FrankenFourth: Renovating the Hall of Harsh Reflections (Part 2)

In the final dungeon in The Hall of Harsh Reflections (the fourth adventure in the Age of Worms adventure path), it's possible for the characters to fight a vrock.

In case you don't know what a vrock is, it's a sort of demonic creature that looks like a cross between a humanoid and more-or-less a vulture (varies between editions) that, in addition to a suite of seemingly random spells, can screech once per encounter battle, hour, or day (also varies by edition), dance about to inflict a bunch of damage, and shoot spores that deals damage and covers affected victims in vines.

Despite the dancing and spores it isn't nearly as silly as the shrieker, but it's still silly enough that I'm going to change it up during the conversion.

Starting with the high concept, they're no longer elite troops fighting in a never ending war against another category of demonic creatures. Instead they travel to the mortal world, seeking souls that haven't passed on, or are unable to for some reason, in order to devour them. I haven't decided on a purpose yet (it's not important right now): if they're not part of an infernal hierarchy, then they could do this simply to feed, or perhaps create more vrocks. If so, then I guess they bring them to whoever they serve.

I'm mostly fine with their stats and overall combat capability, but I just can't envision a vrock clawing, then biting, and then I guess also kicking at someone, so I'm taking away their talon attacks and bumping up their bite damage: if I want a vrock to use its talons (like, say, when it comes swooping down upon someone), I can just use the claw attack numbers.

Next up I'm going to axe most of their spells. I'm cool with detect magic and see invisibility, since that plays off of the keen sight, but stuff like mass charm and telekinesis? Nooope. The turkey vulture has a good sense of smell, but instead of being able to smell decaying bodies vrocks can smell souls. Speaking of vultures, I'm also going to say they can transform into a vulture, or something that looks more like a vulture for when they wanna be discreet.

Finally, vultures have pretty strong stomach acid, and often vomit if threatened. While I guess they don't deliberately vomit on whatever is attacking them, I like the idea of this guy having a sort of acidic "breath weapon" to shake things up (and replace stunning screech).

Here's the stat block (easily adaptable to other D&D things):

Vrock
Level 10 Large Demon
XP 100

Ability Scores 
STR +5 DEX +2 WIS +3
CON +4 INT +0 CHA +2

Skills
Athletics +7, Intimidate +5, Perception +7, Search +7

Defense
Initiative +6
Speed 10 feet/30 feet; fly 20 feet/50 feet
Fort 15 Ref 12 Will 13
Armor 2 (demonic hide)
Wounds 71 Vitality 31 Total 102

Special
Vrocks can detect magic by sight, and see invisible creatures, ghosts, and spirits. They can smell the presence of ghosts and spirits up to 100 feet away, and can harm such creatures normally with their beaks and talons. Should a vrock destroy a ghost or spirit it is also devoured: until the vrock is slain, the creature cannot be returned to life or pass on.

Vrocks can use their action to transform into a vulture or revert back to their true form. In vulture form their size becomes Small, and their bite and talons only deal 1d6+5 damage, but their other statistics remain the same.

Offense
Multiattack The vrock makes two claw attack and one bite attack.

Claw +8 to hit; 2d6+5 damage (1 armor piercing)

Bite +8 to hit; 2d8+5 damage (2 armor piercing)

Vomit (recharge 5+) Affects everything within a 30 foot cone; +8 vs Reflex; on a hit the target suffers 2d8+5 acid damage (half damage on a miss); 18+ the target takes an additional 1d8 acid damage at the start of its next turn, and any armor worn has its Armor reduced by 1 until it is repaired.

Announcements

If you're curious about FrankenFourth and/or Dungeons & Delvers, you can find public alpha documents here and here respectively.

A Sundered World: Player Fragments, the first supplement for A Sundered World, is finally out!

The Paladin is technically the sixth "core" class we've provided an alternative for. If you interested in an alternate class that isn't merely a half-assed reskin, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).