Fiend Factory 5E: Issue 15 Russian Doll Monster/Leprechaun

 Issue 15 Russian Doll Monster (Leprechaun)

Don Turnbull addresses a comment by one Michael Stoner in a previous letters page that the quality of monsters has dropped and that he will “heed his comments as constructive and do my best…” which seems just a little bit testy to me, a bit of the good old Turnbull Pass-Agg. I’ll be honest, I think the standard has been getting better, as is evidenced by my difficulty in the past few issues to choose just one monster to convert.

This issue, however, it’s a lot easier.

First up is the Heat Monster by Brian Henstock (got to love those old school names of Something Monster). It’s sort of a construct, maybe, since it’s a red hot floating metal ball that damages anyone that touches it and also drains Strength. I’m not sure of the rationale behind Strength as the attribute, perhaps somebody could enlighten me.

The heat monster can also fire off a small fireball every 5 rounds, and seems to be only harmed by cold-based attacks. Don describes it as “biologically improbable” which to me points to the odd lapses in imagination and understanding of the fantastic that crop up in 1^st Edition (although Don Turnbull seemed particularly prone to it). Why not think of it as an elemental, Don? Or, indeed, a construct? They don’t have a regular biology….

It’s okay, but nothing special, and I don’t like the idea that it can only be killed by cold attacks – this to me is a bit too much like a programmed computer adventure than a role-playing situation.

The Tacharanid (from John and Deidre Evans – husband and wife? Brother and sister?) could be a very tricky creature to DM. Much like Merlin vs. Madam Mim in The Sword in the Stone, the tacharanid responds to attacks by taking on a form that is resistant to the previous type of attack. The best bet would be to maybe have a list of forms of roughly the same challenge rating for each of the damage types, and cycle between them, unless you’re very good at thinking on the fly. The creators did provide an example sequence, but Don omitted it. There are some suggestions – same general size, same general form and the same level of resistance, or not, to nonmagical weapons.

I think it would make an interesting one-off encounter, maybe a creature terrorising a town that is thought to be a several creatures on different nights. But also I don’t think there’s really anything to specifically create stats for.

The Dragon Dog, by the gloriously American-named John T Sapienza Jr, seems completely superfluous.

It’s very hellhound-y, and I’ve appended the Monster Manual stat block for the hellhound. Spot the difference.

Answers: The differences are: the dragon dog is more intelligent and its breath weapon is more powerful. It’s slightly better at detecting invisible creatures that the hellhound, which only has a 50% chance. But, really, it’s so close you may as well just make it a modified hellhound. I’m pretty sure I’ve done a half-dragon hellhound in at least one version of The Lazy GM Dungeon Beasts.

And talking of similarities, doesn’t Guy Shearer’s Time Freezer resemble the Umpleby? We’ve not had a shaggy humanoid for a while, and evidently Alan Hunter can only draw such a creature in one way.

This is another of those sorts of monsters that seem deliberately designed to counter one specific action. In this case, it’s a trick that makes raise dead deadly Ha ha.

Don describes it as “having some kind of temporal control”, which it doesn’t really. I think there’s a lot more scope for a creature called a “Time Freezer” to do more interesting stuff, but there we go. There’s another insight to the Don Turnbull 1^st Edition style of play where Don notes that “since it has no treasure it’s hardly worth attacking”. Because that’s the only purpose of monsters?

And it’s an odd complaint to make since he also published the next creature, the Pebble Gnome by William Maddox.

I mean – why? They don’t do anything and aren’t affected by much. Even Don seems a little nonplussed by them, but grudgingly grants that from time to time adventurers will encounter “monsters with no particular function”. Yes, but do they need full stat blocks? There’s something, perhaps, to be said for a race that appears to be “outside” of magic in such an extreme fashion. But I think they’d need something else to go with that, rather than a complete lack of interest in anything connected to adventurers. They’d be better if they were super-curious about the world, perhaps.

Actually, Don seems a bit nonplussed with most of the monsters in this issue – the treasure-less Time Freezer, the hellhound-like Dragon Dog, the “biologically improbable” Heat Monster and the complicated Tacharind. It feels a bit like these are the dregs left after he drained the monster barrel for the Fiend Folio.

So what does he make of my choice of the week, Mike Ferguson’s Russian Doll Monster?

An oddball that’s a good laugh. And I agree. I think, like the tacharind, the heat monster and the time freezer, this is a one-off encounter, and it’s very silly, but it’s also the most effective of them.

Basically it’s got 70 hit points in total, and starts as a Stone Giant with rapidly diminished Challenge Rating, so I’d put the whole ensemble at 1-2 levels below the Stone Giant, say at Challenge 6. If you’ve got an adventuring party tough enough to survive a round with a stone giant (which is about what each layer of monster will last for), then by the time they get to goblins and kobolds the creature is a push-over. So it might be a good idea to keep the same proficiency level throughout maybe, and perhaps some other factors like armour class. Worth a play-test.

However, 5^th Edition has statistics for all of the various stages, apart from the instigator at the end. There are no leprechauns in the 5^th Edition Monster Manual, so here’s a conversion from the 1^st Edition Monster Manual.

Two feet tall is Small rather than Tiny, I’d say, and it makes them different to the pixie and sprite that are in the 5e MM. Exceptional intelligence is 15-16, looks like a single hit dice to me (that’s probably 1d4+1 but I’ve left Constitution as average and a single 1d6 hit dice.

They have no attacks, like the pixie (although they can cast shillelagh), and I’ve used the same invisibility action as the sprite. “Thievery” suggests Sleight of Hand and Stealth, and I’ve given them some other skills as well that seem, well, appropriate to a trickster. The spell-like abilities of the 1^st Edition leprechaun are a bit vague, and a reminder that the Monster Manual was written before the spells in the Players Handbook were codified. I’ve tried to replicate them best I can under 5^th Edition rules, although they get a bump with the polymorph ability since true polymorph can switch between creatures and objects.

I’ve added in a few other spells and abilities that, perhaps, are more suitable to an “Elves and the Shoemaker” kind of fey than the leprechaun – if you wanted to be purist to the 1^st Edition sentiment, then they should only have major image as their 3/day power and true polymorph as their 1/day power. And drop the artisan’s tools.

 

Leprechaun

Small fey, neutral

Armour Class 15 Hit Points 3 (1d6) Speed 30 ft.,

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 8 (-1) 20 (+5) 10 (+0) 16 (+3) 12 (+1) 16 (+3)

Proficiency Bonus +2 Saving Throws Dex +7, Int +5 Skills Deception +5, Insight +3, Perception +5, Performance +5, Sleight of Hand +9, Stealth +7 Tool Proficiences one set of artisans tools Senses passive Perception 15

Languages Common, Sylvan

Challenge 1 (200 XP)

Keen Hearing. The leprechaun has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing. Magic Resistance. The leprechaun has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. Innate Spellcasting. The leprechaun’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (save DC 13). It can innately cast the following spells without components.         At will: minor illusion, mislead, thaumaturgy 3/day: irresistible dance, longstrider, major image, shillelagh 1/day: fabricate, true polymorph ACTIONS

Invisibility. The leprechaun magically turns invisible until it attacks or casts a spell, or until its concentration ends (as if concentrating on a spell). Any equipment the leprechaun wears or carries is invisible with it..