Saturday 1 May 2010

Wandering Monsters

Herewith is the hard work of banesfinger, who has converted the Wandering Monster chart for Stolen Land:

Wandering Monsters (Stolen Land, pg 75)


2d3 Bandits, with bows & shortswords (FC, pg 101)

1d4 Boars (FC, pg 103)

1d2 Boggards (Toad, Giant; FC, pg 148)

1 Brush Thylacine (Dire Wolf; FC, pg 112)

1d6 Elk (- non combat)

1 Faerie Dragon (see below)

1d4 Grig (see below)

1 Grizzly bear (SWEX, pg.145)

1 Hunter (use bandit stats)

1d8 Kobolds (use goblins; SWEX, pg. 149, but add light sensitivity -1 in daylight)

1d8 Mites (see below)

1 Nixie (see below)

1 Owlbear (see below)

1 Shambling mound (Siren Bush, FC, pg 146)

1 Slurk (use Moss Man; FC, pg 136, but “spores” becomes “grease” and uses Agility to avoid shaken/greased).

1 Tatzlwyrm (see below).

1d4 Trolls (FC, pg 150)

1 Werewolf (Wildcard, SWEX, pg 156).

1 Giant whiptail centipede (FC, pg 107: add Tail Lash: reach 2”, can sweep all opponents as a standard Fighting attack (at -2 attack and damage).

1 Will-O-Whisp (FC, pg 153).

1d6 Wolves (SWEX, pg 146)

1 Worg (use Dire Wolf; SWEX, pg 146)

Faerie Dragon

Faerie dragons are whimsical, playful pranksters that spend most of their time engaged in some sort of trick or joke.

Faerie dragons avoid combat unless there is no other option or their small treetop communities are threatened. If forced, faerie dragons attempt to confound their enemies rather than kill them, using their spells and breath weapon to weaken and scatter foes before fleeing.


Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d8, Spirit d10, Strength d4, Vigor d8

Skills: Fighting d4, Notice d10, Stealth d10

Pace: 5; Parry: 4; Toughness: 4

Special Abilities:

Breath Weapon: a euphoric gas puffs using the Cone Template. Every target within this cone may make a Spirit roll at –2 to avoid the effects. Those who fail are shaken for 1 round. In addition, they suffer 1 level of fatigue and are immune to fear for 1d6 rounds.

Flight: Faerie dragons have a Flying Pace of 6”.

Size –2: they measure only 12” in length.

Small: Opponents must subtract –2 from attack rolls against the Faerie due to its small size.

Invisibility: they can become completely invisible with a successful Smarts roll and can remain that way indefinitely.

Magic: they have 10 Power Points and know the following powers: confusion, Legerdemain, Light, and Slumber.



Grig

Grigs look like cat-sized fey with the lower bodies and wings of crickets. They have light blue skin, forest-green hair, and brown hairy legs, and usually wear tunics or brightly colored vests with buttons made from tiny gems. Grigs are fierce by sprite standards, attacking opponents fearlessly with bow and dagger.


Attributes: Agility d10, Smarts d8, Spirit d10, Strength d4, Vigor d4

Skills: Fighting d4, Notice d10, Stealth d10

Pace: 5; Parry: 4; Toughness: 3 (1)

Special Abilities:

Flight: Grigs have a Flying Pace of 6”.

Size –2: A grig stands 1-1/2 feet tall and weighs about 1 pound.

Small: Opponents must subtract –2 from attack rolls against the grig due to its small size.

Invisibility: they can become completely invisible with a successful Smarts roll and can remain that way indefinitely.

Magic: they have 10 Power Points and know the following powers: disguise (self only), Entangle.

Fey: their fey heritage adds +1 armor which is ignored if attacked with cold iron weapons.

Mite

This squat humanoid seems to be nearly all head—an unfortunate circumstance, considering how ugly its puffy blue face is (Charisma -4).


Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d4

Skills: Climb d6, Fighting d6, Notice d6, Taunt d6, Stealth d8, Throwing d6, Swim d6

Pace: 5; Parry: 5; Toughness: 4 (1)

Gear: Dagger (Str+d4)

Special Abilities

Infravision: Mites halve penalties for dark lighting against living targets (round down).

Size -1: Mites stand 3’ tall and weight 40lbs.

Light Sensitivity: Mites suffer -1 in sunlight.

Fey: their fey heritage adds +1 armor which is ignored if attacked with cold iron weapons.

Magic: Mites can cast the following powers: Beast Friend (insect/vermin only), Fear. They have 10 power points.




Nixie

Naiads are fresh water spirits.

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d10, Spirit d10, Strength d6, Vigor d6

Skills: Fighting d4, Notice d10, Perform (singing) d10, Persuasion d8, Shooting d6,

Stealth d10, Swimming d10.

Charisma: +1; Pace: 6; Parry: 4; Toughness: 5 (1)

Gear: Short Sword (str+d6) and Crossbow (2d6)

Special Abilities:

Aquatic: Nixies have a Pace of 6” underwater.

Size -1: Nixies stand 4’ tall and weight 45lbs.

Fey: their fey heritage adds +1 armor which is ignored if attacked with cold iron weapons.

Magic: (uses Perform) Naiads have 10 Power Points and know the following powers: environmental protection (underwater), and Puppet.


OwlBear (wild card)

An owl-bear has the body and vitality of a bear coupled with the head of an owl. It is an unholy mish-mash of fur and feathers. It breeds in the wild and possesses a horrible disposition, attacking humans unrelentingly on sight.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d6, Strength d12+1, Vigor d10

Skills: Fighting d8, Notice d6

Pace: 6; Parry: 6; Toughness: 9

Special Abilities

Claws: Strength +d6

Gouge & Rend: An owl-bear that gets a raise on its attack roll has pinned (grappled) his foe. The opponent may only attempt to escape the “hug” on his action, which is an opposed Strength roll. Once grappled, the Owlbear rends (grapple - opposed Str roll for damage) and gouges them with its beak (for an additional d4 grapple damage).

Infravision: Half penalty for poor light vs. heat producing targets.

Size +2: An owl-bear is the size of a grizzly bear.


Tatzlwyrm

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d8, Vigor d8

Skills: Climbing d6, Fighting d8, Intimidation d8, Notice d8, Stealth d8 (+2 in woods)

Pace: 6; Parry: 6; Toughness: 7 (1)

Hindrances:

Edges: Quick (ignore 5 or less on initiative)

Special Abilities:

Armor +1: Scaly hide.

Bite/Claws: Str+d4.

Low Light Vision: ignore penalties for Dim and Dark lighting.

Poison Breath: the Tatzlwyrm can gasp out puffs of poison gas. This uses the small template (centered on the wyrm). Any target in the template must make a Vigor roll or suffer from this minor poison. Each day, the victim must make a Vigor roll or gain a level of Fatigue. A successful Healing roll (at –2) removes the poison. Fatigue levels recover at one per day once the poison is removed.


I really like these conversions a lot - I was working on a faerie dragon, but this version is much better! Likewise the Tatzlewyrm. Rather than using goblins to represent kobolds, I would be inclined to use this Savagepedia conversion. In the case of boggards, I feel they are different enough from their animal brethren to warrant a different stat-block. Something else to look at!

Thanks again, banesfinger!

4 comments:

  1. Just a note about conversions:
    We have completed 3 sessions now and the group has explored areas: C, E, F, G, J, K, P & Q.

    In all of the combats, the monsters have been woefully inadequate. Take for example area G: the Radish Patch. The encounter calls for 1 Kobold per PC to make a "CR1" (or even) encounter. I assumed these kobolds were "Extras" and doubled the amount for Savage Worlds (4x2=8) and they still got slaughtered.

    After reading more on S.W. encounter balance I found out this should have been 6x (or even 8x the amount if the PCs have high toughness). So here is the 'rub': how do you explain 32 kobolds in a radish patch? What happens to the Sootscale or Mite conversions: will I need 100's of these creatures?

    You may want to adjust the wandering monster tables to account for this (at a minimum, double the creatures if you make them 'extras').

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  2. Interesting stuff. I too found that the initial bandit encounter was a cakewalk for the PCs (6 of them) as they planned well and rolled extremely well.

    I will have to consider the set up for each encounter area carefully.

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  3. Another thing to consider is Pathfinder's encounters against a single big-bad guy (e.g. H: Spider's nest, J: Elk Temple's bear, etc).

    In Pathfinder, these are challenging encounters. But in S.W., a single Big-Bad (even if he is a wild card) is quickly killed by the group.

    I attribute this to "Incredible Acing Head Shot of Doom" (see this fellow's blog post about the subject: http://www.grogtard.com/?p=474 ).

    To stay challenging, most Savage Worlds encounters have a Big-Bad who is protected by lots of extras. But this doesn't really make any sense in a few of the Stolen Lands encounters (e.g. J: elk temple bear). Perhaps encounters like this need to be radically changed (now there is a cursed bear, wolf and cougar - all working together to guard the temple...? ).

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  4. I considered this myself - it's a sort of similar problem to how encounters with a single wild animal don't work in 4E unless it's a souped up solo. I don't have a solution yet myself.

    ReplyDelete