Ideas for a CR 6-7 Worm That Walks

[Douglas Muir 406]

The Worm That Walks template can be added to "any evil spellcasting creature". Usually it's a high-level humanoid spellcaster, but there are all sorts of other options. Anyway: I'm considering a WTW as an end boss for my PCs, who are currently 3rd level but should be 4th when they hit this thing. The template is CR +2, so I'd want a CR 4 or 5 evil monster. I could just take a 5th level sorceror or whatever and slap on the template, but now that I think about it, "evil spellcasting creature" really opens up a lot of options, doesn't it.

Basically I'm looking for novel ideas here. What've you got?

Doug M.

[EldonGuyre]

I immediately thought unseelie fey. There are some that are natural spellcasters, aren't there?

If not, perhaps a hag.

[Volkard Abendroth]

The DR is going to be very difficult for most melee to get through.

[avr]

A fey with levels in a spellcasting class is certainly possible. Naiads are actually a playable race, or there could be a twisted dryad with a couple of levels in cleric or warpriest of an evil god.

[Mathota]

A bloodrager or antipaladin could be very interesting with this template. They often get overlooked for templates that are generally applied to casters.

[Taja the Barbarian]

Volkard Abendroth wrote:

The DR is going to be very difficult for most melee to get through.

^^^THIS^^^

Worm That Walks

Worm That Walks wrote:

...type changes to vermin....do not possess the standard mindless trait of most vermin

...darkvision 60 feet and blindsight 30 feet
...has no discernible anatomy, and is not subject to critical hits or flanking
...immune to any physical spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate),
...takes half again as much damage (+50%) from damaging area effects,
...susceptible to high winds—treat a worm that walks as a Fine creature for the purposes of determining wind effects.
...gains damage reduction 15/—.
...gains fast healing equal to its CR.
...immune to disease, paralysis, poison, and sleep effects.

Basically, these things are very hard to kill at low level and a lot of martial builds (and some casters) might as well not even show up, so consider your party composition before adding a fight like this...

[McDaygo]

Mesmerist is how I would do it. Make the original race a Goblin for the insane sneak bonuses and this Goblin Mes WTW could
Be going around in swarm form hypnotizing people into pawns in plan sight till the party has to fight him.

[Artofregicide]

Drop the DR to something more reasonable like 5/- unless your players are either very optimized or well prepared and aware of having to deal with it.

Mostly I wanted to say that a worm that walks can be a swarm of pretty much any kind of vermin, so that's always fun to play with. I actually made a variant "rat that walks" as a servant of a lovecraftian deity of rats.