon fighting feat), it suffers a -6 penalty with its regular attack or attacks its primary hand and a -10 penalty to the attack with each of its off hands. If its off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.)

I would allow it to use both of its long arms to wield a spear and let its other 4 arms wield daggers. At low levels the penalties for using weapons are harsh but as it increases in level, those extra attacks come in mighty handy. [Bad pun, I know].

Swim speed is LA +1

Darkvision maybe LA +1

Jet and Ink Cloud are worth LA +1 together maybe since they can only be used while in the water.

Don't make up new languages for every creature. Use Aquan. It's a lot easier for other creatures to talk to it.

Natural Armor +5 is worth LA, I'm not sure how much.

Large and Slight Build maybe worth LA, again I'm not sure how much.

Whether it should constrict depends on whether it has arms or tentacles. If it has arms and hands, it should lose this ability.

Once you have fleshed this out a bit better and made it more coherent, it will be easier to judge.

Debby

Kazyan
2013-05-13, 08:42 AM
This shouldn't be Humanoid if for no other reason than being a pants-on-head ludicrously powerful Alter Self form for humanoids. :smalltongue:

Somensjev
2013-05-14, 02:30 AM
ok, it should be monstrous humanoid, i was designing them like that, but i forgot to put that in ><

i didnt realise about the slam attack.. they have arms, not tentacles, i just called them tentacles to differentiate between them and the larger ones

apparently i'm horrible at downsizing enemies >< mostly just the stats give me trouble

for the fear thing i want sure what i should use, i was thinking maybe frightful presence or something

ok, i'm fine with them being large with the slight build, and large doesnt give an LA but slight build might, i dunno

they get a +3 from the 20ft reach, coz it's a plus one for ever 5ft above the first 5

so, for LA there'd be +3 from 20ft reach, +4 for extra arms, +1 darkvision, +1 for swim speed, +1 for both jet and ink together, +1 for the nat armour, +1 for slight build, and +1 for it's stats
for a total of +13...?

Debihuman
2013-05-14, 06:54 AM
Size: A Large creature gets no level adjustment for size. Its level adjustment is based on its reach instead.

While the extra attacks with having 8 arms is kinda cool (if by that you mean so overpowered that nobody will want to play with you), it will lag far behind in power and capability of what standard PCs can do. It's mostly a one trick pony.

You have the natural attacks wrong. Natural attacks only do double damage on a 20. You have to take a feat to change it to 19. Unless you know the creature's stats, you cannot figure out the attack lines.

You can say that cephaloid does 1d6 with each of its two long arms and 1d2 with its shorter arms but that's not much damage at higher levels even with 8 natural attacks.

Don't forget, you do not get iterative attacks with natural weapons. So having 8 attacks that do 1d6, 1d6, 1d2, 1d2, 1d2, 1d2, 1d2, 1d2 really isn't very much. On average, a 20th HD cephaloid will do 16 points of damage.

A 20th fighter with dual wielded scimitars has 8 attacks too (and if he has the right feats he takes no penalties) but can do 20 points of damage on average. That's a full quarter more damage and it will make a huge difference. Plus the fighter will have considerably more choice of weapons including ranged weapons. Reach means nothing when you have ranged weapons that can be used.

You still didn't state whether these can use weapons or not. Since they have no weapon proficiencies, I'd say that they can't use weapons.

The LA is too high for what you actually get. At low levels, these have advantages but are so overshadowed at higher levels that it just wouldn't be fun.

Debby

Somensjev
2013-05-14, 07:08 AM
so an LA between +3 and +7 maybe?

and they can use weapons if you play one as a PC, but other than that i might give them spears and daggers, i'm not really sure

Debihuman
2013-05-14, 07:23 AM
Not a chance. These are LA +13. If you want to lower the LA, then you have to adjust them accordingly. They have to LOSE stuff to get LA +7.

LA is good at low level and progressively gets worse as you increase in level. Now you know why nobody likes overpowered LA creatures. Seriously, this is a good learning example.

Debby

Somensjev
2013-05-14, 07:41 AM
that's true, ever since joining this forum i've learnt more than i've learnt from actually playing

do you have any ideas about what could be taken away to make it a bit more playable?

Sgt. Cookie
2013-05-14, 08:04 AM
If you loose the extra arms (keeping two), but keep the Tentacle and Bite attacks that would be a good start.

I'd say make the Tentacle attacks the Primary Natural Weapons, and give them a Reach of 10ft. The bite should become a Secondary one. Additionally, the Bite damage should be changed to 1d4.

Change their normal reach to 5ft, which is standard for a Medium creature.

I'd change their Natural Armour bonus to this: "Cephaloids gain a +1 Natural Armour bonus at level 1. This increases by +1 every 4HD. Maximum bonus +5 at level 16."

Get rid of the Mental stat bonuses, cutting the Dex bonus to 2 and the Con bonus to 4 would be fine.

I'd cut out Jet, Ink Cloud and Constrict as 1st level abilities, and add this: "At 3HD, the Cephaloid gains the Constrict special ability. At 6HD it Gains the Ink Cloud special ability. At 9HD it gains Jet. Jet and Ink Cloud may only be used while underwater."

That will cut their LA down a fair amount.

Somensjev
2013-05-14, 08:18 AM
@sgt. cookie
those are all very good ideas (i knew there was a reason i posted this thing on a forum)

---------


so, it'd become something like this?
wait, actually, would it be 2 arms 2 tentacles, or just 2 arms?
i'll write up two arms two tentacles first

---------------

Cephaloidian racial traits
• +2 dex, +2 con,
• Medium: as medium creatures, Cephaloids have no special bonuses or penalties because of their size
• Cephaloid base land speed 30ft, and their swim speed is 30ft
• +1 natural armour, increases by +1 every 4HD, maximum +5 at 16HD
• 10ft reach with tentacles, 5ft reach with short arms
• Attack: tentacle +0 melee (1d6+0/19–20)
• Full Attack: 2 tentacles (large arms) +0 melee (1d6+0/19–20), 2 arms +0 melee (1d2+0) and bite +0 melee (1d4+0)
• A Cephaloid can fit into any space that is at least 1/4ft wide, since they have no bones, they move through those areas at half speed, and while inside them they are classed as flatfooted and therefore do not have their dex bonus applied to their armour class
• +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.
• Special qualities
○ Darkvision 60ft
○ ink cloud: cephaloids gain this ability at 6HD
○ Jet: cephaloids gain this ability at 9HD
○ low-light vision
○ amphibious
• Special attacks
○ Improved grab
○ constrict 1d6+or 1d2: cephaloids gain this ability at 3HD
• Automatic languages: common and Cephaloidian. Bonus languages all (except secret languages like druidic)
• Favoured class: any, Cephaloids don’t get an experience point penalty from their class with the highest levels
• Level adjustment: -- (whatever the LA should be)

---------
does that sound ok?

Sgt. Cookie
2013-05-14, 08:54 AM
Yes, I meant two arms, two tentacles.

The Bite attack should be at a -5 penalty, for being a Secondary Natural Attack.

Other than that, it looks good, I'd stick it at LA +2.

Debihuman
2013-05-14, 09:15 AM
It's better.

Abilities should balance to +0. So +2 Dex and +2 Con should be -2 Str and -2 Int to balance. Medium creatures can only make 1 slam attack with both of their arms. I also took the liberty of modifying the text to match the racial traits. Also, since you changed their size and I mentioned that having their own language is redundant when they should have Aquan.

Cephaloids

Cephaloids are a rare breed of Monstrous Humanoids that inhabit underwater ruins, usually near a land, or island, or underwater cove. They can survive both on land and in the sea. They have the unnerving ability to squeeze into impossibly small places dues to their lack of bones; their bodies are made with cartilage rather than bone.

Personality
Cephaloids are very intelligent and generally likeable. Despite their delicate appearance, they are very hardy, and can take more than their fair share of abuse before falling.

Cephaloids are compulsive hoarders; their skills are only rivaled only the skills of dragons. However, most Cephaloids will only hoard things with sentimental value regardless of their monetary value.

Physical Description
Cephaloids are taller than 7 feet when standing fully erect but never expose their full height while alive, not even while unconscious, and so are Medium sized creatures. They usually walk with their flexible octopus-like legs curled up, folded, coiled, or squished, so as to reduce their height to appear less imposing.

They have two 10-foot long tentacles which are used for grappling foes and two 5-foot long arms that are used together to make slam attacks. They frequently attempt to disguise their octopus-like features, wearing full-length cloaks regardless of their class.

They have pale white skin, brightly coloured eyes, and a small, sharp beak with which they can be worryingly articulate.

Alignment
Cephaloids don’t tend towards any one alignment.

Languages
Cephaloids speak Aquan and Common.

Names
Cephaloidian names are difficult for other creatures to pronounce so most go by their Common names.

Cephaloidian Racial Traits


+2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Str, -2 Int.
Medium: as Medium Monstrous Humanoids, cephaloids have no special bonuses or penalties because of their size.
A cephaloid's base land speed is 30 ft., and its swim speed is 30 ft.
+1 natural armour, increases by +1 every 4 HD, maximum +5 at 16 HD
10 ft. reach with tentacles, 5 ft reach with arms.
Cephaloids have 3 natural attacks. Their primary attack is a tentacle attack. They have two 10-foot long tentacles that do 1d6 points of damage each. They also have secondary natural weapons, two 5-foot arms that can be used together to slam for 1d4 points of damage and a bite that does 1d2 points of damage.
A cephaloid can squeeze into any space that is at least 1/4 foot wide. Since they have no bones, they move through those areas at half speed. While inside them, they are classed as flat-footed and therefore, do not have their dexterity bonus applied to their armour class.
+8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.
Amphibious (Ex): Cephaloids breathe both air and water.
Constrict (Ex): On a successful grapple check, a cephaloid deals 1d6 plus 1½ times its Strength modifier in damage. It gains this ability at 3 HD.
Darkvision 60 ft.
Improved Grab (Ex): As octopus.
Ink Cloud (Ex): As octopus, cephaloids gain this ability at 6 HD.
Jet (Ex): As octopus, cephaloids gain this ability at 9 HD.
Automatic languages: Aquan and Common. Bonus languages all (except secret languages like Druidic).
Favoured class: Any, cephaloids don’t get an experience point penalty from their class with the highest levels
Level Adjustment: +4


LA is for Constrict, extra arms, reach and swim speed. That should balance a lot better now.

Debby

Somensjev
2013-05-14, 06:30 PM
that seems perfect, it's exactly the kind of thing i wanted

geonova
2013-05-17, 09:53 AM
what about removing the slam and hands on the ten foot arms and instead treating them as dexterous whips instead?

Hanuman
2013-05-17, 08:38 PM
Here I thought it was going to be tongue and cheek, disappoint =(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03rP_O2k8XM

TuggyNE
2013-05-17, 11:47 PM
Here I thought it was going to be tongue and cheek, disappoint =(

Playground homebrew is SRS BSNS.

Hanuman
2013-05-17, 11:57 PM
Clearly full-body QWOP with suctiony wiggling tentacles deserves +4 DEX :D