Battlehead, Warhead (3.5e Monster)

Warhead

Author: Ganteka Future (talk) Date Created: 2 December 2015 Status: Tentative Completion Editing: Clarity edits only please

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This is Large-sized, advanced, tougher version of the battlehead.

CR 13

	Neutral Large Aberration (Xenotheric)
Init/Senses	+9/Darkvision 180 ft., Low-Light Vision, Tremorsense 180 ft.; Listen +27, Spot +31
AC	22, touch 14, flat-footed 17 (+5 Dexterity, +8 natural, –1 Size)
hp	192 (18d8 HD); DR 9/—, Fast Healing 1
Fort/Ref/Will	+12/+11/+14 (+16*)
Speed	60 ft. (12 squares), burrow 30 ft.; Pounce
Melee	pincers +23 (1d8+10 piercing and slashing, 19-20/×2) or
Melee	Full Attack: 2 pincers +23 (1d8+10, 19-20/×2 piercing and slashing), 1 beak +17 (1d6+5 piercing and slashing and bludgeoning), rend (1d6+15 piercing and slashing and bludgeoning)
Base Atk/Grp	+13/+8/+3/+27
Special Actions	Healing Surge, Improved Grab, Magic Drain, Pounce
Abilities	Str 31, Dex 20, Con 23, Int 7, Wis 16, Cha 12
SQ	Bio-Energy Pool (10), Energy Resistance 10 Cold & Fire, Immune to Acid & Electricity damage
Feats	Improved Initiative, Track, Healing Surge, Mental Backlash, Improved Critical (pincers), Improved Resistance, Skill Focus (Spot)B
Skills	Balance +14, Climb +15, Hide +26, Listen +27, Move Silently +15, Spot +31, Survival +31
Advancement	19-22 (Large)
Pounce (Ex)	If a warhead charges, it can make a full attack, including a rend attack.
Improved Grab (Ex)	To use this ability, a warhead must hit with its beak attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can rend.
Rend (Ex)	A warhead rends with its powerful beak, spinning and rolling to tear apart its prey dealing 1d6+15 damage.
Bio-Energy (Ex)	A warhead's bio-energy pool can hold a maximum amount of charges equal to 3 plus its Constitution modifier (minimum 1), and recharges at a rate of 1 charge per minute. These charges may be expended to facilitate its Magic Drain or used with various Xenotheric feats.
Magic Drain (Ex)	A warhead can expend 1 bio-energy charge as a standard action to absorb the essence of magic within a 30 foot radius around itself. In doing so, it creates a dead magic zone that lasts for 10 minutes. As a full-round action, a warhead may expend 2 bio-energy charges to absorb the essence of magic within a 60 foot radius around itself. An aura of twinkling green sparks marks the boundaries of these zones. A warhead within a dead magic zone actually becomes more dangerous, gaining extraordinary speed, as if a weight had been lifted off of it. A warhead gains a +10 foot bonus to its land speed and burrow speeds. A warhead cannot use its supernatural telepathy within a dead magic zone.
Healing Surge (Ex)	By expending one bio-energy charge, a warhead forcibly speeds up its metabolism to create a healing surge. It heals 1d8 points of damage for every 2 HD and every point of Constitution bonus it has (9d8+6). Performing a healing surge is a standard action.
Mental Backlash (Ps)	A warhead is under a constant nondetection effect (caster level equal to its HD of 18). Furthermore, any attempt to magically divine its location, alignment, thoughts or some other aspect of its being triggers a confusion effect in the scryer unless he succeeds on a Will save (DC 10+1/2 the warhead's HD + the warhead's Charisma modifier) of 19. The confusion lasts for 1 round.
Limited Telepathy (Su)	A warhead can communicate with other warheads and battleheads within 200 feet. Doing so, it is only capable of expressing simple thoughts, commands, emotions and concepts, such as "attack the big one", "hungry, time for hunt" and "retreat quickly, follow later".
Tremorsense (Ex)	A warhead is attuned to the tiny vibrations that travel through the ground, granting it tremorsense out to 180 feet.
Ability Drain Immunity (Ex)	A warhead's biology is highly resilient. Any ability drain, damage or burn a warhead suffers is automatically negated.
Track & Scent (Ex)	A warhead may track targets by scent
Superior Vision (Ex)	A warhead gains Low-light vision and Darkvision out to 180 feet. It heals blindness naturally after a full rest. The Spot skill is always a class skill for a warhead. Warheads gain the Skill Focus (Spot) feat as a bonus feat.
Xenotheric Blood (Ex)	Warheads have immunity to poisons, polymorphing, petrification and form-altering effects.
Alien Mind (Ex)	+2 on saves against stunning and mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects). Noted with an asterix above.
Meager Subsistence (Ex)	A warhead may feed off of any organic or mineral material as food and needs only one quarter the amount of food and water per day that a human requires. See: Starvation and Thirst.
Endure Atmosphere (Ex)	A warhead has the extraordinary ability to endure elements, suffering no ill effects from a hot or cold environment. In addition, a warhead can breathe so long as there is an atmosphere. A warhead suffers no adverse condition to breathing smoke, volcanic gases or other vapors that are harmful to most creatures.
Hold Breath (Ex)	A warhead can hold its breath for a number of hours equal to 2 × its Constitution score before it risks suffocation. A warhead that suffocates instead becomes mostly dormant, considered to be taking 10 on any sensory skill check. A warhead that detects activity may shake off its dormancy, regaining consciousness as a standard action. A warhead may not become active unless exposed to an atmosphere.

Skills

Skills: A warhead gains a +4 racial bonus on Balance, Listen, Move Silently and Spot check and a +8 racial bonus on Survival skill checks. It gains skill points based on its Wisdom instead of Intelligence.

Strategies and Tactics

Warheads are older, stronger, bigger, faster, smarter, tougher and trickier beasts than their younger forms, the battlehead. Very few creatures challenge their dominance on Messos Myonel, preferring to give them a wide berth. Reaching such an age and power is rare among their kind.

Warheads are cunning and patient ambush predators, holding still in sands and gravels, waiting for prey where they employ their dead magic zones to hinder any counter measures. Warheads prefer to retreat from a fight than risk their death. If an ambush fails within the first couple rounds of the attack, a warhead will withdraw, often burrowing away to safety. It is not unknown for warheads, in a moment of great weakness, to submit peacefully to an intelligent opponent (most likely a highly organized patrol of appilons).

While highly aggressive, they exhibit tactical reasoning beyond what their intelligence might suggest, always being careful to attack clever appilons, retreating to tend to wounds, or tracking prey across long distances with their keen senses. They employ their powerful pincers, dead magic zones and ambush tactics, singling out foes. Warheads often lead roving packs of smaller battleheads on hunts. Like all complex life on Messos Myonel, they can feed off of minerals and microorganisms to sustain themselves, but they prefer meat, and fresh meat at that.

Ecology

Environment: Native to Messos Myonel, warheads are found throughout the planet's surface, as well as underground in cave systems, though they prefer being above ground where loose sand and scree is most common for hiding. Occasionally, a warhead will find its way into water, often to escape surface storms, where it can hold its breath for hours as it scuttles along the bottom. Warheads are poor swimmers and prefer to walk along the bottom of bodies of water, where they hunt for aquatic prey.

Typical Physical Characteristics: Warheads have four main features to their body: a shell, four pincers, a four-part beak and four limbs. They have a hard, cone-shaped shelled body with four dome-like glassy eyes of a dark bluish color. Their shell ranges from greens to browns, grays, rusty reds and pale yellows. From the front of their head jut four large pincers, a pair of large pincers and a pair of small pincers that pinch shut within the arc of the larger pair. In the center is a four-part beak, with each part having a long, rasping and brightly colored tongue. From the narrow end of their shell, four long, muscular limbs protrude, keeping the creature ambulatory. Each limb ends with four blunt, hard nails used for digging and gouging prey.

Alignment: Warheads hunt for food, and much like animals, they are neutrally aligned. They typically lack the outlook on their world that suggests anything other than survival as a means of taking action.

Lore

Stories are told of warheads coordinating with battleheads to enter into appilon sanctuaries. Such fearsome beasts are capable of attacking several adult appilons at once. A warhead off its homeworld is truly a terror since most environments aren't built to sustain or support its behavior and cornering one in the wild is nearly impossible.

Behavior

Warheads are highly reclusive and don't risk unnecessary confrontation. However, such beasts are also highly confident and aggressive. They lay in wait for their prey to come to them, often near areas of key resources where travelers must frequent.

Warheads sharpen their pincers on crystals, chipping off pieces as they grow too large or become blunted after a fight. Their pincers are much like crystal and stone, rather than bone, and when chipped, leave a very sharp and strong edge.

At rest, a warhead goes into a dormant phase underground, slowing its metabolism down. It still retains its sensory abilities in this state, taking 10 on any necessary check. It shakes out of its torpor as a standard action. A resting warhead does not employ its dead magic zone, as doing so riles it up. A resting warhead may employ its dead magic zone to raise itself out of its torpor as a standard action.

Reproduction: Warheads in mating season tend to become nuisances, as they tend to become highly aggressive and free-roaming. Wandering warheads will often try to settle into prime areas inhabited by other creatures that they wish to prey upon. In this state, a warhead may simply kill to mark its new territory and not eat its prey.

Typical Treasure

Some warheads hole up in the same territory for long periods of time. The trash of their kills tends to pile up around them. Occasionally, these bits of treasure will be used as lures on the surface to draw in prey eager for a prize.

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