Making a more Fun* and interesting Baslisk

[Blackhawk748]

Ok so i make it no secret that i think how gaze attacks work in DnD to be silly, but i also think Basilisks are cool so i need to find a way to make them more fun and interesting. So this is what i came up with.

Stone Gaze (Su):At the end of its turn the Basalisk projects a 30ft cone. Anyone who begins their turn in this cone must make a Fortitude Save or take a -2 penalty to their Dexterity. If they fail a second save they are slowed, as the spell. If they fail a third save they are paralyzed. And finally on a fourth failed save they are petrified, as flesh to stone. This attack follows all the rules for a gaze attack excepting its area.

Also the save is now DC +1/2 RHD+ Con modifier and the Basilisk will most likely get a HD increase.

*fun as in the context of Dwarf Fortress

[VoxRationis]

Well, I'd say it makes the Basilisk a lot less "swingy" of a monster, since you need several failed saves in order to replace the one failed save of the original SRD Basilisk. Let's say you have characters who can make the original DC 13 save 75% of the time (i.e., a +7 bonus to Fortitude saves). Your adjusted DC would be 15, barring the increased HD you mentioned, so those characters would make the DC only 65% of the time. The odds of such a character being incapacitated by the Basilisk are equal to .35^3 or 4% over three rounds or more, whereas the original basilisk would have incapacitated the same characters 1-(.75^3) or 58% of the time over the same three rounds. Thus, the basilisk is actually considerably less lethal in this scenario than before.

I'm not quite sure why it's so important to you that the gaze attack comes at the end of the monster's turn; the original way makes sense to me (although not the whole "active attack" option bit). Your way leaves the rather passive ability of a gaze attack tied to the monster's initiative, and the low range makes it so that people can, assuming they have a good movement rate and/or a reach weapon, Spring Attack it, looking directly into its eyes, with complete impunity.

[Cidolfas]

Making in not an instant doom for failure is almost definitely a good thing, since the basilisk is a low-CR creature and parties who fight it are very unlikely to have sufficient countermeasures. That said, if I'm not mistaken any gaze attack can already be averted by the potential victim(s) averting their eyes, which grants concealment to the creature with the gaze but also prevents the gaze from working. Perhaps making the basilisk have other abilities tailored to when opponents exercise that option would help make the combat more interesting, since the basilisk is no longer such an obvious one-trick pony.

[Blackhawk748]

I'm not quite sure why it's so important to you that the gaze attack comes at the end of the monster's turn; the original way makes sense to me (although not the whole "active attack" option bit). Your way leaves the rather passive ability of a gaze attack tied to the monster's initiative, and the low range makes it so that people can, assuming they have a good movement rate and/or a reach weapon, Spring Attack it, looking directly into its eyes, with complete impunity.

I simply had it occur at the end of its turn because i couldnt think of a better way to phrase it. And as it stands now gaze attacks arent even tied to looking into the things eyes, their tied to looking at it. So the old Basilisk effectively had a 30ft radius petrification effect. Since DnD doesnt have facing rules i decided the cone was the best way to approximate actually looking into its eyes.

Honestly i find how gaze attacks work to be fairly silly:
Player: Ok i look at the medusa's chest.
DM: Ok it gets concealment
Player: How does that work?
DM:Would you prefer the gaze attack?
Player:No no concealment's good.

I dont mind the concealment for looking completely away from it, but with some of them you just need to not look at their face.

[VoxRationis]

Well, remember that the creature probably isn't just standing still. It's moving about, turning to face different opponents (there are no facing rules in Core), etc. Keeping only part of it in view but not its eyes is therefore difficult. But keep in mind that the way gaze intersected with initiative in the standard rules made more sense for a gaze attack, where a significant portion of the "attack" was contingent upon the action of the victim.