Kraken Variants

[Cleon]

I just meant your choice of the same slam damage for both, though maybe it's worth dropping the slams from the female to give the males some kind of advantage. Or we could reverse the damage and give males 2d6 and females 1d10 (or even less if you prefer).

The AD&D stat blocks listed 7 tentacle attacks plus 2 fist attacks in NO. OF ATTACKS, its just the Combat text omitted to say how much the female's fists did.

Anyhows, I'm fine giving both sexes the same base fist damage. We gave the 3.0 conversion 2d6 damage for the slams, which is the same as a standard humanoid's 1d3 unarmed strike scaled up to Colossal. That's OK, but I would not be adverse to increasing the punching power.

As previously mentioned, the 1E version could, and I quote, "attack with its fists for 4d10 points of damage each" so there is precedent for a bit more than the piddling 1d10 punches of the 2E version.

Maybe the Monstrous Compendium entry just put the wrong number in front of the d10?

 

[freyar]

Oh, let's just give them both 4d10. Why not?

What do you want to deal with next?

 

[Cleon]

Oh, let's just give them both 4d10. Why not?

Hmm, so long as it does a bit less with its punching than if it picks up a decent weapon I'm OK with its.

Let's see, a Colossal katana does 6d8 damage which averages to 27. That's more than the 22 average of 4d10.

Although that begs the question of what its damage becomes should it gain the Improved Natural Attack (slam) feat since 4d10 isn't on the standard damage progression.

Guess we could make it a slightly more modest 4d8 instead.

 

[freyar]

I'm not that fussed either way. If you want it in the standard progression, 4d8 is fine by me.

 

[Cleon]

I'm not that fussed either way. If you want it in the standard progression, 4d8 is fine by me.

Let's use 4d8 then.

Updating the Male Krakentua Working Draft and Female Krakentua Working Draft.

 

[freyar]

OK, there's a lot blank. Go with the wakizasha for the weapon attack?
What do you think about the tentacle reach? Gargantuan kraken have 60 ft tentacles. Want to boost that to 80 or 100?

 

[Cleon]

OK, there's a lot blank. Go with the wakizasha for the weapon attack?

I'm currently favouring the Medium katana for 1d10 base damage as that's what the original monster preferred. It wouldn't be hard for a supermonster in D&D Fantasy Japan to find enough human-scale katanas for all its limbs.

It's important to nail down what weapons its tentacles can wield and express that as a Special Attack ability or in the Tactics flavour text.

My initial idea was they can wield up to a Medium 2H weapon (e.g. human-scale greatsword), a Large standard weapon (e.g. ogre-scale longsword) or a Huge light weapon (e.g. giant-scale shortsword) so the base damage maxes out at around 2d6, or 2d8 if it's lucky enough to acquire a Large katana from an Oni or the like.

What do you think about the tentacle reach? Gargantuan kraken have 60 ft tentacles. Want to boost that to 80 or 100?

Well all the illustrations show the face-tentacles as being too short to reach the ground so unless they can stretch out like elastic they can't be 100 feet long.

OA7 Test of the Samurai has two illustrations, both of which show tentacles roughly as long as its humanoid arms. Which'd suggest a reach of 30 or 40 feet if the height is 100 feet. The flavour text in encounter 27. Guardian’s Cavern mentions "each of its seven 30 foot long tentacles" which supports the former.

MC6 - Monstrous Compendium Kara-Tur Appendix shows tentacles about the same length, or 30-40 feet, but the flavour text has "Seven tentacles extend from its head, each nearly 20 feet long."

Come to think of it, if its 80 to 100 feet tall could its regular Space and Reach be higher than the usual 30 ft./30 ft.? A hundred feet is a good 50% bigger than the base 64 ft. of a Colossal creature and they're supposed to be one of the biggest monsters in Kara-Tur with only the biggest Gargantua exceeding their size.

We could make their Space/Reach 40/40 since a Humanoid Gargantua is 50/50 and a Reptilian Gargantua 50/40.

Maybe we could have the Females be 40 ft. space and around 100 feet tall and the Males 30 ft. Space and 80 feet tall. Female krakentua are a lot more powerful than males so they might be significantly bigger.

 

[freyar]

Females 100 ft tall with 40 ft/40 ft space and reach and males 80 ft tall with 30/30 is good for me.

Giving the base monster Medium katanas is ok by me, but I also wouldn't be averse to giving it a couple of larger weapons. It also seems logical to me that they could wield weapons with their hands, so they could have katanas with the tentacles and something larger in each hand.

 

[Cleon]

Females 100 ft tall with 40 ft/40 ft space and reach and males 80 ft tall with 30/30 is good for me.

So are we still giving the tentacles 10 feet more reach like the current Enworld version?

e.g.:

Male—Space/Reach: 30 ft/30 ft (40 ft with tentacles)
Female—Space/Reach: 40 ft/40 ft (50 ft with tentacles)
​

Giving the base monster Medium katanas is ok by me, but I also wouldn't be averse to giving it a couple of larger weapons. It also seems logical to me that they could wield weapons with their hands, so they could have katanas with the tentacles and something larger in each hand.

None of the officially published krakentua had weapons for their enormous hands, either in their Monster Manual/Compendium entries or appearances in OA2 Night of the Seven Swords (1986) or OA7 Test of the Samurai (1989*). Perhaps they don't have any giant smiths to make Colossal weapons for them?

As such, I would be against include a primary weapon in their standard statblock.

However, I wouldn't be adverse to mentioning it as a possibility in the Combat section, perhaps with a sample case. Such as:

Some rare krakentua are lucky enough to own weapons sized for their giant hands. If armed with a Colossal weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack and, if it has its off-hand free, a slam as a natural secondary attack. These weapons are often also potent magic items, such as a +4 glaive or +2 wakizasha of wounding. Such krakentua may have a Challenge Rating bonus due to their superior equipment and usually have levels in a martial class as well, see the male krakentua bushi for an example.
​

* Incidentally, while Wikipedia says OA7 Test of the Samurai was published in 1990, the PDF of it I downloaded from the Wizards of the Coast's now defunct website has "Copyright 1989" on the credits page.

The interested reader can still get it from the Internet Archive if they're bothered.

 

[Cleon]

These weapons are often also potent magic items, such as a +4 glaive or +2 wakizasha of wounding.

Come to think of it, a Colossal wakizasha does 4d6 base damage but the current draft has its slams do 4d8 damage.

Isn't having it do more damage with its bare hands than a weapon a bit skewed?

Although I guess it'd help explain why they don't favour Colossal weapons, although the iterative attacks still make them more effective when Full attacking, we could consider reducing the slam damage so it's the same or slightly less than an equivalently scaled Shortsword.

So perhaps either 2d10, 3d6, 3d8 or 4d6 for the slams?

That's still better than the 2d6 damage the current Krakentuas have, which was simply an unarmed strike's 1d3 damage scaled up to Colossal if I remember the discussion when we originally converted them.