MM2 Excerpt: Remorahz

[Arivendel]

Heres today Excerpt

Remorahz

 

[Hawke]

Chomp! This actually goes pretty nicely with a potential story arc involving the Prince of Frost as presented in the article in Dungeon this month. I know I love creatures with special grab abilities as nothing causes more fear in my players voices during combat.

Anybody have an idea behind the name?

Nice to see an excerpt... the last week of the month really should be where they hit excerpts pretty hard - it's a bummer to get stuff to look forward to three times a week and then have a week of galleries/maps/compliations (which I love - don't get me wrong - just nothing new).

Edit: From wikipedia:

In the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the Remorhaz is an iconic Magical Beast that lives in the arctic. It is vaguely similar to the frost worm.

The appearance of a remorhaz is somewhat difficult to describe. One might say it resembles a gigantic (5 feet (1.5m) wide and 20 feet (6m) long) centipede, only with longer legs. It is segmented, and each segment is jagged and heavily armored. The lower segments of its body bear legs, while the uppermost ones have webbed spines which look like a cobra's fan. Protruding from the back, with two on each segment, are big, red, jewel-like lumps which radiate extreme heat. The jagged, bladed head of the Remorhaz is almost impossible to describe, though it can be noted that it has four antenna-like growths, two coming from the chin/cheeks and two from the forehead. The Remorhaz is bluish-white in color, but has a reddish glow caused by its extreme body heat.

The remorhaz, like the frost worm and many other D&D beasts, attacks by waiting beneath the ground (or in the remorhaz's case, the snow) until it can sense prey walking above. It uses its body heat to melt the snow above it and then bursts up and ambushes the victim. It can be perfectly deadly by using its claws, grabbing and grappling with opponents, and swallowing foes whole, but because it is so hot, merely touching the creature causes fire damage.

Now that sure beats the 4 lines of fluff that come with the 4E article

I just noticed, too, the picture on the link & the picture in the excerpt are different. That's kind of cool of them, I like them both.

 

[Dionysos]

Is it just me, or are the new monsters a bit nastier than the ones we have so far? If so, awesome. Most the monsters in the MM, Draconomicon and Open Grave are seriously wussy.

 

[Jack99]

They do indeed follow the trend from the previous excerpts, which is nastier monsters. However, they haven't changed the hit points on this one.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

To get out, you need to deal 30 damage... Well, that might be difficult for some.

 

[Mentat55]

Looks good, captures the burrowing, grabbing, and searing heat-feel of the remorhaz. But I can't help but be a bit disappointed with the actions available to it, especially for an elite. One minor at-will, but that one is quite conditional, and an immediate reaction usable only when bloodied? I guess the damaging aura acts as something of an additional "action", but I think I might have made trample a move action.

 

[yesnomu]

Hmm. Fire resistance, anyone?

This looks more entertaining than the similar Purple Worm--and unlike that one, I can see someone being swallowed nearly every turn with this guy.

Higher Reflex than AC, that's definitely a new one! Poor casters.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes his scales seem very soft...

but it used to have magic resiatance in older editions IIRC... so higher NADs seems ok.

Regarding hitpoints: he desperately needs them because his area attack allows him only to move through squares and so he is a victim of many opportunity attacks.

 

[Eccles]

As Yesnomu said, anyone who can get Fire Resistance 10 from somewhere's going to be thoroughly underwhelmed by the remorahz - it'll barely scratch them as all its heat based powers deal precisely 10 damage...

 

[Plane Sailing]

Its swallow damage is seriously downgraded from previous editions (especially 1e!). I might be tempted to increase the fire damage it causes to swallowed creatures.

I think that as a big burrowing creature I might paste onto it some of the landsharks burrowing-based powers too (as I do with the purple worm).

Thinks: it is an epic foe. How easy/hard is it to get resist 10 fire at epic levels?

Cheers