Gammaroid Working Draft
Gammaroid
Colossal Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 100d10+1,300 (1,850 hp)
Initiative: +6
Speed: 20 ft. (4 square), fly 450 ft. (clumsy), burrow 20 ft.
Armor Class: 60 (–8 size, –2 Dex, +60 natural), touch 0, flat-footed 60
Base Attack/Grapple: +100/+148
Attack: Bite +125 melee (16d6+32/19–20)
Full Attack: Bite +125 melee (16d6+32/19–20) and 2 claws +125 melee (3d8+16/19–20)
Space/Reach: 500 ft./200 ft.
Special Attacks: Flame sheath, improved grab, ramming, swallow whole
Special Qualities: Camouflage, damage reduction 15/—, fast healing 3, fortification, fire immunity, hardened abilities, low-light vision, retract, spinning flight, starborn
Saves: Fort +71, Ref +56, Will +40
Abilities: Str 74, Dex 6, Con 37, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 8
Skills: Spot +104
Feats: Cleave, Damage Reduction (×5), Diehard, Dire Charge, Endurance, Epic Endurance, Epic Fortitude, Epic Prowess, Epic Reflexes, Epic Will, Fast Healing, Flyby Attack, Great Cleave, Great Fortitude, Hover, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Critical (claw), Improved Bull Rush, Improved Initiative, Improved Multiattack, Improved Overrun, Improved Sunder, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack, Power Attack, Snatch, Stand Still, Superior Initiative, Wingover
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 42
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 101+ HD (Colossal)
Level Adjustment: —
A turtle of almost inconceivable size, with a head the size of a fortress and a body as big as an island. Its shell resembles an ancient asteroid pitted with meteor craters. The creature's sharp-edged, hook-tipped beak and massive claws suggest it is a predator.
Gammaroids are enormous space-going turtles that appear to be distant relatives of the giant snapping turtle. These voracious beasts prey on other spaceborn lifeforms, with their favorite food being gossamer nobles. Gammaroids tend to ignore humanoid-scale creatures and spelljamming vessels, but a particularly hungry one may try to smash a ship apart to devour its occupants.
A resting gammaroid is hard to distinguish from an asteroid. Many victims who wandered close to one only realize their mistake when the gammeroid's head shoots out of its shell and seizes them in its jaws.
Female gammaroids visit planets to spawn. They seek out volcanic areas and burrow miles underground until they find a suitable pocket of magma, where they lay a clutch of two to eight eggs. The eggs take up to five decades to hatch. The newborn hatchlings tunnel upwards, devouring any subterranean creature they happen upon, until they reach the surface and fly into space.
A typically gammaroid measures about 1500 feet from snout to tail, with a shell up to 1000 feet across, and weighs at least 2 million tons. The largest specimens can have shells 2,500 feet in diameter or more.
COMBAT
An attacking gammaroid likes to use its Ramming attack, especially against numerous opponents smaller than itself. If it faces a substantial foe, such as a truly Colossal monster or massive spelljamming ship, it strikes with both claws and bite with a Dire charge or full attack, usually adding at least 25 points of Power Attack to its attacks.
Camouflage (Ex): Gammaroids are so massive their own gravity accretes a layer of rocks and dust upon a body. This covering allows a gammaroid to pull its head and limbs into its shell and imitate an asteroid. So long as the gammaroid does not move, it requires a DC 25 Spot check for another creature to notice the imposture.
A gammaroid loses this camouflage coating if it moves by Spinning Flight, since the centripetal forces of its rotation hurls the accreted material away. It must replace the coating if it wishes to use Camouflage again. In areas thick in dust and rocks, such as a planetary ring, a gammaroid can cover itself in camouflaging material in an hour or so. In an asteroid belt it may take days or weeks of accretion to create this covering, or up to several months if the asteroid belt is particularly thin.
Flame Sheath (Ex): A gammaroid using Spinning Flight can envelop itself in a fireball of superheated air as a free action. This Flame Sheath has a diameter of 2,000 feet and does 12d6 fire damage per round to everything within it. The Flame Sheath is centered on the gammaroid and moves as the gammaroid moves. A gammaroid can maintain a Flame Sheath for as long as it wishes, but the Flame Sheath immediately ends if the gammaroid stops using Spinning Flight.
A gammaroid cannot create a Flame Sheath when surrounded by vacuum, since the heat and flames will instantly disperse into an airless void. This is not usually a problem for a gammaroid travelling in space, since their own gravity field carries an air envelope along with the creature.
Fortification (Ex): Whenever a critical hit or sneak attack is scored on a gammaroid there is a 75% chance that the special attack is negated and its damage is rolled normally, similar to the effect of armor enchanted with the Moderate Fortification quality. This chance increases to 100% when the gammaroid withdraws its appendages into its shell.
Hardened Abilities (Ex): A gammaroid is so enormous that it ignores the first 10 points from any ability drain or ability damage attack it receives. (e,g, an attack that would normally do 13 Dexterity damage would only inflict 3 Dex damage to a gammaroid).
Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, the gammaroid must hit with its bite attack. If it gets a hold, it automatically deals bite damage and can attempt to swallow the opponent.
Ramming (Ex): As a standard action, a gammaroid that is using Spinning Flight (see below) can fly at up to triple speed (1,350 feet) and ram any target whose space it enters, usually a spelljamming ship or flying creature. If the ramming attack hits an object weighing at least one-tenth as much as the gammaroid, the gammaroid must end its movement in the target's space. This attack deals 12d12+48 points of damage, plus an additional 12d6 fire if the gammaroid is employing its Flame Sheathe ability (see above). If the target is a creature, it can attempt either an attack of opportunity or a DC 92 Reflex save for half damage. The save DC is Strength-based.
If a gammaroid rams a ship, in addition to the above damage it also makes a Strength check to breach its hull. The breach DC varies with the type of vessel rammed, but is normally 18 plus 1 per 10 feet of length, although an adjustment of between –5 to +10 may apply due to the sturdiness of design, materials and/or craftsmanship. A typical 50-foot merchant ship or 75-foot longship is breach DC of 25, a typical 100-foot warship is DC 30 (See Chapter 5 of the DMG for information about ships). Success normally holes the hull, causing the ship to founder in 1d10 minutes. Success by 15 or more (e.g. a result of 40+ against a breach DC 25 longship) immediately destroys the ship by shearing the hull in half or smashing it to splinters.
Regardless of the check result, every creature aboard a ship rammed by a gammaroid must attempt a DC 20 Reflex saving throw. Success means the creature takes 1d12 points of damage from being thrown about by the impact; failure means the creature is hurled overboard.
Retract (Ex): A gammaroid can pull in its head and limbs to protect its vulnerable areas. While retracted, the gammaroid can still fly, but is unable to use its land or burrow speed. A retracted gammaroid can sense its surroundings normally and attack by ramming or flame shroud, but cannot use its bite or claw attacks. Retracting into its shell grants the gammaroid heavy fortification (100% resistance to critical hits), plus a +20 bonus to its natural armor bonus, a +10 bonus to its damage reduction and a +4 bonus to its Reflex saving throws.
Spinning Flight (Ex): A gammaroid that has retracted into its shell can spin around with incredible speed while flying. If the spinning gammaroid makes a double move action (such as a charge attack), it can move three times its normal flying speed (1,350 ft.). A gammaroid that uses the run action while in spinning flight still only moves four times its normal speed (1,800 ft.), or five times (2,250 ft.) if it has the Run feat.
Starborn (Ex): A gammaroid can exist comfortably in the harsh conditions of space. A gammaroid takes no damage from radiation or fire and is immune to pressure and decompression damage, so can move easily between the vacuum of space to the crushing magma beneath a planet's crust.
Swallow Whole (Ex): A gammaroid can try to swallow a grabbed opponent with a Space up to 50 ft. by making a successful grapple check. It can also swallow a non-resisting creature or object with a Space up to 100 ft. as a full round action. Once inside, the opponent takes 8d6+32 points of crushing damage plus 8d6 points of acid damage per round from the gammaroid's digestive juices. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 60 points of damage to the gammaroid’s gut (AC 40). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out. A gammaroid's interior can hold 6 Colossal, 25 Gargantuan, 100 Huge, 400 Large, or 1600 Medium or smaller opponents.
Carrying Capacity: Due to their prodigious size and sturdy build, gammaroids can bear immensely heavy loads. Their carrying capacity is a hundred times that of an ordinary creature with their size and Strength. A typical gammaroid can carry a light load of up to 286,720 tons, a medium load of 286,721-573,440 tons, a heavy load of 573,441-860,160 tons, and can drag 4,300,800 tons.
Originally appeared in MC9 - Spelljammer Monstrous Compendium (1991).