Weekend Statblock: Syrnor
Time for this week's weekend statblock, the first I'm placing on the blog.
To give my readers here a bit of extra juice I'm going to go a bit in-depth on why I made the creature, how I made the creature, and how I think it'll perform.
I added two stat blocks here just to save paper and have on hand. So! For the why: my players as you'll find out in the next campaign diary fled from the coastal village amidst an assault by watery creatures. The large pit billowing smoke that can be seen for miles was not there first stop after the village, but it was what they stuck with.
First thing they encountered and this was the fight that ended the night were two beholder-kin: Death Kisses. Pretty nasty fight for a six level party. Nevertheless, I thought about how cool it would be if this place was the layer of a fire themed beholder. Crazy right! Anyways, want to give him some minions that would be both useful as trash mobs in a boss fight and function as nasty encounters in their own right.
I'm not going to mention what fire Giants will be doing so far down south in my setting, just know for now that they are very much not supposed to be here. So, what would fire Giants twisted by the experiments of a mad beholder look like? These guys!
Meaty and mindless was the goal of this particular creation and I'm pretty sure I was spot on. These guys have a lot of hard-hitting abilities but low enough mental stats that I can justify playing them in sub optimal ways should the need arise to further the narrative. They have a low armor class to make up for their high hit points and immunity to fire damage. There are at least three people in my party who have the "lower your hit chance, boost your damage" feats of 5E, so this is tuned to them (much like most of what I put out). Sael shouldn't have too many issues seeing as though he's a storm sorcerer (as much as he likes using fire damage). I also like implementing various conditionals; fire drying can arbitrarily boost his damage or to hit chance but only once per turn, and if the players output enough damage of a certain type or engage in some creative spellcasting, they can take these guys down a peg out of the gate.
Something I thought of while I was writing this is Sael just hit sixth level, which means he has access to and ability that allows him to create rain within a 20 foot radius. I did write on this sheet that the head needs to be dunked specifically, and I don't I'm splitting hairs when I differentiate that and simple rainfall. At least, I hope I'm not.Also, I noticed I didn't include a save DC for the spellcasting portion or what ability score it relied on. 13, relies on charisma should be fine for a regular if not for the fact a lot of giants use constitution(?) though I may be thinking of other creatures. 18 seems hefty for what these guys can do, but they're also only 1st and 2nd level spells. The slam attacks and the eye beam are the real stars of the show.
Other than all that I don't think these guys have any particular sway against my party, they're just generic meaty fire dudes with some cool abilities. Should be fun!