WOTC Online: Aurumvorax, Mindless Rage

I'm running out of month, aren't I? Ah, well. December is always a crazy time of year. Here are a couple of online additions from the WotC archives to add to our collection of 3e goodness.

First, we have an old favorite, the Aurumvorax. This is a cat-like beastie that eats gold (the name aurumvorax is Latin for 'gold eater'. It first appeared in the old Monster Manual II in 1983. No, wait...it first appeared earlier than that. It was one of the new creatures introduced in the old Expedition to the Barrier Peaks module from 1980. That module was full of them; there were twelve new creatures that first appeared in that adventure, but they weren't given full writeups. You had to dig through the text to find most of them. Anyway, the aurumvorax also starred in an Ecology article in the late 1980s in Dragon Magazine, and was also statted out in the 2nd edition Monstrous Manual. So, it has a long and distinguished pedigree in the game.

Here, it is a Small Magical Beast with 10 HD and a CR of 7. It's a six-legged cat/badger with a golden sheen to its pelt, copper claws and a nasty bite that grips tight like...well, like a badger. Their AC is 23 thanks to the precious metals that they eat that end up in their skin. Their Will save is listed at +0 even though they have a 12 Wisdom and the Iron Will feat, which should mean a minimum of +3 even before counting HD advancement. As a Magical Beast, Will is its weakest saving throw, so it would advance at the slower rate, which means that 10 HD would give it a base Will save of +3. Add the two bonuses and it should read +6, not +0. I'll have to correct that in my own monster file. I'm glad I caught that.

Surprisingly, the writeup doesn't include some of the normal secondary stats, such as Advancement. I'm not sure if it ever appeared again, so I'll have to leave that part of it out for the time being. Doing a bit of online checking, it does indeed appear officially, but not until 2007. So, we'll just move on.

In addition to the monster, we also get a spell every month for the time being. This month's addition is Mindless Rage. This spell is an Enchantment spell for both bards and sorcerer/wizards (both 2nd level). If the target (single creature) fails its Will save, it is driven into a...well, a mindless rage. Their immediate and sole goal for the duration of the spell is to attack the caster in melee combat. They aren't suicidal about it (no jumping into a gorge in an attempt to get at the wizard on the other side, for example), and they can't use ranged weapons, spells, or any other means of attacking that doesn't involve being in melee.

If this spell is cast on someone who can already go into a rage (hello, barbarians!), this counts as one of their daily rage episodes. Well, that could be a good thing, I suppose, if you want the barbarian to run out of rage options. A sorcerer spamming these at the party's barbarian would really wear him down. The spell is noted to have been designed by dwarven fighter/wizards who can take the strain of melee combat. Not a bad idea, really. I wouldn't want a squishy wizard casting this on a minotaur; the results would be...unpleasant. I do like the arcane focus of this spell: a square of red cloth that is waved in the face of the target. Gygax would be proud.

And that will do it for today. I will get more stuff done tomorrow; there's some Forgotten Realms online stuff to go, as well as the Fright at Tristor adventure to review. So, we move along.