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Originally Posted by
Beni-Kujaku
Hi Meta! Just passing by to read some homebrew!
Hey! And many thanks for the comments!
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Peluda: I like monsters with weak points, especially weak points who encourage htting the thing with a stick, but this one seems to take a bit too much agency from the players. Why not allow the player to attack the tail once they figure it out, maybe with a -4 to hit, or provoking an AoO, but being sure to hit it instead of having 40%.
The idea is that it flails that stupid tail about so much that it's not an easy thing to hit. I could model that as a dodge bonus to the tail's separate AC, but then I'd have to figure out why on earth anyone would ever try to attack the rest of the thing's body, and if I can't, at that point it doesn't really have a weak point anymore so much as it has an AC 4 points higher.
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Also, it seems to prefer being in water, I guess it's supposed to use Control Water to flood river borders. I'm not sure 3 int is enough for these kinds of tactics, but sure;
I don't make the lore! Blame your countrymen, really: this is essentially based on La Velue de La Ferté-Bernard. And in their defense, flooding the banks is really more a juvenile "how dare you chase me for eating your maidens now eat river, asshats and leave me alone" knee-jerk reaction than clever strategy.
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the other point is it would probably benefit greatly from having Improved Grab in one way or another, to keep players from just leaving the area too easily. Just have it keep a player in its mouth and you're good to go (also makes more sense that an amphibious creature will try to drag preys in the water to drown them, that's what crocodiles do after all).
Four special attacks seemed like a crowd and the other three struck me as more interesting. But I can add it in, of course, if you think that's okay.
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Also, I'm pretty sure it has too many skill points. Tell me if I'm wrong, but 8 Climb, 6 Hide, 0 Jump, 6 Spot, 6 Survival, 3 Swim, for a total of 29, but it only has 22 skill points as a dragon 8 with -8 Int.
…
You are very correct and I'll fix that.
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Caryatids: Wait, caryatid columns and caryatids are not the same thing?
Wikipedia tells me they are... So, what's the difference?
The word itself comes from καρυα, which is really just Greek for 'walnut'. The column is, well, a column in the shape of a Caryatid, i.e. a 'walnut tree chick person'.
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I was so excited when I saw "shrink away from conflict" to see a Fey able to change size at will, becoming Fine to escape if need be, or becoming Colossal to protect the forest in times of need.
That's a lovely concept and I'm sorry to have disappointed. This is just a plain old, thematically somewhat more coherent walnut-based analogue for a Dryad…
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Honestly, tree stride at will would not break it at all, especially since it has to remain nearer than 300yards from the walnut tree.
…which is also the reason why I felt neccessary to balance its SLAs against the Dryad's load.
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Melia: The full abomination traits on a 4 RHD Fey would be really weird, and honestly pretty fun. "I use Energy Drain" "No." "Meteor Swarm" "They're immune to fire" "Dominate Monster?" "Nope." "Poison!?" "Nah" "Oh well, I'll just hit them with my axe for 32 damage" "She dies."
Still, this is mechanically hilarious, though it might not come up often.
[Evil laughter.] That is a beautiful mental image. Sadly, preexisting lore is binding my (metaphorical) hands somewhat.
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Blindsight 2ft is weird. How do you even calculate that? 5ft might be better.
I just wanted to check an item on the Abomination trait list with something underwhelming, but yeah, that's fair. I'll increase it.
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Edit: I initially thought that Melia was unique, and that the "they" was because they were nonbinary or smth. Oh, well. How many ashen-tree-related greater beings just spill their blood where they shouldn't?
For some reason, Abominations are apparently not normally unique. And Meliai in particular are an oddity. According to Hesiod, when Ouranos was, khm, slain in a rather embarrassing manner, the drops of her blood gave rise to the horrific Erynies, the snake-legged Giants and… The ash tree nymphs. Many a classical scholar found the notion baffling, naturally.
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Is there a reason why they are Tree-bound, actually? I doubt greater beings only spill their blood on trees.
It's a tree nymph thing, okay?
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Crow: Yeah, seriously, you're a lost cause. I like the reference to the murder of crows' Blinding, and I agree that if the Tarasque has 3 Int, crows and orcas should have more than that, but I find it as more of a compelling evidence that the Tarasque should have less than 3 rather than the crow having more.
Ethologists say they equal human children of 5–8 years in intelligence (and as new observations are made and new studies are conducted, so does that upper bound rise gradually). SCIENCE is on my side!!
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Anyway, I am going to bite you. What? You know what they say. "Eat your greens."
[High frequency plant screams of anguish.]
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Caladrius: This is so cute! Is there a reference to a mythological creature or did you come up with it by yourself?
Right? Much as I'd love to claim credit, it's a Late Antiquity birdy, popularised by the Physiologus.
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But... How can you not have line of sight if you're in a creature's space? I don't understand this precision in Claim Disease.
That's, um, an excellent question. Total concealment or something, I suppose? (The actual point is, the birdy must look at the patient.)
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Gratsh: Sparrow Hengeyokai Warlocks: now available as a CR 5 creature! I would like more info on this one. Why are its invocations Con-based? I understand "born with fell power", though it doesn't explain much (do they have connection with a god, another plane, are they naturally occurring?), but even warlocks "born with fell power" use their charisma. Maybe you could justify it by making them use their blood or something, paying some kind of resource for their invocations.
I believe CON would make more sense as an invoking stat for Warlocks than CHA: the source of the power is external to the Warlock and how strong the output gets is primarily limited by what amount of fell power the Warlock can endure as a conduit. So… This seemed like a good place to make that happen. (Also, interesting fact: my very first homebrewn PrC was a CON-based pseudocaster that used hp and, in later version, a resource tied to hp to power its abilities; I was kindly told it was stupid and its face was stupid. That made me sad.)
If I had to pin down the origin of their powers, I'd say they have a naturally occuring connection with some more bellicose LN-leaning outer plane (like Acheron or an off-brand version thereof) and its inhabitants.
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The flight of 20-50 effectively 5th-level flying warlocks is a terrifying thought, even for high-level PCs. Can you even imagine seeing 50 birds the size of humans just flying overhead, then raining arcane destruction on the town?
Yes. That's why I did them! (They are based on unneccessarily cute-looking Cold War era ground attack aircraft, incidentally.)
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Also, that's Entropic Warding, Entropic Shield is a cleric spell.
Oooops.
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Caniceps: This LA+1 bothers me. You know it's much too weak for +1, but on the other hand, it has +4 Str and a natural attack, which makes it as good or better than an orc, already one of the very best +0 melee races. Haaah... I guess +1 it is, but nobody will ever play that.
Why, yes. The old Hobgoblin conundrum! It has better stats than an Orc plus actual special abilities, so WotC (and I'm a weirdo who uses their numbers as a benchmark) would say it deserves PUNISHMENT. (Stupid WotC.)
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Calydon: Yay! (Ex) sleep! I want one of these to use as a face for the party. It's... It has 5 RHD... Oh well, I want one to use as an escort mission for my players.
Escort. Mission. You really are a wicked, wicked man!