BX Monsters A to Z: Chimera

 The chimera, from the Expert Rules, is a beast adapted from Greek mythology. Its mythological description varies; it is usually described as having the body and head of a lion, and a goat's head, with parts of a serpent. The goat or lion heads may have breathed fire. The tail may have a serpent's head. In D&D, it has the foreparts of a lion, the hindparts of a goat, and the heads of lion, goat, and dragon. The Greek versions seem generally to be wingless, but D&D evidently gives the creature the wings of a dragon. 

At a glance, the chimera would seem to be a pretty tough encounter. It has a sturdy AC of 4, equivalent to mail and shield, and 9 Hit Dice, equal to an elephant or a blue dragon. It can walk or run at 120'(40'), the same as an unencumbered human, and fly at 180'(60'), so it's tough to escape if things go south, and its staunch morale of 9 makes it unlikely to give up. It gets a rather remarkable five attacks per round. Its damage, though, is not quite up to snuff. Its two lion claws do a measly 1-3 points; a lion from the Basic Rules does 2-5 per claw. (Still not great, but it's odd the chimera, with a lot more bulk behind its attacks, would do less.) Its lion head bites for 2-8, which is less, both in terms of maximum and average, than the real lion's 1-10. The dragon head can either bite for 3-12 (compare to even the white dragon's 2-16, never mind the blue's 3-30) or breathe fire for 3-18. Then there's the goat head, which curiously strikes for 2-8, the same as the lion head's bite and fully twice what a true goat does according to the "Animal, Herd" entry from the very same book. It feels as if somebody really did not think this thing through very well.

The breath weapon is a cone 50' long and 10' wide, so it may not catch more than one or two characters, unless they're standing single-file in a line away from the monster for some reason. There is no mention of a saving throw for half damage, but virtually every breath weapon in the game allows such a save; there's even a saving throw category specifically named for it, so I'd probably allow one. Like a true dragon, it breathes instead of bites with a 50% chance each round, until it exhausts its three breaths per day.

With its very respectable AC and hefty HD, flurry of attacks, but rather stunted damage, the chimera seems best suited as a foe for mid-level characters. It will likely take a while to bring it down, during which time it can make a whole lot of attack rolls, but is unlikely to overwhelm a party with sheer damage. The real danger, and a stiff challenge for higher level parties, comes when more than one of the monsters are found together; up to two may be encountered in the dungeon, or four in the wild places it favors. If the party encounters it in its lair, or can track it back there, it's eminently worthwhile, with a listed Treasure Type F, a very nice find. 

It can be inferred from its "Save As" stat that the chimera is probably at least somewhat intelligent. (The standard rule of thumb is that non-intelligent creatures save as fighters of half their Hit Dice. The chimera saves as Fighter:9, its full HD.) 

I like the concept of the chimera, but its execution is something of a hot mess. It could stand to have its damage revised, for sure. Because this thing is bigger than a true lion, with a lot of oomph behind its strikes, its claw damage should be at least 1-8 each, and the lion bite should be maybe 2-12. We can assume the dragon head is perhaps small relative to true dragons, so we'll go with 2-16. The goat head damage should stay the same  at 2-8. 

If I were going to totally overhaul it to a more abstraction-friendly format, I'd take the total potential damage (52 points in the above revision) and divide it evenly among five non-specific attacks, which would come out around 1d10 per attack. To allow for the breath attack, make it in lieu of all physical attacks rather than just the dragon bite, give it a better area of effect (maybe a cone 60'x20') and 6d6 damage. 

To compensate for the damage boost, decrease the number appearing to 1 in the dungeon and 1-2 in the wilderness. These aren't social or pack animals, after all; they're grotesque abominations. 

As a final observation, it would be kind of cool to allow for variant chimeras. A serpent head with a poisonous bite in place of the dragon, with the goat head dealing the fiery breath, is but one example.