15’ reach indeed, but I’m still thinking about the feat. It’ll probably get one feat as bonus.
thom99 said:
Say didn't the gambado get redone recently? It has a spring/jump attack as well I think - might be worth checking it out.
the Tome of Horrors version does spring to attack, but there is no special ability written up for this. Same thing with the older
Creature Catalog version.
For reference, here is the stirge’s attach attack, which I mentioned above:
Attach (Ex): If a stirge hits with a touch attack, it uses its eight pincers to latch onto the opponent’s body. An attached stirge is effectively grappling its prey. The stirge loses its Dexterity bonus to AC and has an AC of 12, but holds on with great tenacity. Stirges have a +12 racial bonus on grapple checks (already figured into the Base Attack/Grapple entry above).
An attached stirge can be struck with a weapon or grappled itself. To remove an attached stirge through grappling, the opponent must achieve a pin against the stirge.
breaking down some sections from Dragon #197:
“It is named for its lashing attack, in which it tries to drive an envenomed sting into an opponent. The strike of an attacking whipsting makes a loud, whiplike crack audible up to 70’ away.”
“A whipsting usually waits for prey with one tentacle curled underneath itself to form a natural spring. If facing a large foe, a whipsting often avoids attacking or seeks to flee altogether by using this curled tentacle to leap about in a constant bobbing or bouncing pattern, like a pogo stick. Otherwise, its initial attack consists of suddenly straightening this tentacle to propel itself from its ledge or fissure in a wild spring that ends in a lashing whip of the whipsting’s body, which drives its envenomed sting deep into the opponent ( +4 to hit).”
Flavor text? Or should the “spring attack” with a +4 bonus be some sort of Ex ability?
“The whipsting then tries to constrict, smother, or strangle prey by remaining attached to it, slapping with its tentacles to drive home its two stings. A whipsting’s sting strikes for 1 hp damage.”
And this would form the basis of the Attach or Improved Grab or whatnot? Or that could just be more flavor text.
“A strike also injects its venom into or onto its prey (the poison is effective both internally and by skin contact).”
“The prey must save versus poison at -2 to avoid the venom effects. If the save fails, the prey shudders uncontrollably on the round following the sting-strike. Nausea and weakness ruin all attacks and spellcasting attempted by the victim on that round, and cause the automatic dropping of all wielded or carried objects. Tasks requiring high manual dexterity, such as picking a lock or writing a message, are impossible. The victim also suffers a one-round armor-class penalty of 1. On subsequent rounds, the victim can move normally but is still weak; attacks are at a -3 penalty to attack and damage rolls initially, -2 on the round following,-1 on the next round, and normal thereafter. Each successful whipsting strike results in another round of shuddering (as described above) unless saved against. Every successful whipsting attack must be saved against even if the target creature has previously escaped venom effects by a successful saving throw.”
“Whipstings are themselves immune to the effects of all whipsting venom.”
And here is the poison. Sounds like some nausea, perhaps some Str and Dex damage as well. We can make this a non-standard sort of venom attack, or try to fit it into the standard sort of poison listing.
I see Ability Focus in there, but we are already loading this 1-HD monster up with feats. I’ll tell you one thing I saw quite a bit of (that I never really noticed before) while I was working on my project for XRP is racial bonuses to save DC’s. go ahead, they’re in there; check out the rust monster, monstrous spider, roper, and a few others I can’t recall at the moment. I think we should use that when we have something with a lower DC than we should expect.
Also, the text provides a variant:
“Stingwings: Approximately 10% of all encountered whipstings have gauzy, fragile wings that allow them to glide down from heights without damage or jump farther than wingless whipstings, up to 60’ horizontally. Such wings can be regenerated in 1-3 days if damaged. The wings cannot be targeted in combat, but a captured “stingwing” could have its wings cut off (wings have AC 10 and 1 hp), and they will automatically be destroyed by any sort of area-effect flame spell.”
Which I rewrote as:
About one tenth of all whipstings are called stingwings, and have a set of tiny, flimsy, transparent wings. These wings provide a stingwing with a fly speed of 30 feet per round (average maneuverability) and a +X racial bonus on Jump checks. These wings can be easily cut off with a slashing weapon if a stingwing is held down or helpless, and are automatically destroyed if a stingwing suffers any fire damage. Severing or destroying a stingwing’s wings does no damage to the creature. A stingwing fully regrows its wings in 1d3 days.
