The fighter extended an arm, catching the rogue as she lost her balance upon the earth rolling beneath their feet. She flashed a thankful smile as the cleric and wizard behind them picked themselves up and a great, trilling roar seemed to well up from the ground. Seconds later, it split and an vast creature erupted from the wound in the earth. A violet, serpentine figure rose high into the air, towering over the party of heroes until it nearly blotted out the sun. Acidic drool dripped from its fanged maw as it fixed a twelve-eyed glare upon them. Flanking its central head were a pair of writhing, worm-like extensions that ended in viciously toothed mouths that slavered hungrily. Along the ground, stumpy legs tipped in thick talons scrabbled at the dirt, digging furrows in anticipation of the meal arrayed before it. Another reverberating roar erupted its multiple mouths as the band of adventurers readied themselves for combat.
It was a bit of task taking on a build for Baron Nashor, but at least it’s abilities are nicely defined. As a quick rundown for its numbers, its hp is a little high for its level, which coupled with fast healing, may make it overbearing, but in return, its AC is low. Its attack bonus is perfectly within range for its level though its average damage is a little high – this is balanced by having all but one of its attacks be secondary attacks, making them less likely to hit. Its saves end up leaning more heavily towards Will due to it being an aberration though Fortitude feels more appropriate for it.
Baron Nashor has immunity to many crowd control type debuffs, represented by its immunities as well the unstoppable ability borrowed from the behemoth monsters. As a static ability, Nashor has the baron’s gaze, which reduces damage from the last unit if attacked. This felt overly complicated to bring into a TTRPG, so I remade it into a general aura that effectively deals a ray of enfeeblement to all those around it, crippling Strength to reduce damage. In addition to this crippling effect, Baron’s attacks also reduce armor and magic resistance with voracious corrosion, which here is made to allow Baron Nashor to take Accursed Critical and inflict bestow curse even though it normally lacks it as a spell-like ability. This bestow curse effect is meant to stand in for its corrosion though I specifically avoided including Void Corruption, which causes Voracious Corrosion to spread between targets as this again felt like it didn’t fit in this sort of game.
For its ability to spit a line of acid, it takes a very simple breath weapon, and it borrows from the abilities of true dragons for its tail sweep though this lacks a knock-up effect. Nashor can also launch a cluster of spikes behind it, which has the fantastic name of ‘area-of-effect rear attack.’ I decided to switch this to a radius attack around it and give it a slightly more flavorful name with erupting spikes. This attack inflicts a very brief stun, which I replicated with the spikes slowing or trapping victims that can’t get out of the way. The damage for this ability is kept a little lower to give reason to use other abilities – the area is greater than tail sweep and has a grappling effect, but is offset by having a cooldown and lower damage. Its big damage is still its breath weapon though as a line, it can be the hardest to land on multiple targets.
Pathfinder 1e:
The test for Baron Nashor is probably best described as a mess. It went on for twelve rounds mostly because the players couldn’t seem to roll above an 8 and I had to make several changes to it mid-combat. Of particular note was how gruesomely oppressive it was with the Attack of Opportunity combined with its great reach. It was only meant to be an easy encounter, but three different characters ended up going down throughout the fight and they struggled to land hits consistently enough on it to overcome its fast healing – but from what we observed, it was very poor rolls that saved the Baron rather than an overtuning of his stats. However, given his immunity to flanking, one of the most common ways to inflict the flat-footed condition for melee characters, from all-around vision, I did opt to lower his AC by a single point.
For the 2e Baron’s Gaze, translating it over to enfeebled was pretty simple whereas Voracious Corrosion was changed over to a static and stacking penalty on the victim’s defenses that only triggers on crits to keep the power from becoming too oppressive. It uses a DC for this effect in between a moderate and high DC for its level because an ability of this nature in Pathfinder 2e, where each bonus or penalty of 1 really matters, increases the likelihood of the Baron landing more crits and forcing players to make more saves against it – with their lowered save bonus. Most of its abilities match those in its 1st edition version aside from Spew Acid Pool, which I had trouble translating over to First Edition. The duration and damage was fine, but I based it off of the stone spikes spell, which meant that creatures simply standing in it didn’t take acid damage as long as they didn’t move. It was altered so that a creature standing there would take damage. Fanged Fury allows Baron to make use of his powerful attacks in conjunction with his various two-action abilities such as Spike Eruption, which I think is the ability I enjoyed designing the most, and Acid Spray, which is a bit more standard. In regards to its more standard attacks, I wanted to make sure that they all felt different but had a reason to use them. His spikes and tail have a longer range with the former being able to erupt from the ground, surprising unprepared foes that is reflected through the backstabber trait. Its big damage ability is its jaws whereas its minor jaws use the agile trait to have a better chance to hit.
I refrained from delving into what exactly the Hand of the Baron does for two reasons. The first that is it’s main ability, the empowering of minions, is difficult to properly translate over to a game such as Pathfinder. Secondly, I think that it is something that GMs should come up with to suit their own games, something to fit the story that they’re telling.
Pathfinder 2e:
Blue’s D&D 5e:
Encounter Hooks: Given the nature of Baron Nashor, he isn't terribly conducive to varied encounter hooks. He mostly resides within his demesne and attacks any who intrude upon it. The heroes may be sent to slay the monster before it tries to expand on its territory, claim its might to face an enemy, or defeat it to lay claim to mythic power/unique relics.
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Have a monstrous Monday!
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