Low CR ocean encounters

[Thelonius monk]

Hey, I'm beginning a new campaign, based in a previously undiscovered continent. The campaign starts during the voyage across the sea/ocean with an encounter, but I'm having trouble finding an appropriate monster(s). If you guys know of some good ones, I would love to hear about them. Thanks.

[denthor]

Sunmon small water elementals call it a day.

Shark attack on boat jump out of water

[Goaty14]

Depending on how far from land the PCs are presumed to be, you might send in some "indians" who technically are lvl 1 warriors (NPC class) with spears and clubs on dugouts or war canoes (Stormwrack) war canoes if you want it to be tougher to sink it, but dugouts if you think of any "tribe" to be more primitive, or easier.

I would also look to stormwrack for other encounter material

[Malimar]

Angry sahuagin or kuo-toa? Or even locathah, merfolk, or tritons, if you want to go less "hostile because evil" and more "hostile because you're in their territory".

[Afgncaap5]

Sharks and Crocodiles. Oh, and Squids, the non-giant kind.

And if you don't wanna use those animals exactly, it's easy enough to change their name and/or description to be something else. Some of my players have said that their favorite low-level encounters were against an advanced Crocodile (pretty much identical in every way but described as having a pitch-black set of leathery scales) and against "that shadow-monster from the nightmare world that started bursting out of the ground and tried to pull us in" (an incredibly rewritten Squid. The only significant change to its stats was a line saying "The final blow to kill it must come from the sword of elfsilver in the room it attacks them in.")

[Inevitability]

There's a page full of aquatic races here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm). Pick any of the low-level foddler monsters, convert to their underwater subspecies, and proceed from there.

[Nifft]

- Things that fly.

- Things that use boats to get around.

Basically the key to not triggering a TPK is to not use enemies that have a massive advantage underwater, particularly not huge grapplers who can dive and drown PCs.

[Afgncaap5]

Also, as a weird thought: what about a giant clump of sargasso that the boat gets stuck in? Give the PCs a skill-based task to figure out how to get the boat unstuck and keep it from getting stuck again.

And if you absolutely need a monster to tie to that... maybe some sort of goblin made out of seaweed. Or (depending on how low you mean when you say Low CR), maybe an Assassin Vine-like seaweed monster that uses Assassin Vine stats.

[Inevitability]

And if you absolutely need a monster to tie to that... maybe some sort of goblin made out of seaweed. Or (depending on how low you mean when you say Low CR), maybe an Assassin Vine-like seaweed monster that uses Assassin Vine stats.

You say 'low-level plant monster', I say 'twig blight'. Moderately hard to take down with the wrong weapons, interesting immunities, and even some poison to spice up things. They're not very threatening offensively, but low-level PCs are squishy anyway.

[Swaoeaeieu]

I run a Ship based campaign myself. got some great mileage out of kuo toa. suaghin. sharks or even particularly vicious seaguls. Also nice was the Terlan i think, a breed of flying sharks. But do check out stormwrack.

[Goaty14]

Stormwrack also gives the amphibious template, in case you get bored/worn out of sending in water creatures, so you could send in some dragonwrou- *cough* kobolds if you feel like it.

[Thelonius monk]

Thanks for all the advice, I had completely forgotten about Stormwrack, so I'll definitely check that out. I'm trying to avoid "magical" monsters, which is why I steered away from elementals. I also like the territorial but not evil merfolk/locathah idea.