Seastars with high AC - 5e idea?

[Cleon]

Of course, should you prefer a less "like the real world" version a DEX 12, Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft. version is fine by me.

If your preference is such a "swimstar", I suggest adding climb 30 ft. to the movement rates though. They presumably still have sucker-feet like a normal starfish.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Spoilspor valid points - deleted swim, made them move 20 ft/rd and DEX 6. Tempted to make them able to ignore Difficult Terrain (as they can just clamber over things easily) - 10 or 15 ft move makes combat less interesting (I think)

Do you like "Giant brittle star" or "giant ophiuroid" as name?

 

[Cleon]

Spoilspor valid points - deleted swim, made them move 20 ft/rd and DEX 6. Tempted to make them able to ignore Difficult Terrain (as they can just clamber over things easily) - 10 or 15 ft move makes combat less interesting (I think)

Spoilsport? No, it's an excuse to create two monsters, an ordinary ooze-slow giant starfish and the superfast swimming giant asteroid!

Why, once you start having one that flies why stop there. Have the giant asteroid fly! Have it shoot baby asteroids from of its armpits like shuriken! Have it boil the water around it with a sheath of flames like a meteor! The multiverse is your oyster.

Ahem.

Do you like "Giant brittle star" or "giant ophiuroid" as name?

I'm not really bothered.

There are advantaged in familiarity in using the common name, although the space in Brittle Star looks a bit clunky to me. I know it's the preferred spelling but Giant Brittlestar just scans better than Giant Brittle Star does.

As for Giant Ophiuroid, that works for me too. The main problem is the average reader might not know what an Ophiuroid is, but as we're putting (Brittle Star) in brackets it should be pretty clear.*

Let's stick to Ophiuroid in the title, since that's what the original draft used. We can always change it later.

* Come to think of it, my Working Drafts had (Brittlestar) and (Basketstar), so I'd better change those!

Ophiuroid, Giant (Brittlestar)

Gorgonocephalid, Giant (Basketstar)

 

[Cleon]

Ophiuroid, Giant (Brittle Star)

Gorgonocephalid, Giant (Basket Star)

Dang it, I still find that uglier than the spaceless version above.

 

[Casimir Liber]

ok - bedtime here. more later...musing on a fast one too. I like the idea of climb speed

 

[Cleon]

ok - bedtime here. more later...musing on a fast one too. I like the idea of climb speed

G'night! Although I guess it's good morning over where you are by now.

Getting used to it being "brittle star" now.

Is there anything we can do with the real life animal's ability to shed arms to escape enemies?

They can regrow lost limbs and organs, so we ought to do something with that too.

 

[Cleon]

They presumably still have sucker-feet like a normal starfish.

Correction/clarification, an echinoderms' Tube Feet are sticky due to adhesive mucous, not a sucker. Must have been getting them confused with the "stalked" suckers some cephalopods have on their arms.

EDIT: In my defense, this appears to be a relatively recent discovery (as in 2012) and it's been a lot longer than that since I last read up on Echinoderms.

 

[Cleon]

So I'd go for Speeds of maybe 10, 15 or 20 ft. and DEX from 3 to 6 depending on the type of starfish. A true seastar is probably the fastest of them, with the brittlestar being in the middle and the more filter-feeding basketstar possibly being the slowest.

However, I think it's reasonable that a monstrous giant starfish can be a significantly faster than a normal one Luidia foliolata is up to 40 cm across, but if a giant one is, say, ten times that size (4 metres or 13 feet across) maybe it's also ten times faster? Still, that's only 1.1 mph, or about a third the speed a human can walk and a tenth or twelfth the speed an unathletic human can run.

Further research suggests brittle stars are much faster than sea stars, so my guess was probably wrong. Their more flexible arms help them wriggle along relatively quickly, at least compared to most "starfish" which walk on their tube legs (as shown in this YouTube video of a sea star).

Just look at the Brittle Stars go in this YouTube video, compared to that starfish they're practically racing along!

EDIT: Unfortunately, I still can't find any information on the actual movement speed of brittle stars or basket stars online, compared to sea stars where it's easy to find relatively reliable websites giving speeds in cm or mm per second for various families of starfish.

Oh well!

 

[Casimir Liber]

Getting used to it being "brittle star" now.

Is there anything we can do with the real life animal's ability to shed arms to escape enemies?

They can regrow lost limbs and organs, so we ought to do something with that too.

How about this:

"Any single blow from a slashing weapon inflicting 8 or more hp damage severs a limb, leaving the brittle star with one fewer arm to attack with. It will, however, grow back this arm in 1d4+1 weeks."

Can also add that brittle stars have been used in making potions of healing or keoghtom's ointment maybe...?

Have upped their DEX to 8 - leaving movement at 20 ft but adding ignoring difficult terrain, and 20 climbing speed

NB: gonna rename them Giant Brittle Stars as that is more accessible than "ophiuroid"

 

[Cleon]

How about this:

"Any single blow from a slashing weapon inflicting 8 or more hp damage severs a limb, leaving the brittle star with one fewer arm to attack with. It will, however, grow back this arm in 1d4+1 weeks."

I was thinking more they can sacrifice an arm to escape a grapple, take less damage from an attack or just to distract an opponent, maybe as a Rechargeable Reaction ability?

Can also add that brittle stars have been used in making potions of healing or keoghtom's ointment maybe...?

Was thinking more of a Special Trait that they can regrow lost arms and other non-vital damage in #d#+## days, similar to how a 3E Giant Octopus can regrow lost tentacles.

Have upped their DEX to 8 - leaving movement at 20 ft but adding ignoring difficult terrain, and 20 climbing speed

That sounds reasonable.

I have no objection to adding a Swim speed to that if you fancy them being able to aqua-navigate. There are relatives to the Brittle Star that are free-swimming, such as the the "Feather Star" Crinoids (aka unstalked Sea Lilies).

NB: gonna rename them Giant Brittle Stars as that is more accessible than "ophiuroid"

As you like.

They're also called "Serpent Stars," presumably due to the snakelike movement of their arms. We should maybe mention that somewhere in the Description.

They don't seem to move as quickly as snakes though (which have Speed 30 ft. in D&D), so the 20 ft.we're going for seems appropriate.

By the way, will we be doing the Asteroids on this thread too? They have some interesting differences from Ophiuroidea as far as monster abilities go.