Modifying Under Performing SRD Monsters, or "Building A Better Otyugh"

[Cleon]

Here's my proposal for Pin Underfoot.

First, I'd add a kick attack:

Attack: Bite +20 melee (3d6+18/ 19-20) or kick +19 melee (2d6+6)
Full Attack: Bite +20 melee (3d6+18/ 19-20) and kick +14 melee (2d6+6)
​

I didn't change the +1½ damage bonus of the bite attack, there are precedent for multiple natural weapons with a "big damage" bonus.

Pin Underfoot (Ex): When a Tyrannosaurus hits an opponent with a kick attack it may try to pin its opponent to the ground provided its foe is either of a smaller size category than the Tyrannosaurus, or the same size category and in the prone condition. This requires a successful grapple check and does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

A Tyrannosaurus must release an opponent from its Pin Underfoot if it wants to move, it can not use a grapple check to move with its opponent unless it holds them with its jaws.

As long as it can maintain its pin, the Tyrannosaurus gains a +4 circumstance bonus to a bite or Worry attack directed at its pinned opponent.

If the pinned opponent is the same size or one size less than the Tyrannosaurus, they both suffer the normal consequences of grappling (flat-footed, no threatened squares, no move). If the pinned foe is two or more size categories smaller than the Tyrannosaurus, the Tyrannosaurus is not considered flat-footed relative to other opponents and can threaten adjacent squares normally, although it still cannot move.​

 

[freyar]

The feats look fine, but does it really need Improved Critical (bite)? We can just artibrarily give its bite a 19-20 critical, or give it the feat as a Bonus Feat, which could be justifiable based on its jaws' terrible strength. That would free room for another feat. I'd be tempted by Combat Reflexes for the extra opportunity of attack.

Could do a Powerful Bite SA, perhaps. But I wonder if we're getting too many for a simple animal, even one as cool as TRex.

I really like the suggestion I saw on the Pathfinder forums that monsters spit out swallowed foes that damage it rather than they carve themselves out of their body. Could we modify the text to allow for that?

That's funny, I did a monster (the quelzarn) with that ability just last summer! Follow my sig to "More Realmsian Creatures."

 

[demiurge1138]

Ferocity is a rather small window to be sure, but it's as realistic to give it to a T. rex as it is to give it to a boar or a bear. I boosted the Con of my T. rex in order to keep it competitive with dire animals--the dire tiger's got more hit dice, but a lower Con. Also my rationale for the high Str and Dex.

I'd rather not give it pin underfoot for the mechanical grey area of the secondary natural attack but 1.5 Str bonus to the bite (although the or was a good solution), and to avoid giving it yet another grapple option. It's got plenty of those.

You're right about the worry damage in the text versus that in the stat-block. I'll fix it.

Have you seen the growth curve for T. rex? It's on their Wikipedia entry, and it suggests that the largest tyrannosaurs weren't that much bigger than the average. I'll keep 40 feet long as the average then, since the largest specimen known is 43 feet long.

I briefly contemplated augmented critical as a SA, but that tends to be reserved for very keen blades or else massively oversized teeth, like Smilodon. Good suggestion on Combat Reflexes... but I think I'll stick to Improved Critical.

And you do have an obsession with the short statblocks of different sizes, don't you? It might be tricker than that, though. Allometric studies of tyrannosaurs suggest that the juveniles might have had more powerful arms (hence the claw attacks I gave to this guy back when he was a subadult V. rex), which did not grow in proportion to the rest of the body as they aged.

 

[Cleon]

Could do a Powerful Bite SA, perhaps. But I wonder if we're getting too many for a simple animal, even one as cool as TRex.

Yes, neither Powerful Bite or Pin Underfoot are special abilities I'd kick up a big fuss about including, I just thought I'd throw them out and see if they stuck.

 

[Cleon]

Ferocity is a rather small window to be sure, but it's as realistic to give it to a T. rex as it is to give it to a boar or a bear. I boosted the Con of my T. rex in order to keep it competitive with dire animals--the dire tiger's got more hit dice, but a lower Con. Also my rationale for the high Str and Dex.

I'd rather just drop Ferocity altogether. It's quite likely the Tyrannosaurus will be knocked from positive hps to -10 or less in one round, and even if it does end up in the low negatives it's unlikely to stay in the dying state for more than a round. Still, it doesn't hurt to keep it.

As for the Str, Con and Dex (and the natural armour too), are we aiming for a "Dire-type" Tyrannosaurus or a regular one? If it is a Dire version then we can excuse some of its more sensational attributes.

But if we are aiming for a regular animal, its physical stats are probably too high.

I'd rather not give it pin underfoot for the mechanical grey area of the secondary natural attack but 1.5 Str bonus to the bite (although the or was a good solution), and to avoid giving it yet another grapple option. It's got plenty of those.

I'm fine with you not including it. It can always use regular grapple & pin attacks if it wants to, which should be good enough for most purposes.

My main motive for including it would be to allow the dinosaur to hold some poor PC underfoot while it snaps at the rest of the party, which it can't do according to RAW as a grappling opponent doesn't threaten.

Have you seen the growth curve for T. rex? It's on their Wikipedia entry, and it suggests that the largest tyrannosaurs weren't that much bigger than the average. I'll keep 40 feet long as the average then, since the largest specimen known is 43 feet long.

Yes, I've read about that the study suggesting T rex development went slow-growing babies, fast-growing juveniles, slow-growing adults and am, of course, familiar with Sue. That's one reason I gave an upper limit of 45' (slightly bigger than sue) and ten short tons (which is possibly a bit of an exaggeration).

Basically, I was assuming that your sample was still a young adult, near the lower end of the Huge size range (32' including tail).

If we're limiting ourselves to actual specimens, what's the justification for extending Advancement into Gargantuan? That's supposed to be 16-64 tons, well above the realistic bodyweight of a Tyrannosaurus.

Wouldn't a realistic version of a Tyrannosaurus have Advancement something like 13-24HD (Huge)?

That reminds me, I meant to put 5 tons not 4 in post #19's suggested description, I think I'll change my proposal to:

Tyrannosaurus rex, the tyrant lizard king, is among the mightiest of the dinosaurs and one of the greatest natural predators to ever live. A typical tyrannosaurus is more than 30 feet long from nose to tail and stands around twelve feet tall, weighing 5 tons or more. The biggest specimens reach 45 feet long and 10 tons in weight, standing nearly eighteen feet tall at the hip. Females tend to be slightly larger than males.
​

I briefly contemplated augmented critical as a SA, but that tends to be reserved for very keen blades or else massively oversized teeth, like Smilodon. Good suggestion on Combat Reflexes... but I think I'll stick to Improved Critical.

That's fine, I can still use it for my Primal Rex. I fear that thing's going to end up rather overloaded, I usually get carried away when designing beasties.

And you do have an obsession with the short statblocks of different sizes, don't you? It might be tricker than that, though. Allometric studies of tyrannosaurs suggest that the juveniles might have had more powerful arms (hence the claw attacks I gave to this guy back when he was a subadult V. rex), which did not grow in proportion to the rest of the body as they aged.

It's not an obsession, I can give them up anytime I like.

Of course if you add claws you end up with the "mechanical grey area of the secondary natural attack but 1.5 Str bonus to the bite" you mentioned earlier. I'll have to check your World of Kong dinos and see how you tackled that.

Still, their is a paleontological case for giving it claw attacks, since there's a good chance even adult Tyrannosaurs used them for grappling prey. We could just assume that the arms are involved in its regular Improved Grab when it bites, and add a bit of flavour text to that effect.

Hmm... I could apply the same argument for its feet occasionally contributing to Improved Grab when it bites. It's just a matter of descriptive colour, after all.

 

[demiurge1138]

Well, I mentioned raking with arms and legs in the worry text this time around, which helps explain its mighty damage dealing capabilities. The juvenile V. rex I posted earlier in this thread has claw attacks, and doesn't do 1.5 damage with its bite.

And yes, I am trying to make the T. rex compatible and competitive with dire animals. They're both animals, they fill a similar niche in D&D worlds (Frostburn, at least, shows us that dire animals = prehistoric beasties).

 

[Cleon]

Well, I mentioned raking with arms and legs in the worry text this time around, which helps explain its mighty damage dealing capabilities. The juvenile V. rex I posted earlier in this thread has claw attacks, and doesn't do 1.5 damage with its bite.

And yes, I am trying to make the T. rex compatible and competitive with dire animals. They're both animals, they fill a similar niche in D&D worlds (Frostburn, at least, shows us that dire animals = prehistoric beasties).

Oh sorry, the claws & talons bit in Worry hadn't registered. I'd read the Vastatosaurus version and not noticed the Tyrannosaurus's was different.

Sorry if I seem to be making a lot of fuss over the design, I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate.

I have no objection to a Dire-compatible dinosaur, indeed I'd prefer them to be like that to meet fantasy's exaggerated expectations for prehistoric beasts. I just wanted it to be clear up-front that's what we're doing.

Anyhows, so what about the size question? Should a 'realistic' Tyrannosaurus reach Gargantuan?

One other thought, Tyrannosaurus was supposedly equipped with one of the most highly developed senses of smell the world has ever known. While scent alone can represent this, especially since it Demiurge's version has a higher Wisdom and a Survival bonus, we could substitute a boosted version of scent, something like:

Enhanced Scent (Ex): This functions like the scent special quality (q.v.), except that it has double the range of regular scent (60 ft. normally, 120 ft. upwind and 30 ft. downwind), and the Tyrannosaurus has a +4 racial bonus on scent checks, which stacks with its racial bonus to Survival for purposes of tracking.

That may be too much fiddling, though. We'd likely need to tweak the Skill section to mention it as well.

Oh, while I'm on the subject of senses & racial bonuses, I'm just a little leery about the +4 to Listen. Reptiles don't tend to have as good hearing as mammals, and while there's good evidence for Tyrannosaurus having excellent senses of smell and eyesight, it may not have been so strong in the hearing department.

Maybe drop the racial bonus to Listen back to +2, like it is in the SRD?

 

[demiurge1138]

I considerd keen scent, but in the end discarded it as too much fiddling. Ditto for dropping one racial bonus over another. It causes more accounting, and besides, a much better basis of comparison would be to birds, which can hear just fine (some troodontids even had asymmetrical ears, like owls do, to create better 3D environments through sound alone).

 

[Cleon]

I considerd keen scent, but in the end discarded it as too much fiddling. Ditto for dropping one racial bonus over another. It causes more accounting, and besides, a much better basis of comparison would be to birds, which can hear just fine (some troodontids even had asymmetrical ears, like owls do, to create better 3D environments through sound alone).

Well it's a matter of degree. If I remember correctly most birds have hearing roughly as good as humans, while a lot of mammals have better hearing than humans. Also, avians generally can't hear as high pitches as mammals (which is one factor in why the few birds with echo-location aren't anything like as good at it as bats are).

The only SRD creatures with Listen racial bonuses of +4 or higher are animals noted for their extraordinary hearing, such as bats or owls, who rely on their hearing for hunting. A Tyrannosaurus probably hunted by smell and sight, not hearing, so I don't see why its Listen bonus needs to be increased from the SRD, although I do support increasing its Spot racial bonus.

Speaking of the SRD's racial bonuses to Listen, if we ever are ever bored enough to 'Bettering' the more minor SRD creatures I'd boost the Bat's Listen racial bonus up to +8 or +10, to match an Owl or Destrachan, and give a +4 or so to the Cat, Lion and Leopard ,who currently don't get any racial boost to hearing, which is a pretty gratuitous error in my opinion.

 

[demiurge1138]

The deinonychus in the SRD has a +8 racial bonus to Listen checks.