Okay, I posted a thread concerning SR. I thus felt led to present one of my monsters that uses SR.

Armored Ants
Small Monstrous Beast
Hit Dice: 2d10 + 4 (15 hit points)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 20 ft.
AC: 15H (+1 Size, +0 Dex, +4 Natural – -2 Hardness)
Attacks: 1: Bite +2
Damage: Bite 2d4+3 Piercing (19-20 Critical)
Face/Reach: 5’ by 5'
Special Attacks: Poison Sting (see below)
Special Qualities: SR 12
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +0
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 7
Skills: Balance 2, Listen 2
Feats: Alertness
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Climate/Terrain: Any land
Organization: Solitary, Pair, or Herd (2d4)
Challenge Rating: 2
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always Neutral
Advancement: 5HD and up Medium

This is an overgrown species of the regular ant that has evolved some protection from the magical forces in their environment. These appear as normal ants, but with an exoskeleton that has a sheen as if covered by some metal. Differing color varieties of this creature do exist, but whether the exoskeleton appears as iron or gold, they are the same (and, no, you cannot melt the gold variety down to get any reasonable mass of the precious metal).

COMBAT
Those met in the wild are usually scouting for food, but tend to recognize the foolishness of fighting something larger than they. If one steps into their area or moves along their path of travel, the creatures will not hesitate to attack. Note that while these creatures have only rudimental intelligence, they understand that it is best to fight in numbers. Note that they do not understand the tactics of flanking, but they have somehow come to understand that it helps to attack from opposite directions.

Poison Sting(ex): Should a victim be dropped, the ant that did this will take the next round to inject poison into the victim. This can be treated as an automatic attack, as the victim should be helpless, but will open up the ant to Attacks of Opportunity to any opponent around them (not the victim itself). A Fortitude save (DC14) is needed or the victim has their strength dropped to zero even as their wounds stop bleeding (the victim is kept alive but too weak to resist). The effect lasts for 2d6 rounds (at which time the ant will do this act again if necessary). Note that if the save is made, the victim will take 1hp in damage along with the usual 1hp of bleeding (assuming the wound is not staunched). The ant will however not know that the victim saved, but simply consider other details of the combat before dragging or carrying the food item back to its home.

It should be clarified that the act of stinging the victim is instinctual. The ant that drops a victim will do this the next round without consideration of other factors, except that if their victim stands back up – in which case they will simply make another attack. Note that this effect works even if the victim is faking, hoping that in playing dead the ant will move on. In the case that that a victim is faking, the ant will need to make an attack roll (at a +4 bonus since the victim is down).

SR12(su): The reflecting power of the ant’s armor is able to ward off some minor spell effects. Note that the polishing and working of the exoskeleton usually removes this bonus, so armor ants are not generally preserved to be used in such a fashion.

Wow, I really like this monster! I especially like how you made it so their exoskeleton couldn't be harvested by munchkins to make spell resistant armor. Some of the people I gamed with would hunt them to extinction to mass produce spell resistant ant armor for the party and their army! I give this monster a 10 out of 10! An interesting variant of this monster would be one whose bite did a small amount of acid damage, like only 1 or 2 points.

Meefman wrote:

Wow, I really like this monster! I especially like how you made it so their exoskeleton couldn't be harvested by munchkins to make spell resistant armor. Some of the people I gamed with would hunt them to extinction to mass produce spell resistant ant armor for the party and their army! I give this monster a 10 out of 10! An interesting variant of this monster would be one whose bite did a small amount of acid damage, like only 1 or 2 points.

Yeah, I have a Druid in a campaign that would kill for a 4 point non-metal Armor Bonus and some SR. Still, some things that you find in nature just don't harvest properly. Darn.

About the acid, yes, that is one way to improve the monster. I however don't like the 'ANDs' of some monsters (it bites you for 8 points of damage, AND it does acid for 4 points, AND you need to make a save or you take poison damage, AND it also has improved grab). I try to keep my monsters more basic.

Thanks for the compliment, Meefman.

Do they have animal intelligence?

Number appearing?

I would love to use an armoured ant army in the upcoming battle I'm DMing -- I'll be challenging the players with an LARGE of Set worshippers.

I kinda like swarming foes, so this is good.

But if you're going to armor something with a poison stinger, why not scorpions, roaches, or mother-in-laws?

Number appearing: Yes, I kinda whiffed that, didn't I. I hit the party with 8 of these things the other night. I tend to have them appear as some of your scavenging ants, and not one of your awesome nest building ants.

Let me see - Scavengers (3d4), Patrol (5d8), Nest (6d12).

Anything beyond that, such as a Queen, you will just have to do yourself. My party is not one to go dirtying their hands.

Quigley_Westman wrote:

But if you're going to armor something with a poison stinger, why not scorpions, roaches, or mother-in-laws?

These monsters were there in the 1ed MM, and I often turn to my 1ed books when I seek inspiration. They were only called Giant Ants in that book, but they had a 3AC, which is rather good for an animal - so we began imagining them with really hard (armored) exoskeletons. I gave them a poison stinger because ants HAVE poison stingers, although they don't make initial attacks with them (at least not those in my yard). I design my monsters in what I consider a realistic fashion, not a 'wipe the party' fashion. If you want to enhance them, go ahead (just post an update aboiut what you did).