Editing Hook Horror (section)

==The Present Day Horror==
The current edition of D&D had a long, public playtest, and a lot of insights into the development process were provided in blog posts and web site articles. We're fortunate that Mike Mearls happened to pick the hook horror as the example for his June 2012 Legends & Lore: Monster Design column, since we have first-hand commentary on what Mearls thinks the essence of a hook horror is.

In his analysis, Mearls starts with the hook horror's story elements. He highlights four main points: their clicking echolocation ability, their rending hook attacks which lead to a follow-up bite, their climbing skills, and their rudimentary tribal social structure and language. That's consistent with what we've discovered so far in this ENCyclopedia entry. But perhaps the more interesting part of the column is Mearls's translation of these points into potential 5th Edition mechanics.

He decides that the echolocation means invisibility doesn't work against hook horrors, and that hiding from one requires a solid object to duck behind. The hook horror's superior hearing means it can't be surprised easily. Mearls gives it two hook attacks, and suggests that a hit target becomes skewered. A skewered victim takes hook damage and bite damage, and must make a Strength check to escape. It also needs a climb speed and a bonus to climb checks.

Based on 5 Hit Dice in 1st Edition and 2nd Edition, a Challenge Rating of 6 in 3rd Edition, and a level of 14 in 4th Edition, Mearls decides that a hook horror should be "a tough match-up for 5th-level characters". He pegs its Strength as comparable to that of an [[ogre]], gives it above average Wisdom and Dexterity, an Intelligence of 6 and below average Charisma.

For the story elements, Mearls sticks with the Monstrous Compendium lore, where hook horrors dwell underground in small groups, prefer meat and hunt it, but without attacking obviously more powerful targets. He suggests that in addition to living in caves, their climbing ability suggests that they might seek out higher perches in caverns to roost. Finally, building on all of this, Mike provides a sample stat block for the hook horror.

There was a 22-month gap between Mearls's column and the release of Dead in Thay in April 2014, but only five months more until the release of Monster Manual in September 2014. Given that, it's no surprise that the version of the hook horror in this D&D Next adventure is closer to the final 5th Edition version. It has changed from being an Aberration to a Monstrosity, and the complicated impaling attack has been dropped. For some reason, the hook horror's hit points dipped dramatically in this iteration of the rules. Both versions of the D&D Next stats are included in the comparative summary at the end of this article.

By the time we reach the 5th Edition Monster Manual, the hook horror has completed its gradual transformation. No longer a mushroom-munching monster that fights only to defend itself, it has instead become a fierce and aggressive predator. Mechanically, this hook horror is a simpler creature than the one first suggested in the Legends & Lore column; it has just two simple hook attacks. It inherits the increased hit points from 3rd Edition, but background lore sticks to the key points from the 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual. For the first time, reference is made to a specific "Hook Horror" language. Communication between hook horrors is still based on clicking sounds rather than speech, but it is satisfying to have this acknowledged as a language in its own right.

Hook horrors also feature in the recent Out of the Abyss adventure, where a mated hook horror pair is being pursued by a band of gnolls hunters. Depending on how the encounter turns out, there is a chance that the adventurers will find a batch of hook horror eggs, and a new hatchling might even imprint on one of them. Delightfully, to address this possibility, the adventure includes a Hook Horror Maturation chart with stats for infants (tiny, up to 1 month), young hook horrors (small, 1-3 months), and juveniles (medium, 3-6 months). Hook horrors become large and adult at six months which is substantially faster than the 17 years it took for them to mature in 1st Edition!