Cold-Blooded Creatures
During the day, your speeds are increased by 2 and you start encounters with 2 temporary HP per level.
During the night and during a round you take cold damage, your speeds are decreased by 2 and you miss on a 1 or 2.
Lvl 1 tiny
You always act first.
- •Venomous Bite (Once).1d3
On damage: target must make a DC 11 strength save or suffer 13-(2 per size above tiny) d6 poison damage (a medium creature suffers 9d6)
- •Bite.1d3
- •Run away!
Move 12 while not provoking opportunity attacks.
As long these venomous creatures are not summoned beasts of some evil magician, they are not evil or malicious - they're just trying to live their life! Against a small or larger foe, they will only ever strike once and then flee (unless their path to escape is blocked), and there is only a 25% chance they use their venomous Bite (venom takes a lot of calories to make!). But if they are attacking a tiny hero, they will always strike with their venom - they hope to eat them!
If a creature touches you, you can cause them to suffer 4d8 fire damage as your magical spines explode.
- Bite.1d20
The massive caterpillars can be found on ancient redwoods in magical forests. They don't seem interested in most heroes, but heroes need to be careful of them. They are extremely fuzzy, but each individual piece of fuzz is actually a magical spike that can explode if the caterpillar wills it.
These caterpillars cannot climb anything but trees, nor would they want to.
Perhaps these creatures are part of the setting for a different encounter, and heroes can try to push foes into them or a hill giant can throw heroes into them. Maybe a particularly creative and evil dragon has captured many of these caterpillars and lined the floors of his lair with them so that only a flying creature can pass - or maybe the heroes are hired to save one from a zoo by a friendly fae.
Lvl 3
You always attack first.
- •Jump!
Jump 6 squares away to an unoccupied square.
- •Bite.3d6
On hit: target is Grappled (escape DC 11). You cannot Bite another target until the grapple ends.
These frogs are simple ambush predators with an extremely obvious game plan: Jump at something, put it in their mouth, jump away with it. If this plan doesn't work, wild Darting Frogs will just run away.
Lvl 5 large
If you take 30 damage in one round, your shell breaks, lowering your armor to None and dealing 20 damage to you. If your shell is unbroken, it has 5d4 precious gems in it.
- Trample.1d20+9
On damage: Target is Prone.
These beasts spend most of their time hiding in their shell, which looks like large boulder - sometimes towering fifteen feet tall! When they're standing, they can reach 20 feet, and these gentle giants are extremely intimidating because of their size. They eat fish, and will sometimes submerge themselves in water and wait for fish to approach them.
They typically live in herds of 2d6+3 tortoises, and if your heroes stumble upon a rocky beach with many giant boulders - they may have stumbled upon a herd of Rock Tortoises!
Lvl 7 large
Whenever a creature touches you, they forget what they were doing and become Dazed.
- Tail WHAP!?3d8+10
These large fish are cousins of fae, and have inherited some of the memory magic of their kin. They are massive koi, though, so they are scavengers, not hunters. They are very hard to hunt, though, since their hunters often forget what they were doing. This makes their scales and meat supremely valuable.
Lvl 11 gargantuan
During the night, you gain heavy armor and can cast two of your spells on your turn.
During the day, you lose your medium armor and can attack twice on your turn.
- •Bite (attack).2d6+2
On damage: you heal as much damage as you dealt.
- •Blinding Sun (spell).1d12+2
(Range: 8). On Hit: Blinded (1 action).
- •Comforting Moon (spell).
You gain 10 temporary hit points.
These giant moths are rumored to be the adult form of "Do Not Touch Me!" Caterpillars, but no scholar has ever witnessed their transformation to witness it. They are not predators, despite their massive 30 foot wingspan, and instead act as pollinators for the massive magical redwoods of faerie forests.
Some fae are able to make deals with them to guard locations (their massive wingspan makes them very good doors), but most spend their time searching for food or mating. Your heroes would be smart to not get in the way of these two desires, lest they fall victim to these Moths and their powerful magic.