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View Full Version : The Cuttlefish [3.5 Creature, WIP / PEACH]



Palanan
2013-09-05, 10:00 PM
"...jetting animals are just hearts set free...."








Ron O'Dor and D.M. Webber
"Invertebrate Athletes"


Cuttlefish (Sepia apama)

Small Animal (Aquatic)
Hit Dice: 1d8+1 (5 hp)
Initiative: +8
Speed: Swim 5 ft., jet 30 ft.
Armor Class: 15 (+1 size, +4 Dex), touch 15, flat-footed 11
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+1
Attack: hunting tentacles +5 melee (0)
Full Attack: hunting tentacles +5 melee (0) and bite +0 melee (1d3-1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Hypnotic strobe, improved grab
Special Qualities: Ink decoy, jet set, polarized sight, low-light vision
Saves: Fort +1, Ref +7, Will +1
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 19, Con 12, Int 5, Wis 12, Cha 12
Skills: Escape Artist +8, Hide +20, Spot +10, Swim +8
Feats: Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse (B)
Environment: warm oceanic (depths from surface to 1000 ft.)
Organization: Solitary or mating aggregation (annual only)
Challenge Rating: 1
Treasure: none
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: None
Level Adjustment: -

Cuttlefish are secretive, solitary hunters, slow swimmers but peerless artists of disguise. Like their kindred the octopi, cuttlefish can change colors at will, and even adjust the texture of their skin, but their abilities far surpass mere camouflage.

Cuttlefish can alter their skin pigmentation at a cellular level, cycling through dozens of complex patterns with an instant's thought. A cuttlefish can devise a palette of natural hues to perfectly match its background, or garish colors to express strong emotions--or a strobing pattern to entrance a hapless target.

There are over a hundred species of cuttlefish, most of which are only a few inches long. The giant cuttlefish is a behemoth among its kind; its head and mantle are over a foot long, and it reaches three feet with its hunting tentacles at full extent. A resident of shallow reefs and grassy seabeds, the giant cuttlefish preys on crabs, shrimp, and small fish, patiently stalking and then dazzling them with an eerie display before it strikes.

Giant cuttlefish have the highest brain-to-body-mass ratio of any known invertebrate; they are quick to make associations and handily learn basic tricks. Like most cephalopods, cuttlefish live only a year or two, reproducing once at the end of their lives and then quickly dying. Despite their brief lives, cuttlefish are inquisitive and often fearless creatures, relying on their speed and camouflage to keep them safe.

A druid starting in an aquatic environment may choose a giant cuttlefish as an animal companion.


Hypnotic Strobe (Ex): As a free action, a cuttlefish may sheathe its body in a rapidly strobing pattern of colors, oscillating wildly as it manipulates its own chromatophores. Any creature within 10 ft. must succeed on a DC 12 Will save or be fascinated for as long as the cuttlefish is within 10 ft. and maintaining the strobe effect. The save is Charisma-based.

While strobing, the cuttlefish loses its racial bonus to the Hide skill, and instead incurs a -20 penalty on all Hide checks. The strobing may be extinguished as a free action.

Improved Grab (Ex): A cuttlefish strikes with its two hunting arms, which are held poised until its target is within range. If they connect, the cuttlefish may attempt a grapple with its eight shorter tentacles as a free action, without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, the cuttlefish draws its target back to its head and automatically deals bite damage.

Ink Decoy (Ex): Once per minute, a cuttlefish may produce a spurt of dark ink the length of its body, which lingers in the water as the cuttlefish jets away, changing color to match the distant seawater. The ink decoy remains for five rounds or until it is dispersed by strong currents or other disruption, such as an attack. The ink decoy is meant to confuse rather than conceal, and provides no concealment to anything larger than zooplankton.

Jet Set (Ex): As a move action, a cuttlefish may jet at a speed of 30 ft. for up to three rounds every minute. Each subsequent round of jetting requires a DC 14 Fort save. If the cuttlefish fails to make the save, it is briefly exhausted and must rest for one minute before it is able to jet again.

Polarized Sight (Ex): Cuttlefish are capable of seeing polarized light, granting them a predatory advantage. A cuttlefish gains a +4 racial bonus to Spot checks and a +2 bonus on Will saves to detect illusions.

Skills: A cuttlefish has direct neural control over its skin color at the cellular level, granting it a +16 racial bonus to Hide checks.

A cuttlefish can shape and compress its body to a limited degree, granting a +4 racial bonus to Escape Artist checks.

In addition, as an oceanic creature, a cuttlefish has a +8 racial bonus on Swim checks; it can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered.


Notes:

First, my standard disclaimer: I don't follow the SRD's extremely limited concept of animal intelligence, so I've given an Int score which I believe more accurately reflects the talents of the cuttlefish.

They really are impressive creatures, and I only wish I could convey their beauty and complexity with more finesse. One aspect I wanted to include is their use of rapid, rippling hues to communicate among themselves, including the use of polarized light, but I couldn't come up with a meaningful game mechanic. Ideas on this are welcome, as well as general comments, criticisms, and statblock edits.


Sources:

Anonymous. Sepia apama, Australian Giant Cuttlefish. Encyclopedia of Life (http://eol.org/pages/593213/details).

Chatfield, J. E. 1985. Mollusks. In: Encyclopedia of Aquatic Life, K. Banister and A. Campbell (Eds.), pp. 124-127. Facts on File Publications, New York.

Kaufmann, G. et al. 2007. Kings of Camouflage (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/kings-of-camouflage.html). PBS NOVA/WGBH Educational Foundation.

O'Dor, R. K. and D. M. Webber. 1991. Invertebrate athletes: Trade-offs between transport efficiency and power density in cephalopod evolution. Journal of Experimental Biology 160: 93-112.

Payne, N. L., Snelling, E. P., Semmens, J. M. and B. M. Gillanders. 2013. Mechanisms of population structuring in Giant Australian Cuttlefish Sepia apama. PLoS ONE 8(3): 1-7.

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Debihuman
2013-09-06, 12:50 AM
Since you don't follow 3.5 rules, you make it even harder to critique. Why have an attack that does 0 damage? What is the point of it? Perhaps you should only allow it to use its tentacles on creatures smaller than it.

Debby

Eldan
2013-09-06, 03:15 AM
Well, the question is, really, what does 5 intelligence even mean? We don't really have a definition, other than 10 is average, below 3 is animal. I do agree that they are amazingly intelligent, but, well, it's a question of defition. Having intelligence 5 has a meaning in the rules. Amongst other things, they can now take class levels, talk and are available as a player race, if you give them LA. Do you want that?

Palanan
2013-09-06, 06:40 AM
Originally Posted by Debihuman
Since you don't follow 3.5 rules, you make it even harder to critique.

That's certainly not my intent, although I'm not sure what you mean. Apart from the difference in the Int score, which I've called out in my notes, what else isn't following 3.5 rules?


Originally Posted by Debihuman
Why have an attack that does 0 damage? What is the point of it? Perhaps you should only allow it to use its tentacles on creatures smaller than it.

For the tentacle attack, the bite damage and the improved grab ability, I'm following the example of the octopus in the Monster Manual, p. 276, also presented in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/octopus.htm). Note in particular the attack with the arms that does 0 damage. That's what I based this on.


Originally Posted by Eldan
Having intelligence 5 has a meaning in the rules. Amongst other things, they can now take class levels, talk and are available as a player race, if you give them LA. Do you want that?

These are very good points, which I'll need to consider. At some point I'll probably want to hash this out in a thread devoted to the notion, because I agree that it's difficult to come up with an overlapping scale of intelligence in the context of the game rules.

toapat
2013-09-06, 10:08 AM
in order to correct the things you dont have:

Simple: A cuttlefish is highly intelligent, but does not have the capacity to learn complex training. A cuttlefish is utterly incapable of qualifying for class levels.

Language: Luxic


Luxic is a not-spoken, non-written language only communicable by creatures with light-like abilities. it relies on patterns, shapes, and colors to communicate, and translation is near impossible due to severe differences in meaning between subtly different shades of a color.

Eldan
2013-09-06, 12:24 PM
In my head, it goes pretty much:

Int -- Operates purely on instinct. (Not all insects should go here, but the game puts them there).
Int 1: Animals you probably can teach simpe tricks at best.
Int 2: Smart animals that come up with new solutoins on their own, such as some birds, cuttlefish, primates.

There should probably be another category in there. Good learners like dogs, but not quite crows.

In the end, we can probably agree that it is very hard to say what the intelligence scale actually represents and how far it goes. Those threads I've seen where you overlay the bell curves from IQ testing and 3d6 attribute rolls doesn't even put 18 intelligence that high. It would follow that Int 3, which is just as likely to happen as an 18, isn't actually necessarily all that stupid.

Palanan
2013-09-06, 12:51 PM
Originally Posted by toapat
A cuttlefish is utterly incapable of qualifying for class levels.

Well, this sort of qualification doesn't show up as a standard caveat with other creatures with 3+ intelligence, at least not that I see on a brief glance through the Monster Manual. Not sure if this is really necessary...and Awaken would complicate that anyway.

I do like your seed concept of a color-language, though. I thought about doing something similar, but we really don't understand enough about how cuttlefish communicate to define this behavior as language per se. As Jesse Purdy says in the NOVA program, "We are testing an animal that's very alien. It's as close, perhaps, as we're going to get to studying an animal on another planet."


Originally Posted by Eldan
In the end, we can probably agree that it is very hard to say what the intelligence scale actually represents and how far it goes.

We can easily agree on that. :smalltongue:

So, leaving aside the intelligence issue, any other comments on the creature's stats or abilities?

TuggyNE
2013-09-06, 07:21 PM
Well, this sort of qualification doesn't show up as a standard caveat with other creatures with 3+ intelligence, at least not that I see on a brief glance through the Monster Manual.

That's because other creatures with Int 3+ are not utterly incapable of taking class levels (although if they're non-humanoid in shape it will usually be rare).

Lappy9001
2013-09-06, 07:40 PM
At first I kinda wondered why you would make a cuttlefish (custom animal companion maybe?), but then you mentioned you just generally respect them as creatures. That's awesome, so why did you limit yourself?

3.5 isn't really a good system for making small animals like this and fully reflecting their abilities to the fullest extent. Given what animals 3.5 gives us, it's kinda strange to see an animal so fleshed out with so many abilities (especially for a CR 1). That's not a problem with your monster, in fact everything is done very well, but a problem with the system. I'd suggest:

Keep it as-is. You like it the way it is, and the differences from normal animal rules aren't significant enough to make a big impact. It's your game, go for it.
Convert it to be more uniform with other animals presented in 3.5 (probably a boring approach)
Make a monstrous version. Something really powerful and impressive that makes players go "Huh...? A giant...cuttlefi-" right before it mesmerizes them and crushes them into a fine paste (that's quite a unique battle right there).
Make a sub-system to flesh out small creatures, familiars, and pets. Something that lets you get a true grip on their abilities, so that they can be more flavorful and more than just a vessel for free Awareness and ranged touch spells. And have it kick the Intelligence rules to the curb for these special animals. Sounds like a pretty fun project actually :smallcool:

The only thing I can find even remotely wrong is a nitpick with the formatting. There's usually a lot more capitalization in the monster statblock.

Palanan
2013-09-06, 08:02 PM
Originally Posted by Lappy9001
Given what animals 3.5 gives us, it's kinda strange to see an animal so fleshed out with so many abilities (especially for a CR 1). That's not a problem with your monster, in fact everything is done very well....

Thanks, I really appreciate your comments. I'm usually underwhelmed by the basic animals in 3.5, so I like to work up creatures that are both true-to-life and interesting from a game perspective. I did have it in mind that this could be an animal companion, although I have a couple other ideas as well.


Originally Posted by Lappy9001
Make a sub-system to flesh out small creatures, familiars, and pets. Something that lets you get a true grip on their abilities, so that they can be more flavorful and more than just a vessel for free Awareness and ranged touch spells.

I think that's the direction I'm probably headed in, although apart from the expanded Int score I'm not sure what else would go into it. Any ideas?


Originally Posted by Lappy9001
Make a monstrous version. Something really powerful and impressive that makes players go "Huh...? A giant...cuttlefi-" right before it mesmerizes them and crushes them into a fine paste....

Heh.

*savors cheshire grin*

:smallbiggrin:

Lappy9001
2013-09-06, 08:15 PM
Thanks, I really appreciate your comments. I'm usually underwhelmed by the basic animals in 3.5, so I like to work up creatures that are both true-to-life and interesting from a game perspective. I did have it in mind that this could be an animal companion, although I have a couple other ideas as well.You're welcome :smallsmile:


I think that's the direction I'm probably headed in, although apart from the expanded Int score I'm not sure what else would go into it. Any ideas?It's something I'd be interested in working on, actually. Hmm...well, you can go about it with re-writing animals in general, which is a valid approach, but I feel the subsystem would be better because it could be dropped into a campaign or left out, depending on the group. Maybe make a community project out of it? Get people who know a lot about certain animals and try to accurately portray the abilities of animals to a fine degree without overpowering them.

The only problem with this level of depth is that it doesn't necessarily make for a good encounter. You know the action economy and how much a monster can fire off before its taken down and all that. But it would work beautifully for familiars, animal companions, and pets.

Animal tricks is probably a good place to draw some inspiration. There's more familiars in the DMG and Pathfinder has a lot of resources towards this, but they have the same root problem.

Palanan
2013-09-07, 10:19 AM
Originally Posted by Lappy9001
Get people who know a lot about certain animals and try to accurately portray the abilities of animals to a fine degree without overpowering them.

That's a good description of what I'm trying to do myself, within the context of the 3.5 rules. As you mentioned, they're not always the best for expressing some of the more interesting features, but there are the constraints of encounters and player utility to keep in mind.

Apart from what you suggested earlier--more flavorful, more accurate, more interesting as companions and associates--I also like to keep an eye out for new wildshape options, since I've often played druids and I love wildshaping. "Be a bear, etc." always seemed like the absolute least imaginative use of the wildshape ability; I'd rather find interesting animals and come up with interesting uses for their abilities.

One reason I'm so underwhelmed with the generic animals in the SRD is that whoever wrote them up didn't really have much of a clue about animals, and there are a lot of misconceptions when you look closely. In the stats for the octopus, for example, the "ink cloud" provides total concealment within a 10-foot cube, which is absolutely absurd. In fact the ink is meant as a brief distraction, to give a predator something to bite at while the octopus jets away, and it can't do more than cover your hand at best.

Other animals are as clunky or worse. The raven fails to include anything that actually makes ravens special; the giant octopus has some sort of hooks and razor-suckers on its tentacles; and the "ape" is a sad caricature which has no real relationship to any of the actual great apes.

And so on. I'd much rather do a little research and work up my own.

Eldan
2013-09-07, 12:51 PM
I'd love to be part of this. I mean, I haven't done the basic animals, but I've done two threads of hybrid creatures, from the Octocrow to the Squimu and I put a lot of value on giving them interesting abilities.