My brother, who plays the mage Ranthir in the In the Shadow of the Spire campaign, requested a D20-statting of the spell seen in this video from Guild Wars 2:

FLAME OF THE PHOENIX
Evocation [Fire]
Level: Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S, M/DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 feet + 10 feet/level)
Effect: Medium size phoenix of flame
Duration: 1 round (see text)
Saving Throw: Reflex half or negates (see text)
Spell Resistance: Yes

A bright flame in the shape of a winged phoenix appears before you. With a screeching caw you can command it to attack any creature within range. The flame phoenix will fly in a straight line to that target. If it passes through the space of any other creature in its flight, that creature must make a Reflex saving throw or suffer 1d4 points of fire damage per every two caster levels (maximum 5d4).

Once the flame phoenix reaches its target, it stops moving for the round. In a burst of flaming feathers, the flame phoenix deals 1d6/level points of fire damage to the target (Reflex save for half damage, maximum of 10d6). If the target creature moves, the flame phoenix will follow it up to the limit of the spell’s range.

At the end of your next turn, the flame phoenix flies back to you in a straight line. If it passes through the space of any other creature in its flight, that creature must make a Reflex saving throw or suffer 1d4 points of fire damage per every two caster levels (maximum 5d4).

More startling even than that diabolic chuckle was the scream that rose at my very elbow from the salt-compounded sand – the scream of a woman possessed by some atrocious agony, or helpless in the grip of devils. Turning, I beheld a veritable Venus, naked in a white perfection that could fear no scrutiny, but immersed to her navel in the sand. Her terror-widened eyes implored me and her lotus hands reached out with beseeching gesture.

The Abominations of Yondo, Clark Ashton Smith

The honeytrap is a roper-like creature which relies on deceit and camouflage to trap its prey. The upper half of its body bears the appearance of a beautiful young maiden, but this beauty is wrapped around a mass of tentacular horror. The honeytrap’s favored tactic is to secrete a corrosive chemical capable of rendering even solid rock into a quicksand-like liquiesence.  When its prey draws near, the honeytrap will cry in terror and plead for their aid. It will wait until they are at their most vulnerable before striking: Its sternum will part into a ravenous maw, exuding a half dozen coiled tentacles which will burst forth and wrap themselves lethally around the honeytrap’s would-be saviors.

The honeytrap prefers to lure its victims into a danerous mixture of complacency and chivalry before striking, but those seeking to flee a ravenous honeytrap may be shocked as it wrenches itself free from its muck-ridden hunting grounds and pursues them with great speed upon a second tumultuous mass of tentacles extruding from its “maiden” waist.

HONEYTRAP                                                     CR 8
CE Large Magical Beast
Senses: darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, Listen +13, Spot +13
Init: +5 (+1 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Languages: Common, Elven

AC: 24, touch 10, flat-footed 23 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +14 natural)
Hit Points: 85        HD: 10d10+30
Fort +10, Ref +8, Will +8

Speed: 40 ft.
Melee: bite +13 (1d6+6)
Ranged: 6 strands +11 ranged touch (drag and weakness)
Space: 5 ft.            Reach: 5 ft. (30 ft. with strand)
Base Atk: +10      Grapple: +14
Special Actions: quicksand liquiesence
Metamagic Feats: (spontaneous casters only)

Str 19, Dex 13, Con 17, Int 12, Wis 11, Cha 17
Special Qualities: darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision
Feats: Alertness, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Weapon Focus (strand)
Skills: Climb +12, Hide +10*, Listen +13, Spot +13
Treasure: Standard
Advancement: 11-15 HD (Medium); 16-30 (Large)
Level Adjustment: —

Drag (Ex): If a honeytrap hits with a strand attack, the strand latches onto the opponent’s body. This deals no damage, but drags the struck opponent 5 feet closer each subsequent round (provoking no attack of opportunity) unless that creature breaks free, which requires an Escape Artist check (DC 23) or a Strength check (DC 19). (The DCs are Strength-based, and the Escape Artist check includes a +4 racial bonus.)

Drag and Bite: A honeytrap can draw a creature within 5 feet of itself and bite with a +4 attack bonus in the same round. A strand has 10 hit points and can be attacked by making a successful sunder attempt. However, attacking a honeytrap’s strand does not provoke an attack of opportunity. If the strand is currently attached to a target, the roper takes a -4 penalty on its opposed attack roll to resist the sunder attempt. Severing a strand deals no damager to the honeytrap.

Drag and Drown: A honeytrap who has drawn a victim into its quicksand will often try to drown them. A honeytrap can draw a creature 5 feet and attempt to drown them by making an opposed grapple check. If the check succeeds, the victim is pushed below the surface of the quicksand.

Strands (Ex): A honeytrap can extrude up to six strands at once, and they can strike up to 30 feet away (no range increment). If a strand is severed, a honeytrap can extrude a new one on its next turn as a free action.

Quicksand Liquiesence (Ex): A honeytrap can turn a 10 ft. radius of earth, dirt, or stone into quicksand in 1d4 minutes by excreting a powerful, acidic chemical. If a honeytrap is slain, moves, or stops excreting the chemical, the ground will re-solidify within 1d4 hours.

Quicksand requires a Survival check (DC 8′) to spot. The momentum of a running or charging character will carry them 1d2x5 feet into the quicksand. Characters in quicksand must make a Swim check (DC 10) every round to simply tread water in place, or a DC 15 check to move 5 feet in whatever direction desired. If a trapped character fails this check by 5 or more, he sinks below the surface and begins to drown whenever he can no longer hold his breath (see Swim skill). Characters below the surface of a bog may swim back to the surface with a successful Swim check (DC 15, +1 per consecutive round of being under the surface).

Pulling a trapped character out of quicksand often requires a branch, spear haft, rope, or similar tool to reach the victim with one end of it. The character performing the rescue must make a Strength check (DC 15) to pull the victim out, while the victim must succeed at a Strength check (DC 10) to hold onto the branch, pole, or rope. If the victim fails to hold on, he must immediately make a Swim check (DC 15) to remain above the surface. If both checks succeed, the victim is pulled 5 feet closer to safety.

Weakness (Ex): A honeytrap’s strands sap an opponent’s strength. Anyone grabbed by a strand must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 18) or take 1d8 points of Strength damage. The DC is Constitution-based.

Skills: *Honeytraps have a +8 racial bonus to Hide checks if they are submerged in quicksand or similarly concealed.

This material is covered by the Open Gaming License.

From “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” by Clark Ashton Smith:

The basin, I have said, was very large; indeed, it was no less than six feet in diameter from the floor. The three legs that bore it were curved and massive and terminated in feline paws displaying their talons. When we approached and peered over the brim, we saw that the bowl was filled with a sort of viscous and semi-liquescent substance, quite opaque and of a sooty color. It was from this that the odor came — an odor which, though unsurpassably foul, was nevertheless not an odor of putrefaction, but resembled rather the smell of some vile and unclean creature of the marshes. The odor was almost beyond endurance, and we were about to turn away when we perceived a slight ebullition of the surface, as if the sooty liquid were being agitated from within by some submerged animal or other entity. This ebullition increased rapidly, the center swelled as if with the action of some powerful yeast, and we watched in utter horror while an uncouth amorphous head and dull and bulging eyes arose gradually on an ever-lengthening neck, and stared us in the face with primordial malignity. Then two arms — if one could call them arms — likewise arose inch by inch, and we saw the thing was not, as we had thought, a creature immersed in the liquid, but that the liquid itself had put forth this hideous neck and head, and was now forming these damnable arms, that groped toward us with tentacle-like appendages in lieu of claws or hands!

I’m going to have to start using more water elementals!

If you wanted to get fancy, you could certainly pimp out the stats of a large water elemental to represent some of the creature’s other abilities from the story (knicking the stench ability from the troglodyte as we go):

Speed: 40 ft., swim 90 ft.

Frightful Presence (Ex): Characters with less than 8 HD who perceive the malignant shape-shifting of the elemental water terror must succeed at a Will save (DC 14) or become either panicked (50%) or paralyzed with fear (50% chance) for 2d4 rounds. Even characters who succeed on the saving throw are shaken, but those who succeed on their saving throw are immune to the creature’s frightful presence for the next 24 hours.

Stench (Ex): The sooty admixture of the elemental water terror’s primordial form exudes an unsurpassably foul odor. All living creatures within 30 feet of the elemental water terror’s must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 18) or be sickened for 10 rounds. Creatures that successfully save cannot be affected by the same elemental water terror’s stench for 24 hours. A delay poison or neutralize poison spell removes the effect from the sickened creature. Creatures with immunity to poison are unaffected, and creatures resistant to poison receive their normal bonus on their saving throws.

But even this isn’t really necessary: All you need is a water elemental’s stat-block and that beautifully lurid description and you’ll have an encounter far more terrifying than that provided by any ordinary water elemental..

(Tip for adapting the description: Insisting that the characters stand stock still for more than 6 seconds watching the slow, inexorable emergence of their doom is, quite rightfully, frustrating to the players. You’re taking control of their characters away. But if you simply prelude with “time seems to slow for a long moment as” then you can achieve the same effect without taking control of the PCs away from the players.)

I also recommend “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” quite highly. It reads like a prototypical D&D adventure with a couple of thieves for the main characters and is a little like reading a mash-up of Lord Dunsany’s lyricism and Robert E. Howard’s primitive adventurism. It can be found in The End of the Story, which is Volume 1 of The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith. Smith deserves a place alongside Lovecraft and Howard, but is oft forgotten. Although he is not listed in AD&D’s Appendix N of recommened reading, Smith’s influence feels immense.

Many moons ago, James Maliszewski of Grognardia put up a short post summarizing the total page count of various editions of D&D:

OD&D (LBBs only): 56 full pages (112 half-sheets)
OD&D (LBBs + 4 supplements): 183 full pages (366 half-sheets)
Holmes Basic: 48 pages
AD&D 1e (PHB, DMG, MM): 470 pages

To this post, I responded by saying:

It would be interesting to do a page comparison between editions without taking into account:

(1) Monsters
(2) Spells
(3) Classes
(4) Races

The theory being that adding more options within these categories is not necessarily adding bulk to the actual rules of the game.

(To that list I would also like to add “magic items”, “sample scenarios”, and “indices”.)

Basically, my thought was that you could take AD&D and strip out all the monsters, spells, magic items, classes, and races that weren’t found in the original OD&D and you would still have a completely playable game. In fact, someone observing you playing that game would have no way of knowing that you were doing anything other than playing 100%-by-the-book AD&D. (Unless, of course, you told them that you had limited the size of the menu.)

In other words, having those extra options doesn’t meaningfully increase the complexity of the actual rules of the game.

I intended at the time to eventually put together such a post, but got distracted by other concerns… until now. So, without further adieu, and for whatever use it may be, the total “rules only” page count for various editions of (A)D&D:

OD&D (LBBs only): 29 full pages (58 half-sheets)
OD&D (LBBs + 4 supplements): 64 full pages (128 half-sheets)
OD&D (including Chainmail): 86 full pages (148 half-sheets)
Holmes Edition: 19 full pages
Moldvay Edition (Basic + Expert): 64 full pages
BECM: 163 full pages
BECMI: 221 full pages
Rules Cyclopedia: 142 full pages
AD&D 1e (PHB, DMG, MM): 192 full pages
AD&D 2e (PHB, DMG, MM): 223 full pages
D&D 3e (PHB, DMG, MM): 257 full pages
D&D 3.5 (PHB, DMG, MM): 294 full pages

NOTES

For more information on the different editions of the game you can check out my Nomenclature of D&D Editions.

The BECM entry total include only the Basic, Expert, Companion, and Master Rules. The BECMI entry includes the Immortals boxed set.

The 2nd Edition entry is based on the original 1989 rulebooks.

I’m not including either the Unearthed Arcana variant of 1st Edition, nor the Players’ Option variant of 2nd Edition.

First Impression: It’s interesting watch the slow, inexorable expansion of the game.

Second Impression: The relative pointlessness of the entire exercise is indicated in the comparison between the BECM and Rules Cyclopedia page counts (which are the same rules, except the former is bloated somewhat by the need to repeat and reintroduce information four times over). It’s also indicated in the comparison between 3.0 and 3.5 (where the expansion was largely due to the WotC’s ever-increasing font sizes).

The roper has a phenomenal reach (50 ft. with its tendrils), but remains excessively vulnerable to the “back off and plink it to death with ranged attacks” tactic. This isn’t really a huge problem, but I have had a couple of roper encounters that landed with dull, wet thuds.

So when I was taking a peek at the artwork from the 4th Edition Dungeon Master’s Screen and spotted this particular roper hanging out evocatively perched next to a fiery lava pit, I suddenly realized what ropers need: Big piles of skulls from their previous victims.

That they can throw.

In 3rd Edition this easy enough: A +11 ranged attack (1d6+4 points of damage) that can be used interchangeably with their normal strand attacks. A typical roper has 4d6 pieces of skeletal ammunition at hand, although particularly successful ropers may have accumulated larger bone piles while younger ropers or one new to a hunting location may have far fewer.