Trade Route Trouble
Welcome again to Masters and Minions, where I strive to give you interesting NPCs and encounters that can be placed easily into your game. This week’s encounter is with a tangle of cave fishers led by a king cave fisher. The dwarves of the Deep River Trading Company have been using the subterranean Duerganesh River as a trade route for centuries and have never once lost an entire shipment. Recently, however, a large family of cave fishers has taken up residence on a ledge overlooking a stretch of the Duerganesh River. When a boat comes by their lair they pick off the crew one by one, leaving the crewless boat to crash further downriver. The PCs are hired on as escorts for the next shipment. The encounter consists of one king cave fisher and six advanced cave fishers. They lie in ambush on the ledge, 30 feet above the surface of the river. They attack as soon as the PCs or the boat’s crew are within the range of their filament attack.
The filament a king cave fisher produces is as strong as steel and its adhesive takes longer to decompose than normal cave fisher filament (generally 6d6 minutes instead of 3d6 minutes). Harvested filaments function as silk rope with 10 hit points and hardness 10. Harvested filaments can be used as a substitute to using giant spider silk for the spider silk special material*. A king cave fisher's filament glands are just as useful in constructing sovereign glue and similar sticky magical items as its smaller cousins. A king cave fisher’s filament glands are much larger than their smaller cousins, and as such a single king cave fisher's glands count as 1000 gp worth of raw materials, offsetting the total cost of the item's final creation.
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Filament (Ex)
A king cave fisher can fire a thin filament of sticky silk as a standard action. This touch attack has a range of 60 feet and no range increment. A creature struck by a king cave fisher's filament becomes attached to the sticky thread. As a standard action, a creature can rip the filament free with a DC 20 Strength check. A caught creature can also attempt to escape a filament by making a DC 25 Escape Artist check. A filament has AC 14 (touch 12), 10 hit points, and hardness 10. An application of universal solvent dissolves the adhesive and releases the creature caught by the filament. A king cave fisher can have only one filament active at a time.
Poison (Ex)
Bite—injury; save Fort DC 20; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d2 Dex damage; cure 1 save. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Pull (Ex)
A cave fisher has a +4 racial bonus on CMB checks made using its pull special attack.
Weak Bite (Ex)
A king cave fisher doesn’t apply its strength modifier to bite damage.
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Filament (Ex)
A cave fisher can fire a thin filament of sticky silk as a standard action. This touch attack has a range of 60 feet and no range increment. A creature struck by a cave fisher's filament becomes attached to the sticky thread. As a standard action, a creature can rip the filament free with a DC 20 Strength check. A caught creature can also attempt to escape a filament by making a DC 25 Escape Artist check. A filament has AC 14 (touch 12), 5 hit points, and DR 15/slashing. An application of liquid with high alcohol content (or a dose of universal solvent) dissolves the adhesive and releases the creature caught by the filament. A cave fisher can have only one filament active at a time.
Pull (Ex)
A cave fisher has a +4 racial bonus on CMB checks made using its pull special attack.