Monster Monday - Ripperfang

A deafening buzz filled the forest, roaring over the distant crash of trees that brought the roaming creatures to a curious halt. Two deer ceased their feeding to regard the increasingly louder noises before the bolted. Almost immediately following their departure, a rampaging beast erupted onto the scene, shaking its head as it tried to savage the fighter in its roaring jaws. Rather than a being of flesh and blood, the saurian savage was steel and sparks. Its maw was clenched around a shield desperately grasped by the fighter who swore as he was swung violently from side to side. The upper jaw of the mechanical monster consisted of a line of rotating fangs that sawed and sparked as it tried to carve through the fighter's shield, driven by a senseless hunger for the human beyond it.

Ripperfang by Spooky-Activity

This bionic beast barrels onto brouhahas with blades buzzing and breath blasting, born for butchery and bound to brutalize any braves that bother to battle it.

Please consider checking out the video on the ripperfang! I thought it was a fun little video.

This savage cyber saurian is inspired by a largely disproven theory regarding allosaurs. Largely overshadowed by more menacing theropods, the allosaur is believed to have a weak bite but stronger bite muscles. Some people theorized that rather than simply chomping down on prey normally, it would rear back and slam its upper jaw, full of serrated teeth, into its prey like an axe. While this has largely been disregarded, it still inspired some of Cameron's design here, such as the chainsaw upper jaw of the ripperfang. The ripperfang hews probably the closest to the brute road map out of any particular design, considering its merely moderate defenses whereas its lowest damage is moderate. Notably, its Strikes alternatingly have the tearing and boost traits, which folks might not be familiar with but are very handy.

While the ripperfang was inspired by the allosaur, it actually has a decent set of jaws on it as we see with its Improved Grab ability. It is meant to follow this up with Run Chainjaws, which is a central component of its wider kit. Given the free action nature of Improved Grab, it can potentially use this in the same round that it bites the creature in the first place, forcing them to take boosted damage depending on a high DC Fortitude save. This damage might not seem like much, especially since boost relies on the weapon's grade, but that's because it also inflicts weaknesses that the ripperfang can take advantage of aplenty. In addition to its tearing trait applying that bleed, its high DC Trample takes some inspiration from the specialized aurochs herd, and applies that persistent damage to enemies that fail the save against it. While its Trample is a little unique with the added effects, its Rend is a bit more typical. Cameron's Rend in the 5e iteration of the creature inflicted bleed, but I already had that on the claw Strikes through the tearing trait, so it felt a little redundant. I could have had the Rend increase this bleed damage, but Run Chainjaws sort of already does that by virtue of inflicting a weakness. Another way that the ripperfang is able to inflict persistent bleed is through its somewhat misleadingly named Rip Free reaction. This is a very simple ability that allows it to shred creatures that escape its jaws and take a decent amount of persistent bleed damage.

Aside from Trample, many of these abilities that I've just discussed are single-target effects. However, the ripperfang does have a few area or at least multi-target effects to make use of. The more classic of these is Flack Burst, a simple breath weapon that deals limited use area damage at a high DC. It's a tiny bit unique in that it deals two different types of damage but otherwise just has a standard cooldown. Slightly more unique though not by much is its Bouncing Buzzsaw. While the ripperfang has animalistic Intelligence, it still literally has a computer for a brain that it can use to calculate the proper trajectory to make the most use of it. This requires a high DC Reflex save as the blade bounces between victims, dealing damage based on its shredder launcher to each. Savvy players might recognize the wording of this being based almost entirely off of chain lightning, down to a critical success meaning that it stops the effect from spreading further.

PF2e Ripperfang

PF2e Components

D&D Ripperfang by Cameron McLoud

ENCOUTER HOOKS

Blood Letters: A seraptis demon has managed to pull a ripperfang under its control and possibly even corrupted the machine with abyssal energy, potentially adding the unholy trait to its Flack Burst. The seraptis takes advantage of the ripperfang's abilities to enhance bleed damage while weaving debilitating effects against foe. The heroes are a target of the demon or otherwise interfere with its dark work, causing it to call forth its pet to attack them. Other creatures that have some themes around bleed damage could also work in a similar situation!

Mine the Shaft: The heroes are approached by a mining company that have lost access to one of their properties because it was taken over by a ripperfang. It has been stalking the mines, harvesting what resources it can based on its programming. However, the limited intelligence of the machine has left some parts of the mine unstable and may have exposed dangers that the machine itself doesn't notice. While hunting the machine menace, the players must beware of collapses and gas pockets within the mine.

Ripperjaw Concepts by Spooky-Activity

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Have a monstrous Monday!