The earth trembled, rocks rattling and sand shifting, as a powerful figure pulled itself from the ground. Thick green plates covered the body of the towering creature as it reared up on a pair of stout legs, balanced by its heavy tail. Spikes erupted from its back and a directionless fury lit in its eyes. It opened its fanged maw and unleashed a roar that echoed among the peaks. As it announced its dominion, sand and grit began to swirl around it, obscuring its figure and scouring the earth.
Per a request, I am trying to tap into a source for monsters that I haven't already. The first of these creatures is tyranitar, the pseudo-legendary from Gen 2. I built the tyranitar as a level 11 creature based on it evolving at level 55 in its home game and not gaining too much beyond that. Per its description and actual mechanical aspects, I designed the tyranitar as a brute, complete with extreme damage but only a moderate attack. It has immunities, resistances, and weaknesses drawn from its typing, including being immune to mental effects due to dark types being immune to psychic. Its bonus on saves against magic is inspired by a solid Special Defense that the tyranitar has. The signature ability of the tyranitar is its Sand Stream, represented by its aura that deals miniscule damage without a save. The concealment it grants is a bit beyond the usual scope of the ability but one that makes logical sense. It can deliver even more powerful attacks with its Crunch, which has a chance of decreasing the defense of its victim. I represented this through a weakness, which can be triggered by the tyranitar's aura and bite attack, as well as leaving an enemy off-guard.
While I mainly designed abilities based off of attacks that benefitted from STAB, such as the likes of Bite, Dark Pulse, and Rock Slide that cause flinch, inspiring its Grievous Impact. Similarly, I simply translated its Payback attack into, well, Payback. This takes a page from some other reactions I've seen, using a penalty on the attack roll that felt appropriate considering how easily it could be triggered. Even its rock Strike is inspired by Stone Edge, which has an increased critical hit chance that inspires the deadly trait on this attack. However, there are two abilities not drawn directly from these. While Hyper Beam is on its list and is a pretty simple ability when it comes to its design in PF2e, it doesn't have STAB. Instead, this is just a iconic attack of these psuedo-legendaries that felt right to include. Finally, Rumble is not related to any parts of the tyranitar's kit but is instead inspired by its description, that detail the creature sundering mountains and carving valleys. This is a slightly more minor geo-effect that it can generate and I wanted to keep it as a single action. This desire led to reducing it to half its Speed, which in turn inspired using a thirty-foot movement Speed.
Pathfinder 2e:
It was a bit harder representing the range of the tyranitar's weaknesses and resistances in Pathfinder 1e, but am fairly happy with its other aspects. I had to settle with blood rage riling it up instead of having Payback as a reaction, which ends up making the tyranitar even deadlier than usual. Crunch only inflicts a weakness rather than also inflicting flat-footed or something of the nature as that is a much more severe effect in PF1e. To compensate for that aspect, it has a potentially longer duration, based on the target's save. There was an effect similar to Rumble that led to it overlapping a bit with Hyper Beam, and I ultimately chose this as a slightly more distinct ability that fit with its terraforming capabilities. Finally, its Sand Stream deals a bit more damage but includes a save to resist it to be a bit more in-line with the design of similar abilities in PF1e.
Pathfinder 1e:
ENCOUNTER HOOK
School of Hard Rocks: A mountain pass has recently become clogged by a landslide. The pass is important but the mountains are known to be home to a number of dangerous creatures. The heroes are employed to serve as guards for the work crew and rightly so - as during the time there, they are attacked by a tyranitar. In addition to fighting the rage-filled brute, the heroes have to try to defend the work crew from falling rocks and other dangers caused by its terraforming abilities.
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Have a monstrous Monday!
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