Copyright 2009 Wizards of the Coast

This post is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

Dimensional marauders are a 3.x creation. I definitely remember that image, though I don’t remember if they had a different name back then. It was probably something like “Ethereal Marauder”, but 4e doesn’t have an ethereal plane anymore.

The Lore

These creatures are plane-hopping predators who travel the planes and the world in search of easy prey. And that’s all the book has to say about them.

Let’s allow ourselves to speculate a bit. Dimensional marauders “travel the planes”, and I guess that means they don’t have a fixed territory and follow sources of food instead. If you look at their stat block you’ll see their level is a lot lower than that of almost any creature they’re likely to find in the planes. This means they’re opportunistic, looking for creatures that have already been weakened by some other hazard or who are busy fighting someone else. Then they jump in and take a bite. If the meal is still kicking, they might run away, otherwise they stay and finish it off.

Evolutionary pressure has given then a rudimentary sapience, which aids them in evaluating the strength of potential prey. It also often leads marauders to the conclusion that the easiest prey can be found in the world, near population centers filled with juicy non-combatants whom they might even be able to beat in a fair fight. Not that they’ll fight fair.

The Numbers

Dimensional Marauders are Medium Aberrant Magical Beasts, and Level 4 Lurkers with 45 HP. They have low-light vision, a ground speed of 7 and a teleport speed of 3.

Their basic attack is a bite with that cool triangular jaw. They can also use their standard action to assume a Planephase Form, partially shifting to some other plane. This gives them the Insubstantial and Phasing qualities for a turn, or until they miss with an attack. They can also sustain this with a minor action, but it ends immediately when they take psychic damage.

While in this state, the marauder can use a Reality Warp attack (melee 1 vs. Reflex), which does light physical damage, teleports the target 3 squares, and teleports the marauder itself to a square adjacent to the target. It will use this to isolate its chosen victim.

If the marauder is hit by a melee attack, it can use Planar Evasion (recharge 4-6) as a reaction, teleporting 3 squares.

I see them mostly staying in planephase form and using Reality Warp to isolate a PC, which they’ll begin biting for more damage once they’re far away. The book tactics start them out entirely physical and has them planephase after hit for the first time in combat, but there’s no reason for them not to planephase before the fight even starts.

Sample Encounter and Final Impressions

Sometimes, a group of sapients will convince a marauder to work with them. Mostly, though, they just opportunistically jump into ongoing fights to take a bite out of whoever seems weakest.

The sample encounter could represent either of these situations. It’s level 3, with 2 marauders, 2 ettercap fang guards, and 1 gnome arcanist.

I think the illustration is very cool and memorable, but I only found the creature itself interesting because of all the aprocryphal lore I came up with in this post. Mechanically, I almost think it would work better as a Controller, since its abilities are more about knocking PCs out of position than dealing increased damage. If you give it some bonus sneak attack damage, it does work as a Lurker.