Monster of the Week #13

 

This week we are diving into custom stat blocks which I found on Pinterest, for those who are interested!

The Thing - Stats

So - for those who don't know - the Thing is from John Carpenter's The Thing which is a fantastic horror film about a group of researchers who are stuck in a frozen research base with a shape-changing monster on the loose. That's all we'll say for now so you can go and watch it!

While making a monster for a group of adventurers, I went looking for inspiration after writing the Monster of the Week #13 as it gave me even more ideas for that type of creature. While researching, this stat block appeared.

I love how this captures the Thing in many different ways - other than the shapechanging, we even see cellular regeneration which will give this interpretation of the Thing more robustness against larger groups of players.

It also boasts a large HP pool with multiple resistances to make it feel just as punishing as the movie makes it feel. Here is the stat block below:

The Thing Stat block

I particularly like the creatures actions as it offers a lot of versatility to the Thing without making it a CR 15 monster. Rapid Mutation allows this monster to have 2 abilities active at any one time, for offensive or defensive purposes. All of these abilities are things that can be spied in the films which is a great touch by the maker of this stat block.

And as it is on film, the Thing is vulnerable to fire - not only causing additional damage to it, but also delaying its quite chunky health regeneration for a turn. Looks like fire will be the way to go!

The "use it if you need it" approach

What I really like about this stat block is that it captures so much of the 'flavour' of the original thing. I also feel it would work well by breaking it into modules that could be used or ignored depending how your party do against it. For example, the AC boost it gets could be ignored if your party are struggling to hit it. This extra bit of flexibility can help you scale your monster better for parties that are maybe newer to the concept of actual player character death. I know multiple groups that feel (and almost are!) unkillable due to how much access they have to certain magic and other abilities. 

In contrast, this week we played a game of Alien and to one of the player's dismay, they were instant killed on the first monster move... It's a tough pill to swallow for anyone, but with this creature you can temper it to your players so it doesn't feel too tough if they encounter it before they are "ready" (if they can be for this Thing!).

Additional ideas

Coming off the back of the use it if you need it approach, it would be very easy to add on your own personal' modules to this monster using film inspired feats or abilities! This could be:

• Slashing damage (any or above a threshold) may split the Thing into two parts, similar to a Black Pudding. Similar to how it makes a new monster when an axe is used to cut its hand off in the prequel.
• Maybe the Thing could split itself of its own accord using the same guidance above - just like when the Thing pulls it's head off of it's latest victim and goes to crawl away.
• Blood test detection is an obvious weakness to the Thing, if players figure that one out of course!
• A small detail, but modifying the "Perfect Imitation" ability to include how the Thing cannot imitate inorganic material - used in the prequel to show how the Thing cannot copy metal pins used in a broken bone, or how it cannot imitate the earring of the final victim in the prequel. While small, if a PC or NPC have notable piercings or equivalent, this could be a way to assist players (or tricking them) into accessing an NPC of being the creature.
• Maybe the monster gets a bonus to persuasion checks against PCs if it is disguised, or alternatively, maybe it has a bonus/ advantage on Insight checks against PCs if they try to trick a Thing in disguise.

That's just a few ideas off the top of my head. The Thing is a great monster to have in a game, especially if the game is body-horror themed. Thanks to u/PedanticVampire for making this great stat block that I will be adding to one of my games in the near future. Maybe I'll make a Call of Cthulhu themed Thing....

Thanks for taking the time to read this post! Do you have any thoughts about what you'd like to see us cover? Let us know with a comment down below.

Next week I already have my eye on another body-horror themed creature, so we will hopefully see you again next week! But until then, good gaming, GMs and have a good one.

-KJ