Monster Monday - Huskron

The barbarian roared as he slammed his axe down upon the hardened shell of the curled up creature in front of him. His strength surged as he swung, but a slightly misplaced swing instead led to his axe crashing at an odd angle that sent it bouncing back. The creature rocked backwards before suddenly rocketing forward, slamming into his chest and driving the breath from his lungs. As it rolled away from the recoil of the blow, it bounced upon the ground and shot skyward only to come crashing back down upon the barbarian. As it alighted back upon the ground, it unfurled, revealing the strange, multi-legged creature formed around a rippling, flickering core.

Huskron from Zenless Zone Zero

This sinister sphere sends suspects scattering as it shoots onto the scene, squashing and smashing any scrubs with supreme severity.

I'm back from vacation with a brand new monster for you! Please consider checking out the video on the huskron to help the channel.

I've built a creature from Zenless Zone Zero before and I decided to take a crack at another one of them. The huskron is one of the new critters introduced to the game and one that I thought had a fun design. I'm always a fan of these rolly-polly sort of creatures and these extra-dimensional discount droidekas are no exception. They're simple little beasts whose main feature is curling up into a ball, but I don't mind making some simpler monsters every now and then. Its a fairly basic creature, with merely a moderate Armor Class at first glance - however, they have an ability called Defensive Curl. This isn't an entirely unique ability and can be seen on creatures such as ugvashi, which will increase its Armor Class to just above high. This greatly limits the actions it can take, but doing so also sets it up to use a number of its other abilities.

Notably, while the huskron is rolled up, it can launch itself at foes by either rolling across the ground or launching themselves into the air to come crashing down on targets. This is represented through High Roller, allowing it to Leap and make a Strike. Normally, it can only do this once per round due to the flourish - but if the huskron succeeds on a Strike, it bounces off of the target and can use the action again. This does kind of nullify a lot of the drawbacks of the huskron's Defensive Curl, which Blue expressed concern about, but I think the flourish trait and the chance of missing the Strike, as well as the limited range of a Leap, balances out that aspect. And the huskron does have another reason to want to stay in Defensive Curl, so that it can use Unbalancing Deflection. You know that I love unique reactions, and this lets the huskron cause attacks to bounce off of its hard shell and leave enemies off-guard. Similar to the swashbuckler, the huskron can also use this reaction to Strike back against foes when they critically fail their attack, based on the counterattack that it will make after agents hit it while it's curled up.

Pathfinder 2e Huskron

D&D 5e Huskron, Built by Blue

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

Rollin' Rumble: The heroes find themselves caught in a stampede of huskrons, initially taking the form of a chase or hazard that the heroes have to survive. After doing so, they find themselves forced to contend with the stragglers of the stampede.

Strange Companions: By running the huskrons alongside a larger creature, such as an ogre, that uses the rolled up huskrons as ammunition. Ogres are within their level range and are related to giants, which are known for their rock throwing abilities. Thrown huskrons may take reduced damage while rolled up and can only be thrown while in their Defensive Curl state.

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Have a monstrous Monday!