Mushroom Knight L7 How-to Mega Guide
Let's upgrade this little guy based on an image I found:
(I found it off of pinterest, but the page link is down and tineye can't find it, if anyone knows who made this please leave a comment.)
A lot of my inspiration when making homebrew is based on art I find online. If you find yourself inspired by art or an idea, act on it. Here's the sites I use when making my sheets: Superstar! and monster.pf2.tools.
When I look at this image, I really think of a strength based medium sized medium level fighter-type Leshy with a stone bastard sword. Let's start with the basics. First requirement is figuring out the level, as that will be the basis of all the stats. I'm going to go with L7, as I'd see myself throwing this at L5 players and to introduce them as tough enemies for L6 players. Sometimes just eyeballing the level is fine when first starting out, changing the level later only means you'll need to slightly modify the numbers to match up. The math for pf2e is tight, and the tables given in the GM guide act as your bible.
Since we're thinking more of a knight/fighter type of monster, there's actually already a helpful roadmap in the GM guide called "Soldier" which tells us we should have: high AC, high fortitude save, high attack bonus/damage, and Reactive Strike and/or other tactical fighter abilities. We'll keep this in mind when going over the stats.
Let's start with with a game plan in our minds. We already have the Fungus Leshy to look at for inspiration as that's the base creature we're essentially giving a Digi-evolution. The base Fungus Leshy is definitely made for ranged attacks, as by itself it doesn't do much damage, but has the option to do damage over time using the ranged attack based on a save. Let's take that idea and convert it into a melee fighter. We're going to give the Mushroom Knight all of the following from the Fungus Leshy: Change Shape (changing into a medium sized patch or giant mushroom instead of small), the speak with plants spell (except now constant), and the Spore Clouds + Spores abilities.
We can scale the ability for Spore Clouds + Spores so that it matches with the base Leshy by looking at the table for spell dc and attack bonus (this is what is referenced for all abilities, spells or no). DC 16 for a L2 monster is 1 higher than the low DC for spells, so we'll do the same for our L7 monster, making the DC 23. Since this will be a melee fighter without dealing persistent damage through ranged attacks and stuck in the fray, we'll want to try and maximize the ability to deal said persistent damage through specific abilities. Reactive Strike will give us a melee attack outside of its turn, but we should also include an ability that uses more than one action to either hit someone more than once or to hit multiple people in range and is featured on the list of feats for a Fighter. Swipe matches this perfectly.
We'll say that the stone sword is covered in spores so that it deals our intended effect. Since the ability does constant damage on a save on top of the regular damage, we'll need to lower the overall damage the sword will do so as to not deal too much average damage, since we'll be giving our Knight a high attack bonus for being a Soldier. For L7, this will look to be around 18, we'll adjust this number if we need to. For damage, a bastard sword deals 1d8 if wielded in one hand and 1d12 if held in two. We'll use the d12 version as our baseline as most of the time, the sword will be held in two hands unless an athletics maneuver is needed. High damage on average is 20 for a L7 monster, and damage dice is always rounded down to determine the average damage on the table; for a d12 this would be 6. Before determining what bonus damage to add on, we'll need to factor in the Spores ability.
When determining persistent damage, it's assumed this is a condition and deals damage based on 2 levels or more lower than the creature's listed level in unlimited damage, meaning for us this is at most 12. Since we only want the persistent damage to be a minor part of the damage capabilities of their sword, we won't make this too high, but it should be high enough that Spore Clouds is still a threat. Unfortunately, it's been difficult trying to figure out how to figure out how to set the damage for a save based Let's make this 2d4 for an average of 9. This makes our total so far 15 (other instances of , leaving us around 5 for the rest of our damage. We'll leave it at 5, giving us 1d12+5 plus Spores. Since we have a +5 bonus to damage, we can make a reasonable assumption that our strength is +5, making the attack bonus of +18 matching up with a fighter's master training in a weapon (5 str +6 training +7 level =18). From this we can start mapping about our skills if we want, but we'll need to get our defenses straightened out before we forget.
Let's make the HP High and AC Moderately High, keeping the Fortitude high, but the Will and Reflex lower. We'll go middle of High HP, which is 144, and 25 AC. +18 Fortitude, +14 for Reflex, and +12 Will, to pull the weaknesses of the creatures towards Reflex and Will. +5 Con, +3 Dex, and +1 Wis will make the defenses line up (note: paizo is not exact every time with their saves, but it is a personal preference and likely autism that makes me want things to line up.) Our wisdom is low, but the knight is still a fighter, so it'll get the moderate perception.
Let's finish up with some final touches and present what we have:
Creature - Uncommon - Medium- Humanoid - Fungus - Leshy Perception +15; darkvision Skills Athletics +18, Nature+14, Survival+14, Intimidation +15 Str +5, Dex +3, Con +5, Int +1, Wis +1, Cha +2
AC 25; Fort +18, Ref +14, Will +12 HP 144 Virulent Outburst When a Mushroom Knight dies, a burst of poison blasts in the face of anyone within a 30-foot-emanation, dealing 5d6 poison damage (DC 23 basic Fortitude save). This area is filled with fungus, becoming difficult terrain. <Reaction> Reactive Strike
Speed 25 feet Melee stone bastard sword +18 [+13/+8] (two-hand d12), Damage 1d8+5 plus Spores Ranged spore pod +14 [+9/+4] (range increment 30 feet), Damage 2d6 plus Spores <1A> Change Shape (concentrate, polymorph, primal, transmutation) The Mushroom Knight transforms into a Medium giant mushroom. This ability otherwise uses the effects of tree shape. <2A> Spore Cloud (poison) A Mushroom Knight can unleash a cloud of spores that irritates the eyes and throats of non-fungi creatures in a 20-foot emanation. Each creature must succeed at a DC 23 Fortitude save or take 2d4 persistent poison damage. A creature has its vision reduced as long as the persistent damage continues and can see only within 20 feet (or 10 feet, on a critical failure). Spores A creature that takes damage from a hyphae tyrant's spore pod Strike must attempt a saving throw with the same DC and effect as its Spore Cloud ability. Swipe The Mushroom Knight makes a melee Strike and compares the attack roll result to the AC of up to two foes, each of whom must be within their melee reach and adjacent to each other. Roll damage only once and apply it to each creature hit. A Swipe counts as two attacks for the Mushroom Knight's multiple attack penalty.
And with that we have our Mushroom Knight all finished. If this helped you in any way or you like what we did, leave a comment and follow my blog for more!
