Fire rolled from the wide maw of the turtle-like creature as its squat form waddled through the verdant foliage. Its touch ignited the world around it and the ranger looked worriedly as the blaze began to spread. She grimly nocked an arrow as the barbarian hefted his axe and valiantly charged the beast. The crimson gaze of the monster narrowed and its back arched before jets of flame erupted over each of its heavy limbs, scorching across the earth and lifting the monster slightly. An streaking bolt of frost streaked from the sorcerer's hand, past the charging barbarian, to strike the beast. It staggered but maintained the roaring flames that surrounded it.
Exploring some more early level Dauntless monsters, I set my sights on the charrogg. Charroggs are blaze behemoths leveled 5 through 8 in their home game. I wanted to aim at some lower of monsters just to pad the section in my personal bestiaries, so I built the charrogg as a level 6 creature. Obviously I wanted it to have the fire trait given that it is described as a walking volcanic eruption, but its second trait came down to animal or beast. My initial inclination was animal based off of the past creatures I’ve build, but for the charrogg, there was an innate spell I wanted to give it. And animals, while occasionally having magical abilities, don’t seem to have innate spells. The only animal that I could find that did was also a unique mutant from an AP, which seems more like an exception than a rule. With that, I settled on the beast. When I build a creature, I try to see if there’s a road map I can follow, but none really fit the idea I had for the charrogg, which I wanted to be a tankier creature that survives long enough to use its spells and abilities. Thinking of it as ‘magical bruiser,’ its Strikes are a little weaker with it focusing on withstanding attacks and unleashing abilities.
With this build goal in mind, I built the charrogg with a moderate AC but a high HP. Its attacks use only a low value for its level, except for its claws, which use a moderate bonus mainly so that they can work alongside one of its abilities that we’ll talk about later. The attacks that it does make with its claws seem rather heavy, so I didn’t want to apply the agile trait to them. In most instances, its attacks don’t exceed moderate damage for its level with its tail Strike using a lower average damage than its jaws because of its reach and sweep trait. On the topic of its attacks, the reason I included that higher attack bonus for the claws is the Thrashing Tantrum, which is based off of one of charrogg’s more basic attacks where it slams the ground twice to knock hunters back and off their feat. I wanted this ability to interact with the rest of the charrogg’s kit, which is a lot of two-action ability, so I had it function akin to a monk’s Flurry of Blows with the regular MAP and flourish trait, except it gets Improved Knockdown on these Strikes to do the whole knocking people off their feet.
The first ability that I actually tried to emulate was the ball of lava that the charrogg spits out and rolls around, homing in on foes. There’s already a spell perfect for that in Pathfinder 2e, with flaming sphere functioning exactly like that as long as the charrogg sustains it. I felt like it was safe having it be an at-will spell because it has to burn an action each round if it wants to sustain it, it kept it at 2nd level, and successes against the spell mean the target takes no damage. Another neat tool in the charrogg’s arsenal is its ability to scoop up earthen matter in its tail, ignite it, and then launch the molten earth at an area. The initial area seems rather small for this, so I kept Fling Flames to target only a single creature, using an area damage range between limited and unlimited use, but then had it spread out in an area of hazardous terrain. I was debating whether I wanted its ability to launch fire from its flame sacs to be an aura or an activated ability, but from my research, it doesn’t use it as regularly as I remembered, so I designed Fire Jets as a two-action ability. It uses the damage of an unlimited use ability and since it isn’t an aura, it uses the opportunity to use a high DC for this effect that otherwise behaves as an aura because the charrogg does maintain it for a while after activating it.
The final ability I designed was based not on a specific attack that the charrogg performed, but something I observed. Sometimes, after launching that blazing earthen matter from its tail, fires would lick from its limb as it swung it around. This seemed like a neat feature so I built the Channel Flames reaction, allowing the charrogg to use its different abilities and then enhance its Strikes with fire damage. This extra d6 increases the average damage of each of its Strikes to the next category – its average jaws damage becomes high for its level and the average damage of its claws and tail become moderate. This forces the charrogg to intermix its Strikes with the use of its abilities while also allowing it to get the occasional move.
Pathfinder 2e:
I also built a weapon designed around the charrogg! I was especially inspired because I saw that charrogg had some unique gear, the molten edict or the skullforge. I let my testers decide which I was gonna build and they just really liked the sound of the molten edict, so here it is! Obviously, I wanted this weapon to have the flaming property rune, which unfortunately meant that I had to design it at a higher level than the charrogg. I also thought the molten edict’s ability of simply launching fireballs was kinda boring, so instead, the PF2e version of it, launches enemies and turns them into a fireball!
Pathfinder 2e Equipment:
Obviously, with the ability to use spells, the charrogg was going to be a magical beast. This led to a strange stat where the PF1e charrogg has a 16 Charisma so that it can have a spell DC that isn’t complete garbage, which is especially important for a spell that deals no damage if the target succeeds on the save. The easiest way to translate its Thrashing Tantrum over to 1e was by adding trip onto its claws while its uses Cleave to replace the sweep trait of its tail. I have no idea why I changed the name of Fling Flames into Flaming Fling, but these abilities are always somewhat strange to design as I always have trouble find something similar to reference in PF1e. Since Fire Jets are a big area with high damage in PF1e, I decided it was best to have them activate as a full-round action. The charrogg definitely needs to measure when it uses its ability, but it could become horrifying if players come across a charrogg in a room with dimensions smaller than the area.
Pathfinder 1e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Violence in the Volcano: A clutch of charrogg have taken up residence within a dormant volcano that has begun to reignite from their presence. The heroes are asked to remove them from their lair before they result in the volcano erupting and threatening nearby settlements. However, one of the charroggs has developed into a firebrand charrogg and when the heroes reach it, it remains perched above, raining down spheres of magma upon its adversaries as its kin harasses them.
If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures I'm working on or just discussing your own homebrew works, check out our Discord! If you want to get some teasers or help us get to our yet unlisted milestones for extra content, check out the Twitter.
A few weeks ago, I started a YouTube channel called Ready to Die that is about making monsters and essentially just a video format of what I do here. The latest video covers the charrogg, and there is also the Twitch video of the charrogg monster test! Please check them out or share them with others, and then let me know what you think. Still learning how to best make these.
Have a monstrous Monday!
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