Archer Frog

Archer frogs resemble especially big giant frogs, usually blotched in browns and greens. The real difference is hidden inside the mouth: the tip of the tongue is a hard knot of vicious barbs. Males also carry great inflatable throat pouches.

Their mottled skin blends into marsh and reed, giving foes a -3 penalty to surprise. The tongue lashes out to 18 feet with a +4 bonus to hit, spearing the prey for 1d8 damage and hauling it toward the mouth. The barbs hold fast, and anything that tears itself loose suffers another 3d4 damage. A safer escape is cutting through the tongue, which is AC 9 and parts if a single blow deals 6 or more damage; that damage does not count against the frog's own hit points, and the tongue regrows, barbs included, in roughly two weeks.

Inside the mouth, acidic saliva deals 1d4 damage per round until the victim is fully liquefied and swallowed. Armor, weapons, jewelry and other inorganic items survive and are spat out once the meal is done. While a victim is impaled, the frog can do almost nothing else to defend itself, so it picks on loners and rarely attacks a group of two or more who could strike back.

Perhaps because they are bigger and eat more, archer frogs gather in smaller numbers than other giant frogs and toads. They hunt alone and come together only to sleep and breed, which may also keep two frogs from spearing the same meal, a predicament that would leave both helpless until the victim dissolved and freed their tongues. They favor prey near their own size and usually ignore anything smaller than a rabbit, which is hard to hit. The stretchy throat sac holds a meal much as a pelican's bill does, letting an adult digest a human or elf whole in its mouth. In spring the males puff up those sacs to boom and croak, calling females and warning rivals with a racket that can carry well over a mile.

Properly cured, the barbed tongue tip makes a fine spearhead or harpoon point, and many humanoids prize the meat. Hunters often trail an archer frog quietly and pounce the moment it skewers something, catching it defenseless and claiming both the frog and its catch. Bullywugs, lizard men and grippli sometimes tame them. The first two keep them chained or leashed as guard beasts, and the small grippli ride them. As war beasts they are poor, since each can deal only with the first enemy it spears, but as the grippli point out, that is one fewer enemy to fight.