The kraken is one of the iconic monsters, and I've been thinking for a while about throwing one as a high-level encounter in my campaign. Looking over the kraken's stats, I noticed the seemingly dramatic Rend Ship ability, which seems intended to make the kraken a credible threat to seagoing vessels.
Unfortunately, Rend Ship only effects ships that are the kraken's size or smaller, and the only ship (per Pathfinder's published vehicle rules) that fits in that category is the rowboat. Finding out that the kraken, a primal horror of legendary proportions, is mostly restricted to menacing the craft of weekend fishing buddies seems underwhelming to me.
Has there been any sort of errata for this, and if not, how do you handle it in your games? I considered the Giant simple template, but at that level, it seems not terribly cost effective.
It does look like the ability isn't that impressive. But as you noted, the Kraken CAN get bigger.
Numerically, the kraken is better off just power attacking the ship while holding on with an arm or two. Far more damage, ship will sink and crew will drown. Rend ship is for when the Kraken want to engage in "Bwa-ha-ha Villiany", actively killing only a few victims at a time but making the entire situation last longer to inflict greater despair. A unnatural calm leaves the sails useless, the rowers can't move the ship, crewmates are dying horribly, the tentacles are too tough to sever* and everyone on board can hear the hull being destroyed.
Don't forget Krakens are NOT just big cephalopods, they are Evil jerkasses.
*No more rules for severing tentacles, want to stop the Kraken? Kill it.
I will agree that the Kraken was written up before the ultimate combat rules. IF I used that book I'd probably rule the gargantuan Kraken can Rend Ship on boats 80' or less {Tentacle reach 60' plus Space 20'].
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Not only is rend ship near useless considering it's size, the damage it does to the ship is pitiful. If it's goal it simply to sink the ship it's in it's best interest to just full-attack instead. Funny sidenote, RAW there is nothing stopping a character with Stunning Fist from successfully using that feat against a Kraken. That alone led to 10 minutes of laughter at my gaming table tonight after my Sub-Zero based monk pimp-slapped it's tentacle.
rend ship is not what's powerful about the kraken,
it's ability to gain the benefits of the -20 option is.
that lets them take AoOs while grappling targets, and more interestingly,
move while maintaining a grapple... that lets them move outside the targets' reach: too bad mr. stunning fist monk.
apparently the targets can always try to escape, even if they don't threaten the kraken, but that takes a standard action, and the kraken can keep this up all day long. if the targets don't have reach, the kraken can full attack multiple targets, grab moving them adjacent, and then 5' step away where the targets can't fight back. if focusing more on one target, the kraken can move away up to it's move speed, quickly isolating one target, and anybody who moves to close with it will likely draw an aoo. all this movement can be underwater, preventing more ranged line of sight/effect attacks against it.
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OK, a few questions: #1 - how did the Kraken fail his FORT SAVE versus the stunning fist? +21, would mean you would need to be level 24 to make him roll a 1 for success... (or level 18 with a +4 Wis).
But otherwise you are correct, it does not state anywhere that Stunning Fist is a mind affecting ability. So IF the Kraken fails its Fort save that would make for a HILARIOUS encounter. And a 1 is always a failure on saves, so you would have a 5% chance of stunning it. I could see keeping a bunch of lvl 1 monk/ lvl x rogues on board just to fight off such a beast (say, statistically, 20 of them... ensuring that the kraken will be stunned for one round allowing full on sneak attacks until that rogue's next turn).
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Lvl 16 Monk, 24 Wis(18 natural+6 enhancement), Mantis Style, Ability Focus[Stunning Fist], and a +3 Ki Intensifying Brass Kunckles. All that added up equals a DC of 30.
I freely admit that it was a once in a lifetime fluke. It grabbed me so I decided to punch it before using Abundant Step to get away from it and the GM just happened to roll a 7. The stun caused it to let go of me, a couple other party members, and our ship. The down side was that the GM ruled that it would be furious at me for making it look weak so I had to spend almost the rest of the combat in total defense and burning ki points for AC just to avoid most of it attacks.
Honestly though, I think the only reason my GM allowed it to happen was that it was our last game session before he moved across state. Regardless, it's one of the funniest moments I've had playing.
Funny sidenote, RAW there is nothing stopping a character with Stunning Fist from successfully using that feat against a Kraken. That alone led to 10 minutes of laughter at my gaming table tonight after my Sub-Zero based monk pimp-slapped it's tentacle.
We once had a rolemaster monk use "sweeps and throws" on a kraken and defeat it in one (admittedly very unlikely) critical. One of those moments we still talk about twenty years later..
yes, i have never seen a 1st level monk stun a kraken in real life. ;-P
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Funny sidenote, RAW there is nothing stopping a character with Stunning Fist from successfully using that feat against a Kraken. That alone led to 10 minutes of laughter at my gaming table tonight after my Sub-Zero based monk pimp-slapped it's tentacle.We once had a rolemaster monk use "sweeps and throws" on a kraken and defeat it in one (admittedly very unlikely) critical. One of those moments we still talk about twenty years later..
We had one fail a baleful polymorph at our table once, kept its mental stats on the will save. Turned it into a goldfish. Buddies Grippli cohort rolled a natural 20 to grapple it, and we stuffed it into an empty wine bottle. We shook the bottle to threaten it and telepathically commanded it to control the seas for us, we cruised around quite nicely after that. Finally we were engaged with some extremely powerful drow clerics and things where looking grim, until our mage took the bottle out of his glove of storing, threw it 30 feet, and dispelled the polymorph. Man that squid was angry at everything near it... which were the drow of course.
Now THAT is awesome!
The the dozen attacks
Melee 2 arms +26 (2d6+10/19–20 plus grab), 8 tentacles +24 (1d8+5 plus grab), bite +26 (2d8+10)
and
Tenacious Grapple (Ex): A kraken does not gain the grappled condition if it grapples a foe with its arms or tentacles.
are for sinking the ship.
Rend Ship (Ex): As a full-round action, a kraken can attempt to use four of its tentacles to grapple a ship of its size or smaller. It makes a CMB check opposed by the ship's captain's Profession (sailor) check, but the kraken gets a cumulative +4 bonus on the check for each size category smaller than Gargantuan the ship is. If the kraken grapples the ship, it holds the ship motionless; it can attack targets anywhere on or within the ship with its tentacles, but can only attack foes on deck with its free arms and can't attack foes at all with its beak. Each round it maintains its hold on the ship, it automatically inflicts bite damage on the ship's hull.
is for the lifeboats.
This is one of the reasons I miss the 3.x Monster Manual which was, IMHO, better in design than the Pathfinder Bestiary. For one it had guidelines that showed how far a monster is expected to advance and when their size increases occur. The Pathfinder rules are far less detailed in this area, citing that you should probably increase a creature's size for every +50% HD you add, but don't really give any ideas as to how far would be considered normal to advance them.
In 3.x, your typical kraken has 20 HD and is gargantuan, but the suckers can grow to be 60 HD and colossal size (they actually become colossal at 33 HD). For the record said 60 HD kraken was by the MM standard about CR 23 (which seems about right).
well, the issue would remain of generic HD/size advancement not always correlating well to CR increases, and thus SPECIFIC versions of creatures that a good designer can actually fully tweak are always a better bet. the generic advancements are just so variable in terms of whether the stated CR is actually achieved, that you might as well leave it up to GMs to eyeball changes themselves, there is just as much CR variability/inaccuracy if you followed the 3.x method as if GM's freeformed it. anyways, that is the understanding i have of why Paizo dropped some of that 3.x stuff, and it seems to semi-plausibly hold up.
I don't think the maximum HD number in 3rd Edition had any meaningful relevance. If you were advancing a monster to maximum HD, then you did it for a really big battle, and then there was nothing stopping you from going even bigger.
And WotC writers were just as good at making monsters as any homebrewer. Without the experience of 10 years playtesting that homebrewers now can make use of. I am pretty certain the maximum advancement HD had no basis at all. They were all numbers that were entirely made up on the spot.
Which I suspect is the reason Paizo no longer bothers with it. Just give it as many HD and whatever size you want to.