Help creating a custom monster

[Sakoyo]

I'm hoping you guys can help me with creating monster.

Here's a little backstory first. I'm DMing an AP and a few sessions ago, the party entered a bathroom on the second floor of a house that was "trapped". The floor was so rotten that the additional weight of a medium creature for a 3 rounds was enough to cause the floor to give and drop the player/s and bathtub into the bathroom directly below it on the first floor. The trap got triggered and the bathtub fell. The party had never checked the bathroom on the first floor before going to the second floor. In the bathtub on the first floor was supposed to be a diseased rat, but since they checked it after the incident with the upstairs bathroom, I determined that the upstairs bathtub fell on the first one and crushed the rat. When the party checked the bathroom and saw what happened, the druid in the party said something about it being the circle of life or the way of nature. Somebody responded with "Yes, the natural predator of the rat is the bathtub". This evolved into a set of jokes from everyone about how bathtubs are the apex predator of the wild and they're known to climb trees to drop on their unsuspecting prey and how there are different varieties, like the Jaquezei, which is a fire type. This gave me the idea of creating a bathtub monster to toss at them at some point when they're travelling.

I haven't sat down and tried to make this yet and I've never created a custom monster before. Does anyone have any helpful tips for creating a monster or ideas on some neat abilities to give the dreaded bathtub?

[Reksew_Trebla]

I’d recommend Animated Objects. This can give you a good base.

Link

[ErichAD]

I'd probably just use a mimic and give it a size increase or two depending on the tub size. It could also be funny to have a hill giant throw bathtubs at the party instead of boulders.

[Kayerloth]

Clearly it can use both Trample and Grab abilities. It will rush the party using Trample then Grab someone grappling then pinning them to try to drown them in the 'water' aka digestive juices on its backside. Give it the ability to grapple and pin a second target under itself once it has pinned someone within the water on its backside. Perhaps the water is akin to the effect of a gelatinous cube, pudding or slime. Or the little spigots turn and the tub floods with either dangerously hot water or freezing cold water while it pins someone in the tub. Give it some DR perhaps DR=x/bludgeoning +/- magic (i.e. you can smash it but slashing and piercing stuff against metal/porcelain is pretty ineffective.

And the post really made me smile as long long ago a party I was GM'ing was going through the Sunless Citadel and ran into a room with both an animated table and a carpet. At one point one of the new players thought he'd scored a critical hit against the carpet to which I responded it seemed ineffective ... and it became a running joke "and You can't crit a rug" whenever they ran into creatures immune to critical hits.

[Pizza Lord]

Also the water/digestive juice can be soapy/slippery and if anyone lands in the tub or it starts fighting or moving vigorously, it splashes into adjacent squares, requiring Acrobatics balance checks if moving or fighting or fall prone.

If it's really soapy, anyone dunked in the tub or splashed in the face gets a -1 to attack rolls until they rinse their eyes.

[VRMH]

ErichAD wrote:

I'd probably just use a mimic

Good idea, but the party might just be a bit suspicious of any bathtubs they encounter.

[Cevah]

Maybe you could have the party come across the trail of an unusual monster. They loose it near a tree. They look up and ... combat begins as a bathtub drops on them.

/cevah

[Kayerloth]

VRMH wrote:

ErichAD wrote:

I'd probably just use a mimic

Good idea, but the party might just be a bit suspicious of any bathtubs they encounter.

Be sure to mention all the bathtubs in great variety as they come across them.

1) Large oval but bone dry
2) Large vat or tun-like deep wooden tub with foul brown liquids and bits inside.
3) Rusting steel tub +/- while being pursued by Rust Monsters
4) Bright shiny new porcelain tub. Bonus if a Nymph (or Succubus) is taking a bath at the time. Definitely cozy for two.
5) 'Normal' tub but the water is constantly and for no apparent reason gently sloshing back and forth.
6) Okay this one is a mimic. And it's full of water with goldfish (or piranhas) swimming around.
7) Circular tub with places to sit around the inside. All gold and silver fittings.
8) Steel tub with a Gunslinger taking a bath. His guns are hanging just within reach on the corner bedpost.
9) Made of bone with bone feet. Intricate skull pattern around the rim.
10) Elaborately carved stone tub with shower head at one end and a large mirror on the other. Mirror is 'harmless' but anyone sitting more than briefly in the tub starts to see visions within the mirror ... then after a few rounds Fort save or be drawn into the Mirror (as if a Mirror of Life Trapping). Any visions may or may not be true (DM's choice).
11) Massive metal (brass) and stone tub. Quite literally meant for Giants, huge spigots, drain, soap bars, etc..
12) Made of Glass, Crystal and Gold, currently 'floating' within a Gelatinous Cube, though that may not be immediately apparent as only parts of the tub are visible within the Cube.
13) Sort of the opposite of the 'giant tub' this one is small (or smaller) and packed with young kobolds. The tub itself is running around the room, spilling dirty soapy water while the kobolds all scream and shout in delight. The tub is very slippery and none of the kobolds will attack outside of splashing soapy dirty water at the intruders. The room itself is slippery underfoot from spilled bath contents. Any adults that become involved might be significantly more hostile if the little bathers have been hurt. The tub itself is scared of kobolds (and only kobolds) and will only move (i.e. run around) if kobolds are around, but otherwise has no magical properties.
14) A pair of bathtubs otherwise fairly standard
15) A pair of tubs but one or both (or neither) meet one of the descriptions in this 101 bathtubs listing.
16) An entire room full of iron fitted wooden bathtubs. Play up the sheer number of tubs and to any and all fear of tubs they may have at this point.
17) The entire room or area is filled with bubbles with no tub initially visible. The rather normal tub seems to be at the center of the area bubbles steadily being emitted. Beneath the water in the tub is a Horn of Fog. A low fog horn noise reverberates around the room or area.
18) The party stumbles on a raging battle between several bathtubs and their enternal foes ... a bunch of mudmen.
19) A pair of tubs. Anyone sitting down for a bath in one is teleported to the other tub. They appear stripped naked, their garments and other gear are deposited (unknown to the user) into a large basket in a nearby corner.
20) The room is flooded, a bathtub (or more specifically its drain) is a portal to the elemental plane of water. Several water elementals are present hiding within the flooding waters. Those within 10ft risk being drawn down the drain and getting deposited on the elemental plane of water.