GITP Monster Competition Chat Thread III

[NakedCelt]

So, is there going to be a contest for August?

[Bhu]

Indeed. I may have free time finally.

[Hyooz]

Oh, wow, voting ended. I missed that entirely.

Glad I got to flex my prose muscle.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Yes, been trying to post it for days. Storms are whacking out my net. Is posted now.

[Bhu]

Booo storms!

Ooh mirrors...I can have fun with this...

[DracoDei]

Having been watching a Let's Play of Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, I just may enter a creature that feeds on defuse sunlight (IE standing in the same room as has a spot of sunlight in it), but which is harmed by more focused sunlight (such as someone standing in that patch of sun and reflecting the light onto it with a mirror).

[TheLogman]

Huh, 2 weeks off of college, an open contest. Might enter again.

[TheAmishPirate]

I'm thinking of making a Dragon native to the Mirror Plane. Is it okay to base it off of the True Dragon statistics, or do you want more differentiation?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

I'm thinking of making a Dragon native to the Mirror Plane. Is it okay to base it off of the True Dragon statistics, or do you want more differentiation?

However you want to do it is fine. Draconimicon has true dragons from each plane, though none from the Plane of Mirrors, so please feel free.

[Demons_eye]

With a theme of Through the Looking Glass I am really tempted to enter a Alice in wonderland themed monster.

[BladeofOblivion]

I'm thinking of making a Dragon native to the Mirror Plane. Is it okay to base it off of the True Dragon statistics, or do you want more differentiation?

With a theme of Through the Looking Glass I am really tempted to enter a Alice in wonderland themed monster.

Twas' Brillig in the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...

The Jabberwock!!

[Debihuman]

VT, do you still want me to Edit and Critique each entry? I don't mind doing so but you should state it in the contest that this will be done as per your request.

Debby

[DracoDei]

Is my idea about a creature vulnerable to having light reflected onto it a good one or not?

[Glimbur]

Is my idea about a creature vulnerable to having light reflected onto it a good one or not?

I'm curious to see how you make the crunch work. Were I to fight such a thing, I would just cast light spells rather than go to the trouble of reflecting light.

[TheLogman]

Here it is.

I'm not quite sure about the CR, calculator puts it at just barely 4 CR, but at least one of his special abilities are more specific versions of the Anamorphic Arrows, and a few others aren't very useful to a monster.

As for LA, I had it at one, but I realized that a lot of the abilities are fairly powerful, so I put it up at two.

[Owrtho]

Man this is a fun idea for a monster. I plan to make a creature that is the remains of a person who never existed. Sometimes when a person is retroactively unmade, their reflection somehow is overlooked. In these cases the reflections, lacking anything to follow, take on a life of their own. Being fairly annoyed at not having a body, they try to steel those of other reflections, which if successful, makes that reflection into a lesser version. When the being with the replaced reflection dies, the true ones end up stuck again, causing their to be a slowly increasing number of them. The easiest way to stop one is to cover up the mirrors nearby as they can interact with anything that isn't reflected (complete darkness would also work). Not quite sure what the effects of having your reflection replaced would be yet though...

Owrtho

[DracoDei]

I'm curious to see how you make the crunch work. Were I to fight such a thing, I would just cast light spells rather than go to the trouble of reflecting light.

Same reasons those spells don't have the same effect on a vampire as sunlight.

[Owrtho]

Same reasons those spells don't have the same effect on a vampire as sunlight.

That makes sense, but would reflected light from a spell work? Or does it need to be natural in origin?

Owrtho

[DracoDei]

That makes sense, but would reflected light from a spell work? Or does it need to be natural in origin?

Owrtho

Sunlight, reflected or not as long as it is concentrated. The twist is that they require long periods of exposure to DEFUSE sunlight.

In case it helps:

Despite its name, this spell is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by bright light.

And mere Light would be even less than that of course and the exact wording of Searing Light makes it not particularly effective (but I may need to state this in the description for clarity).

Sunbeam and Sunburst would do the trick... which means I need to keep its CR down low enough that that would be the highest level spell the cleric or Sorcerer/Wizard could cast, thus making it a significant expenditure of party resources and/or unlikely to be prepared. Since that works out to 14th level, I don't think that will be an onerous constraint, although I probably want to go lower than that so to keep the band in which such creatures can be used (especially in larger numbers) wider.

[Debihuman]

Creatures that are native to the Plane of Mirrors should have the Extraplanar subtype and Plane of Mirrors should be listed as the Environment.

The Girl in the Mirror should have Extraplanar listed as her subtype and Plane of Mirrors as her environment.

Her hit points are wrong. 5X8 +10 = (5 x 4.5 = 22.5 ) +10 = 32.5 and you always round down so her total hit points are 32, not 35.

Her AC should be noted as follows--
Armor Class: 12 (+2 Dex), Touch 12, Flat-footed 10

A Special Ability is either extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural in nature. You should designate them.

Poke would be Extraordinary and it should probably do non-lethal damage. It should probably not be "very deadly" as mentioned in the text, just very annoying. Doing one point of damage is hardly deadly.

Unseen is probably Spell-like in nature. It is the Prime Material Plane not martial plane where she exists.

Chill is probably Supernatural in nature. It is a drop in temperature (although "With a drop in temptress" was amusing).

Laugh seems to be Supernatural . If so, it should have a DC 15 to avoid the effect. (10 +1/2 creature's HD + Cha modifier) 10 +2 +3 = 15. How long does the fear effect last? I'd recommend that it be 5 rounds. I'd also recommend that she be able to do this 3/day rather than every 5 minutes. 5 minutes is too long to be useful in combat.

Balloon pop is similar to a death throes effect and should probably be Supernatural in nature.

As a reminder: See the Knowledge Skill for explanation of lore checks. 10 + Creature's HD for a starting base and increase by 10.

For online help this site is fantastic: http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm

If you use material that is NOT open content you should cite to it. Darkstalker feat is not open content and can be found in Lords of Madness.

Debby

[DracoDei]

Yeah... my life just got REALLY nuts for the next week... almost no chance of an entry now...

[Debihuman]

VT, I"m not sure the newbies are aware that I am reviewing the entries. Perhaps I should put this on hold until I get some feedback as to whether this is wanted or not.

Debby

[TheAmishPirate]

@Debihuman: Once I get my entry up, I certainly wouldn't mind the help.

In any case, my summer job just ended, so I should be able to finish up my entry soon.

[nanobot_swarm]

I'd like a fair critique as well for my entry, you do pretty good evaluations, and I probably messed up the stats again.

[Debihuman]

Okay, I'll review the entries as I can. Ack. I was editing this post and lost it.

Chiralite

Con modifier is applied to every HD for hit points. It has a Con of 17 so it gets 3 bonus hit points for each HD for a total of +9.

Hit Dice: 3d8+9 (22 hp)

Attack lines are wrong. You forgot size modifier. Only magical bonuses should be the number before the weapon. I assume the numbers are for the ranged and melee attacks. Bows have a Str penalty but not a Str bonus, except composite bows. You also forgot the Size modifier for attacks.

Attack: Small Longbow +7 ranged (1d6-1) or Small Shortsword +3 melee (1d4-1)

The racial bonus to Hide isn't mentioned in any of the Special Abilities and that's where it should be noted.

Debby

[Demons_eye]

Creatures that are native to the Plane of Mirrors should have the Extraplanar subtype and Plane of Mirrors should be listed as the Environment.

Rules say is just has to have a special link to mirrors. Not native to Plane of Mirrors so not Extraplanar. Nor is it their environment.

The Girl in the Mirror should have Extraplanar listed as her subtype and Plane of Mirrors as her environment.

See above.

Her hit points are wrong. 5X8 +10 = (5 x 4.5 = 22.5 ) +10 = 32.5 and you always round down so her total hit points are 32, not 35.

I gave her max at first beacuse thats how PC's do it. Fixin'

Her AC should be noted as follows--
Armor Class: 12 (+2 Dex), Touch 12, Flat-footed 10

Cool

A Special Ability is either extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural in nature. You should designate them.

Wasn't done yet so I was getting to it.

Poke would be Extraordinary and it should probably do non-lethal damage. It should probably not be "very deadly" as mentioned in the text, just very annoying. Doing one point of damage is hardly deadly.

If you were a commoner with only 10 HP and can be killed with 20 pokes its deadly.

Unseen is probably Spell-like in nature. It is the Prime Material Plane not martial plane where she exists.

Fixin'

Chill is probably Supernatural in nature. It is a drop in temperature (although "With a drop in temptress" was amusing).

Hating auto checker right about know.

Laugh seems to be Supernatural . If so, it should have a DC 15 to avoid the effect. (10 +1/2 creature's HD + Cha modifier) 10 +2 +3 = 15. How long does the fear effect last? I'd recommend that it be 5 rounds. I'd also recommend that she be able to do this 3/day rather than every 5 minutes. 5 minutes is too long to be useful in combat.

Need to change the time but every five minutes is so its not combat useful.

Balloon pop is similar to a death throes effect and should probably be Supernatural in nature.

Thats the bases of it.

As a reminder: See the Knowledge Skill for explanation of lore checks. 10 + Creature's HD for a starting base and increase by 10.

I know, I just haven't finished it yet.

For online help this site is fantastic: http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm

I know of the site.

If you use material that is NOT open content you should cite to it. Darkstalker feat is not open content and can be found in Lords of Madness.

Citin'

VT, I"m not sure the newbies are aware that I am reviewing the entries. Perhaps I should put this on hold until I get some feedback as to whether this is wanted or not.

Been running around too much to check up on it.

[Debihuman]

Rules say is just has to have a special link to mirrors. Not native to Plane of Mirrors so not Extraplanar. Nor is it their environment.

First, any Outsider that isn't Native should have the Extraplanar subtype. What plane is your outsider from? That should be its environment. Sure it can be encountered elsewhere, but unless it is Native to the Prime plane, it has the Extraplanar subtype. I didn't say it HAD to be native to the Plane of Mirrors, but your entry suggested it. I thought it was an oversight. If it is native to the prime material plane, it should have the Native subtype.

If you were a commoner with only 10 HP and can be killed with 20 pokes its deadly.

A cat claw can be deadly too, but it generally isn't. Normally, the text should reflect the stat block. Fix poke to reflect the text or vice versa. That's all I'm saying. If the poke is meant to be either lethal or non-lethal then list them both correctly in the attack lines. That was all I was suggesting.

Debby

[TheLogman]

Okay, I'll review the entries as I can. Ack. I was editing this post and lost it.

Chiralite

Con modifier is applied to every HD for hit points. It has a Con of 17 so it gets 3 bonus hit points for each HD for a total of +9.

Hit Dice: 3d8+9 (22 hp)

Attack lines are wrong. You forgot size modifier. Only magical bonuses should be the number before the weapon. I assume the numbers are for the ranged and melee attacks. Bows have a Str penalty but not a Str bonus, except composite bows. You also forgot the Size modifier for attacks.

Attack: Small Longbow +7 ranged (1d6-1) or Small Shortsword +3 melee (1d4-1)

The racial bonus to Hide isn't mentioned in any of the Special Abilities and that's where it should be noted.

Debby

Its Con is 13, not 17, hit points are accurate.

I did forget the size modifiers, I just corrected for those.

The Ranged attack is using Anamorphic Arrows, which are noted for dealing an additional point of slashing damage, which is why the damage is 1d6 and not 1d6-1, I will change that to make it more clear.

The Racial Hide bonus is mentioned in the Hide in Plain Sight Special Ability, but I did forget the size bonus on the Hide Check, I will change that to reflect the +4 bonus for small size.

[Debihuman]

This is for Nanobot Swarm

My corrections are in red. One thing that really unbalances this is that you list CR as 9 for a 4 HD creature. That's not a good thing. It is overpowered in some areas and underpowered in others making this a really unbalanced monster. It can deal a lot of damage but most likely the targets will make the saves because it has such low stats. This means that it's low hit points make it very easy to kill.

If it cannot grapple, you should state it. I can't tell from the entry if you meant it or not. Even oozes can grapple so there really isn't a reason that this creature cannot grapple.

You gave it Hover but forgot Fly speed

Reflector of the Infinite
Medium Outsider Native or Extraplanar depending on its home plane
Hit Dice: 4d8-12 (6 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares) [missing fly speed and maneuverability]
Armor Class: 11 (+1 Dexterity), 11 touch, 10 flat-footed
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/-2
Attack: -
Full Attack: -
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.
Special Attacks: Mental Overload, Counter-Laser, Counter-Warp
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft. Spell resistance, Silence
Saves: Fort + 4, Ref + 5, Will +4
Abilities Str 6, Dex 15, Con 5, Int 15, Wis 6, Cha 1
Skills: None
Feats: Hover and 1 more feat
Environment: Home plane should be listed here
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: None
Alignment: Neutral
Advancement: 5-6 (Medium)
Level Adjustment: -

Mental Overload (Ex): What is the DC of the Will save? It should be based on one of the creature's abilities. If it is Intelligence based, the DC is 14.

Counter-Laser also needs a DC 10 + 1/2 creature's HD + ability modifier. This is probably too powerful for a 4 HD creature. Save versus death isn't a lot of fun for anyone. I'd recommend that it be 10d10 points of damage with a successful save for half damage. This is probably an Extraordinary ability as well.

Counter-Warp is Spell-like in nature based on Plane Shift but the only plane would be the Plane of Mirrors. The creature's low charisma really hurts it here. The save is 10 + the level of the spell the ability resembles or duplicates + the creature’s Cha modifier. 10 +7 -5 = DC 12.

Debby

[nanobot_swarm]

You say it would be too weak to be a real challange, how should I increase the stats so that it is more of a challange, but not something unfair.
Also the reason it cannot grapple, is that it has no physical means to do so, as the body is a mirror that the creature possesses and reshapes into a monolith form.