Before I get to this week's monster, I want to direct your attention to a design contest I'm helping out with. You can find the announcement here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2v62v?CONTEST-Announcing-the-very-first. I hope you'll consider entering! I'm looking forward to seeing the community's creativity.
Now for today's monster, which is the stone bulette, a larger and slightly less aggressive relative to the standard bulette. This bulette can only jump in place, but it tends to knock everyone down when it does. It can also launch stones from its stomach with about as much force as cannon fire. If the bulette happens to have swallowed a PC, the poor character may find him- or herself ejected along with the stone.
I hope you enjoy the stone bulette, and I'll see you next week with another monster!
This four-legged stone
behemoth stands firmly on the ground beneath it. A rumble akin to a rockslide
emanates from its stomach.
Stone Bulette CR 11
XP 12,800
N Gargantuan magical beast
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light
vision, scent, tremorsense 60 ft.; Perception +15
DEFENSE
AC 25, touch 7,
flat-footed 24 (+1 Dex, +18 natural, –4 size)
hp 147 (14d10+70)
Fort +14, Ref +10, Will +10
Defensive Abilities
fortification (50%), rockhead; DR
10/—; Immune acid, bleed,
petrification
OFFENSE
Speed 40 ft.,
burrow 40 ft.; earth glide
Melee bite +20
(3d6+13/19–20
plus grab), 2 claws +19 (2d8+9)
Ranged gut stone
+13 (4d6+9)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks
gut stone, leap, savage bite, siege bulette, swallow whole (4d6 bludgeoning
damage, AC 19, 14 hp), trample (3d6+13, DC 26)
STATISTICS
Str 29, Dex 12, Con 20, Int 3, Wis 19, Cha 8
Base Atk +14; CMB +27 (+31 grapple or sunder); CMD 38 (42 vs. bull rush, 40 vs.
sunder, 46 vs. trip)
Feats Deadly
Finish[UC], Greater Sunder, Improved Sunder, Iron Will, Power Attack, Vital
Strike, Weapon Focus (bite)
Skills Acrobatics
+10 (+14 to jump), Perception +15
SQ stability
ECOLOGY
Environment any
land
Organization
solitary or pair
Treasure
incidental
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Gut Stone (Ex) A
stone bulette can spit out a rock from its stomach with incredible force. The
bulette’s gut stone has a range increment of 60 feet and receives a +2 racial
modifier on attack rolls. Creatures swallowed whole when the bulette launches a
gut stone must succeed at a DC 22 Reflex save or fly out with the stone, taking
damage as if falling for the number of feet the bulette launches the stone.
Alternatively, the bulette can use a specialized gizzard to
grind the stone into smaller rocks to create a 30-foot cone that deals 4d6
bludgeoning damage to all creatures caught in the area (Reflex DC 22 for half).
This use of the bulette’s gut stone has no effect on creatures it has swallowed
whole.
The save DCs are Constitution-based. A stone bulette
typically starts an encounter with 4 gut stones. It can take a full-round
action to burrow into the ground to replenish its supply, but it cannot use these
new gut stones until 1d4 rounds later.
Leap (Ex) A stone
bulette can leap in place as a move action, which provokes attacks of opportunity.
When it lands, all creatures within 30 feet of it fall prone. Creatures that
don’t take attacks of opportunity can attempt a DC 26 Reflex save to remain standing.
The save DC is Strength-based.
Rockhead (Ex) A
stone bulette has delayed reactions to mind-affecting spells and effects and to
the notion it is dying. A mind-affecting spell or effect doesn’t begin to
affect the bulette until the beginning of the originating creature’s next turn.
At the beginning of the bulette’s turn, it attempts another Will save (if
applicable) against any delayed mind-affecting spells or effects.
Additionally, when a stone bulette is brought below 0 hit
points but not killed, it can fight on for 1 more round as if disabled. At the
end of its next turn, it immediately falls unconscious and begins dying.
Savage Bite (Ex) A
stone bulette’s applies 1–1/2 times its Strength modifier to damage inflicted with
its bite attack, and threatens a critical hit on a 19–20.
Siege Bulette (Ex)
A stone bulette ignores up to 10 points of hardness when damaging objects. If it
charges or makes a full attack against an object or structure, it deals double
damage.
Stability (Ex) A
stone bulette receives a +4 bonus to CMD against bull rush and trip combat
maneuvers.
Stone bulettes resulted from further arcane experimentation
with the base stock, infusing earth elemental traits into the newer creations.
These bulettes move through rock and soil as if it were water and leave faint “ripples”
in the ground as signs of imminent attacks.
While stone bulettes are more patient than their terrestrial
kin and wait for opportunities to attack, they often enter a frenzied state
where they devour everything in their paths. They consume all material they encounter,
but prefer stone over metal and flesh. Their strange stomachs shape stone into smooth,
weighty rocks with which they can pepper prey from great distances. These
bulettes don’t wait long before closing with distant foes as they charge into battle,
crushing and swallowing their opponents. Victims unfortunate enough to land in
a stone bulette’s stomach find themselves unwitting projectile material when the
bulette launches one of its gut stones.
Stone bulettes become especially angered when they come
across structures larger than themselves and repeatedly ram these affronts
until nothing is left but piles of rubble, which the bulettes usually ingest.
Likewise, if a weapon continually penetrates their rocky hide, they focus their
attacks on the offending item until they satisfactorily destroy it. Clever
tacticians aware of a stone bulette’s hunting grounds can use the beast as an uncontrollable
siege weapon, with all the terrible implications of doing so.
A stone bulette typically measures 20 feet from maw to tail
and weighs in at a massive 3 tons.
