Bonespear

Bonespears are patient predators that live on many different planes. Named for the two long, wickedly barbed horns that grow from their heads, they are a menace to any creature they might perceive as food—a category that includes most anything that moves. Their home plane is Acheron, but bonespears have spread throughout the planes and can be found in even the most inhospitable climates due to their natural hardiness.

Bonespears resemble large grasshoppers in shape. Their dark, carapaced bodies are 8 feet long, and they stand nearly 5 feet tall at the shoulder. Their heads are capped by a pair of 3-foot-long barbed horns. Only when the creature begins to hunt does it become apparent that the horns are not firmly attached to the creature’s head—long sinews connecting the head and the horns enable the bonespear to launch its horns at prey and reel them in to be consumed.

Bonespears can sit for days on end, waiting for suitable prey to wander by. They typically choose barren, rocky places to conduct their hunts, and many bonespears lair underground. If more than a week passes without a sign of prey, the creatures move on until they find a food source.

Combat

When a bonespear spots food, it reacts quickly. As soon as a target comes with 60 feet, the bonespear launches both horns at it and then attempts to reel it in by retracting the tough sinews that connect the horns to the creature’s head.

Attach (Ex): If a bonespear hits with a horn attack, the horn buries itself in its target, held in place by numerous barbs on the horn’s surface. Each round thereafter that a creature remains impaled by a horn, it takes additional horn damage automatically and incurs a cumulative –⁠1 circumstance penalty on attack rolls, saves, and skill checks. On the bonespear’s turn in subsequent rounds, it attempts to drag its prey closer (see below).

A single attack with a slashing weapon against a tendon (made as an attempt to sunder a weapon) that deals at least 15 points of damage severs a horn from its tendon. A creature impaled by a severed horn takes 1d6 points of damage per round automatically until the horn is removed. Removing a horn (a full-round action) deals 2d8 points of damage to the victim, but if the character removing the horn makes a successful Heal check (DC 20), this damage is reduced to 1d4 points.

Drag: After spearing a victim, a bonespear attempts to drag the victim closer on the bonespear’s turn in each subsequent round. This activity resembles the bull rush maneuver, except that the bonespear drags its victim 10 feet closer +1 foot for each point by which its Strength check exceeds the victim’s. The bonespear gains a +4 bonus on its drag check if it is set in its immobile stance. Against a Medium victim, the bonespear’s Strength modifier is +10, or +14 if it is set in its stance.

A bonespear can draw in a creature from a distance of 10 feet or less and bite with a +4 bonus on its attack roll in the same round.

Horns (Ex): Most encounters with a bonespear begin when it fires its two horns. If a horn misses its intended target, it is quickly reeled in. Reeling in a horn is a full-round action. Each horn has a range of 60 feet (no range increment). A bonespear will always try to hit a single target with both horns, but is capable of attaching to two different targets at the same time.

Poison (Ex): A bonespear delivers its poison (Fort DC 25 negates) with each successful horn attack. Initial and secondary damage for the first horn is 2d4 Dex. Initial and secondary damage for the second horn is 2d4 Str.

Immobile Stance (Ex): At will, a bonespear can make itself virtually immobile by anchoring itself to the surrounding terrain with its six large, strong feet. In this stance, the bonespear receives a +20 stability bonus on opposed Strength checks to resist a bull rush or to otherwise be moved, and it cannot be overrun. (This bonus overlaps [does not stack] with the +4 stability bonus for having more than two legs.) This ability can be activated or deactivated as a free action.

Source: Fiend Folio, page 24. Changes applied as per the D&D^® v.3.5 Accessory Update.