Bluestar (PEACH) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Bluestar (PEACH) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
CryoSilver
07-02-06, 10:36 PM Bluestar
Large Outsider
Hit Dice: 10d8+70 (115 hp)
Initiative: +10 (+10 Dex)
Speed: Fly 50 ft (perfect)
AC: 26 (+10 Dex, +7 Deflection, -1 size)
Base Attack/Grapple: +10/+17
Attacks: Light Blast +19 ranged (3d6)
Full Attack: Light Blast +19 ranged (3d6)
Face/Reach: 5 ft/10 ft
Special Attacks: Engulf, Flare, Light Blasts
Special Qualities: Brilliant Aura, DR 10/obsidian, Fast Healing 5, Immune to fire, Perfect Sight, Resistance 20 (acid, electricity), Semi-Incorporeal, Spell Resistance 20
Saves: Fort +17, Ref +20, Will +13
Abilities: Str 16 , Dex 30, Con 24, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 16
Skills: Intimidate +16, Listen +18, Knowledge (religion) +13, Knowledge (the planes) +2, Move Silently +23, Sense Motive +16, Spot +18
Feats: Ability Focus (Flare), Alertness, Dodge, Point Blank Shot
Environment: any
Organization: Solitary or sun (3-6)
CR: ?
Treasure: None
Alignment: True Neutral
Advancement: 10-20 HD (large), 21-30 HD (huge)

Bluestars are guardians and shock troops for the Light. They resemble nothing so much as large lantern archons with a bluish cast, but are not nearly as good, or lawful.

Bluestars understand Common, but do not speak.

Combat

Bluestars readily engage in combat; it is their sole purpose. They tend to hover out of reach and blast foes; if an opponent has a ranged weapon, the bluestar will attempt to engulf it.

Brilliant Aura (su): a Bluestar is surrounded by an aura of light. It adds its Charisma modifier to its AC as a deflection bonus, and to its saves as a divine bonus. Bluestars shed bright light out to 50 feet, and shadowy light out to 100 feet; this light functions as a fifth level spell effect for purposes of negating magical darkness.

Engulf (ex): a Bluestar can attempt to engulf another creature of its size or smaller. To do so, it must move into the opponent’s square (provoking an attack of opportunity). The creature must then make a DC 22 Reflex save or be engulfed. If it succeeds, it takes 1d6 fire damage, but is not engulfed. If it fails, the Bluestar engulfs it, and it takes 5d6 damage, half of which is fire damage, the other half of which is pure divine energy. It must make this save every round the Bluestar occupies its square. The save is Con based.

Flare (su): once per minute, the Bluestar can cause a large flare of light to erupt from its side. This is a 30 foot cone that deals 10d6 damage, half of which is fire, the other half of which is pure divine energy. A Reflex save (DC 24) halves this damage. The save is Con based.

Light Blast (su): Bluestars are capable of generating intense beams of light from their own substance. These beams have a range of 100 feet with no range increment and deal 3d6 damage.

Perfect Sight (su): Bluestars cannot be blinded. They are constantly affected by See Invisibility (unlimited range) and True Seeing (unlimited range). Bluestars can perfectly in all conditions (including darkness, fog, etc). They also have 100 foot blindsight.

Semi-Incorporeal (ex): a Bluestar is composed mostly of light. As such, it can move into and through solid objects at half speed as an incorporeal creature (subject to the same restrictions), and attacks against it suffer a 25% miss chance.
pileobone
07-03-06, 02:48 AM Attacks: Light Blast +25 ranged (3d6)
Full Attack: Light Blast +25/+20 ranged (3d6)Don't forget size penalty to attack. For Large creatures it's a -1, so +24. Also, creatures don't get additional attacks for natural weapons.

Special Attacks: Engulf, Flare, Light BlastsYou list Light Blasts under Special Attacks, but you never explain what it is, what kind of damage it does, or even if it's Extraordinary of Supernatural.

DR 10/obsidianInteresting... Why obsidian? If this is something specific to your campaign thats cool, but something so out of the ordinary warrants an explanation if you ask me. Consider it my need to know. ;)

Saves: Fort +24, Ref +29, Will +21 :eek:
I've got no idea where you got these saves from. Even with the +3 from it's Charisma bonus they should only be: Fort +17, Ref +25, Will +13

Thoughts
Hmm, since they're all neutral I'm not sure if I understand the idea of them having Divine bonuses or doing Divine damage in their abilities.

For his special abilities, could you please denote whether they are Supernatural, Extraordinary, or Spell-like? Also, please make note of what ability the save DC is based on, from the looks of them I'm guessing Con?

Pretty interesting creature over all, can't help you right off with the CR though. I'm not a great judge of those things.
CryoSilver
07-03-06, 07:07 AM Sorry about the save errors; this stat block was copy and pasted from the Radiant One, which is more powerful.

I jus figured obsidian could be easily identified with darkness, and I've seen it used as a weapon material before (Dark Sun).

I'll do a write up for Light Blasts after work today.

And thanks for pointing out the attack size penalty.

Marked ability types; saves are Con based.

Divine doesn't mean good in this sense; it just means "granted by a higher power;" if it was good, it would be holy damage.
pileobone
07-03-06, 09:26 AM :thumbsup:
dok
07-03-06, 12:58 PM Full Attack: Light Blast +24/+19 ranged (3d6)
Light Blast (su): Bluestars are capable of generating intense beams of light from their own substance. These beams have a range of 100 feet with no range increment and deal 3d6 damage. They require a normal ranged attack to hit, and are treated as ranged weapons for purposes of iterative attacks from base attack bonus.

I made this comment on your other monster, and I'll make it here as well.
Light Blasts aren't manufactured weapons, and saying they should be treated as so violates both the RAW and common sense.
If a creature "generates" a natural attack "from their own substance", it's still a natural attack. Look at creatures that fire spikes from their bodies.
Also, look at the Ghaele or the Lantern Archon; if it's a beam of light that deals energy damage, it should be resolved as a ranged touch attack.

Special Qualities: ...DR 10/obsidian...

Again, repeating comments from your other monster. If Obsidian is a commonly-used material in your game setting, with rules for obsidian weapons, and characters know that some creatures require obsidian weapons to harm, then this is fine. Otherwise, you're really giving the monster DR 10/-, because there's no way to "discover" how to overcome this DR, and with no other monsters requiring this material to overcome their DR, no real reason exists to have or carry obsidian weapons.

Abilities: Str 16 , Dex 40, Con 24, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 16

40 Dexterity? No.
On a CR 10 monster? Certainly not. Utterly absurd, and completely inappropriate for the CR. Find me a CR 10 monster that has a 40 in any ability score, and I'll consider it slightly less absurd. Find me any monster with a 40 in Dexterity that isn't Epic, and you'll have a solid argument.

Brilliant Aura (su): a Bluestar is surrounded by an aura of light. It adds its Charisma modifier to its AC as a deflection bonus, and to its saves as a divine bonus. Bluestars shed bright light out to 50 feet, and shadowy light out to 100 feet; this light functions as a tenth level spell effect for purposes of negating magical darkness.

OK, the CR 20 creature having a "10th level spell effect" was OK.
A CR 10 creature negating all non-Epic Darkness spells is not OK. That's a seriosu scaling issue. Cut the level to something more appropriate for it's CR; at CR 10, making it be a level 6 or 7 effect is far more balanced.

Flare (ex): once per minute, the Bluestar can cause a large flare of light to erupt from its side. This is a 30 foot cone that deals 10d6 damage, half of which is fire, the other half of which is pure divine energy. A Reflex save (DC 24) halves this damage. The save is Con based.

(ex)? (ex)cuse me? If it's a cone of fire and "divine energy", I have a hard time seeing it meet the definition of being nonmagical and unaffected by an antimagic field. This should be (Su)

Perfect Sight (su): Bluestars cannot be blinded. They are constantly affected by See Invisibility (unlimited range) and True Seeing (unlimited range). Bluestars can perfectly in all conditions (including darkness, fog, etc). They also have 100 foot blindsight and blindsense.

More repeated comments.
Immune to blindness from "perfect sight"? OK. Makes sense. That's fine.

See invisible/True Seeing? No issues with that. It's seeing things as they are.

See through fog cloud, storm of vengance, smoke from a forestfire, driving hail or rain? This I have a problem with. Beings of pure radiant light shouldn't be able to see through driving rain or thick fog just because they've got lots of light. Seeing through fog has nothing to do with how much light there is.

Blindsight & blindsense? According to the definition of Blindsight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#blindsightAndBlinds ense), Blindsense is a lesser version of Blindsight. If a creature has Blindsight, it doesn't need blindsense, it already has all the effects of Blindsense, plus others!
Setting that aside, though, how does "Perfect sight" grant blindsight? Blindsight is defined as: the extraordinary ability to use a nonvisual sense...

Blindsight is the opposite of "perfect sight". It is "anti-sight".

Semi-Incorporeal (ex): a Bluestar is composed mostly of light. As such, it can move into and through solid objects at half speed, and attacks against it suffer a 25% miss chance. Even attacks that do hit deal only half normal damage (before DR), unless they have the Ghost Touch property.

Finishing up the repeated comments.
1.) Reword your second sentance. Incoproreal creatures can't move through any object with a larger face than their own. I suggest the following rewording:
Bluestars may move through objects the same way Incorporeal creatures do, but such movement costs double. (i.e. each square moved through solid objects costs two squares of movement)
2.) Drop the "deal only half damage" line. It's inconsistent with the RAW, and it makes no sense besides. If a character swings a magic sword at a Shadow, and hits with the miss chance, he deals full damage. Why should that same magic sword, swung at a more solid creature do less damage after the miss chance? That's a bit like saying "if you grab a smoldering piece of wood, you're less likely to grab a hot spot and be burned, but if you do grab a hot spot, you'll actually be burned worse than if you put your hand in the fire!"
CryoSilver
07-03-06, 01:27 PM Edited; changed some things you noted, left some as is. I dropped the dispelling down toa 5th level effect; that was pure oversight on my part.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
CryoSilver 07-02-06, 10:36 PM	Bluestar Large Outsider Hit Dice: 10d8+70 (115 hp) Initiative: +10 (+10 Dex) Speed: Fly 50 ft (perfect) AC: 26 (+10 Dex, +7 Deflection, -1 size) Base Attack/Grapple: +10/+17 Attacks: Light Blast +19 ranged (3d6) Full Attack: Light Blast +19 ranged (3d6) Face/Reach: 5 ft/10 ft Special Attacks: Engulf, Flare, Light Blasts Special Qualities: Brilliant Aura, DR 10/obsidian, Fast Healing 5, Immune to fire, Perfect Sight, Resistance 20 (acid, electricity), Semi-Incorporeal, Spell Resistance 20 Saves: Fort +17, Ref +20, Will +13 Abilities: Str 16 , Dex 30, Con 24, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 16 Skills: Intimidate +16, Listen +18, Knowledge (religion) +13, Knowledge (the planes) +2, Move Silently +23, Sense Motive +16, Spot +18 Feats: Ability Focus (Flare), Alertness, Dodge, Point Blank Shot Environment: any Organization: Solitary or sun (3-6) CR: ? Treasure: None Alignment: True Neutral Advancement: 10-20 HD (large), 21-30 HD (huge) Bluestars are guardians and shock troops for the Light. They resemble nothing so much as large lantern archons with a bluish cast, but are not nearly as good, or lawful. Bluestars understand Common, but do not speak. Combat Bluestars readily engage in combat; it is their sole purpose. They tend to hover out of reach and blast foes; if an opponent has a ranged weapon, the bluestar will attempt to engulf it. Brilliant Aura (su): a Bluestar is surrounded by an aura of light. It adds its Charisma modifier to its AC as a deflection bonus, and to its saves as a divine bonus. Bluestars shed bright light out to 50 feet, and shadowy light out to 100 feet; this light functions as a fifth level spell effect for purposes of negating magical darkness. Engulf (ex): a Bluestar can attempt to engulf another creature of its size or smaller. To do so, it must move into the opponent’s square (provoking an attack of opportunity). The creature must then make a DC 22 Reflex save or be engulfed. If it succeeds, it takes 1d6 fire damage, but is not engulfed. If it fails, the Bluestar engulfs it, and it takes 5d6 damage, half of which is fire damage, the other half of which is pure divine energy. It must make this save every round the Bluestar occupies its square. The save is Con based. Flare (su): once per minute, the Bluestar can cause a large flare of light to erupt from its side. This is a 30 foot cone that deals 10d6 damage, half of which is fire, the other half of which is pure divine energy. A Reflex save (DC 24) halves this damage. The save is Con based. Light Blast (su): Bluestars are capable of generating intense beams of light from their own substance. These beams have a range of 100 feet with no range increment and deal 3d6 damage. Perfect Sight (su): Bluestars cannot be blinded. They are constantly affected by See Invisibility (unlimited range) and True Seeing (unlimited range). Bluestars can perfectly in all conditions (including darkness, fog, etc). They also have 100 foot blindsight. Semi-Incorporeal (ex): a Bluestar is composed mostly of light. As such, it can move into and through solid objects at half speed as an incorporeal creature (subject to the same restrictions), and attacks against it suffer a 25% miss chance.
pileobone 07-03-06, 02:48 AM	Attacks: Light Blast +25 ranged (3d6) Full Attack: Light Blast +25/+20 ranged (3d6)Don't forget size penalty to attack. For Large creatures it's a -1, so +24. Also, creatures don't get additional attacks for natural weapons. Special Attacks: Engulf, Flare, Light BlastsYou list Light Blasts under Special Attacks, but you never explain what it is, what kind of damage it does, or even if it's Extraordinary of Supernatural. DR 10/obsidianInteresting... Why obsidian? If this is something specific to your campaign thats cool, but something so out of the ordinary warrants an explanation if you ask me. Consider it my need to know. ;) Saves: Fort +24, Ref +29, Will +21 :eek: I've got no idea where you got these saves from. Even with the +3 from it's Charisma bonus they should only be: Fort +17, Ref +25, Will +13 Thoughts Hmm, since they're all neutral I'm not sure if I understand the idea of them having Divine bonuses or doing Divine damage in their abilities. For his special abilities, could you please denote whether they are Supernatural, Extraordinary, or Spell-like? Also, please make note of what ability the save DC is based on, from the looks of them I'm guessing Con? Pretty interesting creature over all, can't help you right off with the CR though. I'm not a great judge of those things.
CryoSilver 07-03-06, 07:07 AM	Sorry about the save errors; this stat block was copy and pasted from the Radiant One, which is more powerful. I jus figured obsidian could be easily identified with darkness, and I've seen it used as a weapon material before (Dark Sun). I'll do a write up for Light Blasts after work today. And thanks for pointing out the attack size penalty. Marked ability types; saves are Con based. Divine doesn't mean good in this sense; it just means "granted by a higher power;" if it was good, it would be holy damage.
pileobone 07-03-06, 09:26 AM	:thumbsup:
dok 07-03-06, 12:58 PM	Full Attack: Light Blast +24/+19 ranged (3d6) Light Blast (su): Bluestars are capable of generating intense beams of light from their own substance. These beams have a range of 100 feet with no range increment and deal 3d6 damage. They require a normal ranged attack to hit, and are treated as ranged weapons for purposes of iterative attacks from base attack bonus. I made this comment on your other monster, and I'll make it here as well. Light Blasts aren't manufactured weapons, and saying they should be treated as so violates both the RAW and common sense. If a creature "generates" a natural attack "from their own substance", it's still a natural attack. Look at creatures that fire spikes from their bodies. Also, look at the Ghaele or the Lantern Archon; if it's a beam of light that deals energy damage, it should be resolved as a ranged touch attack. Special Qualities: ...DR 10/obsidian... Again, repeating comments from your other monster. If Obsidian is a commonly-used material in your game setting, with rules for obsidian weapons, and characters know that some creatures require obsidian weapons to harm, then this is fine. Otherwise, you're really giving the monster DR 10/-, because there's no way to "discover" how to overcome this DR, and with no other monsters requiring this material to overcome their DR, no real reason exists to have or carry obsidian weapons. Abilities: Str 16 , Dex 40, Con 24, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 16 40 Dexterity? No. On a CR 10 monster? Certainly not. Utterly absurd, and completely inappropriate for the CR. Find me a CR 10 monster that has a 40 in any ability score, and I'll consider it slightly less absurd. Find me any monster with a 40 in Dexterity that isn't Epic, and you'll have a solid argument. Brilliant Aura (su): a Bluestar is surrounded by an aura of light. It adds its Charisma modifier to its AC as a deflection bonus, and to its saves as a divine bonus. Bluestars shed bright light out to 50 feet, and shadowy light out to 100 feet; this light functions as a tenth level spell effect for purposes of negating magical darkness. OK, the CR 20 creature having a "10th level spell effect" was OK. A CR 10 creature negating all non-Epic Darkness spells is not OK. That's a seriosu scaling issue. Cut the level to something more appropriate for it's CR; at CR 10, making it be a level 6 or 7 effect is far more balanced. Flare (ex): once per minute, the Bluestar can cause a large flare of light to erupt from its side. This is a 30 foot cone that deals 10d6 damage, half of which is fire, the other half of which is pure divine energy. A Reflex save (DC 24) halves this damage. The save is Con based. (ex)? (ex)cuse me? If it's a cone of fire and "divine energy", I have a hard time seeing it meet the definition of being nonmagical and unaffected by an antimagic field. This should be (Su) Perfect Sight (su): Bluestars cannot be blinded. They are constantly affected by See Invisibility (unlimited range) and True Seeing (unlimited range). Bluestars can perfectly in all conditions (including darkness, fog, etc). They also have 100 foot blindsight and blindsense. More repeated comments. Immune to blindness from "perfect sight"? OK. Makes sense. That's fine. See invisible/True Seeing? No issues with that. It's seeing things as they are. See through fog cloud, storm of vengance, smoke from a forestfire, driving hail or rain? This I have a problem with. Beings of pure radiant light shouldn't be able to see through driving rain or thick fog just because they've got lots of light. Seeing through fog has nothing to do with how much light there is. Blindsight & blindsense? According to the definition of Blindsight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#blindsightAndBlinds ense), Blindsense is a lesser version of Blindsight. If a creature has Blindsight, it doesn't need blindsense, it already has all the effects of Blindsense, plus others! Setting that aside, though, how does "Perfect sight" grant blindsight? Blindsight is defined as: the extraordinary ability to use a nonvisual sense... Blindsight is the opposite of "perfect sight". It is "anti-sight". Semi-Incorporeal (ex): a Bluestar is composed mostly of light. As such, it can move into and through solid objects at half speed, and attacks against it suffer a 25% miss chance. Even attacks that do hit deal only half normal damage (before DR), unless they have the Ghost Touch property. Finishing up the repeated comments. 1.) Reword your second sentance. Incoproreal creatures can't move through any object with a larger face than their own. I suggest the following rewording: Bluestars may move through objects the same way Incorporeal creatures do, but such movement costs double. (i.e. each square moved through solid objects costs two squares of movement) 2.) Drop the "deal only half damage" line. It's inconsistent with the RAW, and it makes no sense besides. If a character swings a magic sword at a Shadow, and hits with the miss chance, he deals full damage. Why should that same magic sword, swung at a more solid creature do less damage after the miss chance? That's a bit like saying "if you grab a smoldering piece of wood, you're less likely to grab a hot spot and be burned, but if you do grab a hot spot, you'll actually be burned worse than if you put your hand in the fire!"
CryoSilver 07-03-06, 01:27 PM	Edited; changed some things you noted, left some as is. I dropped the dispelling down toa 5th level effect; that was pure oversight on my part.