What the hell is going on here?
Is this, or anything remotely like it, actually in the Kingmaker adventure path? Or is my GM just crazy enough to throw a super charged up shambler at us? Damn thing is using shocking grasp against us as attacks of opportunity for Pete's sake! What on earth is going on?
Well, the GMs name is Powergaming GM....
There is no way that can be written by Paizo, even if it was supposed to be crazy overpowered I can't imagine it having more than a +50 fort save.
I'd say it's pretty much certain that the GM was ruling the mound's Electric Fortitude ability to not be the same source and to thus stack across multiple applications (rather than overlapping but giving increased chance to get +4) combined with something like a will o' wisp touching it over and over.
I agree with Mark, except for the "free shocking grasp once per round", which is so far out there it's unreal.
Deconstructing, that Fort save is +503 more than a standard shambler, so we can assume +1006 to Con, which is 402 successful electricity attacks against it within the hour leading up to this fight (which shouldn't stack, but that's another conversation). Now, there are 600 rounds in an hour, which suggests something (possibly itself, or a wisp) is zapping it 2 out of three rounds. Have to wonder what it's doing on the third round.
Make no assumptions, but please ask the GM to send that monster to us (either publicly or PM me!) because I really want to figure it out.
Is this, or anything remotely like it, actually in the Kingmaker adventure path?
There *is* a non-standard shambling mound encounter in RRR, but it isn't supercharged on continuous electricity (and it isn't a wilderness encounter).
Perhaps your GM rolled two wandering monster encounters and got Shambling Mound and Will-o-wisp and decided that they've teamed up? There might be an invisible Will-o-wisp near the Shambling Mound zapping it every round. Or perhaps it's not doing so willingly - the Shambling Mound enveloped the Will-o-wisp and decided to hang on to it because of the lovely electricity.
The electricity effect still shouldn't be stacking IMHO. However, if it /did/ stack, the Electric Fortitude ability says "The shambling mound loses these temporary [Constitution] points at the rate of 1 per hour", so it doesn't have to get hundreds of shocks every hour to stay supercharged, it only needs to average more than one an hour over a long time to continuously increase.
Huh. I've always interpreted it as stacking, and I'm certainly not the only one. I've seen a number of threads suggesting that over the years.
Perhaps your GM rolled two wandering monster encounters and got Shambling Mound and Will-o-wisp and decided that they've teamed up? There might be an invisible Will-o-wisp near the Shambling Mound zapping it every round. Or perhaps it's not doing so willingly - the Shambling Mound enveloped the Will-o-wisp and decided to hang on to it because of the lovely electricity.
We've encountered will'o'wisps before, and they have become quite the nuisance (even luring a hydra into our camp while we slept), but I'm fairly certain we've since wiped them out in the area.
Also, according to the GM, it's a shocking weapon stuck in the monster, apparently. He expects us to retrieve it by "grappling the shambler."
That's totally going to end well. *rolls eyes*
There are arguments both ways about it stacking: pro-stacking say that "temporary points to ability score" isn't actually a bonus, so doesn't fall afoul of the stacking rules, while contra-stacking say "looks like a duck".
Regardless, I'm struggling to see how a shocking weapon (+1d6 electricity damage) becomes a 5d6 shocking grasp (maybe each d6 of electricity damage it delivers reduces its Con by 1 point? That's how I'd do it, but I'm not going to be able to justify adding over 1000 points to its Con score).
The answers to the puzzle lies within the Dungeon Denizens Revisited book, particularly the Stormstruck Shambler feat.
I am more interested though in hearing the GM's rationale for (a) why the wisp is hanging around a shambling mound, and (b) why has not the shambling mound attempted to eat the wisp?
I ask these questions because while flesh is a shambling mound's favourite meal, their slow speed and tendency to remain stationary for prey to come into reach is likely to reduce the frequency in which a shambling mound encounters sentient prey out in the wilderness. This tends to be counter-productive for a wisp that needs to feed on fear and the emotions of dying creatures (preferably humanoids, if I am not mistaken).
Secondly, a wisp is not an outsider, it's an aberration. Thus, it would be considered as food by a shambling mound. Given the lower Intelligence of a shambling mound, it might be curious about the wisp for a while, but I imagine that sooner or later it would just eat the wisp.
According to the ecology of the shambling mound, they are driven by their needs - sustenance, safety, and procreation. Advanced tactics like letting a wisp zap it non-stop for a hour or longer to gain the temporary Constitution bonus is a large stretch of the imagination, unless the wisp was capable of communicating with the shambling mound. Symbiotic relations with vermin for a shambling mound are much more likely.
On the other hand, if the wisp wanted to utilize the shambling mound as a tool to spread fear, with, perhaps, the ulterior motive to deliberately seek out the PCs (because a certain fey sorceress wished it so), I can see that being reasonable. But to pump the Constitution score of the shambling mound to such ludicrous heights, that is a **** move.
CB out.
EDIT: I just realized now that it was clarified that it was not a wisp that provided the electricity, but a shocking weapon that was buried within the shambling mound. There are 2 problems that arises here.
One, the weapon has to be activated in order to do the electricity damage (I think), and two, the weapon only does the electricity damage per successful hit. An impaled or buried weapon is not "hitting" the shambling mound every round (to hit requires an attack roll).
Regrettably, your GM is taking very absurd liberties with that particular encounter. *shakes my head*
Could play Bennie Hill on the beastie, lead around until it gets tired, or falls from a very high cliff, or pepper it with Will saves that its plant type doesn't stop such as slow and solid fog.
While the merry band are dangling carrots on long, long poles at it, send minions to fetch siege engines atop a box canyon, lure it in with certain kinds of illusions, then bury the monster.
It has lots of hp and almost ignores Fort saves. Doesn't mean diddly to Reflex saves and certain select Will saves (glamers, I believe, work fine).
Liberal applications of trickery, baiting and patience will win the day. It might take a week, but hey, you have 3 weeks/month to deal with the beast. ;)
EDIT: I just realized now that it was clarified that it was not a wisp that provided the electricity, but a shocking weapon that was buried within the shambling mound. There are 2 problems that arises here.
One, the weapon has to be activated in order to do the electricity damage (I think), and two, the weapon only does the electricity damage per successful hit. An impaled or buried weapon is not "hitting" the shambling mound every round (to hit requires an attack roll).
Regrettably, your GM is taking very absurd liberties with that particular encounter. *shakes my head*
So you don't think someone would get burned by holding the business end of an active flaming weapon? Or that a person couldn't set things on fire with it without making an attack?
That all seems perfectly plausible to me.
The GM opting to take advantage of the Shamblers' free unlimited Constitution boosts, however, just reeks of cheese so foul.
Teeeeeeechnically, the energy-based special properties on weapons only do damage on a successful hit. So teeeeeeeeechnically, holding the business end of one does absolutely nothing.
However, even the rules lawyer in me says that's cheesy technicalities and someone picking up a flaming sword by the blade deserves to get burned. So it's GM's discretion.
Hm. Looking at the description of shocking, the effect remains in place until another command is given to turn it off (assuming it was activated in the first place).
It also does not harm its wielder. Well, the electricity effect itself, that is. That being said, if a shambling mound is going to suffer no ill effects from a buried blade inside it, why should it gain any positive effects from the weapon's shocking property?
Yes, I understand that there are no specific game rules for dealing with living life with a buried weapon in your chest cavity, but it just seems like a double standard to me to cherry pick the consequences that occur to npcs or monsters in the game world.
That particular issue aside, I do concur that grasping the business end of a flaming sword (heck, even a non-flaming sword for that matter) without proper protection considerable risk of harm, regardless of whether or not the wielder of said weapon is actively attacking with the weapon.
Ultimately, I do see now the rationale for the GM's play in that particular encounter, but I think the encounter itself was unnecessarily stacked by the GM in favor of the monster. A monster like that would have been better served as a kingdom event or similar story event. I mean, it is an incredible menace to living things everywhere as it is effectively immortal to hit points damage until you can do more damage to it per round than it could gain hit points from the Constitution boost.. If it had a poison attack or other special attack based on Constitution, it would be even harder to deal with.
CB out.
It could be an intelligent weapon that shocks the shambling mound it's taken over.
Well, the CON boost on a per-round basis is laughably small on a vaguely normal HD shambling mound. Old-fashioned 'chase the dinner' will eventually win by attrition, with sufficient ammunition.
