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Zaydos
2011-12-20, 03:06 PM
I felt like making some ungodly abominations based on the concept of the owlbear, take two animals and combine them. So, I hope people enjoy.

Octowl
Small Magical Beast (Aquatic)
HD 3d10+3 (19)
Speed 10 ft. (2 squares); swim 20-ft, fly 40-ft (average)
Init: +3
AC 16; touch 14; flat-footed 13 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +2 natural)
BAB +3; Grp +3
Attack Bite +7 melee (1d4)
Full-Attack Bite +7 melee (1d4) and tentacles +5 melee (1d3 and improved grab)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks Improved Grab.
Special Qualities Darkvision 60-ft, superior low-light vision, Amphibious
Saves Fort +5 Ref +7 Will +3
Abilities Str 10, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +9, Listen +12, Move Silently +13, Spot +4 (+12 in shadowy illumination), Swim +8
Feats: Improved GrappleB, Multiattack, Weapon Finesse
Environment Temperate marshes and underground (mad-wizard’s laboratories)
Organization Solitary, pair, or parliament (3-12)
Challenge Rating 2
Treasure Incidental
Alignment Always true neutral
Advancement 4 HD (small), 5-8 HD (medium)
Level Adjustment –
A creation of crazed arcanists, the octowl combines traits of an owl with those of an octopus. While the creature mostly looks like an owl its head is extended into a cephalopod-like swell and where it should have two raking talons it instead has eight grasping tentacles.
Such creatures can be found in the laboratories of arcanists who created them, or who study them in attempting to replicate the act of species creation. Others, though, have escaped these labs, often following the death of their masters at the hand of so-called noble heroes, and some of these have formed true breeding groups in temperate swamps and wetlands. These wild octowls primarily feed by grasping small creatures in their eight tentacles and slowly crushing them.

Improved Grab (Ex): Reminder it only works on tiny or smaller creatures.

Amphibious (Ex): An octowl can freely breathe both water and air indefinitely.

Skills: Due to their swim speed octowl’s gain a +8 on swim checks.
Octowls have a +8 racial bonus to Listen checks and a +10 racial bonus to Move Silently checks. In shadowy illumination they gain a +8 bonus to Spot checks.

Lupigryph
Medium Magical Beast
HD 5d10+10 (37)
Speed 30 ft. (6 squares); fly 80-ft (average)
Init: +2
AC 14; touch 12; flat-footed 12 (+2 Dex, +2 natural)
BAB +5; Grp +6
Attack Bite +7 melee (1d6+1)
Full-Attack Bite +7 melee (1d6+1) and 2 claws +0 melee (1d4)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks Trip.
Special Qualities Darkvision 60-ft, low-light vision, scent
Saves Fort +6 Ref +6 Will +3
Abilities Str 13, Dex 15, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +5, Move Silently +5, Listen +4, Spot +10, Survival +2 (+6 when tracking via scent).
Feats: Flyby Attack, Weapon Finesse, TrackB
Environment Temperate and cold mountains and underground (mad-wizard’s laboratories)
Organization Solitary, pair, or pack (3-12)
Challenge Rating 3
Treasure Incidental
Alignment Always true neutral
Advancement 6 HD (medium), 7-10 HD (large)
Level Adjustment –

Also called griffon-wolves, lupigryphs are another creation of mad mages. A cross between wolves and eagles, or perhaps wolves and griffons, they have the canine muzzle of a wolf with the wings and deadly talons of a massive eagle. Originally created as hunting beasts sent out to kill enemies of their mad creator, lupigryphs escaped into the wild taking up a place in the mountains of the world. Now these avian wolves prowl the mountain heights diving down at enemies, when a foe falls the entire pack will descend en masse. It is a most horrifying spectacle.

Trip (Ex): A lupigryph that hits with a bite attack can attempt to trip the opponent (+1 check modifier) as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip the lupigryph.

Crocobear
Large Magical Beast
HD 8d10+32 (76 hp)
Speed 30 ft. (6 squares); swim 30-ft
Init: +1
AC 17; touch 10; flat-footed 16 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +7 natural)
BAB +8; Grp +20
Attack Bite +16 melee (3d6+8) or tail slap +15 melee (3d6+12)
Full-Attack Bite +16 melee (3d6+8) and 2 claws +10 melee (1d8+4) or tail slap +15 melee (3d6+12)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks Improved Grab.
Special Qualities Darkvision 60-ft, low-light vision, scent, Hold Breath
Saves Fort +10 Ref +7 Will +5
Abilities Str 27, Dex 13, Con 19, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +0 (+4 to hide in water; +14 when only nose is surfaced), Listen +5, Spot +5, Swim +16.
Feats: Improved Natural Attack (Bite), Iron Will, Weapon Focus (Bite)
Environment Temperate and Warm marshes and underground (sewers and mad-wizard’s laboratories)
Organization Solitary, pair, or family (1 mother and 1-4 immature cubs)
Challenge Rating 5
Treasure Incidental
Alignment Always true neutral
Advancement 9-11 HD (large), 12-22 HD (huge), 23+ (gargantuan?)
Level Adjustment –

Crocobears were originally created by a mage, who needing a creature to protect his sewer base naturally thought of the world’s most terrifying predator bears. Fearing druids and their abilities to manipulate animals, and also wanting something that could more freely move through the waters of the sewer, the mage decided to instead splice the bears with crocodiles to create the ultimate sewer carnivore.

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a crocobear must hit with its bite attack or one of its claw attacks. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check while fighting in the water, the crocobear establishes a hold on the opponent and drags it into deep water, attempting to pin it to the bottom.

A crocobear looks like a bear with crocodilian scales covering its body and a massive crocodile head full of deadly teeth. They have a crocodile’s tail for better marine maneuverability. Female crocobears are often encountered with their young in tow and are highly protective mothers.

Hold Breath (Ex): A crocobear can hold its breath for a number of rounds equal to 4 × its Constitution score before it risks drowning.

Skills: A crocobear has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.
*A crocobear gains a +4 racial bonus on Hide checks when in the water. Further, a crocobear can lie in the water with only its eyes and nostrils showing, gaining a +10 cover bonus on Hide checks.

Crocobear Cub
Medium Magical Beast
HD 4d10+8 (30 hp)
Speed 30 ft. (6 squares); swim 30-ft
Init: +1
AC 14; touch 11; flat-footed 13 (+1 Dex, +3 natural)
BAB +4; Grp +8
Attack Bite +8 melee (1d8+4) or tail slap +7 melee (2d6+6)
Full-Attack Bite +8 melee (1d8+4) and 2 claws +3 melee (1d4+2) or tail slap +7 melee (2d6+6).
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks Improved Grab.
Special Qualities Darkvision 60-ft, low-light vision, scent, Hold Breath
Saves Fort +6 Ref +5 Will +3
Abilities Str 19, Dex 13, Con 15, Int 1, Wis 10, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +2 (+6 to hide in water; +16 when only nose is surfaced), Listen +2, Spot +2, Swim +12.
Feats: Iron Will, Weapon Focus (Bite)
Challenge Rating 3

Bearble Bee
Large Magical Beast
HD 7d10+28 (66 hp)
Speed 30 ft. (6 squares); fly 40-ft (good)
Init: +2
AC 17; touch 11; flat-footed 15 (-1 size, +2 Dex, +6 natural)
BAB +7; Grp +20
Attack Claw +14 melee (1d6+7)
Full-Attack 2 Claws +14 melee (1d6+7), bite +12 melee (1d8+3) and sting +12 melee (1d6+3 and poison)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks Improved Grab, poison.
Special Qualities Darkvision 60-ft, scent
Saves Fort +9 Ref +7 Will +5
Abilities Str 25, Dex 15, Con 19, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 8
Skills: Listen +6, Spot +6
Feats: Ability Focus (Poison), Iron Will, Multiattack
Environment Temperate forests and underground (mad-wizard’s laboratories)
Organization Solitary
Challenge Rating 5
Treasure Incidental
Alignment Always true neutral
Advancement 8-11 HD (large), 12-22 HD (huge)
Level Adjustment –

Inspired by stories of crocobears, a mad wizard created bearble bees; horrid crosses between bear and insect. These creatures have four insectoid legs, and two chitin-covered limbs ending in massive bear-like claws. They have the eyes of bees, and a head mostly like such an insect, but their mouths are those of bears. They move about on all six legs when not actively attacking, or flying, and have abandoned the partially vertical orientation of bears.
Bearble bees have a single long, dangerous stinger which drips with extremely potent venom.

Improved Grab (Ex): Claw attacks.

Poison (Ex): A creature struck by a bearable bee’s sting must make a Fort save (DC 19; Constitution based) or suffer 1d4 Constitution damage. One minute later they must make another such save or suffer 1d4 Constitution damage.

Debihuman
2011-12-20, 08:54 PM
Octowls should have Bite + 4 melee (+3 BAB +1 size) and 8 tentacles +2 melee. Giving away feats as special abilities is never a good idea. Rather give it Improved Grapple as a bonus feat to explain the +4 to Grapple.

Because it doesn't have reach, all 8 tentacles would attack one target so instead of 8 tentacles it should just be "tentacles" as an octopus.

With Int of 2 it has 6 skill points to use.

You should probably check your other attack lines.

Good job.

Debby

Zaydos
2011-12-20, 11:52 PM
Octowl's have Weapon Finesse and +3 Dex.

You're right on the tentacles, and Improved Grapple. I'll change that asap.

Skills they have 2 ranks in Hide (+4 from size, +3 from Dex), Listen 2 ranks (+8 racial, +2 Wis), and Spot 2 ranks (+8 racial, +2 Wis) with +10 racial to Move Silently (reduced from the +14 owl's get) for a total of +13 with Dex and +8 to Swim because of their swim speed. As a note I copied their skill modifiers except for Swim and Move Silently (which I reduced) from owls... except I accidentally gave them +8 to all spot checks instead of shadowy illumination only :smallredface: Will fix that.

Do you think their CR is right, especially after reducing their attacks per round?

And as always it's a pleasure to have you PEACH; it's always useful to have someone look over monster stats.

Debihuman
2011-12-21, 09:19 AM
Octowl's have Weapon Finesse and +3 Dex.

Oops. I missed the weapon finesse on attack. Sorry.

Attack lines show 1d6 and 1d4 for the octoowl's bite. It should be consistent and I'm not sure which you wanted.


Do you think their CR is right, especially after reducing their attacks per round?

I think so. I think you should be clear that these breathe both air and water.


And as always it's a pleasure to have you PEACH; it's always useful to have someone look over monster stats.

Thanks. I think every monster deserves to have the best stat block it can.

Debby

Zaydos
2011-12-21, 09:37 AM
Oops. I missed the weapon finesse on attack. Sorry.

Attack lines show 1d6 and 1d4 for the octoowl's bite. It should be consistent and I'm not sure which you wanted.

Hold over from when I had them be medium :smalleek: Thanks for catching it.




I think so. I think you should be clear that these breathe both air and water.



Thanks. I think every monster deserves to have the best stat block it can.

Debby

Added Amphibious trait and Aquatic subtype as it should have had in the first place, thanks for catching that.

And I agree, every monster deserves to have the best stat block it can.

Debihuman
2011-12-21, 10:14 AM
Crocobear.

Improved Natural Attack is normally a wasted feat on new monsters. However, in this case I think it makes sense. Crocobears have the most dangerous features of both animals. However, I think the attack progression is off. A normal crocodile does 1d8 points damage on a bite. Improving via progression would be 2d6 not 2d8.

You should mention specifically that these are bred from brown bears.

Why no tail slap in full attack line? That's a great feature from the crocodile. Please don't tell me it has a fluffy bear tail since you mention the tail in the text.

Now for the nitpicky stuff:

FYI, I hate your stat block for its inconsistencies. Use colons on all your lines and spell out all the words for Hit Dice, Armor Class, and Initiative.
Base Attack/Grapple: +X/+X looks neater as does Space/Reach: X ft./X ft. Armor Class modifiers belong after the first number not at the end.

See the SRD for a nice looking stat block.

And put line breaks in between special ability texts.

Full Attack is two separate words as is mad wizard.

Swim speed does not have a maneuverability. Also, you are putting hyphens in swim and fly speeds that shouldn't be there.

Debby

Cieyrin
2011-12-21, 10:56 AM
Crocobear.

Improved Natural Attack is normally a wasted feat on new monsters. However, in this case I think it makes sense. Crocobears have the most dangerous features of both animals. However, I think the attack progression is off. A normal crocodile does 1d8 points damage on a bite. Improving via progression would be 2d6 not 2d8.

Crocodiles are normally medium, the Crocobear is large, so there's 2 size increases. Normally that would go d8 -> 2d6 -> 3d6 but 2d8 is a nice alternative.


Why no tail slap in full attack line? That's a great feature from the crocodile. Please don't tell me it has a fluffy bear tail since you mention the tail in the text.

Indeed! It's one of the rare d12 damage attacks and is a nice alternative attack, as well as getting 1.5 Str is not a bad thing, either.

Zaydos
2011-12-21, 03:08 PM
Removed maneuverability from crocobear, upped the damage die size of claws and bites to be in line with bears' (they have 2d6 bite as large creatures, this thing has nastier teeth), added tail slap although like crocodiles they can't full attack and use it.

I don't know why I decided hand-and-a-half sword damage progression would be cool for their bite except I forgot that bears had improved bite damage like crocodiles so I was trying to split the difference between improved bite damage and normal.

As for the tail slap, it was because they're partially/mostly bipedal and it seemed a little silly.

As for the format, I used the tables from Fax's guide because it saved time, instead of making my own based directly on the Monster Manual. As for the hyphen inbetween mad and wizard I wanted to differentiate them from merely crazy wizards. Okay I think my cold was affecting my thought process :smallsmile:

Debihuman
2011-12-21, 09:48 PM
Removed maneuverability from crocobear, upped the damage die size of claws and bites to be in line with bears' (they have 2d6 bite as large creatures, this thing has nastier teeth), added tail slap although like crocodiles they can't full attack and use it. [quote]

Sounds good to me.

[quote]I don't know why I decided hand-and-a-half sword damage progression would be cool for their bite except I forgot that bears had improved bite damage like crocodiles so I was trying to split the difference between improved bite damage and normal. It was a good try nonetheless.


As for the tail slap, it was because they're partially/mostly bipedal and it seemed a little silly. Did I miss that they were bipedal? I think I must have.


As for the format, I used the tables from Fax's guide because it saved time, instead of making my own based directly on the Monster Manual. As for the hyphen in between mad and wizard I wanted to differentiate them from merely crazy wizards. Okay I think my cold was affecting my thought process :smallsmile:

If I could go back and edit Fax's guide, trust me, I would. If nothing else I could rid the world of "Full-Attack." I know it's just a petty thing, but it irks me for some reason. On the other hand, I've given up on trying to get people to use "its" and "it's" correctly. Some battles just aren't even worth starting. :-)

Lupigryph is Medium or should it be Large. Attack lines are written for Large creature but it seems to be Medium. BAB +5 and Dex (from weapon finesse) +2 = +7 melee (if Medium) and +6 if Large. Secondary attacks would be at +1 for a Medium creature.

Otherwise, I think the stat block looks okay (I only gave it a cursory look).

Debby

Zaydos
2011-12-22, 03:31 AM
Sounds good to me.

It was a good try nonetheless.

Did I miss that they were bipedal? I think I must have.

Well no more than most bears; but when bears fight I think of them as rearing back and... okay my image of bear combat is mostly from old (Disney?) cartoons. I will now youtube bear attacks.

Either way it still works due to the limitation from crocodiles of it being an either/or situation. If they're tail slapping they aren't standing up to hit you with claws, and if they are hitting you with claws they're using their tail for balance.



If I could go back and edit Fax's guide, trust me, I would. If nothing else I could rid the world of "Full-Attack." I know it's just a petty thing, but it irks me for some reason. On the other hand, I've given up on trying to get people to use "its" and "it's" correctly. Some battles just aren't even worth starting. :-)

Sometime I need to just make a word document full of templates for posting.


Lupigryph is Medium or should it be Large. Attack lines are written for Large creature but it seems to be Medium. BAB +5 and Dex (from weapon finesse) +2 = +7 melee (if Medium) and +6 if Large. Secondary attacks would be at +1 for a Medium creature.

Otherwise, I think the stat block looks okay (I only gave it a cursory look).

Debby

I... I don't know why I made that mistake :smallredface: I will fix their attack line.

Debihuman
2011-12-22, 10:32 AM
Sometime I need to just make a word document full of templates for posting.

Don't we all? I use Word all the time.




I... I don't know why I made that mistake :smallredface: I will fix their attack line.

My intent was never to embarrass you. You don't have to apologize or explain. That's why it's a mistake. Fixing it is all you need to do. I make mistakes all the time on creature creation. Who am I kidding? I make mistakes when I edit and critique too. Getting the stat block right is hard work and usually takes a few times.

Debby

Zaydos
2011-12-22, 12:01 PM
My intent was never to embarrass you. You don't have to apologize or explain. That's why it's a mistake. Fixing it is all you need to do. I make mistakes all the time on creature creation. Who am I kidding? I make mistakes when I edit and critique too. Getting the stat block right is hard work and usually takes a few times.

Debby

I know you didn't mean to embarass me. :smallsmile: It's the fact that I make little mistakes like that which makes me like critiques on my monsters.