Clidastes Large Animal (Aquatic) Hit Dice: 2d8+2 (11 hp) Initiative: +4 Speed: Swim 30 ft. (6 squares) AC: 12 (-1 size, +3 natural), touch 9, flat-footed 12 Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+7 Attack: Bite +2 melee (1d6+3) Full Attack: Bite +2 melee (1d6+3) Face/Reach: 10-ft./5 ft. Special Qualities: Hold breath Saves: Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +0 Abilities: Str 15, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 1, Wis 11, Cha 2 Skills: Spot +2, Listen +2, Swim +11 Feats: Improved Initiative Environment: Warm or temperate aquatic Organization: Solitary Challenge Rating: 1 Treasure: None Alignment: Always neutral Advancement: 3-6 HD (Large) Level Adjustment: - A clidastes is a mosasaur 10 feet long, weighing 200 lbs. COMBAT A clidastes bites viciously in combat. Hold Breath (Ex): A clidastes can hold its breath for 8 x its Constitution score in rounds.
Ive looked over the snatch feat, the problem is the only actions it has is the improved grip and the flinging motion, what im wanting is to shake back and forth x.x so i dunno..
At fist, the giganic four winged insect dosn't appear to move at all. Then, too late, you realize it's steadily growing larger...
Dragonflies are long, thin bodied insects with two pairs of rugged trasnlucent wings. They have exceptional flight capability, combining amazing speed with incredible manuverability. Thier head is dominated by large multifaced eyes that meet in the middle of thier body and cover most of their face. They have powerful mandibles and strong legs, however, thier limbs are evolved only for perching and cannot be used for locomotion.
The largest prehistoric Dragonfly is the Meganeura monyi (wingspan of 70-75 cm) from the Permian epoch. The largest modern species is the Hawi'ian Anax strenuus (wingspan of 19 cm).
Dragonflies hunt on the wing, using a technique called motion camouflage to fool thier prey into beliving they are not in motion. This is done by using an approch vector that constantly keeps them on a line of sight with a distant landmark relative to thier prey.
They eat whatever animals they can catch. Usually this means other smaller flying insects, but in the case of Monstrous Dragonflies, the menu is basically wide open.
Motion Camouflage: Monstrous Dragonflies sometimes move in such a way that thier prey has a difficult time determining that they are being approached. When making a dive (flying charge) attack, a Monstrous Dragonfly may make a Feint attempt as a free action. Monstrous Dragonflies do not take a penalty to thier Bluff check for attempting to Feint nonhumanoid creatures or creatures of animal intellegence (1-2) and may attempt to Feint nonintellegent creatures, but only while using Motion Camoflage. (If a Tiny Monstrous Dragonfly successfully Feints it's target, it does not provoke attacks of oppertunity for entering it's target's square.)
All Around Vision: Monstrous Dragonflies have a 360 degree field of vision and, as a resul thereof, cannot be flanked.
Skills: Monstrous Dragonflies have a +4 racial bonus Hide checks, a +8 racial bonus to Spot checks, and a +12 racial bonus to Bluff checks.
Beware that the CRs are only approximate, but they should be pretty close. If anything, they're too high. Also, while I've attempted to make sure everything is correct, proofreading one's own work rarely works very well, so if someone could look them over for me, it'd be much appreciated.
I've been doing some thinking about the Menagerie lately, and have come to the point where I'm thinking about creating a whole new set of most of the dinosaurs. I really don't see any point in distinguishing between some of the same-sized species of nearly physically identical dinosaurs. To me, it's just become like trying to create different stats for different breeds of house cats.
My idea was to create a sort of "General Set" of stats, kind of like how vermin are statted in increasing sizes. Species like the Bambiraptor and Miniraptor would both fit into the "Theropod, Tiny" niche, and bigger dinos like the Baryonyx and Tyrannosaurs would be under "Theropod, Huge".
I'm just throwing this out here to get a feel for general opinion.
I've been doing some thinking about the Menagerie lately, and have come to the point where I'm thinking about creating a whole new set of most of the dinosaurs. I really don't see any point in distinguishing between some of the same-sized species of nearly physically identical dinosaurs. To me, it's just become like trying to create different stats for different breeds of house cats.
My idea was to create a sort of "General Set" of stats, kind of like how vermin are statted in increasing sizes. Species like the Bambiraptor and Miniraptor would both fit into the "Theropod, Tiny" niche, and bigger dinos like the Baryonyx and Tyrannosaurs would be under "Theropod, Huge".
I'm just throwing this out here to get a feel for general opinion.
sounds like a good idea to me, your talking about having a standard template for each type of dinosaur within a group right? example.
Hadrosaur - this would cover the duckbilled family of dinos Sauropods - long necked dinosaurs Dromeosaurs - raptors
I actually suggested the same thing a few posts ago and didn't get any response. (Sad panda.) Then again, it was as an aside in a rambling post of misc. stuff, so perhaps it got missed. On the other tentacle, pehaps Insane Pixie read my post and was inspired to persue the idea.
For the most part, I'm all for it. But I have some misgivings. You see, some dinosaurs of a given size may differ somewhat from thier similarly sized relatives. For instance, the T. Rex has the most powerful jaws of any known creature and as a result it's bite outclasses those of similar species. If we persue this option, I think we should consider the stats as given by the tables a baseline and provide guidelines for customization of specific species.
As a tangentally related example, in my campain world I've been working on, there are no generic monstrous vermin. Instead, there are specific species that have slight alteration to the basic stats. As an more concreat example, the southern desert region is inhabited by the deadly Sand Spiders. Their carapace has a sandy color and texture that gives them a bonus to hide in their native enviroment. They come in four age catagories (and sizes): hatchling (large), young (huge), juvenile (gargantuan), and adult (colossal).
We could do something similar with the dinosaurs. If each broad type was given a set of generic stats, it would provide a nice baseline for the any given species. Many species could simply use the generic version, but if someone wanted specific stats for a given species, they could be customized. Much of this could be done using the standard HD advancement rules, to create a species slightly larger than another. If a creature has some special feature that really stands out from others of it's "kind", it could have it's stats adjusted. For instance, most Triceratops like species have a solid neck gaurd, but one (can't recall it's name at the moment) has a full set of spikes instead. Pehaps it should get some benifit for these. On the other tentacle, it could be left out without much game impact if the DM didn't want to bother.
Another advantage to this technique is that it quickly provides stats for younger individuals. I think for this reason, if for no other, the tables should go all the way down to Fine. I know this will put the smallest dinosaurs smaller than what really existed, but it's convient, a good solid standard, and allows for fun fantasy dinos. (Somehow I find the idea of a Fine Triceratops amusing.) Besides, if the smallest dinos are Tiny, then their young would be Diminutive or even Fine, strange as that may seem at first.
I only did the Dragonflies down to Tiny because that's the typical format of monstrous vermin. I though about going smaller, but decided against it because I was basing them on the other vermin and didn't have a guideline to base them on. On the other hand, DnD dosn't often provide stats for anything that small. The only things I can think of off the top of my head are the familers for Tiny or smaller creatures listed in the DMG, a few Fey, and some Swarms (but they don't really count).
One final note, if we do this, we'll finally have a good reason to give the T. Rex the stats it deserves.
You could also just do base generic stats like you and pixie were thinking of and then add modification notes for the species that just dont quite fit. Perhaps a change of Feats to reflect some particular ability.
On an aside note it seems on the question I asked earlier that the T Rex has won out. WIll begin work on my little surprise for you soon .... :evillaugh
http://www.4shared.com/file/184670517/1f9d2f1/Cat_Burglar_Final.html cat burglar pdf 2.0 available
Just out of curiosity, has anyone noticed the problem with the Effigy Creatures from Complete Arcane? (I think that is the book, anyway) I actually made an Effigy Master, and used him until I realized that just about any templates added to a creature don't increase its hit die. That is when things got bad. Of course, things were far from good as I had a Bulette, a nine headed Hydra, and... I forget what else before I realized the Template situation. But dinos ( and thus, most of these creatures) make really good effigies. Not quite as good as any given Hydra, though. Hydras actually have more hit points as an Effigy. And a better AC, too. Nohing like having a huge creature following you around that gets ten attacks of opportunity when enemies approach. LOL
