Cave Creature (CR +1)[3pp]

Cave creatures are degenerate beings that have adapted to life in the dark realms beneath the earth. They rely on their thick skins and natural weapons to protect them while they hunt for sustenance underground. Although they can be quite intelligent, cave creatures often lack the quicker wits of the surface-dwelling creatures they resemble.

Creating a Cave Creature

Cave creature” is an inherited template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature that has a Dexterity score, is not an ooze, and is normally active on the surface (referred to hereafter as the base creature). A cave creature uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Challenge Rating: As base creature +1

Senses: A cave creature gains blindsight 60 ft. or darkvision +60 ft. Once this choice is made, it cannot be changed.

Armor Class: Natural armor class improves by +1.

Weaknesses: The cave creature gains light blindness as a weakness.

Speed: If the base creature lacks a climb speed, it gains one equal to half the base creature’s land speed. If the base creature lacks both a climb and land speed, the cave creature gains a climb speed of 10 feet and a land speed of 10 feet. If the base creature already has a climb speed, it retains that speed.

Attacks: The cave creature gains one or more primary claw attacks if it has no other natural attacks. A claw grows on each of its arms, wings, fins, or other such appendages. The damage for the claw depends on the base creature’s size as if the base creature was one size category larger.

Abilities: Str +2, Dex –2 (minimum 1), Con +2, Int -2 (minimum 1).

Skills: The cave creature retains the racial skill bonuses described in the Skills section of the base creature’s description, but it loses all skill ranks the base creature possessed. Recalculate skill points for the cave creature’s racial Hit Dice according to its type, and then purchase its skills afresh, treating the base creature’s skills as class skills. The cave creature retains any skill points gained from class levels.

Since cave creatures tend to be colored much like the caves in which they live, a cave creature in an area of natural stone gains a +4 circumstance bonus on Stealth checks.

Environment: Any underground.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Advanced Bestiary, Copyright 2014, Green Ronin Publishing, LLC; Author Jeff Hersh, Developer Owen K.C. Stephens

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