The Elder Scrolls: Atronachs for 3.5

[Carl]

I’m planning on putting together a TES:Skyrim inspired class, one of the key abilities is going to be atronach’s. Now I could use existing elementals but they don’t quite fit my purpose and I wanted something a littlie more representative of their specific ability’s. I won’t be listing anything granted by existing type classifications here btw, and I’m listing template’s first, (they’re going to be scaling based off their CR rating so starting with a template makes it a bit easier to construct them on the go).


General Atronach Attributes:

Traits:

- Immunity to poison, paralysis, stunning, sleep effects, and death effects.
- Not subject to critical hits or flanking.
- Cannot be restored to life upon death by any means, but re-form on their home plane after a period of 1 year per HD they possessed at the time of death
- Does not Eat, Drink, Breath, or Sleep
- Does not Gain feats based on HD
- Resistance bonus to save equal to one fifth HD
- All Atronach’s have the Multi-Attack feat.

Creating an Atronach: All types of Atronach’s have a HD equal to their CR. Determine Stats using the Template and calculated HD for it’s CR. Minimum CR 5.



Flame Atronach:

Stats

Medium Size

Str 10, Dex 12, Con 12, Intelligence 10, Wisdom 12, Charisma 10

HD: D8
BAB: Half HD
Saves: Good Reflex
Skill Points: 2+Int
Space/Reach: 5ft
Base Land Speed: 60Ft
Standard Attack: 1 Slam Attack dealing 1D3 + Half HD Fire Damage
Full Attack: 2 Slam attacks, dealing 1D3 + Half HD Fire Damage each

Traits:

- Immune to Fire, Vulnerable to Cold
- Gains +2 Strength, +3 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom per 3 HD
- AC Dodge Bonus equal to half HD
- DR 10 + HD vs ranged attacks
- Evasion and Improved Evasion (See Rogue)


Abilities:

- Firebolt (Ex): A Flame Atronach may launch 1 Firebolt as a standard action, or 1 plus 1 more per 3 full base attack bonus it possesses as a full round action. These are conducted as Ranged Touch Attacks with a maximum range of 150Ft and deal 1D6 + double HD Fire Damage.
- Flame Cloak (Ex): Anything within 5ft takes automatic Fire Damage equal to HD.
- Hover (Ex): A Flame Atronach Hovers over the Ground and so is not subject to terrain modifiers to movement, and is subject to a permanent Feather Fall effect.

By far the weakest of the 3 in many respects with the lowest damage, hitpoints, and AC, and DR is limited to ranged attacks. Conversely it’s also the fastest by a massive amount, able to out pace many opponents and it’s got excellent touch AC as well as solid DR vs ranged attacks. A good reflex save and Evasion make it largely immune to many blaster spells too. If brought to melee however it will suffer and cold damage will really hurt regardless of source.


Frost Atronach:

Stats

Large Size

Str 18, Dex 8 Con 26, Intelligence 10, Wisdom 14, Charisma 8

HD: D10
BAB: Equal to HD
Saves: Good Fortitude
Skill Points: 2+Int
Space/Reach: 10ft
Base Land Speed: 40Ft

Standard Attack: 1 Slam Attack dealing 1D8 Cold Damage
Full Attack: 2 Slam attacks, dealing 1D8 Cold Damage each

Traits:

- Immune to Cold, Vulnerable to Fire
- Gains +3 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +3 Constitution, +2 Wisdom per 3 HD
- Slam Attacks deal an additional 1D8 damage per 3 HD.
- DRx/Adamantium and Magic equal to 5 + HD
- Natural Armour equal to 15 + HD
- Mettle and Improved Mettle

Abilities:

- Frost Cloak (Ex): Anything within 10ft takes automatic Cold Damage equal to HD, and has base Land speed reduced by 10ft or Half, whichever is smaller.

By far the highest AC and hitpoints of the bunch, and Mettle and Improved Mettle render it highly resistant to many effects also. DR is multi-purpose and very solid and it’s above average speed makes getting to melee easier, however it’s restricted to melee only, but is highly damaging there.



Storm Atronach:

Stats

Large Size

Str 22, Dex 6 Con 20, Intelligence 10, Wisdom 18, Charisma 6

HD: D12
BAB: equal to 3/4 HD
Saves: Good Fortitude and Will
Skill Points: 2+Int
Space/Reach: 15ft
Base Land Speed: 20Ft

Standard Attack: 2 Slam Attack dealing 1D10 Electricity Damage
Full Attack: 4 Slam attacks, dealing 1D10 Electricity Damage

Traits:

- Immune to Lightning
- Gains +3 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +3 Constitution, +2 Wisdom per 3 HD
- Slam Attacks deal an additional 1D10 damage per 3 HD.
- DRx/- equal to 10 + HD
- Deflection AC Bonus equal to HD

Abilities:

- Storm Cloak (Ex): Anything within 15ft takes automatic Electricty Damage equal to HD
- Lightning Bolt (Ex): A Storm Atronach may launch 1 Lightning Bolt as a standard action, or 1 plus 1 more per 3 full base attack bonus it possesses as a full round action. These are conducted as Ranged Touch Attacks with a maximum range of 60Ft and deal 1D10 electricity Damage per 2 HD.
Force of the Storm (Ex): Storm Atronach’s use their Strength Modifier, not their Dexterity Modifier for Ranged Touch Attacks.
Storm Call (Ex): As a Full Round Action the Strom Atronach may cal down a Lightning Storm. Every Opponent within 60Ft is hit for 2D10 + HD Electricity Damage, Fortitude Save Halves, DC 14 + Half HD + Strength Modifier, (DC21 at 1HD)

Sitting in the middle ground for HP and AC between the other two it is very decent, and vs touch attack the best of the 3. It also has stunning amounts of DR for it’s level and very solid damage output at melee and close range. Solid saves and no elemental vulnerabilities also give it some serious oomph. Still that slow speed and limited range will constrain it.


Upated all the AC bonus’s to bring them into line with where they should be as some had very low values at higher levels.
Adjusted base con scores to raise HP progreshion into line as well.
Corrected a couple of typos in the Storm Atronach that where giving it far more lightning bolt damage than they should have been.
Added some additional features to the Flame Atronach as it was lagging the other two badly in power curve terms.

Modified damage outputs across the board to work at lower CR ratings and adjusted several other factors to make all work at HD = CR.

[Veklim]

Do you mean 'Atronarch' by any chance...?

[Carl]

A google search says yes i did, sorry should have checked spelling rather than going with how i pronounce it.

[Carl]

Made some updates, any chance of feedback?

[Leviting]

In the Flame Atronach section, you said rouge instead of rogue. That's some awefully evasive lipstick ya got there...:smalltongue:

[Leviting]

And I think that the Frost, and maybe even the Storm, should deal at least some bludgeoning damage with their slams, as Meteor Swarm does bludgeoning damage, and that's just from some tiny rocks at high speed, also known as exactly what the Storm Atronach is made of.

[Carl]

First thanks for replying. Really appreciated :D.

Second, gah, that's late night typing for you, thanks for pointing it out.

Third, You make a fair point, (though i'm pretty sure it's not actually stone or ice as we think of it given it appears and disappears with them), but at the same time i'm pretty sure in game it's pure fire/frost/shock damage depending on the type.

That said i've been considering another re-jig of them. I don't like how the frost and storm have fewer HD than their CR, that opens them up to a huge range of effects the Flame is Immune to. It also require extreme con score which results in excessive fort saves at low CR whilst trashing their will/reflex saves beyond reason at high levels. The Frost is easy enough to modify, simply drop the number of dice on a slam to 1 base and work up from there. The Storm though is giving me fits. He's innately a lot more powerful than the Frost thanks to a lot more slam attacks, and adds ranged abilities and an AoE on. That's a lot of capability on a rather large and strong monster. Plus he gets 2 slam attacks base, 4 on a full attack, even if cut down to D6 damage dice that's a good chance to 1 shot many 1st level characters if they both connect, and the full attack for 4 is pretty much "GG no re" for low level characters. The best I've been able to come up with would be to cap his minimum CR, (this would actually work well for all of them tbh), but i'd like thoughts on this?

[Carl]

And re-jigged. V3.0 now.

[Super Evil User]

Atronachs should be outsiders, seeing as they're from the planes of Oblivion...

[Carl]

The only thing i actually want off the outsider template is allready included above. It's a lot easier to list the one thing they do use rather than say, "but they don't get X,Y, Z, N, L, e.t.c", in every entry.

[Leviting]

I was thinking outsider more for the dismissal aspect, as that is a potentially viable strategy against them in-game

[Kalmageddon]

Why wouldn't they gain feats based on HD? This is usually done with creatures which don't have intellect, like parasites or constructs, but atronachs are just elemental daedra, they have an intellect, as you can notice in Morrowind when you have to answer a riddle posed by all 3 kinds of atronachs and later Molag Bal sends you to kill an atronach who is his "daughter"'s lover.

[Gracht Grabmaw]

Aw, here I got all excited for this thread because I thought you meant atronarch as in the starsign, not the daedra. I always thought that was a cool concept, a sorcerer who can only do magic if they get struck with magic first because they don't have any natural magic of their own, they can only absorb and fire back. I guess that would be pretty incompatible with Vancian magic as DND uses though, since there's no magicka points in a system like that.

[Carl]

I was thinking outsider more for the dismissal aspect, as that is a potentially viable strategy against them in-game

I can make them count as outsiders for purposes such as that sure, good catch.


Why wouldn't they gain feats based on HD? This is usually done with creatures which don't have intellect, like parasites or constructs, but atronachs are just elemental daedra, they have an intellect, as you can notice in Morrowind when you have to answer a riddle posed by all 3 kinds of atronachs and later Molag Bal sends you to kill an atronach who is his "daughter"'s lover.

Abuse potential. Since this is aimed a a sort of deardric companion in the same way as a rangers/druids animal companion there would be a lot of potential for avid players to use feats to screw up my careful scaling. A DM antagonistic one could and certainly should have such things since the DM can use them to customize the things a lot better to the party it will be facing. But put that in the hands of a munchkin player and it gets really, really, worrying.


Anyway, any thoughts on the actual balance, are they remotely appropriate CR wise?


Aw, here I got all excited for this thread because I thought you meant atronarch as in the starsign, not the daedra. I always thought that was a cool concept, a sorcerer who can only do magic if they get struck with magic first because they don't have any natural magic of their own, they can only absorb and fire back. I guess that would be pretty incompatible with Vancian magic as DND uses though, since there's no magicka points in a system like that.

Sorry, it could work actually, but it would take a fair bit of work i think to be balanced, the real issue is you can't guarantee how much magical opposition you'll face. Face too little and the class breaks.