Night Quill, Pathfinder Plant

[LordErebus12]

---- Night Quill ---- CR 5
N Small Plant

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Terrorizing all that lay in its path, the night quill is a moving flower patch of pain, poison, and a thorny death. they survive by dining on the unwary, those that come close enough to get to get covered in pollen, falling asleep as the plant crawls over the helpless target. When finished, not even dust remains, just some undigested bits of metal and stone if any were present.

They have been known to swarm, covering whole villages in one night, the following morning the inhabitants leave their homes to the sight of thousands of flowers covering the entire town. By nightfall they possibly have devoured half the city. Sleep falls quickly to those unlucky foes caught downwind.

Entire towns have been abandoned due to the carnivorous expansion of Night Quills with their extreme difficulty to kill through normal means, flames dealing more but not killing it unless the plants roots are extracted and destroyed directly.

They breed fast in warmer climates, little flowered budding plants sprout as quickly as the mother plant stops moving for a day or so. when she moves on, a few little Night Quills will begin to move in a small unit of their own, travelling out to find a good food source.

Defense
Init +3; Senses Lowlight Vision; Perception +8
AC 17, Touch 14, Flat-footed 14 (+3 Dex, +3 Natural, +1 Size)
HP 52 (4d8+20)
Fortitude +9, Reflex +4, Will +4
Immunity acid, all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms), paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep effects, and stunning
Weakness Fire +50% (See Rejuvenation Below)

Offense
Speed 5 ft.
Base Atk +3 (+1 Size); CMB +7; CMD 20 (can’t be tripped)
Melee Thorned Vine +8 with 10 ft. reach (1d4+2 piercing plus poison)
Ranged 30 ft. acid spray +7 (1d6 acid plus poison)

Statistics
Feats: Ability Focus (Sleep Spores), Ability Focus (Poison)
Skills: Perception 2 ranks (+8), Stealth 2 ranks (+12) (+4 stealth if in forested terrain)
Str 20, Dex 17, Con 20, Int 2, Wis 16, Cha 6

Languages: Doesn’t Speak
Environment: Warm Forests or Warm Savannas.
Group Sizes: Single, Pair, Cluster (3-5), Pod (6-20), or Field (21-100+)
Treasure: Last Meal (half standard but only metal or stone gear surviving)

Special
Poison (Ex): thorns or acid spray—contact; save Fort DC 19; Frequency 1/round for 4 rounds.
Effect confusion and fatigue; Cure no saves but “act normally” result on the confusion behavior table ends the effect.

Sleep Spores (Ex): As a standard action, a Night Quill can eject a cloud of purplish pollen from its body in a 30-foot spread. Affected creatures must make a successful DC 19 Will save or fall asleep for 10 minutes. There is no HD limit for this sleep effect. The save DC is Constitution-based.

If say, a field pf Night Quills reside in an area, the base range of the sleep spores triples (to 90 ft. and the wind carry's it up to 300 ft.).

Thorny Flower Patch (Ex): A Night Quill’s moving carpet of a flower patch size is about a 10 ft. radius spread and is covered with sharp thorns. Any creature walking through the flower patch or attempting to attack the roots with a non-reach melee weapon or with natural attacks takes 1d4+2 points of piercing damage from the sharp thorns and suffers from the poisonous pollen.

A creature that grapples with a Night Quill takes this same damage each round. Moving through the flower patch hampers you like caltrops do, effectively limiting movement.

Rejuvenation (Ex): A Night Quill can be killed only if its root is dug up, then burned, hacked apart, or otherwise destroyed. Reducing the Night Quill to 0 or less hit points puts it out of commission, allowing excavation of its roots.

The main root is a Small object with a hardness of 10 and 30 hit points. The root can be affected by spells or effects that affect an area or targeted by spells that affect an individual target. As long as the root remains intact, a Night Quill regrows in about 1 hour.

[Debihuman]

Interesting.

Way overpowered for 4 HD. It should have standard abilities not excessive ones. Why does it have any stats over 14 and why is Charisma its dump stat?

It's a small plant not a armored elephant. CR 5 is probably too high to aim for with 4 HD. .

As it stands it is a TPK.

Debby

[LordErebus12]

Interesting.

Way overpowered for 4 HD. It should have standard abilities not excessive ones. Why does it have any stats over 14 and why is Charisma its dump stat?

It's a small plant not a armored elephant. CR 5 is probably too high to aim for with 4 HD. .

As it stands it is a TPK.

Debby

Ive used them in my game against 3rd/4th level players several times and 5th/6th level players a few times (a separate game).

the 3rd-4th levels had alot of trouble but the 5th/6th levels found it easy to kill. if figured its abilities granted it at least a CR higher than normal. CR 5 seemed good but its negotiable.

never once did it involve a TPK, or even a PK (although it was close several times) as for stat scores, they can be whatever i say they are and im sticking with them as they are. charisma isnt really used by plants and nearly all of them are low in plants.

Not really an elephant at all, nor is it excessive. I suggest you use it in a campaign and see it actually used, rather than saying its OP and excessive.

also, realize that all the abilities ive used are actually not new, i compiled a list of every plant ability and picked out a few for each of these four plants i've made.

they can be viewed in my signature, under complete works. if you care to review the other two.

[LordErebus12]

well maybe i added the flower patch thorns, lol.

[Debihuman]

Like I said, it depends on the party you are running against and how well-equipped/tactical they are. I don't know your style of play and am comparing this to other creatures with similar HD and CR.

However, your melee attack line is wrong. Creatures add their Str bonus to primary melee attack and damage. This may also be why they were easy to defeat.

Here is how the corrected lines should look:

Melee Thorned vines +14 (1d4+10 piercing plus poison)
Ranged Acid spray +7 (1d6 acid plus poison)

You don't repeat the words melee or ranged in the stat block. Also, the amount of damage in your stat block is wrong,

Debby

[LordErebus12]

Like I said, it depends on the party you are running against and how well-equipped/tactical they are. I don't know your style of play and am comparing this to other creatures with similar HD and CR.

However, your melee attack line is wrong. Creatures add their Str bonus to primary melee attack and damage. This may also be why they were easy to defeat.

Here is how the corrected lines should look:

Melee Thorned vines +14 (1d4+10 piercing plus poison)
Ranged Acid spray +7 (1d6 acid plus poison)

You don't repeat the words melee or ranged in the stat block.

Debby

yeah it was a late formatting thing, the double usage of melee and ranged. i think its like this in every stat block i make, as its part of my word template sheet. (i build in word)

[Debihuman]

I build in Word too. Once you modify your main template, everything will flow with cut and paste. It just takes time.

I'm still learning the differences between Pathfinder and 3.5 and the "new" stat block drives me nuts because while it's better for DMing, it's worse for critiquing.

Debby

[LordErebus12]

minor little updates.