PALANTINO (Mark Thies)

 

Palantino
medium monstrosity (lycanthrope), neutral evil
rogue (assassin) 3rd level; background: criminal

AC: 15; HP: 64 (8D8+24); Initiative: +4 (advantage); Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 14; Speed: 30 ft. / 40 ft. (wolf form only)

STR: 16, DEX: 14, CON: 16, INT: 11, WIS: 11, CHA: 10

Saves: DEX +4, INT +2; Resistances: bludgeoning, piercing, slashing damage from non-silvered non-magical weapons; Skills: Athletics +5, Deception +4, Insight +4, Investigation +4, Perception +4, Sleight of Hand +4, Stealth +4; Feats: Alert; Tool Proficiency: disguise kit, poisoner's kit, thieves' tools; Languages: 3- Vulgate, 2- Common, Thieves' Cant, Ynge; PB: +2.

TRAITS
Pack Attack: He has Advantage on attacks against creatures if at least one of his allies are within 5 ft. of the creature and the ally doesn't have the incapacitated condition.
Sneak Attack: Once per turn, he can deal and extra 2D6 to one creature you hit with an attack roll if you have Advantage on the attack and it uses a finesse or ranged weapon. 
Surprising Strike: During the first round of each combat, he has advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn't taken their turn. If your Sneak Attack hits any target during that round, the target takes an addition 3 HP damage of the weapon's type.

ACTIONS
Multiattack: He can make up to two attacks per turn.
Bite (wolf OR hybrid form only): melee natural attack (+5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2D8+3 piercing damage PLUS if target is humanoid, it must make a CON save DC13. Failure: target is cursed. If they drop to 0HP, they instead become a werewolf under the DM's control. Success: target is immune to the curse for the next 24 hours.)
Claw (wolf or hybrid form only): melee natural attack (+5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2D6+3 slashing damage)
Scimitar (humanoid or hybrid only): melee weapon attack (+5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: D6+3 slashing damage)
Light Crossbow (humanoid or hybrid only): ranged weapon attack (+4 to hit, ranged 80/320 ft., one target. Hit: D8+2 piercing damage PLUS reduce target speed by 10 ft. until the start of Palantino's next turn)

BONUS ACTIONS
Cunning Action: Dash, Disengage, or Hide.
Shape-Shift: Can shape-shift into a wolf-humanoid hybrid or Medium wolf OR can return to his true humanoid form.
Standard Aim: Gains Advantage on his next attack roll on his current turn. He can't have already moved, and his Speed is reduced to 0 ft. until the end of his current turn.

DESCRIPTION / DESIGN NOTES
Palantino was an original member of the Evil Three. His genesis must have been from a Dragon magazine where there was a template for lycanthropes -- or Chris created it himself. Palantino was an original member of the Evil Three. He survived Eric in the fire, but died to a band of goblins who wielded silver weapons. Only Obbinjar survived them.

In my recreation for the Falkirk campaign, I faced a dilemma. I either had to create such a template myself OR use the existing monster description with some character levels. Since I plan to use him in both regular and solo play as an NPC, I chose to take the second approach. Even so, I found I needed to do some re-design of the monster. First, I halved the monster's HD to tone it down a bit. Second, interestingly in the Monster Manual 2024, they stripped lycanthropes from the immunity to damage from non-silvered, non-magical weapons. In this case, I decided to split the difference between versions and give him resistance to such attacks instead.

--LM