| Douglas Muir 406 |
Another late Bestiary monster that doesn't seem to have caught on; it hasn't been mentioned in these forums at all, and AFAIK hasn't been used in any Paizo products either. Poor little guys!
Okay, so the dossenu has two obvious uses. One, its bite attack bypasses hardness, so it can go after armor and weapons. That makes it sort of like a poor man's Rust Monster. Which is fine -- there's a niche for that. Second, it's obviously designed to attack in groups, using its Swarm ability to pile on with sneak attacks. One dossenu is CR 1; a dozen of them would be CR 9 or so.
Except... no. A dossenu has AC 12 and 13 hp and attacks at just +4. Any reasonably competent midlevel melee character will take out a dozen of them toute suite without taking much damage himself. A wizard can easily vaporize the whole group with one AoE spell. These guys are just a bit too wimpy to be a serious threat to midlevel characters, even in groups.
So, what to do? Well, I see two possibilities. One is to use a really *big* group of dossenu -- at least 20, maybe 50 or more. At this point they're still vulnerable to Fireballs and other AoE spells -- one good Cloudkill and they're all dead -- but otherwise they're a respectable threat. Their 30' move means that they can keep coming at you, so "missile weapon, then run" won't work unless the PCs have some way of increasing their move. And the fact that they have Climb and Burrow means there's no escaping them easily. (In fact, the PCs could run around a hairpin turn, think they're safe... and then be surprised by the swarm bursting out of the walls a round or two later.) It's RAW that they're "extremely tenacious"; the only thing that will deter them is sunlight, the only thing that will stop them cold is water. If the PCs know this, then you can have a fun encounter where they have to reach the exit to the surface or the underground river before they're caught.
Second option: make the individual dossenu more formidable. Giving them the Advanced or Fiendish templates is easy and works okay. If you want to be a bit more sophisticated, maybe some dossenu have learned stealth and a bit of cunning, and have gained a rogue level. That makes them quite a bit trickier to deal with:
N Small aberration
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +6
DEFENSE
AC 13, touch 12, flat-footed 12 (+1 natural, +1 Dex, +1 size)
hp 23 (3d8+9)
Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +4; +4 vs. poison
Weaknesses hydrophobia, light blindness
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft., burrow 30 ft., climb 30 ft.
Melee bite +4 (1d6+3/19–20)
Special Attacks devastating maw, sneak attack +2d6, swarming
STATISTICS
Str 12, Dex 15, Con 16, Int 7, Wis 12, Cha 3
Base Atk +1; CMB +1; CMD 13 (17 vs. trip)
Feats Improved Critical (bite), Weapon Focus (bite), Weapon SpecializationB (bite)
Skills Acrobatics +6, Climb +18, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +2, Perception +6, Stealth +7; Racial Modifiers +8 Climb
Languages Common, Aklo
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Burrow (Ex)
A dossenus can burrow through stone (or weaker materials such as wood) as easily as dirt.
Devastating Maw (Ex)
A dossenus' bite attack counts as adamantine for the purposes of overcoming DR and bypassing hardness.
Hydrophobia (Ex)
A dossenus cannot swim and always fails Swim checks. If a dossenus becomes completely submerged in water, it must succeed at a DC 15 Will save on its turn each round or be paralyzed with fear until it is no longer submerged.
Swarming (Ex)
Dossenuses are brutally efficient at swarming foes and often skitter atop one another in their haste to overwhelm and devour prey. Up to two dossenuses can share the same square at the same time. If two dossenuses sharing the same square attack the same foe, they are considered to be flanking that foe as if they were in two opposite squares.
Small groups of these guys now make a respectable threat to low-level parties. Stealth plus their Burrow ability gives them a very good chance at sneak attacks and hit-and-run tactics. They're smarter, too, so now it's possible to talk to them -- they're not evil, after all. Just very hungry.
Thoughts?
Doug M.