Vote up a new monster species

[137beth]

Since no knew votes appear to be coming in, I updated with the next phase: special attacks! This works pretty much how the first special qualities phase worked. Happy voting!

[Svata]

In order of preference

6. Disease effect
10. Poison
9. Paralysis attack

[Pavlov]

6. Disease
1. Ability Drain
4. Dominate
9. Paralysis
In that order.

[gurgleflep]

My choices (in order of preference) are as follows:
10. Poison
4. A charm/domination/compulsion attack
6. Disease effect
and 9. Paralysis

[ISitOnGnomes]

4 charm/domination
1 ability damage
9 paralysis

I'm imagining it lures in nearby creatures with an alluring scent then paralyzes and deals some sort of ability damage to incapacitate and eat it.

[Strormer]

6. Disease - Some kind of inhaled spore cloud would be best, I think, causing a cough which further spreads the disease, and some stat drain + fatigue.

9. Paralysis - Either through grabbing vines or, for a more interesting variant, make this a psionic power.

10. Poison - Basically, in place of a disease, a poison could also be fun as it would give the players a good reason to defeat the creature and collect its toxin.

[TravelLog]

12. Slow on Hit
2. Spell-like abilities

[137beth]

Any more votes?

[Svata]

*pokes with stick* is this thing dead?

[gurgleflep]

*pokes with stick* is this thing dead?

Shhh... I think it's sleeping

[Debihuman]

Sorry I got bored with voting about 6 page ago.

Debby

[AgentofHellfire]

Well, I'll be happy to vote!

My preferences for special attacks:

10. Poison (A souped-up, probably wound-inflicted or ingestion-inflicted version of Insanity Mist in particular)
2. Spell-like abilities
12. For whatever reason I'm liking blood drain.

[Chrysophylax]

I vote for:

2. SLAs (preferably psionic)
4. Charm/dominate/compulsion (again, preferably psionic)
10. Poison (preferably a reasonably low amount of injury-based wisdom damage with a fairly low DC - 1d2, 1d4, DC 15, perhaps?)


The vast majority of poisons do strength, dex or con damage. Something mind-affecting would be a lot more fun to use in game. I vote for wisdom damage because it doesn't require roleplaying a low intelligence and it makes the compulsion will save harder. This makes the swarm a more interesting encounter - it's a lot clever than most humans, it's telepathic, it shapeshifts, it may well be capable of mind control and it has an alignment, so it's an ideal opportunity to allow some roleplaying. ("No, Bob, you can't use Persuade on it, it's a plant-insect-thing with a hive mind that's smarter than you are. Real diplomacy or nothing.")

Disease is a really bad fit for this. It's a shapechanging cold plant swarm. Short of deliberate magic, no disease could possibly survive its biology, let alone pass to a playable character. A large, extremely intelligent, telepathic, predatory, flying, shapeshifting swarm (with inhuman resilience - Con 19 - and taking half damage from pretty much everything with natural weapons) has no need to weaken prey with disease. Disease is also a very weak special quality, at least from the wielder's point of view - if the players survive the incubation period, the wielder is probably dead.

Paralysis seems horribly overpowered for a flying swarm. It's going to do 4d6 damage every turn without having to roll to hit, which would be completely broken with anything powerful or immediately dangerous. Removing the ability to move away would allow the swarm to kill players ridiculously easily - swarms already nauseate, which stops spellcasting and attacking, leaving retreat as the only effective option.