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Seastars with high AC - 5e idea?
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<blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 8558555" data-attributes="member: 57383"><p>They're called arms not tentacles.</p><p></p><p>Anyhow, echinoderms in general are extremely slow moving animals.</p><p></p><p>The <strong><a href="https://echinoblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/what-are-fastest-known-starfish.html" target="_blank">fastest known starfish</a></strong> (i.e. an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish" target="_blank"><strong>Asteroidea</strong></a> or seastar) can crawl at a blistering 5cm a second! That's 180 metres in an hour, or 0.18 kph / 0.11 mph.</p><p></p><p>That's for <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luidia" target="_blank">Luidia</a></em> seastars, a particularly fast genus that's twice as fast as its closest rivals, plus this speed is when the animal is <em>hurrying</em> and it probably can't keep it up very long, the equivalent of sprinting. An average starfish that's "strolling around" is many times slower, moving at a only few millimetres per second or even fractions of a millimetre.</p><p></p><p>I'm having trouble finding speed stats for brittlestars, but I doubt they're any faster than an average seastar since they are detritus feeders that tend to live in deep cold water so there's little benefit in them maintaining a high enough metabolism to "sprint" at a the speed of a <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luidia_foliolata" target="_blank">Luidia foliolata</a></em>.</p><p></p><p>A starfish might have to outrun a limpet but brittlestars don't need to!</p><p></p><p>Oh, and real world starfish (by which I mean sea/brittle/basket stars) cannot swim but crawl around on the seafloor like their kin the sea urchins. So you might not want to give them a Swim speed.</p><p></p><p>That said, the speed of a starfish appears to be related to size:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><a href="https://onlyzoology.com/how-fast-can-a-starfish-move-how-do-starfish-move/" target="_blank"><strong>How fast can a Starfish move? How do Starfish move?</strong></a></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">It has been seen that the speed of the starfish is directly dependent on the size of the starfish. That is, the larger the starfish size, the fast it can move.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">It is said so because the young starfish belonging to the same species move very slowly as compared to the adult large-sized one of the same species.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Thus, it can be said that the movement speed is directly dependent on the size of the starfish and it’s thought that larger size does have some relationship to speed and some of the fastest species listed are also among the largest.</p><p></p><p>However, I think it's reasonable that a monstrous giant starfish can be a significantly faster than a normal one <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luidia_foliolata" target="_blank">Luidia foliolata</a></em> 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.</p><p></p><p>Oh, and starfish are good climbers as they have sucker-tipped "feet" under their arms. A climb speed seems appropriate.</p><p></p><p>So if we're going for a somewhat "realistic" interpretation they'd likely have Speed and Dexterity similar to an ooze, e.g.:</p><p></p><p><strong>Black Pudding:</strong> Speed 20 ft., climb 20 ft.; DEX 5 (–3)</p><p><strong>Gelatinous Cube:</strong> Speed 15 ft.; DEX 3 (–4)</p><p><strong>Gray Ooze/Ochre Jelly:</strong> Speed 10 ft., climb 10 ft.; DEX 6 (–2)</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cleon, post: 8558555, member: 57383"] They're called arms not tentacles. Anyhow, echinoderms in general are extremely slow moving animals. The [B][URL='https://echinoblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/what-are-fastest-known-starfish.html']fastest known starfish[/URL][/B] (i.e. an [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish'][B]Asteroidea[/B][/URL] or seastar) can crawl at a blistering 5cm a second! That's 180 metres in an hour, or 0.18 kph / 0.11 mph. That's for [I][URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luidia']Luidia[/URL][/I] seastars, a particularly fast genus that's twice as fast as its closest rivals, plus this speed is when the animal is [I]hurrying[/I] and it probably can't keep it up very long, the equivalent of sprinting. An average starfish that's "strolling around" is many times slower, moving at a only few millimetres per second or even fractions of a millimetre. I'm having trouble finding speed stats for brittlestars, but I doubt they're any faster than an average seastar since they are detritus feeders that tend to live in deep cold water so there's little benefit in them maintaining a high enough metabolism to "sprint" at a the speed of a [I][URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luidia_foliolata']Luidia foliolata[/URL][/I]. A starfish might have to outrun a limpet but brittlestars don't need to! Oh, and real world starfish (by which I mean sea/brittle/basket stars) cannot swim but crawl around on the seafloor like their kin the sea urchins. So you might not want to give them a Swim speed. That said, the speed of a starfish appears to be related to size: [INDENT][URL='https://onlyzoology.com/how-fast-can-a-starfish-move-how-do-starfish-move/'][B]How fast can a Starfish move? How do Starfish move?[/B][/URL] It has been seen that the speed of the starfish is directly dependent on the size of the starfish. That is, the larger the starfish size, the fast it can move. It is said so because the young starfish belonging to the same species move very slowly as compared to the adult large-sized one of the same species. Thus, it can be said that the movement speed is directly dependent on the size of the starfish and it’s thought that larger size does have some relationship to speed and some of the fastest species listed are also among the largest.[/INDENT] However, I think it's reasonable that a monstrous giant starfish can be a significantly faster than a normal one [I][URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luidia_foliolata']Luidia foliolata[/URL][/I] 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. Oh, and starfish are good climbers as they have sucker-tipped "feet" under their arms. A climb speed seems appropriate. So if we're going for a somewhat "realistic" interpretation they'd likely have Speed and Dexterity similar to an ooze, e.g.: [B]Black Pudding:[/B] Speed 20 ft., climb 20 ft.; DEX 5 (–3) [B]Gelatinous Cube:[/B] Speed 15 ft.; DEX 3 (–4) [B]Gray Ooze/Ochre Jelly:[/B] Speed 10 ft., climb 10 ft.; DEX 6 (–2) 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. [/QUOTE]
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