Cave Rippers are small, twisted humanoids with tough, leathery, pale grey skin. They have long arms and fingers tipped with razor-sharp claws. 5-10 [d6+4] of the creatures will travel in a pack and can be found roaming the underworld in search of weak prey to devour. Their favored means of attack is to swarm a target and repeatedly claw it until it is dead. Up to four of them can swarm a normal-sized human target, two for smaller races like Dwarves or Halflings. A successful roll to-hit against a target means they have latched on that round, doing no damage but gaining +2 to-hit and doing full claw damage in subsequent rounds. PCs can remove up to two attached Cave Rippers per round, with a successful roll to-hit both creatures are flung away, but only one of them will take damage. Note that this applies even to fighters of 2nd-level or higher – a fighter’s multiple attacks per round apply only to non-attached Cave Rippers.
Cave Ripper*
AC 7 [12]
HD 1
ATK 1d6 claws
SP Swarm attack
MV 18
HDE/XP 2/30
SAV 17
BHB +1
AL Chaotic
* Stat block above is for Swords & Wizardry Whitebox (or OD&D, Delving Deeper, etc.), where HD are d6-based. For other S&W editions, or for Labyrinth Lord, use 1d8 for both HD and claw damage.
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