This vicious monster has webbed wings, a mouth full of sharp teeth, and a long tail ending a black stinger.
Water Leaper CR 2
XP 600
CN Small magical beast (aquatic)
Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +6
AC 14, touch 14, flat-footed 11 (+3 Dex, +1 size)
hp 22 (3d10+6)
Fort +5, Ref +6, Will +3
Speed 20 ft., fly 20 ft. (clumsy), swim 30 ft.
Melee bite +5 (1d4+1), sting +5 (1d4+1 plus 1 bleed and jagged sting)
Special Attacks bleed (1), jagged sting, water leap
Str 12, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 7, Wis 14, Cha 13
Base Atk +3; CMB +4; CMD 17
Feats Flyby Attack, Improved Initiative
Skills Acrobatics +11 (+15 when jumping), Fly â3, Perception +6, Stealth +11, Swim +9; Racial Modifiers +4 Acrobatics (+8 when jumping)
Languages Aquan
SQ amphibious
A water leaper’s sting causes dangerous shards too tiny for the eye to see to break off into the target’s flesh and cause bleeding. A successful DC 15 Heal check stops the bleeding and removes the fragments.
However, magical and supernatural healing of any kind doesn’t stop the bleeding and instead seals the fragments within the wound, increasing the bleed damage to 1d4 points and the Heal DC to stop the bleeding to 20. Further such healing still doesn’t stop the bleed effect, but also doesn’t increase the damage or Heal DC further.
Water leapers get their name from their uncanny ability to ambush prey by leaping out of the water. A water leaper that begins its turn in the water can make a special leaping charge attack. This special charge doesn’t need to be in a straight line with respect to altitude, allowing the water leaper to leap out, up and over the rim of a boat, and down onto its prey. At the end of a water leap, the water leaper can make both a bite and a sting attack.
Environment any lakes or swamps
Organization solitary
Treasure standard
Water leapers are ornery hunters that thrive in lakes, swamps, and other marshy bodies of water. They eagerly ambush much larger targets. Against challenging prey, they make their namesake leap from the water, use their jagged sting to open a wound, and then wait for their victim to bleed out. Although fishermen tell tales of marauding water leapers, in reality, the creatures prefer attacking animals and other less canny prey, since intelligent creatures are both more likely to be able to halt the bleeding from the water leaper’s sting and hold a grudge afterward.
The average water leaper is a little over 3 feet long, not counting its wings or the length of its tail, and weighs between 8 and 16 pounds.
Much like many other amphibious animals, water leapers grow through several stages before reaching the their adult form. What most don’t realize is that water leapers’ small winged stage isn’t the species’s final form.
Most water leapers don’t live long enough to undergo their final metamorphosis, which occurs at an inconsistent age, but those that do transform into water maulers (considered by most scholars to be a rare separate-but-related species). A water mauler is a Large water leaper advanced by adding HD. It gains two claw attacks, rend (2 claws), and pounce (replacing water leap).
Water maulers, unlike their brethren, are more likely to interact with creatures of other speciesâparticularly natives of the swamp such as boggardsâ to create mutually beneficial alliances. They can even serve as reluctant mounts, capable of carrying their riders both into the air and beneath the waves. Such water maulers mainly enter into these collaborations to procure themselves steady sources of food, but they occasionally desire something more unusualâtypically colorful items they have seen in passing.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 5 © 2015, Paizo Inc.; Authors: Dennis Baker, Jesse Benner, John Bennett, Logan Bonner, Creighton Broadhurst, Robert Brookes, Benjamin Bruck, Jason Bulmahn, Adam Daigle, Thurston Hillman, Eric Hindley, Joe Homes, James Jacobs, Amanda Hamon Kunz, Ben McFarland, Jason Nelson, Thom Phillips, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Alistair Rigg, Alex Riggs, David N. Ross, Wes Schneider, David Schwartz, Mark Seifter, Mike Shel, James L. Sutter, and Linda Zayas-Palmer.