Spelljammer Converting Spelljammer creatures

[Cleon]

1d10 minutes for evaporation time is fine.

I certainly wouldn't go more than 1d4 minutes for sickened, and I might prefer 1d2 or 1d3. Anyone have a strong opinion?

I'll give you the shorter sickened duration. Which do you prefer?

 

[freyar]

Umm, let's do 1d3 minutes. Err, do the basic ones need any more special abilities?

 

[Cleon]

Umm, let's do 1d3 minutes. Err, do the basic ones need any more special abilities?

Updating Standard Gossamer Working Draft.

 

[freyar]

CR 1/4?

These look pretty close to done, mechanically speaking. I think I'd increase the tentacle length to 5ft to go with the reach, but that's all.

 

[Cleon]

CR 1/4?

I guess so. They're arguably a bit less dangerous than the 1/3 CR Tiny Viper, what with their poison only incapacitating foes.

Updating Standard Gossamer Working Draft.

Oh dang, I forgot the 1 point acid damage the sting does. Better amend the Attack lines.

These look pretty close to done, mechanically speaking. I think I'd increase the tentacle length to 5ft to go with the reach, but that's all.

Well humans don't have five foot long arms and they have 5 ft. Reach, so it doesn't seem necessary to increase the tentacle length.

Incidentally, I derived the 4 foot tentacle length by taking the 500 foot maximum length of the Noble Gossamer's tentacles and dividing it by the 128 typical length ratio between a Colossal creature and a Diminutive creature, so both types of Gossamer have similar tentacle proportions.

 

[Arnwyn]

I like it.

 

[Cleon]

I like it.

Is that a general liking or a Standard Gossamer four-foot tentacle length liking?

 

[freyar]

What's not to like?

Tactics: Gossamers are mostly scavengers but also opportunistic predators, willing to sting creatures smaller than themselves. A gossamer that attacks a larger object has probably run into it accidentally.

 

[Cleon]

What's not to like?

Tactics: Gossamers are mostly scavengers but also opportunistic predators, willing to sting creatures smaller than themselves. A gossamer that attacks a larger object has probably run into it accidentally.

How's this:

A jellyfish floats in space, its translucent body glows with cool colors that flow across its skin in waves. The creature's no larger than a mundane jellyfish – it's about the size of a halfling's head with radiating tentacles over a yard long.

Gossamers are basically what they appear to be, a relative of jellyfish that lives in space. They gather in vast shoals which are normally encountered in asteroid belts and space sargassos, but do sometimes travel across open space. Their beautiful color display appear to be some sort of communication with other gossamers in their shoal. A relaxed gossamer glows green, blue or purple, with the occasional flicker of yellow or orange. Alarmed gossamers flash bright red and amber, so whenever something threatens a shoal waves of red and amber radiate out from the danger point.

A gossamer's body is mostly empty space and incredibly fragile. It will collapse and die under its own weight if it encounters a gravity field or air envelope stronger than its own. Standard gossamers are scavengers who mainly live off whatever organic detritus they can find, although they will attack other creatures smaller than themselves.

A standard gossamer is 6 inches in diameter and weighs a fraction of an ounce. Its stinging tentacles are up to 4 feet long.

Combat
Standard gossamers only prey on Fine sized creatures, but will sting Tiny opponents in self defense. They instinctively avoid creatures and objects that are Small size or larger, since their mere proximity is fatal to a gossamer (see Voidborn, below). The only way a standard gossamer is likely to hurt a larger opponent is if the latter accidentally touches the gossamer's deliquescing corpse.

 

[Cleon]

A gossamer's body is mostly empty space and incredibly fragile. It will collapse and die under its own weight if it encounters a gravity field or air envelope stronger than its own.

Come to think of it, how would a Gossamer Swarm attack anything larger than Diminutive size if its individual gossamers melt as soon as they get near it?

How about if the "effective mass" of a Gossamer Swarm equals the total weight of all the Standard Gossamers in it.

A flying swarm of Diminutive creatures typically numbers 5,000 individuals. If each Gossamer weighed 1/4 of an ounce, that'd add up to about 80 pounds, allowing them to attack most Small opponents without dying.

If we made it half an ounce it'd be 156 pounds, or 312.5 pounds if each Gossamer weighed an ounce.

We can fiddle around with the individual Gossamer's weights to set the Swarm mass to suit us. It depends whether we want them swarming a Small or Medium sized opponent.

In either case, I'd have the Gossamer Swarm take damage each time it swarm attacks a Tiny or larger creature, due to members of its swarm melting as they contact the enemy.