Variant Half-Farspawn?

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It's pretty obvious that the half-fiend and half-farspawn templates are counterparts to one another right? Well I was looking at the variant half-fiend article and bemoaning how you couldn't really apply it to the half-farspawn since a "farspawn" group was never partially standardized like the fiends were.

Then I realized that all you have to do is look at the article and look at the half-farspawn template while comparing both. Doing this should allow you to figure out which things are common to all "farspawn". Most fiends are extremely different from each other anyways except for those things that were standardized across them. All you have to do is create a far-realmy monster (or take an existing one) and just slap on the standardized traits. Voila! You have a Farspawn! Then you'll be able to apply the variant half-fiend article to the half-farspawn template.

Did any of the above make sense? I'm pretty tired right now.

Anyways, I'll probably get to making it once I'm less tired.

[Xuldarinar]

In theory, this could be interesting to do. Coming up with standardized far spawn traits or even branching from there to create farspawn races. Fiends of the Far Realm. This in part, to create more variants for half-farspawn

Hopefully practice follows theory.

Allow me to post my personal analysis.



Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to outsider. Do not recalculate Hit Dice, base attack bonus, or saves. Size is unchanged. Half-farspawn are normally native outsiders.

We can assume most Farspawn are Small-Large Outsiders (Farspawn). For the purposes of this analysis, lets us denote all farspawn with a farspawn subtype.



Speed:...

Unlike the half-fiend template, the half-farspawn template lacks a speed entry. Thus, we can assume most farspawn lack alternative modes of movement (Flight speeds, Burrow speed, ect).


Armor Class: The creature’s natural armor improves by 3.

This is higher than the half-fiend. A +3 rather than +1. This could be due to the nature of the far realm, being more hostile. If Fiendish Variety is anything to go off of, farspawn typically have a natural armor bonus anywhere from +12 to +15.



Attack: A half-farspawn gains two tentacle attacks in additional to any attacks the base creature could normally make. If the base creature can use weapons, the half-farspawn can still do so. A half-farspawn fighting without weapons uses a tentacle when making an attack action (unless it has another natural attack it prefers). When it has a weapon, it uses the weapon instead.
Full Attack: A half-farspawn fighting without weapons uses both its tentacles when making a full attack (plus any other natural attacks of the base creature). If armed with a weapon, it uses the weapon as its primary attack and its tentacles as secondary natural attacks (–5 on the attack roll, half Strength bonus on damage rolls).
Damage: A half-farspawn’s tentacle attacks deal bludgeoning damage as shown below.

As if there was any doubt, creatures of the far realm have tentacles. This may not be universal, but its the majority.


Special Attacks: A half-farspawn retains all the special attacks of the base creature, and gains the following special attack:
True Strike (Su): Once per day, the creature can make a normal attack with a +20 insight bonus on a single attack roll. The half-farspawn is not affected by the miss chance that applies to attacks against a concealed target.

Like smite good being the odd one out for the half-fiend, i'd day this is an odd one out ability for the half-farspawn. Its likely this ability is not possessed by any outsider (farspawn), and is simply a result of the hybrid.


Spell-Like Abilities: A half-farspawn with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher has spell-like abilities depending on its Hit Dice, as indicated below. The abilities are cumulative. Unless oth- erwise noted, an ability is usable once per day. Caster level equals the creature’s Hit Dice, and the save DC is Charisma-based.

HD|Abilities
1-2|blur 3/day
3-4|touch of idiocy
5-6|stinking cloud
7-8|blink 3/day
9-10|greater invisibility
11-12|telekinesis
13-14|ethereal jaunt 3/day
15-16|scintillating pattern
17-18|summon monster IX*
19 or more|implosion


Granted, these are doubtful to be universal, but they do set the tone for the sort of abilities far spawn may possess as spell-like abilities.



Special Qualities: A half-farspawn has all the special quali- ties of the base creature, plus the following special qualities:
— Blindsight out to 60 feet.
— Immunity to poison.
— Resistance to acid 10 and electricity 10.
— Damage reduction 5/magic (if HD 11 or less) or 10/magic
(if HD 12 or more).
— A half-farspawn’s natural weapons are treated as magic
weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. — Spell resistance equal to Hit Dice + 10 (up to a maximum
of 25).

From this, we can assume all (or at least most) farspawn have blindsight and are immune to poison and have energy resistance or immunity. Now, the damage reduction possessed by farspawn may or may not be magic. For instance, farspawn may possess DR/byeshk, comparable to fiend DR totals.
And of course, farspawn generally will have some sort of spell resistance, totals comparable to fiends.



Change Shape (Su): As a standard action, a half-farspawn
can take the form of a grotesque, tentacled mass. This ability functions as described for the change shape ability (see page 306 of the Monster Manual), except as follows:
— The creature’s movement modes do not change.
— The creature retains the tentacle attacks granted by this template (see Attack, above) and gains two additional tentacle attacks when making a full attack.
— The creature becomes amorphous. It cannot be flanked, and is not subject to extra damage from critical hits.
— Creatures native to the Material Plane take a –1 morale penalty on attack rolls against a half-farspawn in its amorphous form.

Now we get interesting.

A: Farspawn have two forms. They all have this ability, appearing as one form our minds can tolerate, and their natural form that our minds cannot handle easily.

B: Farspawn typically have at least 4 tentacles and are amorphous. Creatures of the material plane take a morale penalty when attacking farspawn.



Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +2, Dex +2, Con +6, Wis +4, Cha +2.

As with fiends and half-fiends, these numbers may not apply to most farspawn, in fact I'm yet to find a fiend who's stats perfectly reflect this distribution of abilities of the half-fiend. But these numbers may reflect the farspawn that usually creates far-spawn. A relatively weak farspawn might possess statistics like: Str 14, Dex 15, Con 23, Int 12, Wis 18, Cha 15. I imagine, all things considered, most farspawn to be much tougher than this.



Alignment: Always chaotic evil.

While fiends exist of all evil alignments (Devils, Daemons, and Demons), farspawn are typically (maybe even universally) both chaotic and evil. I have no idea if this was taken into account when 4e made the abyss be created basically when something from the far-realm was planted in the elemental plane. While I hate taking from 4e, one path of creating farspawn could be taking demons, redistributing statistics, and changing ability flavor to reflect the half-farspawn template and the far realm, rather than reflecting the half-fiend template and the abyss. While I doubt farspawn possess the evil subtype, Father Llymic (Elder Evils) is an outsider from the far realm and possesses the chaotic subtype (We can assume Brood Spawn is his equivalent Half-Farspawn template, after a fashion). While he may be far from standard we may assume that many, if not all, farspawn possess the chaotic subtype. Also, that many far spawn are incredibly powerful. Curiously, Enter the Far Realm (Dragon Magazine #330) presents us with several creatures native to the far realm, but none of them possess the outsider type. Rather, we get two magical beasts and two oozes. The magical beasts being neutral evil, and the oozes being neutral in alignment.



What is the typical far spawn? My guess:

Outsider (Chaotic, Extraplanar, Farspawn)
Hit Dice: xd8
Speed: Just a land speed usually.
Armor Class: (+14 natural)
Attack: Tentacle
Full Attack: ~4 Tentacles
Special Attacks: Spell-like abilities, Summon Farspawn, ect.
Special Qualities: Damage reduction x/byeshk(?), blindsight 60ft, Immunity poison, resistance or immunity to acid and/or electricity, spell resistance, ect.
Abilities: Typically Good Strength, Dexterity, and Charisma. Great Wisdom. Incredible Constitution.
Enviornment: Far Realm
Alignment: Always Chaotic Evil