The baetriov is, hands down, the best new Paizo monster since the last Bestiary. How has this horrible creature not turned up anywhere yet? Why isn't a baetriov a boss in the very next adventure path?
Why is it good? Let me count the ways. (1) Based on the historical Elizabeth Bathory, and how is it that nobody thought of this until now? (2) CR 8, meaning a good endboss for low level PCs, but can easily be advanced to make a challenge for higher levels. (3) Works equally well as a melee monster or a lurker at the center of intrigue. (4) Works and plays well with others -- the hemophile aura means that a baetriov with a bunch of mooks nearby can dish out alarming amounts of damage pretty quickly. (5) So Gothic. So, so very. This is basically a Ravenloft creature that's slithered into a Pathfinder splatbook, and I mean that in a good way. (6) The plot seeds write themselves. You just read this thing's entry and, bam bam bam, there they are. Like, if it loses its blood well, it needs a vampire to create a new one. That's just tossed off like, y'know, just gotta find some nutmeg, a copper whisk, and one intact vampire. Oh hey good-aligned PCs, this lovely aristocratic lady has a job for you!
All I can think is that people missed this because it was at the back of a campaign setting book, where it's mostly stuff like "this unusual breed of elk are native to the blah blah whatever". But the baetriov is really solid. Congratulations to whoever came up with it.
That's just tossed off like, y'know, just gotta find some nutmeg, a copper whisk, and one intact vampire. Oh hey good-aligned PCs, this lovely aristocratic lady has a job for you!
That's just tossed off like, y'know, just gotta find some nutmeg, a copper whisk, and one intact vampire. Oh hey good-aligned PCs, this lovely aristocratic lady has a job for you!
AND she gets sneak attack dice, so you could totally drop rogue levels on her to build a character that is an excellent liar, can sneak, etc. etc.
She'll fit right in if you're running a campaign that involves lots of decadent aristocrats. Literally fit right in. (War For The Crown, are we looking at you? Mmmmaybe.)
Also-also, I'm not generally someone who gets enthusiastic about creature illustrations in a splatbook or bestiary. But that is the world's creepiest terrycloth bathrobe, and I commend the artist sincerely.
I look forward to seeing the ideas people come up with!
Here's a Ravenloft-y thought. A new or young baetriov is CR 8, but an older one can have as many PC levels as you like. They all need the same thing to stay healthy, though: 1 hit die of sentient humanoid per month. So from a Ravenloft POV, being under the protection of a powerful baetriov is not such a bad deal. The Countess protects us from all lesser evils! All it costs is one person per month, and there's always some useless older person, or a captured goblin, or an orphan child, or... Oh, and! If strangers arrive in town? That's *excellent* news! The whole "sullen and suspicious villagers" thing goes out the window. We should all make the strangers welcome, very welcome indeed! Bold adventurers? Have a beer on us! Friends, you should absolutely stay until... yes, a week from Tuesday! There's a festival! (If you're not comfortable killing PCs this way, it's a good way to remove a useful or likable NPC.)
Additional wrinkle: in a Ravenloft type setting, over the decades the villagers have moved into a kind of creepy symbiosis with the Countess. There are subtle signals that she sends to indicate it's nearly time for a refill... she starts wearing a red rose instead of a white one, or walking around barefoot, or something. Meanwhile the village has tacitly decided, by silent consensus, who's getting sent "to serve at the castle". Everyone starts watching that person, silently, without saying anything... but if they try to run for it, the other villagers will silently converge, subdue them, and carry them up to the castle under cover of darkness. It's for the good of everyone, child. If you were us, you'd do the same.
Baetriov should really have been done up as a template, lich style. "ancient ... rituals" aren't inherently tied to caster levels, so it would add a lot of versatility.
Also, are they inherently required to be evil? (yeah, yeah "vile rituals"). A LN Baetriov domain could simply have a death penalty for certain offences (war crimes anyone). Or simply be willing to sacrifice evil humanoids.
Another question - could a baetriov have a mobile blood well?
Baetriov should really have been done up as a template, lich style. "ancient ... rituals" aren't inherently tied to caster levels, so it would add a lot of versatility.
This could probably be done if there's enough interest. Demonstrate interest! -- That said, I have no problem with this not being a template. Adding class levels isn't terribly hard. If you really want to go that route, you can probably reverse-engineer a template easily enough.
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Also, are they inherently required to be evil? (yeah, yeah "vile rituals"). A LN Baetriov domain could simply have a death penalty for certain offences (war crimes anyone). Or simply be willing to sacrifice evil humanoids.
A ritual that turns you into something that needs the blood of intelligent victims to maintain your unnatural life sounds pretty evil to me. YMMV. Also, the baetriov is based on a horrible but real historical character. So, making it LN would be sort of like taking a monster based on Jack the Ripper and saying "maybe this could be a misunderstood CN creature that just kills /bad/ women". I mean, yeah you can do it if you want to, but...
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Another question - could a baetriov have a mobile blood well?
Personally I'd say no -- the historical inspiration was based in one place, thematically speaking wells aren't mobile, and I think that it's more interesting to have a monster that must defend a fixedpoint -- but I have to say, under RAW it doesn't look like there's anything preventing it. There might be some logistics involved in moving around what's basically a large bathtub full of blood.
That said, if the creature's designer is around, it would be interesting to get her perspective!
Mechanically, for a CR 8 creature she's got okay AC, good hp, and very good saves. Her big weakness is that she does basically zero melee damage. You've given her a couple of workarounds there: +3d6 SA dice + the Shatter Defenses feat gives her SA against any opponent who is Shaken, and hey look here she has +21 Intimidate and also the Pain Strike spell (which imposes the Shaken condition) as an at-will SLA, DC 19. So she zaps you with one of these and her dpr jumps from nothing to... okay? Because d4+3d6+3 is still not amazing for a creature that's CR 8. I guess if she has time to buff she can cast Rage on herself, but it's still not amazing.
Now, if you want her as a boss for lower level PCs -- a group of fourth or fifth level characters, let's say -- then just leave her be. She has modest dpr but a big stack of hp? Well, that adds up to a fun boss battle where PCs will feel challenged but are unlikely to die unless they get careless. But if we want her to be a challenge in combat without adding PC levels -- and let's note that you can absolutely add PC levels; this is a monster chassis that fairly cries out for it -- anyway, if you're keeping the basic vanilla version and want to make her a lot tougher, you give her mooks. The mooks can have low AC, poor hp, and low dpr, whatever, as long as they have decent attack bonuses and can consistently hit. Because the baetriov's Hemophile aura will start piling on the Bleed damage, 1d6 per round on and on. That adds up fast.
Additional wrinkle: if the baetriov's blood well is not being threatened? Then she hardly cares whether she lives or dies. Kill her, and she'll just wake up in the well a few days later. So, an intelligent baetriov (and they start with Int 17, Wis 14) will hide the blood well away behind secret doors and traps and illusions, and then cheerfully throw herself into combat. In fact, she may have unexpected tricks like a "rocks fall, everyone dies" trap that collapses the ceiling on everyone. What does she care? "Death", for her, is a speed bump.
...unless her blood well is threatened. Then, it's tooth and nail desperation time. N.B., another thing I like is that the blood well fits thematically: lich's phylactery, vampire's coffin, graveknight's armor. "Powerful undead with a McGuffin" is a recurring trope, and that's just fine; making the McGuffin a fixed-location item is a nice spin on it.
Advancement:
Oh man, so many options. The obvious one is rogue levels to stack with her SA dice and give her more options for deceit. (Want to keep it simple? Knife master rogue. One level, and suddenly she's doing d4+4d8+3 plus bleed.) But you can really go in any direction here. Add fighter levels to give her armor -- if you crank up her AC she gets *much* harder for lower level characters to deal with -- and good dpr. Make her a cleric of some unpleasant deity or other (there are a bunch of options, ranging from obvious ones like Urgathoa to odder but still thematic ones like Ghlaunder), and give her cultists to serve as mooks. Make her any old sort of arcane caster; even a couple of levels of sorceror or wizard are a good thematic fit. They also allow useful stuff like mage armor, and can be a fun red herring. "Oh, she's some sort of weird witch archetype!"
There are offbeat options as well. Bard is a nice fit for an aristocrat, and she can group-buff her mooks. The Court Bard archetype allows her to pile on debuffs, as does the Mesmerist -- now you're saving against her Pain Strike at -2 or -3. Four levels of either class gives her Suggestion and now we're really off to the races. An Occultist or Spiritualist can be made to work too, I think, and both of those are full of plot seeds. (Spiritualist allows use of the spirit as a deception, a distraction, and a flank buddy in the final throwdown.) Assassin... hey, a killer who doesn't care if she dies herself. That's a bunch of plot seeds right there.
And another plot seed because why not:
If you want to get weird, try this: the Bloodwell is a sacred place of the orcs. Everyone knows where it is, nobody messes with it. The Blood Champion is a baetriov with levels in... oh, most likely barbarian, but could be ranger, slayer, or hunter; you decide. He spends most of the time hanging around the Bloodwell (but even when he's out of town, there's some horrible guardian beast). The orcs sacrifice captives to the Bloodwell, and it's also the best site for trial-by-combat and leadership challenges, and when those fail they'll just cut the throats of the weak and the unfit. The Blood Champion is basically the orcs' strategic deterrent: they deploy him when there's a major threat like an invasion of dragons or a war with the elves or something. He's stupidly powerful and he literally cannot die.
So the PCs are tasked with a commando raid to destroy the Bloodwell. Feel free to mess this up any way you like. I've already mentioned the Guardian Beast. Or, maybe, surprise! what everyone thinks is one Bloodwell is actually two linked ones; the other Blood Champion isn't mobile for some reason (a lame Oracle, perhaps) but is very bad news up close...
Yeah, a good monster gets inside your head and makes you want to use it. Again, kudos to the designer. It's unusual to see something this nifty almost ten years into the design cycle.
