The ground heaved, sod and muck falling away and splashing into the surrounding swamp. The fighter stumbled back, pulling his boots from the mud as he swore violently and stared wide-eyed at the emerging behemoth. Glowing eyes peered from a broad, beaked face, changing from a gentle blue to a violent crimson. As the clinging foliage fell away from its vast form, its shape became apparent – resembling a vast turtle with a fearsome set of jaws. In place of scales or shell, it was composed of metal and wires interspersed with blinking light. Pulling itself from the mire, it released a screeching snarl that sounded like metal tearing as clouds of frost rolled from its maw.
This terrifying techno-terrapin towers over targets, tanking the tactics in terrific tangles before trouncing the troublesome team with terminal terseness.
This is yet another collaboration with Cameron McLoud, featuring one of the monstrous machines from the sequel game to Horizon Zero Dawn. The shellsnapper is an immense creature although Cam decided him as Huge. I went a step farther with Gargantuan and there is an actual reason behind that, which we’ll get to in a bit. This bot is built as a bit of a brute, featuring a lower Armor Class but Hit Points between moderate and high while it has some considerable resistances. On the offensive side of things, its attacks only have a low or moderate attack bonus but respectively deal moderate or high damage. Since it uses a lower AC, the AC for its components are only high and they’re a bit simpler than usual in part because players have to take out four latches before they can hit its Kinetic Dynamo. This is a very simple but important effect. It adds something extra for GMs to keep track of, which is something I try to be wary of when putting something together, but it isn’t too bad here. The shellsnapper stores damage prevented by its physical resistance in its Kinetic Dynamo, which it can use in one of two ways.
A quicker use of this stored damage is its Activate Forcefield, granting it temporary Hit Points against incoming damage. This greatly enhances its durability but it will want to be cautious about using it because it is likely to want to store up that damage for its big blast. Power Blaster is a 10-foot wide and 90-foot long line that requires 50 points to be stored up in the Kinetic Dynamo to use. This means that the shellsnapper needs at least 5 hits from physical damage to set it up – the difficulty of which will vary from party-to-party. For example, in the Monster Mash, I let my players build Starfinder 2e characters. They had very few physical damage among the party and I never even built up the necessary charge in its dynamo to use this ability. I ultimately had to cheat to do so. Getting more into the mechanics of this move, it deals limited use area damage with an extreme DC as it blasts foes to pieces. I leaned towards this value since the shellsnapper has to take hits to be able to use it.
The shellsnapper has another area effect in the form of Freeze Blaster. This was hard to figure out initially as I wasn’t sure whether to make this a line effect based on the icicles it leaves along the ground, a cone effect based on the way it spits them out in an array, or even as a Strike with how it tends to fire three at a time. Ultimately, I settled on using a burst for the effect given the way that the chunks of ice shatter upon impact. This effect comes from the shellsnapper’s chill canisters, but it isn’t the only way for the snapper to use it – it can also unleash a Frostbite. Based on the neck-stretching crunch of the shellsnapper in-game, this action enhances its jaws Strike, increasing its high damage to extreme damage. It also has a pretty potent slowing effect on a crit, which shouldn’t be terribly common given the low attack bonus of its jaws.
Outside of these more extraordinary actions, the shellsnapper has a few more mundane moves. The first of them is the reason behind its Gargantuan size – its Crush. A creature that has three size differences between itself and another creature can move through the space of that creature without having to make any checks or anything of the like. This means that a snapper can move through the areas of Medium or smaller sized creatures though normally can’t end its movement in their spaces. This action changes that, letting the shellsnapper to stop and drop atop foes, dealing unlimited use area damage at a moderate DC. This targets a Fortitude save rather than a Reflex due to the overabundance of Reflex saves already in its kit as well as the fact that Grapple goes against a target’s Fortitude DC and this also inflicts grabbed until they’re able to slip free. While this requires the snapper to move into position, its other mundane action prevents it from moving. Dig In is inspired by the way that the shellsnapper will bury or sometimes partially bury itself while continuing to make attacks. This enhances the shellsnapper’s defenses a bit, giving it lesser cover or standard cover if it buries itself in difficult terrain. I actually had to swap this from the Monster Mash – it was originally standard cover in regular terrain and then greater cover in difficult terrain, but we decided that it was a bit too much. This makes it a bit more manageable while remaining a menace.
PATHFINDER 2E:
CAMERON MCLOUD’S D&D 5E:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Swamped: A crossing through a swamp is interrupted by the very ground suddenly heaving under the heroes' feet. Some of them may be cast into the water or otherwise be sent scattering around the environment. But they don't have long to worry about that as the shellsnapper that had buried itself in the muck emerges and turns its attention upon the intruders, intent on eradicating them.
A Shell of a Time: A wicked mage managed to seize control of a shellsnapper, and has specially modified it, creating a cockpit in its shell. The mage rides the shellsnapper and is able to cast from their position, laying out effects while their mechanical mount lays out attacks. The players have to break the snapper's shell off before they can properly target the mage.
To go along this this post, I put together a video over on the YT channel, where you can also find the playtest of the creature. 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!
Kommentare