Domesticated Medusa as a regular player race (without monster levels multiclassing) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Domesticated Medusa as a regular player race (without monster levels multiclassing) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Xenu
08-21-04, 07:05 AM The ten levels for playing a medusa impose a huge limit on what character concepts you can develop with that race. Same goes for many other interesting creatures.

I would thus like to introduce the concept of domesticated versions of the creature races as regular character races and discuss it with you.

A domesticated version of a race is the same race as the regular creature, not a separate race. However, it's a individual who is less powerful then average and who have focused on civilized life, making it out of touch with the regular powers of the race.

Domesticated Medusa
Stat bonuses: Str -2, Dex +1, Cha +1
Favored Class: Any, just like halfelves and humans.
Sight: Darkvision
Special capabilities: Inhibited Petrifying Gaze, Diluted Poison
Racial skill and feat bonuses: None
Size & Speed: medium, 30 feet.
AC: +3 natural armor
Languages: Common, plus home city language if other.

(Domesticated Medusas in the Scarred Lands do NOT automatically gain Titanspeak: Mormo Dialect like the other medusas do, but they can buy it as a extra language for the usual two skillpoints.)

Inhibited Petrifying Gaze:
While a regular medusa have trained all her life to make her petrifying gaze as dangerous as possible, a domesticated medusa have trained all her life to NOT be a threath. Thus, her natural ability to petrify is not much of a weapon. She can still attempt to petrify a unlimited number of times per day. However, each attempt is a full round action just as for regular medusas, and against unwilling targets the attack have a DC of 1. (Instead of the regular 13 + charisma modifier.) She ONLY have the active attempt, her gaze is permanently reduced as by the “Narrowed Gaze” feat.

(The way I see the rules, medusa petrifaction can be countered by the spell Break Enchantment. If this interpretation don’t apply to regular medusas in your game world, it still apply to domesticated medusas.)

Diluted poison:
Domesticated medusas often use their poison, but only as a party drug, never as a weapon. Somehow, perhaps as a subconscious effect on the metabolism like hysterical paralysis, their poison have weakened. It lowers Str with 1 as primary damage and with 2 as secondary damage. In combat, the snakes still do 1d4 + poison in damage. However, “snakes” is a exotic weapon that domesticated medusas do NOT automatically get proficiency in, but can take as a feat.

Personality:
The Domesticated Medusas share their wild brethren’s love for beauty and luxury. Because of this, and because of the social stigma of being a medusa, domesticated medusas often tend to be social climbers. Although they don’t enjoy the social stigma, they normally enjoy being what they are and don’t consider the medusa race to be in any way bad in itself. They also consider themselves and each other to be very beautiful. Still, a lot of individual domesticated medusas have a lot of bitterness and self esteem issues.

Physical description:
Medusas (wild and domesticated alike) have brown scaly skin, snakelike face and living snakes instead of hair. They mature at about 25 years of age and usually live to be circa 300 years old. While wild medusas usually wear either rags or civilized garbs that conceal their heads, domesticated medusas usually wear fine clothing that does not conceal their heads.

Relations:
The domesticated medusas of a village or city are tolerated or maybe even held in extremely high regard. In their own home village or city, that is. The surrounding villages have heard of them, but will not automatically consider a medusa they meet as a harmless neighbour. It’s usually the “we won’t look you in the eyes, so stay here with your hand over your head for a few hours while we’re getting someone who can identify you by voice” routine. The rest of the world haven’t heard of the individual good medusa at all, unless she have very high reputation. And even then she might sometimes have a very hard time to prove that she is herself and not a evil medusa trying to impersonate her. Medusas are renowned for being good at disguise and bluff, after all.

Alignment:
Almost always good or neutral, since evil medusas rarely become domesticated. Lowlevel evil Medusas almost always start out as broodlings as per the medusa class in Savage Species. Like their wild brethren, civilized and domesticated Medusas have a tendency to be lawful.

Domesticated Medusa Lands:
Domesticated medusas do not live among "wild" medusas, and they don't have any communities of their own. There are a few villages and cities, scattered across the world, where a single medusa or small group of medusas have settled down and become official part of the community. A Medusa that grow up in such a village can become either a regular Medusa (but with the villages alignment as her “natural” alignment), or a domesticated Medusa. The most common majority race for such a village is human, but there might also be communities of races such as elven, halfling and dwarf that have accepted a individual medusa as one of their own and allowed her to procreate. The medusas have children with male members of the community. The children are always female and always medusa, but they still have family ties to the rest of the community.

Religion:
Any, but domesticated medusas of any particular city are usually a tightknit group where everyone worship the same deity. Madriel seem to be most common. (Pelor, for regular patheon settings.) Medusas that worship evil gods rarely become domesticated.

Names:
Usually as per the local culture, but traditional snakelike names are also common.

Classes:
Domesticated Medusas usually become clerics, wizards, bards, experts or aristocrats. They sometimes become sorcerers, paladins or rangers. Fighters are rare, and Warriors and Commoners are almost unheard of - civilized medusas who works as soldiers, farmers or workers usually become regular (although civilized) medusas instead of domesticated.

(Edit: Just found the "narrowed gaze" feat in Savage Species, thus changing the wording of the inhibited petrifying gaze chapter. The practical content is still the same. Going to change the "Physical description" chapter later.)
Incenjucar
08-21-04, 04:53 PM 1) Avoid 'odd' numbered modifiers for abilities.

2) In 2e, I had a half-medusa race description (helped that in 2e, the Medusa image was actually somewhat attractive and had the cutest little snake ponytail), and basically just gave them a slowing gaze (as they caused tiny bits of an opponent to start petrifying for a moment). Worked pretty well. And very fun to draw.

:smirk:
Xenu
08-21-04, 06:13 PM 1) Hmm, why? I noticed all creature PC stat modifiers are even, but never saw a explenation why.
Anyway, I wanted to give her +2 in cha and dex, simply taking the medusa stat modifiers and lower all stats by 2. But that would give her two plusses and one minus, while elves and dwarves have one plus two and one minus two each. Hmm, I guess another plus 2 wouldn't make her too unbalanced.

2) Nice. How did she look in v2? Is the picture on the net somewhere? Hmm, I guess a halfmedusa could work in a v2 setting, heard something about male medusas cald Maderar or something in that setting. In v3 setting, I assume that medusas are always female and can procreate with any male humanoids. The offspring is always female and always entierly medusa. Thus no half-medusas. The lesser petrification is a great idea for a lesser creature, but I think it's too powerful for a regular character that start at level 1 in the same way humans and elves do. However, it would be a great modification to the medusa broodling class described in Savage Species.

However, I'm considering raising the petrifaction DC from 1 to 1 + Charisma modifier. That way it would be a theoretical threat so people still have a real raeson to be suspicious, while still not being a really potent ability.
I'm also pondering a prestige class for domesticated medusas to become "real" medusas.

("Medusa Broodling" is my name on the class they simply call "medusa". Medusa Broodlings and Domesticated Medusas are both the same race, and both lack full access to their petrifaction power.

However, I interpret this as being for different reasons. A Regular medusa, created by simply taking it's hitdie and adding four level adjustment levels, is simply a regular mature medusa. A Domesticated Medusa is also a mature medusa, but one who have forsaken her savage heritage in favor of the comforts of civilization. Thus she lack power but in return start at level 1 and can take all 20 levels in any classes she please.

A level nine or lower medusa class character as per savage species is not a mature medusa. She is a mere broodling who have embraced her heritage but not yet developed her full potential. The reason why she cannot take any other class then medusa until level 11 is that she simply isn't mature enough for such advanced advancement. She's still a child, and if she didn't have her inherent powers she wouldn't be able to fit in a adventurer group at all.)
DwelleroftheDeep
08-21-04, 11:01 PM Stats for pc creatures are gotten from subtracting ten from a score(if even) or eleven from a score(if odd), then adding the resulting number is the bonus if positive, or the penalty if negative.

I believe that this is the picture Incenjucar is referring to:positron.jfet.org/adnd/monster/medusa.gif (http://positron.jfet.org/adnd/monster/medusa.gif)

Hope this helps:D .
Sildatorak
08-21-04, 11:23 PM Originally posted by Xenu
1) Hmm, why? I noticed all creature PC stat modifiers are even, but never saw a explenation why.
Anyway, I wanted to give her +2 in cha and dex, simply taking the medusa stat modifiers and lower all stats by 2. But that would give her two plusses and one minus, while elves and dwarves have one plus two and one minus two each. Hmm, I guess another plus 2 wouldn't make her too unbalanced.

It is mainly because of two reasons. The first is the idea that if it the race deserves a modifier to the ability, it should be enough to change the stat mod rather than just the stat, and the second is that a +1 in two abilities is worth more than a +2 in one. You can up two stats if you have an odd number to put in them. It is more important that things don't get -1 penalties to abilities, in my opinion, since then they can get something for nothing by putting an odd score in the penalized stat to get a bonus without feeling the pinch of the penalty.
Xenu
08-23-04, 09:04 AM Thanks for the info, both of you.
Changing the +1 bonuses to +2.

Personally I like the v3 medusa much more then the old picture you linked. A medusa should be a really scary-looking serpentlike creature but yet very feminine and on some level quite sexy. It's not beautiful in any classical sense, but hell cool. :)

Moving on to special medusa gear, and then the heritage reclaimer prestige class for domesticated medusa players who want to become real medusas later in the career.
Xenu
08-23-04, 10:09 AM Medusa immunities
All medusas, regardless of class, are immune to medusa petrifaction. For all practical purposes they are also immune to medusa poison. The poison actually effect them normally, but they can counter or negate the effect at any time as a free actions. Medusas often poison each other (and sometimes others) as a sign of affection.

Medusa skills
Because of their nature, medusas automatically gain Bluff, Disguise and Spot as class skills. They also gain a automatic 4 ranks of spot because of their senses and a –4 ranks of disguise because of their looks. Both skills still have 3+level as maximum rank. Thus, a domesticated medusa who turn level 2 and didn’t actively put any points into either skill at level 1 can increase her spot from 4 to 6 ranks for two points, and (assuming that she have high int modifier and a class with many skillpoints) increase her disguise skill from –4 ranks to 6 ranks for ten skill points.

Medusa senses
A medusa, regardless of class, who have both her face and her headsnakes in order have darkvision and otherwise the same senses as a normal human. She also have three extremely situational bonuses because each of her head snakes have all five senses.

* She can peek around corners and through any hole large enough for one of her snakes. However, the head snakes are quite nearsighted. Anything more then ten foot away is very dim.

*She can look in any direction without turning her head. However, she do not have the chameleon’s ability to look in two directions at once. Thus, this does not protect her from backstabs and the likes. It do, however, let her be on her guard without appearing to be. For example, she could pretend to be reading a book wilh her normal eyes while scanning the surroundings with her headsnakes. Remember that the headsnakes are nearsighted. She automatically see rapid movement that she would have noticed automatically with her normal eyes, but she automatically fail all spot checks for items and hidden/sneaking persons that are more then ten feet away.

* If she have a skill or feat that let her detect poisoned and diseased food trough taste, she can use it through a headsnake. This have the same technical benefits and disadvantages as it would have to put the food in her regular mouth, chew it a bit and then spit out without swallowing. The primary difference is that it might be easier to be discreet and polite when nibbling a bit with a headsnake then then spitting out food eaten with the regular mouth. Another benefit is that she never risk to swallow by accident, since the headsnakes don’t have any digestive system. However, poisons and diseases that take effect by skin contact rather then by digestion still affect her in the usual way even if “eaten” trough the snakes.

If all headsnakes are cut off, she lose her situational bonuses and more importantly she also becomes deaf. Her head itself does not have any ears, neither external nor internal. She hears only through her snake heads.

If her face is covered but she still have her snakes, then she becomes nearsighted and have problems with rapid coordination. She gets –2 on melee, -4 on shortrange archery and –8 on archery at targets beyond 10 feet away.

Medusa headgear
There are several headworn items that exist among civilized medusas. Each of these items blocks the slot of a helmet and a pair of goggles, but allows a headband.

Sunglasses
Simple sunglasses, just like the ones in our world. Except of course that they are made of wood or light metal rather then plastics, and the leneses are always of glass, never of plastics. Like in our world, they can either be dark or mirrorshade. These simple items usually block a medusas gaze, even if she’s a non-domesticated medusa who lacks the narrowed gaze feat. However, they easily fall off, and someone who look at her from the side might catch a glimpse of her gaze.

Sungoggles
Like sunglasses, but they never fall off and there’s no edge to peek past. Much safer. In return, they take two full rounds to put on or off. They may still fall off in a brawl, if she takes fall damage or if someone actively try to pull them off.

Medusamask
A Medusamask is a metal mask that cover the eyes like most masks do but don’t have any holes for the eyes. The mask goes all around the head and is locked in the neck. Usually by a padlock or simply forged shut so you have to use a metal saw or similar to ever get the damned thing off her. Some cities that allow medusas to be citizens require them to wear these masks at all times.

Medusa helmet
A medusa helmet is a regular plate helmet, but of a design very convenient to medusas. The helmet consist of two parts. One face mask that cover the entire forward half of the head including face and throat, and one helmet part that secures the face mask in place and cover the entire head except the face and throat. The face mask part have a built in pair of goggles. (For a non-D&D example of this basic design, think of Darth Vaders helmet in StarWars.)

When both parts are worn (along with a full body armor), the medusa looks like any other armed humanoid, except that her helmet is unusually big (in order to have room for the headsnakes).

When only the face mask part is worn she can use her snakes freely and everyone see what she is, but they are still protected from her gaze.

The helmet is designed so that the medusa with some training can put both pieces both on and off without using her hands. She use her head snakes instead. Taking off the helmet still require her attention, and thus counts as a standard action.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Xenu 08-21-04, 07:05 AM	The ten levels for playing a medusa impose a huge limit on what character concepts you can develop with that race. Same goes for many other interesting creatures. I would thus like to introduce the concept of domesticated versions of the creature races as regular character races and discuss it with you. A domesticated version of a race is the same race as the regular creature, not a separate race. However, it's a individual who is less powerful then average and who have focused on civilized life, making it out of touch with the regular powers of the race. Domesticated Medusa Stat bonuses: Str -2, Dex +1, Cha +1 Favored Class: Any, just like halfelves and humans. Sight: Darkvision Special capabilities: Inhibited Petrifying Gaze, Diluted Poison Racial skill and feat bonuses: None Size & Speed: medium, 30 feet. AC: +3 natural armor Languages: Common, plus home city language if other. (Domesticated Medusas in the Scarred Lands do NOT automatically gain Titanspeak: Mormo Dialect like the other medusas do, but they can buy it as a extra language for the usual two skillpoints.) Inhibited Petrifying Gaze: While a regular medusa have trained all her life to make her petrifying gaze as dangerous as possible, a domesticated medusa have trained all her life to NOT be a threath. Thus, her natural ability to petrify is not much of a weapon. She can still attempt to petrify a unlimited number of times per day. However, each attempt is a full round action just as for regular medusas, and against unwilling targets the attack have a DC of 1. (Instead of the regular 13 + charisma modifier.) She ONLY have the active attempt, her gaze is permanently reduced as by the “Narrowed Gaze” feat. (The way I see the rules, medusa petrifaction can be countered by the spell Break Enchantment. If this interpretation don’t apply to regular medusas in your game world, it still apply to domesticated medusas.) Diluted poison: Domesticated medusas often use their poison, but only as a party drug, never as a weapon. Somehow, perhaps as a subconscious effect on the metabolism like hysterical paralysis, their poison have weakened. It lowers Str with 1 as primary damage and with 2 as secondary damage. In combat, the snakes still do 1d4 + poison in damage. However, “snakes” is a exotic weapon that domesticated medusas do NOT automatically get proficiency in, but can take as a feat. Personality: The Domesticated Medusas share their wild brethren’s love for beauty and luxury. Because of this, and because of the social stigma of being a medusa, domesticated medusas often tend to be social climbers. Although they don’t enjoy the social stigma, they normally enjoy being what they are and don’t consider the medusa race to be in any way bad in itself. They also consider themselves and each other to be very beautiful. Still, a lot of individual domesticated medusas have a lot of bitterness and self esteem issues. Physical description: Medusas (wild and domesticated alike) have brown scaly skin, snakelike face and living snakes instead of hair. They mature at about 25 years of age and usually live to be circa 300 years old. While wild medusas usually wear either rags or civilized garbs that conceal their heads, domesticated medusas usually wear fine clothing that does not conceal their heads. Relations: The domesticated medusas of a village or city are tolerated or maybe even held in extremely high regard. In their own home village or city, that is. The surrounding villages have heard of them, but will not automatically consider a medusa they meet as a harmless neighbour. It’s usually the “we won’t look you in the eyes, so stay here with your hand over your head for a few hours while we’re getting someone who can identify you by voice” routine. The rest of the world haven’t heard of the individual good medusa at all, unless she have very high reputation. And even then she might sometimes have a very hard time to prove that she is herself and not a evil medusa trying to impersonate her. Medusas are renowned for being good at disguise and bluff, after all. Alignment: Almost always good or neutral, since evil medusas rarely become domesticated. Lowlevel evil Medusas almost always start out as broodlings as per the medusa class in Savage Species. Like their wild brethren, civilized and domesticated Medusas have a tendency to be lawful. Domesticated Medusa Lands: Domesticated medusas do not live among "wild" medusas, and they don't have any communities of their own. There are a few villages and cities, scattered across the world, where a single medusa or small group of medusas have settled down and become official part of the community. A Medusa that grow up in such a village can become either a regular Medusa (but with the villages alignment as her “natural” alignment), or a domesticated Medusa. The most common majority race for such a village is human, but there might also be communities of races such as elven, halfling and dwarf that have accepted a individual medusa as one of their own and allowed her to procreate. The medusas have children with male members of the community. The children are always female and always medusa, but they still have family ties to the rest of the community. Religion: Any, but domesticated medusas of any particular city are usually a tightknit group where everyone worship the same deity. Madriel seem to be most common. (Pelor, for regular patheon settings.) Medusas that worship evil gods rarely become domesticated. Names: Usually as per the local culture, but traditional snakelike names are also common. Classes: Domesticated Medusas usually become clerics, wizards, bards, experts or aristocrats. They sometimes become sorcerers, paladins or rangers. Fighters are rare, and Warriors and Commoners are almost unheard of - civilized medusas who works as soldiers, farmers or workers usually become regular (although civilized) medusas instead of domesticated. (Edit: Just found the "narrowed gaze" feat in Savage Species, thus changing the wording of the inhibited petrifying gaze chapter. The practical content is still the same. Going to change the "Physical description" chapter later.)
Incenjucar 08-21-04, 04:53 PM	1) Avoid 'odd' numbered modifiers for abilities. 2) In 2e, I had a half-medusa race description (helped that in 2e, the Medusa image was actually somewhat attractive and had the cutest little snake ponytail), and basically just gave them a slowing gaze (as they caused tiny bits of an opponent to start petrifying for a moment). Worked pretty well. And very fun to draw. :smirk:
Xenu 08-21-04, 06:13 PM	1) Hmm, why? I noticed all creature PC stat modifiers are even, but never saw a explenation why. Anyway, I wanted to give her +2 in cha and dex, simply taking the medusa stat modifiers and lower all stats by 2. But that would give her two plusses and one minus, while elves and dwarves have one plus two and one minus two each. Hmm, I guess another plus 2 wouldn't make her too unbalanced. 2) Nice. How did she look in v2? Is the picture on the net somewhere? Hmm, I guess a halfmedusa could work in a v2 setting, heard something about male medusas cald Maderar or something in that setting. In v3 setting, I assume that medusas are always female and can procreate with any male humanoids. The offspring is always female and always entierly medusa. Thus no half-medusas. The lesser petrification is a great idea for a lesser creature, but I think it's too powerful for a regular character that start at level 1 in the same way humans and elves do. However, it would be a great modification to the medusa broodling class described in Savage Species. However, I'm considering raising the petrifaction DC from 1 to 1 + Charisma modifier. That way it would be a theoretical threat so people still have a real raeson to be suspicious, while still not being a really potent ability. I'm also pondering a prestige class for domesticated medusas to become "real" medusas. ("Medusa Broodling" is my name on the class they simply call "medusa". Medusa Broodlings and Domesticated Medusas are both the same race, and both lack full access to their petrifaction power. However, I interpret this as being for different reasons. A Regular medusa, created by simply taking it's hitdie and adding four level adjustment levels, is simply a regular mature medusa. A Domesticated Medusa is also a mature medusa, but one who have forsaken her savage heritage in favor of the comforts of civilization. Thus she lack power but in return start at level 1 and can take all 20 levels in any classes she please. A level nine or lower medusa class character as per savage species is not a mature medusa. She is a mere broodling who have embraced her heritage but not yet developed her full potential. The reason why she cannot take any other class then medusa until level 11 is that she simply isn't mature enough for such advanced advancement. She's still a child, and if she didn't have her inherent powers she wouldn't be able to fit in a adventurer group at all.)
DwelleroftheDeep 08-21-04, 11:01 PM	Stats for pc creatures are gotten from subtracting ten from a score(if even) or eleven from a score(if odd), then adding the resulting number is the bonus if positive, or the penalty if negative. I believe that this is the picture Incenjucar is referring to:positron.jfet.org/adnd/monster/medusa.gif (http://positron.jfet.org/adnd/monster/medusa.gif) Hope this helps:D .
Sildatorak 08-21-04, 11:23 PM	Originally posted by Xenu 1) Hmm, why? I noticed all creature PC stat modifiers are even, but never saw a explenation why. Anyway, I wanted to give her +2 in cha and dex, simply taking the medusa stat modifiers and lower all stats by 2. But that would give her two plusses and one minus, while elves and dwarves have one plus two and one minus two each. Hmm, I guess another plus 2 wouldn't make her too unbalanced. It is mainly because of two reasons. The first is the idea that if it the race deserves a modifier to the ability, it should be enough to change the stat mod rather than just the stat, and the second is that a +1 in two abilities is worth more than a +2 in one. You can up two stats if you have an odd number to put in them. It is more important that things don't get -1 penalties to abilities, in my opinion, since then they can get something for nothing by putting an odd score in the penalized stat to get a bonus without feeling the pinch of the penalty.
Xenu 08-23-04, 09:04 AM	Thanks for the info, both of you. Changing the +1 bonuses to +2. Personally I like the v3 medusa much more then the old picture you linked. A medusa should be a really scary-looking serpentlike creature but yet very feminine and on some level quite sexy. It's not beautiful in any classical sense, but hell cool. :) Moving on to special medusa gear, and then the heritage reclaimer prestige class for domesticated medusa players who want to become real medusas later in the career.
Xenu 08-23-04, 10:09 AM	Medusa immunities All medusas, regardless of class, are immune to medusa petrifaction. For all practical purposes they are also immune to medusa poison. The poison actually effect them normally, but they can counter or negate the effect at any time as a free actions. Medusas often poison each other (and sometimes others) as a sign of affection. Medusa skills Because of their nature, medusas automatically gain Bluff, Disguise and Spot as class skills. They also gain a automatic 4 ranks of spot because of their senses and a –4 ranks of disguise because of their looks. Both skills still have 3+level as maximum rank. Thus, a domesticated medusa who turn level 2 and didn’t actively put any points into either skill at level 1 can increase her spot from 4 to 6 ranks for two points, and (assuming that she have high int modifier and a class with many skillpoints) increase her disguise skill from –4 ranks to 6 ranks for ten skill points. Medusa senses A medusa, regardless of class, who have both her face and her headsnakes in order have darkvision and otherwise the same senses as a normal human. She also have three extremely situational bonuses because each of her head snakes have all five senses. * She can peek around corners and through any hole large enough for one of her snakes. However, the head snakes are quite nearsighted. Anything more then ten foot away is very dim. She can look in any direction without turning her head. However, she do not have the chameleon’s ability to look in two directions at once. Thus, this does not protect her from backstabs and the likes. It do, however, let her be on her guard without appearing to be. For example, she could pretend to be reading a book wilh her normal eyes while scanning the surroundings with her headsnakes. Remember that the headsnakes are nearsighted. She automatically see rapid movement that she would have noticed automatically with her normal eyes, but she automatically fail all spot checks for items and hidden/sneaking persons that are more then ten feet away. If she have a skill or feat that let her detect poisoned and diseased food trough taste, she can use it through a headsnake. This have the same technical benefits and disadvantages as it would have to put the food in her regular mouth, chew it a bit and then spit out without swallowing. The primary difference is that it might be easier to be discreet and polite when nibbling a bit with a headsnake then then spitting out food eaten with the regular mouth. Another benefit is that she never risk to swallow by accident, since the headsnakes don’t have any digestive system. However, poisons and diseases that take effect by skin contact rather then by digestion still affect her in the usual way even if “eaten” trough the snakes. If all headsnakes are cut off, she lose her situational bonuses and more importantly she also becomes deaf. Her head itself does not have any ears, neither external nor internal. She hears only through her snake heads. If her face is covered but she still have her snakes, then she becomes nearsighted and have problems with rapid coordination. She gets –2 on melee, -4 on shortrange archery and –8 on archery at targets beyond 10 feet away. Medusa headgear There are several headworn items that exist among civilized medusas. Each of these items blocks the slot of a helmet and a pair of goggles, but allows a headband. Sunglasses Simple sunglasses, just like the ones in our world. Except of course that they are made of wood or light metal rather then plastics, and the leneses are always of glass, never of plastics. Like in our world, they can either be dark or mirrorshade. These simple items usually block a medusas gaze, even if she’s a non-domesticated medusa who lacks the narrowed gaze feat. However, they easily fall off, and someone who look at her from the side might catch a glimpse of her gaze. Sungoggles Like sunglasses, but they never fall off and there’s no edge to peek past. Much safer. In return, they take two full rounds to put on or off. They may still fall off in a brawl, if she takes fall damage or if someone actively try to pull them off. Medusamask A Medusamask is a metal mask that cover the eyes like most masks do but don’t have any holes for the eyes. The mask goes all around the head and is locked in the neck. Usually by a padlock or simply forged shut so you have to use a metal saw or similar to ever get the damned thing off her. Some cities that allow medusas to be citizens require them to wear these masks at all times. Medusa helmet A medusa helmet is a regular plate helmet, but of a design very convenient to medusas. The helmet consist of two parts. One face mask that cover the entire forward half of the head including face and throat, and one helmet part that secures the face mask in place and cover the entire head except the face and throat. The face mask part have a built in pair of goggles. (For a non-D&D example of this basic design, think of Darth Vaders helmet in StarWars.) When both parts are worn (along with a full body armor), the medusa looks like any other armed humanoid, except that her helmet is unusually big (in order to have room for the headsnakes). When only the face mask part is worn she can use her snakes freely and everyone see what she is, but they are still protected from her gaze. The helmet is designed so that the medusa with some training can put both pieces both on and off without using her hands. She use her head snakes instead. Taking off the helmet still require her attention, and thus counts as a standard action.