attack of the living cactus.

[comk59]

for no reason other than i kinda felt like it, i have, for some reason, made an anthropomorphic porcupine cactus. enjoy!

Vitea Cactus
medium plant
Hit Dice: 2d8+6(15)
Initiative: -1
Speed: 20ft
Armor Class: 15 (-1 dex, +6 natrual) touch 9, flat footed 14
Base Attack/ Grapple: +2/+2
Attack: Thorns +3 1d6+1
Full Attack: Thorns +3 1d6+1 and Bite 1d4+1
Special Attacks: Launch, Detonate
Special Qualities: Low-light Vision, Plant Traits, Thorns
Saves: Fort +3 ,Ref +2 ,Will +1
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 10, Con 17, Int 6, Wis 8, Char 12
Feats: Heat endurance, Diehard
Skills Disguise +1*
Environment: Warm Deserts
Organization: Solitary or patch (4-24)
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always Neutral
Advancement: HD Medium (2-8) Large (9-12)

*Vitea cactus get a +10 disguise bonus when disguising itself as an inanimate plant

This appearingly harmless piece of desert life suddenly shakes and uproots itself. A pair of tiny, deepset eyes stare out at you, and it's mouth splits open into a toothy grin.

The onslaught of Vitea Cactus is a nigh unstoppable force, bound together by an unfathomable hive mind. How or why they choose their target is unknown, but once they do, it is suicide to do anything but evacuate. They launch barrage after barrage of explosive cacti until all that remains is shredded flesh and splintered bone. Even if some of them do fall during the assault, it does nothing but spread their seeds in a violent blast. The older they become, the more power they gain, and the eldest rival even dragons.

COMBAT
When resting in the desert, they are hidden as normal cacti. They can be identified by a DC 10 Survival or Knowledge (nature) check, otherwise, roll off Hide and Spot checks as normal. A DC 10 spot check reveals humanoid bones littered throughout the area, giving a +2 circumstance bonus on all checks to identify hidden Cacti.
Thorns: In melee, a Vitea Cactus will repeatedly stab it's target with it's long, wicked thorns. this is a natural weapon that deals 1d6 points of damage. In addition, any opponent who makes an unarmed attack against a Vitea cactus takes 1d4 points of damage. If the attacker has improved unarmed strike, it may take a DC 12 Reflex save to ignore this damage.
Launch (Ex): once every 1d4+2 rounds, a Vitea Cacti may launch a small, turgid, explosive cacti. This is a grenade like weapon with a 20ft range increment. Apon impact, it explodes, dealing 2d4 points of piercing and slashing damage to all creatures within 10 ft. DC 14 reflex save for half. this DC is constitution based.
Detonate (Ex): When a Vitea Cacti that is at least 4 days old is reduced to 0 Hit Points, it explodes. This Deal 4d4 points of piercing and slashing damage to all creatures within 20 ft. DC 14 reflex save for half. this DC is constitution based. Unless the area it exploded in is cleansed with fire, 2d6 porcupine cacti and 1d3 Vitea cacti will sprout in 1 week. one of these Vitea Cacti has all of the memories of the original.
Expansion: If a Vitea Cacti has gained a cumulative 5 years of memories, it enters a catatonic state. After a 3 week period, it emerges as a Vitea Destroyer.



as you can see, i have big plans for this race of destructive vegetables. If you want to keep up, fave this page, and prepare for the next installment, the Vitea Destroyer! Anyway, first official homebrew, so critique as much as you like (i'm actually still not certain about the CR)

[Debihuman]

You left Expansion off Special Qualities but it would probably be better to advance by HD rather than try to figure out when it gets 5 years of memories.

Detonate is really Death Throes, a standard Extraordinary ability.

Its abilities are rather weak. Why are its stats below average? It is being needlessly hamstrung by its poor stats. 10 is average. It is below average in 4 stats making it absurdly easy to overcome. Cha should be slightly higher than average as it should easily mimic a normal cactus.

2 HD monster with 2 special attacks is overkill. You are compensating for lack of abilities with those. DC based on Con is 14 and should be the same for both Detonate and Launch.

How many thorns can it attack with? If it is more than one you need to list the number. See octopus or squid. If it is a volley of thorns then it should be listed as a range attack. If it is a ranged attack, how far can it attack? You need to list the range increment somewhere.

Edit: This seems to be missing Feat line.

Debby

[comk59]

Thanks Debi, i made some changes, so i hope that that fixes it. The expansion thing was an attempt to replicate the weird Dustblight mutation rules in Sandstorm, but those were only put into place so PCs could be whole or partial Dustblights. It would be a hell of a lot easier to just make them all different creatures entirely.
anyway, thanks again!

[Debihuman]

Just a few formatting and other corrections. You left off the word melee in the attack lines and the bite is at -2 as it takes a -5 penalty as a secondary attack. Is the basis for the DC in thorns charisma? Thorns should be piercing damage not untyped damage.

Attack: Thorns + 3 melee (1d6+1)

Full Attack: Thorns +3 melee (1d6+1) and bite - 2 melee (1d4+1)

Thorns: In melee, a vitea cactus will repeatedly stab its target with its long, wicked thorns. This is a natural weapon that deals 1d6 points of piercing damage. In addition, any opponent who makes an unarmed attack against a vitea cactus takes 1d4 points of piercing damage. If the attacker has improved unarmed strike, it can make a Reflex save (DC 12) to ignore this damage. The save is charisma-based.

Knowledge checks are 10 + 1/2 HD of creature so it should be an 11 for the check not 10.

Skills: A vitea cactus has a +10 racial bonus to Disguise when attempting to appear as a normal cactus.

It should only have one feat. If the second feat is a bonus feat, it should be noted with a (B) or ^B.

Plants gain skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die, if the plant creature has an Intelligence score. With an Int of 6, it has 5 skill points. If you put all 5 in Disguise (which is based on Cha), it should have Disguise +6 (5 ranks and +1 for Cha modifier) not +1.

Advancement should start with 3 HD since the base creature has 2. I think your advancement is off as it should increase in size when it doubles its hit dice. Obviously, there are exceptions but in general this is the easiest way to Advance a creature.

Advancement: 3-6 HD (Medium), 7-12 HD (Large)
OR
Advancement: 3-8 HD (Medium), 7-16 HD (Large)

Otherwise, it looks pretty good.

Debby

[Vendevor]

how does a cactus bite somone?