Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Frightful Fridays! Frogtober! Sawbone Frog

As with many things, Frogtober must come to an end, and I've got a spooky one for the final day. Today's Inktober theme was "slice," and the sawbone frog can do all kinds of slicing. Plus it's essentially an Amazon drone, if Amazon was run by a cabal of necromancers.

I had a lot of fun with this month's worth of monsters, and it was an interesting design experiment to limit myself to frog-based monsters and follow the Inktober theme. I hope I added some favorites to your list of monsters.

Happy Halloween!

If you enjoyed this run, and you want to help support the creation of more monsters, I give you my Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/FrightfulFridays.

(art for this will come along in November, and I'll update this post and create a new post once I receive it from Hugo)


This enormous skeletal frog’s limbs terminate in razor-sharp discs made of serrated bone. The discs spin at an incredible speed, keeping the frog aloft.
Sawbone Frog      CR 16
XP 76,800
N Large undead
Init +7; Senses blindsense 60 ft., darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +2
DEFENSE
AC 31, touch 17, flat-footed 23 (+7 Dex, +1 dodge, +14 natural, 1 size)
hp 252 (24d8+144); fast healing 10
Fort +14, Ref +15, Will +16
Defensive Abilities channel resistance +4, saw parry; DR 20/bludgeoning and magic; Immune cold, fire, undead traits; Resist acid 10, electricity 20, sonic 10
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., fly 90 ft. (good), swim 30 ft.
Melee 2 bonesaws +26 (2d6+13/1820/×3 plus bleed)
Ranged 2 bone discs +25 (2d4+9/1820/×3 plus bleed)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks bleed (2d6), deep cuts, spinning doom, whirling self destruct
STATISTICS
Str 29, Dex 25, Con —, Int —, Wis 15, Cha 22
Base Atk +18; CMB +28; CMD 46 (50 vs. trip)
Feats Combat Reflexes[B], Dodge[B], Flyby Attack[B], Hover[B], Mobility[B], Weapon Focus[B] (bone disc)
Skills Fly +21, Swim +17
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary or fleet (216)
Treasure incidental
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Bone Disc (Ex) A sawbone frog begins combat with six bone discs. The bone discs have a range increment of 50 feet. Each round the sawbone frog benefits from fast healing, it replaces one of its bone discs (up to a maximum of six).
Deep Cuts (Ex) A sawbone frog applies 11/2 times its Strength modifier to damage with a successful bonesaw attack. Its natural attacks threaten a critical hit on a roll of 1920 and have a x3 critical multiplier. When it confirms a critical hit, it deals double bleed damage.
Saw Parry (Ex) A sawbone frog can give up two attacks of opportunity granted by its Combat Reflexes feat to attempt to parry an attack against it. It makes an attack roll, and if that roll is greater than the roll of the attacking creature, the attack automatically misses.
Spinning Doom (Ex) As a full-round action, a sawbone frog can attempt a DC 25 Fly check to spin in place and attack each creature within reach. It must make separate attack rolls against each opponent. It incurs a 2 penalty on all its attack rolls for this ability and those made until the beginning of its next turn.
Whirling Self Destruct (Ex) When a sawbone frog is reduced to less than 20 hit points, but still has more than 0 hit points, it spins out of control and self-destructs. It uses its spinning doom attack, and launches all its remaining bone discs in random directions (roll 1d8 to determine the direction for each bone disc). A bone disc makes an attack roll as if thrown by the sawbone frog (with a 2 penalty, before counting range penalties) against each target in its trajectory until it hits a creature or object, or travels 200 feet.

Sawbone frogs are undead creatures that were formerly paddle-footed frogs. Their squat physiology and their large feet made them perfect specimens for tweaking by necromancers into their skeletal form, complete with rotating bone blades where their feet once were. Sawbone frogs serve as messengers and defenders for the powerful undead and necromancers that have the resources to obtain them. They have a set of preprogrammed combat techniques and can differentiate between a single foe and multiple foes, allowing them to make the optimum set of attacks. Finally, they have a peculiar defense mechanism in place, allowing them to make a final retributive attack if they take too much damage.

A typical sawbone frog measures 13 feet in length and weighs 800 pounds.