Ettercap (4e Race)
From D&D Wiki
Ettercap[edit]
![]() |
---|
Guarding the mother by artomz, on Flickr |
Cunning hunters and trappers who have an affinity with spiders.
Racial Traits |
Average Height: 5'10" - 6'10" |
Average Weight: 180 - 280 lbs |
Ability Scores: +2 Constitution, and +2 to Strength or Dexterity |
Size: Medium |
Speed: 5 squares |
Vision: Normal |
Languages: Common |
Skill Bonuses: +2 Stealth, +2 Nature |
Web Walker: You ignore movement effects of spider webs and difficult terrain related to spider swarms. |
Poison Resistance: You have resist poison 5 + one-half your level. |
Arachnid Kinship: You can communicate with eight-legged natural beasts such as spiders and scorpions. You are considered a spider for effects relating to that keyword. |
Spider Bite: You can use spider bite as an encounter power. |
<!- Fluff. ->
Play an Ettercap if you want...
- To sneakily defeat your foes with traps and poisons.
- To be friends with spiders.
- To be a monsterous and primitive hunter.
- To be a member of a race that favors the Fighter, Rogue or Warden classes.
Physical Qualities[edit]
Ettercaps are bipedial with long arms, a pot-belly, short legs and hairy skin. With a stooping gait and hunched shoulders they are still around six feet tall. Their clawed hands have thumbs and three long fingers. Two large poisonous fangs protrude downwards from the sides of their mouth. Their jaws are lined with sharp teeth. At the base of their spine they have a silk gland like that of a spider.
Their bodies are covered by tufts of thick, wiry, black hair, and their skin is dark and thick. Ettercaps' heads are almost equine in shape, but they have large reptilian eyes, usually blood-red in color.
Ettercaps do not have a formal language. They express themselves through a combination of high-pitched chittering noises, shrieks, and violent actions.
Though usually only one ettercap is encountered at any time, on rare occasions a pair of ettercaps can be found together. The pairs encountered are always mated couples, though the female and male appear to be identical. Ettercap young are abandoned as soon as they are born, so adults are never encountered with young.
An ettercap eats any meat, regardless of the type of creature from which it comes. Upon capturing a victim, the ettercap poisons it so it cannot escape; once the creature is dead, the ettercap immediately devours as much of the corpse as possible. Typically, an ettercap can consume an entire deer or a large humanoid in a single sitting. Anything remaining after the ettercap has gorged itself is left for scavengers.
Playing an Ettercap[edit]
Ettercaps naturally have a life of solitude in the deepest parts of forests. That choose to become adventurers must have a rare quality such as curiosity, better-than-low intelligence, a desire for companionship, a divine calling or some form of arcane influence. Ettercaps are hoarders. A life beyond the nest may have started with interest in bits of equipment left from adventurers ensnared in their webs - the realization that blades can be wielded, that armour can protect.
As a primitive race, they are not well liked amongst civilized communities. Tenacious and gregarious ettercaps eventually learn the common tongue and perhaps find a home in human settlements, where their silk-weaving skills are found to be useful.
In combat, ettercaps prefer to set devious traps and ambush their prey rather than fight face to face. A surprised foe is one that can be bitten quickly with a poisonous bite. If forced into a straight fight, an ettercap adventurer will seek to use maneuvers that blind, daze or knock foes to the ground.
Ettercaps often have a giant spider or scorpion as a pet. There are several ways to handle this in the game:
- A sentinel druid or beastmaster ranger may state that their animal companion is a giant spider or scorpion.
- An arcane familiar.
- Your DM may allow a companion character in the form of a giant spider or scorpion. Note that such companions take a share of the XP and are usually used to fill a role missing in the party.
- You may have a giant spider or scorpion as a henchman; see Appendix 1 of Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium.
Ettercap Characteristics: Primitive, unscrupulous, sneaky, cunning
Male Names: Tripfang, Fellmoon, Weblord
Female Names: Recluse, Stingleaf, Orb-beam
Ettercap Adventurers[edit]
Three sample Ettercap adventurers are described below.
Bolete is an ettercap fighter. Woodsmen from the nearby town were dutied with burning out the ettercap web lairs encroaching on their logging sites. Bolete was just hatchling with an unusual lime-green cross pattern on her back. She was easily captured by one woodsman who wanted to take her back as a souvenir. At first she was a family pet - a kind of guard dog - but within three years grew too large to keep. The town militia adopted her, since she was a useful deterrant, and she begin to learn rudimentary words to express her desires. By ten, she was routinely helping her masters fight away savage beasts from the surrounding farmland. One day, as a jape, the guard captain stuck a pot helmet on her head and gave her a spear to hold. She took to the idea.
Firtarn is an ettercap warden. Deep in the slyvian woods, he got caught up in a particularly stubborn series of goblin raids against the local wood elves. The goblins happened to be the first to be caught in his lairs, and he developed a taste for goblin flesh. He began to be known amongst the elves as Carake'orn - the "fang in the trees". Although he defended the sacred groves by happenstance, he was approached by the dryad there who taught him how to draw from the primal spirits. Firtarn is a vicious, brave defender of the forests.
Trapdoor is an ettercap thief. His egg hatched in the sewers under a sea port, perhaps lost from a shipment of exotic animals. At first the underground waterways were cozy and he gorged himself on rats and hoarded shiny metal things. After his first molting he skulked into the above world at night and over time discovered that some of the shinies were "coins" and that others were "blades". Observing a particular kind of human people, he saw that one could use the "blades" to stab other human people in order to gain more "coins". And one gets to keep the blades. Tentatively Trapdoor began his new career.
Ettercap Feats[edit]
Name | Description |
---|---|
Silkcraft Expertise | Your silk becomes translucent and you wield it efficiently and quietly. |
Silkcraft Mastery I | You produce silk at an increased rate. It becomes keen-edged - better able to find chinks in armor. |
Web Reaper | Ettercaps are practiced at quickly dispatching foes entangled in their web-nests. |
Name | Description |
---|---|
Baneful Bite | Your venom becomes more neurotoxic and regenerates rapidly. |
Silkcraft Mastery II | Your silk cuts deeper. Your traps are more devious. |
Spider Climb | You learn to use your sticky webbing to traverse walls and ceilings. |
Name | Description |
---|---|
Silkcraft Mastery III | |
Web Net | You learn to use your sticky silk webs in conjuction with your immobilizing powers. |
Ettercap Racial Utility Powers[edit]
When your ettercap character gains a class utility power after 1st level, you can forgo taking a power granted to you by your class. Instead you gain a ettercap utility power of the same level or lower. For items created through a Silkcraft power, see the section "Ettercap Silkcraft" below.
Web Silkcraft | Ettercap Utility 2 |
You spin webs from your silk glands. | |
Daily | |
Move Action | Personal |
Effect: When you use this power, select one of the following effects:
|
Cord Silkcraft | Ettercap Utility 2 |
You secrete a thin, tough, silvery cord from your silk glands. | |
Daily | |
Move Action | Personal |
Effect: When you use this power, select one of the following effects:
|
Aggregate Silk | Ettercap Utility 10 |
You excrete sticky webs to block passageways and seal shut openings, allowing you to escape from dangerous foes. | |
Daily | |
Standard Action | Area Wall 4 within 10 |
Effect: You create a wall of contiguous squares filled with aggregate silk. It can be up to 8 squares long and up to 2 squares high. The wall's area blocks movement and line of sight and lasts until the end of the encounter. Attacks against the wall automatically hit. The wall has 100 hit points, and attacking any square deals damage to the entire wall. It has vulnerability 5 to fire. Doors, chests (and other objects that can be opened) that are in or touched by the wall are glued shut. If the object is already locked or stuck, this adds 5 to the break DC; otherwise a DC 20 Strength check is required to break the object open. This effect persists until the object is broken open. |
Summon Spider Swarm | Ettercap Utility 16 |
You let out a hiss. Thousands of spiders - wolf, hobo, funnel-web and more exotic kinds - emerge from the surrounding vegetation and cracks in the ground. The arachnids move at your bidding, eager to overswarm any foes that blunder too near. | |
Daily ![]() | |
Minor Action | Ranged 10 |
Effect: You summon a medium spider swarm in an unoccupied square within range. The swarm takes half damage from melee and ranged attacks, has vulnerability 5 against close and area attacks. It has a speed of 5, climb 5 (spider climb) and benefits from your web walker racial trait. It has a +2 bonus to AC. If an enemy begins its turn adjacent to the spider swarm, it is slowed and grants combat advantage until the end of your next turn. | |
Special: The rules for summoning can be found in Arcane Power, or at the WoTC site. |
Ettercap Silkcraft[edit]
Weapon | Prof. | Damage | Range | Weight | Group | Properties |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Web | +2 | 1d6 | 5/10 | 1 | Flail | heavy thrown, offhand |
Cord | +3 | 1d4 | - | 1 | Light blade | high crit |
Back to Main Page → 4e Homebrew → Races