Monday, January 3, 2011

General Rules: Monsters - Hag, Ice

Ice Hag (adapted from the Creature Collection)
Large or Huge Giant (Cold, Hag)

Hit Dice: 7d8+38 (69 hit points) or 7d8+52 (83 hit points)
Initiative: +3 or +2
Speed: 50 feet, climb 10 feet
Armor Class: 20 (-1 size, +3 Dexterity, +8 natural); touch 12, flat-footed 17 or 21 (-2 size, +2 Dexterity, +11 natural; touch 10, flat-footed 19
BAB/Grapple: +5/+12 or +5/+20
Attack: Claw +7 melee (1d8+3, piercing and slashing, 20 x2) or claw +10 melee (2d6+7, piercing and slashing, 20 x2)
Full Attack: 2 claws +7 melee (1d8+3, piercing and slashing, 20 x2) and bite +2 melee (2d8+1, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing, 20 x2) or 2 claws +10 melee (2d6+7, piercing and slashing, 20 x2) and bite +5 melee (3d8+2, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing, 20 x2)
Space/Reach: 10 feet by 10 feet/10 feet or 15 feet by 15 feet/15 feet
Special Attacks: Breath weapon, heat drain, spells
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, immunities, scent, shift size, wild empathy +10
Saves: Fortitude +9 or +11, Reflex +5 or +4, Will +6
Abilities: Str 17 or 25, Int 17, Wis 15, Dex 16 or 14, Con 19 or 23, Cha 14
Skills: Balance +5 or +4, Hide +5, Intimidate +10, Knowledge: Nature +10, Listen +5, Spellcraft +8, Spot +5, Survival +10
Feats: Brew Potion, Iron Will, Toughness
Environment: Cold deserts, hills, or mountains
Organization: Solitary or covey (3 hags of any kind plus 1 - 8 ogres and 1 - 4 evil giants)
Challenge Rating: 7
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Usually lawful evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: -

Wrapped in a tattered, dirty collection of the hide of their prey, ice hag haunt the northern lands, feeling it their scared duty to protect the arctic wastes from incursions by humanoids.

Ice hags may dig dens in the ice for themselves and any attendant animals to sleep in. An ice hag may have various animal followers, from dire wolves to polar bears; they have also been known to strike pacts with sleet devils to share prey. At least one ice hag of notable age and cunning has positioned herself as the chieftain of a tribe of ice ghouls, who bring her meat in exchange for her guidance and strength.

Combat
Unless her victim is a lone wanderer or obviously easy prey, an ice hag tends to order her menagerie of arctic allies to attack a party to soften the interlopers up. Once the party has been weakened - and she has evaluated their tactical preferences - the hag either attacks directly, using her breath weapon against the most dangerous spellcasters, or stalks her prey, picking them off one by one at a time as they sleep. Her vicious claws and terrible strength serve an ice hag well in hand-to-hand combat.

Breath Weapon (Su): An ice hag can breathe a ray of freezing air and sharp snow crystals at an enemy, causing 2d4 points of damage and blinding the victim for 1d4 minutes. A DC 15 Reflex save halves the damage and prevents blindness.

Heat Drain (Su): The touch of an ice hag sucks heat and life from victims who fail a DC 14 Fortitude save. Each round the hag makes contact, if her victim fails the Fortitude save, she deals an additional 1d12 points of cold damage to her victim. Hit points drained this way are added to the hag's hit point total, up to her normal hit points +10. Hit points above her normal maximum fade at the rate of one every 10 minutes. Any damage a hag inflicts this way is in addition to her normal physical attacks, although an ice hag may drain any given opponent 's heat only once per round.

Shift Size (Su): An ice hag can change her size to size Huge and back to size Large at will. Shifting size is a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. When an ice hag is Huge, she gains a +8 to Strength, +4 to Constitution, and +3 to her natural armor, and has a 10-foot reach, but suffers a -2 to Dexterity and a -1 to Armor Class and attacks. These modified statistics are listed above as a secondary set of statistics. Most hags prefer to remain in their smaller form, but will shift size if forced to enter melee or if they desire a more imposing appearance.

Spells: An ice hag has the spellcasting ability of a sorcerer equivalent to her Hit Dice. They favor spells that inflict cold damage, manipulate weather, and summon monsters to fight for them.

Immunities (Ex): Ice hags are immune to cold and suffer double damage from fire attacks on a failed saving throw. They are also immune to paralysis and sleep effects.

Hag Covey
From time to time, a trio of hags gathers as a covey. Usually this foul triune consists of three hags from three different types, but this is not always the case.

Combat
Hags in a covey rely on deception and their boosted magical abilities in combat.

A covey of hags is 80% likely to be guarded by 1d8 ogres and 1d4 evil giants who do their bidding. These minions are often disguised with a veil spell to appear less threatening and sent forth as spies. Such minions often (60%) carry magic stones known as hag eyes (see below).

Spell-Like Abilities: Three times per day: Animate dead, bestow curse (DC 17), control weather, dream, forcecage, mind blank, mirage arcana (DC 18), veil (DC 19), and vision. Caster level 9th. The save DCs are based on a Charisma score of 16. To use one of these abilities (which requires a full-round action), all three hags must be within 10 feet of one another, and all must participate.

Once per month, a covey that does not have a hag eye can create one from a gem worth at least 20 shillings (see below).

Hag Eye
A hag eye is a magic gem created by a covey. It appears to be nothing more than a semiprecious stone, but a gem of seeing or other such effect reveals it as a disembodied eye. Often, a hag eye is worn as a ring, brooch, or other adornment. Any of the three hags who created the hag eye can see through it whenever they wish, so long as it is on the same plane of existence as the hag. A hag eye has hardness 5 and 10 hit points. Destroying a hag eye deals 1d10 points of damage to each member of the covey and causes the one who sustained the greatest damage to be blinded for 24 hours.

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