Chuul
Description
Chuuls are armored, crustacean-like predators that lurk beneath the surfaces of shallow ponds and mires, bursting from concealment to snatch up prey in their chitinous pincers and then paralyzing them with their mouth tentacles before eating them alive.
Chuuls are excellent swimmers but prefer to attack land-bound creatures or those wallowing in shallow water. Once they seize their victims, chuuls often drag grappled foes back into deep water to drown them. Lizardfolk are by far the chuul's favorite prey, though those pale chuul breeds that live underground prefer morlocks, duergar, unwary drow, and other unfortunates who get too close to their subterranean waterways—with the exception of troglodytes, whose flavor chuuls find particularly offensive.
Chuuls are surprisingly intelligent, leading many to speculate fruitlessly on their origins and motivations. They speak a chittering, burbling dialect of Common, but few are inclined to speak to those outside their race, and if chuul society exists beyond their frenzied mating season, humanoids have yet to record it. Instead, chuul intellects seem entirely devoted to seeking out the perfect ambush sites to attack other intelligent creatures and decorating their elaborate lairs with trophies from their kills. Though the chuuls themselves seem uninterested in using tools of any kind, they have an almost compulsive need to collect keepsakes from their victims.
A typical chuul is 8 feet tall and weighs 650 pounds.
Combat Stats
- Melee
- 2 claws +14 (2d6+7 plus grab)
- Space
- 10 ft.
- Reach
- 5 ft.
Ability Scores
Special Attacks
constrict (2d6+7)
Paralytic Tentacles — A chuul can transfer a grappled victim from a claw to its tentacles as a move action. The tentacles grapple with the same strength as the claw but deal no damage, instead exuding a paralytic secretion. Anyone held in the tentacles must succeed on a DC 19 Fortitude save each round on the chuul's turn or be paralyzed for 6 rounds. The save DC is Constitution-based. While held in the tentacles, paralyzed or not, a victim automatically takes 1d8+7 points of damage each round from the creature's mandibles.
Special Qualities
Feats
Special Abilities
Universal Monster Rules
Special Abilities
Feats, Traits & Items
You get a +2 bonus on Perception and Sense Motive skill checks. If you have 10 or more ranks in one of these skills, the bonus increases to +4 for that skill.
In melee, every time you miss because of concealment (see Combat), you can reroll your miss chance percentile roll one time to see if you actually hit.
An invisible attacker gets no advantages related to hitting you in melee. That is, you don't lose your Dexterity bonus to Armor Class, and the attacker doesn't get the usual +2 bonus for being invisible. The invisible attacker's bonuses do still apply for ranged attacks, however.
You do not need to make Acrobatics skill checks to move at full speed while blinded.
You may make a number of additional attacks of opportunity per round equal to your Dexterity bonus. With this feat, you may also make attacks of opportunity while flat-footed.
You gain a +1 bonus on all attack rolls you make using the selected weapon.
Skills
Knowledge (nature) +8, Perception +19, Sense Motive +9, Stealth +9, Swim +28
- Type
- Aberration
- Alignment
- CE
- Size
- Large
- Environment
- temperate swamps
- Organization
- solitary, pair, or pack (3-6)
- Treasure
- standard
- Senses
- darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +19
- Languages
- Common (sometimes Undercommon for subterranean variants)
- Source
- Bestiary