| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Wanted a unique monster for a fairly simple encounter in a classic dungeon setting. Looking for suggestions and opinions on just how tough this guy is.
Ol' Shuck
This coughing, chuckling creature resembles some sort of coal-black, two-headed wolf hound. Thick smoke issues from the maw of one of it's cyclopean heads, while ropes of burning drool hang from the jowls of the other. Both seem to be smiling.
NE Medium outsider (evil, extraplanar, fire)
Init +5
Senses: darkvision 60ft., scent
AC16, t12, ff14
37hp
Fort+7, Ref +5, Will +6
Cloying smoke, damage reduction 5/good, immune to fire, vulnerable to cold
Spd 50 ft
Melee 2 bites +5 (1d6+6 plus 1 fire and worry)
Vomit Fire, Worry
Str15, Dex15, Con16, Int6, Wis13, Cha14
Base Attack +4; CMB +6, CMD18
Feats: Iron Will, Weapon Focus (bite), Blind Fight
Skills: Acrobatics +8, Athletics +8, Bluff +7, Intimidate +5, Perception +8, Sense Motive +10, Stealth +8, Survival +11
Cloying Smoke (Su): one of Ol' Shuck's heads is constantly coughing and hacking up tendrils of thick smoke. This grants Ol' Shuck a 20% miss chance.
Instead of biting, this head may cough up greater quantities of smoke, creating a cloud of smoke 10ft around him. Each round he chooses to use this ability increases the radius by 5ft. This additional smoke lasts for as long as Ol' Shuck continues coughing and for 1d4 rounds after.
Vomit Fire (Su): one of Ol' Shuck's heads occasionally vomits something akin to burning tar. Instead of biting, this head may cover up to four squares with flaming spittle. This counts as difficult terrain, inflicts 1d6 fire damage and hampers movement like caltrops to anyone passing through an effected square (Reflex DC15 halves damage and negates movement penalties). These squares must be adjacent to Ol' Shuck at some point during his turn.
Worry (Ex): Ol' Shuck may perform a free Drag, Reposition or Trip maneuver with a successful bite attack.
I like it!
Two heads are better than one... options are good. Free maneuvers are fun, too.
While I am rather poor with stats and mechanics, this seems interesting. Each head having a different attack definitely adds tactical options for pcs and gm. Do you have any lore prepared for this creature out of curiosity?
This is what happens to Blink Dogs that get lost in the Todash darkness.
When a Blink Dog "blinks", but doesn't reappear... they are trapped, tormented, and twisted into Ol'Shucks... driven completely insane by being tortured in the deepest pits of hell...
I really like the design. Stat-wise it looks A-OK for a hard CR3 or a pretty standard CR4. As a CR4 it has low HP and AC, but good defenses in 20% miss chance and DR. That seems just about right to me. I like its array of battlefield control abilities and I especially like its cold vulnerability - its a good mix of thematic and fun gameplay stuff.
I think Cloying Smoke and Vomit Fire need some wordsmithing and tweaks to make them clearer. Thoughts:
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Does this guy lose his 20% concealment while he's using his alternate mode of Cloying Smoke?
the 20% miss chance was just a way of simulating the effects of being in heavy smoke/fog, so it definitely won't stack when he wants to expand the area of effect; he just goes from a flat 20% to a 20% if you're adjacent and 50% of you're not.
Instead of saying "Instead of biting", you may want to say "In place of a bite attack". Or, even better, you can use "As a move action once per round", which gives basically the same action economy but is more straightforward.
Yes of course. Much cleaner.
The only thing I was thinking of was letting him use vomit fire as he moves, so he can effect a 20ft line or two 10ft lines or four squares. But I'm not fair sure if it's worth the extra text it would take to clarify that.Is the 10ft cloud of smoke an emanation Spread? Burst? Is 10ft a diameter or radius? What kind of smoke is it? Just the same kind that fills his square (ie. 20% concealment and no other effects) or is it closer to something like fog cloud? Does the "heavy smoke" rule from the CRB apply to it? You probably want to mention these specifics.
I imagined it working like Fog Cloud, but with the heavy smoke rules added on.
I'd also ditch the bit about expanding the radius - 10ft is big enough. Potentially, as written, he can spend 10 rounds coughing out of combat and wade into combat with a 60ft cloud of smoke, and that seems rather excessive and not really on-theme.
I liked the idea of him backing off to cough up a smokescreen for a turn or two, but I think you've hit it on the head. Without a cap, he could just run around and cough and vomit fire and make the field an awful mess for everyone, which definitely feels like something beyond the challenge he's supposed to represent. And I don't think spending the words to explain that he can spend two turns expanding the radius from 10ft to 20ft is worth it.
Does he have to spend a bite each round to continue coughing?
I think so, yeah. With the first bit about "in place of a bite attack" and the second bit with "this smoke lasts", that seems to cover it, especially with the revisions. Or is there some way to make it more?
Difficult terrain + caltrops effect seem overkill.
How often do you take fire damage from the vomit? Once per square? Once per turn? When you start your turn in it? (I'd suggest 'when you enter a square with it or start your turn in it, but not more than once per round', as otherwise this could stack up a lot of fire damage.
Agreed on all counts.
How long does the burning tar last?
My first thought was a minute. Maybe the smoke and the fire should both just be a minute.
Do you have any lore prepared for this creature out of curiosity?
The name is a reference to...I think English or Irish or German myth? Ol' Shuck, Black Shuck or Black Shock was a huge, ghostly black dog said to haunt the moors and fields at night. Sort of like a Gabriel Hound; an omen of death, etc. Also, just now seeing that some of the artistic interpretations depict him with one eye. That's kind of funny.
The basic look of him came from one of the Why-Wolves from adventure time.
And the rest of him...I remembered this old module where the party finds a big clay jug with a copper, rune-inscribed stopper. If they open it, a Hell Hound comes out and fights them. It felt iconic and timeless, but also laaame. Hell Hounds are lame. For a CR3, they're just...boring and crappy.
So then I thought, okay. Clay jug with a monster inside. Like a djinn. Smoke...and fire. A demon. Hell Hound. A dog. Dogs are always in a good mood. So this guy's chuckling and laughing to himself. He's like a slick shyster, chain smoking at the end of the bar. So he's got decent Bluff and Diplomacy and Sense Motive, etc. He's got tricks, so not just bite/breathe fire. And so on.
I'm thinking, he'll try to make a deal with them and try to eat them if they refuse. If they defeat him, they can trap him back in the jug and he'll help them out from time to time. Fog Cloud, some form of divination, or just Ol' Shuck himself coming out to lend a paw and make some snarky remarks.
Obscuring Mist at will at essentially a move action is pretty powerful for this monster thanks to his blind fight feat. It hard counters ranged characters and even if the PCs think to draw him out of his smoke, he can just release it again. At least, that's what my GMing instincts are telling me. Just having 20% concealment and the choking hazard from heavy smoke is pretty powerful, if you want to keep away from the obscuring mist.
You could define the burning tar area as "four contiguous squares, one of which must be adjacent to Ol'Shuck". Then remove the restriction that they must remain adjacent to the guy, but have them last only a short time or put a cooldown on Vomit Fire.
1 minute durations might be a little spicy here, since there's no frequency restriction on how often this guy can create them. Even fighting for just a short time would leave the whole battlefield covered in nothing but obstacles! Maybe each time he creates a new smoke cloud or lava patch, the old one dissipates? Hmmm, I can't quite tell how good this would be without actually playtesting it. Maybe its fine.
----
This is a really neat monster. I'm already thinking about if I have a currently running campaign I can sneak it into.
Hm...
If the smoke is always centered on him, then archers and the like know what square he's in. They just have to deal with the additional miss chance. But then it takes away a lot of the tactical options.
Maybe both abilities have a cool down like a breath weapon? The smoke effect could be 1/minute, honestly. Just enough for one in each combat. The fire effect I'd want to see a bit more frequently, because creating at least a smattering of hazards across the field is kind of the whole idea.
My original thoughts were to keep them less restricted, since neither of them are especially potent. The mist effect is good, but his only real means of harming you are in melee combat. And the fire one can stack up, but never does a whole lot to anyone. But yeah, I'll work on defining the abilities and cleaning them up, for sure.
Comparing him to, say, a Howler or a Minotaur, I think he's about in that range.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you haven't seen it, worth seeing the Archives of Nethys entry. I don't think it matches your needs or vision, but it's a cool interpretation as well.
That's awesome. Should have known Pathfinder would have used that name already. It looks like a much more accurate depiction of the create from myth; I really just used the name as a vague nod.
That's awesome. Should have known Pathfinder would have used that name already. It looks like a much more accurate depiction of the create from myth; I really just used the name as a vague nod.
To be fair, I love your interpretation, though in a vacuum I'd be far more likely to use it as a unique hellhound or similar.
Oh, absolutely. He's not the ghostly hound on the moors or anything. I didn't want to try and create that mythological figure in this instance, I just figured "this is a magic dog. I'll Google the names of magic dogs and see what comes up." And this one fit the feel of him. A slick, greasy trickster-type. Ol' Shuck. Just feels right. But that's really all I took from the story. A unique Hellhound is exactly the sort of role I wanted to fill.
Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and the suggestions. I think this'll be a pretty cool encounter.
Stinking cloud and divination are lvl3 spells, summoning a CR3 monster requires Summon Monster IV, but maybe I can make it count as III since it can only ever summon this one guy...hm. Maybe you can ask the jug a question once a day *or* you can open the stopper and it'll either spew out a bunch of nasty smoke, shoot fire or he'll just come out entirely, but it's all random. Or you have to use Diplomacy, Bluff or Intimidate to get him to do the thing you want, and if you fail he does something else.
I think that would be a neat reward for overcoming this adversary. And it feels less like WoW loot and more like a real thing you'd find in this world.
So, with that in mind...
Daemonjar: this heavy clay jug has a bronze stopper inscribed with ancient runes of binding and warding. 1/day, the stopper can be opened to beseech the wicked spirit known as Ol' Shuck that dwells within. The user must attempt a Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidation check to convince Ol' Shuck to aid their cause.
The user may attempt to create one of the following effects. If the user fails their skill check, one of the other effects occur instead. If they fail by 5 or more, Ol' Shuck refuses to do anything at all.
DC20: the user gains a use of Ol' Shuck's Cloying Smoke ability they may use as a standard action that lasts for 1 minute.
DC25: the user gains a use of Ol' Shuck's Vomit Fire ability they may use as part of a move action that lasts for 1 minute.
D25: Ol' Shuck is summoned from the daemonjar as by Summon Monster IV.
DC0: Ol' Shuck will grant the user a Wish in exchange for their soul.
--something like that. Effective market price (not that anyone would want to buy it)...eh...10,250gp or something like that.