Alien But Simple Designs in Starfinder: Rumbleweed (Patreon)

When we were working on the first Starfinder Alien Archive, a ton of thought and work was put into deciding what creatures went into it. Having enough creatures to populate a galaxy of adventure was always going to be a challenge, and it's one I faced as early as 2000 when working on the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Alien Anthology. We had two backstops already -- rules for adopting Pathfinder 1st ed monster stat blocks to Starfinder, and the core Starfinder creature creation rules in Alien Archive itself. But even so, it seemed clear we needed some simple, pre-designed creatures that covered a range of arrays, CRs, and creature types.

One idea I pitched was to have some simple "animal" entries by concept, such as "Large predator" and "Huge herbivore," along with simple templates to adapt them to various terrains. Need a Kythkolian Rapids Shark? That's a large predator with the aquatic template. The idea had to wait until Alien Archive 2 and lots of people made massive improvements on the core concept, including others doing the design work, but the core idea still proved a good one and drove home an important design concept.

"Not everything has to be game-mechanically complex and weird."

There's nothing wrong with having a simple creature designed with simple rules. In fact, there's nothing wrong with designing a creature that players are likely to figure out how to defeat very quickly. In fact, it can be important. If every foes players face has surprise powers, complex interactions, and unique abilities, players quickly become quite reasonably paranoid and cautious when encountering absolutely everything new. There's a time and place for caution, but it helps keep special things special to have some run-of-the-mill threats in the mix.

With that, I present the Rumbleweed. Conceptually it's a bit odd -- a sapient-but-dim mobile plant that prefers ambush attacks. But conceptually its special ability choices have been used just to gain more HP and greater saving throws. Beyond that, it's just an expert plant, lacking any special movement, equipment, or weird powers and sporting a vulnerability to fire that many groups are sure to unleash against hostile plants. But, that's a feature, not a bug. Rumbleweeds may sneak up on and surprise PCs, but once the fighting starts they're out of surprises.

(Art by photovac)

Rumbleweed (Expert)

CR 4

XP 1,200

N Small plant

Init +3; Senses low-light vision; Perception +10

DEFENSE

HP 54

EAC 16; KAC 17

Fort +8; Ref +6; Will +4

Immunities Plant immunities; Weaknesses vulnerable to fire

OFFENSE

Speed 40 ft.

Melee razorleaf +10 (1d4+9 S; critical bleed 1d4)

STATISTICS

Str +5; Dex +3; Con +1; Int -2; Wis +0; Cha +0

Skills Acrobatics +15, Athletics +15, Intimidate +10, Stealth +15 (+19 in jungle), Survival +10

Languages Terran

Description

Rumbleweeds are simple ambush predators. They are highly intelligent for plants, but of only slightly greater intelligence than a typical animal. That level of intelligence causes them to often seek out dark crevices and thick vegetation from which to ambush prey, and even sometimes coordinate attacks as a pack of rumbleweeds, but is not great enough for them to have any concept of their own mortality. As a result rumbleweeds generally do not negotiate, even with creatures able to speak Terran, which all rumbleweeds seem to know at birth.

Rumbleweeds are smart enough to understand that vehicles move, though not to grasp concepts like starships and other planets being different than trucks and islands. Because of this, rumbleweeds will sometimes sneak onto any vehicles they encounter, seeking to be taken to better hunting grounds. This behavior has resulted on the plants being found on hundreds of different planets, and their homeworld of origin is unknown.

Rumbleweeds grow as they age, as long as food, light, and air is plentiful. While some Medium rumbleweeds have been encountered, in most cases when a rubmleweed grows to be larger than Small, it splits into two Small rumbleweeds, neither of which identifies as the original plant. Rumors persist of Large and Huge rumbleweeds—massive hunters on densely vegetated planets, that are of greater intelligence, worship plant-gods,  and have long-term plans to destroy all non-plant life, but these are unconfirmed.

Hey, Since I Have Your Attention! 

My friend (and brilliant cartoonist) Stan! has done a whole series of drawings inspired by my online ramblings. He refers to them as "Damn It, Owen!" cartoons, since they get in his head and prevent him from doing other work until he draws them. He's been doing these for years, so now we're collecting them into a book!

We've launched a campaign on Kickstarter, which funded in 90 seconds and hit it's first three stretch goals in a few hours. Please go check it out, tell your friends, and consider throwing us your support.

Damnitowen.com