Seastars with high AC - 5e idea?

[Casimir Liber]

This news story is interesting...so who wants to create a high-AC giant sea star predator?

A diamondlike structure gives some starfish skeletons their strength

 

[Cleon]

This news story is interesting...so who wants to create a high-AC giant sea star predator?

A diamondlike structure gives some starfish skeletons their strength

The link goes to some Oz celebrity news page, nothing about starfish, but a quick internet search turned up plenty of pages with that title (here's a ScienceNews version).

Come to think of it, there's an AD&D Seastar in the Dragon Magazine's first Creature Catalog that we haven't got around to converting for our 3E Creature Catalogue yet.

The Dragon #89 Seastar isn't an Echinoderm like a Brittlestar (Ophiuroidea) or Starfish (Asteroidea) though. The thing's slimy, free-swimming and has three arms, very poor AC and a 4d4 bite damage, which seems ridiculously high for a 1 Hit Dice 1E monster.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Just looked at that seastar - it only has 3 legs (!) so dunno what Ed Greenwood was thinking there. Also armour class makes no sense. Is worth starting from scratch - one ophiroid and one "traditional" starfish.

Just browsed that Creature Catalog and tried (unsuccessfully) to drum up some enthusiasm for converting them...actually the Bohun tree is pretty cool. Can always do with some more plants...but concept of a pitcher plant with a tentacle wasn't endearing...

 

[Cleon]

Just looked at that seastar - it only has 3 legs (!) so dunno what Ed Greenwood was thinking there. Also armour class makes no sense. Is worth starting from scratch - one ophiroid and one "traditional" starfish.

Just browsed that Creature Catalog and tried (unsuccessfully) to drum up some enthusiasm for converting them...actually the Bohun tree is pretty cool. Can always do with some more plants...but concept of a pitcher plant with a tentacle wasn't endearing...

Yes, there's a bunch of monsters in the Dragon #89 Creature Catalog we haven't got around to doing yet.

The Ihagnim is top of the list, since we mentioned it in one of the CC conversions.

We've already got a 3E conversion for the Bohun Tree.

Building some giant Echinoderms from scratch suits me.

 

[the Jester]

I have a couple of monstrous starfish in my monsters document: the giant poisonous starfish and the landstar, both homebrewed.

 

[Cleon]

I have a couple of monstrous starfish in my monsters document: the giant poisonous starfish and the landstar, both homebrewed.

Well would you like to process either of them for Homebrews & D&D Beyond?

The Landstar would go along with the Land Urchin I guess!

 

[Casimir Liber]

Moer echinoderms sounds good! The 1e sea star is a little bit like a brittle star, so am working on that (will post soon). Also the basket star looks like a really cool thing to adapt too.

 

[Cleon]

Moer echinoderms sounds good! The 1e sea star is a little bit like a brittle star, so am working on that (will post soon). Also the basket star looks like a really cool thing to adapt too.

Basket Stars are basically filter feeders and have such slow metabolisms a giant version probably couldn't move fast enough to catch a PC.

Well, unless you seriously "D&D it up," of course!

 

[Casimir Liber]

Larger things often become predatory....they secrete mucous on their tentacles so could make for an interesting critter...having a play...

 

[Cleon]

Larger things often become predatory....they secrete mucous on their tentacles so could make for an interesting critter...having a play...

Well that's pretty much what I was thinking if you seriously "D&D it up"!

Either make it so ginormous that a PC is small enough to be filtered out of the water as a "small food particle" like we did over on General Monsters when monster-izing the Giant Sabella Worm in Kent Colbath's "All giant worms are not alike” from Dragon #133, which by some author's oversight did not eat people in the original Dragon's Bestiary Article.

Or alternatively, make it only vaguely resemble the real-world animal in its abilities, like the aforementioned Dragon #89 Seastar or the Urchin from the Fiend Folio / Fiend Factory, which unlike real Sea Urchins can roll around on land at speeds rivaling humans and volley fire envenomed spines. Oh, and the original White Dwarf version could also fly!