Over the past two weeks we looked at a series of beasts going through an evolution. This is the final edition of this beast. Their story is simple, they are the Cave Quick with a Shadow Demon's essence imbued into them. This essence made them grow, taller than even a typical human, and they gained destructive appendages that killed with chilling ease.
Enough backstory, here they are:
Cave Breaker CR 7
XP 3,200
CE Medium aberration
Init +9; Senses darkvision 120 ft., keen scent; Perception +6
DEFENSE
AC 19, touch 13, flat-footed 16 (+3 Dex, +6 natural)
hp 81 (6d8+54)
Fort +10, Ref +5, Will +7
Defensive Abilities celerity, ferocity; DR 10/good; Resist cold and fire (15); SR 22
Weaknesses light blindness
OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft., climb 30 ft.
Melee 2 slams +12 (1d10+11)
Special Attacks dark strikers (4 tentacles +10 touch (2d6 cold)), pounce, ravage
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 6th; concentration +8)
Constant—greater magic fang
At will—invisibility
1/hour—blur
STATISTICS
Str 22, Dex 16, Con 26, Int 3, Wis 14, Cha 14
Base Atk +4; CMB +10; CMD 23
Feats Aspect of the Beast (Wild Instinct)B, Combat ReflexesB, Deep Sight, Improved Initiative, Power Attack, RunB, Toughness
Skills Acrobatics +7 (+11 to jump with a running start), Climb +18, Escape Artist +7, Intimidate +6, Perception +6, Survival +8.
Languages Aklo, gnome
SQ no breath, powerful blows (slams)
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Celerity (Ex)
Gain the benefits of Improved Uncanny Dodge and Improved Evasion of a Rogue of double their level.
Dark Strikers (Su)
A Cave Breaker possesses four odd pitch-black tentacles extruding from their back. These things have 20-foot reach and deal 2d6 cold damage as touch attacks with a free action; they deal 1 Dexterity damage on a critical hit in addition to double damage. These tentacles also extinguish light within their reach with a ranged touch attack. Magical light receives a Fortitude save DC 20 to resist being extinguished.
Ravage (Ex)
When striking a pinned or otherwise helpless foe or an object, a Cave Breaker deals double damage.
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These guys are an example of a straight-up brawler. They have high constitution, high strength, a reasonable AC, as well as multiple attacks. His spell-like abilities are a "refining" of the Cave Quick's natural abilities: the Breaker is a superior creature who can will the effects that are naturally passive.
These creatures are a culmination of the previous creatures - able to climb and move decently fast - but built towards meeting foes in a knock-down brawl. He also opposes action economy. With his four additional attacks (reaching out up to 20 feet) he can limit enemies and zone out flankers (since he still threatens with his "dark strikers" they still provoke attacks of opportunity for rounding him). His invisibility and blur make him even harder to hit.
When designing a melee beast (especially when I intend to use it as a solo fight) once the standard party reaches 4th level they have access to more damage than any single creature of a reasonable challenge does. A team will always trump a single combatant; with that in mind I made a few choices:
- I made this creature to fight a group with access to spells like see invisibility and fly, they deal significant damage per round (easily 50+ damage when everyone focuses on one enemy), and can handle almost any challenge (again, as a group).
- No single creature, excluding things vastly more powerful, can do likewise. Blur will force them to use True Strike or risk wasting attacks. Invisibility will let the creature close the gap with the party, bringing his dark strikers to bear.
- His celerity aids his defenses as well, taking minimal damage from Reflex save-based spells, and Improved Uncanny Dodge makes them hard to sneak attack, as well as reduces tactical opportunities for a group.
- Ravage makes them able to break down barriers, shatter weapons or punish a pinned or otherwise helpless foe.
Everything about these guys is made to be as resilient and painful as possible. While they have no "real" gimmick, like the Cave Crawler or the Cave Quick, the Cave Breaker is easily the most devastating of the three.
Comparison
Cave Breaker Vs. Hydrodaemon (CR 8), Bulette (CR 7) and Unhallowed Mohrg (CR 8)
- HP and AC: The Breaker is outclassed by the Hydrodaemon and Mohrg while being only slightly less than the Bulette, though with the added defenses of the Cave Breaker (DR, SR, Energy Resistance, Blur and Invisibility they are equals if the Cave Breaker doesn't completely outclass them.)
- Attacks: The Cave Breaker actually outclasses almost all of them. With his 4 touch attacks per round and his slam attacks, the Cave Breaker is more likely a "high" 7 or a "low" 8.
- As for other abilities, the Bulette can burrow and has a pounce-like leap. The Mohrg has his paralyzing tongue; the hydrodaemon can fly, swim, and has a slew of spell-like abilities. The Cave Breaker, in comparison, only has passive augmentations rather than many options.
In closing, the Cave Breaker lacks enough staying power for a full CR 8 but is definitely stronger than a CR 7. This raises another point for Newbie Minute that I'll get to, but currently the creature has to be given a personal "pass". He's built to withstand teams and not simply fight a one-on-one battle. He's too powerful for his CR, but not powerful enough to truly stand up to the next tier. This last point brings me to:
Newbie Minute
Earlier I made the comment of "full CR 8". I have used those terms for a while now (I can't remember where I heard them). If you look at multiple creatures of the same CR (especially those fulfilling the same role), you'll notice a certain discrepancy in their aptitudes of attack, defense, and special abilities. Thus someone (not me, sadly) coined the terms "High CR" and "Low CR", allowing more accurate estimates of CR.
While making this monster, I engineered him specifically for my group. We had a rogue, paladin, barbarian, and druid. The rogue was a crossbow sniper, the paladin was a sword-and-shield wielding mounted specialist, the barbarian was a greatsword wielder with sorcerous spellcasting, and a druid pack master.
Spell Resistance was necessary to protect against most spells, I gave him Improved Evasion so that area effect spells were negated heavily. Damage Reduction is great against most enemies, but the paladin circumvented all of that. Smite Evil is such a brutally powerful attack-form that's impossible to counter.
Speaking of damage reduction, you'll notice that I gave these creatures DR /good. There are three tiers of DR: easy, moderate, and difficult. If a single quality that's easily acesible in the early game (e.g. slashing, bludgeoing, even magic) overcomes the DR, it's "easy" DR. Moderate DR is any damage reduction that is either based around a material or combination of "easy" DRs (i.e. bludgeoning and magic, silver, or silver and magic). Difficult DR is any damage reduction that's either convoluted or very specific (i.e. alignment-based DR (since adding enhancement cannot overcome it) or a very specific quality such as a specific weapon or the campaign-specific "DR /Epic"). Obviously this isn't a perfect rule but it is a decent enough guideline
I'd also mentioned boss details. To make this thing a boss you could do a few things: increase it's aberration hit dice by at least 2, possibly give it two more tentacle attacks, and increase it's number of defensive abilities (adding Haste and Darkness immediately comes to mind). In addition, adding the Giant and Advanced Simple templates would work (either in lieu of other modifications or as well as).
The last point I can give is thus: if you're looking to design a creature for a specific situation, the group and ideal attackers should also be taken into consideration. This will make sure that, while an "out-of-the-box" solution may still catch you off guard, you won't run the risk of killing off your group due to ignorance of their lack of a certain capability or it being too easy due to their aptitude for the situation.
As always, please leave any comments and critiques, either here or on Google+!
Next week we'll begin building Aeronhawk! I'm excited by this project and have realized the entire culture of the city-state will likely be based around a single detail. But you'll have to read next week to find out!
