Converting Oriental Adventures creatures

[freyar]

Updating The General Working Draft.

I've redded in Combat Reflexes, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (bastard sword), Greater Weapon Focus (bastard sword), Improved Critical (bastard sword), Improved Unarmed Strike, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (bastard sword) as likely fighter feats. That still leaves his five regular feats.

That's a good start. I think we're likely to go with those, though we can always revise later if necessary.

I doubt there's anything I can do to help you with that from Merry Olde England.

I have no idea how I managed to paste that in from an unrelated email!

That looks pretty good. The original Great Kiai had the strength-increase last two rounds though.

I agree with the idea of making the Great Kiai a fixed number of uses - maybe four or six? If we make it six, I'd think we'd better increase the Strength bonus as well as its duration.

Oh, and shouldn't we give the Strength bonus a type? I'm thinking a morale bonus.

Kiai (Su): 13 times/day, the General can make a loud shout, which releases his ki and grants him a +4 morale bonus to Str for one round. Once per day, the kiai can be a great shout, which grants a +6 morale bonus to Str for 2 rounds and also stuns for one round all creatures within 10 ft who fail a DC X Fort save. This uses up 6 of the General's remaining uses of the kiai ability for the day. The save DC is Charisma-based.

That work?

 

[freyar]

I'm inclined to go with Dex 16, and I generally like those ability scores.

 

[Cleon]

That's a good start. I think we're likely to go with those, though we can always revise later if necessary.

There's mention of him being expert in iaijitsu, which leads me to think we should add Quick Draw and Improved Initiative to the feats.

That'd leave three feats undecided - any preferences for them?

Kiai (Su): 13 times/day, the General can make a loud shout, which releases his ki and grants him a +4 morale bonus to Str for one round. Once per day, the kiai can be a great shout, which grants a +6 morale bonus to Str for 2 rounds and also stuns for one round all creatures within 10 ft who fail a DC X Fort save. This uses up 6 of the General's remaining uses of the kiai ability for the day. The save DC is Charisma-based.

That work?

Works for me. I'd be willing to go up to +8 for the great kiai strength bonus, but +6 is fine.

I'm inclined to go with Dex 16, and I generally like those ability scores.

Fine by me.

Shall I update the Working Draft with the above?

 

[freyar]

Please do update.

As for feats, we get to use Deflect Arrows so rarely, we have to pick that one. Plus it makes sense. Combat Expertise and Dodge might both be ok.

 

[Cleon]

Please do update.

Updating The General Working Draft.

As for feats, we get to use Deflect Arrows so rarely, we have to pick that one. Plus it makes sense. Combat Expertise and Dodge might both be ok.

Combat Expertise and Deflect Arrows are good ideas, so I'll add them in.

I don't like Dodge unless we want to use it as a prerequisite - which we can't since it's out of feats - so how about something in the Combat Expertise or Power Attack trees?

Something like Cleave, Improved Disarm, Improved Feint, Improved Sunder, or Improved Trip.

 

[freyar]

Good call, we don't use those so much either. I think I'd pick Imp Disarm, but really any of the "improved combat maneuvers" feats would be good.

 

[Cleon]

Good call, we don't use those so much either. I think I'd pick Imp Disarm, but really any of the "improved combat maneuvers" feats would be good.

Well Cleave's probably the most practical of the options, but I'd rather go for one that's a bit more interesting too.

Might as well be Disarm, then.

Updating The General Working Draft.

 

[Cleon]

Okay, I guess we'd better start on the other special abilities.

Any preference for the order, or shall we just go through them alphabetically - in which case it's the crimson katana first.

 

[freyar]

Sure, katana it is.

Crimson Katana: Sword +1, flames to +2; user can blink as blink dog once per level per day; evilly aligned (causing damage to good and neutral characters); teleports to user’s hand when disturbed.

+1 flaming katana that allows the general to blink per the spell X/day. I feel like the "teleports to hand" ability might appear in the Magic Item Compendium, so we might be able to crib from that. And I guess it's intelligent. That would argue it's not just super-magic for the general but keeps its powers when someone else uses it.

 

[Cleon]

Sure, katana it is.

Crimson Katana: Sword +1, flames to +2; user can blink as blink dog once per level per day; evilly aligned (causing damage to good and neutral characters); teleports to user’s hand when disturbed.

+1 flaming katana that allows the general to blink per the spell X/day. I feel like the "teleports to hand" ability might appear in the Magic Item Compendium, so we might be able to crib from that. And I guess it's intelligent. That would argue it's not just super-magic for the general but keeps its powers when someone else uses it.

There's no mention of it being intelligent, but in AD&D a sword has to be intelligent to have an alignment or to do ego-damage to dissimilar alignment creatures who handle it - although it'd have been nice for it to have an ego score to indicate how much that damage is!

It appears to be a +1/+2 weapon with two extraordinary powers and no ability to speak, so would have an EGO of 7 according to the 1E Dungeon Master's Guide, which also tells us it most likely has Intelligence 12 and empathy.

Anyhow, I agree we should make it treasure that can be looted once the General is killed - although I would suggest they would have to permanently destroy the General to be able to keep it (if only because if the General still exists the sword would teleport back to him whenever he calls it).

A normal 13th level fighter NPC has a gear value of 35,000 gold pieces, so that seems a decent target number for much loot we ought to give the General, and his magic sword ought to be a hefty chunk of that.