3.5: The Twilight Campaigns [PEACH]

[Kagehime]

I saw the other thread before, but it didn't seem to have come to anything, sooo...I'm going to be posting my own homebrew content based on The Legend of Zelda, specificallly Twilight Princess (the best, IMHO). Now, I've DMed before, but this will be my first time creating homebrew, so please keep that in mind. Still, honest questions, comments and suggestions are welcome! :smallsmile:

First off, we've got the Shadow Beasts, also known as the Twilit Messengers. They can be tough to beat in-game. Speaking of which, if someone could playtest this to determine the CR, that would helpful, too!

Shadow Beast

Size/Type: Large Outsider (Extraplanar, Twilit)
Hit Dice: 12d8+24 (78 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 21, touch 11, flat-footed 19 (-1 size, +2 dex, +10 natural)
Base Attack/Grapple: +12/+21
Attack: Claw +16 melee / Bite +13 melee (2d8+5)
Full Attack: +16/+11/+6
Space/Reach: 10 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Improved grab
Special Qualities: Fast healing 3, howl of dark resurrection, spell-like abilities, Twilit traits
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +10, Will +5
Abilities: Str 20, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 5, Cha 4
Skills: Intimidate +15; Jump +15; Listen +15; Spot +15; Survival +15; Climb +15
Feats: Power Attack; Cleave; Great Cleave; Combat Expertise; Improved Sunder
Enviroment: Any Twilit
Organization: Solitary, pack (3-5)
Challange Rating: ???
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: 13-21 HD (Huge)
Level Adjustment: —

This vile creature stands about as tall as a horse, its humanoid form hunched over and covered with a pattern. Whatever face it has is hidden behind a heavy mask, from above and below which tentacles project.

Shadow Beasts are dark beings created by the tainted magic of the Shadow Crystals, transformed by the false king Zant from the peaceful Twili people. As long as the power that created them exists, they cannot be changed back.

COMBAT

Shadow Beasts hunt in packs, to ensure a swift and easy kill, and almost always ambush; their default method is to wait for potential victims to enter a narrow area, trap them in walls of force, and drop on them through a portal. Occasionally, one of them can be found in the Twilight as a guard. Though not especially bright as a result of the transformation, they make up for it in sheer ferocity.

Improved grab: To use this ability, the Shadow Beast must hit with an arm or tentacle attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can constrict.

Howl of dark resurrection: If more than one Shadow Beast is present in an encounter, and all of them are killed but one, the remaining Beast may howl as a full-round action to revive the others as if they had received true resurrection spells, but with half hit points.

Spell-like abilities: Wall of force 2/day up to 200 ft.; Deeper darkness 3/day, caster level 12th.

And, to go with that, the Twilit subtype:

Twilit Subtype: Twilit beings are creatures that were born in the Twilight Realm, touched by either the natural magic of the plane or its corrupted form, transformed directly by magic or by the contact of Twilight on the Material Plane. They can be found both there and in Twilit areas on the Material Plane, but none can withstand the light of the sun.
Traits: A twilit creature possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry):
--Immunity to cold and acid.
--Resistance to electricity 10.
--Shadow dependence: Twilit beings can only exist physically in areas of Twilight (that is, the permanent form as found in the Twilight Realm). Anywhere else, they appear as either incorporeal shadow versions of themselves (if native to the Twilight Realm) or as the beings they were before.
--See in Darkness (Su): Twilit creatures can see perfectly well in darkness of any type, even magical.
--Twilit creatures created by dark magic (i.e., not native to the plane), and the artifacts associated with them, emit auras of evil.

More later!

[Fizban]

I'm not so sure about not existing outside of twilight: there are several fights with them to create new warp points after you've banished the twilight (the northeast stone bridge/canyon crossing, north zora river, gerudo desert, and so on). Those are against the howlers, or Twilight Messengers as you've dubbed them, so either they don't have the full Twilit sub-type, or the sub-type will have to change. I don't remember seeing any normal twilit monsters in the light other than the messengers, so maybe they're just an exception.

For some reason I think there was as bestiary with the credits, giving the official names of most of the monsters, but I never finished my last replay, so I'm not sure. Might be worth a quick refinish to get the official names.

Edit: not trying to derail the thread, but one question to ask youself is the obvious: how do I stat Link? Since he's the only player character in the game, figuring out how he matches up with DnD stats is important for calibrating all your monsters. You'll also have to decide how much magic there is and how it's going to work.

A couple suggestions off the top of my head: ditch normal vancian magic and go with warlocks and either a spell point based healer or a free out of combat healing mechanic for everyone.

Edit2: I suppose I should actually help with the stat block, shouldn't I?

Natural weapon attack routines work differently than iterative attacks from BAB: a single attack is one attack with the primary natural weapon (unless there's a very good reason to use the secondary) with 1 1/2 times the strength bonus to damage, and a full attack is one attack with each weapon, the secondary weapons taking a -5 penalty and half strength bonus to damage. I'm also going to assume that the bite base damage is 2d8, and lower the claw damage by one step to 2d6. Following that, your attack routine should be (assuming one primary attack with a single claw and one secondary attack with a bite):
Attack: Claw +17 melee (2d6+7)
Full Attack: Claw +17 melee (2d6+5) and bite +12 melee (2d8+2)

It's a little weird, since there are usually two claw attacks, but it works.

Improved Grapple: you haven't listed a tentacles attack or constrict damage, but otherwise the attack listing is fine. You can pretty much just copy/paste from another monster for these and adjust for strength and BAB difference. Constrict usually adds 1 1/2 strength bonus.

Your skills are a little wonky. You have 8+int per level from outsider type, so that's a total of 7 maxed out skills at 15 ranks each. You've only listed six, and haven't adjusted for ability modifiers yet, but that's easy enough so I'll let you rework them and pick the last one.

Feat also need adjustment: Combat Expertise requires 13 int, so either the shadow beast will need more int, or it should be denoted as a bonus feat. I don't really agree with the feats you've picked (I'd have gone with Improved Bull Rush-> Awesome Blow myself, then maybe some teamwork or extra toughness), but that's your choice.

Fast healing seems right for some reason, even though they didn't actually regenerate in combat. Resistances, immunities and see in darkness are all fine. Howl of dark ressurection works as is, but I'd reword it a bit:

Howl of Dark Ressurection (Su)
Shadow Beasts travel in packs, and the last one alive can revive the others. A Shadow Beast may, as a full round action, restore all dead Shadow Beasts within 60' to life with half of their full hit points, as long as they have been dead for no more than 1 round per hit die of the Beast using this ability. This ability does not cause any loss of level, and works otherwise as if it were a True Ressurection spell. Normally a pack member will not use this ability until it is the last one left standing, but it knows that there is a time limit and will make sure to howl in time to revive it's packmates.

I like having more definite limits than group and encounter, and if you can stall them in some way I think you should be able to prevent the howl from working every time. Alternatively, you could change it so that it only works between pre-established packmates, so that once you kill the pack, they won't come back. Either way, I don't like the idea of one Beast bringing back the entire race by itself. But again, it's your choice, and it would feel a lot more apocalyptic.

Finally, the spell like abilities. Wall of Force is Wall of Force, you could make do with just 1/day if you tried, but 2/day lets you make a full box with only 2 Beasts so I won't argue. Deeper Darkness is a little odd: since you fight several out in the light, I'd assume they don't have any darkness abilities. In either case, you don't really need it more than 1/day, but since it doesn't hurt anything you can leave that too.

I have no idea how to CR the thing. It's main shtick is attacking in groups, which makes CR calculation even harder since the usual x2 creatures= +2 CR won't apply. Best ask someone else about that.

[Kagehime]

Edited! I've adjusted both to hopefully more accurate and playable. To begin with, I remembered that those were in the light, as well, so I edited the Beasts (though really those seemed more like plot contrivances for warping); now they can stand in the light, too, though they incur a penalty. Also gave them Plane Shift so they can in fact teleport in. Oh, for their name--they're called Twilit Messengers in the official strategy guide, but according to SSB: Brawl and the official website (http://www.zelda.com/tp/) they are "Shadow Beasts".

Yes, I completely agree; though there are spell-like abilities useable by monsters, there is in this game no magic meter anyway, so all magic will be as Warlock invocations. I also know that there's nothing more frustrating than to be killed by a lone kobold because your cleric died after you completed a grueling dungeon, so yeah--hit points recover automatically over time out of combat.

Oh, and the reason for only one claw attack is that they always seem to walk with one claw dragging along the ground, maybe for stability.

Link's stats, a new player race (Twili), and description of the Twilight Realm and its effects on the Material Plane will be coming soon.

Updated Shadow Beast:
Shadow Beast

Size/Type: Large Outsider (Extraplanar, Twilit)
Hit Dice: 12d8+24+3 (Toughness) (81 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 21, touch 11, flat-footed 19 (-1 size, +2 dex, +10 natural)
Base Attack/Grapple: +12/+21
Attack: Claw +17 melee (2d6+7)
Full Attack: Claw +17 melee (2d6+5) and 2 tentacles +17 melee (2d8+5/19–20 and bite +12 melee (2d8+2)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Improved grab, constrict 1d6+3
Special Qualities: Fast healing 3, howl of dark resurrection, spell-like abilities, Twilit traits
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +10, Will +5
Abilities: Str 20, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 5, Cha 4
Skills: Climb +20; Hide +13 (+15 in areas of dim light); Intimidate +12; Jump +20; Listen +12; Spot +12; Survival +12
Feats: Power Attack; Cleave; Great Cleave; Improved Bull Rush; Awesome Blow (B); Toughness
Enviroment: Any (usually Twilight)
Organization: Solitary, pack (3-5)
Challange Rating: ???
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: 13-21 HD (Huge)
Level Adjustment: —

This vile creature stands about as tall as a horse, its humanoid form hunched over and covered with a pattern. Whatever face it has is hidden behind a heavy mask, from above and below which tentacles project.

Shadow Beasts are dark beings created by the tainted magic of the Shadow Crystals, transformed by the false king Zant from the peaceful Twili people. As long as the power that created them exists, they cannot be changed back.

COMBAT

Shadow Beasts hunt in packs, to ensure a swift and easy kill, and almost always ambush; their default method is to wait for potential victims to enter a narrow area, trap them in walls of force, and drop on them through a portal. Occasionally, one of them can be found in the Twilight as a guard. Though not especially bright as a result of the transformation, they make up for it in sheer ferocity.

Improved grab (Ex): To use this ability, the Shadow Beast must hit with an arm or tentacle attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can constrict.

Constrict (Ex): A creature caught in a grapple by a Shadow Beast's Improved Grab takes half bludgeoning damage and half constriction damage.

Howl of dark resurrection (Su): If more than one Shadow Beast is present in an encounter, and all of them are killed but one, the remaining Beast may use a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity to revive its packmates (those that were with it when the encounter began) as if they had received true resurrection spells, but with half hit points.

Spell-like abilities: Wall of force 2/day, caster level 12th; Plane Shift 1/day.

Special: A Shadow Beast is not subject to the Twilit type’s Shadow dependence; it can exist freely in natural light, but does suffer a -2 penalty to attack rolls and saving throws as long as it remains there.

Updated Twilit subtype:
Twilit Subtype: “Twilit” is a template which is either inherited or can be applied to any creature except Oozes, Fey and Outsiders (which they automatically become). A creature to which it is applied also immediately gains the Augmented subtype. At one point, it affected Humanoids as well, but the nature of the Twilight has since changed.

Twilit beings are creatures that were born in the Twilight Realm, touched by either the natural magic of the plane or its corrupted form, transformed directly by magic or by the contact of Twilight on the Material Plane. They can be found both there and in Twilit areas on the Material Plane, but none can withstand the light of the sun.
Traits: A twilit creature possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry):
--Immunity to cold and acid.
--Resistance to electricity 10.
--Shadow dependence: Twilit beings can only exist physically in areas of Twilight (that is, the permanent form as found in the Twilight Realm). Exposed to the pure light of the Material Plane, a Twilit creature is immediately drained to 1 Constitution and knocked unconscious but stable at -1 hit point. Hit points may be restored as normal, but are subject to the new Constitution score; Constitution may only be restored by the willing sacrifice of an equal amount by an intelligent being.
--See in Darkness (Su):Twilit creatures can see perfectly well in darkness of any type, even magical.
--Twilit creatures created by dark magic (i.e., not native to the plane), and the artifacts associated with them, emit auras of evil.