Maelephant

The statistics block below contains details for more than one combat stance of this creature. Use the horizontal scrollbar below it to display the desired one or select from the links below that.

Maelephant, normal stance • Maelephant, defensive stance

The maelephant is a powerful guardian fiend used to protect and defend the treasuries of fiends and wizards.

The creature is humanoid in basic shape, standing 9 feet tall and weighing 800 pounds. A maelephant’s hands appear oversized for its body and are tipped with claws. Its head is similar to a small-eared elephant’s head, having a small mouth filled with tiny teeth, small rheumy red eyes, and a long, coiling trunk tipped with a long, thin spike.

Originally created by powerful baatezu lords to serve as guardians, many maelephants escaped their servitude when their lords were deposed. Now each one travels the Lower Planes alone, driven by an overwhelming urge to protect and guard, though it has nothing of its own to protect. If a powerful individual can provide a maelephant with the great amount of living flesh it needs for sustenance, it readily agrees to serve as a guardian for that individual.

Maelephants speak Common and Infernal.

Combat

A maelephant fights to the death to protect its territory or its charge, and it never pursues intruders or thieves to a distance out of sight of whatever it is guarding. A maelephant is equally effective at holding the line and preventing passage into an area as it is at forcing intruders to retreat. A maelephant never leaves its post, and it immediately breaks off any attack to protect a new threat to its charge. It usually spends the first few rounds of combat using spelllike abilities to erect a defensive screen around its charge.

Maelephants can be summoned using a summon monster VIII spell.

Breath Weapon (Su): Three times per day, a maelephant can breathe out a cloud of noxious vapor 10 feet wide and 30 feet long. Victims within the area of the cloud must make a Fortitude save (DC 17) or suffer complete memory loss. Memory loss suppresses all of a creature’s ranks in its skills and its feats, and it prevents the use of any class abilities (including spellcasting). Currently prepared spells are not lost; they are simply not accessible to be cast. Racial abilities are retained. Additionally, the victim no longer knows who its friends and enemies are, doesn’t remember its past, and can’t even remember its name. The victim can create new memories, but each time it sleeps or rests, any new memories it has created vanish. This condition can be cured by any effect that cures poison (a heal or neutralize poison spell, for example); otherwise, it is permanent.

Frenzied Charge (Ex): Once per minute, a maelephant can make a frenzied charge. During the round in which this occurs, the maelephant’s speed increases to 45 feet and it gains a +2 bonus on all attack rolls. This bonus stacks with any bonuses gained from making a charge attack.

Improved Grab (Ex): If a maelephant hits an opponent that is at least one size category smaller than itself with a claw attack, it deals normal damage and attempts to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity (grapple bonus +18). If it gets a hold, it automatically hits with its trunk-spike. Thereafter, the maelephant has the option to conduct the grapple normally, or simply use its claw to hold the opponent (−20 penalty on grapple check, but the maelephant is not considered grappled). In either case, each successful grapple check it makes during successive rounds automatically deals claw damage.

Spell-Like Abilities: At will⁠—​alarm, entangle, gust of wind, light, true seeing, warp wood; 3/day⁠—​blade barrier, baleful polymorph. Caster level 8th; save DC 12 + spell level.

Defensive Stance (Ex): Once per encounter, a maelephant can adopt a defensive stance as a free action on its turn. In this defensive stance, the maelephant gains +2 Strength, +4 Constitution, a +2 resistance bonus on all saves, and a +4 dodge bonus to Armor Class. The defensive stance column in the statistics block reflects all changes while in this stance.

These benefits persist for a number of rounds equal to 3 + the maelephant’s newly improved Constitution modifier, or until the maelephant moves. While in a defensive stance, a maelephant cannot use skills or abilities that require it to shift its position. A maelephant can end its defensive stance at will. At the end of the defensive stance, the maelephant takes a −2 penalty to Strength for the duration of the current encounter.

Keen Senses (Ex): A maelephant’s sight is four times as good as a human’s. It has low-light vision and darkvision to a range of 240 feet.

Source: Fiend Folio, page 121. Changes applied as per the D&D^® v.3.5 Accessory Update.