Combined Animals! PEACH! [Archive] - Wizards Community

Combined Animals! PEACH! [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Monsco
09-09-06, 02:09 AM HAs anyone here played Impossible creatures? no? okay, how many of you have seen Fullmetal Alchemest? A Few? whatever. I thought it would be fun to write up on how combine creatures in D&D! Give me your opinions. All of you. I worked hard on this...

Sample Combined creature:
Crocodile/cheetah
This creature has the legs and body of a cheetah, but has the tail and head of a crocodile.
Hit dice: 3d8+15
Initiative: +6
Speed: 50 ft (10 squares) Swim 10ft (2 squares
Armor class: 18 (3 natural, 6 Dex)
Base attack/ grapple: +2/+6
Attack: Bite +7 melee (1d8 +6) or tail slap +6 melee (1d12 +3)
Full attack: Bite +7 melee (1d8 +6) and tail slap +6 melee (1d12 +3) and 2 claws +5 melee (1d2 +3)
Space/reach: 5 ft/ 5 ft
Special Attacks: Trip (claw only), Improved grab (Bite only)
Special Qualities: sprint, low-light vision, hold breath
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +7 Will +2
Abilities: Str:16 Dex:19 Con:20 Int:2 Wis:12 Cha:2
Skills: Hide +6 Listen +4 Move silently +6 Spot +4 Swim +6
Feats: Alertness, Multiattack, weapon focus (bite)
Challenge rating: 3

Combined creatures are the result of mages or Alchemists tampering with animals to attempt to improve them. They are generally well accepted henchmen in the wizardry community, although they are not really mass produced. Amongst scientists, they are much harder to create, so they are more considered trophies, and are usually cherished. Druids, rangers, elves and fey usually pity the combined creatures and loath the person behind them.

Creating a combined creature
A Combined creature is a animal that has several body parts of any number of different creatures combined. You can only create combined creatures from animals, magical beasts, and vermin. (but using a magical beast is significantly harder).
Size and Type: Animals change there type to combined creature. You cant add combined creature to a animal as a subtype, as creating one makes it a entirely different creature. Size changes in accordance to what animal part makes the actual body. For example, a Baleen whale/weasel with the Baleen whales body would be a gargantuan creature. However, even if every aspect of the beast was of a weasel, the minimum size of the beast has to be two category sizes smaller of the biggest creature. So a Baleen whale/camel/wolverine/elephant would have to be at least large size, assuming that the body is made from the camel. Reach is determined by the body parts original reach.
Hit dice: Hit dice are determined by two factors: the head and torso. The body makes up 2/3 of total hit dice, and head makes up 1/3 of total hit dice. Say you have a Bison/polar bear. The Bear has the head and the bison has the torso. Then the creature would have 5 HD, 3 from the bison and 2 from the Bear. If the answer has decimals (it most likely will) then round up. Minor things added to the head or body (say the Bear had bat ears) do not contribute to Hit dice unless they are the major determining factor of the hit dice of the original creature. In that case, add one forth of the creature’s original hit dice to the combined creature.
Speed: The main factor that determents speed is legs. Say a hyena/horse had horse legs. Its speed would be 50 ft (10 squares). However, weight contributes to speed lets say out hyena is replaced with a Orca. The total speed of the creature is reduced by five feet every seventy pounds the creature that dose not make up the legs weighs more than the beast that has the legs dose. The speed cannot be reduced to less than 1/3 the speed of the creature that makes up the legs originally had. Flying is even more complicated than this. Say we have a raven mixed with a rat. All creatures flying is average when made, and that’s assuming that they share the same size category. The flying speed of the creature is reduced by ten feet (to a minimum of flying 5 feet per round). Creatures one category larger than the flying creature (say a raven and a octopus) that are combined to fly have the category dropped to clumsy. No flying creature mixed with a being two category sizes larger than it can fly. So a raven/Rhino might have useless wings on its back. Swimming is difficult for combined creatures. All swimming creatures must have either the head or body of the creature in order to swim. The swim speed is reduced by twenty (two a minimum of 10ft) unless the combined creatures are both swimmers. If the creature has the body or head of a creature dependent on water (say a carp/cat, carp head) then the creature can stay on land for 5x its constitution score minuets before it has to go back underwater for a breath of air. Amphibious creatures swim (like with example) is half of the original creatures swim.
Armor class: The creatures armor class is determined normally, but also:
-his Torsos creatures natural armor (if any)
-his head creature’s natural armor cut in half (if any)
Also, its possible to have one creature, and replace his skin with the other creatures (kinda like a acolite of the skin) you give the creatures AC to the other beast, but keep everything else from the origonal animal. Every size catigory you increase the creatue, the AC in skin replacement only, increaces by half each size larger.
Base attack: Combined creatures Base attack goes to ž its hit dice. If there is a magical creature in the combined creatures, the base attack goes up to its hit dice.
Attacks: A Combined creatures attack is determined by its creatures body. Lets say we have a cat/crocodile with cat legs and tail, and a crocodiles head and body. Now, size determines how much this actually does. Now, the creature’s size is medium, as the crocodile has the torso. This makes the cats arms bigger, so they do 1d3 points of damage instead of the regular 1d2. Remembering that, the combined creatures attack would consist of two claw attacks (1d3) and one bite attack (1d8). Now, it is possible to add individual traits to a creature from separate animals, but keep the ability increases of the original creature. For example, a camel with lions teeth. The bite would do 1d8, as a lions, but the camel would add only half his strength bonus to the damage, as you gave him the lion’s teeth, not jaw.
Damage: damage is changed only by any size increases the creature might have. 1d6 changes to 1d8 if the creature’s size increases by a category. Also, in a special exception, all bite attacks from the unaltered head of a combined creature uses the strength mortifier of the original creature.
Special attacks/ special qualities: A combined creatures special attacks/qualities are determined by what creatures parts are getting combined. For example, you combine a squid’s legs/body, with a bats head. You would get the bats blindsense quality, but get a squids improved grab, ink cloud, and jet. In essence, you get the special quality/attack associated with the part your combining.
Saves: A creatures good saves are fortitude and reflex, as normal.
Abilities: A creatures abilities are determined by its body parts as normal. Each part of the body either contributes to the score, or determines it. So if it determines a score, then it would get the ability score of the original creature. If it contributes to the score, then you would add one third of the score (round down) from that animal and add it to the total. The full list is:
Body: Constitution, Strength, contributes to: Dexterity
Legs/arms: Dexterity. Contributes to: strength
Tail: Contributes to: Constitution
Head:Wisdom, Intelligence, Charisma. Contributes to: Constitution
Eyes: Contributes to: Charisma
Ears: Contributes to: Charisma
For example, lets go back to our cat/crocodile its scores would be:
Str: 20, Dex: 19 Con: 20 Int:1 (unless magic, cannot exceed 2) Wis:12
Cha: 2
Skills: A creatures skills are determent by its ability scores and such as normal, but bonuses are applied for certain body parts. For example, or cat/Crocodile would get the cats +4 racial bonus on climb, hide, and move silently, for having the legs of the cat. As with special qualities/attacks, they get the normal animals racial bonuses on skills associated with the body parts the animal might contribute to the creature. However, just because of the cats +8 on jumps, it dose not mean that the crocodile can jump. Natural restrictions still apply when the DM deems it fit.
Feats: Combined creatures get the usual feats from there hit dice. But automatically get the multiattack feat for being a combined creature.
Environment: any
Challenge rating: The creatures challenge rating is usually increased by half the majority animals was. So that crocodile/cat would have a challenge rating of 3 or greater, as DM sees fit.
Treasure: none
Alignment: Always nutral, unless using a magical beast. Then there alignment

“Making” a combined creature:
PC’s and NPCs can make combined creatures much like magic items or homunculi. They first need to capture the animals they want to combine. From there, it splits:
For the magic user: Over a process of 3 days, the wizard makes a magic circle and has polymorph any object, permanency, cure light wounds, and summon monster V prepared. he then makes a Knowledge check (nature) DC 24 and a Knowledge (Arcana) DC 20.
Should he fail any of there checks, the animals turn into bloody, ripped up corpses instead of combined. During the ritual, the mage decides what body part he want where. Once chosen, he cannot change. He then performs a quick, one minuet ritual that costs 3,000 GP and 1,000 exp. Once combined, the creature still has to be tamed.
For the Alchemist: Over a process of a month, the alchemist prepares charms, oils, incense, circles, Ect costing 7,000 gp and 2,000 Exp. During that period, the alchemist picks his animals parts. Once he picks, he can change it ONCE, but doing so adds +4 to the DC. During the Ritual, the Alchemist has to make Knowledge (nature) DC 24, and a Alchemy check DC 32. The ritual is a one day process of carefully using oils, cream, and reforming matter to make the beast. Once created, the creature still needs to be taimed.

when using magical beasts, all DCs increasce by 12. For a mage, it takes 3 extra days. FOr a alchemsest, it takes a extra week. Also, if the Magic creature has 3 or more in intellingence, it has to be willing. (most wizards just donimate them)

Whoo! that was a lot of typing. So give me your honest opinions.
Please dont ignore me :weep:

oh, yeah! please tell me if this idea has been used. I want to see how they did this.

Thanks for your time!
Sorcen_Anenooata
09-09-06, 03:17 PM Cool idea, I like it and swear I've seen it before but I cant seem to find it. You seem to have thought this through pretty well and your hard work shows. Hopefully my reply will bump it into more capable hands for critiqueing.
KingGolem
09-09-06, 08:18 PM I've seen something like this before. Thats because I made something like this! :D The link to my Arcane Hybrid template is in my signature. And yes, I am familiar with Impossible Creatures and Fullmetal Alchemist. The one thing I did not include into my template is how they are made, and mine is different because the anatomy of the finished creature is much more seamless than it was in Impossible Creatures. I congradulate you on such a well executed template. :clap:
Athanatos
09-09-06, 08:26 PM I, for one, have played Impossible Creatures.
Prime32
09-10-06, 04:17 PM I've played IC and watched FMA.

Did you know that scientists made a part-goat part-sheep? Not a hybrid, it had some of a goat's body parts and some of a sheep's body parts. The technical term for such a creature is a chimera. :cool:
Monsco
09-10-06, 05:59 PM I honesty thought i was the only one who played IC... weird...

anywho, thanks for all the opinions so far! please keep critiqueing!
Prime32
09-11-06, 05:20 PM Everyone who played IC uses this av :D

I seem to remember that mixing an ant with a whale in IC granted a huge defence bonus from the enlarged exoskeleton. Could you incorporate that?
Monsco
09-11-06, 05:55 PM I tip my hat to you, Prime32, i compleatly forgot vermin and skin/exoskeleton

I edited the origonal post. the changes should be there.
Sorcen_Anenooata
09-12-06, 05:37 PM Combining Creatures Thread. (http://boardsold.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=649444)

This was the thread I was thinking about.
Shinryouga
09-12-06, 06:08 PM I like this, the only "official" stuff like this is the old 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms "Animerge" spell. That or the 3rd Party Advanced Bestiary Amalgam template. Nice to see a third option.
Heatseeker
09-14-06, 10:09 PM WoW... It's a cool idea. i'll show it to my DM... Maybe i can get one as a cohort...:rofl: Yeah, right.

Sigh....

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Monsco 09-09-06, 02:09 AM	HAs anyone here played Impossible creatures? no? okay, how many of you have seen Fullmetal Alchemest? A Few? whatever. I thought it would be fun to write up on how combine creatures in D&D! Give me your opinions. All of you. I worked hard on this... Sample Combined creature: Crocodile/cheetah This creature has the legs and body of a cheetah, but has the tail and head of a crocodile. Hit dice: 3d8+15 Initiative: +6 Speed: 50 ft (10 squares) Swim 10ft (2 squares Armor class: 18 (3 natural, 6 Dex) Base attack/ grapple: +2/+6 Attack: Bite +7 melee (1d8 +6) or tail slap +6 melee (1d12 +3) Full attack: Bite +7 melee (1d8 +6) and tail slap +6 melee (1d12 +3) and 2 claws +5 melee (1d2 +3) Space/reach: 5 ft/ 5 ft Special Attacks: Trip (claw only), Improved grab (Bite only) Special Qualities: sprint, low-light vision, hold breath Saves: Fort +8, Ref +7 Will +2 Abilities: Str:16 Dex:19 Con:20 Int:2 Wis:12 Cha:2 Skills: Hide +6 Listen +4 Move silently +6 Spot +4 Swim +6 Feats: Alertness, Multiattack, weapon focus (bite) Challenge rating: 3 Combined creatures are the result of mages or Alchemists tampering with animals to attempt to improve them. They are generally well accepted henchmen in the wizardry community, although they are not really mass produced. Amongst scientists, they are much harder to create, so they are more considered trophies, and are usually cherished. Druids, rangers, elves and fey usually pity the combined creatures and loath the person behind them. Creating a combined creature A Combined creature is a animal that has several body parts of any number of different creatures combined. You can only create combined creatures from animals, magical beasts, and vermin. (but using a magical beast is significantly harder). Size and Type: Animals change there type to combined creature. You cant add combined creature to a animal as a subtype, as creating one makes it a entirely different creature. Size changes in accordance to what animal part makes the actual body. For example, a Baleen whale/weasel with the Baleen whales body would be a gargantuan creature. However, even if every aspect of the beast was of a weasel, the minimum size of the beast has to be two category sizes smaller of the biggest creature. So a Baleen whale/camel/wolverine/elephant would have to be at least large size, assuming that the body is made from the camel. Reach is determined by the body parts original reach. Hit dice: Hit dice are determined by two factors: the head and torso. The body makes up 2/3 of total hit dice, and head makes up 1/3 of total hit dice. Say you have a Bison/polar bear. The Bear has the head and the bison has the torso. Then the creature would have 5 HD, 3 from the bison and 2 from the Bear. If the answer has decimals (it most likely will) then round up. Minor things added to the head or body (say the Bear had bat ears) do not contribute to Hit dice unless they are the major determining factor of the hit dice of the original creature. In that case, add one forth of the creature’s original hit dice to the combined creature. Speed: The main factor that determents speed is legs. Say a hyena/horse had horse legs. Its speed would be 50 ft (10 squares). However, weight contributes to speed lets say out hyena is replaced with a Orca. The total speed of the creature is reduced by five feet every seventy pounds the creature that dose not make up the legs weighs more than the beast that has the legs dose. The speed cannot be reduced to less than 1/3 the speed of the creature that makes up the legs originally had. Flying is even more complicated than this. Say we have a raven mixed with a rat. All creatures flying is average when made, and that’s assuming that they share the same size category. The flying speed of the creature is reduced by ten feet (to a minimum of flying 5 feet per round). Creatures one category larger than the flying creature (say a raven and a octopus) that are combined to fly have the category dropped to clumsy. No flying creature mixed with a being two category sizes larger than it can fly. So a raven/Rhino might have useless wings on its back. Swimming is difficult for combined creatures. All swimming creatures must have either the head or body of the creature in order to swim. The swim speed is reduced by twenty (two a minimum of 10ft) unless the combined creatures are both swimmers. If the creature has the body or head of a creature dependent on water (say a carp/cat, carp head) then the creature can stay on land for 5x its constitution score minuets before it has to go back underwater for a breath of air. Amphibious creatures swim (like with example) is half of the original creatures swim. Armor class: The creatures armor class is determined normally, but also: -his Torsos creatures natural armor (if any) -his head creature’s natural armor cut in half (if any) Also, its possible to have one creature, and replace his skin with the other creatures (kinda like a acolite of the skin) you give the creatures AC to the other beast, but keep everything else from the origonal animal. Every size catigory you increase the creatue, the AC in skin replacement only, increaces by half each size larger. Base attack: Combined creatures Base attack goes to ž its hit dice. If there is a magical creature in the combined creatures, the base attack goes up to its hit dice. Attacks: A Combined creatures attack is determined by its creatures body. Lets say we have a cat/crocodile with cat legs and tail, and a crocodiles head and body. Now, size determines how much this actually does. Now, the creature’s size is medium, as the crocodile has the torso. This makes the cats arms bigger, so they do 1d3 points of damage instead of the regular 1d2. Remembering that, the combined creatures attack would consist of two claw attacks (1d3) and one bite attack (1d8). Now, it is possible to add individual traits to a creature from separate animals, but keep the ability increases of the original creature. For example, a camel with lions teeth. The bite would do 1d8, as a lions, but the camel would add only half his strength bonus to the damage, as you gave him the lion’s teeth, not jaw. Damage: damage is changed only by any size increases the creature might have. 1d6 changes to 1d8 if the creature’s size increases by a category. Also, in a special exception, all bite attacks from the unaltered head of a combined creature uses the strength mortifier of the original creature. Special attacks/ special qualities: A combined creatures special attacks/qualities are determined by what creatures parts are getting combined. For example, you combine a squid’s legs/body, with a bats head. You would get the bats blindsense quality, but get a squids improved grab, ink cloud, and jet. In essence, you get the special quality/attack associated with the part your combining. Saves: A creatures good saves are fortitude and reflex, as normal. Abilities: A creatures abilities are determined by its body parts as normal. Each part of the body either contributes to the score, or determines it. So if it determines a score, then it would get the ability score of the original creature. If it contributes to the score, then you would add one third of the score (round down) from that animal and add it to the total. The full list is: Body: Constitution, Strength, contributes to: Dexterity Legs/arms: Dexterity. Contributes to: strength Tail: Contributes to: Constitution Head:Wisdom, Intelligence, Charisma. Contributes to: Constitution Eyes: Contributes to: Charisma Ears: Contributes to: Charisma For example, lets go back to our cat/crocodile its scores would be: Str: 20, Dex: 19 Con: 20 Int:1 (unless magic, cannot exceed 2) Wis:12 Cha: 2 Skills: A creatures skills are determent by its ability scores and such as normal, but bonuses are applied for certain body parts. For example, or cat/Crocodile would get the cats +4 racial bonus on climb, hide, and move silently, for having the legs of the cat. As with special qualities/attacks, they get the normal animals racial bonuses on skills associated with the body parts the animal might contribute to the creature. However, just because of the cats +8 on jumps, it dose not mean that the crocodile can jump. Natural restrictions still apply when the DM deems it fit. Feats: Combined creatures get the usual feats from there hit dice. But automatically get the multiattack feat for being a combined creature. Environment: any Challenge rating: The creatures challenge rating is usually increased by half the majority animals was. So that crocodile/cat would have a challenge rating of 3 or greater, as DM sees fit. Treasure: none Alignment: Always nutral, unless using a magical beast. Then there alignment “Making” a combined creature: PC’s and NPCs can make combined creatures much like magic items or homunculi. They first need to capture the animals they want to combine. From there, it splits: For the magic user: Over a process of 3 days, the wizard makes a magic circle and has polymorph any object, permanency, cure light wounds, and summon monster V prepared. he then makes a Knowledge check (nature) DC 24 and a Knowledge (Arcana) DC 20. Should he fail any of there checks, the animals turn into bloody, ripped up corpses instead of combined. During the ritual, the mage decides what body part he want where. Once chosen, he cannot change. He then performs a quick, one minuet ritual that costs 3,000 GP and 1,000 exp. Once combined, the creature still has to be tamed. For the Alchemist: Over a process of a month, the alchemist prepares charms, oils, incense, circles, Ect costing 7,000 gp and 2,000 Exp. During that period, the alchemist picks his animals parts. Once he picks, he can change it ONCE, but doing so adds +4 to the DC. During the Ritual, the Alchemist has to make Knowledge (nature) DC 24, and a Alchemy check DC 32. The ritual is a one day process of carefully using oils, cream, and reforming matter to make the beast. Once created, the creature still needs to be taimed. when using magical beasts, all DCs increasce by 12. For a mage, it takes 3 extra days. FOr a alchemsest, it takes a extra week. Also, if the Magic creature has 3 or more in intellingence, it has to be willing. (most wizards just donimate them) Whoo! that was a lot of typing. So give me your honest opinions. Please dont ignore me :weep: oh, yeah! please tell me if this idea has been used. I want to see how they did this. Thanks for your time!
Sorcen_Anenooata 09-09-06, 03:17 PM	Cool idea, I like it and swear I've seen it before but I cant seem to find it. You seem to have thought this through pretty well and your hard work shows. Hopefully my reply will bump it into more capable hands for critiqueing.
KingGolem 09-09-06, 08:18 PM	I've seen something like this before. Thats because I made something like this! :D The link to my Arcane Hybrid template is in my signature. And yes, I am familiar with Impossible Creatures and Fullmetal Alchemist. The one thing I did not include into my template is how they are made, and mine is different because the anatomy of the finished creature is much more seamless than it was in Impossible Creatures. I congradulate you on such a well executed template. :clap:
Athanatos 09-09-06, 08:26 PM	I, for one, have played Impossible Creatures.
Prime32 09-10-06, 04:17 PM	I've played IC and watched FMA. Did you know that scientists made a part-goat part-sheep? Not a hybrid, it had some of a goat's body parts and some of a sheep's body parts. The technical term for such a creature is a chimera. :cool:
Monsco 09-10-06, 05:59 PM	I honesty thought i was the only one who played IC... weird... anywho, thanks for all the opinions so far! please keep critiqueing!
Prime32 09-11-06, 05:20 PM	Everyone who played IC uses this av :D I seem to remember that mixing an ant with a whale in IC granted a huge defence bonus from the enlarged exoskeleton. Could you incorporate that?
Monsco 09-11-06, 05:55 PM	I tip my hat to you, Prime32, i compleatly forgot vermin and skin/exoskeleton I edited the origonal post. the changes should be there.
Sorcen_Anenooata 09-12-06, 05:37 PM	Combining Creatures Thread. (http://boardsold.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=649444) This was the thread I was thinking about.
Shinryouga 09-12-06, 06:08 PM	I like this, the only "official" stuff like this is the old 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms "Animerge" spell. That or the 3rd Party Advanced Bestiary Amalgam template. Nice to see a third option.
Heatseeker 09-14-06, 10:09 PM	WoW... It's a cool idea. i'll show it to my DM... Maybe i can get one as a cohort...:rofl: Yeah, right. Sigh....