Cockatrice

[Surreal]

Cockatrice

(I only just noticed the picture says 12' wingspan... just ignore that part)

HD: d4

Skills: 4 + Int. Class Skills: Bluff, Concentration, Hide, Intimidate, Listen, Move Silently, Spot

Code: [Select]

Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1 0 0 0 2 Cockatrice Body, Confound, Bonus Feat
2 1 0 0 3 Browbeat
3 1 1 1 3 Living Statue, Aura of Despair

Cockatrice Body: At first level a Cockatrice loses all racial traits and is a small magical beast. It has base land speed of 20' and a fly speed (poor) of 60', darkvision 60', and low light vision. It has a bite attack (1d4) and no hands. Being of frail body, a Cockatrice has no natural armor bonus. However, its body is highly toxic and any attacks made against it with natural weapons suffers the effects of its Living Statue ability.

Confound (Ex): A Cockatrice may fascinate a target creature. The target must be within 20' + 5' per HD of the Cockatrice and be able to see and hear and pay attention to it. To start and maintain the Confound effect is a standard action.

To use this ability, the Cockatrice makes an Intimidate check. The check result is the DC for target's Will save against the effect. Confound loses effectiveness at longer ranges however; the targeted creature receives a +1 bonus to their save for every 5' beyond 20'.

If the creature succeeds on the save, the Cockatrice can not attempt to Confound it for the rest of the encounter. If the creature fails its saving throw, it must sit and perform no action other than pay attention to the cockatrice for as long as the Cockatrice maintains the Confound effect.

While confounded, targets take a -4 penalty to skill checks made as reactions (such as Spot and Listen). Any potential threat requires the Cockatrice to make another intimidate check and allows the targets a new saving throw. Any obvious threats (such as someone drawing a weapon or casting a spell at the target) ends the Confound effect as if they had successfully made their saving throw.

As a Cockatrice gains HD, its Confound ability improves:
- at 4 HD, threats do not automatically end the confound effect, but grant the target another saving throw to break free
- at 7 HD the creature additionally becomes fatigued on a failed save (multiple instances of Confound will not stack to make render the target exhausted)
- at 10 HD the Cockatrice may target two creatures in range simultaneously (a second creature entering within range while a single Confound is already in effect must make the appropriate saving throw or fall under its effect as well)
- at 13 HD a targeted creature is fatigued even on a successful save
- at 16 HD threats do not break the Confound effect, but taking damage or being subject to other spells/effects still do
- at 19 HD, Confound becomes an aura effect with radius 20'; the Cockatrice may still expend an action to target creatures at greater range

Bonus Feat: Weapon Finesse at first level

Browbeat (Su): A Cockatrice gains a dreadful gaze attack with a range of 20' + 5' per 2 HD, useable at will against a single target as a standard action. Using Browbeat also requires spending a number of gaze points to produce the desired effect. The cost of each effect is equal to the level at which the effect is gained. Higher level effects are cumulative with the effects below them. A Cockatrice has a maximum number of gaze points equal to twice its HD. These gaze points are recovered at the rate of 1 per round.

Targets of Browbeat are allowed a Fort save of DC =10 + 1/2HD + Cha to negate the effect unless otherwise noted.

Effects:
- at 2 HD the target is dazed for 1 round
- at 5 HD the target is sickened for 1d4 rounds on a failed save
- at 8 HD the target is sickened even on a successful save
- at 14 HD the target is nauseated for 1d4 rounds on a failed save
- at 20 HD the target takes one negative level for 1d4 rounds on a failed save

Other options:
- at 11 HD a Cockatrice may spend 3 extra gaze points to use Browbeat as a swift action
- at 17 HD a Cockatrice may spend 6 extra gaze point to target one extra creature simultaneously as long as they are within a 90° arc of each other

Living Statue (Su): A creature bitten by a Cockatrice is subjected to a terrible fate. If the creature fails a Fort save of DC 10 + 1/2HD + Con, its body and actions slow down, the effects of which are identical to those caused by the Slow spell. This ability improves as the Cockatrice gains HD:
at 6 HD - the target is turned to stone, as per the Flesh to Stone spell
at 9 HD - the true horror of a Cockatrice's bite comes to bear; if the target is turned to stone and also fails a second Will save (DC of 10 + 1/2HD + Con), the statue animates and fights for the Cockatrice (simple commands only) for a number of rounds equal to the Cockatrice's HD. Treat the statue as an Animated Object of the appropriate hd (change the size/reach as logic dictates)
at 12 HD - the target is slowed even if they make the Fort save
at 15 HD - a successful Fort save only delays the onset of petrification by a number of rounds equal to what they beat the Fort save by, after which they must attempt the Fort save again. The same applies for the Will save to avoid turning into a Living Statue.
at 18HD - a Cockatrice may animate a statue created by its Living Statue ability to fight for a number of rounds equal to its HD

Aura of Despair: The Cockatrice radiates a malign aura that causes all enemies within 10' to take a -2 penalty to saving throws

(click to show/hide)

Blurb:
Basically a flying debuffer with very limited offensive abilities. Fragile, no stat boosts, poor BAB and only one good save, but the abilities scale well (I think) and at higher level debilitate even on successful saves. The living statue ability is strong, but limited by the fact that it has to be delivered in melee and requires two different saves (and the saves are based on Con rather than Cha unlike Confound and Browbeat). Not too sure how to stat out a living statue though... maybe just simply take the animated object? or perhaps derive from the Dustform template in Sandstorm?

I tried to make it different enough from the basilisk, though there are similarities. I stacked on more simultaneous debuffs and took away offence. The basilisk can be a credible threat even without petrify. The cockatrice not as much. The two together might be something though.

I also reworded some of the stuff in Confound because I hate compulsion/mind effect stuff since so many things have blanket immunity to it. Maybe I should but that limitation back in; I'm not sure. Also reduced the range.

[Surreal]

reserved.

[oslecamo]

I know this says "work in progress", but I'll point out some things now:

-Browbeat specifies what action it takes to start or to maintain.
-Is Browbeat suposed to be single or multi target? Gaze attacks affect multiple creatures by default, but the rest of the rules sugest a single target, altough you never seem to specify it.
-The whole class feels like an extreme stone glass cannon. It has d4 HD, no nat armor and no defensive abilities really, but then at 3rd level gains an ability that at 6 HD turns every bite attack in a save-or-die against which almost nobody has defenses.
-Nauseated whitout save or anything at will at range as a swift action is too much, even at level 20.
-Also remember, "no non-srd" material. Animated object shall sufffice for animating statues (nice idea there BTW).

[Surreal]

Is Browbeat suposed to be single or multi target?

Totally single target. I'll have to fix that up later.

-Nauseated whitout save or anything at will at range as a swift action is too much, even at level 20.

I just rewrote a chunk of browbeat to use a point system to make it less crazy

-The whole class feels like an extreme glass cannon.

Yeah pretty much. I intentionally made it that way. You're an angry scaly chicken after all 

I feel like I should add a feature to the class that a commoner with the Chicken-infested flaw might accidentally pull a cockatrice out of his pants.
(apologies for the pun)

but then at 3rd level gains an ability that at 6 HD turns every bite attack in a save-or-die against which almost nobody has defenses.

My point of comparison here was the Basilisk which gets petrify at 5th level, except the Basilisk has a lot more meat behind it. The cockatrice has to use all its tricks to survive getting close enough to bite and hopefully has debuffed the opponent enough that it will fail a save, otherwise it'll have to run away. Against a group, it should run regardless. When in a party, the Cockatrice's role should be debuffer, only going for the bite when the enemy has been worn down, at which point the animated statue shouldn't make that much of a difference anyways.

[oslecamo]

Only noticed it now but...

-Browbeat specifies what action it takes to start or to maintain.

I meant to say confound does not specify state what action it takes to start or maintain.

Otherwise, everything else looking ok now. Still glass-cannonish, but it's definetely diferent from the Medusa and Basilik, other classic stone-gaze monsters.

[Surreal]

The wording is more or less the same as the Bard ability in the SRD.  I would assume that it's a standard action... though even the SRD is fuzzy on that. I did word it so that initiating could potentially be done via fear tricks, though that requires investment on the part of the Cockatrice and the best ones are rage based which is really not doing the cockatrice any favours (although a raging chicken does amuse me so).

Are there any other petrifying monsters yet to be covered? Hmm, the gorgon? (which I always thought was the proper name of the medusa...)

[oslecamo]

The wording is more or less the same as the Bard ability in the SRD.  I would assume that it's a standard action... though even the SRD is fuzzy on that.

That's what you get for not noticing that Bardic music (from which the Fascinate is an option) states:

"Starting a bardic music effect is a standard action. Some bardic music abilities require concentration, which means the bard must take a standard action each round to maintain the ability."

I did word it so that initiating could potentially be done via fear tricks, though that requires investment on the part of the Cockatrice and the best ones are rage based which is really not doing the cockatrice any favours (although a raging chicken does amuse me so).

Speaking of which, I noticed now that you use the Intimidate check as DC. That won't do. Skill checks scale way faster than saves. Unless it's a really minor effect, the DC should never be based on a skill check, let alone on an at-will ability.

Are there any other petrifying monsters yet to be covered? Hmm, the gorgon? (which I always thought was the proper name of the medusa...)

In the basic MM I think not, but in the splatbooks I remember some other monsters that can petrify people. And yes gorgon/medusa/cockatrice were always monsters that got mixed with each other in mythology.

[Surreal]

That's what you get for not noticing that Bardic music (from which the Fascinate is an option) states:

Ok, fixed that now.

Speaking of which, I noticed now that you use the Intimidate check as DC. That won't do. Skill checks scale way faster than saves. Unless it's a really minor effect, the DC should never be based on a skill check, let alone on an at-will ability.

Hmm, I based it on intimidate since Fascinate was based on Perform, but then Confound does have those extra abilities. What if I scaled it more slowly? (and/or gave a bonus to resist based on distance, something like +1 per 10', forcing the cockatrice to move closer), something like...

1HD - threats auto-break the confound, only target 1 creature
4HD - threats grant a new save to break free
7HD - fatigued on failed save (multiples do not stack)
10 HD - may target two creatures within range
13 HD - fatigued regardless
16 HD - threats do not break effect, but damage or spells/effect still do
19 HD - aura effect (or exhausted on failed save)

[oslecamo]

Speaking of which, I noticed now that you use the Intimidate check as DC. That won't do. Skill checks scale way faster than saves. Unless it's a really minor effect, the DC should never be based on a skill check, let alone on an at-will ability.

Hmm, I based it on intimidate since Fascinate was based on Perform, but then Confound does have those extra abilities.

Thing is, like you yourself commented, the bardic Fascinate is compulsion/mind-affecting which means a lot of stuff will be geting bonus against it if not outright immune, while Confound doesn't have those limiting tags.

What if I scaled it more slowly? (and/or gave a bonus to resist based on distance, something like +1 per 10', forcing the cockatrice to move closer), something like...

Make the bonus +2 per 10´and it may be reasonable.

[Surreal]

Ok, reduced the range some more and made it +1 bonus per 5' beyond 20'

[oslecamo]

Very well, seems good enough to me now. Added to the index!

[FireInTheSky]

This topic still says WIP.  Should that change?

[Surreal]

I haven't checked the forum in ages, but just happend to catch this. Fixed now.