Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

This article is part of a series! Click here to see the other entries.

I remember seeing Gricks for the first time in 3.0, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they appear earlier than that. In this edition they’re only on the MM.

The Lore

In the previous post about Grells I complained that a lone grell was indistinguishable from any of the many other tentacled underground predators. Well, Gricks are one of those, and the main sources of my confusion. They even have tentacles, a beak, and a short name that starts with GR.

The main differences are that gricks are nonsapient and have worm-like bodies instead of being floating brains. They live in caves and in the upper reaches of the Underdark. There’s pretty much no chance for the PCs to have a nonviolent interaction with these beasts (aside from sneaking around them, I guess). Gricks are always either hungry and hunting, or hanging around their nests, which they protect with murderous ferocity.

I note they don’t seem to have a burrowing speed, so they either need to stick to premade caves and tunnels, or they burrow too slowly to make a difference in combat. When food turns scarce in the grick’s preferred environment, they’ll venture out to the surface to hunt at night, returning home before sunrise to avoid burning out their tiny cave-adapted eyes.

Gricks are pack hunters and have excellent instincts for surrounding their intended prey. They’re also really tough and hard to hurt. I wonder if bullettes and gricks prety on each other, like sperm whales and giant squid.

The Numbers

We get two stat blocks here.

Grick

The default model is a Medium Aberrant Beast and a Level 7 Brute with 96 HP. It has Resist 5 against all effects that target AC, moves with speed 6, and climbs with speed 4. It also has darkvision.

Its basic attack is a Tentacle Rake (Melee 1 vs. AC) that does both immediate and ongoing damage on a hit (save ends).

It also has a trait named Expert Flanker that grants it a +2 attack bonus against a target it’s flanking. That does stack with the standard +2 from combat advantage, for a total of +4.

Grick Alpha

A bigger, badder version leading a pack. It’s a Large Aberrant Beast and a Level 9 Brute (Leader) with 116 HP. It has the same damage resistance, senses, and climb speed as the base grick, but its ground speed is 7.

The tentacle rake attack is almost identical, but has Reach 2 and also grabs the target. The alpha can then use its standard actions to perform a Vicious Bite on the grabbed target, doing automatic damage that’s a bit weaker than that of the tentacles.

Why would it bother with that? Because it grants its allies a +2 attack bonus against the grabbed victim. So while being chewed on by the alpha, the hapless PC will also be attacked by the smaller gricks with a total bonus of +6: 2 from CA, 2 from Expert Flanker, and 2 from this ability.

Of course, the alpha is an Expert Flanker itself.

Sample Encounters

Gricks obviously don’t socialize with anyone outside their packs, but sometimes an opportunistic predator will join a grick fight hoping to score some scraps. They can also be enslaved by certain aberrant creatures, which seem to be the only ones that can make any use out of these ornery worms.

Thus we get our two sample encounters:

  • Level 8: 1 grick alpha, 3 standard gricks, 2 dire stirges.

  • Level 9: 2 alphas, 1 gibbering mouther, and a trio of foulspawn.

Final Impressions

I like their mechanics, but the lore doesn’t inspire me all that much. They work well enough as an incidental encounter for “natural cave” dungeons, I suppose.