Baobhan-Sith (3.5 Monster)

[StoryKeeper]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baobhan_sith I don't do monsters much, so please don't be unkind. However, I'll take constructive criticism when it's offered.


BAOBHAN-SITH (BAVANSHEE)
Medium Fey
4d6(14hp)
30ft. Base Speed
Init: +2
AC= 16 (10+2 dex +4 deflection), Touch=16(10+2 Dex +4 Cha), Flat-footed+14
BaB/Grapple: +2/+6
Attack: Claw +2 melee (1d6)
Full Attack: 2 Claws (1d6)
Space/Reach: 5ft./5ft.
Special Attacks: Spell-like abilities, Blood Drain
Special Qualities: Low-Light Vision, Unearthly Grace, Dangerous Dance, Vulnerability to Cold Iron, Scent
Saves: Fort=5, Ref=8, Will= 10
Abilities: Str 10, Con10, Dex14, Int 14, Wis 11, Cha 18
Skills: Diplomacy+9, Disguise +11, Hide +9, Move Silently +9, Perform (dance)+15, Perform (sing) +11, Search +4, Spot +5, Survival +7
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple (B), Skill Focus (perform: dance)
CR= 4(?)
Organization: Solo or Party (3-7)
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: CE
Environment: Temperate Woodlands
Advancement: By class

COMBAT:

Blood Drain (Ex)
A baobhan-sith can suck blood from a living victim by making a successful grapple check. If it pins the foe it drains blood from an open wound created with its claws, dealing 1d4 points of Constitution drain each round the pin is maintained.

Create Spawn: A female humanoid killed by a baobhan-sith’s blood drain rises as a baobhan-sith in 1d4 days. This ability works like the vampire’s create spawn ability (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm) Except that the new baobhan-sith is not under the control of its creator, and all victims turn into baobhan-sith regardless of hit dice.


Dangerous Dance (Su): When three or more Baobhan-sith within 30ft of each other make a perform (dance) check in the same round, all male humanoids within sixty feet must make a Will Save (DC= 10+1/2 Baobhan-sith’s HD+CHA modifier (16)) or attempt to begin dancing closely with one of the Babohan-sith. While dancing, the dancer is considered flat-footed, ad invokes attacks of opportunity. The dancer cannot stop dancing for 1d10 rounds. After being affected by this ability, at the end of its duration, the dancer is Fatigued for 1d10 rounds. Anyone who successfully saves against this ability cannot be affected by it for 24 hours.

Escape the Light: Baobhan-sith cannot stand the light of day, and will escape natural sunlight (not including a daylight spell) at all costs. A DC 20 Will Save is required to perform any action other than movement actions. For every turn the baobhan-sith spends doing anything other than moving to escape the sunlight, it takes 1d4 Wisdom damage.

Vulnerability to Cold Iron: Baobhan-Sith take double damage from cold-iron weapons, and will not willing pass through a 5 ft. space containing cold iron.


Unearthly Grace (Su)

A babobhan-sith adds her Charisma modifier as a bonus on all her saving throws, and as a deflection bonus to her Armor Class. (The statistics block already reflects these bonuses).

Spell-Like Abilities:
3/day: Charm Person (DC 16)

Skills:
Baobhan-sith have a +4 racial bonus to perform (dance.)

Edited: Modifications made. How's it look?

[Debihuman]

It's good to see some Scottish myths taken up again.

You might want to use a more standard formatting as it makes it easier to read and thus, assess your creation. I believe you should be using "+" instead of "=" in quite a few places for example.

The DC to Dangerous Dance should not be tied to Perform (Dance) rather it should be 10 + 1/2 HD of Baobhan-Sith + Cha modifier. In this case, the DC will be 16. If you like, you can add a racial bonus to this. This is a more standard way of assigning appropriate DC to special abilities.

Also, consider giving these creatures a racial bonus to Perform (dance) to make them more interesting. You can give them a straight +4 racial bonus or you can limit it to whenever there is a full moon.

You should change "vampire" to "baobhan-sith" in the blood drain ability section. However, it doesn't really make sense for her to gain even temporary hit points this way, since she's not undead but a fey creature. Undead can't heal on their own, which is why giving them a way to heal hit points (even temporary ones) works for undead. A fey creature can rely on normal healing. She can still drain 1d4 Con for every round in which she pins an opponent. However, with her low strength, the odds of her pinning anyone are quite low.

You would have done better giving her Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Grapple as feats. This would definitely improve her chances of pinning someone. Plus, you can still give her Improved Initiative as a bonus feat.

Weakness to Cold Iron is generally referred to as Vulnerabilty to Cold Iron when discussing fey creatures.

Disguise self seems like a wasted spell on these creatures. What exactly are they doing with this?

Last of all, you gave them Unearthly Grace. I am guessing works exactly like the Nymph's special ability but I can't tell exactly how you applied it. These didn't get a deflection bonus to AC as the Nymph does.

Debby

[DracoDei]

Looks quite reasonable as near as I can tell. MAYBE needs rules for creation (both by necromancers and spotanious, and maybe by spawning).

Are you using some other source other than the wikipedia article?

Bold the ability names, and reword the last ability to make it so they are lapping/sucking at the wounds their claws open (unless that is a source thing), and get rid of the word "vampire" which is left-over from the copy-paste you did.

[StoryKeeper]

Thank you both for the help. You've all been absolutely correct in what you've said so far, and I will get to work revising it soon (hopefully later today).

Some of the stuff should already be fixed (like the vampire in the blood drain and rewording it to show it's not a bitey fangy type thing.) I did my final fixes to it on my other computer, and it kept failing to submit the thread, so I had to keep refixing it, and apparently neglected to re-refix some things.

I thank you for your help, and would appreciate further advice once I've revised it.

[DracoDei]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but editing doesn't work so hot around here sometimes... it didn't take. Make sure you keep a text file with your latest version in it if you can, that way you don't lose progress if the system eats it.

[StoryKeeper]

Alright, it should be edited now. I THINK I got the formatting right, but feel free to point out errors.

I've added in some features liek the create spawn ability and the Escape From Sunlight feature. Anything need changed?

[sigurd]

Am I missing her movement rate?
She seems very easy to hit.

You say what happens if there are 3 of these creatures. What if one is alone?


Sigurd

[StoryKeeper]

Thanks for the help. To address the points you raised:

Speed is the "30ft." between her HD/HP and her initiative (I thought it explained itself.)

She is easy to hit. Their tactic is to get people up close where they can get in a couple of easy hits (flat-footed while dancing means a probably hit, and two claws have a good chance of downing commoner prey.) I wanted them to be the sort of creature that has to get you into the right position to attack you. They probably wouldn't be opposed to teaming up with other fey if they knew their prey was powerful.

If there's only a single one of them, they can't use Dangerous Dance. That's why they like to hunt in groups of at least three when it's convenient.

[sigurd]

Speed is the "30ft." between her HD/HP and her initiative (I thought it explained itself.)


Ok. Just wanted to make sure you're planning on the weaknesses.

On the topic of the movement rate. I can logically assume that's the movement rate but if I'm using a monster I like to go to a given entry in the statblock and see the number. Thats the advantage of the standard approach - it makes things easier.


I like the monster but I think you need to beef up the lone Baobhan-Sith. Give them a dance or fascination attack even if they are alone and a bonus if they are a group of 3. Many of the myths have singular creatures in lonely spots.


Sigurd

Still I like the monster. Good work.

[Debihuman]

It has one feat too many for the number of hit dice it has. Either get rid of one or make one of them a bonus feat, generally you designate bonus feats with a (B).

What is a baobhan-sith's favored class?

Armor Class is wrong. They have a +2 Dex bonus and +4 Deflection bonus from their Unearthly Grace ability. Touch doesn't lose the deflection bonuses. Flat-footed is without Dex bonus.

AC: 16 (+2 Dex, +4 Deflection), Touch 16, Flat-footed 14.

Also, it looks like you didn't at the +4 bonus from Unearthly Grace to all of the Saving Throws.

Fey creatures have good Reflex and Will saves. At 4 hit dice, the baobhan-sith Base Saves should be +1 for poor saves and +4 for good saves plus whatever bonus they get from their abilities PLUS +4 for Unearthly Grace [in other words Fey creatures use the Bard's Base Saves from the SRD -- it makes it a lot easier to look up]

Fort +1 + Con Bonus (+0) +4 from Unearthly Grace: for a total of +5.
Will +4 + Wis Bonus (+0) +4 from Unearthly Grace for a total of +8
Ref +4 + Dex Bonus (+2) +4 from Unearthly Grace for a total of +10

Saves: Fort +5, Will +8, Ref +10.

Debby

[StoryKeeper]

Thanks for that! I must have screwed up at some point when I was doing the stats >< Please continue to help as you have, and I'll start editing it. I think I'll add in a couple of hit die just so that they aren't quite THAT fragile.

[Debihuman]

First, they aren't that fragile. There is a serious lack of low hit dice fey and these are really good for lower level encounters.

Another thing you hadn't considered. What happens after a victim has danced for 1d10 rounds? Shouldn't he or she be Fatigued?

From the SRD:

Fatigued
A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted. After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued.

If you just add this to their Dangerous Dance, they become more formitable opponents.

Debby

[StoryKeeper]

Sorry for the delay. :smallredface: I finally got around to updating it. How does it look?

[Debihuman]

It's looking much better. You should add bolding to your text and fix the typos and other stuff, but that's fairly minor.

Debby