Fearsome Critters from Lumberjack Tales
Cleon
Legend
Fearsome Critters from Lumberjack Tales - The Billdad
Billdad
Small Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 2d10+2 (13 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)[80 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.
Armor Class: 17 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +3 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +2/+0
Attack: Bite +5 melee (1d6+3) or tail slap +5 melee (1d8+3 plus stunning tail)
Full Attack: Bite +5 melee (1d6+3) or tail slap +5 melee (1d8+3 plus stunning tail)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.
Special Attacks: Stunning tail, thunderclap leap, toxic hydromania
Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap!, scent, superior low-light vision
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +6, Will +2
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6
Skills: Jump +14 [+60 with Leap!], Hide +15, Listen +11, Move Silently +7, Spot +14, Swim +10
Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB
Environment: Temperate lakes and marshes
Organization: Solitary, pair or family (3-8)
Challenge Rating: 2
Treasure: 50% goods (pelt & liver, see below)
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 3 HD (Small), 4-6 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: —
This critter looks like a bizarre cross between a wallaby, a beaver and a hawk. It's got the hooked bill and piercing eyes of a bird of prey, mighty long legs and scrawny arms like a kangaroo, plus webbed paws and a heavy, flat tail that any beaver would be proud to possess. A lustrous coat of brown fur covers the animal's body and limbs. It's also got big triangular ears like a cat.
Billdads are weird-looking mammals about the size of a large beaver who live in and around large freshwater ponds and lakes surrounded by ancient forest. These are very rare animals, only being found in a few out of the way regions that meet their exacting standards.
A typical billdad is 2½ feet long, not including a foot-long tail, and weighs fifty pounds or so.
Billdads are best known for two traits. First, they hunt fish at night by waiting at the water's edge until they see a fish break the surface, then make an amazing leap across the water to just past the fish, who they stun with an explosive tail-slap. Second, their flesh is a strange poison which drives those who taste it to leap into the nearest large body of water and drown.
Combat
Billdads are very reluctant combatants, they would rather flee foes than fight them. If forced into a melee they prefer to defend themselves with their tails, in the hope of stunning their assailants and opening an opportunity to escape. They always head for water and try to flee beneath its surface, usually heading for the submerged entrance of their lair.
A billdad is only likely to act aggressively in defence of its mate or offspring, or if it has been driven mad by spell or disease. In either case, it will use its Thunderclap Leap! special attack against the greatest perceived threat.
Hold Breath (Ex)
A billdad can hold its breath for a number of rounds equal to twice its Constitution score before it risks drowning.
Leap! (Ex)
A billdad can leap an immense distance as a standard or full-round action. The billdad makes a Jump check with a +30 competence bonus, and for all aspects of that Jump check its speed is increased to 80 ft. (thus adding an additional +16 on the Jump check and a maximum distance of 80 ft. for that action's movement). The Jump DC is not doubled if the billdad does not get a running start.
This ability offers little protection from the impact of the Leap! If the billdad lands on a hard object after Leaping it must make a DC15 Reflex check or suffer 2d6 damage, treated as falling damage. Any object it strikes will suffer the same damage. For this reason, the billdad almost always Leaps! Into a body of water.
After using its Leap! ability, the billdad must wait at least a minute (10 rounds) before it can use it again.
Stunning Tail Slap (Ex)
Any creature struck by the billdad's tail-slap attack must make a DC13 Fortitude save or be stunned for its next round. Alternatively, if the tail-slap hits the surface of a body of water then any creature in the water within a 10 ft. radius burst of the impact point must make a DC 13 Fortitude save or be staggered for its next round. The save DC is Strength based.
Superior Low-Light Vision (Ex)
A billdad can see five times as far as a human can in dim light.
Thunderclap Leap (Ex)
As a full round action, a billdad can use its Leap! Special Quality followed by an augmented Stunning Tail Slap doing double damage (2d8+6) to the creature struck plus stunning it for 1d3 rounds, if the target makes a Fortitude save against DC15 they merely take regular tail damage (1d8+3) and are staggered for a round.
Alternatively, if the tail-slap hits the surface of a body of water, any creature in the water within a 10 ft. radius burst of the impact point takes 1d4+1 damage and is stunned for its next round, if the creature makes a DC 15 Fortitude save they take half damage and are not stunned.
The damage caused by a Thunderclap Leap's augmented Stunning Tail Slap is half bludgeoning (round up) and half sonic (round down), so a Thunderclap Leap doing 13 hit points of damage is 7 bludgeoning and 6 sonic. The save DC is Strength based and includes a +2 racial bonus.
Toxic Hydromania (Su)
Any creature which tastes the flesh or blood of a billdad must make a DC16 Will save or be filled with an irresistible urge to head at their top speed towards the nearest large body of water and leap into it. This compulsion lasts for 2d4 rounds, during which the creature receives a +20 enhancement bonus to their Jump checks. At the end of this period, or when the creature succeeds in jumping into deep water, they must make a second DC16 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 2d4 rounds. Such a paralyzed character can not hold their breath, so must immediately begin to make Constitution checks against drowning at the usual DC (10+1 per round).
Creatures with the Aquatic subtype are affected different, being compelled to swim to shore and leap upon dry land, where they "drown" if they cannot breathe air.
Toxic Hydromania is both a Mind-Affecting, Compulsion Enchantment and a Poison effect. It will affect creatures which hit a billdad with a bite attack or eat the flesh of a dead billdad, whether raw or cooked. The attacker must take at least a small mouthful to be affected, so are unlikely to be accidentally affected. e.g. a warrior hitting a billdad with an ax could cause blood to spray over them, the few drops that may enter their mouth won't be enough for Toxic Hydromania to occur.
The save DC is Constitution based and includes a +4 racial bonus.
Skills
A billdad has a +4 racial bonus on Listen and Move Silently checks and a +8 racial bonus on Hide, Jump and Spot checks. A billdad has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.
Ecology
Billdads are nocturnal-crepuscular carnivores, but pose little threat to mankind since they habitually only eat fish and are exceedingly shy, retreating at the first hint of human intrusion.
The most obvious evidence a billdad's about is hearing loud splashes in a pond at night, like the sound of a paddle striking the water magnified tenfold or more, the noise of a billdad's famous fishing method. The billdad crouches on a vantage point overlooking the water, such as a grassy knoll or the stump of a tree, and waits until its hawk-keen eyesight spots a fish near the surface, mayhap a trout rising to gulp down a fly. With astonishing speed, the billdad then leaps across the water to splashdown just past the fish, where it smashes its tail down like a thunderclap. This stuns the fish, which is immediately picked up and eaten by the billdad. Tall-tale spinners have wildly exaggerated the distance a billdad can leap, boasting of effortless jumps of 60 or 100 yards. In truth, a run of the mill billdad has an average leap of a chain's length (66 feet) or so.
A billdad possesses the "sixth sense" of electrolocation through receptors in its beak and face, this gives it a crude blindsense it uses to navigate in its burrows and hunt in the black muddy depths of ponds. Billdad swim too slowly to chase down fast-moving fish, but their electrosense helps them catch slower prey like bottom-dwelling fish, crawdads and turtles. Billdads mostly hunt underwater at dawn and dusk, using the leaping method during the night between, they may hunt underwater during the daytime if they or their kits are particularly hungry. A billdad may find as much food underwater with its electrolocation than it catches with its spectacular leaps.
Few creatures prey upon billdads, for they have a very effective defence mechanism. Imbued in their flesh is a magical poison that compels creatures that ingest it to leap into the nearest large body of water and then paralyses them, resulting in rapid drowning. Aquatic predators are compelled to leap out onto dry land instead. There are reports that the water panther and the wooly giant pike have an innate immunity to this poison, so will happily eat billdad, but this has not been confirmed.
These are very quiet animals, leading to a common belief that billdads are mute. In fact they can emit a range of soft hoots, sighing groans, grunts and very rarely startling shrieks (which appear to strartle billdads as much as they do humans), plus a burring hum which serves the same purpose as a cat's purr, but sound weirdly different. However, billdads do most of their long-distant communication by beating the ground or water with their tales, and have an semi-instinctive "language" of tail beats that can convey a range of messages. Amongst those known to master Lumberjacks are: Two extremely loud beats in rapid succession is an alarm signal; two pairs of beats in rapid succession is a territorial declaration/warning; a rapid staccato splashing is a male signaling his suitability/desire to mate – females can apparently use this signal to judge the power of the male's tail, their key criteria for his fitness as a mate; or three spaced-out and flat sounding "slaps", which signals a female's willingness to consider a suitor.
Billdads get along very well with beavers, and often live in the latter species' pools. Both species recognize the meaning of the other animal's tail-slap alarm signals.
Adult male billdads grow considerably larger than the females. While a female billdad grow up to five to six feet long, including tail (4 Hit Dice), the largest males may reach more than eight feet (the largest specimen on record was a "Gran'Pappy" billdad 9 feet 8 inches long, including its 3 foot 5 inch tail, estimated to weigh 310-380 pounds).
During daytime billdads sleep in burrows excavated in the banks of their pool. These have two underwater entrances, the only sign above the water are a few cunningly concealed airholes that are easily mistaken for the warren of a tiny rodent. Billdads are egg-laying mammals like duck billed platypodes, producing a clutch of 2-6 eggs the size of a largish goose egg (about 5 ounces). Infant billdads are called "kits" just as beavers' young are. Unlike the platypus, the male billdad provides food for his mate while she's incubating her eggs. Once the eggs hatch the female starts making short forays outside in between nursing her young, leaving the male to guard the burrow. These excursions increase in frequency and duration until the kits are weaned, by which time both parents spend equal time guarding the burrow and fishing for food.
Billdads are monogamous, once they pair with a mate they generally stick to them unto death, only seeking a replacement if their mate dies or is lost. Neither sex are above having illicit liaisons, though. Being solitary hunters, mated billdads are rarely seen together above ground. Most of the time a billdad spends with its mate is in their burrow. On very rare occasions, a male will support two females in separate burrows at the same time, or a female will share a burrow with two males; this usually occurs when a billdad "remarried" after losing a mate, then the supposedly lost mate returned.
Newborn billdads weigh about four ounces and are completely helpless, lacking any natural offence or defence. Their flesh is not even poisonous until they begin to develop their incredible leaping ability when the kit has reached a few pounds in weight, the two traits are obviously connected.
It is rare for a pair of billdads to succeed in raising all their young, usually only 1-3 survive long enough to leave the nest. The commonest reason for this is that the billdad's simply could not catch enough fish to feed them all. When the billdad kits start to starve, the pragmatic parents will kill the weakest and feed its flesh to the others.
Treasure
Unfortunately for the billdad, although this poison heartily discourages folk from eating them, it's also a very valuable ingredient for crafting items imbued with the jump spell, resulting in over-hunting that has made these critters even more incredibly rare than they were historically. The "leaping juice" is concentrated in the billdad's liver, which can easily be preserved in vinegar or alcohol; such a liver can fetch 40% of the treasure value of the billdad's Challenge Rating (240 gp for an average billdad).
A billdad's fur resemble a beaver's from a distance, which may lead one to think it's of little value. There's little cachet in wearing the skin of an extraordinarily rare animal if it looks just like a common one. Up close a billdad's pelt is quite different; being fine, lustrous, silky smooth and astonishingly warm and water resistant. Billdad pelts in good condition are worth 60-200 gp (10% of Challenge Rating).
A billdads liver is literally worth twice its weight in gold – 1 pound per 100 gp value, while the pelt weighs about a pound per 10 gp value.
[Note that you may want a billdad's flesh to lose its toxic properties a few hours after the creature's death but retain its alchemical/magical value, to prevent it being abused as a poison.]
Lore Checks
DC 12 - A billdad be a right funny lookin' varmint. It's 'bout the size of a beaver I reckon, with fur like a beaver an' a tail like a beaver too, but real big. But they's got a curved beak like a fish-hawk, an' strong back legs fur jumpin' – dem back legs like a hoppin' rat's legs, ye unnerstand, not like a frog's – but only little arms in front. They comes out at night to the edge of a pool and waits for fish to splash to the surface, den they jumps out over the water quick as a flash and smacks their tail down on that fish so hard it's like they'd set off a charge of smokepowder in the water. Dat's how dey fishes for their supper, see.
DC 27 - Well I've heard of billdads but never set eyes on one meself, they's really shy critters. Dey's not real dangerous, cause a billdad would sooner run away and hide soon as they knew a man was about, although I did hear about a fellow who grabbed hold of a billdad kit, which made Papa billdad so angry he jumped ten yards in the air and came down to smack that fellow so hard with its tail it turned half that man's bones and his flesh to jelly. One think folks has been speculatin' about is whether billdad make good eatin', no one hereabouts can remember ever catching one to see what they taste like.
DC 22 - Whatever you do, don't eat a billdad! Some folks may tell you they're good eatin', but that's a damned lie. Billdad meat is deadly poison, if you eat one it'll drive you mad so's you think ye are a billdad, then you'll rush over to a pond and jump into it and drown. Funny thing is, there's summat in the flesh that means those who eat it can jump nearly as far as a billdad can. There are alchemists and other learned folk who can distill jumpin' potions out of a billdad's liver. So, if you ever kill a billdad, cut out its liver and pickle it in likker or vinegar, 'cause billdad livers sell for a right pretty price. There's a good bounty on their skins as well.
Advanced Billdads
The stats for a baby and infant kit are included only for completeness, these animals are non combatives. A "Big Kit" billdad is large enough to roam around outside the nest and strike off on its own. Immature billdads do not have fully developed special attacks or special qualities, as indicated in their compact stat blocks.
Baby Kit Billdad (Diminutive Magical Beast, Hit Dice: ¼d10+1 (2hp); Init: +4; Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), swim 10 ft.; AC: 18(+4 size, +4 Dex) touch 18, flat-footed 14; Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-12; Full Attack: Bite +4 melee (1d3-1); Space/Reach: 1 ft./ 0 ft.; Special Qualities: Hold breath, scent, low-light vision; Saves: Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +2; Abilities: Str 8, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +1, Hide +24, Listen +11, Move Silently +8, Spot +13, Swim +7; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB; CR: 1/10)
Li'l Kit Billdad (Tiny Magical Beast, Hit Dice: ½d10+1 (3hp); Init: +4; Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)[60 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.; AC: 17(+2 size, +4 Dex, +1 natural) touch 16, flat-footed 13; Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-7; Full Attack: Bite +3 melee (1d4) or tail slap +3 melee (1d6); Space/Reach: 2½ ft./ 0 ft.; Special Attacks: toxic hydromania [Will & Fort DC11, no racial bonus]; Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap![+22 to Jump (+10 enhancement, +12 speed)], scent, superior low-light vision; Saves: Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +2; Abilities: Str 10, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +8 [+30 with Leap!], Hide +20, Listen +11, Move Silently +8, Spot +13, Swim +8; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB; CR: ¼)
Big Kit Billdad (Small Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 1d10+1 (13hp); Init: +4; Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)[70 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.; AC: 17(+1 size, +4 Dex, +2 natural) touch 15, flat-footed 13; Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-2; Full Attack: Bite +3 melee (1d6+1) or tail slap +3 melee (1d8+1 plus stunning tail); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.; Special Attacks: Stunning tail [Fort DC 11, tail slap stuns target for 1 round, or 10' burst staggers for 1 round], thunderclap leap [Fort DC 13, tail slap 2d8+2 damage plus 1d3 rounds stun (save ½ damage, 1 round staggered), or 10' burst doing 1d4 damage plus 1 round stun (save ½ damage, no stun)], toxic hydromania [Will & Fort DC13, +2 racial bonus]; Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap![ +32 to Jump (+20 enhancement, +12 speed)], scent, superior low-light vision; Saves: Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +2; Abilities: Str 12, Dex 18, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +13 [+45 with Leap!], Hide +16, Listen +11, Move Silently +8, Spot +13, Swim +9; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB; CR: 1)
Reg'lar Billdad (Small Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 2d10+2 (13hp); Init: +3; Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)[80 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.; AC: 17(+1 size, +3 Dex, +3 natural) touch 14, flat-footed 14; Base Attack/Grapple: +2/+0; Full Attack: Bite +5 melee (1d6+3) or tail slap +5 melee (1d8+3 plus stunning tail); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.; Special Attacks: Stunning tail [Fort DC 13, tail slap stuns target for 1 round, or 10' burst staggers for 1 round], thunderclap leap [Fort DC 15, tail slap 2d8+6 damage plus 1d3 rounds stun (save ½ damage, 1 round staggered), or 10' burst doing 1d4+1 damage plus 1 round stun (save ½ damage, no stun)], toxic hydromania [Will & Fort DC16]; Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap!, scent, superior low-light vision; Saves: Fort +4, Ref +6, Will +2; Abilities: Str 14, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +14 [+60 with Leap!], Hide +15, Listen +11, Move Silently +7, Spot +14, Swim +10; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB; CR: 2)
Big Ol' Billdad (Medium Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 4d10+8 (30hp); Init: +3; Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)[80 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.; AC: 16(+3 Dex, +3 natural) touch 13, flat-footed 13; Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+8; Full Attack: Bite +8 melee (1d8+6) or tail slap +8 melee (2d6+6 plus stunning tail); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.; Special Attacks: Stunning tail [Fort DC 16, tail slap stuns target for 1 round, or 10' burst staggers for 1 round], thunderclap leap [Fort DC 18, tail slap 4d6+12 damage plus 1d3 rounds stun (save ½ damage, 1 round staggered), or 10' burst doing 1d6+3 damage plus 1 round stun (save ½ damage, no stun)], toxic hydromania [Will & Fort DC18]; Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap!, scent, superior low-light vision; Saves: Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +3; Abilities: Str 18, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +16 [+62 with Leap!], Hide +15, Listen +11, Move Silently +9, Spot +14, Swim +10; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB, Stealthy; CR: 4)
Gran'Pappy Billdad (Maximized)(Medium Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 6d10+12 (45hp); Init: +3; Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)[80 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.; AC: 16(+3 Dex, +3 natural) touch 13, flat-footed 13; Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+10; Full Attack: Bite +10 melee (1d8+6) or tail slap +10 melee (3d6+6 plus stunning tail); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.; Special Attacks: Stunning tail [Fort DC 17, tail slap stuns target for 1 round, or 10' burst staggers for 1 round], thunderclap leap [Fort DC 19, tail slap 6d6+12 damage plus 1d3 rounds stun (save ½ damage, 1 round staggered), or 10' burst doing 1d10+3 damage plus 1 round stun (save ½ damage, no stun)], toxic hydromania [Will & Fort DC19]; Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap!, scent, superior low-light vision; Saves: Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +4; Abilities: Str 18, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +16 [+62 with Leap!], Hide +15, Listen +12, Move Silently +9, Spot +15, Swim +10; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB, Improved Natural Attack (tail slap), Stealthy; CR: 5)
Feat Progression: [1HD] Blind-FightB? [3HD] Stealthy?, [6HD] Improved Natural Attack (tail slap)
Ability Bonus Progression: [4HD] +1 Dex
Billdad
Small Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 2d10+2 (13 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)[80 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.
Armor Class: 17 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +3 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +2/+0
Attack: Bite +5 melee (1d6+3) or tail slap +5 melee (1d8+3 plus stunning tail)
Full Attack: Bite +5 melee (1d6+3) or tail slap +5 melee (1d8+3 plus stunning tail)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.
Special Attacks: Stunning tail, thunderclap leap, toxic hydromania
Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap!, scent, superior low-light vision
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +6, Will +2
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6
Skills: Jump +14 [+60 with Leap!], Hide +15, Listen +11, Move Silently +7, Spot +14, Swim +10
Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB
Environment: Temperate lakes and marshes
Organization: Solitary, pair or family (3-8)
Challenge Rating: 2
Treasure: 50% goods (pelt & liver, see below)
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 3 HD (Small), 4-6 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: —
This critter looks like a bizarre cross between a wallaby, a beaver and a hawk. It's got the hooked bill and piercing eyes of a bird of prey, mighty long legs and scrawny arms like a kangaroo, plus webbed paws and a heavy, flat tail that any beaver would be proud to possess. A lustrous coat of brown fur covers the animal's body and limbs. It's also got big triangular ears like a cat.
Billdads are weird-looking mammals about the size of a large beaver who live in and around large freshwater ponds and lakes surrounded by ancient forest. These are very rare animals, only being found in a few out of the way regions that meet their exacting standards.
A typical billdad is 2½ feet long, not including a foot-long tail, and weighs fifty pounds or so.
Billdads are best known for two traits. First, they hunt fish at night by waiting at the water's edge until they see a fish break the surface, then make an amazing leap across the water to just past the fish, who they stun with an explosive tail-slap. Second, their flesh is a strange poison which drives those who taste it to leap into the nearest large body of water and drown.
Combat
Billdads are very reluctant combatants, they would rather flee foes than fight them. If forced into a melee they prefer to defend themselves with their tails, in the hope of stunning their assailants and opening an opportunity to escape. They always head for water and try to flee beneath its surface, usually heading for the submerged entrance of their lair.
A billdad is only likely to act aggressively in defence of its mate or offspring, or if it has been driven mad by spell or disease. In either case, it will use its Thunderclap Leap! special attack against the greatest perceived threat.
Hold Breath (Ex)
A billdad can hold its breath for a number of rounds equal to twice its Constitution score before it risks drowning.
Leap! (Ex)
A billdad can leap an immense distance as a standard or full-round action. The billdad makes a Jump check with a +30 competence bonus, and for all aspects of that Jump check its speed is increased to 80 ft. (thus adding an additional +16 on the Jump check and a maximum distance of 80 ft. for that action's movement). The Jump DC is not doubled if the billdad does not get a running start.
This ability offers little protection from the impact of the Leap! If the billdad lands on a hard object after Leaping it must make a DC15 Reflex check or suffer 2d6 damage, treated as falling damage. Any object it strikes will suffer the same damage. For this reason, the billdad almost always Leaps! Into a body of water.
After using its Leap! ability, the billdad must wait at least a minute (10 rounds) before it can use it again.
Stunning Tail Slap (Ex)
Any creature struck by the billdad's tail-slap attack must make a DC13 Fortitude save or be stunned for its next round. Alternatively, if the tail-slap hits the surface of a body of water then any creature in the water within a 10 ft. radius burst of the impact point must make a DC 13 Fortitude save or be staggered for its next round. The save DC is Strength based.
Superior Low-Light Vision (Ex)
A billdad can see five times as far as a human can in dim light.
Thunderclap Leap (Ex)
As a full round action, a billdad can use its Leap! Special Quality followed by an augmented Stunning Tail Slap doing double damage (2d8+6) to the creature struck plus stunning it for 1d3 rounds, if the target makes a Fortitude save against DC15 they merely take regular tail damage (1d8+3) and are staggered for a round.
Alternatively, if the tail-slap hits the surface of a body of water, any creature in the water within a 10 ft. radius burst of the impact point takes 1d4+1 damage and is stunned for its next round, if the creature makes a DC 15 Fortitude save they take half damage and are not stunned.
The damage caused by a Thunderclap Leap's augmented Stunning Tail Slap is half bludgeoning (round up) and half sonic (round down), so a Thunderclap Leap doing 13 hit points of damage is 7 bludgeoning and 6 sonic. The save DC is Strength based and includes a +2 racial bonus.
Toxic Hydromania (Su)
Any creature which tastes the flesh or blood of a billdad must make a DC16 Will save or be filled with an irresistible urge to head at their top speed towards the nearest large body of water and leap into it. This compulsion lasts for 2d4 rounds, during which the creature receives a +20 enhancement bonus to their Jump checks. At the end of this period, or when the creature succeeds in jumping into deep water, they must make a second DC16 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 2d4 rounds. Such a paralyzed character can not hold their breath, so must immediately begin to make Constitution checks against drowning at the usual DC (10+1 per round).
Creatures with the Aquatic subtype are affected different, being compelled to swim to shore and leap upon dry land, where they "drown" if they cannot breathe air.
Toxic Hydromania is both a Mind-Affecting, Compulsion Enchantment and a Poison effect. It will affect creatures which hit a billdad with a bite attack or eat the flesh of a dead billdad, whether raw or cooked. The attacker must take at least a small mouthful to be affected, so are unlikely to be accidentally affected. e.g. a warrior hitting a billdad with an ax could cause blood to spray over them, the few drops that may enter their mouth won't be enough for Toxic Hydromania to occur.
The save DC is Constitution based and includes a +4 racial bonus.
Skills
A billdad has a +4 racial bonus on Listen and Move Silently checks and a +8 racial bonus on Hide, Jump and Spot checks. A billdad has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.
Ecology
Billdads are nocturnal-crepuscular carnivores, but pose little threat to mankind since they habitually only eat fish and are exceedingly shy, retreating at the first hint of human intrusion.
The most obvious evidence a billdad's about is hearing loud splashes in a pond at night, like the sound of a paddle striking the water magnified tenfold or more, the noise of a billdad's famous fishing method. The billdad crouches on a vantage point overlooking the water, such as a grassy knoll or the stump of a tree, and waits until its hawk-keen eyesight spots a fish near the surface, mayhap a trout rising to gulp down a fly. With astonishing speed, the billdad then leaps across the water to splashdown just past the fish, where it smashes its tail down like a thunderclap. This stuns the fish, which is immediately picked up and eaten by the billdad. Tall-tale spinners have wildly exaggerated the distance a billdad can leap, boasting of effortless jumps of 60 or 100 yards. In truth, a run of the mill billdad has an average leap of a chain's length (66 feet) or so.
A billdad possesses the "sixth sense" of electrolocation through receptors in its beak and face, this gives it a crude blindsense it uses to navigate in its burrows and hunt in the black muddy depths of ponds. Billdad swim too slowly to chase down fast-moving fish, but their electrosense helps them catch slower prey like bottom-dwelling fish, crawdads and turtles. Billdads mostly hunt underwater at dawn and dusk, using the leaping method during the night between, they may hunt underwater during the daytime if they or their kits are particularly hungry. A billdad may find as much food underwater with its electrolocation than it catches with its spectacular leaps.
Few creatures prey upon billdads, for they have a very effective defence mechanism. Imbued in their flesh is a magical poison that compels creatures that ingest it to leap into the nearest large body of water and then paralyses them, resulting in rapid drowning. Aquatic predators are compelled to leap out onto dry land instead. There are reports that the water panther and the wooly giant pike have an innate immunity to this poison, so will happily eat billdad, but this has not been confirmed.
These are very quiet animals, leading to a common belief that billdads are mute. In fact they can emit a range of soft hoots, sighing groans, grunts and very rarely startling shrieks (which appear to strartle billdads as much as they do humans), plus a burring hum which serves the same purpose as a cat's purr, but sound weirdly different. However, billdads do most of their long-distant communication by beating the ground or water with their tales, and have an semi-instinctive "language" of tail beats that can convey a range of messages. Amongst those known to master Lumberjacks are: Two extremely loud beats in rapid succession is an alarm signal; two pairs of beats in rapid succession is a territorial declaration/warning; a rapid staccato splashing is a male signaling his suitability/desire to mate – females can apparently use this signal to judge the power of the male's tail, their key criteria for his fitness as a mate; or three spaced-out and flat sounding "slaps", which signals a female's willingness to consider a suitor.
Billdads get along very well with beavers, and often live in the latter species' pools. Both species recognize the meaning of the other animal's tail-slap alarm signals.
Adult male billdads grow considerably larger than the females. While a female billdad grow up to five to six feet long, including tail (4 Hit Dice), the largest males may reach more than eight feet (the largest specimen on record was a "Gran'Pappy" billdad 9 feet 8 inches long, including its 3 foot 5 inch tail, estimated to weigh 310-380 pounds).
During daytime billdads sleep in burrows excavated in the banks of their pool. These have two underwater entrances, the only sign above the water are a few cunningly concealed airholes that are easily mistaken for the warren of a tiny rodent. Billdads are egg-laying mammals like duck billed platypodes, producing a clutch of 2-6 eggs the size of a largish goose egg (about 5 ounces). Infant billdads are called "kits" just as beavers' young are. Unlike the platypus, the male billdad provides food for his mate while she's incubating her eggs. Once the eggs hatch the female starts making short forays outside in between nursing her young, leaving the male to guard the burrow. These excursions increase in frequency and duration until the kits are weaned, by which time both parents spend equal time guarding the burrow and fishing for food.
Billdads are monogamous, once they pair with a mate they generally stick to them unto death, only seeking a replacement if their mate dies or is lost. Neither sex are above having illicit liaisons, though. Being solitary hunters, mated billdads are rarely seen together above ground. Most of the time a billdad spends with its mate is in their burrow. On very rare occasions, a male will support two females in separate burrows at the same time, or a female will share a burrow with two males; this usually occurs when a billdad "remarried" after losing a mate, then the supposedly lost mate returned.
Newborn billdads weigh about four ounces and are completely helpless, lacking any natural offence or defence. Their flesh is not even poisonous until they begin to develop their incredible leaping ability when the kit has reached a few pounds in weight, the two traits are obviously connected.
It is rare for a pair of billdads to succeed in raising all their young, usually only 1-3 survive long enough to leave the nest. The commonest reason for this is that the billdad's simply could not catch enough fish to feed them all. When the billdad kits start to starve, the pragmatic parents will kill the weakest and feed its flesh to the others.
Treasure
Unfortunately for the billdad, although this poison heartily discourages folk from eating them, it's also a very valuable ingredient for crafting items imbued with the jump spell, resulting in over-hunting that has made these critters even more incredibly rare than they were historically. The "leaping juice" is concentrated in the billdad's liver, which can easily be preserved in vinegar or alcohol; such a liver can fetch 40% of the treasure value of the billdad's Challenge Rating (240 gp for an average billdad).
A billdad's fur resemble a beaver's from a distance, which may lead one to think it's of little value. There's little cachet in wearing the skin of an extraordinarily rare animal if it looks just like a common one. Up close a billdad's pelt is quite different; being fine, lustrous, silky smooth and astonishingly warm and water resistant. Billdad pelts in good condition are worth 60-200 gp (10% of Challenge Rating).
A billdads liver is literally worth twice its weight in gold – 1 pound per 100 gp value, while the pelt weighs about a pound per 10 gp value.
[Note that you may want a billdad's flesh to lose its toxic properties a few hours after the creature's death but retain its alchemical/magical value, to prevent it being abused as a poison.]
Lore Checks
DC 12 - A billdad be a right funny lookin' varmint. It's 'bout the size of a beaver I reckon, with fur like a beaver an' a tail like a beaver too, but real big. But they's got a curved beak like a fish-hawk, an' strong back legs fur jumpin' – dem back legs like a hoppin' rat's legs, ye unnerstand, not like a frog's – but only little arms in front. They comes out at night to the edge of a pool and waits for fish to splash to the surface, den they jumps out over the water quick as a flash and smacks their tail down on that fish so hard it's like they'd set off a charge of smokepowder in the water. Dat's how dey fishes for their supper, see.
DC 27 - Well I've heard of billdads but never set eyes on one meself, they's really shy critters. Dey's not real dangerous, cause a billdad would sooner run away and hide soon as they knew a man was about, although I did hear about a fellow who grabbed hold of a billdad kit, which made Papa billdad so angry he jumped ten yards in the air and came down to smack that fellow so hard with its tail it turned half that man's bones and his flesh to jelly. One think folks has been speculatin' about is whether billdad make good eatin', no one hereabouts can remember ever catching one to see what they taste like.
DC 22 - Whatever you do, don't eat a billdad! Some folks may tell you they're good eatin', but that's a damned lie. Billdad meat is deadly poison, if you eat one it'll drive you mad so's you think ye are a billdad, then you'll rush over to a pond and jump into it and drown. Funny thing is, there's summat in the flesh that means those who eat it can jump nearly as far as a billdad can. There are alchemists and other learned folk who can distill jumpin' potions out of a billdad's liver. So, if you ever kill a billdad, cut out its liver and pickle it in likker or vinegar, 'cause billdad livers sell for a right pretty price. There's a good bounty on their skins as well.
Advanced Billdads
The stats for a baby and infant kit are included only for completeness, these animals are non combatives. A "Big Kit" billdad is large enough to roam around outside the nest and strike off on its own. Immature billdads do not have fully developed special attacks or special qualities, as indicated in their compact stat blocks.
Baby Kit Billdad (Diminutive Magical Beast, Hit Dice: ¼d10+1 (2hp); Init: +4; Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), swim 10 ft.; AC: 18(+4 size, +4 Dex) touch 18, flat-footed 14; Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-12; Full Attack: Bite +4 melee (1d3-1); Space/Reach: 1 ft./ 0 ft.; Special Qualities: Hold breath, scent, low-light vision; Saves: Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +2; Abilities: Str 8, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +1, Hide +24, Listen +11, Move Silently +8, Spot +13, Swim +7; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB; CR: 1/10)
Li'l Kit Billdad (Tiny Magical Beast, Hit Dice: ½d10+1 (3hp); Init: +4; Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)[60 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.; AC: 17(+2 size, +4 Dex, +1 natural) touch 16, flat-footed 13; Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-7; Full Attack: Bite +3 melee (1d4) or tail slap +3 melee (1d6); Space/Reach: 2½ ft./ 0 ft.; Special Attacks: toxic hydromania [Will & Fort DC11, no racial bonus]; Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap![+22 to Jump (+10 enhancement, +12 speed)], scent, superior low-light vision; Saves: Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +2; Abilities: Str 10, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +8 [+30 with Leap!], Hide +20, Listen +11, Move Silently +8, Spot +13, Swim +8; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB; CR: ¼)
Big Kit Billdad (Small Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 1d10+1 (13hp); Init: +4; Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)[70 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.; AC: 17(+1 size, +4 Dex, +2 natural) touch 15, flat-footed 13; Base Attack/Grapple: +1/-2; Full Attack: Bite +3 melee (1d6+1) or tail slap +3 melee (1d8+1 plus stunning tail); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.; Special Attacks: Stunning tail [Fort DC 11, tail slap stuns target for 1 round, or 10' burst staggers for 1 round], thunderclap leap [Fort DC 13, tail slap 2d8+2 damage plus 1d3 rounds stun (save ½ damage, 1 round staggered), or 10' burst doing 1d4 damage plus 1 round stun (save ½ damage, no stun)], toxic hydromania [Will & Fort DC13, +2 racial bonus]; Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap![ +32 to Jump (+20 enhancement, +12 speed)], scent, superior low-light vision; Saves: Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +2; Abilities: Str 12, Dex 18, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +13 [+45 with Leap!], Hide +16, Listen +11, Move Silently +8, Spot +13, Swim +9; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB; CR: 1)
Reg'lar Billdad (Small Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 2d10+2 (13hp); Init: +3; Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)[80 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.; AC: 17(+1 size, +3 Dex, +3 natural) touch 14, flat-footed 14; Base Attack/Grapple: +2/+0; Full Attack: Bite +5 melee (1d6+3) or tail slap +5 melee (1d8+3 plus stunning tail); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.; Special Attacks: Stunning tail [Fort DC 13, tail slap stuns target for 1 round, or 10' burst staggers for 1 round], thunderclap leap [Fort DC 15, tail slap 2d8+6 damage plus 1d3 rounds stun (save ½ damage, 1 round staggered), or 10' burst doing 1d4+1 damage plus 1 round stun (save ½ damage, no stun)], toxic hydromania [Will & Fort DC16]; Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap!, scent, superior low-light vision; Saves: Fort +4, Ref +6, Will +2; Abilities: Str 14, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +14 [+60 with Leap!], Hide +15, Listen +11, Move Silently +7, Spot +14, Swim +10; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB; CR: 2)
Big Ol' Billdad (Medium Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 4d10+8 (30hp); Init: +3; Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)[80 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.; AC: 16(+3 Dex, +3 natural) touch 13, flat-footed 13; Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+8; Full Attack: Bite +8 melee (1d8+6) or tail slap +8 melee (2d6+6 plus stunning tail); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.; Special Attacks: Stunning tail [Fort DC 16, tail slap stuns target for 1 round, or 10' burst staggers for 1 round], thunderclap leap [Fort DC 18, tail slap 4d6+12 damage plus 1d3 rounds stun (save ½ damage, 1 round staggered), or 10' burst doing 1d6+3 damage plus 1 round stun (save ½ damage, no stun)], toxic hydromania [Will & Fort DC18]; Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap!, scent, superior low-light vision; Saves: Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +3; Abilities: Str 18, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +16 [+62 with Leap!], Hide +15, Listen +11, Move Silently +9, Spot +14, Swim +10; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB, Stealthy; CR: 4)
Gran'Pappy Billdad (Maximized)(Medium Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 6d10+12 (45hp); Init: +3; Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)[80 ft. with Leap!], swim 20 ft.; AC: 16(+3 Dex, +3 natural) touch 13, flat-footed 13; Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+10; Full Attack: Bite +10 melee (1d8+6) or tail slap +10 melee (3d6+6 plus stunning tail); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.; Special Attacks: Stunning tail [Fort DC 17, tail slap stuns target for 1 round, or 10' burst staggers for 1 round], thunderclap leap [Fort DC 19, tail slap 6d6+12 damage plus 1d3 rounds stun (save ½ damage, 1 round staggered), or 10' burst doing 1d10+3 damage plus 1 round stun (save ½ damage, no stun)], toxic hydromania [Will & Fort DC19]; Special Qualities: Hold breath, leap!, scent, superior low-light vision; Saves: Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +4; Abilities: Str 18, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6; Skills: Jump +16 [+62 with Leap!], Hide +15, Listen +12, Move Silently +9, Spot +15, Swim +10; Feats: Alertness, Blind-FightB, Improved Natural Attack (tail slap), Stealthy; CR: 5)
Feat Progression: [1HD] Blind-FightB? [3HD] Stealthy?, [6HD] Improved Natural Attack (tail slap)
Ability Bonus Progression: [4HD] +1 Dex
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
I'm telling you, it's that terrible work monster. And when it's not chasing me, it's the chore monster.
The snakes are a lot to read
, but I really love the billdad.
Cleon
Legend
I'm telling you, it's that terrible work monster. And when it's not chasing me, it's the chore monster.
The snakes are a lot to read
Ta Freyar, I'd be interested to hear any specific feedback you can give me, assuming that dang-blasted varmint will let you.
Speaking of which, we'll have to stat up that Work Monster sometime. I'm thinking it'll be an Aberration with an extraordinary attack that increases your encumbrance, so if it hits you with that enough times you're too weighed down to do anything you want to.
Cleon
Legend
Here's another Lumberjack beastie, the Roperite. This may be the penultimate entry in this series, since I only have one other monster in this pipeline.
Its just that none of the other timber folklore critters really inspire me to write them up. I could do things like the Hodag, I suppose, but many of the others are minor beings only notable for one peculiar quirk, such as melting into tears or whistling like a teakettle. They're more background colour than a foe to throw against your adventurers.
However, if anyone out there on the broad seas of the internet has a particular fondness for any of the lumberjack critters I haven't converted so far, I'd be happy to consider requests - not making any promises, mind.
Its just that none of the other timber folklore critters really inspire me to write them up. I could do things like the Hodag, I suppose, but many of the others are minor beings only notable for one peculiar quirk, such as melting into tears or whistling like a teakettle. They're more background colour than a foe to throw against your adventurers.
However, if anyone out there on the broad seas of the internet has a particular fondness for any of the lumberjack critters I haven't converted so far, I'd be happy to consider requests - not making any promises, mind.
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Cleon
Legend
Fearsome Critters from Lumberjack Tales - The Roperite
Roperite
Medium Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 4d10+4 (26 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.
Armor Class: 19 (+4 Dex, +5 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 15 [Lariat AC 27, touch 22, flat-footed 23] [Mobility gives +4 dodge vs opportunity attacks for AC23, touch 18, flat 15]
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+7 [+17 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend foe]
Attack: Lariat +8 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or beak +7 melee (1d4+3) or kick +7 melee (1d6+4) or stomp +7 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or claw +7 melee (1d4+1)
Full Attack: Lariat +8 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or beak +7 melee (1d4+3) and kick +2 melee (1d6+4) or stomp +2 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +2 melee (1d4+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10 ft. with lariat)
Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat, drag, lariat, overwhelming force, rend, shove
Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 6/magic, low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +8, Will +2
Abilities: Str 17, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills: Climb +23, Jump +23, Hide +10, Listen +8, Spot +11
Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved OverrunB, MobilityB, RunB, Spring AttackB
Environment: Warm or temperate hills
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 5-7 (Medium); 8-12 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment: —
Vaguely resembling a bipedal predatory dinosaur, this creature's most prominent feature is the upper bill of its sturdy beak which extends into rope-like lash it twists and coils like a lariat, the lower bill merely ends in a dagger-like point. Whatever this bizarre animal is, it's clearly not a reptile, for it has small pony-like ears, a mane of stiff hair and a beard, although it also has three great plumes sprouting from the back of its neck like some kind of bird. The beast has enormously muscled hindlegs with huge flippers for feet, while its forelimbs are a pair of sinewy arms with grasping hands and formidable talons. While its lariat-nose and flipper-feet, are creamy white and scaly, the rest of the creature's skin is brown-gray and leathery, resembling raw cowhide that's been left outdoors too long. Most of its hide is naked apart from a sparse coating of sandy fuzz which extends from just below its goggling eyes to the base of its tail, this fuzzy hair grows thicker over the animal's back, where a stiff ruff of dark hair runs down its spine. Finally, the creature concludes with a thin tail whose entire length is covered in rattles like a rattlesnake.
Faster than a thoroughbred racehorse. More powerful than a runaway wagon. Is it an ostrich? Is it a fiend? No, it's a Roperite!
The above represents an average-sized young adult roperite, about 5 feet tall and 7 feet long, not including its 6-foot tail or its lariat, which stretches to 12 feet in length when unfurled. Such a specimen weighs some 250 pounds. The largest roperites reach almost half again that size – 7 feet high and 10 feet long, with 9-foot tails and 18-foot lariats – and weigh around 800 pounds.
Roperites are among nature's most bizarre creations, but are frightening effective predators despite their goofy appearance. Fortunately, they are as rare as they are dangerous. These animals can run at terrifying speed over the roughest terrain. They are usually encountered in the foothills of mountains in areas of harsh scrub, which they blithely run through without any fear of injury. These monsters will happily attack any animal up to their own size, ensnaring it with their lariat beak and then running off, dragging their unfortunate victim behind them through piercing thorns and across jagged rocks so they are flayed alive.
Combat
A roperite usually initiates combat by charging in and trying to seize one of its opponents, using its lariat's Adhesion ability. Its Mobility and Spring Attack feats help it avoid attacks of opportunity. If it succeeds in hitting its target it will then try to Drag them away across rough terrain, using its Shove ability and Improved Bull-Run and Improved Overrun feats to try to knock aside or run over any of the target's allies that get in its way.
If the roperite fails to drag a victim away, either because it misses or its targets are too large or securely fastened together, it typically either tries hit-and-run attacks until it fells a victim or is driven away or, if it's particularly bold or desperate, just commences full attacks against its prey.
The victim may be able to prevent or halt a Drag attack by clinging to a tree, boulder or similar obstacle. Roperites normally respond to such an eventuality by trying to Beat its lassoed foe into loosening their grip, so it can initiate or resume a Drag.
Occasionally, a roperite Adheres to a victim that is difficult to injure with a Drag attack, usually because they have damage resistance. Against such foes, a roperite usually uses a Beat or kick attack combined with a Drag.
A roperite reserves its Rend ability against particularly tough or stubborn targets. These monsters generally only uses this attack form when there are no other combatants within melee range, since it cannot manoeuvre at the same time.
Roperites are tenacious combatants, but not suicidal ones. They will flee when seriously injured.
Adhesion (Ex)
If a roperite hits with a lariat or stomp attack it can choose to automatically start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. It can also start an Adhesion hold with a successful melee touch attack with its lariat or a foot, but this does no damage.
The roperite gains a +10 racial bonus on any grapple check to maintain an Adhesion hold. It can release its Adhesion as a free action whenever it chooses to.
A roperite using its lariat to Adhere to a target can use its other natural weapons without penalty. One using a foot to adhere to a target is considered flat-footed until it releases the Adhesion and may not use its kick attack, but may use any of its other natural weapons without penalty, including stomp.
This Adhesion is neither glue, suction, nor magic. It makes no difference if the Adhered to object is covered in water, oil or similar liquid. If the target of Adhesion is easily broken or covered in some certain fragile or viscous materials, such as an adventurer wearing a fine silk shirt or thickly covered in grease mixed with sand, then the hold may fail because the portions the roperite Adheres to break off in its grip. [A roperite's Adhesion exploits the Van der Waals force, the same principal as a gecko's feet].
Beat (Ex)
A roperite can inflict 1d4+3 damage on an opponent it has an Adhesion hold on by making a successful grapple check, including its +10 racial bonus from Overwhelming Force, by using its beak or foot to smash the foe against a nearby solid object. This is a standard action.
Cliff Running (Ex)
A roperite's Adhesive feet mean it can easily move across walls and ceilings, provided they can support its weight. It can even Run across vertical surfaces, although it can not Run when upside down.
Drag (Ex)
As a move action, a roperite can Drag any object up to its own size that it has Adhered to with its lariat. A roperite cannot use Drag when it has an object adhering to a foot, although it can Bull Rush, Beat or Rend such an object.
To make a Drag attack, the roperite makes a Strength check against its opponent as if was taking the overrun or bull rush action. An average roperite has a +17 modifier on this Strength check due to its strength, size, feats and Overwhelming Force (see below). If the roperite wins the strength contest its foe is pulled prone and dragged at least one 5' square. The distance depends on the roperite's margin of success and their relative sizes. If the foe is the same size category as the roperite, they are dragged an additional 5' square for every 5 points of success, if the roperite is one size category larger the victim is dragged an additional 5' square for every 2 points of success, and if the roperite is two or more size categories larger the victim is dragged an additional 5' square for every single point of success.
A roperite can use two move actions in a round on a Drag attack, this doubles the maximum distance it can drag its victim, and allows it to roll its Strength check twice and pick the best result. It does not make two Drag attacks against the target and apply the results separately.
The victim can not be Dragged farther than the roperite's maximum movement (80 feet, or 160 ft. with a double move), and take 1d6 points of damage plus an additional 1d6 for every 30 feet they are dragged. Each of these dice of damage is considered a separate injury, so effects such as Damage Resistance or stoneskin count against them individually (e.g. a barbarian with DR2 who's been dragged 50' would take 1d6-2 damage two times).
If the target can secure themselves to a large mass like a tree or boulder they are entitled to a circumstance bonus to their Strength check to resist being dragged. They may be able to grab hold of such an anchor if they are dragged past one. This would require a Reflex Save against a DC of 18, this DC being based on the roperite's Hit Dice and Dexterity, then they need to make a Strength check with a circumstance bonus against the roperite to halt the Drag.
Lariat (Ex)
A roperite applies either its Dexterity or its Strength bonus to attack rolls with its lariat, whichever gives it the higher modifier, as if it was using the Weapon Finesse feat.
A roperite's lariat can be cut through. It can take one quarter the hit points of the roperite (6hp for an average roperite) before being severed, but takes half damage from piercing weapons and is immune to bludgeoning weapons. It is also a very small and elusive target, with a +8 size bonus to its armour class, giving it AC 27, touch 22, flat-footed 23.
Damage to the lariat does not affect the roperite's total hit points. A severed lariat regrows at a rate of one foot per day.
Overwhelming Force (Su)
A roperite possesses unnaturally powerful legs which give it a +10 racial bonus on its Strength checks to bull rush or overrun any object or creature that obstructs its progress, or on similar actions such as its Drag ability. This gives an average roperite a +17 bonus on overrun / bull rush Strength checks (+3 Str,+4 feat plus +10 racial). This bonus does not apply to other applications of Strength, such as damage or attack rolls, even while charging.
Overwhelming Force allows a roperite's to make Bull Rush or Overrun attacks against creatures up to two size categories larger than itself, instead of the standard upper limit of one size category larger than the attacker.
This extraordinary leg-power allows a roperite to push or drag 16 times the normal weight of a creature of its size and strength (i.e. 40-160 × maximum load instead of 2½-10 × maximum load, or 10,400-41,600 pounds for a standard roperite, and 64,000-256,000 pounds for an average Large roperite!)
Rend (Ex)
As a full-round action, a roperite that has an Adhesion grip on an opponent can grab them with both its feet and lariat and try to rip them apart. Making such a Rend attack is a full-round action which inflicts 2d4+6 damage if the roperite succeeds at a grapple check against its opponent, including its +10 racial bonus from Overwhelming Force. The roperite is flat-footed during a round it uses its Rend ability.
Shove (Ex)
A roperite's supernatural strength allows it to force its way past creatures simply by moving into or over them. This is similar to a regular Bull Rush or Overrun but far more powerful.
Roperites can make a Shove attack as a move action.
Opponents in the path of a Shoving roperite may choose to make an attack of opportunity or leap aside. Leaping aside requires a successful DC16 Reflex save.
Opponents that stand their ground against the roperite must make a Strength check to stop the roperite's progress, this Strength check is modified as if they were resisting a bull rush or overrun attack: +4 for every size category larger than medium, -4 for every size category smaller than medium, +4 for exceptional stability.
If the opponent is the same size or smaller than the roperite and this Strength check fails to beat a DC equal to the roperite's Overwhelming Force bonus (DC 17 for a standard roperite), they are knocked prone and take 1d4+1 damage.
If the opponent makes this DC with their Strength check, or is larger than the roperite, the roperite must roll a Strength check of its own to try to Shove through/over them. This is resolved as an Overrun attack (q.v.) against the result of the Strength check the opponent just made, except a roperite's Overwhelming Force allows it to make such attacks against creatures up to two size categories larger than itself. If the roperite's opponent loses the Strength contest they take 1d4+1 damage as well as falling prone. A roperite can make two such Shoving Overrun attacks each round by making a double move, it can make these attacks against the same opponent or two different foes.
Shoving past an opponent costs the roperite an additional 5' of movement for every square it Shoves through, unless the opponent is more than two size categories smaller than the roperite (Diminutive or less for an average roperite), in which case the roperite can step over or kick aside the obstacle with negligible effort.
Skills
A roperite has a +4 racial bonus on Hide, Listen and Spot checks and a +20 racial bonus on Climb checks. A roperite can always choose to take 10 on a Climb check, even if rushed or threatened.
Lore Checks
DC 17 - A roperite looks like a nekkid demon turkey that's big as a pony, with a lasso fer a nose and a rattlesnake's tail. No, I ain't been drinking. That's just what the mountain folk say they looks like, ain't never laid eyes on one meself. They say them things can run up to a man fast as the wind, snare 'im with der rope-nose round and drag the poor fellow out of sight before you can take aim at the monster. The mountain folk legends is they ain't beasts, earthly or otherwise, but are the cursed ghosts of caballeros who dragged lassoed children to their deaths. They say that's why you never see a baby or young roperite, only full-grown ones. Sounds like a lot of hoo-haw to me.
DC 22 - Did you know Squint-Eyed Jake? He was a wicked fella. One day, me and some compadres met Jake all chortling to himself like he were set to split with laughter. He said he'd met a party of tourists, and had spun them a line about roperites being in the hills they where heading for, and got them to cover themselves all over in grease and ashes, then tie themselves and their mules together three fold so the roperite couldn't drag anyone off. How he laughed at getting them to do such a dang fool thing just because of a nonexistant dangfool bugaboo. So Jack insisted we come along and see for ourselves how ridiculous these tourists look and we set off after them, only to find them being attacked by the weirdest looking varmint I'd ever clapped eyes on. It kept on trying to lasso a tourist or one of their mules with its beak, but its lasso just slipped off covered with grease, or the mules were too tied-together for it to pull one of them away.
Then it catches sight of us, and charges up faster than a quarterhorse and snatches Jake clean off his feet. We all jumped in its way, but it knocked all four of us head over heels as easy as if we was bowling pins and races off into the rocks and thornbushes with Jake, leaving bits of him stuck to every sharp bit of scenery they passed. We heard Jake screaming long after we lost sight of him.
Guess the joke was on Jake, after all.
DC 27 - A roperite's nose isn't sticky or magical, but somehow it can fasten itself onto anything it touches with great strength. Most people don't know this, but roperites can fasten themselves onto things with their feet just as well, and this lets them run across cliffs and cave ceilings as easy as folk stroll down a street. That's why few people have ever seen a young roperite, for they go up into impassable mountains to breed, and the youngsters stay up there until they're pretty big.
Ecology
Lariat
A roperite's lariat is a tube of tough leather that is animated by telekinetic impulses rather than muscle-power. It is a living organ with a sense of touch, which can do anything an elephant's trunk can and a lot more besides; as well as dragging victims to their doom, a roperite uses its lariat to pick up objects, drink, groom, sniff up scents, snorkel and many other duties. The lariat constantly grows from the base in the roperite's beak, allowing the roperite to quickly regenerate a severed lariat. A roperite can only animate a lariat of a certain length, when its lariat reaches this limit its growth rate dramatically slows and any excess length simply flakes away like dry skin.
Metabolism & Digestion
Roperites have a supernatural metabolism, allowing them an incredibly active lifestyle on very little prey. They do not live on meat and drink alone, but must eat certain rare metal salts and exotic plants to maintain their bizarre physiologies, and may also require expose to the elemental forces emanating from the rocks of their home. The few roperites that have been captured and removed from their habitat have all sickened and died within weeks, despite clerical and druidic care.
Since they lack teeth, roperite's can not bite or chew their meat, they grind up their food in a gizzard instead. A roperite uses its foreclaws to butcher its prey into pieces small enough to swallow, hoovering up any blood, juices or small fragments through their lariat.
Roperites are not fussy about what animals they prey upon, eating any creature they can catch and overpower. Nor do they turn up their beaks at carrion when they are hungry, although they will not touch badly decayed meat.
Territoriality
Fully grown roperites are solitary and highly territorial. The foothills they inhabit are barren, so each requires a large area to sustain itself, which they defend fiercely from other roperites.
Border disputes are usually settled by "nose wrestling" – the competing roperites wrap their lariats together and try to pull their opponent off their territory. This tug of war proves which one is strongest, and the other will retreat. If one or both are desperate, usually due to hunger, they may fight with beak and claw for control of the territory, sometimes to the death.
Lifecycle
Human sages know very little about roperite reproduction. Few people have even seen an immature roperite, since they are born and mature in the most inaccessible of mountains. This has led to many tall tales and outrageous myths about how roperites come to be, ranging from them being ghosts or demons, the creation of a mad slaad lord (as if there was any other kind of slaad lord), or the result of a sorcerer forcing a team of caballeros into an unnatural congress with ostriches.
Roperite reproduction is a curious cross between the avian and the mammalian. Females are larger than males, typically weighing 50% more than a male of the same age. Dissection of female roperites has shown that they are ovovivaporous, producing a single shell-less but otherwise birdlike egg, which hatches internally and develops within a womb-analogue. The females also have mammaries to produce breast-milk.
Mating
In late summer, the female roperites come in heat and emit a scent so attractive to nearby males they leave their territories to gather around her. Nose-wrestling matches between the males will force the weakest to leave, leaving only the strongest, who are closely matched in strength. After three or four days the female will run off, pursued by the males, in a "mating race" that may last over a day. The male with the greatest stamina is usually the winner, being able to keep close behind the female when she decides the race is over. Mating is short and perfunctory, after which the roperites return to their territories.
Infancy
After carrying her young for around 7 months, a female roperite climbs into the mountains to give birth in a cave or beneath an overhanging cliff. A newborn roperite weighs around 20-25 pounds at birth, and is called a "foal". Roperite hatchlings have none of the supernatural strength or damage resistance of its parents, but can run as fast as a race horse within minutes of birth. Foals follow their mother around the mountains for the next 2 months, growing rapidly on her milk. Baby roperites spend a lot of their time riding on their mother's back, clinging on with their adhesive feet and lariat, they can even suckle from their mother's back by reaching around her body with their lariats.
Infant roperites are quite precocious, capable of hunting for themselves by the age of four weeks, although they still need to nurse at their mother's breast for another month or so. Roperite milk contains vital nutrients its foal needs to develop its supernatural powers. If a baby roperite is taken from its mother and raised on the milk of other animals, it never develops the abilities of Overwhelming Force or Damage Resistance, although a roperite who loses its mother just before its weaned may manifest stunted versions of these powers, assuming it can survive by hunting for itself. In either case, such roperites always grow to be small and weak.
Adolescence
As soon as it's weaned, the mother roperite abandons her offspring and returns to reclaim her territory. The juveniles live upon nigh-impenetrable mountainsides, eating rock-rats, birds and bats. Their favoured hunting grounds are colonies of nesting seabirds and roosting bats, they easily navigate the cliffs and cave-ceilings that protect such animals from ordinary predators. Immature roperites are not as territorial as adults, and several may share a particular bird or bat colony, provided there is enough food for them all.
Juvenile roperites remain in the mountains until they've grown into young adults, then descend to the foothills to join the other adult population. This takes 5 years or more, by which time they're large enough to easily tackle the foothills' largest herd animals, deer and wild pigs. The new adults wander about trying to establish a territory, often being forced to eke out a living in the narrow borders between the land claimed by larger, more mature roperites.
Maturity
Both males and female roperites may reach forty to sixty years of age in the wild before being overcome by senescence, though most fall prey to accident, disease or predation well before that. They can breed through their entire adult life, growing slowly as they age.
Roperites of Different Sizes
Hatchling Roperite (Small Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 2d10 (11hp); Init: +5; Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares), climb 60 ft.; AC: 19 (+1 size, +5 Dex, +3 natural), touch 16, flat-footed 14; Base Attack/Grapple: +2/-1[+9 to maintain an Adhesion hold]; Attack: Lariat +8 melee (1d2 plus adhesion) or beak +4 melee (1d3+1) or kick +4 melee (1d4+1) or stomp +4 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or claw +4 melee (1d3); Full Attack: Lariat +8 melee (1d2 plus adhesion) or beak +4 melee (1d3+1) and kick -1 melee (1d4+1) or stomp -1 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or 2 claws -1 melee (1d3); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.; Special Attacks: Adhesion; Special Qualities: Cliff running, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +3, Ref +8, Will +1; Abilities: Str 13, Dex 20, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +19, Jump +19, Hide +13, Listen +8, Spot +11; Feats: Alertness, Improved Bull RushB, Improved OverrunB, RunB; CR: 1)
Juvenile Roperite(Small Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 3d10 (16hp); Init: +5; Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.; AC: 21 (+1 size, +5 Dex, +5 natural), touch 16, flat-footed 16; Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+0 [+10 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend a foe]; Attack: Lariat +9 melee (1d2 plus adhesion) or beak +5 melee (1d3+1) or kick +5 melee (1d4+1) or stomp +5 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or claw +5 melee (1d3); Full Attack: Lariat +9 melee (1d2 plus adhesion) or beak +5 melee (1d3+1) and kick +0 melee (1d4+1) or stomp +0 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +0 melee (1d3); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10 ft. with lariat); Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat (1d3+1), drag, lariat, overwhelming force [+11 bull rush/overrun], rend (2d3+2), shove (DC11, 1d3); Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 3/magic, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +3, Ref +8, Will +2; Abilities: Str 13, Dex 20, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +19, Jump +19, Hide +13, Listen +8, Spot +11; Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved OverrunB, MobilityB, RunB, Spring AttackB; CR: 2)
Young Adult Roperite (Medium Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 4d10+4 (26hp); Init: +4; Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.; AC: 19 (+4 Dex, +5 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 15; Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+7 [+17 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend foe]; Attack: Lariat +8 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or beak +7 melee (1d4+3) or kick +7 melee (1d6+4) or stomp +7 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or claw +7 melee (1d4+1); Full Attack: Lariat +7 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or beak +7 melee (1d4+3) and kick +2 melee (1d6+4) or stomp +2 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +2 melee (1d4+1); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10 ft. with lariat); Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat (1d4+3), drag, lariat, overwhelming force [+17 bull rush/overrun], rend (2d4+6) , shove (Ref DC16, Str DC17, 1d4+1); Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 6/magic, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +5, Ref +8, Will +2; Abilities: Str 17, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +23, Jump +23, Hide +10, Listen +8, Spot +11; Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved OverrunB, MobilityB, RunB, Spring AttackB; CR: 4)
Adult Roperite (Medium Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 6d10+12 (45hp); Init: +8; Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.; AC: 19 (+4 Dex, +5 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 15; Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+11 [+21 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend foe]; Attack: Lariat +11 melee (1d3+2 plus adhesion) or beak +11 melee (1d4+5) or kick +11 melee (1d6+7) or stomp +11 melee (1d4+5 plus adhesion) or claw +11 melee (1d4+2); Full Attack: Lariat +11 melee (1d3+2 plus adhesion) or beak +11 melee (1d4+5) and kick +6 melee (1d6+7) or stomp +6 melee (1d4+5 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +6 melee (1d4+2); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10 ft. with lariat); Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat (1d4+5), drag, lariat, overwhelming force [+19 bull rush/overrun], rend (2d4+10), shove (Ref DC17, Str DC19, 1d4+2); Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 6/magic, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +7, Ref +9, Will +3; Abilities: Str 21, Dex 19, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +25, Jump +25, Hide +10, Listen +9, Spot +12; Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved Initiative, Improved OverrunB, MobilityB, RunB, Spring AttackB; CR: 5)
Mature Adult Roperite (Large Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 8d10+24 (68hp); Init: +8; Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.; AC: 20 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +7 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 16; Base Attack/Grapple: +8/+19 [+29 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend foe]; Attack: Lariat +14 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or beak +14 melee (1d6+7) or kick +14 melee (1d8+10) or stomp +14 melee (1d6+7 plus adhesion) or claw +14 melee (1d6+3); Full Attack: Lariat +14 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or beak +14 melee (1d6+7) and kick +9 melee (1d8+10) or stomp +9 melee (1d6+7 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +9 melee (1d6+3); Space/Reach: 10 ft./ 5 ft. (15 ft. with lariat); Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat (1d6+7), drag, lariat, overwhelming force [+25 bull rush/overrun], shove (Ref DC18, Str DC25, 1d6+3), rend (2d6+14); Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 6/magic, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +9, Ref +10, Will +3; Abilities: Str 25, Dex 18, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +27, Jump +27, Hide +8, Listen +9, Spot +12; Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved Initiative, Improved OverrunB, MobilityB, RunB, Spring AttackB; CR: 7)
Elder Roperite (Maximized) (Large Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 12d10+48 (114hp); Init: +8; Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.; AC: 20 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +7 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 16; Base Attack/Grapple: +12/+23 [+33 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend foe]; Attack: Lariat +18 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or beak +18 melee (1d6+7) or kick +18 melee (1d8+10) or stomp +18 melee (1d6+7 plus adhesion) or claw +18 melee (1d6+3); Full Attack: Lariat +18 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or beak +18 melee (1d6+7) and kick +13 melee (1d8+10) or stomp +13 melee (1d6+7 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +13 melee (1d6+3); Space/Reach: 10 ft./ 5 ft. (15 ft. with lariat); Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat (1d6+7), drag, lariat, overwhelming force [+25 bull rush/overrun], rend (2d6+14), shove (Ref DC20, Str DC25, 1d6+3); Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 6/magic, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +12, Ref +12, Will +7; Abilities: Str 25, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +27, Jump +27, Hide +8, Listen +11, Spot +14; Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved Initiative, Improved OverrunB, Iron Will, MobilityB, Power Attack, RunB, Spring AttackB; CR: 8)
Feat Progression: [1HD] Alertness, Improved Bull RushB, Improved OverrunB, RunB, [3HD] Endurance, MobilityB, Spring AttackB, [6HD] Improved Initiative, [9HD] Power Attack, [12HD] Iron Will?
Ability Progression: [4HD] +1 Dex, [8HD] +1 Dex, [12HD] +1 Con
Notes
There are conflicting accounts of a roperite's appearance, although all agree on a rope-like bill/snout whose end can coil into a lasso. Other sources describe an animal with the size and shape of a pony whose nose extends in a whiplike snout above a mouthful of razorlike teeth. Instead of hooves, its feet end in pads resembling a sealion's flippers. It may retain the rattlesnake tail.
If you prefer this variant, you only need to remove the claw attacks and change the beak attack to a bite with the same attack and damage values.
The ability to Shove a Diminutive or smaller creature without a speed cost is based on tales of it kicking aside/running over roadrunners without slowing, since a roadrunner is ~18-24 inches beak to tail & 0.5-1.5 pounds it's closest to Diminutive in size.
I gave it cliff-running because one of the story says a roperite can run across any obstacle, so it made a kind of sense to include vertical ones. It also led to my explanation as to why the Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods says no one has ever seen a young roperite.
Oh, there's a nice picture of a roperite here, by Richard Svensson. It appears to be based on the illustration in Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, but with a bit more of the theropod to it, complete with the addition of teeth. The version I statted up takes after the older illustration in that it has a toothless, heron-like bill.
Roperite
Medium Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 4d10+4 (26 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.
Armor Class: 19 (+4 Dex, +5 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 15 [Lariat AC 27, touch 22, flat-footed 23] [Mobility gives +4 dodge vs opportunity attacks for AC23, touch 18, flat 15]
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+7 [+17 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend foe]
Attack: Lariat +8 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or beak +7 melee (1d4+3) or kick +7 melee (1d6+4) or stomp +7 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or claw +7 melee (1d4+1)
Full Attack: Lariat +8 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or beak +7 melee (1d4+3) and kick +2 melee (1d6+4) or stomp +2 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +2 melee (1d4+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10 ft. with lariat)
Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat, drag, lariat, overwhelming force, rend, shove
Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 6/magic, low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +8, Will +2
Abilities: Str 17, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills: Climb +23, Jump +23, Hide +10, Listen +8, Spot +11
Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved OverrunB, MobilityB, RunB, Spring AttackB
Environment: Warm or temperate hills
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 5-7 (Medium); 8-12 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment: —
Vaguely resembling a bipedal predatory dinosaur, this creature's most prominent feature is the upper bill of its sturdy beak which extends into rope-like lash it twists and coils like a lariat, the lower bill merely ends in a dagger-like point. Whatever this bizarre animal is, it's clearly not a reptile, for it has small pony-like ears, a mane of stiff hair and a beard, although it also has three great plumes sprouting from the back of its neck like some kind of bird. The beast has enormously muscled hindlegs with huge flippers for feet, while its forelimbs are a pair of sinewy arms with grasping hands and formidable talons. While its lariat-nose and flipper-feet, are creamy white and scaly, the rest of the creature's skin is brown-gray and leathery, resembling raw cowhide that's been left outdoors too long. Most of its hide is naked apart from a sparse coating of sandy fuzz which extends from just below its goggling eyes to the base of its tail, this fuzzy hair grows thicker over the animal's back, where a stiff ruff of dark hair runs down its spine. Finally, the creature concludes with a thin tail whose entire length is covered in rattles like a rattlesnake.
Faster than a thoroughbred racehorse. More powerful than a runaway wagon. Is it an ostrich? Is it a fiend? No, it's a Roperite!
The above represents an average-sized young adult roperite, about 5 feet tall and 7 feet long, not including its 6-foot tail or its lariat, which stretches to 12 feet in length when unfurled. Such a specimen weighs some 250 pounds. The largest roperites reach almost half again that size – 7 feet high and 10 feet long, with 9-foot tails and 18-foot lariats – and weigh around 800 pounds.
Roperites are among nature's most bizarre creations, but are frightening effective predators despite their goofy appearance. Fortunately, they are as rare as they are dangerous. These animals can run at terrifying speed over the roughest terrain. They are usually encountered in the foothills of mountains in areas of harsh scrub, which they blithely run through without any fear of injury. These monsters will happily attack any animal up to their own size, ensnaring it with their lariat beak and then running off, dragging their unfortunate victim behind them through piercing thorns and across jagged rocks so they are flayed alive.
Combat
A roperite usually initiates combat by charging in and trying to seize one of its opponents, using its lariat's Adhesion ability. Its Mobility and Spring Attack feats help it avoid attacks of opportunity. If it succeeds in hitting its target it will then try to Drag them away across rough terrain, using its Shove ability and Improved Bull-Run and Improved Overrun feats to try to knock aside or run over any of the target's allies that get in its way.
If the roperite fails to drag a victim away, either because it misses or its targets are too large or securely fastened together, it typically either tries hit-and-run attacks until it fells a victim or is driven away or, if it's particularly bold or desperate, just commences full attacks against its prey.
The victim may be able to prevent or halt a Drag attack by clinging to a tree, boulder or similar obstacle. Roperites normally respond to such an eventuality by trying to Beat its lassoed foe into loosening their grip, so it can initiate or resume a Drag.
Occasionally, a roperite Adheres to a victim that is difficult to injure with a Drag attack, usually because they have damage resistance. Against such foes, a roperite usually uses a Beat or kick attack combined with a Drag.
A roperite reserves its Rend ability against particularly tough or stubborn targets. These monsters generally only uses this attack form when there are no other combatants within melee range, since it cannot manoeuvre at the same time.
Roperites are tenacious combatants, but not suicidal ones. They will flee when seriously injured.
Adhesion (Ex)
If a roperite hits with a lariat or stomp attack it can choose to automatically start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. It can also start an Adhesion hold with a successful melee touch attack with its lariat or a foot, but this does no damage.
The roperite gains a +10 racial bonus on any grapple check to maintain an Adhesion hold. It can release its Adhesion as a free action whenever it chooses to.
A roperite using its lariat to Adhere to a target can use its other natural weapons without penalty. One using a foot to adhere to a target is considered flat-footed until it releases the Adhesion and may not use its kick attack, but may use any of its other natural weapons without penalty, including stomp.
This Adhesion is neither glue, suction, nor magic. It makes no difference if the Adhered to object is covered in water, oil or similar liquid. If the target of Adhesion is easily broken or covered in some certain fragile or viscous materials, such as an adventurer wearing a fine silk shirt or thickly covered in grease mixed with sand, then the hold may fail because the portions the roperite Adheres to break off in its grip. [A roperite's Adhesion exploits the Van der Waals force, the same principal as a gecko's feet].
Beat (Ex)
A roperite can inflict 1d4+3 damage on an opponent it has an Adhesion hold on by making a successful grapple check, including its +10 racial bonus from Overwhelming Force, by using its beak or foot to smash the foe against a nearby solid object. This is a standard action.
Cliff Running (Ex)
A roperite's Adhesive feet mean it can easily move across walls and ceilings, provided they can support its weight. It can even Run across vertical surfaces, although it can not Run when upside down.
Drag (Ex)
As a move action, a roperite can Drag any object up to its own size that it has Adhered to with its lariat. A roperite cannot use Drag when it has an object adhering to a foot, although it can Bull Rush, Beat or Rend such an object.
To make a Drag attack, the roperite makes a Strength check against its opponent as if was taking the overrun or bull rush action. An average roperite has a +17 modifier on this Strength check due to its strength, size, feats and Overwhelming Force (see below). If the roperite wins the strength contest its foe is pulled prone and dragged at least one 5' square. The distance depends on the roperite's margin of success and their relative sizes. If the foe is the same size category as the roperite, they are dragged an additional 5' square for every 5 points of success, if the roperite is one size category larger the victim is dragged an additional 5' square for every 2 points of success, and if the roperite is two or more size categories larger the victim is dragged an additional 5' square for every single point of success.
A roperite can use two move actions in a round on a Drag attack, this doubles the maximum distance it can drag its victim, and allows it to roll its Strength check twice and pick the best result. It does not make two Drag attacks against the target and apply the results separately.
The victim can not be Dragged farther than the roperite's maximum movement (80 feet, or 160 ft. with a double move), and take 1d6 points of damage plus an additional 1d6 for every 30 feet they are dragged. Each of these dice of damage is considered a separate injury, so effects such as Damage Resistance or stoneskin count against them individually (e.g. a barbarian with DR2 who's been dragged 50' would take 1d6-2 damage two times).
If the target can secure themselves to a large mass like a tree or boulder they are entitled to a circumstance bonus to their Strength check to resist being dragged. They may be able to grab hold of such an anchor if they are dragged past one. This would require a Reflex Save against a DC of 18, this DC being based on the roperite's Hit Dice and Dexterity, then they need to make a Strength check with a circumstance bonus against the roperite to halt the Drag.
Lariat (Ex)
A roperite applies either its Dexterity or its Strength bonus to attack rolls with its lariat, whichever gives it the higher modifier, as if it was using the Weapon Finesse feat.
A roperite's lariat can be cut through. It can take one quarter the hit points of the roperite (6hp for an average roperite) before being severed, but takes half damage from piercing weapons and is immune to bludgeoning weapons. It is also a very small and elusive target, with a +8 size bonus to its armour class, giving it AC 27, touch 22, flat-footed 23.
Damage to the lariat does not affect the roperite's total hit points. A severed lariat regrows at a rate of one foot per day.
Overwhelming Force (Su)
A roperite possesses unnaturally powerful legs which give it a +10 racial bonus on its Strength checks to bull rush or overrun any object or creature that obstructs its progress, or on similar actions such as its Drag ability. This gives an average roperite a +17 bonus on overrun / bull rush Strength checks (+3 Str,+4 feat plus +10 racial). This bonus does not apply to other applications of Strength, such as damage or attack rolls, even while charging.
Overwhelming Force allows a roperite's to make Bull Rush or Overrun attacks against creatures up to two size categories larger than itself, instead of the standard upper limit of one size category larger than the attacker.
This extraordinary leg-power allows a roperite to push or drag 16 times the normal weight of a creature of its size and strength (i.e. 40-160 × maximum load instead of 2½-10 × maximum load, or 10,400-41,600 pounds for a standard roperite, and 64,000-256,000 pounds for an average Large roperite!)
Rend (Ex)
As a full-round action, a roperite that has an Adhesion grip on an opponent can grab them with both its feet and lariat and try to rip them apart. Making such a Rend attack is a full-round action which inflicts 2d4+6 damage if the roperite succeeds at a grapple check against its opponent, including its +10 racial bonus from Overwhelming Force. The roperite is flat-footed during a round it uses its Rend ability.
Shove (Ex)
A roperite's supernatural strength allows it to force its way past creatures simply by moving into or over them. This is similar to a regular Bull Rush or Overrun but far more powerful.
Roperites can make a Shove attack as a move action.
Opponents in the path of a Shoving roperite may choose to make an attack of opportunity or leap aside. Leaping aside requires a successful DC16 Reflex save.
Opponents that stand their ground against the roperite must make a Strength check to stop the roperite's progress, this Strength check is modified as if they were resisting a bull rush or overrun attack: +4 for every size category larger than medium, -4 for every size category smaller than medium, +4 for exceptional stability.
If the opponent is the same size or smaller than the roperite and this Strength check fails to beat a DC equal to the roperite's Overwhelming Force bonus (DC 17 for a standard roperite), they are knocked prone and take 1d4+1 damage.
If the opponent makes this DC with their Strength check, or is larger than the roperite, the roperite must roll a Strength check of its own to try to Shove through/over them. This is resolved as an Overrun attack (q.v.) against the result of the Strength check the opponent just made, except a roperite's Overwhelming Force allows it to make such attacks against creatures up to two size categories larger than itself. If the roperite's opponent loses the Strength contest they take 1d4+1 damage as well as falling prone. A roperite can make two such Shoving Overrun attacks each round by making a double move, it can make these attacks against the same opponent or two different foes.
Shoving past an opponent costs the roperite an additional 5' of movement for every square it Shoves through, unless the opponent is more than two size categories smaller than the roperite (Diminutive or less for an average roperite), in which case the roperite can step over or kick aside the obstacle with negligible effort.
Skills
A roperite has a +4 racial bonus on Hide, Listen and Spot checks and a +20 racial bonus on Climb checks. A roperite can always choose to take 10 on a Climb check, even if rushed or threatened.
Lore Checks
DC 17 - A roperite looks like a nekkid demon turkey that's big as a pony, with a lasso fer a nose and a rattlesnake's tail. No, I ain't been drinking. That's just what the mountain folk say they looks like, ain't never laid eyes on one meself. They say them things can run up to a man fast as the wind, snare 'im with der rope-nose round and drag the poor fellow out of sight before you can take aim at the monster. The mountain folk legends is they ain't beasts, earthly or otherwise, but are the cursed ghosts of caballeros who dragged lassoed children to their deaths. They say that's why you never see a baby or young roperite, only full-grown ones. Sounds like a lot of hoo-haw to me.
DC 22 - Did you know Squint-Eyed Jake? He was a wicked fella. One day, me and some compadres met Jake all chortling to himself like he were set to split with laughter. He said he'd met a party of tourists, and had spun them a line about roperites being in the hills they where heading for, and got them to cover themselves all over in grease and ashes, then tie themselves and their mules together three fold so the roperite couldn't drag anyone off. How he laughed at getting them to do such a dang fool thing just because of a nonexistant dangfool bugaboo. So Jack insisted we come along and see for ourselves how ridiculous these tourists look and we set off after them, only to find them being attacked by the weirdest looking varmint I'd ever clapped eyes on. It kept on trying to lasso a tourist or one of their mules with its beak, but its lasso just slipped off covered with grease, or the mules were too tied-together for it to pull one of them away.
Then it catches sight of us, and charges up faster than a quarterhorse and snatches Jake clean off his feet. We all jumped in its way, but it knocked all four of us head over heels as easy as if we was bowling pins and races off into the rocks and thornbushes with Jake, leaving bits of him stuck to every sharp bit of scenery they passed. We heard Jake screaming long after we lost sight of him.
Guess the joke was on Jake, after all.
DC 27 - A roperite's nose isn't sticky or magical, but somehow it can fasten itself onto anything it touches with great strength. Most people don't know this, but roperites can fasten themselves onto things with their feet just as well, and this lets them run across cliffs and cave ceilings as easy as folk stroll down a street. That's why few people have ever seen a young roperite, for they go up into impassable mountains to breed, and the youngsters stay up there until they're pretty big.
Ecology
Lariat
A roperite's lariat is a tube of tough leather that is animated by telekinetic impulses rather than muscle-power. It is a living organ with a sense of touch, which can do anything an elephant's trunk can and a lot more besides; as well as dragging victims to their doom, a roperite uses its lariat to pick up objects, drink, groom, sniff up scents, snorkel and many other duties. The lariat constantly grows from the base in the roperite's beak, allowing the roperite to quickly regenerate a severed lariat. A roperite can only animate a lariat of a certain length, when its lariat reaches this limit its growth rate dramatically slows and any excess length simply flakes away like dry skin.
Metabolism & Digestion
Roperites have a supernatural metabolism, allowing them an incredibly active lifestyle on very little prey. They do not live on meat and drink alone, but must eat certain rare metal salts and exotic plants to maintain their bizarre physiologies, and may also require expose to the elemental forces emanating from the rocks of their home. The few roperites that have been captured and removed from their habitat have all sickened and died within weeks, despite clerical and druidic care.
Since they lack teeth, roperite's can not bite or chew their meat, they grind up their food in a gizzard instead. A roperite uses its foreclaws to butcher its prey into pieces small enough to swallow, hoovering up any blood, juices or small fragments through their lariat.
Roperites are not fussy about what animals they prey upon, eating any creature they can catch and overpower. Nor do they turn up their beaks at carrion when they are hungry, although they will not touch badly decayed meat.
Territoriality
Fully grown roperites are solitary and highly territorial. The foothills they inhabit are barren, so each requires a large area to sustain itself, which they defend fiercely from other roperites.
Border disputes are usually settled by "nose wrestling" – the competing roperites wrap their lariats together and try to pull their opponent off their territory. This tug of war proves which one is strongest, and the other will retreat. If one or both are desperate, usually due to hunger, they may fight with beak and claw for control of the territory, sometimes to the death.
Lifecycle
Human sages know very little about roperite reproduction. Few people have even seen an immature roperite, since they are born and mature in the most inaccessible of mountains. This has led to many tall tales and outrageous myths about how roperites come to be, ranging from them being ghosts or demons, the creation of a mad slaad lord (as if there was any other kind of slaad lord), or the result of a sorcerer forcing a team of caballeros into an unnatural congress with ostriches.
Roperite reproduction is a curious cross between the avian and the mammalian. Females are larger than males, typically weighing 50% more than a male of the same age. Dissection of female roperites has shown that they are ovovivaporous, producing a single shell-less but otherwise birdlike egg, which hatches internally and develops within a womb-analogue. The females also have mammaries to produce breast-milk.
Mating
In late summer, the female roperites come in heat and emit a scent so attractive to nearby males they leave their territories to gather around her. Nose-wrestling matches between the males will force the weakest to leave, leaving only the strongest, who are closely matched in strength. After three or four days the female will run off, pursued by the males, in a "mating race" that may last over a day. The male with the greatest stamina is usually the winner, being able to keep close behind the female when she decides the race is over. Mating is short and perfunctory, after which the roperites return to their territories.
Infancy
After carrying her young for around 7 months, a female roperite climbs into the mountains to give birth in a cave or beneath an overhanging cliff. A newborn roperite weighs around 20-25 pounds at birth, and is called a "foal". Roperite hatchlings have none of the supernatural strength or damage resistance of its parents, but can run as fast as a race horse within minutes of birth. Foals follow their mother around the mountains for the next 2 months, growing rapidly on her milk. Baby roperites spend a lot of their time riding on their mother's back, clinging on with their adhesive feet and lariat, they can even suckle from their mother's back by reaching around her body with their lariats.
Infant roperites are quite precocious, capable of hunting for themselves by the age of four weeks, although they still need to nurse at their mother's breast for another month or so. Roperite milk contains vital nutrients its foal needs to develop its supernatural powers. If a baby roperite is taken from its mother and raised on the milk of other animals, it never develops the abilities of Overwhelming Force or Damage Resistance, although a roperite who loses its mother just before its weaned may manifest stunted versions of these powers, assuming it can survive by hunting for itself. In either case, such roperites always grow to be small and weak.
Adolescence
As soon as it's weaned, the mother roperite abandons her offspring and returns to reclaim her territory. The juveniles live upon nigh-impenetrable mountainsides, eating rock-rats, birds and bats. Their favoured hunting grounds are colonies of nesting seabirds and roosting bats, they easily navigate the cliffs and cave-ceilings that protect such animals from ordinary predators. Immature roperites are not as territorial as adults, and several may share a particular bird or bat colony, provided there is enough food for them all.
Juvenile roperites remain in the mountains until they've grown into young adults, then descend to the foothills to join the other adult population. This takes 5 years or more, by which time they're large enough to easily tackle the foothills' largest herd animals, deer and wild pigs. The new adults wander about trying to establish a territory, often being forced to eke out a living in the narrow borders between the land claimed by larger, more mature roperites.
Maturity
Both males and female roperites may reach forty to sixty years of age in the wild before being overcome by senescence, though most fall prey to accident, disease or predation well before that. They can breed through their entire adult life, growing slowly as they age.
Roperites of Different Sizes
Hatchling Roperite (Small Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 2d10 (11hp); Init: +5; Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares), climb 60 ft.; AC: 19 (+1 size, +5 Dex, +3 natural), touch 16, flat-footed 14; Base Attack/Grapple: +2/-1[+9 to maintain an Adhesion hold]; Attack: Lariat +8 melee (1d2 plus adhesion) or beak +4 melee (1d3+1) or kick +4 melee (1d4+1) or stomp +4 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or claw +4 melee (1d3); Full Attack: Lariat +8 melee (1d2 plus adhesion) or beak +4 melee (1d3+1) and kick -1 melee (1d4+1) or stomp -1 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or 2 claws -1 melee (1d3); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.; Special Attacks: Adhesion; Special Qualities: Cliff running, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +3, Ref +8, Will +1; Abilities: Str 13, Dex 20, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +19, Jump +19, Hide +13, Listen +8, Spot +11; Feats: Alertness, Improved Bull RushB, Improved OverrunB, RunB; CR: 1)
Juvenile Roperite(Small Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 3d10 (16hp); Init: +5; Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.; AC: 21 (+1 size, +5 Dex, +5 natural), touch 16, flat-footed 16; Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+0 [+10 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend a foe]; Attack: Lariat +9 melee (1d2 plus adhesion) or beak +5 melee (1d3+1) or kick +5 melee (1d4+1) or stomp +5 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or claw +5 melee (1d3); Full Attack: Lariat +9 melee (1d2 plus adhesion) or beak +5 melee (1d3+1) and kick +0 melee (1d4+1) or stomp +0 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +0 melee (1d3); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10 ft. with lariat); Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat (1d3+1), drag, lariat, overwhelming force [+11 bull rush/overrun], rend (2d3+2), shove (DC11, 1d3); Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 3/magic, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +3, Ref +8, Will +2; Abilities: Str 13, Dex 20, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +19, Jump +19, Hide +13, Listen +8, Spot +11; Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved OverrunB, MobilityB, RunB, Spring AttackB; CR: 2)
Young Adult Roperite (Medium Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 4d10+4 (26hp); Init: +4; Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.; AC: 19 (+4 Dex, +5 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 15; Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+7 [+17 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend foe]; Attack: Lariat +8 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or beak +7 melee (1d4+3) or kick +7 melee (1d6+4) or stomp +7 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or claw +7 melee (1d4+1); Full Attack: Lariat +7 melee (1d3+1 plus adhesion) or beak +7 melee (1d4+3) and kick +2 melee (1d6+4) or stomp +2 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +2 melee (1d4+1); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10 ft. with lariat); Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat (1d4+3), drag, lariat, overwhelming force [+17 bull rush/overrun], rend (2d4+6) , shove (Ref DC16, Str DC17, 1d4+1); Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 6/magic, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +5, Ref +8, Will +2; Abilities: Str 17, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +23, Jump +23, Hide +10, Listen +8, Spot +11; Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved OverrunB, MobilityB, RunB, Spring AttackB; CR: 4)
Adult Roperite (Medium Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 6d10+12 (45hp); Init: +8; Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.; AC: 19 (+4 Dex, +5 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 15; Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+11 [+21 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend foe]; Attack: Lariat +11 melee (1d3+2 plus adhesion) or beak +11 melee (1d4+5) or kick +11 melee (1d6+7) or stomp +11 melee (1d4+5 plus adhesion) or claw +11 melee (1d4+2); Full Attack: Lariat +11 melee (1d3+2 plus adhesion) or beak +11 melee (1d4+5) and kick +6 melee (1d6+7) or stomp +6 melee (1d4+5 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +6 melee (1d4+2); Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10 ft. with lariat); Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat (1d4+5), drag, lariat, overwhelming force [+19 bull rush/overrun], rend (2d4+10), shove (Ref DC17, Str DC19, 1d4+2); Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 6/magic, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +7, Ref +9, Will +3; Abilities: Str 21, Dex 19, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +25, Jump +25, Hide +10, Listen +9, Spot +12; Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved Initiative, Improved OverrunB, MobilityB, RunB, Spring AttackB; CR: 5)
Mature Adult Roperite (Large Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 8d10+24 (68hp); Init: +8; Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.; AC: 20 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +7 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 16; Base Attack/Grapple: +8/+19 [+29 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend foe]; Attack: Lariat +14 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or beak +14 melee (1d6+7) or kick +14 melee (1d8+10) or stomp +14 melee (1d6+7 plus adhesion) or claw +14 melee (1d6+3); Full Attack: Lariat +14 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or beak +14 melee (1d6+7) and kick +9 melee (1d8+10) or stomp +9 melee (1d6+7 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +9 melee (1d6+3); Space/Reach: 10 ft./ 5 ft. (15 ft. with lariat); Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat (1d6+7), drag, lariat, overwhelming force [+25 bull rush/overrun], shove (Ref DC18, Str DC25, 1d6+3), rend (2d6+14); Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 6/magic, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +9, Ref +10, Will +3; Abilities: Str 25, Dex 18, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +27, Jump +27, Hide +8, Listen +9, Spot +12; Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved Initiative, Improved OverrunB, MobilityB, RunB, Spring AttackB; CR: 7)
Elder Roperite (Maximized) (Large Magical Beast, Hit Dice: 12d10+48 (114hp); Init: +8; Speed: 80 ft. (16 squares), climb 80 ft.; AC: 20 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +7 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 16; Base Attack/Grapple: +12/+23 [+33 to maintain an Adhesion hold or Beat or Rend foe]; Attack: Lariat +18 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or beak +18 melee (1d6+7) or kick +18 melee (1d8+10) or stomp +18 melee (1d6+7 plus adhesion) or claw +18 melee (1d6+3); Full Attack: Lariat +18 melee (1d4+3 plus adhesion) or beak +18 melee (1d6+7) and kick +13 melee (1d8+10) or stomp +13 melee (1d6+7 plus adhesion) or 2 claws +13 melee (1d6+3); Space/Reach: 10 ft./ 5 ft. (15 ft. with lariat); Special Attacks: Adhesion, beat (1d6+7), drag, lariat, overwhelming force [+25 bull rush/overrun], rend (2d6+14), shove (Ref DC20, Str DC25, 1d6+3); Special Qualities: Cliff running, DR 6/magic, low-light vision, scent; Saves: Fort +12, Ref +12, Will +7; Abilities: Str 25, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10; Skills: Climb +27, Jump +27, Hide +8, Listen +11, Spot +14; Feats: Alertness, Endurance, Improved Bull RushB, Improved Initiative, Improved OverrunB, Iron Will, MobilityB, Power Attack, RunB, Spring AttackB; CR: 8)
Feat Progression: [1HD] Alertness, Improved Bull RushB, Improved OverrunB, RunB, [3HD] Endurance, MobilityB, Spring AttackB, [6HD] Improved Initiative, [9HD] Power Attack, [12HD] Iron Will?
Ability Progression: [4HD] +1 Dex, [8HD] +1 Dex, [12HD] +1 Con
Notes
There are conflicting accounts of a roperite's appearance, although all agree on a rope-like bill/snout whose end can coil into a lasso. Other sources describe an animal with the size and shape of a pony whose nose extends in a whiplike snout above a mouthful of razorlike teeth. Instead of hooves, its feet end in pads resembling a sealion's flippers. It may retain the rattlesnake tail.
If you prefer this variant, you only need to remove the claw attacks and change the beak attack to a bite with the same attack and damage values.
The ability to Shove a Diminutive or smaller creature without a speed cost is based on tales of it kicking aside/running over roadrunners without slowing, since a roadrunner is ~18-24 inches beak to tail & 0.5-1.5 pounds it's closest to Diminutive in size.
I gave it cliff-running because one of the story says a roperite can run across any obstacle, so it made a kind of sense to include vertical ones. It also led to my explanation as to why the Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods says no one has ever seen a young roperite.
Oh, there's a nice picture of a roperite here, by Richard Svensson. It appears to be based on the illustration in Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, but with a bit more of the theropod to it, complete with the addition of teeth. The version I statted up takes after the older illustration in that it has a toothless, heron-like bill.
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Cleon
Legend
After a long hiatus, I'm starting on some new Lumberwood critters.
Mostly this is because I've recently begun reading Who Fears The Devil by Manly Wade Wellman, and his tales of Silver John contain plenty such beasties.
It inspired me to return to my notes and work on some of the critters I left unfinished or didn't even start on. I've got three or four that look like they have potential, and once I've done them I might do some homebrews based on some creatures from Who Fears The Devil.
Anyhow, to begin with I found a Critter I'd finished some time ago, but forgot to post here for some reason, so without further ado I present... the Splinter Cat.
Mostly this is because I've recently begun reading Who Fears The Devil by Manly Wade Wellman, and his tales of Silver John contain plenty such beasties.
It inspired me to return to my notes and work on some of the critters I left unfinished or didn't even start on. I've got three or four that look like they have potential, and once I've done them I might do some homebrews based on some creatures from Who Fears The Devil.
Anyhow, to begin with I found a Critter I'd finished some time ago, but forgot to post here for some reason, so without further ado I present... the Splinter Cat.
Cleon
Legend
Fearsome Critters from Lumberjack Tales - The Splinter Cat
Splinter Cat
Medium Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 5d10+10 (37 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares), climb 30 ft.
Armor Class: 17 (+3 Dex, +4 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +5/+9
Attack: Axhead +9 melee (1d12+6/19-20×3)
Full Attack: Axhead +9 melee (1d12+6/19-20×3) and 2 claws +4 melee (1d3+2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.
Special Attacks: Ax-headed, flying headbutt
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, pounce, scent
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +2
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 17, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 5
Skills: Balance +11, Climb +12, Hide +8* (+12 in forests), Jump +20, Listen +9, Move Silently +8, Spot +5, Survival +3 (+7 track by scent)
Feats: Power Critical (axhead), Track (B), Weapon Focus (axhead)
Environment: Temperate forests
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 6-9 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: —
The beast looks like a mountain lion except its head is shaped like an axe, complete with a razor-sharp edge.
Splinter cats are ornery carnivores who prey on creatures that lair inside trees. Their favorite foods are honey and raccoons, but they eat squirrel, bird or even wood-boring insects when such fare is unavailable. These beasts are nocturnal, spending the day sleeping in shallow burrows and hunting throughout the night. Once it finds a hollow tree containing food, the splinter cat hurls itself at the tree with terrifying force, smashing it to splinters with its ax-like head and then eating the exposed food. Breaking open trees with its head all night leaves it with a constant headache, explaining why splinter cats have infamously foul tempers. While they do not prey on humanoids, it’s extremely unwise to approach or obstruct a splinter cat.
Splinter cats have a keen nose and amazingly good hearing, to help them find prey hidden within trees.
A splinter cat is the size of a big cougar – from 8 to 9 feet long, including a yard of tail, with a shoulder height of about 2½ feet. They weigh 200-250 pounds.
Combat
Splinter cats believe a frenzied attack is the best form of defense. They may snarl a warning if they think another creature's just passing through, but if the cat feels threatened – or the intruder's just slow getting out of their way – they explode into violence. A splinter cat usually starts a fight with a Pounce. If the opponent doesn't quickly fall or flee, the splinter cat will use its Flying Headbutt attack.
Ornery to the last, splinter cats normally fight to the death rather than run away.
Ax-Headed (Ex): A splinter cat’s ax-shaped head does slashing damage and threatens a critical on a roll of 19-20, inflicting triple damage if that critical is confirmed. If the cat makes a Charge or Dive attack its axhead does double damage (2d12+12, or 3d12+18 with a confirmed critical or Flying Headbutt attack). The splinter cat adds 1½ times its Strength bonus to its axhead attack’s damage. Furthermore, its axhead does full damage to creatures and objects with hardness values of 6 or less (such as trees) and ignores their hardness.
Dive (Ex): A splinter cat can use its ability to Fall Safely (see below) to make dive attacks, by leaping down upon a target from a tall tree or cliff. A diving splinter cat does double damage with its axhead attack (see Ax-Headed above).
Fall Safely (Ex): A splinter cat can reduce the damage it takes from a fall by 10 dice. The cat must be conscious and free to move to use fall safely, a paralyzed or bound splinter cat takes normal falling damage.
Flying Headbutt (Su): Once per minute, as a full-round action, a splinter cat can launch itself through the air like a catapult stone, leaping up to 200 ft. to make an axhead attack with a +4 bonus to hit that automatically does critical damage if it hits (+13 melee and 3d12+18 for a typical splinter cat). Alternatively, if a Flying Headbutt hits a nonmagical wooden object it smashes it to splinters, automatically destroying all parts of the object within a 5 ft. radius. Any creature inside the shattering wooden object, such as a raccoon nesting in a hollow tree, takes 5d8 sonic damage (DC 16 Fort save for half damage), while creatures outside the wooden object within a 20 ft. radius burst are hit by splinters for 5d6 piercing damage (DC 16 Ref save for half damage). The splinter cat takes no damage from the impact of its Flying Headbutt or any resulting explosion of splinters, but if it hits an object with a hardness of 5 or higher the cat must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 10+hardness) or be stunned for 1d2 rounds and then staggered for 1d4 rounds. A splinter cat can use its Flying Headbutt to leap through a nonmagical wooden object less than 5 feet thick, landing on the far side. The save DCs are Strength-based.
Pounce (Ex): If a splinter cat charges a foe, it can make a full attack. (Note it cannot make a Flying Headbutt as a Charge attack, since that's a full-round action.)
Skills
Splinter cats have a +4 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks, a +8 racial bonus on Balance, Climb, and Listen checks and a +12 racial bonus on Jump checks. A splinter cat can always choose to take 10 on a Climb or Jump check, even if rushed or threatened.
*In areas of tall grass or heavy undergrowth, the Hide bonus improves to +8.
*Splinter cats have a +4 racial bonus on Survival checks when tracking by scent.
Lore Checks
DC 13 - Now a splinter cat's like a puma with the head of an ax. Splinter cats eat critters what live inside hollow trees, like raccoons or squirrels. They get to their food by hurling themselves face-first at trees, hitting so hard the tree smashes to kindling. A splinter cat sleeps during daytime in some cubby, then spends all night finding coon-trees to smash open. Those blasted cats can ruin whole stands of timber in a night.
DC 18 - Splinter cats you say? Mean critters, real mean. Smart folk never get in the way of a splinter cat, 'cause they've always got a sore head from splitting open trees with their face. Their favourite meat's raccoon you know. Heard of a fellow who went to sleep one night leaning against a tree while wearing a coon-skin cap. Splinter cat mistook him for a coon and jumped right through that tree. Blasted it apart like a thunderbolt. Fellow was ripped to death by the shrapnel.
DC 23 - Ya, I know ze splinter cat. Zat cat, she really loves honey. If you wants to catch a splinter cat, I would say ze best bait to use is honey. Ze best time to kill a splinter cat is after she break a tree into little bits. Her face may be hard, but breaking a tree wiz her head make her dizzy, as you can well understand, and she may not fight so good.
Splinter Cat
Medium Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 5d10+10 (37 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares), climb 30 ft.
Armor Class: 17 (+3 Dex, +4 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +5/+9
Attack: Axhead +9 melee (1d12+6/19-20×3)
Full Attack: Axhead +9 melee (1d12+6/19-20×3) and 2 claws +4 melee (1d3+2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft.
Special Attacks: Ax-headed, flying headbutt
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, pounce, scent
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +2
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 17, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 5
Skills: Balance +11, Climb +12, Hide +8* (+12 in forests), Jump +20, Listen +9, Move Silently +8, Spot +5, Survival +3 (+7 track by scent)
Feats: Power Critical (axhead), Track (B), Weapon Focus (axhead)
Environment: Temperate forests
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 6-9 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: —
The beast looks like a mountain lion except its head is shaped like an axe, complete with a razor-sharp edge.
Splinter cats are ornery carnivores who prey on creatures that lair inside trees. Their favorite foods are honey and raccoons, but they eat squirrel, bird or even wood-boring insects when such fare is unavailable. These beasts are nocturnal, spending the day sleeping in shallow burrows and hunting throughout the night. Once it finds a hollow tree containing food, the splinter cat hurls itself at the tree with terrifying force, smashing it to splinters with its ax-like head and then eating the exposed food. Breaking open trees with its head all night leaves it with a constant headache, explaining why splinter cats have infamously foul tempers. While they do not prey on humanoids, it’s extremely unwise to approach or obstruct a splinter cat.
Splinter cats have a keen nose and amazingly good hearing, to help them find prey hidden within trees.
A splinter cat is the size of a big cougar – from 8 to 9 feet long, including a yard of tail, with a shoulder height of about 2½ feet. They weigh 200-250 pounds.
Combat
Splinter cats believe a frenzied attack is the best form of defense. They may snarl a warning if they think another creature's just passing through, but if the cat feels threatened – or the intruder's just slow getting out of their way – they explode into violence. A splinter cat usually starts a fight with a Pounce. If the opponent doesn't quickly fall or flee, the splinter cat will use its Flying Headbutt attack.
Ornery to the last, splinter cats normally fight to the death rather than run away.
Ax-Headed (Ex): A splinter cat’s ax-shaped head does slashing damage and threatens a critical on a roll of 19-20, inflicting triple damage if that critical is confirmed. If the cat makes a Charge or Dive attack its axhead does double damage (2d12+12, or 3d12+18 with a confirmed critical or Flying Headbutt attack). The splinter cat adds 1½ times its Strength bonus to its axhead attack’s damage. Furthermore, its axhead does full damage to creatures and objects with hardness values of 6 or less (such as trees) and ignores their hardness.
Dive (Ex): A splinter cat can use its ability to Fall Safely (see below) to make dive attacks, by leaping down upon a target from a tall tree or cliff. A diving splinter cat does double damage with its axhead attack (see Ax-Headed above).
Fall Safely (Ex): A splinter cat can reduce the damage it takes from a fall by 10 dice. The cat must be conscious and free to move to use fall safely, a paralyzed or bound splinter cat takes normal falling damage.
Flying Headbutt (Su): Once per minute, as a full-round action, a splinter cat can launch itself through the air like a catapult stone, leaping up to 200 ft. to make an axhead attack with a +4 bonus to hit that automatically does critical damage if it hits (+13 melee and 3d12+18 for a typical splinter cat). Alternatively, if a Flying Headbutt hits a nonmagical wooden object it smashes it to splinters, automatically destroying all parts of the object within a 5 ft. radius. Any creature inside the shattering wooden object, such as a raccoon nesting in a hollow tree, takes 5d8 sonic damage (DC 16 Fort save for half damage), while creatures outside the wooden object within a 20 ft. radius burst are hit by splinters for 5d6 piercing damage (DC 16 Ref save for half damage). The splinter cat takes no damage from the impact of its Flying Headbutt or any resulting explosion of splinters, but if it hits an object with a hardness of 5 or higher the cat must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 10+hardness) or be stunned for 1d2 rounds and then staggered for 1d4 rounds. A splinter cat can use its Flying Headbutt to leap through a nonmagical wooden object less than 5 feet thick, landing on the far side. The save DCs are Strength-based.
Pounce (Ex): If a splinter cat charges a foe, it can make a full attack. (Note it cannot make a Flying Headbutt as a Charge attack, since that's a full-round action.)
Skills
Splinter cats have a +4 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks, a +8 racial bonus on Balance, Climb, and Listen checks and a +12 racial bonus on Jump checks. A splinter cat can always choose to take 10 on a Climb or Jump check, even if rushed or threatened.
*In areas of tall grass or heavy undergrowth, the Hide bonus improves to +8.
*Splinter cats have a +4 racial bonus on Survival checks when tracking by scent.
Lore Checks
DC 13 - Now a splinter cat's like a puma with the head of an ax. Splinter cats eat critters what live inside hollow trees, like raccoons or squirrels. They get to their food by hurling themselves face-first at trees, hitting so hard the tree smashes to kindling. A splinter cat sleeps during daytime in some cubby, then spends all night finding coon-trees to smash open. Those blasted cats can ruin whole stands of timber in a night.
DC 18 - Splinter cats you say? Mean critters, real mean. Smart folk never get in the way of a splinter cat, 'cause they've always got a sore head from splitting open trees with their face. Their favourite meat's raccoon you know. Heard of a fellow who went to sleep one night leaning against a tree while wearing a coon-skin cap. Splinter cat mistook him for a coon and jumped right through that tree. Blasted it apart like a thunderbolt. Fellow was ripped to death by the shrapnel.
DC 23 - Ya, I know ze splinter cat. Zat cat, she really loves honey. If you wants to catch a splinter cat, I would say ze best bait to use is honey. Ze best time to kill a splinter cat is after she break a tree into little bits. Her face may be hard, but breaking a tree wiz her head make her dizzy, as you can well understand, and she may not fight so good.
Cleon
Legend
Quite possibly. I've seen a few conversions of that critter floating around.
EDIT: Hold on, I'm answering a post Freyar made six weeks ago!
Oh well, better late than never. I guess I should check this thread more often...
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