BX Monsters A to Z: Cockatrice

 The cockatrice, from the Expert Rules, is one of those monsters that should almost never be engaged by prudent players. It's described as a small monster, with head, wings, and legs of a rooster and the tail of a serpent. What exactly is meant by "small" isn't entirely clear, though I've always interpreted it to be the size of a normal rooster.

Apparently a serpent's neck too.

What's interesting about the cockatrice is its extreme toughness for its size, with a monstrous 5 Hit Dice. That's equal to a grizzly bear or lion in hit point potential and attack rolls! With Hit Dice in D&D overwhelmingly correlating at least roughly to a creature's size and bulk, the cockatrice is a massive outlier. There seems no satisfactory explanation but to chalk it up to magic, and indeed, the cockatrice is clearly a magical creature. 

Its AC of 6 (leather and shield equivalent) is OK but nowhere near impressive. Its ground-based movement is 90'(30') puts it on par with a lightly encumbered human, and it can also fly (!!) at a blazing 180'(60'). Its attack is a peck with its beak for 1-6 damage, which is not impressive in itself, but absolutely enormous considering it's from a chicken-sized creature with a chicken-sized beak. (I've been pecked by a few chickens in my time, and while it's not pleasant, I'm confident it's in no way like getting stuck with a spear or whacked with a mace.) The real danger is the monster's signature ability, which petrifies any living creature it touches unless a save vs. petrification is made. Since it's a touch ability and not a gaze, mirrors won't be any help here, either defensively or in reflecting the attack back at the attacker, making the cockatrice potentially more dangerous than other petrifiers like basilisks and medusae. 

Making matters even worse is that you can encounter as many as four at a time in the dungeon and eight in the wilderness. Imagine stumbling into a whole nest of these little bastards! That's up to 40 total Hit Dice, with eight pecking, petrifying attacks per round. Unless you have a high-Expert level spellcaster with a fireball spell to wipe them all out in one fell swoop, your best bet is probably to run like hell and hope they don't decide to pursue. At least their morale is only 7, so there's a fair chance they'll just give up, even if their initial reaction roll indicated an attack.

The monsters save as Fighter:5, which is their full Hit Dice value, which implies either some measure of intelligence or just a highly magical nature. I'm not sure which, though I'd lean toward the latter. Odd that they don't save as magic-users, though.

According to the description, cockatrices can be found anywhere. It seems like they'd be strongly associated with Elemental Earth, though they are on the random wilderness encounter tables under "Flyers" and nowhere else. In dungeons, they would make excellent puzzle-type guardian creatures, something to figure out without resorting to melee combat. They could be paired with stone-based creatures like gargoyles, earth elementals, or golems, since presumably those wouldn't be fazed by their petrification attacks. Their native Treasure Type is D, which is solid if unspectacular, so if a way can be found to deal with them safely, it might even be worth the effort.

Much like the basilisk, I wonder what this thing eats to sustain itself. Does its petrification power only work on the animal kingdom, making plants fair game for eating? Or does it eat only mineral matter? What does one call a creature that eats rocks and minerals? Lithovore? I admit, I kind of like this niche for a creature in a fantastic pseudo-ecology. I can imagine cockatrice parts being highly sought-after by alchemists and magic-users; cockatrice-quill pens must be major status symbols, as well as useful for writing magical scrolls. 

There are a few things I would change about the cockatrice as written. I can make peace with the big Hit Dice, but the damage really grinds my gears, and it's completely superfluous to the monster's ability to threaten the party. Reduce it to a single point per hit. Secondly, let's remove the ambiguity about the thing's intellect and make it save as Magic-user:10 to reflect its highly magical nature. I'd probably also nerf its flight speed to 120'(40') because, come on, it's a flying chicken. I don't think any of this makes the cockatrice any less fearsome a foe.