Nightmare Beast

With a disposition as bad as its reputation, it’s no wonder that a nightmare beast spreads terror wherever it goes.

A nightmare beast stands at least 20 feet tall on its four legs. Each of its digits is tipped with a 3-foot-long claw. Its jaws are filled with 1-foot-long teeth and flanked by curved tusks the size of cavalry lances. A nightmare beast’s thick, tough hide is typically dark gray with dark blue, purple, or brown splotches in between patches of bony material. Its red eyes, each the size of a man’s head, glow in the dark.

The nightmare beast prefers to lair in a remote cave. It spends most of its time in search of food, and it tends to hunt in one area until the food supply is exhausted. At that point, it usually hibernates for up to one year, then awakens again in a ravenous state.

This monster has no interest in treasure, nor does it often bring any prey back to its lair, unless the kill is so large that it cannot be consumed all at once. A nightmare beast often inadvertently eats treasures along with their owners, so occasionally items of value turn up in the creature’s lair at a later time.

Nightmare beasts speak Abyssal.

Combat

Few monsters aside from dragons are as dangerous as a nightmare beast. The creature attacks anything that looks like food with its teeth, tusks, and claws, dealing massive amounts of damage by means of its augmented critical ability. And in spite of all that damage potential, its most dangerous weapons are its spell-like abilities.

Nightmares (Su): Perhaps the nightmare beast’s most powerful weapon is the one from which its name is derived. Every intelligent creature that falls asleep within 10 miles of a nightmare beast must succeed at a Will save (DC 17) or suffer from horrid, vivid nightmares of being stalked and killed by monsters, demons, cruel enemies, or whatever else it fears. The effect is otherwise the same as that of a nightmare spell (caster level 15th; Will save DC 17), except that a dispel evil spell cast on a victim does not stun the nightmare beast. A remove curse or a successful dispel magic negates the effect. Once a creature has either been affected by this ability or made a successful save, it cannot be affected by that nightmare beast’s nightmare power again for 24 hours.

Spell-Like Abilities: 2/day⁠—​chain lightning, cloudkill, dimension door (1,000 ft. range), disintegrate, dispel magic, fireball, heat metal, incendiary cloud, lightning bolt, summon monster V, wall of fire. Caster level 10th; save DC 10 + spell level.

Trample (Ex): As a standard action during its turn each round, a nightmare beast can trample opponents at least one size category smaller than itself by making a running jump from up to 35 feet away. See Trample.

Augmented Critical (Ex): A nightmare beast threatens a critical hit on a natural attack roll of 19–20 with any of its natural weapons. Its Improved Critical (tusk) feat doubles that attack’s threat range to 17–20.

Source: Monster Manual II, page 161. This creature’s statistics block has been updated to version 3.5 as given in the D&D® V.3.5 Accessory Update for Monster Manual II. Changed monster summoning V in Spell-Like Abilities to summon monster V.