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Kamimakuna
2013-10-01, 02:47 AM
Dreadstalker
Size/type: Medium Undead
Hit Dice: 65 (10d12)
Initiative: +5
Speed: 50 ft
Armor Class: 16 (Dex +1, Natural Armor +5), touch 11, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +5/+9
Attack: Claw +9 (1d8+4)
Full Attack: 2 claws +9 (1d8+4) and bite +9 (1d6+2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft/5 ft
Special Attacks: Pounce, Frightening Attack, Roar
Special Qualities: Darkvision, Scent (fear at double distance), Sunlight vulnerability, Rejuvenation, Fast Healing, Frightful Presence, Create Spawn
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +8
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 13, Con -, Int 6, Wis 13, Cha 15
Skills: Survival +6 (+10 while tracking by scent), Move Silently +9, Jump +16, Climb +8, Intimidate +7, Spot +4
Feats: Darkstalker, Improved Initiative, Improved Multiattack, Lifesense, Multiattack, Track
Environment: anywhere that they can take shelter during daylight
Organization: Solitary, Pair, or Pack (3-8)
Challenge Rating: 7-9
Treasure:
Alignment: Always CE
Advancement: 11-16 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: +X

A typical Dreadstalker is almost 7 feet tall when standing erect and weighs around 140 lbs.

This monstrous being looks as if it was once humanoid, but it has been twisted to the point that its original species is impossible to determine. The creature’s skeleton possesses too many joints and the skull has been warped to produce an elongated, fanged jaw and its arms end in foot long claws. Despite the warping of the its skeleton the monster is able to move with incredible near fluid speed. A thin black fog continuously seeps from its entire body, not thick enough to actually help, but it looks creepy.

Dreadstalkers can exists nearly anywhere that they can take cover during the day, be it in caves, in forests, or abandoned buildings. Just because they can recover, doesn’t mean it’s fun. Dreadstalker’s prefer to feed on the fear of sentient beings, but are more than willing to consume the flesh of living creatures and will hunt even if they do not hunger.

Sunlight Vulnerability(Ex): if exposed to direct sunlight, a dreadstalker is blinded. If it continues to be exposed, the Dreadstalker becomes stunned on the second round. Finally, if a Dreadstalker is exposed to sunlight for three straight rounds, it is destroyed. Unfortunately, it will Rejuvenate as normal.

Rejuvenation(Su): When a Dreadstalker is destroyed it dissolves into motes of darkness that sink into the ground. It will reform at its lair after 3d4 hours. However, if the Dreadstalker has no lair, it will intead reform at the location where it died. The only way to permanently destroy a Dreadstalker is to prevent the it from reforming for 3 days (72 hours). The Consecrate and Hallow spells both prevent a Dreadstalker from reforming in their area of effect. In addition, a hostile environment, such as direct sunlight or fire, will prevent the Dreadstalker from reforming until conditions improve.

Fast Healing(Su): a Dreadstalker has fast healing equal to the number of shaken, frightened, and panicked creatures within 30 feet, to a maximum of 5

Pounce(Ex): If a Dreadstalker charges a foe, it can make a full attack.

Frightening Attack(Su): if a Dreadstalker hits a single target with all three attacks on the same round, it must make a Will save (DC 15, 8 + ½ HD + Cha) or become shaken for one round, if the creature is already shaken, it becomes frightened for one round, and if the creature is already frightened, it becomes panicked. If a creature that is already panicked is hit with all three attacks, it instead must make a Fort save (DC 16, 9 + ½ HD + Cha) or die from fear. This is a Mind-affecting ability.

Roar(Su): a Dreadstalker can emit a terrifying roar as a standard action. Creatures within a 60 ft cone must make a Will save (DC 16, 9 + ½ HD + Cha) or become panicked for 2d4 rounds, if they succeed on the will save, they instead become shaken for 1 round. After a successful save, a creature becomes immune to that Dreadstalker’s roar for 24 hours. This is a sonic and mind-affecting effect.

Frightful Presence(Ex): A Dreadstalker’s mere presence can unsettle its foes. The ability takes effect automatically whenever the Dreadstalker attacks, charges, or roars. Creatures within a radius of 15 ft are subject to the effect if they have fewer HD than the Dreadstalker. A potentially affected creature that succeeds on a Will save (DC 15, 8 + ½ HD + Cha) is immune to that Dreadstalker’s frightful presence for 24 hours. on a failure, creatures with less than ½ the Dreadstalker’s HD become panicked for 2d4 rounds and those with more HD than that become shaken for 2d4 rounds. This ability triggers again when an affected creature leaves and re-enters the area of effect. This is a mind-affecting ability.

Create Spawn(Su): Whenever a Dreadstalker kills a panicked small to large humanoid, giant, or monstrous humanoid with its natural abilities, be it the frightening attack or one of its mundane natural attacks, the killed creature rises as a Dreadstalker 3d4 rounds later. The newly created Dreadstalker is not under the control of the one that killed it, but its instincts generally cause it to join the hunt. The killer also heals 10 hp.

Bonus Feats: Dreadstalkers have Lifesense, and Track as bonus feats

Skills: Dreadstalkers have a +4 racial bonus to Move Silently checks. They also gain a +4 bonus on survival checks while tracking by scent.

Debihuman
2013-10-01, 05:52 AM
If you are going to ask for help with 3.5, it makes it a lot easier to critique if you use the same stat block as the SRD. The new stat block is missing information.

I like this a lot but you have some design flaws.

Undead are usually LA -- not LA +0. This is LA +6 or so (it has pounce, rejuvenation, fast healing, extra speed, scent, 3 bonus feats, roar, can create spawn, bonus skills, etc.).

Medium creatures normally have a speed of 30 feet. A fast Medium creature has a speed of 40 feet so these are extremely fast.

Supernatural abilities always have this as their DC: DC is 10 + 1/2 creature's HD and Cha modifier. 10 +5 + 2= 17. I'm not sure why you messed with this.

Touch AC is 5 and flat-footed is 9.

It should have 65 hit points not 72. 10x6.5 = 65.

Since it needs a hallow spell to be permanently destroyed, its CR is 9 not 7.

With Int 6 it has 26 skill points to use and bonus skills. It probably has too many bonus skills.

I generally don't recommend giving out more than 2 bonus feats since this generally shows that the creature has too few HD for what you want. For CR 9 that makes sense, but not CR 7 necessarily.

It has no real defenses other than rejuvenation and fast healing, which leads me to think it is underpowered defensively. A clever party will make use of ranged attacks and attack it during the day when it is blind.

Debby

Kamimakuna
2013-10-01, 02:21 PM
I changed the stat block over, and I'll make sure to remember that. Also, got rid of a bonus feat and the jump bonus.

the only real reason that I included the LA at all was because it just crossed my mind randomly. That being said it has 11 abilities (pounce, rejuvenation, fast healing, extra speed, (just reduced to) 2 bonus feats, 3 fear abilities, create spawn, and a bonus to two skills) and one weakness (sunlight vulnerability) plus undead traits on 10 HD

why would the touch AC be 5 and flat-footed be 9? shouldn't they be 11 and 15 respectively?

Hallow is the only way to permanently destroy it with one spell that I know of, which is why I named it specifically. With how I wrote its rejuvenation, you could also use repeated castings of Consecrate or have a three day bonfire.

Debihuman
2013-10-01, 10:42 PM
I changed the stat block over, and I'll make sure to remember that. Also, got rid of a bonus feat and the jump bonus.

Okay, I'll look at it again later.


the only real reason that I included the LA at all was because it just crossed my mind randomly. That being said it has 11 abilities (pounce, rejuvenation, fast healing, extra speed, (just reduced to) 2 bonus feats, 3 fear abilities, create spawn, and a bonus to two skills) and one weakness (sunlight vulnerability) plus undead traits on 10 HD

Random ideas are perfectly valid and sometimes lead to good stuff. 11 abilities on 10 HD isn't the problem (generally 1 per HD is fine but not all abilities are equal). My concern is the lack of defense against ranged attacks.


why would the touch AC be 5 and flat-footed be 9? shouldn't they be 11 and 15 respectively? Doh, my error. Sorry about that. You are correct. It should be 11 and 15.


Hallow is the only way to permanently destroy it with one spell that I know of, which is why I named it specifically. With how I wrote its rejuvenation, you could also use repeated castings of Consecrate or have a three day bonfire.

And that's why the CR needs to match the level of the spell. There's no reason to set a party against this if they can't cast hallow. If the party can't cast it, then they need a scroll or someone who can.

Repeated castings of consecration is a bit cheaper too though it takes longer. The party still needs sufficient holy water and silver. BTW, consecrate only lasts 2 hours per level so to have 24 hours of this, requires level 12 unless you have the ability to cast this spell that often. You don't mention anything about a bonfire to destroy it though in the text and so that needs to be stated.

Debby

Dragonborn
2013-10-02, 10:43 AM
You don't mention anything about a bonfire to destroy it though in the text and so that needs to be stated.

Not a bonfire, specifically, but:



Rejuvenation(Su): When a Dreadstalker is destroyed it dissolves into motes of darkness that sink into the ground. It will reform at its lair after 3d4 hours. If the environment in its lair is hostile, such as it being exposed to sunlight or it being on fire, the Dreadstalker will instead reform after the conditions have improved. If the Dreadstalker has no lair, it will instead reform at the location where it died. A Dreadstalker that would reform within the effects of a Consecrate spell will not reform until after the spell expires. The only way to permanently destroy a Dreadstalker is to cast Hallow on the area where the Dreadstalker would reform or otherwise prevent the Dreadstalker from reforming for 3 days (72 hours).

Fire is called out as one of the conditions that will prevent it from reforming, preventing it from reforming for 3 days kills it permanently. Presumably other damaging conditions would work just as well, but fire is the easiest.

Kamimakuna
2013-10-02, 03:13 PM
Fire is called out as one of the conditions that will prevent it from reforming, preventing it from reforming for 3 days kills it permanently. Presumably other damaging conditions would work just as well, but fire is the easiest.

That is the intent of that sentence. This confusion leads me to believe that I should rewrite the ability.

proposed rewrite:


Rejuvenation(Su): When a Dreadstalker is destroyed it dissolves into motes of darkness that sink into the ground. It will reform at its lair after 3d4 hours. However, if the Dreadstalker has no lair, it will intead reform at the location where it died. The only way to permanently destroy a Dreadstalker is to prevent the it from reforming for 3 days (72 hours). The Consecrate and Hallow spells both prevent a Dreadstalker from reforming in their area of effect. In addition, a hostile environment, such as direct sunlight or fire, will prevent the Dreadstalker from reforming until conditions improve.

original:


Rejuvenation(Su): When a Dreadstalker is destroyed it dissolves into motes of darkness that sink into the ground. It will reform at its lair after 3d4 hours. If the environment in its lair is hostile, such as it being exposed to sunlight or it being on fire, the Dreadstalker will instead reform after the conditions have improved. If the Dreadstalker has no lair, it will instead reform at the location where it died. A Dreadstalker that would reform within the effects of a Consecrate spell will not reform until after the spell expires. The only way to permanently destroy a Dreadstalker is to cast Hallow on the area where the Dreadstalker would reform or otherwise prevent the Dreadstalker from reforming for 3 days (72 hours).

Debihuman
2013-10-02, 03:56 PM
It's an improvement. I think you're making it too easy to kill though.

Debby

Kamimakuna
2013-10-03, 03:58 PM
On one hand, the rejuvenation is easy to penetrate if you can find where they'll reform and are willing to sit around for long enough, and their AC and Saves are bad for their challenge rating.

On the other hand, their ability to spot targets isn't limited to their darkvision range and if they attack a location each night at midnight (assuming a maximum of three hours of travel time and a continuous hustle) their lair could be anywhere within 30 miles of where they're attacking.

I would agree that they have very little defense against ranged attacks aside from the darkness that they should be working in.