Recommend a Monster?


Advice

Contributor

I appeal to the wisdom of the boards. Can anyone think of some monsters around CR 12-13 which have a large number of ranged attacks? Preferably outsider or fey and not terribly large, but that's something I can finesse.

Liberty's Edge

Large numbers of ranged attacks 'built in' on high CR monsters are rare. That said, a little Feat reassignment (and maybe a couple of Class Levels) and any humanoid foe can make a solid archer. And archers get lots of attacks by that level (assuming BAB +11 or higher, we're talking an easy five attacks, six with Haste or something like it).

Would something like that work, or does it need to be built in?

Contributor

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Large numbers of ranged attacks 'built in' on high CR monsters are rare. That said, a little Feat reassignment (and maybe a couple of Class Levels) and any humanoid foe can make a solid archer. And archers get lots of attacks by that level (assuming BAB +11 or higher, we're talking an easy five attacks, six with Haste or something like it).

Would something like that work, or does it need to be built in?

It would work, and it's my backup plan. I was just hoping there was something already existing because 1) I am lazy and do not want to have to stat up a character from scratch and 2) Monsters often have interesting or memorable abilities beyond what a humanoid archer gets.

Liberty's Edge

NeoTiamat wrote:
It would work, and it's my backup plan. I was just hoping there was something already existing because 1) I am lazy and do not want to have to stat up a character from scratch and 2) Monsters often have interesting or memorable abilities beyond what a humanoid archer gets.

Well, you could split the difference and add some Class levels to an existing monster. I could pretty easily add some levels to a Succubus, say, and have a pretty solid archer. A Succubus Antipaladin Archer sounds fun (and terrifying) to me...


Hamadryads are a bit too high...

And the White Rider of Baba Yaga too low...

I'd say you just toss the Hamadryad with -2 to all stats.


CR is much too high, but here are some super interesting fey creatures that meet your criteria (I love a good fey creature) -- perhaps you could look at ways to weaken them a bit down to a more appropriate CR:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/erlking

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/seilenos

Dark Archive

Ghaele Azatas have 2 ray attacks, but are good aligned outsiders. Maybe not the easiest things to make as foes, without a reskin.

If you can bump up the CR some, I'm a big fan of Nehmain. Undead that can swift action incorporeal touch at a 30 ft range, plus a standard incorporeal touch in melee. They can ALSO use their swift action to deliver harm and slay living spells instead of a regular touch.
Though, these are more 'powerful' ranged attacks, than a large number.

Contributor

I will say that it is much easier to make a monster higher CR than it is to bring it down. So while the Seilenos and the Nemhain are more what I'm looking for, bringing them down would be a pain and a half. And the White Rider isn't really superior to just making a mundane humanoid archer.

Ghaele has some potential. I'm going to be utterly reskinning the monster any-which-way, so what it was originally isn't a big deal.

Deadmanwalking wrote:
Well, you could split the difference and add some Class levels to an existing monster. I could pretty easily add some levels to a Succubus, say, and have a pretty solid archer. A Succubus Antipaladin Archer sounds fun (and terrifying) to me...

That is actually a pretty good idea. I know baykoks have unusual arrows, perhaps I could level one of them up...


If you're considering leveling archer monsters, I recommend the Leukodaemon.


Or you create one from scratch, let's say a floating orb with rotating orbs around it which it can fire off as ranged attacks (maybe off the plane of Earth?). Or maybe just increase the radius of their orbs around them (still a ranged attack, but less range) when they attack by moving among their prey.

You could level up a saguaroi and switch the slams for ranged needle attacks.
A leveled up rock giant might do, since they are only CR 8 (but they have iterative ranged attacks).
The aforementioned leukodaemon fits, if you level him up.
The erinyes (devil) with CR 8 is also a consideration.
There was a construct/clockwork somewhere that has four crossbows as arms, but that might have been in some D&D book.


Garuda. Outsider, 5 arrows (counting rapid/many), some cool additional abilities. If you let it buff it's got pretty sweet AC/attack rolls.

Downside is it's only CR9. Shouldn't be hard to tweak that though.


The Pale Stranger is CR 10, but might work.
Pale Stranger.

Contributor

And we have a winner! THE PALE STRANGER! Six attacks, nice, rules-slim body that nevertheless actually deals with its attacks. I'll dig up a template or some such to stack on top of it to get the CR up, but this is precisely what I was looking for.

Thank you all!


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Personally I think a group of Witchfires would make life pretty miserable to a typical adventuring group. They're only CR9 so CR 12 would make for a sizeable team.

Or really by far the deadliest creatures are other characters. :)


Don Hastily wrote:

The Pale Stranger is CR 10, but might work.

Pale Stranger.

Interesting -- unlike all the other Undead I have seen, this one has a Constitution score.


UnArcaneElection wrote:
Interesting -- unlike all the other Undead I have seen, this one has a Constitution score.

They don't. D20PFSRD does have occasional errors though.

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