Shadow Cloaker

[DeepShadow of FoS]

How many of you have used a shadow cloaker in your games? It makes low-level creatures so much more powerful for such a small cost--DR 10, +4 to hide, tail attack and more. In a pinch this creature could engulf its host and take half the damage from some attack that would otherwise have been fatal. IMO this is one of the easiest ways to have a villain who survives to plague the party again and again, especially at low levels.

What would its value be as a magic item?

[Fuzzball]

No one has posted anything for this yet so I thought I’d move what we had on the other board over here to get the ball rolling.


Shadow Cloaker cloak [drain 1 point of Con (permanent) by touch (2d8 minutes onset time), grant 20% concealment for 1d4 rounds, +5 racial bonus on hide, DR 10/magic, tail attack, engulf]

Estimate: 154,000 gp (not including attacks and Con drain)
That consists of 56,000 for the DR (Using Stoneskin spell for pricing) with an additional 12,500 for the material component. A further 12000 was for the miss chance (using Blur spell for pricing) and 5000 for the skill bonus to Hide (Bonus squared times 200, as racial bonuses stack nicely.) The cost of the Stoneskin was then doubled to account for an item with multiple properties, and there you are. Of course, if these traits are extraordinary abilities granted by the cloaker and not supernatural, these prices will increase further.

The attacks are problematic. A dancing weapon is expensive (+4 bonus = 32000 gp), but the tail attack isn’t as good as a dancing weapon. It can’t be controlled, its damage is pretty low, and it isn’t even considered magic for overcoming DR. The engulf ability is also nice, but I don’t know how to calculate that one at all. Perhaps something similar to a Rope of Entanglement (21000 gp)?

Then there’s the Con drain…depending on who you are, you might not care. However, the ability is controlled by the cloaker, it is permanent, and if you don’t allow the thing to feed on others then is starts to feed on you. It was suggested that this might be treated as a curse, but again, I have no idea how to account for that.

Giamarga also suggested that the way in which it attaches should factor into the price.

Imo the mode of attaching it should also figure into the price. I mean it's not like you simply put it on each morning and take it off when you go to bed. You take it's bite damage when you put it on, plus probably a horror check (at least the first few times...). And the only way to detach it is if either the host or the cloaker dies or ...by one other means. (I don't want to spoil it!)

Unlike the cloakers of other worlds, dread cloakers are parasitic creatures. They attach themselves to the spine(!!!) and shoulders of a host, then feed by using their host to channel the energies they require. None of these creatures feel any true compassion for their hosts.

That’s where we were on the question. Any suggestions out there?

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Good points all.

I agree that the Con drain is best handled as a curse, as it's very similar to the list of general curses in the DMG. What's the price modifier for those?

Is it safe to say that the shadow cloaker takes up a cloak slot? It makes sense, except that it suggests that a cloaker cannot attach to someone already wearing a cloak, which isn't true. Does it nullify an existing item in the same spot?

[Joël of the FoS]

I've never really found the horror behind cloakers, so I have to admit I never used them before. But I'm reading this thread to find out more about these critters

Joël

[MatthiasStormcrow]

Does it nullify an existing item in the same spot?

Well, if it attaches to the spine, it seems like it would have to put a hole in the other cloak to do so. You could pretty easily justify that messing up the other cloak's magical properties, if any.

'Course, then you have to deal with how silly you'd look wearing two cloaks at the same time. And it raises all sorts of questions like "How do you change clothes when you've got a Shadow Cloaker attached?" and "How does the Shadow Cloaker react when you take a bath?" Damned inconvenient, having a magic item that won't come off. That should probably factor into the price, too...

[Fuzzball]

"How does the Shadow Cloaker react when you take a bath?"

That raises a question that may become an issue in the Reckonings campaign soon. Do Cloakers breath? If so, how is the Cloaker going to react to a character staying under water for rounds/minutes/hours?

Or, would a Pearl of the Sirens extend it's protection to the Cloaker?

[DeepShadow of FoS]

All things considered, cloakers are poorly planned no matter how you look at them. The shadow cloaker entry says it attaches to the shadow, while elsewhere it says they attach to the spine. Either of these raises far more questions than it answers.

I'm looking for an Occam's razor to cut out the majority of the problems. As for the cloaker-on-cloak thing, I would say that it grips firmly but doesn't pierce, and forces itself into the "magical cloak" slot.

As a parasite, I'd say that the cloaker can live vicariously through its host. If the host can breathe, so can it. Other than that, sleeping, bathing and whatnot are still going to be a serious pain. Undressing with the shadow cloaker is not a problem; that's where the grip is really on the "shadow" rather than the "spine."

[MatthiasStormcrow]

All things considered, cloakers are poorly planned no matter how you look at them.

I think the problem is that they were never really planned as long-term parasites; most cloakers were just planned as monster encounters. You're expected to realize that cloak you tried on is a cloaker, and try to kill it right away...because after all, don't adventurers always kill all the monsters they encounter?

The Shadow Cloaker was trying to go in a different direction, but it's obviously not quite totally thought out.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Actually, IIRC, the first ever appearance by a cloaker in D&D was even more cheesy/bleah than what Matt describes. In one of the old "Slave Lords" modules, there's a room where captives are being rendered docile by a cloaker's droning. There are cloaks hanging on pegs all along the walls, and the cloaker is hidden in plain sight among them.

The shadow cloaker sounds like it's better dealt with as a symbiont than as a conventional magic item per se. I don't know how the symbiont rules work off the top of my head, but if anybody's an aberration-buff on this site, they might be able to offer suggestions.

FWIW, I once reinvented the cloaker as an extraplanar critter linked to the Plane of Dreams, in my old non-Ravenloft campaign. A creature that looks so much like a piece of clothing by a sheer fluke of anatomy makes no sense, but it works great as a spooky nightmare-entity that's possessed an actual garment to menace its victims, a la the ol' "scared kid glimpses his jacket in the darkness and thinks it's the boogeyman" cliche.

[Fuzzball]

Interresting…a symbiont you say? I'm not an aberration-buff, but I do know where to find the rules for it. The description isn’t too far off.

[Fiend Folio page 215] …The symbiotic relationship usually benefits both parties (though in some cases the symbiont might better be described as a parasite). A symbiont occupies part of a host creature’s body—sometimes, but not always, limiting the number of magic items the host can use in the same way as a magic item does…

There are a few specific things the symbiont gains. The symbiont uses the host creature’s Dex to AC instead of its own, and gains any deflection the host may have. This only applies if someone attacks the symbiont directly. Also the symbiont can use the host’s base saving throw bonuses. It also shares spells cast on the host. If the host is “aware”, then so is the symbiont. (If the host isn’t flat footed, neither is the symbiont.)

Of course, if is were a symbiont it would have an Ego score:
(I don’t have the stats for a shadow cloaker so I’ll use a normal one.)
Int +2
Wis +2
Cha +2
Special attacks
Tail +2 (since this is independent of the host I think it’s considered “special”)
Engulf +2
Con Drain +2
Special Qualities
Darkvision +1
Shadow Shift +1
+5 to Hide +1
DR 10/magic +1

Comes to a total Ego of 16

For those of you who don’t know how it works:

When a personality conflict occurs, the host must make a Will saving throw (DC = symbiont’s Ego). If the host creature succeeds, it is dominant. If the host fails, the symbiont is dominant. Dominance lasts for one day or until a critical situation occurs (such as a major battle, a serious threat to either the symbiont or the host, and so on—DM’s discretion). Should the symbiont gain dominance, it directly controls the host creature’s actions until the host regains dominance.

That doesn't bode well for a character with a will save of +9...EEK! I'm scared now! DS, ignor everything I just said!

[The Giamarga]

Interesting. Veeery interesting. Do you have the Fiend Folio DS? Else I can send you an excerpt.

Actually the cloaker hasn't darkvision listed among it's SQs (though it would make sense), and neither the racial bonus to hide. It has Int 14, Wis 15, Cha 15 so otherwise those calculations seem right. So EGO 14 (or 15 with Darkvision). Oh and it's alignment is CN.(!?!)

[Fuzzball]

The cloaker in the MM has darkvision. As for the racial bonus to hide, I thought that since it gives that ability to the host is should be included in special qualities. Also, a regular cloaker has a moan special attack, but I wasn't sure about the shadow cloaker, and I didn't know if it would be able to use it while attached.

I hadn't noticed the alignment being CN. That doesn't make much sense. To quote the MM They kill intruders without remorse or pause, except to plan cruel amusement. That doesn't sound very neutral to me. Either way, cloakers seem to have their own bizarre motives so it might not try to take over.

There is one other thing. I don't think the example symbionts in the FF have the ability to physically attack. If someone attacks the symbiont, the host gets an AoO. Would it work the other way? The MM cloaker has Combat Reflexes too.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I hadn't noticed the alignment being CN. That doesn't make much sense. To quote the MM They kill intruders without remorse or pause, except to plan cruel amusement. That doesn't sound very neutral to me.

I think the CN alignment is a holdover from the cheesy 1E-era assumption that if something was too "alien" to be comprehensible to a human mind, it was "insane = CN". Chaotic Neutral is no longer the D&D alignment of raving lunacy, thank heavens.

If you don't care to change the creature's alignment from the "official" one, I suppose one could interpret the cloaker's remorseless attacks against intruders as extreme territoriality, or even fear, rather than as viciousness per se. Perhaps a cloaker's mind is so innately-paranoid that it literally takes any trespass on its home turf as a death-threat; in any case, they don't seem to go out looking for victims or to proactively work to do harm.

[The Giamarga]

Well this Cloaker is not the MM cloaker, it is the Dread Cloaker from Denizens of Dread. While I generally agree with Rotipher's explanation, it is also worthy of note that dread cloaker do not attack mercilessly and kill:
Unlike the cloakers of other worlds, dread cloakers are parasitic creatures. They attach themselves to the spine(!!!) and shoulders of a host, then feed by using their host to channel the energies they require. None of these creatures feel any true compassion for their hosts.

[Fuzzball]

The description still leaves me leaning toward evil. Anyone else have an opinion?