D&D 5E Making a bigger Giant Scorpion

[akr71]

A giant scorpion is a large sized beast, meaning you could ride it. That is, it could be ridden assuming the rider does not get stung to death...

What if you wanted something larger? Say huge to gigantic, similar to the things in Clash of the Titans remake. I mean, its easy enough to scale up with more hit dice and more hit points. You could even use a wyvern as a base - take away the fly speed and bite attack and add an extra claw attack.

But what about the poison? Sure, you could make the poison stronger, since the creature is bigger, but is that plausible? A bigger creature should have less need of poison.

The giant scorpion in the Monster Manual has poison that does 4d10 poison damage on a failed DC 12 Constitution Save & is a CR 3 creature. A wyvern has poison that does 7d6 poison on a failed DC 15 Constitution Save & is CR 6, so they can both do similar amounts of damage with their poison.

Thoughts? How would you make a large creature even larger, specifically when special abilities are involved?

 

[jgsugden]

You hit on the right idea - steal from another creature to balance it. I'd use the wyvern as a template, make it huge, replace the movement/flight/bite attacks with claws and try to keep at the same expected damage.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

It is true bigger critters need poison less than smaller ones, but paralyzing or slowing (rather than killing) poison is useful (the bigger you are, the more energy you spend chasing something down), so you might change it to imposing a different condition (or treating the victim as being affected by a slow spell) instead of doing poison damage.

 

[akr71]

I was also playing with the idea of giving the creature a pool of 'poison dice' which it could spend on stinger attacks. I quickly dismissed this idea because
a) it is fiddly and as the DM, I have enough to track
b) any opponent it deems easy enough to subdue that it does not need its poison, such as humanoids, its claw attacks are likely more than sufficient
c) poison is a defense as much as it an offensive asset - its poison needs to pack enough punch that anything big enough to think about tackling this thing is potentially gonna get knocked on its arse

 

[tardigrade]

From a (vaguely) biological perspective, it might depend on the scorpion's origin. The poison of a magically-enlarged scorpion would presumably have the same strength as before. An evolved hunting scorpion would need to incapacitate prey of a certain size, so it would depend what it eats; if it eats regular cows it needs to knock out a cow. If it's some sort of legendary animal or demigod then of course all bets are off.

In terms of making it truly huge, I'd consider treating each body part as a separate creature with its own hp and attacks. - this can work fairly well in yerms of action economy for gargantuan boss fights.

 

[Quickleaf]

A giant scorpion is a large sized beast, meaning you could ride it. That is, it could be ridden assuming the rider does not get stung to death...

What if you wanted something larger? Say huge to gigantic, similar to the things in Clash of the Titans remake. I mean, its easy enough to scale up with more hit dice and more hit points. You could even use a wyvern as a base - take away the fly speed and bite attack and add an extra claw attack.

But what about the poison? Sure, you could make the poison stronger, since the creature is bigger, but is that plausible? A bigger creature should have less need of poison.

The giant scorpion in the Monster Manual has poison that does 4d10 poison damage on a failed DC 12 Constitution Save & is a CR 3 creature. A wyvern has poison that does 7d6 poison on a failed DC 15 Constitution Save & is CR 6, so they can both do similar amounts of damage with their poison.

Thoughts? How would you make a large creature even larger, specifically when special abilities are involved?

I'd do it ecologically. Who eats giant scorpions? Purple worms. A purple worm's bite/sting does 51 damage, which is pretty close to the giant scorpion's 52 hp. Ok...

Scorpions do use their stingers to hunt, but they also use them defensively. For example, scorpions can sting one another - they're not immune to scorpion venom. They deal about 41 damage altogether. Hmm, well centaurs inhabit deserts, and they have 45 hp so that seems like possible prey.

Rule of thumb might be: imagine what it hunts and treat that critter's HP as a rough goal for the gargantuan scorpion's damage per round. Deduct damage of its claws and piercing damage of its stinger, and that gives you an approximation for how much poison damage its sting should inflict.

 

[akr71]

^Yes, a purple worm was exactly what I was thinking might hunt these things. Which means it needs to be able to go 'toe-to-toe' with them, or at least slow it down and escape.

Of course, if they were magically created by a tribe of nomadic halflings who build their houses on the scorpions' backs - wandering the desert from watering hole to watering hole - the scorpion poison would not have evolved with them to counter their predators.

The 'natural' gigantic scorpion with a powerful poison sounds more interesting. That doesn't mean a few individuals couldn't have been captured/charmed by an enterprising bunch of nomads. Somebody warn my players not to wander into the desert...

 

[Sunseeker]

A bigger creature needs not just more poison, it needs more powerful poison because it is more than likely eating bigger and more powerful creatures.

When I was revamping dragons I came up with a fairly simple size category increase:
Start with base damage, add one die per size category increase.

 

[Satyrn]

A bigger creature needs not just more poison, it needs more powerful poison because it is more than likely eating bigger and more powerful creatures.

And there's all the plausibility you should need nicely, succintly said.

 

[ScrubbWizard]

You hit on the right idea - steal from another creature to balance it. I'd use the wyvern as a template, make it huge, replace the movement/flight/bite attacks with claws and try to keep at the same expected damage.

Maybe keep the bite. Thats what a real scorpions do anyway....

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