I Need a Sea Monster

[Scribble]

Lets see from my list, this one would be best:
Tendril of Dagon: Level 10:

• Reach of 2
• Normal Tentacle attack also grabs
• Has a Drag attack (for grabbed targets)
• Threatening Reach of 2

For the ramming attack. I personally wouldn't have that as part of the monster. Instead it would be a terrain feature. Since the ramming would rock the ship, so could have the PCs sliding over the deck, etc.

I messed around with the roper a bit.

I gave it a smash attack, that damages the ship, and does a secondary reflex attack against anyone standing on the thing it rams. Failure = knocked prone.

I personally wouldn't use a monster so much as An Encounter monster.

But if you insist on a monster in and of itself, what I would do: treat different parts of the monster as different monsters itself.

Tentacle: Controller.
Claw: Brute.

Have two of each come out of the water and attack the boat. After say, half of them are killed, have the head show up:

Head: Elite Controller or Elite Brute.

That's an intersting idea... I'll think about that one.

I do plan to add some other terrain features that the PCs will also have to overcome- like crashing waves, and a rocking hull...

I'm trying to play around with the level of the monster and terrain stuff because I'm also going to put some weapons on the ship the PCs can access.

 

[Kaodi]

I was trying to think of something visually squidgy, so here is a brief flavour description that I came up with:

A large aquatic creature, that from a distance in murky waters may be mistaken for a squid; it has a huge conic shell with many knobby portrusions, and out of the opening comes a mass of thick "tentacles" that all end in a lamprey like mouth.

It can do everything: Ram, drag, grab, chew, look nasty, and slice julienne fries.

 

[blargney the second]

I made a sea monster for one of my last 3.5 games. I drew fairly heavily on 4e solo monster design while making it, so it shouldn't be terribly hard to convert over.
-blarg

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The dreaded sea monster... A re-ocurring request in 3E, and now in 4E?

Some things never change.
WotC, may I ask you to go back to the drawing boards. If we don't have a decent Sea Serpent (at multiple levls) and a decent Tentacled Sea Monster (at multiple levels) by MM 3, we will... we will... ask again, I guess.

 

[Trolls]

So you need a tentacled sea monster, eh? Why not go with a classic...the kraken!

A while ago I created a solo kraken at level 12, so it's close to the level you're after. It's built as 8 minions (the arms), 2 brutes (the tentacles) and a controller (the body/mouth). The idea is you can emulate all the classic movies where the heroes start hacking off tentacles before the body surfaces an it starts eating people. It can slam, grab, crush, drag and swallow, amongst other things, so it ticks most of the boxes.
I've used it in my own games, and I think it works really well.

Kraken - level 12 solo

 

[Aeolius]

The dreaded sea monster... A re-ocurring request in 3E, and now in 4E?

As shown in this thread ?

How about a half-fiend (myrmyxicus) dragon turtle? Dragon turtles get no respect at all.

 

[the Jester]

As an aside, I just want to mention how cool it is that 4e monster design is so easy and fun for the dm.

 

[Bumbles]

Beware the dreaded Sea Cow!

 

[Aeolius]

Beware the dreaded Sea Cow!

Oh the Hugh Manatee?

 

[MortalPlague]

Otyugh! Reach 3 and auto-grab on melee attacks. I have a lovely Otyugh Ranger (Level 8 Elite) which might be a good starting point!