Ssolsch [Mitp II]

[Icewalker]

Ssolsch
Medium Outsider (Extraplanar, Evil, Chaos)
HD 6d8 + 18 (45)
Speed 30 ft.
Init: +1
AC 16 (+1 dex +5 natural); touch 11; flat-footed 15
BAB +6; Grp +9
Attack Bite +9 (2d6+3) or tentacle +9 (1d6+3, Burning fluid)
Full-Attack 2 tentacles +9 melee (1d6+3 plus burning fluid) and bite +4 melee (2d6+3)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks Burning fluid, Devour
Special Qualities Darkvision 60 ft., Resistance to acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, and fire 10, Immunity to poison and mind-affecting spells and abilities, True Seeing, Telepathy, Maddening visage, Fast healing 4
Skills: Spot +10, Listen +10, Balance +10, Intimidate +10, Jump +12, Search +10, Sense Motive +10, Knowledge (The Planes) +9
Feats: Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes
Saves Fort +10 Ref +8 Will +8
Abilities Str 16, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 12
Organization Lone, pair, or wave (4-10)
Environment: The Abyss
CR 7
Treasure None
Alignment Always CE
Advancement Large (7-10), Huge (11-14)

The creature standing before you appears as a misshapen dark purple mass of what may be…oozing…flesh, with two long curling tentacles stretching out from either side. There appears to be a lighter purple fluid dripping from it, which hisses and fizzes where it falls to the ground. The most prominent feature however, is the mouth. There is a gaping maw taking up the entire frontal side of the creature, about 5 feet in height, maybe 3 feet wide, It’s massive jaws are filled with several rows of razor-sharp teeth coming out from all sides.

Burning Fluid (Su): Ssolsch skin seeps with a disgusting light purple fluid. This fluid is similar to most burning acids, although with some different properties. When affected by Burning fluid (hit by tentacle attacks or grapples) you take 1d4 acid damage and must make a DC 16 Fortitude save (Constitution based) or take an additional 1d4 and have a patch of skin melt into disgusting sticky ooze. Every time you fail a save against burning fluid, you get -2 to escape artist checks, and -2 on grapple checks made to break grapples, although +2 on grapple checks made to hold somebody or something similar. The skin heals naturally after a week, and the sticky fluid dries and can be scraped off in the same amount of time. Healing magic can heal the damage but will not remove the melted skin. Water does not wash off the goo, but holy water will.

Devour (Su): A Ssolsch may attempt to devour on a successful bite attack, or as a grappling action. Devour is an opposed grapple check. If the Ssolsch wins the check, it stuffs the creature (which must be Medium or smaller) into it’s gaping maw, shredding it’s skin with it’s rings of teeth, as well as affecting the target with a dose of burning fluid. The Ssolsch’s bodies do not appear big enough to hold an entire creature. Secondly, Ssolch’s appear to have no throats, as there is no hole in the back of the mouth…However Ssolsch’s mouths have one very unusual property: The back of the mouth of a Ssolsch will ripple and open, and pull a devoured target through it, Teleporting them to the top layer of the Abyss.

Maddening visage: A creature within 60 feet that observes a Ssolsch must attempt a DC 14 Will save. Failure indicates the creature begins hallucinating that his flesh is being very slowly twisted and distended by a vile acid. The victim becomes nauseated for 2d4 rounds, then sickened for a 1d3 days, then shaken for 1d3 weeks. After that, whenever the victim sees an unidentified purple liquid, or hears or sees an acidic substance, he becomes shaken until the source is gone and for 1d4 rounds after. A creature that makes the save is immune to that particular Ssolsch’s maddening visage for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting ability that does not affect chaotic evil outsiders. The save DC is Charisma based.

Disgusting enough for ya?

[Matthew]

Looks good. Split the difference, say CR 6.

[aaron_the_cow]

one question...
dose it send you to the abbis because it makes the energy from the abis feed it, or for no good reason

[Icewalker]

well....no good reason. It doesn't really need nourishment.

My best excuse is that it is somewhat random, aka chaos, and demons are extremely chaotic with twisted forms, as well as the fact that it is an Obyrith, which are the most twisted of the demons.

[Baron Corm]

you should specify that it's 1d4 acid damage (unless it's untyped for some strange reason) and you should give a way to get rid of the penalties. a certain period of time, healing magic, or a heal check, probably.

[Lord Iames Osari]

Why doesn't it have the Chaos and Evil subtypes?

[Icewalker]

Ah, ty for the fixes flying and Iames, I'll fix those.

[Umarth]

Even before touching it, and getting acid on you, you think it's acid is reshaping your body?

I'd also look at bumping it's HPs up. With only 45 I think this thing would drop to fast at CR 7.

[Icewalker]

Yeah, you feel a horrible acid burning at your body. It's Form of Madness, the Obyrith ability, which makes you go insane when you see it. I tried to base it similar to another Obyrith, the Ekolid, which has you feeling loads of tiny bugs eating you when you see it, forcing concentration checks and stuff.

Maybe it should have a smidge of DR. Like 3/good or slashing or something.

[Danu]

By the subtypes and everything, I assume it's an outsider. It would be nice if that were specified.

[Icewalker]

Thank you, fixed.

[deadfalcon]

on the CR argument, I agre that it's HP is abit low but then again if it wins init then i can do some serious damage. oh and also the Obyrith traits say that it has fast healing, but you haven't said how much

[Icewalker]

Ah yes, forgot about that part. That'd even out the health problem a bit.

Gave it FH4.

[Zherog]

Some comments; as with the others, I haven't read other comments. I do this not because I'm lazy, but to avoid being influenced by the opinions of others while leaving feedback.


Medium Outsider (Obyrith, Extraplanar, Evil, Chaos)

Obyrith subtype needs to be removed from your entry; it's not OGL material.


BAB +6/+1; Grp +9

You only need to list the primary BAB value.


Full-Attack 2 tentacles and bite +9/+2/+2 (1d6+3 w/ BF, 1d6+3 w/ BF, 2d6+3)

Natural attacks do not progress with BAB like a PC's attacks with a manufactured weapon. The primary attack is all the usual good stuff - BAB, ability mod, size mod, Weapon Focus, etc. You have that value correct at +9.

Secondary attacks are any other natural weapon attacks, and they're all made at BAB-5. So if your tentacle attacks are primary your bite would be made at +4.

Also, you should list them separately, rather than jumbled together. It would look something like:


Full Attack: 2 tentacles +9 melee (1d6+3 plus burning fluid) and bite +4 melee (2d6+3)


Special Attacks Burning Fluid, Devour
Special Qualities Obyrith Traits, Form of Madness, Fast Healing 4

Only the first entry is capitalized.

Each row is alphabetical, except SQ gets all sensory stuff (darkvision, scent, etc) listed first, and all traits stuff listed last.

As mentioned above, the Obyrith isn't OGL, so you'll need to remove it.

You should include "Darkvision 60 ft." on your SQ line.


You're missing skills and feats.



The creature standing before you appears as a misshapen dark purple mass of what may be…oozing…flesh, with two long curling tentacles stretching out from either side. There appears to be a lighter purple fluid dripping from it, which hisses and fizzes where it falls to the ground. The most prominent feature however, is the mouth. There is a gaping maw taking up the entire frontal side of the creature, about 5 feet in height, maybe 3 feet wide, It’s massive jaws are filled with several rows of razor-sharp teeth coming out from all sides. It makes a gurgling hiss as it slides towards you menacingly. It’s probably the most disgusting thing you’ve ever seen in your life. Probably even the most disgusting thing that you will see in the whole rest of your life. Unfortunately the next thought that runs through your head is that “the whole rest of your life” is probably going to be about 5 minutes.

Rule of Thumb #1: This flavor text should generally be no more than 2 or 3 sentences.

Rule of Thumb #2: No "action" should take place in this flavor text.

Rule of Thumb #3: Never assume actions or reactions on the part of the PCs. As I've mentioned in other threads, this is one point developers have really been heavy on when my work has been critiqued.

I think if you yank the underlined text out, you have some pretty solid descriptive text.


Burning Fluid: Ssolsch skin seeps with a disgusting light purple fluid. This fluid is similar to most burning acids, although with some different properties. When affected by Burning fluid (hit by tentacle attacks or grapples) you take 1d4 acid damage and must make a DC 17 Fort save or take an additional 1d4 and have a patch of skin melt into disgusting sticky ooze. Every time you fail a save against burning fluid, you get -2 to escape artist checks, and -2 on grapple checks made to break grapples, although +2 on grapple checks made to hold somebody or something similar. The skin heals naturally after a week, or with any healing magic. Water does not wash off the goo, but holy water will.

Special abilities need a type - either Extraordinary (Ex), Supernatural (Su), or Spell-Like (Sp). This one could be either Ex or Su; I'd lean towards Su, but a good case could certainly be made for Ex.

Whenever you have an ability that requires a save, you need to tell the reader what ability modifier is used in the calculation of the DC. I can't really figure out how to get 17. The formula is 10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + whatever ability modifier. 99% of the time, an effect that comes from the body (like poison or this ability) uses Constitution as the DC. So the DC should probably be 16.

Do the penalties (-2 Escape Artist and Grapple) last until the wound is completely healed, or do they go away at some other point? Your text implies the former, but you should be explicit and say so directly - it avoids people bitching and moaning and rules lawyering about the ability after it's published. :smallwink:

As a nit-pick, don't abbreviate; spell out the word "Fortitude."

Finally, skill names are capitalized.


Devour: A Ssolsch may attempt to devour on a successful bite attack, or as a grappling action. Devour is an opposed grapple check. If the Ssolsch wins the check, it stuffs the creature (which must be medium or smaller) into it’s gaping maw, shredding it’s skin with it’s rings of teeth, as well as affecting the target with a dose of Burning Fluid. The Ssolsch’s bodies do not appear big enough to hold an entire creature. Secondly, Ssolch’s appear to have no throats, as there is no hole in the back of the mouth…However Ssolsch’s mouths have one very unusual property: The back of the mouth of a Ssolsch will ripple and open, and pull a devoured target through it, teleporting them to a random layer of the Abyss. Luckily, there is a 50% chance that the portal will be pulled off course on the way into the abyss, and deposit you on the top layer (The Plane of Infinite Portals).

I've underlined several things here. Here's reasons.

Sizes that refer to creature sizes are capitalized; this is done to differentiate them from their "mundane" meanings.

Special ability names are not capitalized.

Spell names are italicized.

The Plane of Infinite Portals might be another OGL issue. If it's not in the SRD but is in a WotC book, you can't use it. You can refer to the 1st layer of the abyss - that's allowed, because the abyss isn't a WotC owned property. The names of those planes, however, are almost all the IP of WotC.

For other stuff...

This ability also needs a type; I'd definitely go Su given the teleport ability.

Speaking of which: Do you really expect a 7th level character to survive being teleported to a random layer of the abyss? this ability seems wholely inappropriate for the CR of the creature.


Form of Madness: A creature within 60 feet that observes a Ssolsch must attempt a DC 14 Will save. Failure indicates the creature begins hallucinating that his flesh is being very slowly twisted and distended by a vile acid. The victim becomes nauseated for 2d4 rounds, then sickened for a 1d3 days, then shaken for 1d3 weeks. After that, whenever the victim sees an unidentified purple liquid, or hears or sees an acidic substance, he becomes shaken until the source is gone and for 1d4 rounds after. A creature that makes the save is immune to that particular Ssolsch’s form of madness for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting ability that does not affect chaotic evil outsiders. The save DC is Charisma based.

This is also an inappropriate ability. Effects shouldn't last that long.



I'm kinda wondering about the CR. I had it at 5, but then I made devour, which sends you to the freakin Abyss as well as Form of Madness, which came out way more powerful than I had expected. So I bumped it up to 7.

In my opinion, this creature defies having a CR defined. Being sent to the Abyss is not an appropriate challenge for 7th level PCs. In addition, the form of madness ability is just too powerful as written. No ability should affect PCs for weeks at a time.

[Icewalker]

Well, as to the CR/teleporty, I'll make it so it is always the top layer, where I think there are supposed to be portals back to other planes as well as lower layers.

Good small fixes, will do.

The thing about Form of Madness...it is part of the Obyrith traits. (Usually) permanent insanity from perceiving the horror of this creature. I dunno if I have to remove it due to not being Obyrith...

Fixed all the little stuff, rewrote description of burning fluid, etc.

I don't know what skills and feats to give it...it gets 8+int per level :smallfrown:
Well, 8 moderately usable feats for a wandering demon, as well as a nice set of three feats for the random monster.

[Zherog]

The thing about Form of Madness...it is part of the Obyrith traits. (Usually) permanent insanity from perceiving the horror of this creature. I dunno if I have to remove it due to not being Obyrith...

If form of madness is part of the obyrith subtype, then you have to remove it (sort of). There's no reason why you can't define a "new" ability that functions in a similar manner.

Speaking of that: There's no reason you can't take the Obyrith traits and just give those to your creature without mentioning the subtype. There's nothing stopping you, for example, from giving the creature the resistances and DR and whatever else the trait gave out. Just mix 'em up a little, because you want to make this your creature anyway.


I don't know what skills and feats to give it...it gets 8+int per level :smallfrown:

Look towards some of the other demons to get ideas.

Knowledge (the planes) definitely comes to mind. Intimidate sure fits the creature. Spot and Listen are always safe to give out. So there's four of your eight right there.

As for feats: Power Attack seems to be a fit. As a rule of thumb, the fewer decisions a DM needs to make, the better. So feats that add static bonuses are always good choices.

Here's a few that I think fit the creature's theme:

Power Attack
Improved Initiaitve
Weapon Focus (tentacle)
any of the +2/+2 skill feats, such as Alertness
Improved Natural Attack (tentacle)
Improved Natural Attack (bite)

Pick and choose what you like. Just make sure you meet pre-reqs. :)

[Fax Celestis]

Ability Focus (Burning Fluid)!

[Zherog]

Another good choice.

[Icewalker]

Using the three save-boosting feats and some common skills. Sounds like a good idea for remaking the traits, any ideas for a new name for Form of madness?

[Fax Celestis]

Horrific Form, Maddening Visage, or Grotesque Presence all work.

[Icewalker]

Nice. I'll take Maddening Visage.

[Fredderf]

I would like to see a little more fluff. Why is it here? What does it want?

[EvilElitest]

I want some fluff
from,
EE

[Icewalker]

Well, it did have the Obyrith subtype, showing that it was a demon. Normally it would reside in the Abyss.

[Zherog]

What function do they serve in the Abyss? Why are the called to the material plane? How are they viewed by other demons? How do they view other demons?

There's some questions you could answer to get your fluff-mojo started. :)