Hobgoblin Woebringer

Hobgoblin Woebringer (CR 32)

Lawful Evil - Medium - Fey

Lore:	Know (Nature)
61		83
Basic DC		Full DC

Initiative

54

Perception:
66	+56
Passive	Active

Ambush:

10+

on a d20

Senses:

• Standard Senses
• Darkvision 90 ft.
• Precise Hearing 90 ft.

Movement Types:

• Walk 60 ft.
• Greater Climb 60 ft.
• Greater Swim 60 ft.
• Greater Teleport 60 ft.

Defense

AC

60

Man Def

69

Monster Health
4,107	2,053	69
Hit Points	Bloodied	Hit Dice

Saving Throws
Fort:	+36
Refl:	+31
Will:	+33

Strong Against:

Weak Against:

Offense

Size:	Medium
5 ft.		15 ft.
Space		Reach

To-Hit

+44

Man Off

+57

Action

0

Points

Standard Attack (Melee):

• 1x Slave Whip +44 (6d8+64/17-20 x2)
  as Flensing (physical, rare)
  plus: Pluck

Full Attack (Melee):

• 3x Slave Whip +44 (6d8+64/17-20 x2)
  as Flensing (physical, rare)
  plus: Pluck

Standard Attack (Ranged):

• 1x Hob Knob +44 (6d8+68/19-20 x2)
  as Bludgeoning (physical, common)
  (Increment: 120 ft.; Max Range: 600 ft.)
  NOTE: roll once per attack, then apply that to-hit number against up to three targets who are within 15 feet of the space of the main target of this attack. If these extra attacks are successful, roll damage once and apply it to all struck foes. These bonus attacks must have line of effect from the main target.

Full Attack (Ranged):

• 3x Hob Knob +44 (6d8+68/19-20 x2)
  as Bludgeoning (physical, common)
  (Increment: 120 ft.; Max Range: 600 ft.)
  NOTE: roll once per attack, then apply that to-hit number against up to three targets who are within 15 feet of the space of the main target of this attack. If these extra attacks are successful, roll damage once and apply it to all struck foes. These bonus attacks must have line of effect from the main target.

Siege Damage: Not siege capable

Statistics

44

STR

46

DEX

46

CON

38

INT

40

WIS

40

CHA

Skills:

• Bluff: 54
• Diplomacy: 54
• Knowledge (Nobility): 54
• Knowledge (Planes): 54
• Perception: 56
• Sense Motive: 54
• All other skills: 49 (no ranks)

Languages: Awnsheghlien, Cúirteil, Elven, Goblin, Common

Feats:

• Combat Reflexes (EFFECT: Monsters with this feat make up to 4 attacks of opportunity per round instead of one.)
• Blind-Fight (EFFECT: Ignore partial or total concealment penalties with your melee attacks)

Special Abilities

Whipcrack (Su) Free Action, 1/Rnd

Up to once per round, as a free action, a Woebringer may raise their empty hand and with a goblinoid grin of glee, snap their fingers. Whipcrack affects up to two enemy creatures per use. One creature they choose must be within 80 feet of their space, to whom they have line of effect, although line of sight is NOT required. The second creature must be within 50 feet of that creature, with line of effect between those two creatures, and it can be further away than eighty feet. All affected creatures must make a FORT save versus a DC of 44. If they fail the save, they suffer 6d8+64 points of sonic (energy, common) damage, and gain the Secured condition until the start of the hobgoblin's next turn. If they succeed on the save, they are not secured and only take half the sonic damage. Note that the hobgoblin may choose to use this on any target(s) they have reason to suspect is nearby, such as a player who has made a Stealth roll, but the Woebringer has already seen. Note that this ability can 'reach around corners' by targeting a creature who has line of effect when the Woebringer does not. Hobgoblins don't want to KILL you, they want to CATCH you....

Tears of Pain (Sp) Standard Action 1/Rnd

Concentration: 1d20 + 38 vs. a DC of 47 (9 needed on the die) Once per round, as a standard action, a Hobgoblin Woebringer may mime wiping a tear from its eye and 'flick' it toward victims of their choice. When doing so, it uses its twisted Fey magic to inflict terrible pain upon its enemies. This is a mind-affecting spell-like ability that targets a 9x9 square area anywhere within 300 feet of the Hobgoblin's square. The Hobgoblin must have line of sight and line of effect to the target square. When cast, Tears of Pain inflicts 6d8+64 of psychic (energy, uncommon) damage and inflicts the Baffled condition until the end of the encounter. Those who succeed on a Will save against a DC of 44 are able to reduce the damage by half and reduce the Baffled condition to Dazzled (which still lasts until the end of the encounter).

Pluck (Su) Automatic 1/Rnd

Up to once per round, a creature just attacked (hit or miss) by the Hobgoblin's Slave Whip attack must make a FORT save versus a DC of 44 as the Woebringer attempts to pluck out an eye, or snatch off an ear or nose or...other body feature. If they fail the save, they suffer 6d8+64 points of mutilation (physical, rare) damage, and gain the Secured condition until the start of the hobgoblin's next turn. If they succeed on the save, they are not secured and only take half the mutilation damage. Woebringers are expert slave-takers, but Hobgoblins like their slaves to be appealingly decorated with scars and gapes. Aside from the decorative disfigurements, they strive to keep Secured running as much as they can manage. It wouldn't do for one of their flesh sculptures to die on them, after all...

Enslave (Su) Out of Combat

When they catch slaves, Woebringers enact a fearful ritual upon them to ensure their compliance. They take Cold Iron and very carefully craft it into chains, heating it in their red forges to denature the poisoned substance. They take the white hot metal and hammer it into slave shackles upon their victims. This breaks the creature's will to the hobgoblin's, and thus you will see cruelly chained and shackled monsters in hobgoblin encounters. Enslaved: This is a strong status condition that applies only to monsters with an INT score. The monster becomes subservient to the hobgoblins and will do whatever it is told. The reforged Cold Iron shackles give enslaved monsters DR/Common and ER/Common equal to their CR. Enslaved creatures grant 20% more XP and treasure to reflect their stronger combat stats. Enslaved can be cured only by casting Remove Curse (Cleric Spell), or using an ability with a comparable effect.

Uncanny Feint (Ex) Swift Action

Hobgoblins can bend and move in a fluidly repulsive, unnatural way, which makes predicting when and where they are going to attack exceedingly difficult. As a result of this unnatural pliability, as a swift action, the Hobgoblin can use Bluff to Feint in combat, causing its opponent to be flat-footed against that hobgoblin's attacks until the beginning of the hobgoblin's next turn. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target's base attack bonus + the target's Wisdom modifier. If the target is trained in Sense Motive, the DC is instead equal to 10 + the target's Sense Motive bonus, if higher. Uncanny Feint does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Hobgoblin Woebringer

Hobgoblins are the cruelest and most common of the Low Fey. Although technically Outsiders, they live on the Prime material in large numbers, their enclaves generally isolated. By the measures of more 'normal' races, the Hobgoblins, like all fey, are quite insane. Their motives and reasoning are just-so-subtly...off.

For example. Hobgoblins are quite formidable beings. If they formed armies and marched on their neighbors, they could establish nations and empires easily enough. But they do not. They don't care about such things, being content to live in small towns and thorps, a few dozen here, a few hundred there.... That is all that they are interested in. Hobgoblins are far more interested in their byzantine social lives and the torment of their slaves than they are about worrying over living space, to be honest.

Hobgoblin Woebringers are the royalty of Hob Society. Woebringers can be born, or they can earn their way into these exalted ranks. As a result, Woebringers can have a wide variety of slightly mad and solidly eccentric tastes and behaviors.

Woetakers, whether serious or frivolous, are Royalty, and expect to be treated with deference by their lessers. They are also lethally competent members of hobgoblin society. They are the order givers and the shot callers, the ones who make and break treaties and send dark armies on the march. Woebringers are also not rare, as Hobgoblins have no trouble with nearly a sixth of their populace being some variety of royalty.

Woebringers have a sense of utter superiority. This may be tempered with a lash of pragmatism, or it may be exacerbated by fanciful whimsies. Even if encountered by low-level adventurers, Woebringers are much too snobbish to dirty their hands on them, and unwilling to waste the time needed to catch and bind them because they aren't worth the trouble. Woebringers occasionally go on slave raids, but they tend to target creatures powerful, useful, and plentiful enough to re-sell quickly, or, they are on the hunt for some astonishing rarity, like an albino Atropal, to display as a trophy battle-slave.

Woebringers, as befits their stature, tend to hold many, many slaves for themselves, their enormous holdings of flesh headed by an elite cadre of servants, battle-slaves, and of course, torture-bait. Aside from the unfortunates designated to suffer to amuse the hobgoblins, Woebringers usually have fairly low turnover in their slave stocks, and are usually only interested in acquiring for themselves the truly interesting, powerful, or exotic slaves. Unfortunately for adventurers powerful enough to handle Woebringers, they usually qualify on all three counts.

Woebringers can be found on slave raids, military campaigns, and at slave auctions almost anywhere. Aside from those 'passing encounters', these mighty Hob Royals are deeply embroiled in monstrous 'politics', and are likely to be found as allies and muscle for lesser foes, or as backers for foreign nations and empires, or as the 'common face' of really exotic sorts. In any case, an encounter with Woebringers is likely to be a cagey, measured affair.

Combat Tactics

Hobgoblin Woebringers, despite their noble status, are vicious fighters with plenty of courage and are more than willing to take the fight to their enemies.

That said, they are wealthy and powerful, and they plan to remain that way. They will commonly send in an Enslaved creature, or two, or five, as their 'front line', to see how nasty their latest victims are. Indeed, it is not unknown for Woebringers to send an entire attack force of Enslaved monsters into battle to 'soften up' a party of adventurers, and if the Enslaved perform poorly, the Woebringers will try to set an ambush, or otherwise 'set things in their favor'. If those Enslaved get utterly annihilated, the Woebringers are not above retreating promptly and completely. These Enslaved are often from the Woebringers own stock of Battle Slaves, and can be...quite formidable, their cold-iron bindings providing them with considerable protections.

In battle, they will use their free-action Whipcrack, snapping their fingers with glee, battering their foes. If allowed to fight at range, they throw massive round metal balls, their Hob Knobs, smashing foes down. Woebringer Hobgoblins lavish decoration and tremendous care on their Hob Knobs, as they are a symbol of status. A Woebringer's Hob Knob is potently magical, and every time they roll an attack roll, if there is a cluster of enemies, they may attack many of them at once with that same roll. This may simulate the Hob Knob magically dividing into many copies as it is thrown, or it may curve and bounce from enemy to enemy, or it may simply explode and reform, or make shadow copies of itself, or emit waves of warped space, or summon swarms, or, or...the possibilities are nearly endless, and GM's are encouraged to be inventive.

Woebringers prefer to stand back from battle unless provoked, using their multi-attacking Hob Knobs and their long, deadly Slave Whips to fight from a distance, often with a Battle Slave or two or five to hold their foes at bay. Their Slave Whips have a massive fifteen feet of reach, base, and combined with their Combat Reflexes and Blind-Fighting, moving incautiously around a Woebringer is going to be painful.

Woebringers can Teleport. They will use this ability to pop around and even above the battlefield, attacking unceasingly. To enable this goal, they will often use a wave of Tears of Pain on all the back rankers they can find, seeking to damage the softies and lay a condition to make spell casting more difficult, followed by a volley of Hob Knobs looking to land a Prone condition.

Against melee fighters, they almost always use their Uncanny Feint first, expending their swift action to try and flat-foot a hapless soon-to-be-slave. After Uncanny Feint, Whipcrack and a full dash of Slave Whip strikes with a 'Pluck' added in will generally let them make progress against even the toughest of foes.

Woebringers are very, very good at fighting, with Combat Reflexes to punish those who move carelessly around their attack formation, and they are so skilled they can ignore all miss chances thanks to their Blind-Fighting. They don't have access to a miss chance in their base powers, but if the environment offers up such a thing, such as by dousing a torch or breaking a window to let in smoke, they will do so with glee.

Woe betide those who face a Woebringer who has a Mage pattern....

If a battle is going poorly, Woebringers will attempt to make a fighting withdrawal, moving away and casting Tears of Pain and Whipcracks behind them to deter pursuit, mixed in with Hob Knobs. If cornered, they will attempt to negotiate, and are usually fairly trustworthy in such endeavors, attempting to work out surrender terms, or offering up bribes for their release.

If forced into it, they will accept almost any terms of surrender that saves their lives: They have confidence they will turn the tables at a later date, and laugh last.

If surrender is not possible, they will fight savagely to the death.

Out of Combat

Hobgoblin Woebringers are well-equipped, with beautifully elaborate equipment, ravishingly scarred slaves, and the security of their power and might.

They are Royalty...and you are not.

When Woebringers are encountered outside of their home community, they are usually 'on the job'. Woebringers are firmly of the Prime Material, their race having fled to the security and warmth of the center ages agone, but Woebringers are mighty enough that they will venture out into the Planes, or even further, looking for...whatever they are interested in. They could even just be out to enjoy a nice, summery day.

But in almost all cases, if a Woebringer encounters a set of adventurers who can give them a good fight, they will be polite, they will be cautious, they may even withdraw after honeyed words...but they will also be interested. Such rare and potent creatures are...valuable. Woebringers will mark you out, and then start acting against your home country, your home town, your family.... Never face-to-face, not at first. They like their scars on the inside, as well as on the flesh.

Just because they are inclined to enjoy a bout of witty banter before a fight doesn't make them less monstrous, it makes them WORSE. Because Hobgoblins are really, truly nice, civilized beings, who just happen to feel that all other races exist to serve them as chattel, and nothing, NOTHING, will change their minds.

Well, except death....

Rewards

XP: 19,680,000

Treasure: Sellable Goods worth 2,015,533 gp.

Weight: 320 lbs.     Volume: 12.8 cu. ft.

Optional Treasure Rules: Roll a d20 on Table 1 below once per encounter (NOT per creature). Any items discovered are in addition to the normal treasure for the encounter.

Table 1: Remnant(s) Found
1 - 10	Nothing Found
11 - 14	1 Languid Remnant (tier 1)
15 - 17	1 Pale Remnant (tier 2)
18 - 19	1 Bright Remnant (tier 3)
20	Roll on Table 2
###	Nothing to see here!
###	Or here. Move along.

Table 2: Remnant(s) Found
1 - 5	3 Languid Remnants (tier 1)
6 - 10	3 Pale Remnants (tier 2)
11 - 14	1 Intense Remnant (tier 4)
15 - 17	1 Blazing Remnant (tier 5)
18 - 19	1 Vital Remnant (tier 6)
20	Roll on Table 3
###	Or here. Move along.

Table 3: Remnant(s) Found
1 - 5	3 Bright Remnants (tier 3)
6 - 8	3 Intense Remnants (tier 4)
9 - 11	3 Blazing Remnants (tier 5)
12 - 14	3 Vital Remnants (tier 6)
15 - 17	1 Prime Remnant (tier 7)
18 - 19	1 Mythic Remnant (tier 8)
20	1 Empyrean Remnant (tier 9)