Great wings flared out, blocking the sun and casting the party into shadow lit only by colorful luminescence running along the creature’s body. Long whiskers extended from a broad head accented by fins, drifting upon the air. Needle-like fangs filled its broad maw as its yellow eyes focused on the heroes standing before it. Water began to seep from its smooth flesh, dripping onto the ground beneath it. The water formed into puddles that swiftly grew into pools and then streams that flooded towards the heroes. As they struggled to keep their footing against the sudden current, electricity began to arc across its smooth skin as it reached towards the watery flow…
I'm back with a Monster Hunter creature, this time with the elder dragon drawn from the deepest, darkest depths - namielle, the abyss dragon. While I typically design elder dragons at 18th level, the folks felt that this watery wyvern was a touch weaker than most elder dragons and thus we settled on level 17 for it. Like many dragons in Pathfinder 2e, it's something of a powerhouse with its high AC, Hit Points, and attack bonus and also comes with a wide range of powers to bring to bear.
Central to its kit is the rather simply named Puddle, a solid third action ability that allows it to create a limited space of difficult terrain that it can evade with its flight. Puddles also have a secondary effect when electricity is applied to them, erupting in a violent burst of steam that deals slightly more than unlimited use damage at a high DC and then leaves behind an area that makes creatures within concealed. I know I've heard some GMs complain about having more effects on the battlefield to keep track of, but I personally like this sort of effect and it matches the water that the namielle spreads around the habitat in Monster Hunter. It can use Undertow along with its Puddles, which is a three-action ability given its range, safety, multiple attack compression, and lack of a cooldown. Partially related to its puddles is the beam of water it launches, its Torrent Blast. This is a rather straightforward line effect with damage slightly below limited use and a high DC that leaves behind a Puddle beneath the first creature struck. This slightly lower damage gets shifted to another ability in its kit that we'll discuss in a bit.
As an alternative third action to its Puddle, the namielle can Gather Power to represent the different super states it enters within its home game. Charged is more offensive based, giving it electricity damage to trigger its puddles, but it also gets access to its Flowing Flight, which is based on one of the most iconic abilities that I remember from my fights against it - where it glides over a hunter and then closes its wings around them, briefly resembling a jellyfish. It can also use Defensive Jolt to get off extra damage when a creature Strikes it. Alternatively, its hydrated state enhances its defensive capabilities by giving it physical resistance but increases its fire weakness as this state is said to increase the elemental damage it takes.
The namielle's final ability is Flash Flood, which is its big ultimate attack. In game, this involves the namielle releasing a rush of water and then flying up before evaporating it. It's a little simplified in this version, just being an emanation with an admittedly unique interaction of behaving like a Puddle - and spreading to other Puddles linked to it. This means that it vaporizes just like a normal Puddle, dealing above limited use area damage at a high DC once you take into account both the electricity damage from this effect and the fire damage from the puddle effect. This is where some of that extra damage from its Torrent Blast ended up but I also felt fine with having it be higher damage because this isn't a cooldown simply based on rounds - it is dependent on either the environment or the namielle spreading enough puddles beforehand and spreading puddles outside of the range of its effect when it uses it.
I forgot to build an item when I designed the malzeno, but I remember to do so for this namielle! The abyss skin is named for this dragon's epithet and is largely designed for casters, kineticists, and magi, which meant it was best suited as light armor. Its activated ability is rather simple and is based on the Namielle Divinity set piece skill from its armor.
Pathfinder 2e:
Given how the action economy works in second edition, several of its abilities were translated to move actions, which led to a heavy focus on the Vital Strike line of feats for the Pathfinder 1e namielle. It's still a fairly big deal to lose a move action in 1e, giving up a full attack to use it, so to balance that out slightly, I had Gather Power last for an extended duration. It has Flyby Attack in place of an ability like Flowing Flight and while not exactly correct, I included feats such as Sidestep and Improved Sidestep as a sort of replacement for its Slip and Slide.
Pathfinder 1e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Sink or Swim: The heroes are in a city for a great storm that has flooded it. They soon discover that taking advantage of this flood, and quite possibly encouraging it, is a namielle. It makes use of the freshly made waterways within the city to expand its hunting grounds, which will bring it into conflict with the heroes - either when they become prey themselves for it or when defending other citizens of the city from it.
I think I've mentioned before that I often find it difficult to come up with encounters for high level creatures like this - I tend to figure if you're using something this big, it's probably tied into the story of the campaign you're already telling. The idea of still doing sort of random encounters at this level of play kind of baffles me. But 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.
There's also a video on the namielle if that is more your speed or if you know somebody that would rather watch a video than read a blog post.
Have a monstrous Monday!
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