Friday, April 17, 2015

Celestial Eyeball Familiar (homebrew)

(Because I spent enough time on this... also cross-posted to tumblr. Get yer nerd on! Or don't. I vote nerd, but whatevs.)


Required feat to summon: Improved Familiar
Spellcaster level required to summon: 9th

Size/Type: Tiny Aberration (Beholderkin)
Hit Points: (half master's, rounded down)
Hit Dice: d8
Initiative: +7
Speed: Fly 20 ft. (perfect)
Armor Class: 15 (+2 size, +3 Dex), touch 15, flat-footed 12
Base Attack: (master's)
Grapple: -7
Attack: Eye ray +(base attack +3 dex) ranged touch
Full Attack: Eye ray +(base attack +3 dex) ranged touch
Space: 2-1/2 ft.
Reach: 0 ft.
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft, flight, immune to blindness, celestial traits, visual acuity
Saves: Fort +?, Ref +?, Will +? (use Familiar rules)
Abilities: Str 5, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 9
Skills: Hide +15, Move Silently +15, Listen +3, Sense Motive +2, Search +4, Spot +4
Special Abilities: Smite Evil
Feats: Improved Initiative
Alignment: Neutral Good


Eyeballs are tiny (8-inch wide), four-stalked, wild beholderkin. Unlike others that often serve as familiars for evil spellcasters, the celestial eyeball is a unique creature that serves a good spellcaster. Eyeballs have 360-degree vision.



Skills and Special Qualities:

- Damage reduction as per celestial traits.
- Resistance to acid, cold, and electricity as per celestial traits.
- Spell resistance HD + 5, max 25.

Flight (Ex): The eyeball is naturally buoyant, able to fly with perfect maneuverability. Even if forced to fall, it never takes falling damage.

Visual Acuity (Ex): An eyeball beholderkin's central eye can see invisible and ethereal creatures normally, and may also see naturally through limited distances of solid matter as though it were wearing a ring of X-ray vision.

Eyeballs receive a +4 racial bonus to Search and Spot checks.



Special Abilities:

Smite Evil (Su)

Once per day a celestial creature can make a damaging spell deal extra damage equal to its HD (maximum of +20) against an evil foe.


Eye Rays (Su): Any one (but only one) of an eyeball's small eyes can produce a magical ray once per round as a standard action.

Each of an eyeball's four eye rays resembles a spell cast by a 1st-level caster, and follows the rules for a ray. Each eye ray has a range of 110 feet and a save DC of 11. The save DCs are Charisma-based. The four eye rays include:

- Daze

Type: Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Target: One humanoid creature of 4 HD or less
Duration: 1 round
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

This enchantment clouds the mind of a humanoid creature with 4 or fewer Hit Dice so that it takes no actions. Humanoids of 5 or more HD are not affected. A dazed subject is not stunned, so attackers get no special advantage against it.

- Fear

Type: Necromancy [Fear, Mind-Affecting]
Duration: 1 round
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

An invisible terror causes the target to become panicked unless it succeeds on a Will save. If cornered, a panicked creature begins cowering.

- Mage Hand

Type: Transmutation
Target: One nonmagical, unattended object weighing up to 5 lb.
Duration: Concentration
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

A visible object is lifted and moved at will from a distance. As a move action, the caster can propel the object as far as 15 feet in any direction, though the spell ends if the distance between the caster and the object ever exceeds the spell’s range.

- Ray of Frost

Type: Evocation [Cold]
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

A ray of freezing air and ice projects from the eye. The ray deals 1d3 points of cold damage to one target.




Homebrew notes:

~ Eye Rays spell DC calculation

I had to calculate it myself, so I started by looking at the DC for the beholder's version of Eye Rays, which is 17. Since the DC for beholders is a charisma check and the modifier from a beholder's charisma is +2, that leaves an unmodified DC of 15. Spell DC should be 10 + the level of the spell + the relevant ability, but the spell levels of the various things the beholder has in its Eye Rays choices are all over the place. It would seem an average was made for math's sake, ending up with 5th level spells to get the beholder's DC: 10 + 5(th level spells) + 2 cha = 17 DC. So, I looked up the spell level for every spell the beholder can cast with Eye Rays to see if it was averaged for the DC, then looked up the eyeball's spells to see how it would average by comparison. Here are my results in shorthand:

Beholder: 4 1 6 4 7 6 2 1 3 5 ...average: 39 / 10 = 3.9

Eyeball: 0 4 0 0 ...average: 4 / 4 = 1

Hmm... 3.9 is not 5. However, the number that turns 3.9 into 5 is 1.28 (plus a bunch more decimal places that aren't needed), like so: 3.9 x 1.28 = 5. So, substituting in the eyeball's average, we get: 1 x 1.28 = 1.28. Rounding down gives an end result of spell level of 1. That means an eyeball's spell DC is 10 + 1(st level spells) + 0 cha = 11.

As far as I can tell via the Familiar rules, the only way to improve the eyeball's spell DC is to give the eyeball some kind of charisma boost from a buff or the like.


~ Required spellcaster level:

I've seen recommendations for the normal (evil) eyeball to have a required spellcaster level of 7th in order to summon it with the Improved Familiar feat. I'll break down why I decided on 9th spellcaster level required for this version:

1) The celestial traits should add to the requirement for spellcaster level to summon.

2) I got rid of the "crown of eyes" attack other homebrews included because it seemed made-up and not based on the Forgotten Realms wiki definition of the eyeball. My version has the four correct eye ray abilities as per the Forgotten Realms wiki definition, but the DC is so low they will probably be often negated by Will saves at mid-to-high level play. So, I figure it evens things out, trading direct damage for a wider choice in spells. If you don't like this version, check the eyeball homebrews (linked below in references) and substitute Crown of Eyes for the entire Eye Rays list in this sheet.

3. Eyeballs are supposed to be evil, and thus not summonable by good characters. A celestial eyeball has to be good as per the celestial rules. So, this adds to the requirement for spellcaster level to summon.


~ References and credit for base stats/sheets/etc used to jump off:

The Hypertext d20 SRD for a whole buncha stuff.
Forgotten Realms Wiki eyeball entry.
Dungeons & Dragons Wikia beholder entry.
ThunderGod Cid's homebrew Eyeball Beholderkin.
Eiji-kun's homebrew Eyeball.
A crapton of forum posts all over the 'net.

Sadly, I don't have the related splatbook for the eyeball base monster (the book it can apparently be found in is Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerûn), and could not find the official eyeball creature sheet anywhere. So, I did the best with what I had. If it's useful to anyone, feel free to use and/or modify this sheet. ^.^

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