Meat Puppet (CR +varies)[3pp]

Meat puppets are boneless, skinless corpses reanimated after being exposed to necromantic energies.

Creating a Meat Puppet

“Meat Puppet” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that had a skeletal system at one point, but had its bones extracted or completely crushed (referred to hereafter as the base creature).

Senses: Meat puppets have darkvision out to 60 ft.

Challenge Rating: This depends on the creature’s new total number of Hit Dice, as follows:

HD CR XP
4 4 1,200
6 5 1,600
8-10 6 2,400
12-14 8 4,800
15-17 10 9,600
18-20 12 19,200
21-24 14 38,400
25-27 16 76,800
28-30 18 153,600

Alignment: Always neutral evil.

Type: The creature’s type changes to undead. It retains any subtype except for alignment subtypes (such as good) and subtypes that indicate kind. It does not gain the augmented subtype. It uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Armor Class: A meat puppet has no bones to reinforce its body, and has only half the base creature’s natural armor bonus (round down). It tends to shed any possessions it had in life, and so is only 5% likely to be encountered wearing any armor it once had.

Hit Dice: Drop HD gained from class levels (minimum of 1) and change racial HD to d8s. Meat Puppets gain a number of additional HD as noted on the following table.

Meat Puppet Size Bonus Bonus Hit Dice
Tiny or smaller +1 HD
Small or Medium +3 HD
Large +5 HD
Huge +7 HD
Gargantuan +11 HD
Colossal +15 HD

Meat Puppets use their Charisma modifiers to determine bonus hit points (instead of Constitution).

Saves: Base save bonuses are Fort +1/3 HD, Ref +1/3 HD, and Will +1/2 HD + 2.

Defensive Abilities: Meat puppets lose their defensive abilities and gain all of the qualities and immunities granted by the undead type. Meat puppets gain channel resistance +4, DR 5/slashing or piercing, and regeneration (cold iron or good) which heals 1 hp per round per Hit Die.

Speed: The base creature loses fly and burrow speeds, but retains land, swim, and climb speeds, if any.

Attacks: A meat puppet loses all of the base creature’s natural attacks and gains 2 slam attacks, or one slam attack for every natural attack it lost (whichever is greater). It retains all weapon proficiencies of the base creature, but as with armor is only 5% likely to be encountered with a weapon in hand. Its slam attacks deal damage based on the meat puppet’s size, but as if it were one size category larger than its actual size (see Natural Attacks.) It retains any extraordinary special abilities that improve its melee or ranged attacks.

Special Attacks: A meat puppet retains none of the base creature’s special attacks. However, it gains the grab and constrict special attacks.

Special Qualities: A meat puppet loses most special qualities of the base creature.

Abilities: Str +6, Dex +4. A meat puppet has no Constitution score, its Intelligence changes to 3, its Wisdom and Charisma change to 14.

Base Atk: A meat puppet’s base attack is equal to 3/4 its Hit Dice.

Skills: A meat puppet does not retain the skills of the base creature, but it has 1 skill rank per Hit Die. The following are class skills for a meat puppet: Climb, Disguise, Fly, Intimidate, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion), Perception, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, and Stealth.

Feats: A meat puppet gains feats normally based on its Hit Dice, but loses all feats possessed by the base creature. A meat puppet also gains Toughness as a bonus feat.

Environment: Any land and underground.

Organization: Any.

Treasure: 5% chance of standard goods.

Examples

Human Meat Puppet

Otyugh Meat Puppet

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Rappan Athuk © 2012 Frog God Games; Authors: Bill Webb, Matt Finch, Clark Peterson, WDB Kenower, Greg Raglund, Greg Vaughan, and Skeeter Green.

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