Monster Monday - Tideripper

The wizard gave a cheer at the sight of water, slothing off her backpack as she raced to the riverbank. Behind her, the rogue gave a grin while even further back, the fighter grumbled at the sloppiness of the supposedly learned elf. He busied himself with righting the pack as the silver-haired rogue sauntered up to her fresh-faced friend. As the cleric came into the clearing, the wizard loudly gulped down the crystal clear water as the rogue cautiously scanned the vast expanse of the river, its other side a distance they couldn't easily cross. In the midst of her consideration, her eyes flickered to ripples spreading along the surface and her hand suddenly snatched out to grab the wizard by her robes. She yanked her back as a metallic head roared from the river, rivulets running off it in streams. Set beneath crimson eyes was a pair of spikes that whirred angrily as they spun violently and turned towards the party who readied themselves for combat...

Tideripper from Horizon Forbidden West

Waiting in the waves, this weird, wired whale wades into the wilds with whirling water and weighty wallops that whack warriors into the weekend.

It is time for another collaboration with Cameron McLoud, the video for which you can see over on YouTube, which I would appreciate you checking out.

My man wants to make some marine machines, so I've got just that prepared for you today! The tideripper is a powerful creature that is on par with the likes of the slitherfang. And its level isn't even the only thing that it has in common with that cybernetic serpent! Before we get into that, I'll talk numbers real quick. The tideripper is mostly designed as a brute with much softer defenses than normal - it has a moderate Armor Class, two low saving throws, and two weaknesses. However, between the natural immunities of a construct, its resistances, and its high pool of Hit Points, it should have enough survivability. I didn't get to properly test it but if that wasn't enough, its attacks are pretty vicious. Although their attack bonus is only moderate, its jaws use extreme damage and even its tail has high damage. The lowest damage is on its ranged rock Strike, which is moderate whereas the attack for it is in between low and moderate because I don't want its best attack to be just sitting back at deal damage from afar.

That being said, its most basic ability is Pressure Beam, a highly pressurized twin stream of water that it launches from around its drill jaws in a 90-foot line. I decided to design this as its main area effect, dealing limited use area damage at a high DC save. Now, something of note regarding this ability and truthfully all of its other abilities is that it has the water trait. And dealing that water damage is how the tideripper triggers its Purgewater effect. The slitherfang also had purgewater and it shares a similar design though I had to work around the fact that not all of its abilities were dealing the same type of damage, so it's instead based off of traits. This trait is also found on its Jetstream, which involves the tideripper firing those same beams of water to instead propel itself forward, giving it a straightforward Stride and Strike. Similar to the boar, as long as the tideripper moves at least 20 feet from its starting position, it gets a bonus on its jaw Strike, raising it up to a high value. On top of that, this inflicts persistent bleed, which is based on the Crushed condition that this inflicts in Horizon Forbidden West.

That leaves us with its Whirling Tides, which I designed to be a bit of a bear to activate. However, once it is activated, the tideripper can keep is spinning with a single action. Given this particular design aspect, I opted to use unlimited use area damage with a moderate DC save against this damage. After dealing this damage, the water continues to spray and batter players that are in the area, potentially knocking them prone with a high DC Fortitude save. This design is somewhat at odds with Cam's design down below where he designed this to have a much more severe effect. I wanted to stick to the continual spinning the effect seems to do, so I had to reduce it to a slightly smaller effect to prevent it from being overly brutal.

PF2e Tideripper

Cam's D&D Tideripper

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

Killhaul: The heroes are sailing aboard a vessel that is suddenly broken by the assault of a tideripper. In addition to the danger presented by the tideripper, its attacks has left the ship in a disastrous state. The heroes must both contend with the mechanical menace while doing what they can to stop their ship from sinking or the tideripper from doing anymore damage to it.

Bloody Waters: Recent rains have caused a flood in an area that the heroes are visiting. In addition to issue this obviously prevents, it had disturbed a long-dead site and awoken a tideripper. Confused by its new state, it lashes out violently at all those that it comes near - including the heroes.

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Have a monstrous Monday!