Cascade Flu for Magic users [Archive] - Wizards Community

Cascade Flu for Magic users [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
MidnightLightning
08-26-05, 03:55 PM This moster race came about as I was trying to figure out how to get my monsters to be more effective against a party of 6 level 8 characters. I realized the mage and cleric were helping weaken the monsters en masse, so I came up with this way of diffusing their spells after reading about the Psionic malady known as "Cascade Flu". I modified it to target magic users, and created these monsters to carry it, in the hopes that the magic users will get infected and use up all their spells in the first encounter of the day once diseased.

Not quite sure what their CRs should be, since I borrowed from various sized standard Vipers for stats, plus some abilities, so any thoughts there would be appreciated.

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Thought Snake
These subterranean snakes very much enjoy the solitude their underground lairs provide. The live together in colonies or family groups in cave burrows. When the snakes detect a magic user has ventured underground, they use their impressive array of anti-magic abilities to return their burrow to a quiet, magic-free state. Thought Snakes are thinner than normal snakes, and a deep brown in color to blend with their rocky homes. Upon reaching maturity, the Thought Snake grows an additional head, giving additional bonuses.

Thought Snake, Juvenile
Small Animal
Hit Dice: 3d8 (13)
Initiative: +7
Speed: 20', climb 20', swim 20'
AC: 17 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +3 natural)
Attack: Bite +8 (+2 BAB, +5 Dex, +1 Focus) melee (1d6 plus disease)
Full Attack: 2 Bites
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
Special Attacks: At will: Detect Magic (SP), 5/day: Dispel Magic, Obscuring Mist (Sp, 30' radius for 2 min.). Fifth level caster.
Special Qualities: Tremorsense 30', Fear of Mind-Affects
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +3
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 19, Con 11, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2
Skills: Balance +11, Climb +12, Hide +11, Jump +12, Swim +6
Feats: Dodge, Spring Attack, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Bite); all are racial traits
Environment: Underground or Jungle
Organization: Solitary, Pair, or Hunting Party (1d4+3 Juveniles)
CR: 3
Treasure: Standard, no items
Alignment: Usually Chaotic Neutral

The juvenile Thought Snake resembles a small viper, though is much more durable than its size reveals, due to living underground where food is scarce. Juveniles are often sent on solitary patrol around the family burrow, using its Detect Magic ability to locate disturbing spellcasters and magic-wearing adventurers, but will form hunting parties if a large group of spellcasters are found. Thought Snakes will usually cast Dispel Magic on the prey before attacking, then it makes good use of its Spring Attack ability to leap and retreat from prey, trying to infect the spellcasters. If outnumbered, the Thought Snake will use its Obscuring Mist ability to blind the prey and rely on its Tremorsense to continue the attack.

Disease: Upon a successful bite on a living, spellcasting creature, that creature becomes infected with Thought Worms (Disease DC 15, 10 minutes incubation). The bite transfers a multitude of miniscule parasitic worms that burrow into the victim and find a nerve, then travel along it to reach the brain stem. They reach the brain stem at the end of the incubation period. After the incubation period, there is no ability or heath damage. The victim only feels a slight warmth on the back of their neck (A DC 21 Heal check is needed to determine that the patient is indeed diseased) which is caused by the parasites waiting in the brain stem for a spell to be cast. If the victim casts a spell, they must make a DC 16 Will save, or a Spell Cascade is triggered.

Spell Cascade: At the start of the victims next turn, a random 2 spells that they have memorized (or have the capacity to cast, in the case of Sorcerers or other spontaneous spellcasters) are cast. If the spells require a verbal or somatic component, the victim is compelled to do the appropriate verbal or somatic action to the best of their ability. If the victim is not able to do a required component (bound or gagged) or the spell requires more than a full-round action, the spell is cast, but immediately fizzles. For spells that need a target, Touch spells automatically target the disease victim, and those who target an individual or an area, roll 1d4:

Target the caster
Target an ally
Target an enemy
Target an empty area
For each spell cast in this manner, the caster takes damage equal to the level of the spell cast. The victim may now take their turn this round, though they may only take a move action (the Spell Cascade counts as a standard action). The next round, 3 spells are cast spontaneously at the start of the victim's round. The round after that, 4 spells. The number goes up by one each round until all the spells memorized are expired, or the victim falls unconcious.

Fear of Mind-Affects: Thought Snakes hate magic generally, but they don't fear most magics due to their Dispel Magic ability. But any spell that is successfully cast on them which results in them telepathically hearing or seeing messages (i.e. Sending or Telepathic Bond, but not Message nor Speak with Animals. Language does not matter; even if the snake doesn't understand it, they will be frightened by it.) will cause them to have to make a DC 15 Will save or run away for 2d4 rounds, in addition to what the spell normally does

Thought Snake, Adult
Medium Animal
Hit Dice: 6d8+6 (33)
Initiative: +6
Speed: 20', climb 20', swim 20'
AC: 16 (+3 Dex, +3 natural)
Attack: 2 Bites +10 (+4 BAB, +5 Dex, +1 focus) melee (1d6+4 plus disease)
Full Attack: 4 Bites
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
Special Attacks: At will: Detect Magic (SP), 10/day: Dispel Magic, Obscuring Mist (Sp, 30' radius for 4 min.). Ninth level caster.
Special Qualities: Tremorsense 60', Fear of Mind-Affects, cannot be Flanked
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +3
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 19, Con 11, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2
Skills: Balance +11, Climb +13, Jump +13, Swim +6
Feats: Dodge, Spring Attack, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Bite); all are racial traits
Environment: Underground or Jungle
Organization: Solitary, Pair, or Family (1d4 Juveniles plus 1d2 Adults)
CR: 4
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Usually Chaotic Neutral

Adult Thought Snakes are larger than the Juveniles, have two heads for an extra attack, and have more evolved anti-magic abilities.

Disease: DC 16, 1 min. incubation. Effects the same as the Juvenile Thought Snake.
MidnightLightning
08-28-05, 08:47 PM Wow, you know you're thinking a lot about your creation when... you dream up another member of the race. Seriously, this one came to me in a dream, so check this out. I also modified the incubation time of the disease for the two existing critters above, and made some more differences between the juvenile and adult.
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Thought Snake, Hypnotist
Medium Animal
Hit Dice: 6d8+6 (33)
Initiative: +6
Speed: 20', climb 20', swim 20'
AC: 16 (+3 Dex, +3 natural)
Attack: Bite +10 (+4 BAB, +5 Dex, +1 Focus) melee (1d6+4 plus disease)
Full Attack: 2 Bites
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
Special Attacks: At will: Detect Magic (SP), 10/day: Obscuring Mist (Sp, 30' radius for 4 min.). Ninth level caster. Charm
Special Qualities: Tremorsense 60', Fear of Mind-Affects, cannot be Flanked
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +3
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 17, Con 11, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2
Skills: Balance +11, Climb +13, Hide +11, Listen +7, Jump +13, Spot +7, Swim +6
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Bite); all are racial traits
Environment: Underground or Jungle
Organization: Solitary, Pair, or Extended Family (2 Juveniles plus 1d2 Adults plus 1d2 Hypnotists)
CR: 4
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Usually Chaotic Neutral

Hypnotist Thought Snakes are similar to the Adult Thought Snakes, but took another evolutionary route. They are golden to brassy yellow in color (in contrast to the 'standard' Thought Snakes') and have neck flaps similar to common cobras, but do have the charactaristicly thinner body that distinguishes Thought Snakes from normal vipers. They have only one head, and have traded in the potency of their poison for other effects. These relatives of the Throught Snakes are sometimes found in the family setting with other adults. They use their Charm special attack to augment the poison their relatives do.

Disease: DC 15, 10 min. incubation; effects the same as Juvenile Thought Snake.

Charm: Gaze attack 30'. All spellcasters in range of the gaze attack must make a DC 16 Will save or spontaneously cast a spell (treat this as a mind-affecting charm effect). If the spell requires verbal or somatic components, the victim does them to the best of their ability. If they are unable to perform a required verbal or somatic component (bound or gagged), or the spell requires more than a full-round action to cast, the spell is cast, but immediately fizzles. If a spell targets 'Self' or is a 'Touch' target, it targets the spellcaster. Other targets roll 1d4 against the table above for the Spell Cascade.

If the victim of the Charm attack is infected with Thought Snake disease, but the incubation period is not up, there is a 20% chance that the Charm attack ends the incubation period, and the victim must make a will save or start a Spell Cascade, as per the disease discription. If the victim already was infected with the disease and the incubation period up, the Charm attack increases the Will save to DC 19 to prevent a Spell Cascade.
MidnightLightning
09-01-05, 11:55 AM Bumping this up, since tonight I'll be using these two against a party of 6 8th level PCS, four of which (Paladin\Kensai, Druid, Cleric, and Mage) all use magic and would be succeptible to this disease (the other two are Monk and Rogue, if you're interested). Therefore I'll be adjusting their CRs based on how this party reacts to them. Any thoughts on balance before tonight (6:00pm CST, America)?

Currently I'm going to play it with the party encountering two Juveniles out scouting in the tunnels, who will hopefully infect a few of the magic users, and then vanish into the walls behind an Obscuring mist, then later on in the tunnels they'll encounter the full family group (2 Hypnotists, 2 Adults, and 3 Juveniles). With the CRs the way they are now, that's a CR6 encounter and a CR10, compared to the party's ECL of 9.2; that should keep them on their toes. :w00t:
MidnightLightning
09-02-05, 04:29 PM Well, the party got to the advanced guard of two Juveniles (CR7 encounter) it went pretty well for the snakes, even though they were weaker than the party. The encounter took place in a 10' hallway, and one Juvenile snake was burrowed into each side. This was their burrow area, so the walls were riddled with holes for them to burrow into the wall and then reappear somewhere else. Obscuring Mist plus spring attack worked well, but at 20'/round, most of the party could flat outrun them (and with a 10' hallway, would see them if they ran past them), and so they had to take cover in the walls and fight from there. Two magic users got bitten, and one contracted the disease (though they don't know it yet), and one set of Gauntlets of Ogre Power got Dispelled (for 10 min.). The encounter only ended because the snakes both got down to 2 HP (low ACs meant everyone hit them, though the Mist gave a small miss chance), and retreated into the walls (to warn their family).

The party headed the wrong direction afterward, and so avoided the family group for the moment, but I'll update when that disease kicks in for the magic user...
MidnightLightning
09-16-05, 08:19 AM Well, the wizard finally got it; he set off the cascade while the party was fighting a group of spectres. All 19 of his spells went off within 3 rounds and very nearly killed him (fireball centered on him with a failed reflex save, and magic missile spray at himself), and he only hit one other ally with Tasha's Hideous Laughter. After that, I found that it was quite easy for level 8 characters to get rid of the disease (both the wizard made his fortitude save, and the Druid cast Remove Disease on him), but the DC 21 heal check to even tell that he was diseased was failed by all, leading them to think that their curing had no effect. They therefore wasted a Remove Curse as well, trying to get rid of it.

The Cascade worked fine, but I think I'm going to drop the CRs of all the variants of this race down by 1, since the party escaped from a party of 2 adults, 1 hypnotist, and 2 juveniles without a scratch.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MidnightLightning 08-26-05, 03:55 PM	This moster race came about as I was trying to figure out how to get my monsters to be more effective against a party of 6 level 8 characters. I realized the mage and cleric were helping weaken the monsters en masse, so I came up with this way of diffusing their spells after reading about the Psionic malady known as "Cascade Flu". I modified it to target magic users, and created these monsters to carry it, in the hopes that the magic users will get infected and use up all their spells in the first encounter of the day once diseased. Not quite sure what their CRs should be, since I borrowed from various sized standard Vipers for stats, plus some abilities, so any thoughts there would be appreciated. ------------------------------------------------- Thought Snake These subterranean snakes very much enjoy the solitude their underground lairs provide. The live together in colonies or family groups in cave burrows. When the snakes detect a magic user has ventured underground, they use their impressive array of anti-magic abilities to return their burrow to a quiet, magic-free state. Thought Snakes are thinner than normal snakes, and a deep brown in color to blend with their rocky homes. Upon reaching maturity, the Thought Snake grows an additional head, giving additional bonuses. Thought Snake, Juvenile Small Animal Hit Dice: 3d8 (13) Initiative: +7 Speed: 20', climb 20', swim 20' AC: 17 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +3 natural) Attack: Bite +8 (+2 BAB, +5 Dex, +1 Focus) melee (1d6 plus disease) Full Attack: 2 Bites Space/Reach: 5'/5' Special Attacks: At will: Detect Magic (SP), 5/day: Dispel Magic, Obscuring Mist (Sp, 30' radius for 2 min.). Fifth level caster. Special Qualities: Tremorsense 30', Fear of Mind-Affects Saves: Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +3 Abilities: Str 10, Dex 19, Con 11, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2 Skills: Balance +11, Climb +12, Hide +11, Jump +12, Swim +6 Feats: Dodge, Spring Attack, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Bite); all are racial traits Environment: Underground or Jungle Organization: Solitary, Pair, or Hunting Party (1d4+3 Juveniles) CR: 3 Treasure: Standard, no items Alignment: Usually Chaotic Neutral The juvenile Thought Snake resembles a small viper, though is much more durable than its size reveals, due to living underground where food is scarce. Juveniles are often sent on solitary patrol around the family burrow, using its Detect Magic ability to locate disturbing spellcasters and magic-wearing adventurers, but will form hunting parties if a large group of spellcasters are found. Thought Snakes will usually cast Dispel Magic on the prey before attacking, then it makes good use of its Spring Attack ability to leap and retreat from prey, trying to infect the spellcasters. If outnumbered, the Thought Snake will use its Obscuring Mist ability to blind the prey and rely on its Tremorsense to continue the attack. Disease: Upon a successful bite on a living, spellcasting creature, that creature becomes infected with Thought Worms (Disease DC 15, 10 minutes incubation). The bite transfers a multitude of miniscule parasitic worms that burrow into the victim and find a nerve, then travel along it to reach the brain stem. They reach the brain stem at the end of the incubation period. After the incubation period, there is no ability or heath damage. The victim only feels a slight warmth on the back of their neck (A DC 21 Heal check is needed to determine that the patient is indeed diseased) which is caused by the parasites waiting in the brain stem for a spell to be cast. If the victim casts a spell, they must make a DC 16 Will save, or a Spell Cascade is triggered. Spell Cascade: At the start of the victims next turn, a random 2 spells that they have memorized (or have the capacity to cast, in the case of Sorcerers or other spontaneous spellcasters) are cast. If the spells require a verbal or somatic component, the victim is compelled to do the appropriate verbal or somatic action to the best of their ability. If the victim is not able to do a required component (bound or gagged) or the spell requires more than a full-round action, the spell is cast, but immediately fizzles. For spells that need a target, Touch spells automatically target the disease victim, and those who target an individual or an area, roll 1d4: Target the caster Target an ally Target an enemy Target an empty area For each spell cast in this manner, the caster takes damage equal to the level of the spell cast. The victim may now take their turn this round, though they may only take a move action (the Spell Cascade counts as a standard action). The next round, 3 spells are cast spontaneously at the start of the victim's round. The round after that, 4 spells. The number goes up by one each round until all the spells memorized are expired, or the victim falls unconcious. Fear of Mind-Affects: Thought Snakes hate magic generally, but they don't fear most magics due to their Dispel Magic ability. But any spell that is successfully cast on them which results in them telepathically hearing or seeing messages (i.e. Sending or Telepathic Bond, but not Message nor Speak with Animals. Language does not matter; even if the snake doesn't understand it, they will be frightened by it.) will cause them to have to make a DC 15 Will save or run away for 2d4 rounds, in addition to what the spell normally does Thought Snake, Adult Medium Animal Hit Dice: 6d8+6 (33) Initiative: +6 Speed: 20', climb 20', swim 20' AC: 16 (+3 Dex, +3 natural) Attack: 2 Bites +10 (+4 BAB, +5 Dex, +1 focus) melee (1d6+4 plus disease) Full Attack: 4 Bites Space/Reach: 5'/5' Special Attacks: At will: Detect Magic (SP), 10/day: Dispel Magic, Obscuring Mist (Sp, 30' radius for 4 min.). Ninth level caster. Special Qualities: Tremorsense 60', Fear of Mind-Affects, cannot be Flanked Saves: Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +3 Abilities: Str 10, Dex 19, Con 11, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2 Skills: Balance +11, Climb +13, Jump +13, Swim +6 Feats: Dodge, Spring Attack, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Bite); all are racial traits Environment: Underground or Jungle Organization: Solitary, Pair, or Family (1d4 Juveniles plus 1d2 Adults) CR: 4 Treasure: Standard Alignment: Usually Chaotic Neutral Adult Thought Snakes are larger than the Juveniles, have two heads for an extra attack, and have more evolved anti-magic abilities. Disease: DC 16, 1 min. incubation. Effects the same as the Juvenile Thought Snake.
MidnightLightning 08-28-05, 08:47 PM	Wow, you know you're thinking a lot about your creation when... you dream up another member of the race. Seriously, this one came to me in a dream, so check this out. I also modified the incubation time of the disease for the two existing critters above, and made some more differences between the juvenile and adult. ------------------------------------------------- Thought Snake, Hypnotist Medium Animal Hit Dice: 6d8+6 (33) Initiative: +6 Speed: 20', climb 20', swim 20' AC: 16 (+3 Dex, +3 natural) Attack: Bite +10 (+4 BAB, +5 Dex, +1 Focus) melee (1d6+4 plus disease) Full Attack: 2 Bites Space/Reach: 5'/5' Special Attacks: At will: Detect Magic (SP), 10/day: Obscuring Mist (Sp, 30' radius for 4 min.). Ninth level caster. Charm Special Qualities: Tremorsense 60', Fear of Mind-Affects, cannot be Flanked Saves: Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +3 Abilities: Str 10, Dex 17, Con 11, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2 Skills: Balance +11, Climb +13, Hide +11, Listen +7, Jump +13, Spot +7, Swim +6 Feats: Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Bite); all are racial traits Environment: Underground or Jungle Organization: Solitary, Pair, or Extended Family (2 Juveniles plus 1d2 Adults plus 1d2 Hypnotists) CR: 4 Treasure: Standard Alignment: Usually Chaotic Neutral Hypnotist Thought Snakes are similar to the Adult Thought Snakes, but took another evolutionary route. They are golden to brassy yellow in color (in contrast to the 'standard' Thought Snakes') and have neck flaps similar to common cobras, but do have the charactaristicly thinner body that distinguishes Thought Snakes from normal vipers. They have only one head, and have traded in the potency of their poison for other effects. These relatives of the Throught Snakes are sometimes found in the family setting with other adults. They use their Charm special attack to augment the poison their relatives do. Disease: DC 15, 10 min. incubation; effects the same as Juvenile Thought Snake. Charm: Gaze attack 30'. All spellcasters in range of the gaze attack must make a DC 16 Will save or spontaneously cast a spell (treat this as a mind-affecting charm effect). If the spell requires verbal or somatic components, the victim does them to the best of their ability. If they are unable to perform a required verbal or somatic component (bound or gagged), or the spell requires more than a full-round action to cast, the spell is cast, but immediately fizzles. If a spell targets 'Self' or is a 'Touch' target, it targets the spellcaster. Other targets roll 1d4 against the table above for the Spell Cascade. If the victim of the Charm attack is infected with Thought Snake disease, but the incubation period is not up, there is a 20% chance that the Charm attack ends the incubation period, and the victim must make a will save or start a Spell Cascade, as per the disease discription. If the victim already was infected with the disease and the incubation period up, the Charm attack increases the Will save to DC 19 to prevent a Spell Cascade.
MidnightLightning 09-01-05, 11:55 AM	Bumping this up, since tonight I'll be using these two against a party of 6 8th level PCS, four of which (Paladin\Kensai, Druid, Cleric, and Mage) all use magic and would be succeptible to this disease (the other two are Monk and Rogue, if you're interested). Therefore I'll be adjusting their CRs based on how this party reacts to them. Any thoughts on balance before tonight (6:00pm CST, America)? Currently I'm going to play it with the party encountering two Juveniles out scouting in the tunnels, who will hopefully infect a few of the magic users, and then vanish into the walls behind an Obscuring mist, then later on in the tunnels they'll encounter the full family group (2 Hypnotists, 2 Adults, and 3 Juveniles). With the CRs the way they are now, that's a CR6 encounter and a CR10, compared to the party's ECL of 9.2; that should keep them on their toes. :w00t:
MidnightLightning 09-02-05, 04:29 PM	Well, the party got to the advanced guard of two Juveniles (CR7 encounter) it went pretty well for the snakes, even though they were weaker than the party. The encounter took place in a 10' hallway, and one Juvenile snake was burrowed into each side. This was their burrow area, so the walls were riddled with holes for them to burrow into the wall and then reappear somewhere else. Obscuring Mist plus spring attack worked well, but at 20'/round, most of the party could flat outrun them (and with a 10' hallway, would see them if they ran past them), and so they had to take cover in the walls and fight from there. Two magic users got bitten, and one contracted the disease (though they don't know it yet), and one set of Gauntlets of Ogre Power got Dispelled (for 10 min.). The encounter only ended because the snakes both got down to 2 HP (low ACs meant everyone hit them, though the Mist gave a small miss chance), and retreated into the walls (to warn their family). The party headed the wrong direction afterward, and so avoided the family group for the moment, but I'll update when that disease kicks in for the magic user...
MidnightLightning 09-16-05, 08:19 AM	Well, the wizard finally got it; he set off the cascade while the party was fighting a group of spectres. All 19 of his spells went off within 3 rounds and very nearly killed him (fireball centered on him with a failed reflex save, and magic missile spray at himself), and he only hit one other ally with Tasha's Hideous Laughter. After that, I found that it was quite easy for level 8 characters to get rid of the disease (both the wizard made his fortitude save, and the Druid cast Remove Disease on him), but the DC 21 heal check to even tell that he was diseased was failed by all, leading them to think that their curing had no effect. They therefore wasted a Remove Curse as well, trying to get rid of it. The Cascade worked fine, but I think I'm going to drop the CRs of all the variants of this race down by 1, since the party escaped from a party of 2 adults, 1 hypnotist, and 2 juveniles without a scratch.