Shambling Mound
Description
Shambling mounds, also called shamblers, appear to be heaps of rotting vegetation. They are actually intelligent, carnivorous plants with a fondness for elf flesh in particular. What serve as a shambler's brain and sensory organs are located in its upper body. Shambling mounds typically have an 8-foot girth and stand between 6 and 9 feet tall. They weigh about 3,800 pounds.
Shambling mounds are strange creatures, more akin to animate tangles of creeping parasitic vines than single rooted plants. They are omnivorous, able to draw their sustenance from nearly anything, wrapping their creepers around living trees to draw forth the sap, sending rootlets into the soil to absorb raw nutrients, or consuming flesh and bone from crushed prey.
Shamblers are frighteningly stealthy in their native environments. Blending in with the surrounding terrain, they can lie in wait for days on end without moving, waiting patiently for a potential meal. A shambler could be almost anywhere at any time, attacking without warning and not caring whether it leaves any survivors, so long as it acquires its next meal.
Shambling mounds normally lead solitary, nomadic existences in deep forests and fetid swamps, although they can also be found underground living among damp fungal thickets. Disturbing rumors persist, however, of shamblers gathering in strange congregations around great earthen mounds in the depths of marshes and jungles, often during the height of violent electrical storms. Their reasons for doing so are unknown, and many sages have wondered whether there is some obscure and alien purpose at work.
Combat Stats
- Melee
- 2 slams +11 (2d6+5 plus grab)
- Space
- 10 ft.
- Reach
- 10 ft.
- Defensive Abilities
- plant traits
- Racial Modifiers
- +4 Perception, +4 Stealth (+12 in swamps or forests)
Ability Scores
Special Attacks
constrict (2d6+7)
Special Qualities
Electric Fortitude — Shambling mounds take no damage from electricity. Instead, any electricity attack used against a shambling mound temporarily increases its Constitution score by 1d4 points. The shambling mound loses these temporary points at the rate of 1 per hour.
Feats
Special Abilities
Universal Monster Rules
Special Abilities
Feats, Traits & Items
As a standard action, you can make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the first and also within reach. You can only make one additional attack per round with this feat. When you use this feat, you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn.
You can choose to take a –1 penalty on all melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks to gain a +2 bonus on all melee damage rolls. This bonus to damage is increased by half (+50%) if you are making an attack with a two-handed weapon, a one handed weapon using two hands, or a primary natural weapon that adds 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier on damage rolls. This bonus to damage is halved (–50%) if you are making an attack with an off-hand weapon or secondary natural weapon. When your base attack bonus reaches +4, and every 4 points thereafter, the penalty increases by –1 and the bonus to damage increases by +2. You must choose to use this feat before making an attack roll, and its effects last until your next turn. The bonus damage does not apply to touch attacks or effects that do not deal hit point damage.
You gain a +1 bonus on all attack rolls you make using the selected weapon.
Skills
Perception +11, Stealth +8 (+16 in swamps or forest), Swim +13