Behemoth (3.5e Monster)



''While traveling toward its prey this thick, purple-skinned creature walks on all fours, but as it approaches its prey, it rears up on its hind legs to stand upright becoming a powerful and terrible sight to behold. It shakes out its noble orange mane and lets out an awful and terrifying roar that would be alarming to the bravest of knights. It has large black horns that protrude from the sides of its skull and come around to the front in front of its head. It readies its razor sharp teeth and claws with a gleam in its eye as it advances towards its next meal.''

These legendary fearsome foes will dwell in large underground cavern systems where they generally can be the largest and most dangerous creature around. Behemoths only travel in pairs while mating and raising a young, after which they separate. While on all fours, an adult Behemoth stands 7 to 8 feet tall at the shoulder. Behemoths stand 18 feet tall while on their hind legs, and weigh about 11,000 pounds. Behemoths will generally only leave their subterranean cave lair to forage and hunt for food. Behemoths travel on all fours to facilitate movement, but forage and fight on their hind legs where they can make better use of their fierce claws. Behemoths are aggressively territorial attacking any creature with vicious ferocity, regardless of size that enters their domain. They bring their kills, whole, back to their lair to eat in peace away from scavengers. Stories or reportings of Behemoths are exceedingly rare, because those whom have seen the Behemoth first hand, are rarely lucky enough to escape the experience with their lives.

Combat
Behemoths are aggressive and will attack any creature it finds within its domain on sight, either for food, or to defend its perceived territory. Behemoths will primarily attack with its natural weapons against whomever is closest, occasionally using trample to run over as many PC's as possible to get a better position (or to someone they want to strike) in the battlefield. Creatures that deal strong physical damage to the Behemoth are likely to be subject to an awesome gore or heave attack in proceeding rounds, and the Behemoth generally reserves its spells to cast against people who cast spells on it. See Death Call below.

Frightful Presence: When a Behemoth roars or begins charging or attacking, all opponents within a 30 ft radius of the Behemoth are subject to the effect to the Behemoths frightful presence ability if they have fewer hit dice than the Behemoth and must succeed on a will save, DC 26 (10 + 1/2 the Behemoth's HD + the Behemoth's charisma modifier). Those that succeed are immune to that Behemoths frightful presence for 24 hours. On a failure, creatures with 17 or fewer hit dice become panicked for 5d6 rounds and those with 18 or 23 hit dice become shaken for 5d6 rounds, and those with 24 or more hit dice are unaffected.

Trample: As a full-round action a Behemoth can move twice its normal movement speed and literally run over any opponent at least one size category smaller than itself. The Behemoth merely has to move over the opponents in its path; any creature whose space is completely covered by the Behemoth’s space is subject to the trample attack. Trampled opponents can attempt an attack of opportunity but these take a -4 penalty. If they do not choose to make attacks of opportunity they may instead attempt a reflex saving throw to take half damage. The DC against a Behemoths trample is DC 25, and the trample deals 1d8 + 15 bludgeoning damage A Behemoth may only deal trample damage to a creature once per round regardless of how many times the Behemoth’s movement takes it over a creatures space. If the Behemoth accidentally ends its movement in an illegal space, it returns to the last legal position it occupied, or the closest legal position, if there is a legal position that is closer.

Improved Grab: When a Behemoth hits an opponent with its claw attacks or with its gore attack it can automatically initiate a grapple without provoking an attack of opportunity and the Behemoth gets a +4 bonus on the check for improved grab. Behemoths also get a +4 racial bonus on all grapple checks.

Awesome Gore: As a full round action a Behemoth can make a charge attack of no less than 10 feet and use its awesome blow feat and its gore attack at a -4 penalty on the attack roll to deliver an Awesome Gore. If the Behemoth hits a corporeal opponent smaller than itself with the Awesome Gore the opponent must succeed on a reflex saving throw (DC = 2 + damage dealt) or be knocked flying back 10 feet per 5 points of damage dealt and land prone. The Behemoth can only push an opponent in a straight line and the opponent cannot move closer to the Behemoth than the square it started on an Awesome Gore. If an obstacle prevents the completion of the opponents move the obstacle and the opponent, each take 1d6 damage per 5 feet left in the opponents movement and the opponent stops in the square adjacent to the obstacle. On a successful save the creature moves back 5 feet if that movement is possible or 5 feet to one side taking only the damage that made the DC for their saving throw.

Heave: When a Behemoth hits with its awesome gore attack, it can choose to heave the opponent into the air instead of sending them flying back. If the Behemoth chooses to do so, the hit opponent takes normal gore damage, and then is sent 10d6 feet into the air. If an obstacle prevents the completion of the opponents movement (such as a cave ceiling) the obstacle and the opponent, each take 1d6 damage per 5 feet left in the opponents movement. Regardless of if the opponent was stopped prematurely by an obstacle or even if the full distance upward was traveled, the opponent then takes falling damage as appropriate for the height they fall from (1d6 damage per 10 feet).

Death call: When a Behemoth is reduced to 0 hit points or fewer, as its falling to the ground, it casts meteor swarm as a final and immediate action (regardless of whether or not it has previously used its daily limit of Meteor Swarm) and falls limp and dead as the spell begins. This effect works even if the Behemoth died from a disintegrate spell, or being turned to stone or the like, the casting happening in the middle of the action that kills the Behemoth. Unlike meteor swarm, the meteors do not originate from the Behemoths hands, rather they fall from the sky (or manifest from the highest available point in the local area) and are each aimed at one of the PC's using the Behemoth's BAB and dexterity for the ranged attack roll, and with no 2 spheres aimed for the same PC. If there are more spheres then there are PC's the remaining spheres land in an open square where it can hit the most PC's with the explosion.

Spells: Cast as a sorcerer – 3/day Lightning Bolt, Chain lightning, 1/day Delayed blast fireball, Meteor swarm