Witch Hound

[Axe11154]

"The blood of a hag is a magical thing. It can corrupt, corrode and bewitch all the same. While the taste isnt quite edible, and its smell quite pungent, the wolf may still reluctantly feast." - Grandmother Mayhave

Witch hounds are a creature rare in the world, typically only being born when a pack of wolves have feasted upon a lone hag who had yet to form a coven, or have been captured and starved till they were willing to drink the blood of a hag. Either way they are born they are changed forever, always wishing to complete the goal of the hag who they ate or were gifted blood from. With horns of magic pointed forward for attack, talons and feathers of a bird grown from its body, and the mentality of a wolf being guided by a hags dream, witch hounds are a dangerous foe to meet in the dark woods.

 

[Cleon]

"The blood of a hag is a magical thing. It can corrupt, corrode and bewitch all the same. While the taste isnt quite edible, and its smell quite pungent, the wolf may still reluctantly feast." - Grandmother Mayhave

Witch hounds are a creature rare in the world, typically only being born when a pack of wolves have feasted upon a lone hag who had yet to form a coven, or have been captured and starved till they were willing to drink the blood of a hag. Either way they are born they are changed forever, always wishing to complete the goal of the hag who they ate or were gifted blood from. With horns of magic pointed forward for attack, talons and feathers of a bird grown from its body, and the mentality of a wolf being guided by a hags dream, witch hounds are a dangerous foe to meet in the dark woods.
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Hmm… nice idea.

Here's my first impressions.

The Saving Throws and Skills seem a bit much for a middling-Low Challenge beastie. Most CR 2 monsters in the Monster Manual have a few single Skill proficiency at most and Save proficiencies seem very rare at that level. The Witchhound has three double-proficiencies in Skills plus three Save proficiencies.

Why can it speak a Language? It's only Intelligence 2!

Speaking of ability scores, Strength 13 seems a bit low and Dexterity 19 very high for a Large supernatural canine. That's weaker and more agile than the STR 15, DEX 16 of a Shadow Mastiff, who are only Medium size magic dogs.

There's multiple instances of "wolf" that should be "witchhound" in the Special Abilities section.

The Witch Horn action text seems overly long. A lot of the effects use identical wording except they cause a different condition, so you could compress the text significantly by cutting down on the duplication.

Also, the Witch Horn's 8. Incapacitating jab has an "ending the effect's" that ought to be "effect".

Oh, and there's a HUGE chunk of empty space below the stats where the Description normally goes.

 

[Axe11154]

Hmm… nice idea.

Here's my first impressions.

The Saving Throws and Skills seem a bit much for a middling-Low Challenge beastie. Most CR 2 monsters in the Monster Manual have a few single Skill proficiency at most and Save proficiencies seem very rare at that level. The Witchhound has three double-proficiencies in Skills plus three Save proficiencies.

Why can it speak a Language? It's only Intelligence 2!

Speaking of ability scores, Strength 13 seems a bit low and Dexterity 19 very high for a Large supernatural canine. That's weaker and more agile than the STR 15, DEX 16 of a Shadow Mastiff, who are only Medium size magic dogs.

There's multiple instances of "wolf" that should be "witchhound" in the Special Abilities section.

The Witch Horn action text seems overly long. A lot of the effects use identical wording except they cause a different condition, so you could compress the text significantly by cutting down on the duplication.

Also, the Witch Horn's 8. Incapacitating jab has an "ending the effect's" that ought to be "effect".

Oh, and there's a HUGE chunk of empty space below the stats where the Description normally goes.

The double proficiencies are a glitch from the program I didn't catch before publishing, will fix.

Would an intelligence of 4 work better?

So the reason for the high dex is because its body's biology is more closely related to birds with a lighter frame. I need to figure out a way to describe that besides "its bodies fur has been replaces with feathers."

Yeah, a few abilities were copy and paste into the program I was using and I forgot to change it.

I did that mostly because the beholder does it to which was my primary reference for a creature with random effects. I could neaten it up though.

Thank you for that catch.

I have no idea why the empty space is, I put in the picture and it appeared.

Thank you for the suggestions, i will try and work on it a bit.

 

[Cleon]

Would an intelligence of 4 work better?

How about following the Hell Hound precedent and going for Intelligence 6 and "Witch hounds cannot speak, but understand Druidic" since the Shadow Mastiff is Intelligence 4 and has no languages? (Although I'll note that Mastiff's a 3rd-party conversion of that D&D monster.)

So the reason for the high dex is because its body's biology is more closely related to birds with a lighter frame. I need to figure out a way to describe that besides "its bodies fur has been replaces with feathers."

Well an Axe Beak is an actual bird that happens to be Large size and they have DEX 12.

I can see going, say, STR 15 and DEX 14 to mix it up a bit, maybe even STR 16 or 17 and/or DEX 15 or 16, but STR 13, DEX 19 seems a bit too extreme.

 

[Axe11154]

How about following the Hell Hound precedent and going for Intelligence 6 and "Witch hounds cannot speak, but understand Druidic" since the Shadow Mastiff is Intelligence 4 and has no languages? (Although I'll note that Mastiff's a 3rd-party conversion of that D&D monster.)



Well an Axe Beak is an actual bird that happens to be Large size and they have DEX 12.

I can see going, say, STR 15 and DEX 14 to mix it up a bit, maybe even STR 16 or 17 and/or DEX 15 or 16, but STR 13, DEX 19 seems a bit too extreme.

ok cool, I see if I can work on it sometime this week and get an updated version out soon.

 

[Cleon]

ok cool, I see if I can work on it sometime this week and get an updated version out soon.

Looking forward to seeing it.

 

[Axe11154]

Looking forward to seeing it.

updated :3

 

[Cleon]

updated :3

Care to post a link here so I can see it?

 

[Axe11154]

Care to post a link here so I can see it?

You should be able to see it here, I deleted the original stat block and put up the new one.

 

[Axe11154]

Care to post a link here so I can see it?

I did the same for the firegiant