Monster Monday - Grounder (Patreon)

Furrows encircled the party of adventurers, the earth churning as they watched it cautiously. Finally, it erupted in a spray of dirt and sod, revealing a looming machine that leapt for them. It landed with ground-shaking force as it furiously swiped at the barbarian who barely managed to get his axe up in time to ward off the blow, and even then, grunted at the crimson lines drawn across his burly chest. Broad and powerfully built, the strange construct vaguely resembled some sort of squat beast. Its jaws opened, revealing fang-filled mandibles that began to rotate and whir, grinding through the dirt with ease as it menaced the party.

A rapacious, rampaging robot, this replica of a real-life ravager rips and rends retired rustbuckets and risky rescuers with regular roughness in a ruthless ruckus.

This Monday features yet another collaboration with Cameron McLoud as we explore one of his lower-leveled Horizon-inspired machines. He seemed a little apprehensive, but I was totally on board with doing something in these earlier levels. The grounder here is wolverine-based and I sought to both represent Cam's design as well as some references to another similarly inspired character. Before getting to those aspects though, Cam actually wanted the grounder to be a bulette-esque sort of creature, which does lead to an interesting comparison. The D&D bulette is a lower-leveled creature than the grounder, but in Pathfinder, the bulette has a higher level of eight compared to the grounder's six. Nevertheless, I borrowed its Leaping Charge, which draws upon the grounder's lone skill bonus. This helps in get in the fight, and is a great opener after the grounder burrows its way out of the dirt. It might also take to burrowing to recharge its Dirt Spray. The grounder uses its jaws and some stockpiled earthen matter to blast victims, dealing right about in between unlimited and limited use area damage with a high DC save. The sod and clod can get in a creature's eyes and leave them dazzled, sort of like sand attack from that little-known Pokémon series.

Helping the grounder do this tunneling are sets of rotating fangs to help it chew through stones or chop on components it encounters. However, if the grounder can get a creature in its jaws, such as through the Grab action, it can follow that up with the Grind ability. I considered just structuring this as a Constrict effect and maybe I still should have, but having it deal unlimited use area damage at a high DC Fort save felt right. Given how this shreds people, I figured that it should apply persistent bleed damage to its victim.

The grounders final two abilities involve the grounder's Scrap Engine component. You might have noticed that this component has a strangely high pool of Hit Points - that's because in addition to the players being able to target it, the grounder can also recycle these resources. For example, it can consume 5 of these points to Extend Claws. This makes its claws deadlier, pumping them up to high damage, but doing so makes them a bit more cumbersome, removing their agile trait. Outside of that, the grounder can use the simply named Recycle. This pulls from the scavenge engine to shore up the grounder's own faltering systems and is actually kind of styled around the mystic's Transfer Vitality. If the grounder uses all of these resources to heal itself, it'll effectively have 120 Hit Points, which is high for its level. The point of this design is why I decided to only use an otherwise moderate pool of Hit Points in its design.

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

Rise and Grind: The heroes trespass on a site that the grounder has marked as its territory. It attacks them with hit and tactics, using its ability to dazzle them with dirt spray and then dive into the earth to escape their attacks. If the heroes don't keep up the pressure, the grounder might even find the opportunity to refuel its scavenge engine and get a chance to heal itself up.

Hijacked: A xenodruid has managed to corrupt the programming of a grounder or two and is using it in a classic effort to dismantle modern society. The xenodruid may fight alongside its subjugated machines and can use spells to entrap and limit foes as its grounders ravage and rip them apart.

Have a monstrous Monday!