Converting Al-Qadim creatures

[Shade]

I'd rather keep the Ethereal Shift to the standardized "Ethereal Jaunt" ability.

Hmmm....the more I look at these, the more I think they should be always incorporeal on the Material Plane. The AC, for example, is waaaay too good for Dex alone, and natural armor makes no sense. If we're giving them the deflection bonus anyway, I'd rather it follow the normal rules for incorporeal creatures (equal to Cha modifier). They are essentially non-undead versions of the ghost, which works this way.

I have a feeling you're going to strongly disagree with this non-exception-based design.

Calling all tiebreakers...anyone here?

 

[Cleon]

I'd rather keep the Ethereal Shift to the standardized "Ethereal Jaunt" ability.

Hmmm....the more I look at these, the more I think they should be always incorporeal on the Material Plane. The AC, for example, is waaaay too good for Dex alone, and natural armor makes no sense. If we're giving them the deflection bonus anyway, I'd rather it follow the normal rules for incorporeal creatures (equal to Cha modifier). They are essentially non-undead versions of the ghost, which works this way.

I have a feeling you're going to strongly disagree with this non-exception-based design.

Calling all tiebreakers...anyone here?

There's little in the description to suggest they've got the Incorporeal subtype. They may be "difficult to hurt because they are only partially tethered to the Prime Material Plane", but it doesn't require magical weapons to hit them.

I might be persuaded to give them a "semi-incorporeal" trait that is basically a weaker version of incorporeality - can be hit by nonmagical weapons, and material attackers only have a 20% miss chance.

Of course, that's an exception-based solution, so you won't like it.

 

[Shade]

There's little in the description to suggest they've got the Incorporeal subtype. They may be "difficult to hurt because they are only partially tethered to the Prime Material Plane", but it doesn't require magical weapons to hit them.

I might be persuaded to give them a "semi-incorporeal" trait that is basically a weaker version of incorporeality - can be hit by nonmagical weapons, and material attackers only have a 20% miss chance.

Of course, that's an exception-based solution, so you won't like it.

You're right about that, although I might be persuaded to give 'em a continous blur effect or something similar to a displacer beast.

 

[Cleon]

You're right about that, although I might be persuaded to give 'em a continous blur effect or something similar to a displacer beast.

Well it does describe them as being semi-transparent during the night, so I suppose that could be "blur-like".

Besides, a miss chance is a miss chance. It makes little difference what you call it as far as the rules go. How about...

Semi-Ethereal (Ex): A hama exists simultaneously on both the Ethereal and Material Planes, except for when the hama uses its Ethereal Shift ability (see above) to fully manifest on the Ethereal Plane. Normally, a hama has a partial existence on the Material Plane, giving material opponents a 20% miss chance when attacking a hama. A material opponent can use a ghost touch weapon to attack a hama without this miss chance. Ethereal opponents never have this miss chance when attacking a hama. A hama can attack both material and ethereal opponents without penalty (unless it's using Ethereal Shift, in which case it can only attach ethereal foes).

A hama has two home planes, the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane. It is not considered extraplanar when on either of these planes.

 

[freyar]

Ugh, I prefer incorporeal with some form of materialization. But if I have to choose, I like the semi-ethereal in the working draft over the new one.

And I'd prefer the deflection bonus to be +Cha.

 

[Cleon]

Ugh, I prefer incorporeal with some form of materialization. But if I have to choose, I like the semi-ethereal in the working draft over the new one.

I don't know, you try to please someone and the other guy dislikes it even more...

And I'd prefer the deflection bonus to be +Cha.

But then it'd need a Charisma of 20-21 to get the +5 bonus its original stats indicate.

 

[Shade]

But then it'd need a Charisma of 20-21 to get the +5 bonus its original stats indicate.

We could definitely boost the Dex more. The thing had a 2e fly speed of 30", which is pretty damn agile in most cases.

 

[Cleon]

We could definitely boost the Dex more. The thing had a 2e fly speed of 30", which is pretty damn agile in most cases.

But that wouldn't solve the problem, since their Dex modifier to AC surely applies against attacks from the Ethereal plane.

 

[Shade]

At 1 HD it's AC is ludicrous anyway, so we might as well just keep Dex the same and lower the deflection bonus equal to Cha.

 

[Cleon]

At 1 HD it's AC is ludicrous anyway, so we might as well just keep Dex the same and lower the deflection bonus equal to Cha.

AC 18 doesn't seem that fabulous to me.

The SRD Grig has that Armor Class and its Hit Die is even lower.