The air buzzed with electricity as the swashbuckler’s blade clanged against the claw of the towering creature. On either side of him, his compatriots dealt with the forces accompanying the sahvyt, but for the two combatants, their focus was singular. An excited smile played across the lips of the rakish man as he launched into the fray once more, his blade moving in dizzying arcs. However, his inhuman foe followed his point with ease and knocked aside the attack. It brought up its other arm swiftly and its claw flickered out. As the swashbuckler ducked, the sahvyt redirected the strike with blinding speed and scored a gash across the handsome features of the young man. He stumbled back in surprise and lifted his hand to his cheek, drawing it back to note the blood there. His smile remained but his eyes hardened as he fixed them on his insectoid adversary, flicking the blood off of his hand as he readied his blade for another clash.
The sahvyt is a monster from the game Dauntless, a shock behemoth known mainly for its speed. Between its multitude of dash attacks that it likes to spam, it is able to hurl electric crescents, make great sweep attacks around it, and even shows the ability to feint enemies, drawing out their dodge before its actual strike. Related to its element, it is able to launch lightning that strikes in a line. Its most spectacular ability is an acrobatic flip that it performs while striking enemies beneath and then generation short lines of electricity alongside it.
With those ideas in mind, I built the sahvyt towards being a mobile and acrobatic combatant. I intended for the sahvyt to be a little squishier while being harder to hit to resemble the glass cannon style sort of creature it is in its resident game, but it is immune to electricity. I felt the best way to represent the electrical crescents that it unleashes is as a ranged attack for the sahvyt though the line it creates works best as the classic spell lightning bolt. I was struggling to make the sahvyt work with Improved Feint, but doing so takes up its move action. I attempted to compensate by giving it Vital Strike feats because I didn't want to just pump up its claw damage. However, this was both feat intensive while still being restrictive to its action economy. So I instead leaned towards giving it a unique ability in the form of natural duelist so that it can feint and then potentially make a full attack but thereby taking up its whole turn. The hardest ability to figure out was its backflip, and my attempt at recreating it came in the form of arcing lightning. I referenced the bulette's leap ability for figuring out how I wanted to make it function and the Acrobatics check is a bit of a coin flip, but it grants a lot if it can pull it off - movement, an attack, and electric walls. The walls only last a few seconds in the Dauntless game, but making them last an entire round makes the fight more dynamic. Its feats are honestly a large part of the creature with the build-up to Spring Attack giving it the ability to attack while moving and Great Cleave allowing it to make those sweep, spiraling attacks where it slices at everybody around it.
Pathfinder 1e:
I feel as though I've been building a lot of skirmisher type monsters lately and so I wanted to build sahvyt a bit differently. Its main mobility comes in the form of Blade Rush, allowing it to move and make two attacks similar to the martial artist's Path of Iron. It can also reposition itself with Arcing Bolts. More than the PF1e version, the 2e version was a glass cannon that took a 10th-level barbarian to somewhere around 30 HP in a manner of three rounds. It went down in the same duration, but not bad against a party of 10th-level characters. I decided to up its AC because it went down a tiny bit quicker than I wanted to and chose AC over HP because I wanted a greater chance to trigger its Parrying Slash, but it also better matches the creature in Dauntless. The sahvyt is hard to nail down, but crumbles after a few hits. I also wanted to let the sahvyt Feint even more efficiently, allowing it to use Dazzling Bladework before unleashing a Whirling Claws or Blade Rush. Its claws might have the most traits I've ever given an attack though electricity and magical are linked to the electric damage it deals. It makes considerable use of sweep with those aforementioned multi-target abilities and between that and sweep, he has only an effective -3 MAP against different targets for its second attack and -7 MAP against a third target.
I also wanted to include a weapon for the sahvyt based on the weapons that can be crafted from it in game. The electric boomerang it generates is specifically based on the ability of the sahvyt weapons while the mechanics from it are based on the Aerial Boomerang ability from the playtest kineticist. I want to do more of these things for monster builds from Monster Hunter and Dauntless at the very least.
Pathfinder 2e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Shock Troops: The heroes are guests at a local castle that comes under attack from a mercenary force, leading to them being summoned to guard the gates. However, keen observers among them might notice that the forces they are facing are merely a distraction. A specialized squad of soldiers have infiltrated the castle and are aiming for the lord that is hosting them. The soldiers are skilled but the greatest threat comes in the form of the sahvyt accompanying them – a vicious beast bound to their cause. They control it with a pain-inducing implant, but if the heroes somehow sabotage the implant or the device used to trigger it, the sahvyt swiftly turns on its former compatriots. This doesn’t make it an ally to the heroes, but it will attack its hated captors first.
All the Buzz: A military force hires the heroes to hunt a sahvyt that has been interfering with their drills and patrols. Gathering information from soldiers that have encountered it suggest abilities beyond the norm for a sahvyt and when the heroes finally hunt the creature down, they discover that many of these tales are true. The sahvyt has undergone heavy modification from an outside source that makes it deadlier than ever. If the heroes survive and defeat the beast, they can recover some of these augmentations and recognize its similarity to some of the work they saw in the camp. This information may lead to a greater adventure depending how they approach this information and the force seemingly responsible for creating it.
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Have a monstrous Monday!
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