Swollen Creature

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'Swollen Creature' is a pattern that can be added to any Creature, hereafter referred to as the base creature. A Swollen Creature is bloated and distended with some kind of wretched internal malady. Their forms are swollen and soft-looking, their joints and organs loose and slippery under their skin. They are able to stretch and distend in nauseating fashion to extend their melee reach further than normal, and most horribly, when they are mercifully killed, their bodies erupt in a fountain of horrible tissue, energy, or fluids.

A Swollen Creature uses all of the base creature's statistics and abilities except as noted below, with an extra big dose of grotesque.

CR

Same as base creature +1.

Size and Type

Size and Type does not change.

Initiative Modifier

The creature's initiative modifier increases by +1.

Senses

No changes.

Armor Class

Swollen Creatures gain +2 AC.

Hit Dice

No changes.

Defensive Ability

Aside from what is written above and below, a Swollen Creature gains no special defensive abilities.

Speed

A Swollen Creature's base speed improves by ten feet in all movement categories it has.

Melee Attacks

A Swollen Creature retains all the base creature's attacks, and its weapon and armor proficiencies. The monster receives a +2 untyped bonus to-hit with all attacks. Starting at adjusted CR9, a Swollen Creature adds 1d6 of bonus damage to all its melee and ranged attacks. This bonus damage does not increase with criticals, and is of the same type as the base damage type.

Damage

The base damage of all attacks does not change.

Space and Reach

A Swollen Creature adds 5 feet to its reach with all melee attacks.

Offensive Ability

• Gut-Burst. When a Swollen Creature is destroyed, its distended form explodes horribly, inflicting one of either slime (physical, common), poison (physical, uncommon), or rot (physical, rare) damage. The DM should choose which type when this Pattern is applied, with an eye to the creature's environment and origin, and should generally use the most common sort of damage which matches their environment and origin.

Gut-Burst effects all enemy creatures within 1 square plus (adjusted Challenge Rating/10) squares (round down, minimum 2 squares, 3 squares at 21 to 29, 4 squares at 30+) of the Swollen Creature's space. This damage aura inflicts Special Standard Damage points of the chosen damage type. Affected characters may roll a Fortitude save against an Average Save DC to only take half damage.

Ability Scores

No changes.

Maneuver Offense and Maneuver Defense

No changes.

Feats

If it did not have it already, a Swollen Creature gains Combat Reflexes, meaning it can make multiple attacks of opportunity each round.

Skills

No changes.