Umber Hulk Elder are subterranean, insectoid monsters that have a confusion-inducing attack. Several are found in an interior area of Sendai's Enclave. Six umber hulk elders are featured as the fourth battle in the Black Pits II. They are most often found in caves or other underground locations.
Locations[]
Variants[]
- The more common and plentiful ordinary Umber Hulk creature is covered on their own page.
- The Umber Hulk Elder creatures found in the 4th battle of the Black Pits II have some minor differences to the main saga version. They are 12 HD creatures with 96 HP, use the ordinary humber hulk attack weapon UMBER01.ITM, have no elemental or magic resistance and are worth zero XP if defeated.
Gameplay[]
This creature will act with immediate hostility when a party member is detected. It's first action is almost always to use the Confusion (innate) ability which fires a projectile at a single target in range. If the ability works upon the target, they will be temporarily under the Confusion effect.
Their next action is to rush forward toward the enemy and attack with their mandibles and limbs which inflict great crushing damage. Most of this breed can strike three and a half times each round. Umber hulk elders attack with a adjusted THAC0 of 5 at 1 ft range and a speed of 1, dealing 3d6+9 crushing damage, strength modifications included. Their attack counts as enchanted +3 in terms of what it can strike.[2]
The creature will periodically be able to apply another confusion ability attack as the battle continues, but it doesn't occur if the creature is engaged in melee attacks. If for some reason the party disengages or moves away from the creature it will attempt another innate projectile, and the cycle will continue until it is destroyed or otherwise is made ineffective.
The basic game AI has no ability to determine if the target is protected against confusion or spells in any way, so it will use the confusion attack regardless of if it is futile. It can however determine if a target is already confused, and if so, will not apply another innate confusion attack on a target in that state.
Due to their special innate attack, before engaging them it is advisable to first protect party members from confusion effects. Spells like Chaotic Commands, Enrage or items that protect from confusion will all work. Boosting saving throws against spells is also effective. Magic resistance can block this ability, as well as spell protections such as Globe of Invulnerability or Minor Spell Deflection will also stop it. The innate ability has spell Power level of 4.
Umber hulk elders are slightly resistance to elemental damage and magic. Unlike their ordinary kin, they are not vulnerable to Death Spell.
Spell immunity - enchantment- does not protect you from their confusion attacks, as the innate ability is school less.
Mod content[]
This section is about unofficial content that is only available via fan-made mods.
The Sword Coast Stratagems provides a new default script that controls the behavior of Umber Hulks and elders to better chase down and move toward opponents in a smarter fashion. Such as pursing attackers firing missiles and spells at them from outside their detection range. It isn't perfect, but it assists them being smarter. The script also provides more threat detection awareness, and better tactical movement decision logic.