[Creature; MitP] Glittering Death in the Darkness

[Saithis Bladewing]

Diamond Reaper
Size/Type: Huge Aberration (Earth)
Hit Dice: 48d8+720 (936 hp)
Initiative: -3 (Dex)
Speed: 15 ft. / 60 ft. burrowing
Armour Class: 40 (-2 size, -3 Dex, +35 natural)
Base Attack/Grapple: +36 / +55
Attack: 2 Slams +45 (2d6+11)
Full Attack: 2 Slams +45 (2d6+11) and Bite +40 (4d8+16), Acid Spit +33 (6d10 acid damage).
Space/Reach: 15 ft. / 10 ft.
Special Attacks: Acid Spit, Sonic Blast
Special Qualities: Earth subtype, acid and fire immunity, DR 25/-, Tremorsense 120 ft., True Seeing, fast healing 10.
Saves: Fort +29, Ref +11, Will +30
Abilities: Str 33, Dex 4, Con 41, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 10
Skills: Spot +51
Feats: Endurance, Diehard, Power Attack, Improved Bullrush, Improved Overrun, Improved Sunder, Run.
Environment: Underground
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 21
Treasure: Double Standard (Always Gemstones)
Alignment: Always True Neutral
Advancement: 49-50 HD (Huge), 51-60 HD (Gargantuan), 61+ HD (Colossal)
Level Adjustment: --

Glittering brightly like a being of living jewelry; the terrible creature drew closer, the terrible maw and thick carapace became evident, revealing the massive predator of the underdark for what it was. Letting out a fearsome cry, it charged towards the frightened miners, hungry for the taste of flesh.

A vicious and terrible creature, the Diamond Reaper subsists almost entirely on deposits of valuable minerals found as it burrows through the darkness. Though it ocassionally visits the surface, it prefers to spend most of its time underground. Miners fear the Diamond Reaper, as they know that the richer the veins they find, the more likely they are to stumble across a Reaper.. Their fears would not be so great, were it not for the fact that Diamond Reapers also have a taste for flesh, actively hunting down living creatures they spot. Crude and unintelligent, it is incapable of reason or logical thought, acting only on the instincts bred into it. Thankfully, these creatures are a rare sight outside of the deepest layers of the world where it moves effortlessly through the lower crust, near the mantle.

The average Diamond Reaper is over 22 feet tall and weighs nearly 100,000 pounds. Thick carapace covers its entire body, the surface of which is dotted in tiny diamonds formed by whatever is leftover from the minerals it devours. It is these gems that has given the creature its dreaded name, and it is these diamonds combined with the thick carapace that renders the creature nearly invulnerable to conventional harm.

Its head is practically part of the torso, the beast lacking a neck with which to connect the two. Its mouth is filled with sharp, diamond-like teeth capable of grinding even granite into dust, and while it is very small for the creature's size, it deals an incredible amount of damage. Diamond Reapers are capable of literally swimming through rock and dirt with their burly arms and gnashing teeth. Its legs, however, are short and stubby, incapable of effectively carrying its massive bulk at any real speed. Above it's mouth gazes a single, massive cyclopean eye that glows even in the darkest of places, revealing its presence to the observant.

Diamond Reapers are too stupid to understand language, and their vocal chords are incapable of uttering anything other than a primal growl or roar except for onec a day when they gather up the strength to let a terrible blast of sound loose upon their foes. Diamond Reapers are very solitary and reproduce once every decade, laying a rock-like egg in a vein of valuable ore. Diamond Reapers are constantly shedding the raw gems secreted by their carapace, leaving trails of the valuable stones in their paths.


Combat
Diamond Reapers are very instinctive and violent in combat, usually charging at the nearest organic foe and attempting to crush them to death for later consumption. In terms of tactics they are stupid at best, simply attacking whichever foe is closest or has hurt them the most. If wounded, they will attempt to retreat until their injuries heal before trying again.

Acid Spit (Ex)
The Diamond Reaper devours the rocks it encounters using an acidic saliva. It may spit a burst of this acid at a range of up to 160 feet. The Diamond Reaper makes a ranged touch attack, dealing 6d10 points of acid damage if the spit successfully hits. This acid is highly corrosive to stone and deals 12d10 damage to stone creatures. Worn weapons and armour made of stone must make a DC 22 reflex saving throw (using the wearer's saving throw). Unattended stone items are dissolved immediately if struck.

Sonic Blast (Su)
Once per day, the Diamond Reaper unleashes a magical, deafening scream from its maw. The target of the blast takes 15d6 points of sonic damage; this damage is halved on a successful DC 49 reflex saving throw. Additionally, anyone struck by the blast must make a DC 49 fortitude save or be stunned for three rounds. Regardless of whether the save is successful or not, the target is deafened for one minute after the blast.

Immunities (Ex)
A Diamond Reaper takes no damage from acid or fire.


----- -=-=- ----- -=-=- -----

This was placed up in the past and a number of ideas were thrown out to improve it. I never got around to working on it again until now when the MitP competition started up. I still need help with the CR, as I'm absolute rubbish at assigning a good CR to a creature.

This has been submitted to the Monsters in the Playground (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=homebrew;action=display;num=11557461 87;start=0) contest.

[asromta]

I don't know anything about the CR, but it should gain +11 bonus on attack for its claw and bite attacks, and a -5 penalty for its multiattack on its bite attack.

[Saithis Bladewing]

A strength bonus and multiattack penalty?! PFFFT, who needs those!?

...

...

...

<_< >_>

*Edits.*

[Bob_the_Mighty]

I think you also forgot to include the size penalty for attack. With the size penalty, it should have +45 melee, unless I'm missing something.

[Loren_and_Kivsith]

It's an interesting creature, for sure. I like it. The only thing that bothers me is a small detail; that is that it seems odd to me that it would eat both flesh and mineral ores. Those seem like two very different food sources, no?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Ok, my normal method of CRing is thus.

#1. Divide its average HP by 4.5 to 6.

4.5 for 5 HD or lower, 5 for 6-10 HD, 5.5 for 11-15 HD, 6 for 16-20 HD.

#2. Add 1 for each five points above 10 its AC is, minusing 1 for every 5 below.

#3. Add 1 for each special attack (+2 to +5 or more if its got a decent number of spells in its spell-like abilities).

#4. Add 1 for each quality unless you deem it worthy of more. Add 1 for each resistance and 10 points of DR it has, and 2 for each immunity.

#5. Add 1 for every two bonus feats it has.

#6. Divide by 3.

If your creature is below 20th level this should give you a decent estimate... above it, such as epic levels... who knows.

[Saithis Bladewing]

I think you also forgot to include the size penalty for attack.

Now you're just being ridiculous. OF COURSE I remembered that. ;)


It's an interesting creature, for sure. I like it. The only thing that bothers me is a small detail; that is that it seems odd to me that it would eat both flesh and mineral ores. Those seem like two very different food sources, no?

It has a taste for flesh, this doesn't mean it relies on it to survive. Indeed, it's far too large to survive on just meat. It's primary source of food is mineral ores, first and foremost. But, if some foolish humanoids stumbled into its eating grounds...well, why not? It's like running across a cookie, sure, you can't subsist on it, it's no meal, but it's a tasty snack that you're not gonna just turn down.


Ok, my normal method of CRing is thus.

#1. Divide its average HP by 4.5.

#2. Add 1 for each five points above 10 its AC is, minusing 1 for every 5 below.

#3. Add 1 for each special attack (+2 to +5 or more if its got a decent number of spells in its spell-like abilities).

#4. Add 1 for each quality unless you deem it worthy of more. Add 1 for each resistance and 10 points of DR it has, and 2 for each immunity.

#5. Add 1 for every two bonus feats it has.

#6. Divide by 3.

If your creature is below 20th level this should give you a decent estimate... above it, such as epic levels... who knows.




Useful, thank ye.

[Elrosth]

^ On the flesh/ore thing, dragons will eat rocks if they end up staying in their hoarde too long without sheep or peasants to feast upon.

[Saithis Bladewing]

On the other hand, Dragons don't have 50 tons of muscle, carapace and bone to carry around like this guy.

[Fax Celestis]

Interesting. Big, slow, stupid, powerful. Why isn't it an elemental, may I ask?

[Saithis Bladewing]

Because it isn't made of rock. It has a lot of rock components, but it is still flesh and bone beneath the massive diamond carapace. It's definitely not humanoid or giant and its too unusual to be animal, so it was either aberration or magical beast. Given its diet and sonic blast I opted to go for aberration. Given its carapace, I opted to give him the [Earth] subtype to represent its affinity with said element.

[Fax Celestis]

Just askin'. Though a clear definition of it's makeup/form (or a picture!) might help. //shrug I may have just missed it.

In any case: MitP Vote: Yes

[Lord Iames Osari]

MitP Vote: Yes.

[Fualkner Asiniti]

I would love to bash one of these things to pieces for all the gems. great idea.

MitP vote: Yes.

[asromta]

MitP Vote: Yes

[fangthane]

25/- seems a little high for damage resistance, don't you think? Besides, blunt trauma should still work; that does break diamonds, after all. I'd reduce that to 10/Epic and 15 or 20/bludgeoning or something close. 25 to all physical damage is a bit much though.

[Eighth_Seraph]

It would take years of and years of Epic Characters shooting at this thing after putting it in a cage to kill the blasted thing without an arcane caster and a death attack, what with its AC, Damage Resistance, immunities and insane HP, but it really is a great concept and creature. A tad overpowered for anyhing not created specifically to be powerful, but a great creature nontheless.

MitP vote: Yes.

[Saithis Bladewing]

It's meant to be high, and if you'll notice, it has pretty much no magic resistance whatsoever except for acid and fire immunity, and you can easily circumvent that. True, without an arcane caster in the party, it's overpowered. With an average party, an arcane caster will do loads of damage, the melee will mostly be there to soak up some damage. Also, it's a huge magical aberration, just because it has diamonds in the carapace doesn't mean that it's carapace is diamond, and have you considered how thick its carapace is? It weighs 100,000 pounds, and a large portion of that is the carapace. It is not a light creature in any way shape or form. I personally don't see 25/- overboard at all, and if you make it circumventable with some kind of weapon it kind of ruins the whole point of an death machine that's nearly immune to physical harm.

[Randomman413]

MitP Vote: Creepy yes.

[Eighth_Seraph]

What I meant by the last sentence is that it seems too powerful to be natural. Anything that can survive in the planet's mantle is not natural unless you world is radically different. A generic 'made by a demented wizard to wreak havoc upon <insert group of creatures universally hated by demented wizards here>' line in the origins might work. Or you can keep it if you dislike such things in your campaign.

[Saithis Bladewing]

Ah, I didn't understand then, my bad, though it was also a post directed Fangthane. I could consider changing it to a Magical Beast, but I chose Aberration because of its unusuality. The 'surviving in the mantle' thing was something I created because I didn't want these things to be seen very often, and if they were just digging around the crust looking for gems, they'd probably get run into a lot by miners. As it is, they should be a rare and hardly seen threat, a myth and rumour spread amongst mining communities about a terrible creature made of gems that eats rock and kills all who encounter it.

I don't like doing the wizard created it origin very much, preferring other ways to have a monster. Hell, it might make the Reaper that much creepier if its origins are completely unknown. I don't want it as an elemental or outsider though, so it's gonna either be an Aberration or a Magical Beast.

[fangthane]

Let's see, say a level 20 arcane caster with the right spells can deal about 15d6 of cold, electrical and/or sonic damage in a round, for roughly 15 rounds at maximum (though that may be a bit generous, let's use it as a start point) after which damage production is going to tail off a bit and get a bit desperate.

That means he's doing 15*3.5=52.5 points each round. 10 of that is healed so he's effectively dealing 43 points per round, at which rate it'll take about 23-25 rounds. Melee might just barely be able to keep up with its fast healing, if they're lucky. Fighter types will fail the DC 49 fortitude save against the scream, the acid will strike unless the creature rolls a 1, and it'll hit with a majority of its slams and bites - it should be good for a solid 30-40 damage per round, meaning that it has the potential to do its own HP in damage to the party if all goes well. I know my epic level 22 cleric's party (who took on an ancient red dragon with a demon in his chest) would be hard-pressed to do much better than this, and our sorc is a lightning specialist.

If it's any consolation, I don't consider your critter any more unfair than the Tarrasque ;)

[Saithis Bladewing]

Well, technically it is one CR higher than the Tarrasque and there's a good reason for that. ;)

But yes, spamming instant death spells would probably be the easiest way to take this out. Still, I do think a level 21-22 party shouldn't have TOO much trouble taking this thing out, especially with all of the spells at their disposal. It's acid isn't that powerful (only 6-60 on a hit and only one attack), so a simple fly spell would ruin its day and it can only use the Sonic Blast 1/day.

[Bob_the_Mighty]

It would take years of and years of Epic Characters shooting at this thing after putting it in a cage to kill the blasted thing without an arcane caster and a death attack, what with its AC, Damage Resistance, immunities and insane HP, but it really is a great concept and creature. A tad overpowered for anyhing not created specifically to be powerful, but a great creature nontheless.

MitP vote: Yes.How likely is it that there will be an epic level party without an arcane spellcaster and/or instant death effect?

[Saithis Bladewing]

How likely is it that there will be an epic level party without an arcane spellcaster and/or instant death effect?


Not very. :P

[Maerok]

MitP Vote: Yes

[fangthane]

Without a minimum of 28 in their casting stat (DC 10+9+9+4 assuming all they use is level 9 spells) this thing needs a 2 to pass any fort save they throw its way, even with GSF:Necromancy. That means it's likely to take anywhere from 10-30 rounds to have it fail. How many adventuring parties, even at level 20, have enough spells to force 25+ credible save-or-die checks in combat?

Fly doesn't even signify; this thing is underground, ergo if you're attacking it, so are you. You fly, it burrows and eats you when you don't expect it, or it eats your friends while you watch.

I tell you what, this is my take on how you can at least make melee guys feel useful: take off the DR 25/- and instead give it DR 15/- and DR 25/Bludgeoning AND adamantine AND epic. It's still got heavy resistance against anything short of a +6 adamantine hammer, but at least epic melee characters have a chance to affect it (even though we all know it's the casters who'll do the lion's share of damage anyhow) if they have the right gear.

My bottom line: it's a neat enough critter, but I'd have to modify it to allow a level 21 party to have a reasonable chance of survival, let alone success. Based on comparison with epic critters, I'd say this thing's likely closer to about a CR 24 or 25 as currently written. A Leshay would beat it silly (or more likely use it for his own amusement) but there's no way a party under the 22-24 range is going to take it down, unless that party consists of at least 3 offensive arcane casters with top-drawer stats and some really dumb melee classes to intercept.

[MandibleBones]

I do like the possible change to DR, but to argue Fangthane:


How many adventuring parties, even at level 20, have enough spells to force 25+ credible save-or-die checks in combat?

Any party with a spontaneous caster who likes those kind of spells - if you need to roll a one to fail it, spell level doesn't matter, right? Hell, even phantasmal killer is usefull in this case.


Fly doesn't even signify; this thing is underground, ergo if you're attacking it, so are you. You fly, it burrows and eats you when you don't expect it, or it eats your friends while you watch.

No, you cast Fly on the Rogue and let him sneak attack his way through the damage reduction - or cast it on yourself and then hide, and suddenly the thing can't stop you from casting all those pretty save-or-die spells.

In any event, MitP: YES.

[fangthane]

Well, yeah, I might have been overstating the case a touch... Regardless, if I ever use one of these it'll be with my mods applied :)

Edit - I should say though, since the fighter won't be threatening space (being stunned and all) the rogue is worm food :)

[Saithis Bladewing]

Well, yeah, I might have been overstating the case a touch... Regardless, if I ever use one of these it'll be with my mods applied :)

Edit - I should say though, since the fighter won't be threatening space (being stunned and all) the rogue is worm food :)

You're assuming that the low intelligence monster knows who it should target with its sonic blast.