Kelpie
HD:d6
| Level | BAB | Fort | Ref | Will | Feature |
| 1 | +0 | +0 | +2 | +2 | Kelpie Body, Alternate Form, Trip +2 Str |
| 2 | +1 | +0 | +3 | +3 | Lesser Water Horse Magic, +1 Str |
| 3 | +1 | +1 | +3 | +3 | Scent, Adhesive Hide, +1 Str, +1 Cha |
| 4 | +2 | +1 | +4 | +4 | Growth, Sudden Change, +1 Str |
| 5 | +2 | +1 | +4 | +4 | Adept Water Horse Magic, +1 Str, +1 Con |
| 6 | +3 | +2 | +5 | +5 | Unfriendly Current, +1 Str |
| 7 | +3 | +2 | +5 | +5 | Greater Water Horse Magic, +1 Str, +1 Cha |
| 8 | +4 | +2 | +6 | +6 | My Little Kelpie, +1 Str |
| 9 | +4 | +3 | +6 | +6 | Room for Everybody, +1 Str, +1 Con |
| 10 | +5 | +3 | +7 | +7 | Dangerous Waters, +1 Str, +1 Cha, +1 Con |
Skills: 6+int modifier per level, quadruple at 1st level, class skills are Appraise, Balance, Bluff , Climb Concentration , Diplomacy , Disguise , Hide , Intimidate , Knowledge (any) , Listen , Move Silently, Sense Motive , Spellcraft , Spot , Survival, Swim.
Proficiencies:Its own natural weapons.
Features:Kelpie Body: The Kelpie loses all other racial bonus and gains Fey traits (basicaly low-light vision). It's a medium sized fey with the [Aquatic] subtype, base speed 50 feet, swim speed 50 feet, two natural hoof attacks dealing 1d4+Str mod damage each plus a natural Bite attack dealing 1d6+1/2 Str mod damage. It can speak but not perform fine manipulation, unless it uses Alternate Form (see below).
The Kelpie also gains a bonus to Nat armor equal to 1+its Con modifier, and gains a +5 racial bonus to disguise itself as a regular horse when on its natural form.
Alternate Form: A Kelpie can assume the form of a medium-sized humanoid (either gender) as a standard action at will. Regardless of the option chosen, it will have long stringy hair, that look just like algae. Otherwise this works as the regular alternate form ability.
Trip: A Kelpie that hits with an hoof attack can attempt to trip its opponent as a free action without maing a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip the Kelpie. If the Kelpie trips an opponent that is swimming, they lose one round of holding breath for each point they failed the opposed trip check. If they're already make Constitution checks, then instead increase the DC of the next such check by an equal amount.
Ability Score Increase: The Kelpie gains +2 Str at first level, +1 Str at the other levels, +1 Con at levels 3,7,10 and +1 Cha at levels 5, 7, 10, for a total of +11 Str, +3 Con, +3 Cha at level 10.
Lesser Water Horse Magic: At 2nd level the Kelpie can use Detect Thoughts as a SLA 2/day per HD and Charm Person 1/day per HD. Save DCs are 10+1/2 HD+Cha mod.
Scent: At 3rd level the Kelpie gains the Scent ability.
Adhesive Hide: At 3rd level when another creature willingly touches the Kelpie in its original form (either trying to pet it, start a grapple, made a touch attack, or trying to ride it), then the Kelpie can will for the toucher to get stuck. They can break free by succeeeding in a Str check as a standard action with a DC of 10+Kelpie's HD+Kelpie's Str mod+size mod (+4 per size category the kelpie is bigger, or -4 per size category the kelpie is smaller). Otherwise they count as entangled, being unable to move away from the Kelpie, and are dragged around automatically when the Kelpie moves, but they count towards its encumbrance. If the Kelpie is underwater, the adhesive becomes even stronger, increase the DC by 10. They Kelpie can end this effect sooner as an Immediate action, and it also ends sooner if the Kelpie is slain. If the Kelpie has 8 or more HD Freedom of Movement effects are useless against this, and if the Kelpie has 12 or more HD planar travel is blocked as well. Desperate victims have been known to cut off their own limbs that had been stuck to the Kelpie to avoid being dragged underwater and drowning.
Growth: At 4th level the Kelpie grows a size category. It doesn't take size penalties to hide while underwater.
Sudden Change: At 4th level the Kelpie can use Alternate Form as an immediate action (or back) as long as in contact with a large body of water.
Adept Water Horse Magic: At 5th level the Kelpie can use Rage and Heroism each 1/day per 2 HD. Save DCs are 10+1/2 HD+Cha mod.
Unfriendly Current: At 6th level the Kelpie gains resistance against Fire and Cold equal to 10+HD. In addition when a creature mounts it, or the Kelpie hits someone with an hoof, it can use one of its SLAs as an immediate action on them, but they only affect that target even if they would normally affect more.
Greater Water Horse Magic: At 7th level the Kelpie can use Crushing Despair, Good Hope and Fear as SLAs each 1/day per 3 HD.
My Little Kelpie: Hate is magic. Or was it friendship? Perhaps both. At 8th level as a standard action the Kelpie can pick any creature it can see. They must make a Will save with DC10+1/2 HD+Cha mod or become one step friendlier towards the Kelpie while becoming one step more hostile towards everybody else that the Kelpie doesn't consider an ally. Increase the DC by 5 if the victim hasn't yet seen trough the Kelpie's disguise. This doesn't stack with other effects that change a creature's behavior, and lasts until the Kelpie or one of its allies attacks the victim. A creature that succeeds against this becomes immune to this effect from the same Kelpie for 1 hour. In addition the Kelpie now adds its Cha mod to its Nat armor.
Room for everybody: At 9th level the Kelpie's carrying capacity is increased tenfold while in its Natural form, and it can stretch its body to fit as many riders as it can hold as a light load.
Dangerous Waters: At 10th level the Kelpie is immune to indirect divinations as long as it is inside a large body of water. Special senses such as Blindsight, Mindsight, Tremorsense and similar cannot detect it while there's a large body of water in range of that sense. Even True seeing cannot see the Kelpie's true form as long as a large body of water is within view as well. Finally it now adds its Cha mod to Initiative checks and the DC of its Adhesive Hide.
The Kelpie is one of those monsters that has been around with D&D for quite some time, but also that was originally butchered in 1st and 2nd edition, with the fey water horse being turned into some kind of animated algae.
The 3rd edition goes back to its original roots a bit, the carnivorous fey water horse that lures people underwater. Altough it tries to accomplish this by tripping, and I'm not very sure how the rules are supposed to work for that.
Anyway the requester reminded me that this a monster with quite a bit of back lore, and so went ahead digging for the old legends a bit. Besides the adhesive skin, which works nicely as a counterpoint to all the "quadruped monsters should just submit and become mounts for the humanoid master race" sillyness that seems to be so popular nowadays, the Kelpie is also supposed to be able to toy with people's emotions, carry a crapload of victims riders, and also double as a great pack horse, altough that last bit was only observed when the Kelpie was somehow dominated by some human.
So if you want to play an horse-shark faerie, the Kelpie's for you!
