Dragonsworn
2023-04-18, 03:09 PM
Hello peeps
So, a little bit of backround. The idea for this came about a few year ago during a discussion about potential Halloween campaigns, where some friends and I were tossing around ideas and I referred to the Death Knight template as a good way of creating a Headless Horseman, which then a friend jokingly suggested of using a Beholder for a head on. While quite a hilarious mental image, I kept coming back to this idea as it seemed to have potential, until a few days ago where I decided to combine it with a Jack-o'-lantern, and then realised that the Greenbound template would be a perfet fit for this (for those of you who have not done so already, google "pumpkin beholder" or "Halloween beholder" and you will be served an incredible amount of Greenbound Beholder suggestions).
Naturally, things took off from there, and while there are many ways to implement this, I have two separate possibilities I want to explore
The first and least exciting one involves an advanced and templated Nightmare (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nightmare.htm) (see below), a Greenbound Beholder and a humanoid or Undead (undecided) with class levels, the Death Knight template or both working together [CR calculators place this at a CR 18 (assuming the Nightmare and humanoid/undead are sufficiently advanced/templated), but the action economy implications could potentially push this quite higher (especially if caster levels are used)
The second option and the one I need help with is to merge the above into a single creature
Now, for the specifics. I had initailly thought of having the Nightmare have three head, wings (I know they can already fly, that is not the point of the wings although I won't mind not including that) and a fire breath weapon, just for the mental shock of facing such a thing. The Multiheaded Creature template lends itself nicely here. Then I thought about the Winged creature template for the wings, or maybe the Half-dragon, which gives wings [Nightmares and horses are Large (long), so this should work], breath weapon and two claw attacks to add an extra level of threat.
The humanoid part (I have not decided if it will actually be headless, or Undead for that matter), I was thinking either some class levels and topping it with the Death Knight template or a Cleric or Wizard into Knight of the Raven or Knight Phantom (briefly thought of gestalting (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm) them, but that might be excessive!)
The Greenbound Beholder remains as is, though since they are Large Aberrations I toyed with adding the Dungeonbred template to knock it down a size (can this template stack with itself?)
Now, to combine them. My first though was, of course, Tauric creature to fuse the rider onto the nightmare (which forbids it from being undead!)[for those wondering, the original wonking assumption was a four-headed Nightmare which lost one head from fusing with the rider and is now a three headed one, as per the initial effort (the template does not specify what happens to creatures with multiple heads, so I chose to go with this interpretation because it suits me :smallbiggrin:). Unfortunately, a Nightmare is an Outsider and the Half-dragon template would turn it to a dragon, while Tauric specifies that the base creature has to be an animal, vermin or magical beast. Is there a way around that, or another way to do it?
For the Beholder, one thought would be to reapply the Tauric template with the above creature as the base creature and the Beholder for the torso, thus losing the rider's head and replacing it with the Beholder. However, neither the (Greenbound) Beholder [(plant) aberration], nor an otherwise legal Tauric creature (monstrous humanoid) are eligible creature types for their templates. The other idea was the symbiotic creature. I have two major questions with that, the first being what would happen to such a creature if the rider's head was cut off leaving only the Beholder behind, and the second if the resulting creature would be able to use spells the rider had before.
Additionally, if the three component creatures are in fact merged into one, would that be a nerf given that the resulting creature would have less actions per round than the three separate ones?
(I also made a picture for that, but there doesn't seem to be a way to upload it)
So what do the Playground sages have to say? Is this possible, or even a good idea? Is there another way to do it? Please note that, despite the similarities, I am not trying to create Dullahan, just bring that idea I had to life. Can it be done?
So, a little bit of backround. The idea for this came about a few year ago during a discussion about potential Halloween campaigns, where some friends and I were tossing around ideas and I referred to the Death Knight template as a good way of creating a Headless Horseman, which then a friend jokingly suggested of using a Beholder for a head on. While quite a hilarious mental image, I kept coming back to this idea as it seemed to have potential, until a few days ago where I decided to combine it with a Jack-o'-lantern, and then realised that the Greenbound template would be a perfet fit for this (for those of you who have not done so already, google "pumpkin beholder" or "Halloween beholder" and you will be served an incredible amount of Greenbound Beholder suggestions).
Naturally, things took off from there, and while there are many ways to implement this, I have two separate possibilities I want to explore
The first and least exciting one involves an advanced and templated Nightmare (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nightmare.htm) (see below), a Greenbound Beholder and a humanoid or Undead (undecided) with class levels, the Death Knight template or both working together [CR calculators place this at a CR 18 (assuming the Nightmare and humanoid/undead are sufficiently advanced/templated), but the action economy implications could potentially push this quite higher (especially if caster levels are used)
The second option and the one I need help with is to merge the above into a single creature
Now, for the specifics. I had initailly thought of having the Nightmare have three head, wings (I know they can already fly, that is not the point of the wings although I won't mind not including that) and a fire breath weapon, just for the mental shock of facing such a thing. The Multiheaded Creature template lends itself nicely here. Then I thought about the Winged creature template for the wings, or maybe the Half-dragon, which gives wings [Nightmares and horses are Large (long), so this should work], breath weapon and two claw attacks to add an extra level of threat.
The humanoid part (I have not decided if it will actually be headless, or Undead for that matter), I was thinking either some class levels and topping it with the Death Knight template or a Cleric or Wizard into Knight of the Raven or Knight Phantom (briefly thought of gestalting (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm) them, but that might be excessive!)
The Greenbound Beholder remains as is, though since they are Large Aberrations I toyed with adding the Dungeonbred template to knock it down a size (can this template stack with itself?)
Now, to combine them. My first though was, of course, Tauric creature to fuse the rider onto the nightmare (which forbids it from being undead!)[for those wondering, the original wonking assumption was a four-headed Nightmare which lost one head from fusing with the rider and is now a three headed one, as per the initial effort (the template does not specify what happens to creatures with multiple heads, so I chose to go with this interpretation because it suits me :smallbiggrin:). Unfortunately, a Nightmare is an Outsider and the Half-dragon template would turn it to a dragon, while Tauric specifies that the base creature has to be an animal, vermin or magical beast. Is there a way around that, or another way to do it?
For the Beholder, one thought would be to reapply the Tauric template with the above creature as the base creature and the Beholder for the torso, thus losing the rider's head and replacing it with the Beholder. However, neither the (Greenbound) Beholder [(plant) aberration], nor an otherwise legal Tauric creature (monstrous humanoid) are eligible creature types for their templates. The other idea was the symbiotic creature. I have two major questions with that, the first being what would happen to such a creature if the rider's head was cut off leaving only the Beholder behind, and the second if the resulting creature would be able to use spells the rider had before.
Additionally, if the three component creatures are in fact merged into one, would that be a nerf given that the resulting creature would have less actions per round than the three separate ones?
(I also made a picture for that, but there doesn't seem to be a way to upload it)
So what do the Playground sages have to say? Is this possible, or even a good idea? Is there another way to do it? Please note that, despite the similarities, I am not trying to create Dullahan, just bring that idea I had to life. Can it be done?