Monster of the Week #20

 This week we look at Pathfinder 2e's formidable Greater Barghest.

As a horror TTRPG player, I don't have a significant amount of experience with fantasy RPG's that aren't D&D. I've played the grisly Mörk Borg, and an introductory game of Pathfinder 2e - that's about it. I do however have the Bestiary and a selection of handy Pocketbooks for Pathfinder 2e. Sifting through the Bestiary 1, I was reminded that Pathfinder has a huge repertoire of abilities for players and monsters. 

The Greater Barghest, a CR7 beast, jumped out due to some of the abilities this thing has, especially with an option to pick it's mutation from a short list (which I feel could be very easily expanded on if you felt the need to do so).

Greater Barghest's start as Barghests, flesh eating beasts that twist and mutate until they become 'Greater' . Once this has been achieved they often seek to eventually return to the Abyss. These creatures often do not work with others of their kind - resulting in cannibalism of each other if they cross paths.

A grisly nature, which could easily be exploited to get your party in to fight something that's very 'Witcher-esque'. They are resistant to fire and non-magical physical damage, but are vulnerable to good and lawful creatures. It's also equipped with some powerful jaws (2d10+6 damag), claws (2d8+6 damage) and some innate spell-casting which includes common spells like invisibility, charm and a handful more. Lastly, they can change their shape into the Barghest form they are known for.

Already the creature can offer a good fight or one-shot game boss for low-mid level parties, especially with their more intelligent nature and cruel intentions. I can already think of multiple ideas of how to integrate this creature into existing games to make an encounters more interesting - even a one werewolf themed one shot could be adapted to have something a little scarier into a game.

Pathfinder 2e does something I couldn't find in D&D 5e, which was the customisability of monsters and PCs. Greater Barghest's have one random mutation (and I suppose it could be more based ont he GMs discretion) which can augment it's abilities:

• Fangs (poison) The barghest grows elongated fangs that seep poison. Its jaws deal 1d6 additional poison damage and 1d6 persistent poison damage.
• Toxic Breath [two-actions] (divine, evocation, poison) The barghest breathes a cloud of toxic gas that deals 8d6 poison damage to all creatures in a 30-foot cone (DC 25 basic Fortitude save). It can’t use Toxic Breath again for 1d4 rounds.
• Vestigial Arm Strike [free-action] Frequency once per round; Trigger The barghest completes a Strike. Effect: The barghest makes a claw Strike with a shrivelled third arm hanging from its torso. This attack doesn’t count for the barghest’s multiple attack penalty, nor does that penalty apply on the attack
• Wings The barghest has malformed wings extending from its back. It gains a fly Speed of 25 feet.

These mutations already offer a really cool new 'feature' of the creature, meaning subsequent fights with these things could be spiced up and floured in different ways for your players. And like we said earlier, this list could very easily be added to, either a mutation based on it's prey, or its environment could be a cool addition.

These guys are no slouches either with a 26 AC and 105 HP pool.

So there we have it - a great creature that has some customisability in it never goes amiss, What do you think of the Greater Barghest? I'll definitely be introducing one as a malicious character for my first set of Pathfinder 2e games in the future!