Common
Starfish have an interesting method of predation.
First the sea star grab its prey with an arm and wrap its arms and body around it, cracking open the victim's shell (starfish arms move very slowly but very powerfully, they are literally hydraulically powered).
The sea star then everts its cardiac stomach from its mouth and either engulfs their prey entirely or stick their stomach
inside the prey's cracked-open shell. It then flood their everted stomach with digestive enzymes to break down their meal. The resulting meat slushie is sucked into the starfish's internal pyloric stomach and guts to be digested.
So sea stars use external digestion and are able to eat prey too large for them to swallow whole. The cardiac portion of the stomach of most starfish can dissolve a meal piecemeal if it's too large to engulf in one piece. (There are some primitive species that can only handle smaller prey they can swallow whole, but I'll assume our Monster Version isn't one of them.)
So I was thinking the
Actions would be:
- An Arms attack that restrains and does bludgeoning damage.
- A Engulf attack that does continuous acid damage plus bludgeoning damage to a restrained creature, maybe with advantage to hit a rigid armoured opponents (giant clams, crabs, guys in plate armour et cetera) as Sea Stars specialize in cracking open such creature's hard exteriors.
I mused about giving it
Multiattack so it make an
Arms attack for crushing plus an
Engulf attack for the acid digestion but decided it made more sense if the Engulf just included bludgeoning damage to reflect that the starfish is continuing to pry open its meal with its arms.