GITP Monster Competition Chat Thread

[Vaynor]

Any recommendations on the stat improvements? I gave him the basic stat array and threw in a good few bonuses, but I've never even played dnd, just got the books (no one near me plays -_-) So I don;t have gaming experience to sit back and think "hmm, that looks a bit low compared to -insert creature here-" so I'm just jumping in the deep end and hoping folks help me fix it ~s~

Most creatures have bonuses based on race. All I'm saying is, he can't do much damage with a strength score that low, and for a low level monster he doesn't have much else going for him anyways. He relies on his natural attacks to pull off any special attacks, and with +4 grapple that'll be kinda hard. Maybe up the strength to 16 or so just to give him some more hurt.

[Garatolla]

ok, thanks for the input

[DracoDei]

Well, I just posted my Gut Snake... probably going to include some dialogue from an adventuring party about to go up against some for additional flavor... may also change my mind and scale the Hit Dice back on the medium and larger versions... and I need to do more than just eye-ball the CRs... I am welcoming of suggestion... this is my first submission to one of these contests (although I have entered and succeeded with the Monsters in the Playground compilation). I have always benefited from feedback when posting ideas to this forum (IE most of my ideas seem to need a little tweaking that wouldn't normally occur to me). So take a look at my Gut Snakes and tell me what you think.

Should I put in that bit of boiler-plate about poison immunity negating stenches (specifically the sickening/nauseating effects of flatulate and excrete, although excrete could still cause filth fever.)?

Note that I had the idea for this long before Zeta Kai posted his "Elemental Plane of Flesh" so it really IS original.

Regarding Cruor Skeleton:
Is it a True Resurrection for a victim that Cure Disease is cast on, and then the resulting Cruor Zombie destroyed? If not, then it is not exactly a 'happen ending all around'... in any case that particular mechanic doesn't quite feel right... why would they get resurrected? Maybe better to have them take CON damage (perhaps with save for half, or even auto-death on a failed save) as the Cruor Skeleton is forced out of their system, leaving microscopic tears in its wake.

[AtomicKitKat]

Aiming for toilet humour? Scraping the bottom of the barrel? Trying to be all and end all?

[DracoDei]

Well I guess I just went for maximium "guts" over "blood" in the blood and guts equation...
Seriously though, this is mostly based on my considering the crawling claws and fingerling hordes and stuff like that and wondering what other body parts could be turned into independant undead... that and the fact that one time I braved the risk of rabies to disect a fox I found dead by the side of the road.

But would it make a memorable encounter in any other sense than the humorous? I mean I can see some characters scrubbing themselves raw in the local bath house/stream/whatever after an adventure involving such an encounter.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Gaaah... you guys are doing the competition proud

All of you should have received messages with my critiques and comments... that is except for DracoDei. He'll have to wait a little longer since his is the equivalent of 6 monsters that I gotta go over

[DracoDei]

Have made several small edits mostly for clarity to my entry. I also added rules for how much water it takes to get rid of the blindness and nausia from Excrete. I also dropped the DR for the tiny version to 5/XXX, down from 10/XXX.

Sidenote: I got inspired and did some brewing tonight on the Hopping Stomachs so I am probably going to post those to a seperate thread. Everybody please drop by and give me critiques on that too if you feel up to it!

Edit: I have now posted them. See my Sig for the link. They suffer from a bit of "glass cannon" syndrome at the moment, but I don't know if that is necessarily a BAD thing.

[AtomicKitKat]

Edited to fix errors/oversights, clean up content for easier reading, and added "Improved Reach". Note that it's always had 10' reach. I just included a justification.

[BisectedBrioche]

My Cruor Skeleton (Cruor's Latin for blood, becasue I'm just so damn cool and origional ¬_¬) holds a few firsts for me;

1. My first entry to one of these contests
2. My first homebrew monster to be inspired, created and posted all in one sitting
3. My first homebrew to be done when I was about 50% asleep, 25% awake and 25% dreaming.

[DracoDei]

Bisected8: I find that some of my most dementedly cool creations come out in long sessions late at night when I may be a bit low on sleep.

I have now (finally) run my entry through a spelling and grammar checker... still waiting on Vorpal Tribble for his review (I realize he is a very busy fur-ball and will get to it when he can, but that doesn't make the waiting any less nerve-wracking). I fully expect that his wisdom will lead to several more rounds of edits... and I would appreciate others chiming in as well.

Vascula: I beleive that should be average of 39 hit-points (6*6.5). If you could provide a breif description of the fluff effects of Avasculate and Avascular Mass spells it might be helpful for those trying to comment on your creation.

Living Tumor: Same here, a breif description of cysts, the spell like abilities you gave it etc might help. Not too much (don't want to keep people from buying the books ya know...), but something would help.

[AtomicKitKat]

In hindsight, would probably have been better to homebrew some stuff instead of using the cysts. Still, if you lack the cysts, just assume that the tumour detonates the guards(and ignore that the detonation spawns a cyst) when they get near the players. I'll try to think of something.

[DracoDei]

I have now changed name of the 'Excrete' special ability to something more viceral (Do people think it works well? Maybe it should just be "Explosive Diarrhoea"? Something else?) and spoilerized main stat table as a kindness to those with smaller monitors.

BTW I am interested in what people think of the implications of giving arcane necromancers more flexiablity with what undead they can create. This applies to my Guts Snakes, as well as my Hopping Stomachs, and especially my Empty Skins. (See my Sig for links) The reason the Empty Skins are especially interesting is that they are intellegent (albiet only a 5), that was the main reason I decided to have them count as quadrupal their HD for purposes of controling them under Animate Dead. This despite the fact that they are USUALLY pretty combat ineffective.

[Kyace]

Added a sample encounter to the entry for Sycophantic Specter. Increased the gore factor slightly by doing so. Not to the point where attacks are named after Diarrhoea, but slightly. :)

Would you recommend changing the name to "parasite poltergeist" instead? Is the sample encounter clear and understandable? Does it help or hurt?

[AtomicKitKat]

Shuffled uses/day for SLAs, directed various things to pages in Libris Mortis. When I've had some time, I'll see about "alternatives if you lack LM" to put in.

[DracoDei]

Yes, I think "Parasitic Poltergeist" is better... why a construct though? Where do they come from? (not necessary to have answered but it would be nice).

Would you recommend changing the name to "parasite poltergeist" instead? Is the sample encounter clear and understandable? Does it help or hurt?

It helps some. Getting a little more detailed and viscersal with the descriptive language would probably help if you can.

[Kyace]

One of the most common theories of poltergeists in our world is that they aren't ghosts or spirits of the dead but rather emotional energy built up in a location that moves things and makes noises. The background I was going to go with that sycophantic specters form from places that have overwhelming necromancy and illusion magic (overwhelming as defined by the detect magic spell) but I decided to leave it more open so it could be fit into campaigns more easily. Honestly, I considered them more like living spells (except, you know, not living) than ghosts, overgrown magical viruses that aren't evil by desire or design but by their total selfishness.

[DracoDei]

Upon receiving feedback from Vorpal Tribble, and a series of messages with Kyace. I have fixed some more math errors, simplified getting cleaned up, and boosted the CRs of the larger Gut Snakes slightly (getting the slower members of the party boosted past its speed, a Freedom of Movement cast on a melee class, Stone Skin, sacrificial summons for it to squeeze while everybody goes ape on it, or Sunbeam are the most likely ways of defeating the Colossal version that I can see.).

[Kai-Palin]

Sorry, haven't checked this thread in a while. Yes, the spells are necromancy spells, but I usually make them double-school necro/transmute spells for better flavor.
Dracodei, here are your descriptions:

Avasculate: A ray of necromantic energy (whatever color, my necromancers usually use red, instead of black) strikes the target, and the foe suddenly bucks, his veins standing out so quickly and suddenly that they begin to break the skin, slithering out of his body and coiling into squishy piles on the ground as he stares in shock, his eyes wide in agony.

Avascular Mass: A ray of pulsing necromantic energy lances from your hand to your foe, and his veins and arteries stand out from his body. Then, in a split second, he appears to burst into a red mist as thousands of veins, arteries, and tiny capillaries explode from his body, forming a gruesome layered net that hangs in the surrounding area. In the light glancing off its slick, multi-stranded surface, you can just barely see your foe hanging in the middle of the mass, groaning in pain.

Basically, some real fun spells, eh?

[Kellus]

Okay, I'm giving it a shot with the headhunter. Fun competition; nice submissions from everyone.

[Kyace]

Okay, I'm giving it a shot with the headhunter. Fun competition; nice submissions from everyone.

One nitpick the jumped out:
"If the wielder chooses to forgo this penalty, the weapon takes 5 hit points of damage instead."

"Gold has 20 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 5."
Does the hardness cancel out the damage? And pure gold is a very soft metal, it would have to be some sort of alloy to deserve hardness 5?

[Jaerc]

The Empress of Rot has squelched it's way on to the Contest Thread.

[Kellus]

One nitpick the jumped out:
"If the wielder chooses to forgo this penalty, the weapon takes 5 hit points of damage instead."

"Gold has 20 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 5."
Does the hardness cancel out the damage? And pure gold is a very soft metal, it would have to be some sort of alloy to deserve hardness 5?

Yeah, you're probably right. I'll drop the hardness to 0.

Also, if that's the biggest nitpick, I'm set!

[DracoDei]

<snip> nice submissions from everyone.

Technically I think "Nice" is one of the last descriptors that apply to any of the entries... sorry, but it had to be said.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Heyas, though some of you I sent in critiques a couple weeks back, a few of you only got them til today. I gotta run again, so the last couple of y'all will have your creations looked over sometime later this evening.

You've done this contest proud... maybe a little too much so in fact

[Nelphine]

So i would like to post a monster; my only question is, do people prefer the hidden spoiler tag so that you don't get hit with a wall of text, or should i just post everything.. and if hidden, how does one go about doing that?

Incidentally, i'm curious about the CR of Violence. He does tons and tons of damage, but it is stated he doesn't bother to ambush people. Level 16 characters will generally have some sort of fast movement capability, and ranged attacks. I personally had an arcane archer who got dominated once and shot our cleric (who was normally impossible for the DM to hurt) and killed him in one round; 191 damage, and I was level 16.
Admittedly that archer was fairly twinked, but my basic problem is:
Violence has 100ish hp, a speed of 40', and no alternate movement modes, and does not have the typical teleport of high end outsiders. A level 16 group will typically be able to easily move away and then dish out enough damage to kill violence in one or two rounds. I would think lower the CR to 11ish (which would have various other problems), or, my preference, give Violence the teleport ability of high end outsiders, or some other way of closing with the party.
However, other than that, Violence is one nasty being if it gets up close and personal, and it will surely cause enough bloodspillage for this category!
A thumbs up to all the entries!

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Alright, everyone as of this post should have been messaged.

So i would like to post a monster; my only question is, do people prefer the hidden spoiler tag so that you don't get hit with a wall of text, or should i just post everything...

My suggestion is post the monster, but spoiler the extras, like templates or special weapon stats and the like.

and if hidden, how does one go about doing that?

[spoiler]Hi there[/spoiler]

Spoiler

Show

BOO!!!

[Vaynor]

Dastardly Tribble!

That scared me...

These entries rock so far guys, better than mine.

[Fishy]

Well, blast. I had a grand idea for a monster, and then I realized I have no idea how to stat it out numerically. :/ Anyone know the stats for a fine animated object?

[DracoDei]

Err... at a VERY quick guess (since you have 3 hours and 10 minutes as of this post VT has corrected me... about 25 hours as of this edit... so a reasonable amount of time...)

STR 1, DEX 20, CON -, INT - (probably... don't know your concept), Wisdom 1?, CHA 1?

HD 1/16d10 (1 hp)

[DracoDei]

In other news...
A few last minute edits on my entry... just added a simple dialog at the start and changed the subject line...