Monster Monday - Chatacabra

A growling, gravelly roar emerged from the vast maw of the heavyset beast alongside its thick tongue. Built like a gorilla, it had a toad-like head with a wide mouth and a thick, pebbly hide that alternated between smooth and scaly. It pounded heavy arms against the ground before lowering its maw and charging towards the shocked sorceress. The earth churned in its wake as it dug a violent path towards her, culminating in a mighty blow that nearly knocked her from her feet. As she stumbled backward, it emerged from the culvert it had inadvertently dug, slamming one fist after the other onto the solid ground. Its arms were coated in a heavy layer of grit and stone, turning the already powerful limbs into stony bludgeons the chatacabra was more than ready to bring to bear.

We’ve finally made it back to the series of Monster Hunter! I actually picked up Monster Hunter Wilds on my computer, but it has performed so terribly that I have hunted all of two creatures – which is something I want to do before building them. I’m gonna present those two this week and next, starting with the two I’ve actually faced. The first of those is, obviously, the so-called cladding frog, the chatacabra. I built this burly frog as a brute, which should be apparent from its numbers to begin with. Its high Hit Points are offset by a moderate Armor Class even if targeting components requires hitting an AC that is 1 point above high for its level. Both of its attacks use a high attack bonus with it having a high damage fist, which also has the forceful trait for even more damage, and then a tail with only moderate damage bus featuring longer reach and a sweep trait that increases its accuracy. This makes a pretty straightforward design to begin with, but the chatacabra has a few tricks up its sleeves and can be difficult to pin down.

Just before we begin talking about those, I want to talk Gather Grit. This is one of those single action buffing abilities that I like designing and is based off of the way the chatacabra got its epithet – covering its limbs in stone and ores to give it heavier blows and also harden its limbs. This changes the attack bonus of its fist to merely moderate while also increasing its damage to extreme to keep in line with its design as a brute. The other aspect of this ability is the parry trait it grants and the protection it can provide through Stony Shield, a reaction that is pretty much just Shield Block but using its stone-cladded limbs. This is actually how to remove the chatacabra’s Gathered Grit and return its arms to merely high to-hit and damage. Another option to follow up this action is Crater Crush, which is based on the big dual-arm slam that the chatacabra performs. When I experienced this attack, which I chose to represent with the damage of its fist Strike at a high DC Reflex save, one thing I noticed was a cloud of dust and debris that it left behind. I chose to represent that through it creating a cloud of concealment following this effect, which offers the chatacabra even more protection on top of its Gather Grit and Stony Shield.

Outside of those abilities, the chatacabra has a passive in the form of Incredible Leaps. Baseline, this just gives it Quick Jump but it does have another effect. The might leaps of the chatacabra shake the earth at the point of its departure and its landing. As such, creatures around it in either area must attempt a high DC Fortitude save to avoid being knocked prone, potentially setting it up to rain down blows or slowing down potential pursuers. Something I like about this is that it is a different sort of save than its Crater Crush, which is something I often aim for when designing a monster though not always since it is nice to have some variety. We then round out the chatacabra’s abilities with Tearing Charge. This is pretty much just Sudden Charge or something like powerful charge with the action economy of it, but instead of increasing damage as the latter often does, the chatacabra churns through the earth and leaves behind difficult terrain. This is admittedly more of a visual effect in-game it seems, but it felt like a fun feature that I didn’t want to pass up on.

The last things to take into consideration for the chatacabra is its grit gloves. It’s been a minute since I made magical items for a creature, so it was fun getting back into that. Other than that, it is a very simple item that is just about bringing the fists of the chatacabra into the literal hands of the players. It might be a bit much, just adding the forceful trait, and maybe it needs to include something like ‘adds the forceful trait to unarmed attacks that lack the agile trait’ but I’ll leave that up to you guys to make that decision. Otherwise, I like the design and concept behind them and hope you do so as well.

This troublesome, titanic toad touts terrific toughness and tenacity, tearing up terra and tossing targets in a traumatizing tangling tango.

Pathfinder 2e:

Blue’s D&D 5e:

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

Toad of Toad Haul: The heroes find themselves part of a festival that features something of a reversal of the running of the bulls – rather, the chasing of the toad. Raised by the village, the chatacabra only makes nonlethal attacks but the goal is to chase the chatacabra, which uses stuff like Tearing Charge and Incredible Leaps to slow down heroes or others trying to pursue it. Those that use deadly force on the town’s chatacabra are disqualified immediately but the first hero or team to subdue it are dubbed as the winners.

A Load of Toad: A recent mining expedition has uncovered a vein of rare metal while simultaneously managed to disturb the habitat of a chatacabra. The heroes are tasked with dealing with this threat, but the chatacabra is uniquely armed. It uses the metal of the mine it inhabits to coat its arms with when using Gather Grit, which might confer unique properties to it. In a siccatite mine, the chatacabra may find itself capable of dealing additional cold or fire damage while an abysium mine might allow the chatacabra to deal bonus poison damage or inflict sickened with its Strikes. There’s a wide range of possibilities to consider, which might be fun!

Regrettably, there’s no Monster Mash for this creepy critter, but I hope you’ll check out the YouTube video on it! I’ll apologize for the lack of clips on it – Monster Hunter Wilds somehow got even worse since I first downloaded it and I haven’t been able to record new clips for it. If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures/builds 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.

Have a monstrous Monday!