Quote:

---

Page no. 118; OF 23; The Greater Temple
Hounds of Darkness (treat as shadow mastiffs) (2): hp 28, 35; see Monster Manual page 222.

---

Quote:

---

Page no. 120; OF 27; The Vampire
Thrommel: Male human vampire Pal3/Blk9; CR 14; Medium Undead (Augmented Humanoid); HD 12d12; hp 83; Init +7; Spd 30 ft.; AC 26, touch 14, flat-footed 23; Base Atk +12; Grp +19; Atk +20 melee (2d6+11/19-20, +1 unholy greatsword) or +19 melee (1d6+10 and energy drain, slam); Full Atk +20/+15/+10 melee (2d6+11/19-20, +1 unholy greatsword) or +19/+14/+9 melee (1d6+10 and energy drain, slam); Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.; SA aura of despair, blood drain, command undead 8/day (as Clr7), create spawn, dominate, energy drain, smite good (3/day, +5 attack, +9 damage), sneak attack +2d6, spells; SQ alternate form, aura of evil, children of the night, cold and electricity resistance 10, damage reduction 10/silver and magic, detect good, fast healing 5, fiendish servant, gaseous form, lay on hands, poison use, spider climb, undead traits, +4 turn resistance, vampire weaknesses; AL CE; SV Fort +14, Ref +14, Will +12; Str 24, Dex 16, Con -, Int 13, Wis 17, Cha 20.

Skills and Feats: Bluff +13, Concentration +11, Hide +13, Jump +9, Knowledge (history) +3, Knowledge (nobility and royalty) +5, Knowledge (religion) +3, Listen +13, Move Silently +9, Ride (horse) +15, Search +9, Sense Motive +11, Spot +13; Alertness, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Silent Spell, Power Attack, Improved Sunder.

Possessions: +1 unholy greatsword (“Dirge”), +1 breastplate, boots of striding and springing, ring of counterspells (currently loaded with fireball), ring of protection +1, holy symbol (obex).

Spells Prepared (3/3/2/1; base DC 13+spell level): 1st – doom, inflict light wounds (2); 2nd – darkness, death knell, inflict moderate wounds; 3rd – silent bull’s strength, inflict serious wounds; 4th – silent protection from energy.

Alternate Form (Su): Similar to polymorph cast by a 12th level character, except that Thrommel does not regain hit points for changing form and must choose from among the forms mentioned below. While in his alternate form, Thrommel loses his natural slam attack and dominate ability, but gains the natural weapons and extraordinary special attacks of his new form. Can only assume the shape of a bat, dire bat, wolf, or dire wolf as a standard action. He can remain in that form until he assumes another or until the next sunrise.

Aura of Despair (Su): Enemies within 10 ft. suffer a –2 penalty on all saving throws.

Aura of Evil (Su): Thrommel has an overwhelming aura of evil (see the detect evil spell).

Blood Drain (Ex): Thrommel can suck blood from a living victim with his fangs by making a successful grapple check. If he pins the foe, he drains blood, inflicting 1d4 points of permanent Con drain each round the pin is maintained. On each such successful attack, Thrommel gains 5 temporary hit points.

Children of the Night (Su): Thrommel commands the lesser creatures of the world and once per day can call forth 1d6+1 rat swarms, 1d4+1 bat swarms, or a pack of 3d6 wolves as a standard action. These creatures arrive in 2d6 rounds and serve him for up to 1 hour.

Create Spawn (Su): A humanoid or monstrous humanoid slain by Thrommel’s energy drain attack rises as a vampire spawn (see Monster Manual page 253) 1d4 days after burial. If Thrommel instead drains a victim’s Con to 0 or less, the victim returns as a spawn if it had 4 or less HD and as a vampire if it had 5 or more HD. In either case, the new vampire or spawn is under Thrommel's command and remains enslaved until Thrommel's destruction. At any given time Thrommel may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than 24 Hit Dice; any spawn he creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed vampires or vampire spawn. A vampire that is enslaved may create and enslave spawn of its own, so a master vampire can control a number of lesser vampires in this fashion. Thrommel may voluntarily free an enslaved spawn in order to enslave a new spawn, but once freed, a vampire or vampire spawn cannot be enslaved again.

Damage Reduction (Su): Thrommel has damage reduction 10/silver and magic. His natural weapons are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Detect Good (Sp): At will, Thrommel can use detect good as a spell-like ability, duplicating the effect of the detect good spell.

Dominate (Su): Thrommel can crush an opponent’s will just by looking into his or her eyes. This is similar to a gaze attack, except that Thrommel must take a standard action, and those merely looking at it are not affected. Anyone Thrommel targets must succeed at a Will save (DC 21) or fall instantly under his influence as though by a dominate person spell (caster level 12th). The ability has a range of 30 ft.

Energy Drain (Su): Living creatures hit by Thrommel's slam attack suffer two negative levels. For each negative level bestowed, Thrommel gains 5 temporary hit points. He can use his energy drain ability once per round.

Fast Healing (Ex): Thrommel heals 5 points of damage each round so long as he has at least 1 hit point. If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, he automatically assumes gaseous form and attempts to escape. He must reach its coffin home within 2 hours or be utterly destroyed. (He c travel up to nine miles in 2 hours.) Any additional damage dealt to Thrommel forced into gaseous form has no effect. Once at rest in its coffin, Thrommel is helpless. He regains 1 hit point after 1 hour, then is no longer helpless and resumes healing at the rate of 5 hit points per round.

Gaseous Form (Su): As a standard action, Thrommel can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but he can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability.

Lay on hands (Sp): 1/day, Thrommel can heal himself or his fiendish servant of 45 points of damage.

Poison Use (Ex): Thrommel is skilled in the use of poison and never risks accidentally poisoning himself when applying poison to a blade.

Resistances (Ex): Thrommel has resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10.

Spider Climb (Ex): Thrommel can climb sheer surfaces as though with a spider climb spell.

Undead Traits: Darkvision 60 ft. Immune to mind-affecting effects, poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects. Not subject to critical hits, non-lethal damage, ability drain, energy drain, or death from massive damage. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects. Immune to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless). Does not need to breathe, eat or sleep.

Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect destroyed undead creatures. These spells turn Thrommel back into the living creature he was before becoming undead, so long as his soul is willing to return.

Vampire Weaknesses: Thrommel cannot tolerate the strong odor of garlic and will not enter an area laced with it. Similarly, he recoils from a mirror or a strongly presented holy symbol. These things don’t harm him—they merely keep him at bay. A recoiling Thrommel must stay at least 5 feet away from a creature holding the mirror or holy symbol and cannot touch or make melee attacks against the creature holding the item for the rest of the encounter. Holding Thrommel at bay takes a standard action.

Thrommel is also unable to cross running water, although he can be carried over it while resting in his coffins or aboard a ship. He is utterly unable to enter a home or other building unless invited in by someone with the authority to do so. He may freely enter public places, since these are by definition open to all.

Exposing Thrommel to direct sunlight disorients it: he can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if he cannot escape. Similarly, immersing him in running water robs him of one-third of his hit points each round until he is destroyed at the end of the third round of immersion. Driving a wooden stake through Thrommel's heart instantly slays the monster. However, he returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the body is destroyed. A popular tactic is to cut off his head and fill its mouth with holy wafers (or their equivalent).

* Adjusted speed and Jump bonus as a result of changes to boots of striding and springing

* Paladins now get Knowledge (nobility and royalty) as a class skill. Doubled Thrommel’s ranks in this from 2 to 4.

* Aura of despair has changed from a morale penalty to an unnamed penalty, so it’s no longer negated by things like a paladin's aura of courage.

* Abilities formerly listed as being Sor12 now say caster of character level 12th – or 5th, in the case of gaseous form.

* A blackguard has an aura of evil equal to their class level plus any cleric levels - these give Thrommel a rating of 9, two points short of being "overwhelmingly" evil from those levels. But undead are basically half the value of evil clerics and outsiders in this regard, so Thrommel's remaining three levels of paladin (fallen) would push him to 10.5 on the cleric/outsider scale; exactly half way between a "strong" evil and an "overwhelming" evil. So I've made a design and RP decision and pushed him that little bit more into being overwhelmingly evil...

* All undead now get Darkvision 60 ft. Other immunities have been clarified and expanded.

* A 9th level blackguard gets to smite good 2/day (at 2nd and 5th level). But since he also has three levels of paladin, he gets to smite good one additional time per day.

* Lay on hands is interesting – it’s correct as written and I agree with it, but there are underlying tensions with the game mechanics of healing. The normal implication is that healing = positive energy, which is good for living creatures and bad for undead. Since a vampire blackguard can heal himself, isn’t this channeling negative energy? But he can also heal his fiendish servant, which is a living creature – is this channeling positive energy? I’m just glad that – unlike paladins – a blackguard can’t use his lay on hands ability to deal damage to undead…

* Added the text on vampire weaknesses, which wasn’t in the original appendix. They can’t cross running water, but Lake Stalagos certainly isn’t “running”. I can’t think of any places in the CRM off hand where there might be running water that Thrommel couldn’t cross.

* The part about being “unable to enter a home or building unless invited by someone with the authority to do so” is interesting too – although inhabited, I’d say Thrommel could travel throughout most of it unhindered, since it’s all really just tunnels and caverns in the one big complex. The exception may be the dwarven temple: it’s got doors separating it from the rest of the complex, the other inhabitants of the CRM don’t know about it, it has a specific and different purpose. It’s also where a bunch of adventurers could potentially hole up – would this make them the “authoritative” people from whom Thrommel would need an invitation? I suppose it depends on how strongly the party identifies the place as “theirs” – if they feel they’re only “passing through”, there’s probably nothing preventing Thrommel from entering the place himself…

* Changed “fiendish servant benefits” to “fiendish servant” – as far as I can tell, there aren’t (and never have been) any statistical benefits in having a fiendish servant…


Jolana: Female fiendish bat servant; CR -; Diminuitive magical beast (extraplanar); HD 2¼d8; hp 9; Init +2; Spd 5 ft., fly 40 ft. (good); AC 17, touch 16, flat-footed 15; Base Atk +1; Grp -15; Atk -; Full Atk -; Space/Reach: 1 ft./0 ft.;[/font] SQ blindsense 20 ft., cold and electricity resistance 5, darkvision 60 ft., improved evasion, shared saving throws, shared spells, SR 7; AL CE; SV Fort +9, Ref +6, Will +6; Str 2, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 6, Wis 14, Cha 4.

Skills and Feats: Hide +14, Listen +10*, Move Silently +6, Spot +10*; Alertness. *Reduce by 4 if blindsense negated.

Blindsense (Ex): Jolana notices and locates creatures within 20 feet. Opponents still have 100% concealment against a creature with blindsense.

Empathic Link (Su): Thrommel has an empathic link with Jolana out to a distance of up to 1 mile. He cannot see through her eyes, but they can communicate empathically. Because of the limited nature of the link, only general emotional content can be communicated.

Improved Evasion (Ex): If Jolana is subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, she takes no damage on a successful saving throw and only half damage on a failed saving throw.

Share Spells: At Thrommel’s option, he may have any spell (but not any spell-like ability) he casts on himself also affect his servant. Jolana must be within 5 feet at the time of casting to receive the benefit. If the spell has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting Jolana if she moves farther than 5 feet away and will not affect her again even if she returns to him before the duration expires. Additionally, Thrommel may cast a spell with a target of “You” on Jolana (as a touch range spell) instead of on himself. Thrommel and Jolana can share spells even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the servant’s type (magical beast).

* Not sure why Jolana had ½ HD before the +2 HD from being a fiendish servant; both 3.0 and 3.5 list bats as having ¼ HD, and the fiendish template doesn’t add any HD. I’ve applied this above, which reduces her hit points by 1.

* Fiendish spell resistance has gone from double a creature’s HD to their HD+5.

* Fiendish creatures on the Material Plane now all have the extraplanar subtype; should she keep the evil and chaotic subtypes as well?

* Bats no longer have blindsight to 120 ft., but blindsense to 20 ft.

* Bats now get Alertness, which means Jolana’s Listen and Spot checks get a +2 bonus.

* Not sure about her grapple score – a normal bat’s is –17, she has 1 point better Strength and a +1 base attack (going with the same base attack as a 2nd level cleric, as indicated in “Improving Monsters”).

* Given that a bat has no attacks, is the Smite Good power of a fiendish creature relevant? Appendix 3 leaves it out, so I have too.

* Dropped Jolana's saves by +5, since they are based on Thrommel's base saves sans Dark Blessing...

---

Quote:

---

... should she keep the evil and chaotic subtypes as well?

---

Quote:

---

Did you want me to retrofit your corrections into this thread, or should I not bother if you've already moved it into your master conversion document?

---

Quote:

---

p. 115 (OF20) — “Flesh Golems (2): hp 49, 53; see Monster Manual page 135.”

DR for a flesh golem is now 5/adamantine. It’s immunity to magic is now only for those effects that allow spell resistance and the immunity to supernatural abilities has been dropped.

---

Edited by: ZansForCans  at: 11/13/03 10:01 pm