Species 8472: A Star Trek to D&D conversion

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Someone requested this from me, one of the nastiest creatures in the Star Trek universe. He's planning on using them as allies of the Illithids or something like that.

Thought I might share, so here you go (and if you don't know much about Trek but have an interest in using these creature just let me know and I'll give a run down on them).

-=-=-=-=-

Species 8472



Large Aberration (Extraplanar, Psionic)
Hit Dice: 12d8+132 (186 hp)
Initiative: +5
Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares), climb 60 ft., swim 100 ft.
Armor Class: 38 (-1 size, +5 dex, +24 natural), touch 14, flatfooted 33
Base Attack/Grapple: +9/+26
Attack: Claw +17 melee (1d8+9 plus disease)
Full attack: 2 claws +17/+12 melee (1d8+9 plus disease)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Disease, ferocity, psi-like abilities
Special Qualities: Aquatic sight, contained breath, darkvision 60 ft., damage reduction 10/-, fast healing 2, immunity to disease and poison, resistance to cold 10, stability, telepathy
Saves: Fort +17, Ref +9, Will +10
Abilities: Str 29, Dex 20, Con 32, Int 24, Wis 15, Cha 12
Skills: Autohypnosis +17, Balance +13, Disable Device +22, Heal +17, Hide +16, Jump +24, Knowledge (the planes) +14, Move Silently +20, Spot +17, Swim +24
Feats: Diehard(B), Endurance, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Grapple, Great Fortitude, Power Attack
Environment: Fluidic Space or Any
Organization: Solitary, trio, or school (4-20+)
Challenge Rating: 16
Treasure: None
Alignment: True Neutral
Advancement: 13-23 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment: -

Species 8472 stands about twelve feet tall and weighs near half a ton. They speak their own language which is impossible for most creatures to reproduce, though they tend to most often use their telepathic abilities.

Combat:
Species 8472 are incredibly cunning and powerful fighters, stalking their opponents if possible and coming out where least expected. They then attempt to quickly incapicitate their foes and move onto the next with devastingly effective hit and run tactics.

Species 8472's natural weapons are treated as adamantine for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction and hardness.

Aquatic Sight (Ex):
Species 8472 can see as well and as far as a human even while underwater.

Contained Breath (Ex):
Species 8472 is capable of producing its own needed gasses internally and is thus immune to asphyxiation and drowning.

Disease (Ex):
A blow from a member of species 8472 introduces a miniscule portion of its own skin into the wound which causes infectious tendrils to quickly grow and eat the victim from the inside out. This causes a loss of 1d6 points of constitution damage per day (DC 27 fortitude save halves for a miminum of 1 point of damage) until the victim succumbs. This disease is even resistant to magical healing and requires a Caster Level check against the disease DC to properly treat with spells such as Heal or Remove Disease. The save DC is consitution based.

Ferocity (Ex): Species 8472 can continue to fight without penalty even while disabled or dying.

Psi-like Abilities:
At Will/Demoralize, Mindlink, Read Thoughts; 3/day Mind Probe. Manifester level 12th. Save DC's are intelligence based.

Stability (Ex): Species 8472 gains a +8 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground).

Telepathy (Su): Species 8472 can communicate telepathically with any creature within 1000 feet that has an Intelligence score. The creature can respond to species 8472 if it wishes - no common language is needed.

[Umbral_Arcanist]

These were from Voyager right?? They were the borgs only foe or something right?


Looks good.....

[Don Beegles]

Please, VT, you need to compile a list of all of your creatures and put it in your sig, or something. They're all at least MM level material, and I can't keep track of them.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Originally Posted by Umbral_Arcanist

These were from Voyager right?? They were the borgs only foe or something right?

Well, the only ones that gave the Borg a run for their money anyways.

Please, VT, you need to compile a list of all of your creatures and put it in your sig, or something. They're all at least MM level material, and I can't keep track of them.

I have a list of them over on Wizards.com. Will msg it to you. Won't post it here because it also has a link to my campaign notes to a game I'm running here.

[Sophistemon]

Any chance I could get a copy of that message?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Sent the link onto the both of you.

[Sophistemon]

Thanks VT. Appreciate it.

[Corestimah]

I too would like to have a copy of that link, if at all possible ;)

Also, is there any chance you could perhaps stat up the Protoss of Starcraft? I think they would make an excellent Psionic race, though they would need a large ECL (both racial HD and a LA) to feel right.

EDIT: Good job!

[Sophistemon]

Yeah, the Protoss would be fun to use but hard to make, I think. Though it'd be awsome if they could fuse into Archons. I'd so use them in game... Xel'Naga'd be cool too.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Also, is there any chance you could perhaps stat up the Protoss of Starcraft?

I don't know a thing about Starcraft :-/

[Corestimah]

EDIT: Well maybe I could give it a try, I have some ideas, and I know a fair bit about them thanks to sclegacy.com.

For starters, I figure that they would be large, have +6 or +8 to each of Str, Con, Int, and Wis, with +3 to +5 natural armor, telepathy to 1000+ feet, mind blades, no need to eat or drink (Su), and several Psi-like abilities, gaining more powerful ones with increased HD or class levels.

[Sophistemon]

Wow. I think you might be overdoing it a little there. Advanced race or not, I don't think they're that mighty. I mean, even a Terran can take one down and the Terrans are the schmucks of the universe.

[Corestimah]

IIRC, about 3-4 Marines can take down a Zealot, but it will likely kill one or two of them before it bites the dust. Assuming that a Marine has 1-2 Class levels (say strong or fast hero from d20 Modern/Future), and a Zealot has 2-3 class levels, then as a race the Protoss should have about 3 HD and a +2 LA, for an ECL of 5 and a CR of 4ish before class levels. Considering that, I think my initial attempt was not so far from the mark.

(Oh, and I misremembered the website that had Protoss Physiology. It was in fact this site.)

I based the size, natural armor, and psionic sustenance on the information there. I based the rest on the game, and the second Starcraft book (I can't remember the title just now).

Any better?

EDIT: Am I the only one having some serious difficulties posting anything? Half the time I get a "Cannot find page" message, and I lose my post :'(

[The Demented One]

VT, you wouldn't happen to have read the latest King novel, Cell? It's got some neat psionic zombies that would convert in to D&D quite well, in my opinion. *hint, hint*

[tgva8889]

Originally Posted by Corestimah

IIRC, about 3-4 Marines can take down a Zealot, but it will likely kill one or two of them before it bites the dust. Assuming that a Marine has 1-2 Class levels (say strong or fast hero from d20 Modern/Future), and a Zealot has 2-3 class levels, then as a race the Protoss should have about 3 HD and a +2 LA, for an ECL of 5 and a CR of 4ish before class levels. Considering that, I think my initial attempt was not so far from the mark.

(Oh, and I misremembered the website that had Protoss Physiology. It was in fact this site.)

I based the size, natural armor, and psionic sustenance on the information there. I based the rest on the game, and the second Starcraft book (I can't remember the title just now).

Any better?

EDIT: Am I the only one having some serious difficulties posting anything? Half the time I get a "Cannot find page" message, and I lose my post :'(

The reason they don't die is shields. It isn't natural that a Protoss has shields floating around it, is it? Also, I don't think the Protoss are too much larger than Humans, are they?

Also, they don't ALL have the power to make mindblades...some of them just take up the soulknife class :)

Templars = Psions
Zealots = Soulknives/Psionic Warriors
Dark Templar = Soulknives

as game units, I think that is somewhat accurate, don't you?

[Corestimah]

I forgot about the shields :-[ I'll remember to have them in the future. According to the link I posted, the are three meters tall, about 10 feet. Hence the large size ;)

EDIT: No, I think that High Templar and Dark Templar would be Prestige classes in D&D or Advanced Classes in d20 Future. It says in the fiction that High Templars are Zealots who have given up their mind blades and berserker rage to focus solely on the mind. Dark Templar then would trade dual blades for one extremely potent blade and perma-stealth.

[Traveling_Angel]

the Zealot blades aren't Mind Blades in the soul knife since, rember how Fenix died? There more like blades that require psionic talent to power them.

ADD: VT, what his blades did was bascily they fizzled.

[tgva8889]

I don't actually know the story of his demise really. Didn't play through all the story missions in the game.

[Krade]

Originally Posted by tgva8889

I don't actually know the story of his demise really. Didn't play through all the story missions in the game.

It showed it after the first two Protoss campaign missions, so i guess it would be safe to assume you didn't even play the protoss missions.

Even though he wasn't really dead (not yet), as he was ressurected into a dragoon later. He wasn't really killed until late into the expansion

[tgva8889]

I tried to do them in order, beat the stupid Terran missions, then never finished the Zerg missions, although I love playing them.

[Kulatu]

Fenix's blade totally malfunctioned and he got practically killed by a hydralisk. They found his body and ressurected him though, so woot for that! ;D

[Tynan]

Yeah. I'm a SC nut. I'd always wanted to convert Protoss and some Zerg to D20. I was always stuck on what to give them for ability score adjustement though, because I would assume they'd be stronger then a human, so about a +2, they appaear to be pretty fast, so Dex... Ugh, anyhow, I could never decide on what to give them without giving them practically everything...

Edit: Spelling errors are my bane...

[tgva8889]

Well Zerglings don't really have high Intelligence scores, probably around 3 or 5. Strength is probably not too much higher than 14 or lower than 12. Dexterity is probably around 16 or maybe even 18. Uh...lets see...wisdom is probably low, charisma also, and constitution...except that Zerglings can't be player races.

[Tynan]

Yeah. Zerglings wouldn't be tough, I'd imagine an Ultralisk being Huge to Gargantuan and having about a +18 to STR... I'm more thinking about Protoss. They appear to be strong, dextrous, wise, and intelligent, and I'd rather not be on the recieving end of their intimidate checks.

[ninja_penguin]

I know there was an attempt to make a Starcraft D20 conversion some time ago, but kinda fizzled out since nobody could agree on the same system. I still have a chunk of notes for converting the protoss, which I've been keen to finish.

And The Vorpal Tribble, this is a pretty spiffy writeup of Species 8472. These would definately make a sweet recurring villian, since they can get away pretty well, and are pretty hard to kill.

On a semi-side tangent: would these count as quadrapeds? It's been some time since I've seen Voyager, and I thought they had several legs.

[Habzial]

Originally Posted by Tynan

Yeah. I'm a SC nut. I'd always wanted to convert Protoss and some Zerg to D20. I was always stuck on what to give them for ability score adjustement though, because I would assume they'd be stronger then a human, so about a +2, they appaear to be pretty fast, so Dex... Ugh, anyhow, I could never decide on what to give them without giving them practically everything...

Edit: Spelling errors are my bane...

Well you could always pick up Warhammer 40K for a reference point. The Zerg were based on the Tyranids, and the Zerglings are comparable to the Termagaunts.

As for the Protoss, they to have been inspired by the Eldar, except instead of being fragile they have suped up defence.

[Illsbane]

Originally Posted by ninja_penguin

I know there was an attempt to make a Starcraft D20 conversion some time ago, but kinda fizzled out since nobody could agree on the same system. I still have a chunk of notes for converting the protoss, which I've been keen to finish.

And The Vorpal Tribble, this is a pretty spiffy writeup of Species 8472. These would definately make a sweet recurring villian, since they can get away pretty well, and are pretty hard to kill.

On a semi-side tangent: would these count as quadrapeds? It's been some time since I've seen Voyager, and I thought they had several legs.

They have three legs, so I guess they'd be tripods, more than quadrupeds. ^^ Unless they drag their knuckles when they walk ...

[tgva8889]

I didn't think they had more than 2 legs...I saw that voyager episode, so I was pretty sure...

They ruled, they had living ships and screwed up the Borg. It was awesome.

And I don't actually think the Zerg were based on anything. Though they are quite similar.

[WampaX]

Originally Posted by tgva8889

And I don't actually think the Zerg were based on anything. Though they are quite similar.

Zerg(StarCraft) ---- Tyranids(40K) ---- . . . ----- Starship Troopers' Bugs (the book, NOT the movie)

Yes, there is precident.

[tgva8889]

You forgot the Xenomorphs (Aliens, Aliens 2, etc. movies and books if they exist).

But I guess they are based on lots of stuff. Though the assimilating alien type seems to be reprinted a lot. The Borg, the Aparoids (StarFox: Assualt)...it seems popular.