Pit of Drelk | a trap monster

Background – It’s been a while since I posted a monster. This is something I submitted to ‘& Magazine‘ back in October 2016.  It had been slated to be published in Issue 15 (with a ‘Drachomeleon’ monster), but alas & Magazine is no more. So, I’ve given it a re-edit and posted it here. What can I say, I liked ‘trap monsters’ back in 2016 … and to be fair, still like them now!

:: Pit of Drelk  :: 

Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 1-12 pits
Armour Class: special
Move: 0
Hit Dice: special (typically 50-100 HPs)
% in Lair: 100%
Treasure Type: Special
No. of Attacks: 1 per pit
Damage/Attack: special
Special Attacks: See below
Special Defenses: See below
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Animal like
Alignment: Neutral
Size: S to L
Psionic Ability: Nil
Level/XP Value: 100 +1/HP
(Stats for AD&D)

Description
A single drelk is a small carnivorous creature that looks like a grain of sand. Alone they would be fairly innocuous, but when encountered they live in large dangerous colonies. A colony has HPs equivalent to 0.1HP per cubic foot of drelk, so a 10x10x10 pit of drelk would have 100 HPs.

When anything attempts to pass over a pit of drelk they collectively vibrate, and like quick sand the victim sinks rapidly. In the first round the victim sinks to their waist. Then the pit starts to feed. Thousands of drelk slip/flow through any covering and take small bites out of their victim, collectively doing d6 HPs of damage per round. Each new round the victim sinks a further foot into the pit and a cumulative +1HP is added to the damage.

It is difficult to kill an entire colony of drelk, because individually they are so small. Typically, to exterminate a colony they must be ground to a fine powder, baked or electrocuted.  A colony can grow rapidly, growing about 1 cubic foot per day for each 3 cubic feet of organic matter consumed.

Drelk are tenacious and veracious, so even metal and gemstones will be pulverised to dust by drelk looking for nutrients within. For that reason, if a pit of drelk is smelted like ore, significant quantities of mixed base and precious metals can be extracted, e.g. yielding about 5 GP per HP of drelk. It is also reputed that elite beauty salons use “biting sans” on their customers’ skin. How this is done safely must be a well-guarded secret, and if true, there must be good coin in it. Another tall tale tells of a burglar who opened a safe using a bag of drelk and a pint of chicken stock.

– – –

Me on DriveThru; at the moment I’m mainly pimping my procedural:
:: High Seas ‘Hex Crawl’ – In the Heart of the Sea,
:: Wilderness Hex Crawl – In the Heart of the Unknown,
:: Dungeon/network generator – In the Heart of the Delve & Dangerous

STR modifiers | Precise Strike -vs- Bludgeon Attack (options)

I was listening to the Wandering DMs podcast the other day. They were talking about STAT modifiers and how most STATs often have two associated (main) benefits. For example CHR stat might give a reaction adjustment and limit the number of henchman a PC can have etc.

It made me think about (in AD&D at least) how STR gives a ‘To Hit’ modifier and a ‘To Damage’ modifier, i.e.:

It made me wonder if there should be an option for a fighter to also have a precise strike option and a bludgeon attack option.  The idea is that the PC sacrifices power for precision or the other way round.

So the PC can use both bonuses in the above table, or they can choose to (i) double the To Hit bonus (and sacrifice the To Damage bonus) or (ii) add the To Hit bonus to the To Damage bonus (and sacrifice the To Hit bonus).

Example: a Fighter with 18/51 STR gets the above bonuses, or they can do a precise strike at +4 (with no damage bonus) or a bludgeon attack with no to hit bonus but at +5 damage.

So, if fighting something really stealthy/armoured a precise strike might be a good option; but fighting a huge slow moving blob, maybe maxing out the damage on an easy hit might be the way to go.

That’s it. Nothing special here, but these options might give the fighter a few more tricks to draw on.

– – –

Me on DriveThru; at the moment I’m mainly pimping my procedural:
:: High Seas ‘Hex Crawl’ – In the Heart of the Sea,
:: Wilderness Hex Crawl – In the Heart of the Unknown,
:: Dungeon/network generator – In the Heart of the Delve & Dangerous

Tomorrow is G- day | … and it’s still not an April Fools Joke

G+ had faults but it was still the least worst
… were you posting when G+ fell?