AC 13
HP 204 (24d8+96; bloodied 102)
Speed 30 ft.
Proficiency +4; Maneuver DC 17
Saving Throws Str +9, Con +8
Skills Animal Handling +4, Athletics +9 (1d8), Insight +4, Survival +4
Senses passive Perception 10
Languages English
Action Surge (2/ short rest ). Once on his turn, John Henry can take an additional action on top of his regular action and a possible bonus action.
Brutal Criticals. John Henry gains a +20 damage bonus when he scores a critical hit.
Brutal Toughness. John Henry gains a +1d6 bonus to saving throws and death saves (treating final results of 20 or higher on a death saving throw as a natural 20).
Fighting Style: Defensive Fighting. John Henry can use a bonus action to activate a defensive stance that lasts until the start of his next turn. During this defensive stance, creatures within his reach provoke opportunity attacks when they move more than 5 feet, and he does not need to use his reaction to make opportunity attacks.
Fighting Style: Great Weapon Fighting. When John Henry rolls a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack he makes with a melee weapon that he is wielding with two hands, he can reroll the die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for John Henry to gain this benefit.
Indomitable (3/ long rest ). John Henry can reroll a saving throw that he fails but must use the new roll.
SPECIAL TRAITS
Fortune Points (3/ long rest ). John Henry can spend one fortune point to reroll an attack roll , ability check , or saving throw , or to force an attacker to reroll an attack made against him.
Hammer Mastery. When John Henry has advantage on a weapon attack roll using his maul, on a successful hit as long as both dice have a result that beat the target’s AC it is knocked prone . When John Henry misses on an attack roll with disadvantage but would have hit on the higher result, the target takes 5 bludgeoning damage. In addition, when he uses the Help action to aid an ally making a melee weapon attack, the ally both gains advantage and if their target is making use of a shield the ally also gains a +2 bonus to the attack roll.
Prodigious. John Henry counts as Large-sized when determining his carrying capacity.
ACTIONS
Extra Attack. John Henry attacks four times when he takes the Attack action.
Maul. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d6+1d10+5) bludgeoning damage.
BONUS ACTIONS
Second Wind (1/ short rest ). On his turn, John Henry can use a bonus action to regain 1d10+20 hit points.
This entry in Mythological Figures is probably my favorite American myth: the steel-driving man known as John Henry!
While there’s a lot of contention about where it happened (ranging from West Virginia to Virginia or Alabama, and even Jamaica), there’s not much argument about what happened. An industrialist (or inventor or salesman—it’s another contention in the folk tale) arrived with a steam-powered drilling machine he claimed could outperform any man, so it fell to John Henry to prove him wrong. For a day-and-a-half the two contestants—one man, one machine—drove countless spikes before finally the machine failed. Unfortunately John Henry died soon after, his heart giving out from the stress.
Humanoids include a number of different intelligent, language-using bipeds of Small or Medium size. Humans and elves are humanoids, and so are orcs and goblins. Humanoids may employ magic but are not fundamentally magical—a characteristic that distinguishes them from bipedal, language-using fey, fiends, and other monsters. Humanoids have no inherent alignment, meaning that no humanoid ancestry is naturally good or evil, lawful or chaotic.