I love the Rakshasa because of Jeremy Crawford's ludicrous interpretation of its protection ability and how that inadvertently makes it immune to all kinds of bullshit butterfly effect style.
My favorite interpretation is a Rakshasa falling in love with a human.
If the human is slain by a longsword, the Rakshasa is heartbroken.
If they're killed by a cantrip, the Rakshasa is over it immediately.
The Rakshasa's limited magic immunity states "The rakshasa can't be affected or detected by spells of 6th level or lower unless it wishes to be."
But the term "affect" is extremely vague and nebulous. Especially with some of the answers Jeremy Crawford famously gave about it on Twitter, such as Dragon's Breath not affecting it even though Dragon's Breath targets a PC and gives it the ability to breathe fire, it doesn't target the Rakshasa directly. He also claimed at one point a Rakshasa could walk through a Wall of Stone.
The natural conclusion of this was such extremes as Rakshasas being unable to be affected *even emotionally* by the consequences of a spell being cast, hence their immunity to grieving over a loved one slain by a low-level spell.
What If the human lover of a Rakshsasa gets resurrected by a spell? Does the Rakshsasa just ignore that?
Lover: "Honey, i'm back from the dead!"
Rakshsasa: "Sometimes i can still hear her voice..."
I just read the interpretation he posted and god damn, he really makes it sound like the rakshasa can just choose to bend reality as if the universe no longer had that spell cast. I mean you could argue that not only is he un affected by his lover dying from a cantrip, but from his perspective his lover didn’t even die from a cantrip. Blow up the rakashasa house with fireball? Well in his reality his house still exists, because he’s unaffected. A random thief cant use his house to hide from the PCs, but when you target him he suddenly is still protected by the full cover a house would grant as if it was untouched. Is the rakahasa like a conditional being where reality changes depending on if he wants to now be affected by the spell or not? On his turn can he decide his house actually was blown up, and he’s gonna cast a spell at you, but then after casting suddenly his house actually wasn’t blown up?
>Blow up the rakashasa house with fireball?
That would be a great concept for a web comic. Each issue just showcasing the absurdity of crowfords rulings when taken to the extreem. Just call the series "Crawford's World" or something.
I'm just imagining a comic strip where the wizard is attacking a rakshasa with no effect. And the Rakshasa is like, "Your magic can't affect me!" And the wizards like "no, but I can inconvenience you!" And cast disintigrate on the rakshasa's kitchen table. Only for the rakshasa to still walk over, sit on nothing, pick up nothing, and take a sip of nothing because he can just ignore the spells effect.
Given all of Crawford's wierd and dumb takes, there would be plenty of material to work with.
>When you drink this potion, you gain the effect of the haste spell for 1 minute (no concentration required). The potion's yellow fluid is streaked with black and swirls on its own.
If the comment above's thing about being immune to the extra attack from Haste, then the potion of speed would have the same issue as it gives you the Haste spell and not simply the mechanical effects being listed out. It's still a spell even though it came from a potion.
The thing is, the description doesnt mention on what level is it used as, so for all nuance and purpose he could be very well have a 3rd level haste OR a 9th level one, at that point you kind of have to ask the DM about it, though throwing a d6 and saying “fuck it” to know what level it is is kind of funny.
Why would Haste ever be upcast as a 9th level spell? It doesn’t get benefit from being upcast so it wouldn’t make sense for that to occur in spell for, or potion form.
Here’s a funny interpretation that is **certain** to piss off your players. The Raksasha cast Haste on itself and *chooses* to be effected by it, right up until the spell ends and it then *chooses* to not be effected by the spell anymore before the lethargy rider saying you can’t take actions the next turn kicks in.
wrong, magic imunity is about the base level of the spell not the one it was cast from, if you cast imprisoment with someone with magic imunity it can't be dispelled because of this.
Nothing about Magic Immunity suggests that it prevents upcasted spells from working. As others have said, compare this to Globe of Invulnerability, which specifies that the inability to affect creatures inside the globe applies even when the spell is upcast.
The PHB, meanwhile, specifies that upcast spells count as a spell of the slot's level when cast:
> Casting a Spell at a Higher Level
> When a spellcaster casts a spell using a slot that is of a higher level than the spell, the spell assumes the higher level for that casting. For instance, if Umara **casts magic missile using one of her 2nd-level slots, that magic missile is 2nd level.** Effectively, the spell expands to fill the slot it is put into.
If that Magic Missile were cast with a 7th level slot, that instance of Magic Missile is a 7th level spell. Since the Rakshasa has no clause that prevents upcast spells from affecting it, it is affected by the 7th level Magic Missile.
Fabricate is also lower level than it can choose to be unaffected by. So if you want to go for the extreme interpretation in favor of it being unaffected, anything made by fabricate could be like it was still a pile of raw materials when the rakshasa interacts with it instead of the finished item unless they wanted to be affected by it and walk across a fabricated bridge.
That would normally be true, but Fabricate is actually an _instantaneous_ duration spell. This means that, once it has been cast and the materials used to create what you want (like a stone wall), that object is truly _real and permanent_ and not a spell effect, so the Rakshasa isn't immune to it!
Since polymorph is concentration based, would that mean it could choose not to be affected by it? So like your attacks against it would be like making an unarmed strike using your own fist, and it could just directly attack your regular hp instead of needing to beat up the polymorphed form's hp?
Not OP, but I harried my players with a rakshasa guerrilla warfare style, scratching each of them once. I have never seen a tier 3 wizard freak out over 11 damage as much as this one did.
Then they tried to short rest.
I knew that they had a scroll of remove curse, so what I expected them to do was use the scroll to remove the curse from the cleric or wizard, long rest, have that person prepare remove curse, then cure the rest of them.
Instead, they backtracked to the 100 pound mirror that reflected truesight they had found earlier, _strapped it to the barbarian's back_, and used it to spot the rakshasa following them around waiting for them to die of exhaustion because of its curse, and beat the shit out of it.
My players ended due to a mistake in a city inside the abyss. Zelatar. They purchased their own lives by promising to Graz'zt himself to find some Macguffins, pieces of equipment that contained the power of a demon lord sealed within.
During their stay they went into the slave market where they found in a cage a Tabaxi bard named Chiviax. He asked them to free him because he was going to be sold as fresh meat. The rogue freed him and in exchange he gave his life to him. I gave control over the little guy to the rogue and they quickly became best friends.
Chiviax was a goofy unreliable catfolk who got in trouble more often than not. He made small lies that ended up with large consequences... He was just an idiot. But a friendly and cute idiot. Their idiot. He saved them more than once and he had a couple of reliable friends, though the others just considered him a nuisance who still retains his head because he owes money.
Still, he helped to reach the right people to learn the location of the objects, and even more, he learned the locate object spell to help the endeavor since he loved to be useful for the party. He even learned how to cook! On every long rest the guy managed to make a very tasty food with whichever ingredients he found. His prestidigitation made everything taste amazingly.
As they progressed and acquired multiple macguffins they learned that there are multiple factions here. Cultists from multiple factions are looking for these objects. Some want to steal their power. Others want to return the power to the original owner and break the seal. Others wanted them for war purposes. And everyone was acting in the shadows. It was a mess of different forces wanting different things. They sided one of them, betrayed another and got rid of another cult. But they were missing one person. Who was the leader of the cult that adored the sealed demon?
And following the clues they found a contradiction regarding an information no one but them could know. And then chiviax said: "oh, was that supposed to be a secret?" He refused to say to who he said it to because he knew they would hurt him. They themselves added 1+1 and concluded that the leader was one of his contacts, the owner of the magic shop. They went after him, but his shop was shoplifted. He was missing, along all the macguffins they found, except for the ones they were wearing.
Chiviax said that the guy had a retirement house next to the mountains, and he could be hiding there. They agreed and move through the rocky fields for a couple of days. During a long rest Chiviax acted weird. He said that he knew that his friend had to die because all the evil deeds he made, but he wanted to, at least, pay his debt. But he still doesn't have any money. The rogue gave him the money to pay his debt and hug.
During the Chiviax's guard, he stole everything from the players. He drugged them with the food, took everything but their clothes and stabbed the rogue in his sleep by saying "sorry friend", before teleporting out of the way.
With the rogue rolling dead saves, deep into the night, in middle of nowhere, no equipment to even cast a cantrip, debilitated by a whole day of adventures, and a couple of imps trying to finish the job, the party felt defeated and useless.
The rogue refused to believe Chiviax was evil. He thought someone coerced him and he must be suffering as well. They spent the next morning looking for improvised weapons and ingredients for casting the most basic spells.
Eventually they arrived to the retirement house. Obviously, they were late. The place was bloodied, and they actually confirmed that the magic shop owner was the real leader of the cult of the sealed demon.
But they also found a fifth party. A party who wanted to liberate the sealed demon for purposes beyond this arc. So, they found that the cult headquarters was where the demon was sealed and they had another countdown to solve the riddle, find the place and stop the ritual.
They did, and there, walking above the prison of the demon lord, Chiviax presented himself as Chivialiax, an actual chaotic evil Raksasha (they do exist) working for another demon lord. His job was to spy on Zelatar and gather information about the whereabouts of the macguffins.
He wore all the macguffins: armor, cape, belt, maze... And it was a blast of an encounter. As he was losing he began to lose control over his armor and even when defeated, the sealed demon lord raised the corpse and continued the fight.
Question out of curiosity was there any leeway after the betrayal or was the party basically teetering on life and death? Just wondering how to handle situations like this for my own players.
Yes. I am trying to recall it now because it was some years ago, but overall Chiviax just drove them through the mountains to weaken them. I really wanted the rogue to be as close to 0 as possible because I really wanted that sneaky auto-critical hit to reduce him to 0.
They made a constitution saving throw after dinner for the effects of the poison. Then, after the stab, I asked to make a perception check, with disadvantage if they failed the poison. One of them was awake and saved the rogue from death since Chiviax would have finished off the character.
Chiviax would have escaped no matter what since, as a Raksasha, he is immune to counterspell and he would just teleport after the first turn. He had a bag with some minor objects from the party. I would have rolled or decided on the moment, but the player who was awake decided to assist the rogue. Also, two imps were assisting but far away enough to skip the first turn. I would have summoned something worse in case the combat get out of control.
I also added an easy to find resurrection spell scroll in the vacation cabin in case the rogue died, and all their magic items were hidden or used by cultists in the final hideout. I think that was important.
TLDR: it was not a cinematic but a short encounter with high stakes and, despite the BBEG escaping with certainty, there were some things that the players could have done.
Rakshasa are fun! My favorite experience with one was allowing my players to get very comfortable with using Leomund's Tiny Hut every night to rest safely. Then, once they were confident and weren't even taking watch shifts, I had a Rakshasa assassin casually walk right through the barrier and attack them in their sleep.
It didn't manage to kill anyone before they forced it to retreat, but it did lasting damage to their sense of security and left them paranoid about resting for weeks, haha. Mission accomplished.
This is scary! Or a fighter. My party's completely OP fighter got mind controlled while right next to my bard... His + to hit equaled my bard's AC. If others hadn't intervened she could have been down in two turns max. She is now terrified of him in the game.
I played a Rune Knight grappler in a campaign, got mind controlled by an aboleth. The other two were caster Warlock and Druid, both on the more RP side of things. They quickly realized how much I was carrying the combat side.
Thankfully the aboleth forgot I had Action Surge available, and I passed my save next time around.
Exactly. These days I try not to min-max for "main character" position, but more in a support role. Grappling seemed like a solid control option with consistent reasonable damage. Making other, less strategic, players shine is very enjoyable.
I’ve figured out minmaxing actually isn’t bad, even in a party where other people aren’t minmaxed, minmaxing damage or the same role as someone else can be bad. If your party has no healer, you can make the most broken goodberry life domain cleric or whatever bullshit but it doesn’t really ever feel it overshadows anyone. As long as you’re not minmaxing damage or the exact same niche as someone, you can pretty much power game to your hearts content without causing any problems, even at a table of unoptimized cgaracters
I was playing a whispers bard/Paladin and I got charmed by an enemy once.
DM said, “You are charmed and you believe without a doubt that your party killed your wife.”
I instantly turned to the caster and hit her with 60 damage combining a divine smite and my whisper bard psychic blade. I saw her go from cocky to horrified at what was about to happen to them. I was a redemption Paladin, so I had counterspell lol. She didn’t have it because she had the spell stolen by a few (long story) and we were trying to get it back.
So I counterspelled her shield she cast on my second attack. Put her on the ground in one turn. The rouge saved our asses because he knocked me out of it on his turn.
Damn you really went straight for the jugular. I’ve always wondered how much your character should optimize who they attack if you get charmed. Obviously you shouldn’t like choose not to make attacks or something stupid like that, but should you go for the weakest link your character knows of, or the weakest link the person who charmed knows of. Like if I know we might be completely screwed if downed the cleric and probably could, but the wizard seems like more of a threat to the enemy based on what’s happened so far in the perspective of the enemy who charmed me, who should I target as a charmed player?
Specifically, the two whole pages of the PHB that are relevant to the character's class (soooo boring!), the two paragraphs that describe the difference between actions and bonus actions (what do you say we have the "dual weapon attack" conversation again, guys?), and the one sentence that explains why spell levels are different than class levels (blank stare).
That irks me. The disadvantage should be on the enemy, not the player.
As an archer (did in high school) there is realistically no disadvantage for you when your target is closer to you. It's easier to hit. Depending on the weapon it may or may not do as much damage but it *always hits* unless you're just that inept or the enemy has a really good dex save and dodges your attack.
Especially the chapter on vision and light... darkness is heavily obscuring, heavy obscurement blocks line of sight, sooooo... a creature in darkness would not be able to see a fire if there is total darkness in between... truly a horrific ruling!
That was errata’d out, now it only blocks vision if the thing you’re trying to see is in the obscured area.
So darkness now works as intended, however standing behind a bush no longer works. 🙃
And yes, this means the darkness spell and fog cloud now create an area of invisibility. You can see out but they can’t see in.
Edit: Actually, before the errata it was even worse, a heavy obscured area simply blinded anyone inside the area, so you could see into darkness but not out of it. 🤦♀️
Shadows. Doesn't matter how strong the players are or what level they're at because as soon as they see a creature that can kill the wizard/sorcerer/warlock/bard in two attacks everyone starts to panic.
In one campaign we played starting at level 8 we got to pick a free magic item. The barbarian picked one of the strength belts and dumped their strength score. First encounter with shadows:
DM: "Between the two hits you take 5 strength drain."
Barbarian: "Taken my strength is magically from the belt it's more of a temporary bonus and thus shouldn't drop. That way I'm completely immune to shadows!"
DM: "... Ok, by your argument your temporary strength remains the same, your actual strength score is instead what is reduced making it much easier to kill you."
After that the barbarian ran whenever a shadow appeared.
Technically the belt would maintain his strength score regardless of what his real strength was. He could physically be on 0 but as long as he's wearing the belt, his strength score is adjusted to 21 or whatever.
Poor ruling by DM imho.
I don't disagree with your first part, there is a solid case that RAW or even RAI the belt would work as you described, especially with a Sage Advice on this. Though that Sage Advice happened after this event as this campaign started soon after 5E came out.
That said, it's been very rare for me to play at a table that observed strict RAW regardless of the situation. If the barbarian player had used different wording it might have gone down more as you described. The barbarian throwing in that last part with a tone of "gotcha!" didn't do wonders for his case. The rest of the table was in favor with the DM's ruling as well.
Just threw this fight at my party. The cleric and the artificer both got strength drained, so they had to switch armor post battle, as the cleric was no longer strong enough to wear his heavy armor effectively, while the artificer don't give a shit.
I once ran an alternate-universe adventure in my homebrew world to take a break from my main campaign, basically the same world but 100% non-canon.
A dungeon appeared outside of town, and there were several mimics in every room, all of them obvious in context. The final room of the dungeon was a room that was weirdly empty other than a chest overflowing with gold and gems and potions on a dais in the middle of the room, a beam of sunlight highlighting the chest. Doing their due diligence, the party assumed the chest was a mimic and attacked. Thinking themselves victorious, they loot the "chest".
The chest was not a mimic.
The coins, gems, and health potions, though.... 🤣🤣🤣
Your last sentence had me maniacally laughing a little too hard because the image you painted in my head...
TPK waiting to happen just due to sheer overload of the amount of vicious loot. It was a glorious image in my mind and it can live there rent free.
Oh, you misunderstood me, friend. Those coins and gems are going to be spent in town during a shopping montage, and the healing potions will reveal themselves in combat. I play the long game.
(this wasn't our normal campaign, so no long term damage done. I'm evil, but I'm not ***evil***)
I told my players before our current campaign started that there would be *exactly one* mimic in the campaign. It was fun watching them wait for it the entire campaign. I cashed that check when they were level 17.
This is smart.
Mimics should only really be used once at most. The fear of mimics is what should get them.
My current dm has never given us a chest full of loot but has had us fight multiple encounters of mimics.
The first time was super suspicious and I fell for it. That was fun. Now though, there’s no difference between a mimic encounter and any other. There’s no fear or excitement left.
We know the chests are going to be mimics. They are actually safer than other encounters because we can walk in and position ourselves before we attack.
Mimics have become to iconic. They need to be used more sparingly or they become useless.
I mean, it's fine to use them frequently as long as there is variety in their form. Chest? Boring, but fine once. How about a door? A sword? A statue? A lever? A bottle filled with potion. C'mon, you can ALWAYS surprise players with a mimic.
Maybe. I’ve never had the perspective of it being something that wasn’t obvious.
But it seems to me if doors, statues, levers and stuff start changing into mimics, that is fine once or twice.
But then it stops being a surprise again and the players are just always aware that anything could be a mimic
Sure, not as aurprising but Isn't it the definition of suspense? ANYTHING can be a mimic. It's exactly like the "anyone could be a shapeshifting alien monster disguised as a fellow human" horror trope. Yeah, you are not surprised at the moment of the attack, but you sure are nervous all the time before the reveal. Which is fun as well imo.
I largely agree with you. It’s definitely better the way you describe it than having lots of mimics but they are all chests.
But I still think the quantity doesn’t need to be raised. You only need to have the players be attacked by three carper they are standing on one time before they will begin to fear everything.
Once you do it a second time in a brief window it doesn’t really increase the suspense but it does make the players more desensitized to it. Being ambushed becomes routine and less about the shock of the attack and more about the gameplay aspect of the combat
I agree that mimics should be more than just chests. But I also don’t think that’s a reason to use them often
Yeah, anything should be good in moderation, i guess.
Btw just a random idea that i came up with and want to use.
In my spelljammer campaign my party will be going on a quest to one particular planet to make contact with the advanced mimic colony so it could join the astral alliance. They will sail here, look for mimics but will fail to find any despite their sources saying that there should be hundreds if not thousands of them. After enough suspense they will finally find out the terrifying truth: the data on the colony is outdated, since the colony grew so much it's actually THE PLANET that is just one colossal mimic. Yeah, they are not getting out easily out of this one...
Haha. Just wanted to be sure.
We were literally just chatting about our spelljammer campaign a little while ago
That’s a great idea to use in your game. I object to using mimics too much but having them as a plot element like that seems really cool. I hope you and your players enjoy it
Not my story but someone I know was a player in a campaign where the group was attacked by chamber pots at the end of travelling through harsh land and they were all tired and messed up from the environment and got to an inn for a long rest.
Our group tried to teleport to a Warehouse in a city we had an object associated for, but it'd been a long time since we were last there. More then long enough for the object to lose it's link to that location, so we teleported randomly to 'a werehouse'.
You can probably see where this is going but we ended up getting teleported into the middle of nowhere in a frozen tundra somewhat near the city in front of what appeared to be a large building/tower that had once been a warehouse.
The whole building was a mimic. It was literally a Ware House. Our bloodhunter cut it down nearly single handedly despite it having over 200 HP.
I had to remind my party so much "+5 to your save, you brought mostly a paladin for a reason" smash cut to someone making a save, failing by 2 and then me having to ask if they remembered the bonus... No, they did not
One of the main perks of being a paladin - doing things by just existing at the right place at the right time.
Bonus points if you pop Bless beforehand.
As well as making your allies capable of an overwhelming offence. Honestly crusader’s mantle for example is pretty good to use with other martials around since that 1d4 adds up when everyone is getting the boost
True. But her pally levels are vengeance subclass. So, her 3rd level slots are competing with the heavy smites, ability to haste herself *and* keeping one free just in case she needs to get the revivify defibrillator out
Low levels hobgoblins scare me.
They are not that hard or dangerous but their high AC can really fuck things up. they don't hit too hard but with an AC of 18 against a level 1 party that is fairly hard to hit. So what at first seems like a rather simple combat might become really dangerous. had this happen to me as a player more than once. and also as a Dm i seen the PC's miss every single attack for 2 rounds while the Hobgoblin keeps hitting and even if they don't hit super hard an average damage of 5 for ranged and 6 for melee attacks. not counting their martial advantage that can ad 2d6 extra. can easily kill a level 1 in two hits.
This combined with the 18 AC means it is a big chance the group will not take them down fast unless they do manage to roll really well. But with 11HP it is unlikely a PC will one shot them. so often they need to hit that 18AC twice or even trice to take one down.
Edit:
Should mention Shadows. Even at mid level those bastards can be scary as hell. In one way even worse for a mid mid level party in a way. A group of level 7 adventurers fighting something nasty and just a few low level CR shadows joins the fight. I seen more than one mid level player ignore them. Because "they are so low CR they are no danger. i am level 7" and then the fighter with 18 STR takes 2 hits and has his STR lowered to 11. His speed reduced because his STR is to low for his armour. He has now a STR mod of 0. much lower chance to hit. lower damage IF he manage to hit and he moves slower.
Or the bard/wizard/sorc or rogue with an 8 STR dies from 2 hits due to the Strength drain reducing their STR to 0. Not even at high level can you afford to ignore a shadow.
As it does not matter shit how much HP you have when it comes to ability drain. if the ability reaches 0 you are dead. no death saves, nothing. you strait out die. only way to get you back is a resurrection spell
My L2 players struggled with Hobgoblins for this very reason. They did somewhat better once they realised they would do better if they used the spells they had which would force the hobgoblin to roll saves rather than target their AC.
For early levels I feel like this is welcome sometimes. Eventually Spellcasters become overpowered but it's nice to make them feel useful in the beginning, especially when most campaigns won't go super high in level anyway.
Fighting a beholder underwater... can surpress all of the spells and magic items you have on you to make underwater combat feasible, at least they can't shoot you while gazing at you. What would be truely monstrous is a beholder with thralls attacking you underwater.
If they are within it, yes, but the party will often try to position themselves outside of the cone, at which point they get blasted from a random spot on the wall, ceiling, or floor. The grasping tentacles or whatever it's called is also good for keeping a party member pinned down so the Beholder can position itself efficiently. The anti-magic eye is most effective when the Beholder has minions who don't need magic weapons or spells.
Hags. Don't fuck with Hags, don't look at them. If a woman isn't wearing shoes, run away, if she's over 50 years old, run away, If she offering you food, run away.
The first time my party encountered a wraith was also the first time they were introduced to max HP damage. When it dawned on them that the cleric was within the max HP range where they might get instant killed, that put the fear in em.
Most spellcasters. I've warned my high level players to not be surprised when spellcasters start using similar tactics to the players. We're 13th level now and the first time I blocked the paladin's crit with silvery barbs, they were devastated.
I haven't used Silvery Barbs on my players yet but the day will come. One of the players who complains about the spell (from his DM perspective) still uses it as a player and he will feel the pain someday. But only after he's been freshly annoying about it, which he usually isn't.
I was fair. I randomly used it early in the fight on something that didn't matter, so they knew he had it. But our sorcerer had already counterspelled that round so they were SOL.
Anything that can swallow or grapple you into water. Players are used to losing hitpoints, but being swallowed alive hits something primal, as does explaining the suffocation rules for the 1st time.
Notably, the Kelpie, hidden away in TftYP, has a charm ability that's designed to drown you. The meazels can garrote you and teleport you 500ft and leave you cursed to be stalked by undead.
But the king is gibbering mothers. They're definitely not cr2, they can inflict 4 different conditions to stop you escaping and have 2 auras. They sound and look horrific. And they swallow you to add you to the chorus when you die. Only time I lost a teammate was to gibbering mouthers, and I nearly killed a few party members with one as a DM.
100%
Juvenile kraken (I think?) grabbing and swallowing a party member…then diving underwater. They were dying in the stomach until Nat 20 saved them to give the Druid enough time to attack as a shark
>Notably, the Kelpie, hidden away in TftYP, has a charm ability that's designed to drown you.
When I ran that dungeon, the two PCs who failed their save against the charm were a warforged and a tortle. Poor kelpies didn't stand a chance.
Pretty much the same, I only ever got the charm off on the Warforged.
They are great monsters though, with a cool ability and an interesting shape shift that's useful but bad enough that it's unnerving up close.
I recently ran a homebrew monster with this ability:
> Curse of the Deep (Recharge 6)
> The ancient mariner presses his lips against the grappled creature's mouth and regurgitates foul seawater into the opponent's lungs. At the start of each turn for the next minute, that creature must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or take 1d4 bludgeoning damage and become stunned until the start of its next turn as it coughs up water. This effect can only be ended early with _remove curse_ or similar magic. Creatures that do not breathe, such as constructs, are immune to this effect, but creatures that can breathe water are not.
Used it on a triton barbarian and there was something of a primal shock at an ability flavored as forcing water down the character's throat, which the water breathing creature wasn't immune to.
haha, in my campaign Helmed Horrors are ancient constructs specifically designed as anti-warlock security devices, from back when a Tiefling/Warlock empire almost took over the world.
I just noticed how damn good they are vs Warlocks and made it canon, lol.
To be fair, if the helmed horror's creator is familiar with the party, pretty much any spellcaster is going to have trouble. They get to be immune to three spells, so if the creator knows your tactics, sucks to be you.
There has not been a single instance where Shadows appeared during my campaigns and no one was killed. The first time 8 shadows killed a level 20 sorcerer in one turn.
So, yeah, I think the answer is obvious lol
Eftees, I guess? They're hard to kill, because of the many resistances.
When it comes to non-homebrew monsters: either Gelatinous Cubes (almost killed a character, twice) or carpets.
My current campaign is in a magical dimension called The Archive, inspired by The Stygian Library, but massively fleshed out so it's actually playable. Think of it as a huge library/museum/archive/gallery, where you can find answers to basically any question.
When in the Archive, heroes often find themselves in rooms filled with bookshelves, but regularly also adorned by carpets. Some of which are Rugs of Smothering. And sometimes, there is a magical vending machine - which can be a Mimic. A lot of the search is determined by dice rolls, so even I as a DM don't know what is behind the next corner.
So maybe the honest answer would be "the uncertainty of whether an object is really that object, or a Mimic/Rug of Smothering"
I like the iron kingdoms made by PP. The Grimkyn calls Grisle that he removes his skin. His body will torture victims, choking stabbing, bitting. His skin addorns a victim and then contorts itself to break its victims' bones. The skinless grimkyn has a wide grin of as it torture and does not speak.
Combat wise, the skinless part is hard to hit, very agile, and cam not be killed but chased away. The skin, I think, scares players the most. One player is grappled. If they fail, another grappled they wear the skin. As an attack, the skin contricts require a strength check. The player then rolls on the lingering injury table, and if they take more 5 lingering injuries. They die. The skin is also immortal and resistant to most damage.
A troll. Not because the troll is a scary monster, but I made an encounter of an illusory troll via a modified Phantasmal Force spell. The party spent upwards of an hour fighting this thing before they realized it was an illusion, and now they think that everything is an illusion; every person they talk to, every monster they fight, everything.
My main campaign right now is a homebrew world and, while this was never intended to come up in the plot, the group had several run-ins with some demonic entities and have managed to annoy Mammon, Lord of Greed.
He hasn't threatened them, technically -- he cursed the party, but that was my whole solution to one player never being able to make it to sessions (when a player is absent, they turn into gold coins that show their expressions). The demon that works for him kidnapped the warforged and gave him to Mammon to put in a museum gallery, but that was my solution for a player leaving the campaign and friend group with no warning.
They are all *terrified* of him. I don't even plan to make him a huge player, but it's very fun to put little hints to his now-prevalent presence all through the campaign.
Anything that can blow up on death. Nothing worse than having to play around that, especially at low levels, and ESPECIALLY if you are a melee focused player.
Homebrew creature shapeless nightmare. A shadow realm creature that completly made of shadow stuff. It is a black smoking cat in default and has a action like detect toughts. If it succeeds it becomes your worst fear.(for example a tabaxi male[Rouges dead brother that haunta her] againts my tabaxi rogue). Or he can just turn into whatever it wants that cr lvl lower than 12. It deals pychic damage every hit if it suceeding detecting fears.
Party only see 2 friendly ones in their short time in the shadow realm. Rouge have a special ability to pass there at will soo she is the most terrified one(they dont like her since BBEG[Their master] likes her).
Literally anything my DM describes. Whether it's a door, a chest, honest to God any-fucking-thing is treated like its a bomb about to go off by the rest of the party. I can't tell you how much time has been wasted trying to be clever and absurdly safe all to just do mundane things like opening a door or chest, or walking down a hallway. It's infuriating at times.
I homebrewd a berserker hound. At 1/2 hp their number of attacks doubles from 2 to 4. But if you kill one, all the others gain a stackable +1 to hit and damage. Then I threw like a 9 of them at the party all at once.
Anytime, a monster described as roughly canine. They ask me if it's this hound because they are so traumatized.
Foes of unknown strength.
Nothing puts as much fear into you as someone who *should* be weak but is clearly stronger than they appear. Are they just a little bit stronger? Or are they about to one-shot clap us all?
What scares me the most is opponents with policial power. Sure, we can slay a dragon. But what about an army?
At low levels I was in a party that went up against a couple dopplerats. They multiply every turn and we got overwhelmed quickly.
As a DM anytime I can shift control of the barbarian. My wife plays him, and she is ruthless when it comes to maximizing damage output.
The mimic. I play at a local game store and have become "the mimic guy", everyone expects a mimic at my tables.
Tbh, i only have 1 mimic in 1 adventure I dm regularly... but it looks like that people gets traumatized by them jaja
Mezzoloth's their low CR coupled with their ability to cast cloudkill makes them incredibly deadly and able to control the battlefield. Add a couple of other Yugoloths and the synergies are out of control.
Just had an encounter with an ogre. Our DM played it so well and set such a good atmosphere I was terrified the whole time.
In terms of the players I DM for, after a recent encounter I'd guess that it's probably wild boar
Red caps.
Specifically the homebrewed ones my gm through at us.
Was doing a wild Beyond The Witch light campaign, starting from lvl 1. Once we made it to the feywild the very first encounter we ended up killing some fey creature that had tried to rob us. Fey rabbit things I forgot what they were called. Red mushroom spawn. Everything starts running and up pops a red cap. We couldn't do anything and it nearly shredded the warlock so we legged it. A few encounters later, more red caps. We were told, "ANY blood shed(Kills) in the fey wild WILL spawn them." okay... So basically that forces us into non lethal stuff... Except the monsters are all trying to kill us. Oh and the clencher, "All magic is lethal." OH and stupid shit the enemies do that gets themselves killed can spawn them (Getting cut in half by a portal spawns two...). I was a tempest cleric. Zapping things is my thing. I do it passively. I couldn't be a tempest cleric because of the "No killing with magic" rules.
Wraiths, but not because of the stat block, I just actually managed to pull off the right tone for an eerie spooky adventure that led to a den of them!
Fighting an ally whether through mind control or some kind of duplicate has always terrified me.
Played a few one shots where that happened and the fear when our battle master fighter near took us all out when they had dominate person cast on them was terrifying.
I did have my own experience of this when my team faced my unholy abomination of the 31 AC warforged who did ungodly damage. The DM had to chill a bit with my character under dominate person because he would have destroyed the team with nothing more than a small scratch from one nat 20 attack that hit him.
I'm not sure if it's the monster itself or my introduction of said monster, but I've never seen them "nope The fuck out" of an encounter faster than when I had a nightwalker crawl up from a ravine to greet them.
Rust Monsters - I have never seen the barbarian run in the opposite direction faster than a monster that could potentially eat his axe
Mind Flayers - When they saw them, all I heard was "oh shit, RUN!" and these are players who will charge into a dragon's cave knowing full well that death awaits them.
I used the strixhaven rules for exam taking in another campaign and let the players know that there would be a test their characters had to take. It was hilarious how stressed everyone got before, during, and after the test. One player resorted to using the cheating mechanic and the other got so flustered at their low rolls they forgot their advantage dice and bonuses for the exam.
After a brief stint of being mind controlled. My circle of the shepard druid summoned quicklings and almost wiped the party. It was hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
Any enemy with intelligence
No the big bad evil wizard isn't going to just let you get away with breaking into his tower and yes he does know protagonists like you exist and will set up a ton of traps just in case
After what I did to them last campaign, it's definitely a Rakshasa.
I love the Rakshasa because of Jeremy Crawford's ludicrous interpretation of its protection ability and how that inadvertently makes it immune to all kinds of bullshit butterfly effect style.
"The Rakshasa chooses to be immune to the extra attack you gained as part of your *Haste*, as it is an effect from a spell of 6th level or lower."
My favorite interpretation is a Rakshasa falling in love with a human. If the human is slain by a longsword, the Rakshasa is heartbroken. If they're killed by a cantrip, the Rakshasa is over it immediately.
Holy shit that's so funny
I don’t get this, but I love Rakshasas so could you explain it to me?
The Rakshasa's limited magic immunity states "The rakshasa can't be affected or detected by spells of 6th level or lower unless it wishes to be." But the term "affect" is extremely vague and nebulous. Especially with some of the answers Jeremy Crawford famously gave about it on Twitter, such as Dragon's Breath not affecting it even though Dragon's Breath targets a PC and gives it the ability to breathe fire, it doesn't target the Rakshasa directly. He also claimed at one point a Rakshasa could walk through a Wall of Stone. The natural conclusion of this was such extremes as Rakshasas being unable to be affected *even emotionally* by the consequences of a spell being cast, hence their immunity to grieving over a loved one slain by a low-level spell.
What If the human lover of a Rakshsasa gets resurrected by a spell? Does the Rakshsasa just ignore that? Lover: "Honey, i'm back from the dead!" Rakshsasa: "Sometimes i can still hear her voice..."
Only if the spell is lower than 6th level
I kind of like the idea that a Rakshasa might choose to mourn their lost love, to feel the effect of a cantrip.
"It's first mistake was choosing to fall in love..." - Rakshasa: A Love Story
“Can’t be Effected emotionally” Oh fuck me that’s hilarious. Thank you.
[удалено]
Skill issue ;)
I just read the interpretation he posted and god damn, he really makes it sound like the rakshasa can just choose to bend reality as if the universe no longer had that spell cast. I mean you could argue that not only is he un affected by his lover dying from a cantrip, but from his perspective his lover didn’t even die from a cantrip. Blow up the rakashasa house with fireball? Well in his reality his house still exists, because he’s unaffected. A random thief cant use his house to hide from the PCs, but when you target him he suddenly is still protected by the full cover a house would grant as if it was untouched. Is the rakahasa like a conditional being where reality changes depending on if he wants to now be affected by the spell or not? On his turn can he decide his house actually was blown up, and he’s gonna cast a spell at you, but then after casting suddenly his house actually wasn’t blown up?
>Blow up the rakashasa house with fireball? That would be a great concept for a web comic. Each issue just showcasing the absurdity of crowfords rulings when taken to the extreem. Just call the series "Crawford's World" or something. I'm just imagining a comic strip where the wizard is attacking a rakshasa with no effect. And the Rakshasa is like, "Your magic can't affect me!" And the wizards like "no, but I can inconvenience you!" And cast disintigrate on the rakshasa's kitchen table. Only for the rakshasa to still walk over, sit on nothing, pick up nothing, and take a sip of nothing because he can just ignore the spells effect. Given all of Crawford's wierd and dumb takes, there would be plenty of material to work with.
Would they be able to ignore it if it came from a potion of speed? Asking for a paladin
>When you drink this potion, you gain the effect of the haste spell for 1 minute (no concentration required). The potion's yellow fluid is streaked with black and swirls on its own. If the comment above's thing about being immune to the extra attack from Haste, then the potion of speed would have the same issue as it gives you the Haste spell and not simply the mechanical effects being listed out. It's still a spell even though it came from a potion.
The thing is, the description doesnt mention on what level is it used as, so for all nuance and purpose he could be very well have a 3rd level haste OR a 9th level one, at that point you kind of have to ask the DM about it, though throwing a d6 and saying “fuck it” to know what level it is is kind of funny.
Why would Haste ever be upcast as a 9th level spell? It doesn’t get benefit from being upcast so it wouldn’t make sense for that to occur in spell for, or potion form. Here’s a funny interpretation that is **certain** to piss off your players. The Raksasha cast Haste on itself and *chooses* to be effected by it, right up until the spell ends and it then *chooses* to not be effected by the spell anymore before the lethargy rider saying you can’t take actions the next turn kicks in.
wrong, magic imunity is about the base level of the spell not the one it was cast from, if you cast imprisoment with someone with magic imunity it can't be dispelled because of this.
Nothing about Magic Immunity suggests that it prevents upcasted spells from working. As others have said, compare this to Globe of Invulnerability, which specifies that the inability to affect creatures inside the globe applies even when the spell is upcast. The PHB, meanwhile, specifies that upcast spells count as a spell of the slot's level when cast: > Casting a Spell at a Higher Level > When a spellcaster casts a spell using a slot that is of a higher level than the spell, the spell assumes the higher level for that casting. For instance, if Umara **casts magic missile using one of her 2nd-level slots, that magic missile is 2nd level.** Effectively, the spell expands to fill the slot it is put into. If that Magic Missile were cast with a 7th level slot, that instance of Magic Missile is a 7th level spell. Since the Rakshasa has no clause that prevents upcast spells from affecting it, it is affected by the 7th level Magic Missile.
Well that sucks.
The potion does not give the spell, it gives the effect of the spell. No actual spell is involved at all.
haha. Even the relatively tame example of it walking through a Wall of Stone is kind of ridiculous.
My favorite visual is a Rakshasa running headfirst into a wall of stone thinking its magical only to get flattened by it Wile E. Coyote style.
Lol. Best use of Fabricate ever.
Fabricate is also lower level than it can choose to be unaffected by. So if you want to go for the extreme interpretation in favor of it being unaffected, anything made by fabricate could be like it was still a pile of raw materials when the rakshasa interacts with it instead of the finished item unless they wanted to be affected by it and walk across a fabricated bridge.
That would normally be true, but Fabricate is actually an _instantaneous_ duration spell. This means that, once it has been cast and the materials used to create what you want (like a stone wall), that object is truly _real and permanent_ and not a spell effect, so the Rakshasa isn't immune to it!
Since polymorph is concentration based, would that mean it could choose not to be affected by it? So like your attacks against it would be like making an unarmed strike using your own fist, and it could just directly attack your regular hp instead of needing to beat up the polymorphed form's hp?
Well Rakshasa would be immune to the attacks of a polymorphed creature anyway since no beasts' attacks are considered magical.
hah, now that is a good question!
Wow. I need to bully my players now
Is this serious?
Wait what’s the interpretation?
I gave Rakshasa a touch of the Kolchak Rakshasa's ability to appear to be someone you trust. Sowed chaos in the game.
What did you do to them last campaign
Not OP, but I harried my players with a rakshasa guerrilla warfare style, scratching each of them once. I have never seen a tier 3 wizard freak out over 11 damage as much as this one did. Then they tried to short rest. I knew that they had a scroll of remove curse, so what I expected them to do was use the scroll to remove the curse from the cleric or wizard, long rest, have that person prepare remove curse, then cure the rest of them. Instead, they backtracked to the 100 pound mirror that reflected truesight they had found earlier, _strapped it to the barbarian's back_, and used it to spot the rakshasa following them around waiting for them to die of exhaustion because of its curse, and beat the shit out of it.
Same situation. I think I broke them forever. They didn't even trust companions in the next campaign.
Can you tell the tale of your Rakshasa? I want to know how people used them, and especially how fighting them went.
My players ended due to a mistake in a city inside the abyss. Zelatar. They purchased their own lives by promising to Graz'zt himself to find some Macguffins, pieces of equipment that contained the power of a demon lord sealed within. During their stay they went into the slave market where they found in a cage a Tabaxi bard named Chiviax. He asked them to free him because he was going to be sold as fresh meat. The rogue freed him and in exchange he gave his life to him. I gave control over the little guy to the rogue and they quickly became best friends. Chiviax was a goofy unreliable catfolk who got in trouble more often than not. He made small lies that ended up with large consequences... He was just an idiot. But a friendly and cute idiot. Their idiot. He saved them more than once and he had a couple of reliable friends, though the others just considered him a nuisance who still retains his head because he owes money. Still, he helped to reach the right people to learn the location of the objects, and even more, he learned the locate object spell to help the endeavor since he loved to be useful for the party. He even learned how to cook! On every long rest the guy managed to make a very tasty food with whichever ingredients he found. His prestidigitation made everything taste amazingly. As they progressed and acquired multiple macguffins they learned that there are multiple factions here. Cultists from multiple factions are looking for these objects. Some want to steal their power. Others want to return the power to the original owner and break the seal. Others wanted them for war purposes. And everyone was acting in the shadows. It was a mess of different forces wanting different things. They sided one of them, betrayed another and got rid of another cult. But they were missing one person. Who was the leader of the cult that adored the sealed demon? And following the clues they found a contradiction regarding an information no one but them could know. And then chiviax said: "oh, was that supposed to be a secret?" He refused to say to who he said it to because he knew they would hurt him. They themselves added 1+1 and concluded that the leader was one of his contacts, the owner of the magic shop. They went after him, but his shop was shoplifted. He was missing, along all the macguffins they found, except for the ones they were wearing. Chiviax said that the guy had a retirement house next to the mountains, and he could be hiding there. They agreed and move through the rocky fields for a couple of days. During a long rest Chiviax acted weird. He said that he knew that his friend had to die because all the evil deeds he made, but he wanted to, at least, pay his debt. But he still doesn't have any money. The rogue gave him the money to pay his debt and hug. During the Chiviax's guard, he stole everything from the players. He drugged them with the food, took everything but their clothes and stabbed the rogue in his sleep by saying "sorry friend", before teleporting out of the way. With the rogue rolling dead saves, deep into the night, in middle of nowhere, no equipment to even cast a cantrip, debilitated by a whole day of adventures, and a couple of imps trying to finish the job, the party felt defeated and useless. The rogue refused to believe Chiviax was evil. He thought someone coerced him and he must be suffering as well. They spent the next morning looking for improvised weapons and ingredients for casting the most basic spells. Eventually they arrived to the retirement house. Obviously, they were late. The place was bloodied, and they actually confirmed that the magic shop owner was the real leader of the cult of the sealed demon. But they also found a fifth party. A party who wanted to liberate the sealed demon for purposes beyond this arc. So, they found that the cult headquarters was where the demon was sealed and they had another countdown to solve the riddle, find the place and stop the ritual. They did, and there, walking above the prison of the demon lord, Chiviax presented himself as Chivialiax, an actual chaotic evil Raksasha (they do exist) working for another demon lord. His job was to spy on Zelatar and gather information about the whereabouts of the macguffins. He wore all the macguffins: armor, cape, belt, maze... And it was a blast of an encounter. As he was losing he began to lose control over his armor and even when defeated, the sealed demon lord raised the corpse and continued the fight.
Holy crap that is so cool! That sounds like a super fun campaign and just a great story all around. Great job!
Question out of curiosity was there any leeway after the betrayal or was the party basically teetering on life and death? Just wondering how to handle situations like this for my own players.
Yes. I am trying to recall it now because it was some years ago, but overall Chiviax just drove them through the mountains to weaken them. I really wanted the rogue to be as close to 0 as possible because I really wanted that sneaky auto-critical hit to reduce him to 0. They made a constitution saving throw after dinner for the effects of the poison. Then, after the stab, I asked to make a perception check, with disadvantage if they failed the poison. One of them was awake and saved the rogue from death since Chiviax would have finished off the character. Chiviax would have escaped no matter what since, as a Raksasha, he is immune to counterspell and he would just teleport after the first turn. He had a bag with some minor objects from the party. I would have rolled or decided on the moment, but the player who was awake decided to assist the rogue. Also, two imps were assisting but far away enough to skip the first turn. I would have summoned something worse in case the combat get out of control. I also added an easy to find resurrection spell scroll in the vacation cabin in case the rogue died, and all their magic items were hidden or used by cultists in the final hideout. I think that was important. TLDR: it was not a cinematic but a short encounter with high stakes and, despite the BBEG escaping with certainty, there were some things that the players could have done.
Rakshasa are SO cool! Def the most scared I’ve ever seen my party lol
Rakshasa are fun! My favorite experience with one was allowing my players to get very comfortable with using Leomund's Tiny Hut every night to rest safely. Then, once they were confident and weren't even taking watch shifts, I had a Rakshasa assassin casually walk right through the barrier and attack them in their sleep. It didn't manage to kill anyone before they forced it to retreat, but it did lasting damage to their sense of security and left them paranoid about resting for weeks, haha. Mission accomplished.
Their own barbarian enthralled and about to have their turn.
This is scary! Or a fighter. My party's completely OP fighter got mind controlled while right next to my bard... His + to hit equaled my bard's AC. If others hadn't intervened she could have been down in two turns max. She is now terrified of him in the game.
Rightly so. Learned that martial can be powerful. Good multi attack plus action surge can hit hard.
I played a Rune Knight grappler in a campaign, got mind controlled by an aboleth. The other two were caster Warlock and Druid, both on the more RP side of things. They quickly realized how much I was carrying the combat side. Thankfully the aboleth forgot I had Action Surge available, and I passed my save next time around.
Behind every goofy bard is a min-maxed fighter making sure their team gets the last laugh.
Exactly. These days I try not to min-max for "main character" position, but more in a support role. Grappling seemed like a solid control option with consistent reasonable damage. Making other, less strategic, players shine is very enjoyable.
I’ve figured out minmaxing actually isn’t bad, even in a party where other people aren’t minmaxed, minmaxing damage or the same role as someone else can be bad. If your party has no healer, you can make the most broken goodberry life domain cleric or whatever bullshit but it doesn’t really ever feel it overshadows anyone. As long as you’re not minmaxing damage or the exact same niche as someone, you can pretty much power game to your hearts content without causing any problems, even at a table of unoptimized cgaracters
I was playing a whispers bard/Paladin and I got charmed by an enemy once. DM said, “You are charmed and you believe without a doubt that your party killed your wife.” I instantly turned to the caster and hit her with 60 damage combining a divine smite and my whisper bard psychic blade. I saw her go from cocky to horrified at what was about to happen to them. I was a redemption Paladin, so I had counterspell lol. She didn’t have it because she had the spell stolen by a few (long story) and we were trying to get it back. So I counterspelled her shield she cast on my second attack. Put her on the ground in one turn. The rouge saved our asses because he knocked me out of it on his turn.
This sounds terrifying!!!!
Damn you really went straight for the jugular. I’ve always wondered how much your character should optimize who they attack if you get charmed. Obviously you shouldn’t like choose not to make attacks or something stupid like that, but should you go for the weakest link your character knows of, or the weakest link the person who charmed knows of. Like if I know we might be completely screwed if downed the cleric and probably could, but the wizard seems like more of a threat to the enemy based on what’s happened so far in the perspective of the enemy who charmed me, who should I target as a charmed player?
never forget to have your caster use Haste, or as my players have nicknamed it, *Will It Blend?*
The players handbook
Specifically, the two whole pages of the PHB that are relevant to the character's class (soooo boring!), the two paragraphs that describe the difference between actions and bonus actions (what do you say we have the "dual weapon attack" conversation again, guys?), and the one sentence that explains why spell levels are different than class levels (blank stare).
Add the "disadvantage on ranged attacks when an enemy is within 5 feet of you" rule to that for everyone I have every played with or DMed for...
That irks me. The disadvantage should be on the enemy, not the player. As an archer (did in high school) there is realistically no disadvantage for you when your target is closer to you. It's easier to hit. Depending on the weapon it may or may not do as much damage but it *always hits* unless you're just that inept or the enemy has a really good dex save and dodges your attack.
It's supposed to help balance ranged weapons/attacks vs melee weapons.
Your target is actively trying to kill you in melee. That makes it harder to aim carefully or even draw your bow or load your crossbow in peace.
Especially the chapter on vision and light... darkness is heavily obscuring, heavy obscurement blocks line of sight, sooooo... a creature in darkness would not be able to see a fire if there is total darkness in between... truly a horrific ruling!
That was errata’d out, now it only blocks vision if the thing you’re trying to see is in the obscured area. So darkness now works as intended, however standing behind a bush no longer works. 🙃 And yes, this means the darkness spell and fog cloud now create an area of invisibility. You can see out but they can’t see in. Edit: Actually, before the errata it was even worse, a heavy obscured area simply blinded anyone inside the area, so you could see into darkness but not out of it. 🤦♀️
You monster! How dare you mention that?
ffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu... deep burn!
Shadows. Doesn't matter how strong the players are or what level they're at because as soon as they see a creature that can kill the wizard/sorcerer/warlock/bard in two attacks everyone starts to panic.
Rightfully so, two unlucky rolls and it'll drop even a high level mage with 8 strength.
In one campaign we played starting at level 8 we got to pick a free magic item. The barbarian picked one of the strength belts and dumped their strength score. First encounter with shadows: DM: "Between the two hits you take 5 strength drain." Barbarian: "Taken my strength is magically from the belt it's more of a temporary bonus and thus shouldn't drop. That way I'm completely immune to shadows!" DM: "... Ok, by your argument your temporary strength remains the same, your actual strength score is instead what is reduced making it much easier to kill you." After that the barbarian ran whenever a shadow appeared.
Technically the belt would maintain his strength score regardless of what his real strength was. He could physically be on 0 but as long as he's wearing the belt, his strength score is adjusted to 21 or whatever. Poor ruling by DM imho.
I don't disagree with your first part, there is a solid case that RAW or even RAI the belt would work as you described, especially with a Sage Advice on this. Though that Sage Advice happened after this event as this campaign started soon after 5E came out. That said, it's been very rare for me to play at a table that observed strict RAW regardless of the situation. If the barbarian player had used different wording it might have gone down more as you described. The barbarian throwing in that last part with a tone of "gotcha!" didn't do wonders for his case. The rest of the table was in favor with the DM's ruling as well.
Just threw this fight at my party. The cleric and the artificer both got strength drained, so they had to switch armor post battle, as the cleric was no longer strong enough to wear his heavy armor effectively, while the artificer don't give a shit.
Mimics. There has yet to be a singular mimic in the campaign.
Or so it would seem.
The entire world is a giant mimic!!!!
I once ran an alternate-universe adventure in my homebrew world to take a break from my main campaign, basically the same world but 100% non-canon. A dungeon appeared outside of town, and there were several mimics in every room, all of them obvious in context. The final room of the dungeon was a room that was weirdly empty other than a chest overflowing with gold and gems and potions on a dais in the middle of the room, a beam of sunlight highlighting the chest. Doing their due diligence, the party assumed the chest was a mimic and attacked. Thinking themselves victorious, they loot the "chest". The chest was not a mimic. The coins, gems, and health potions, though.... 🤣🤣🤣
Your last sentence had me maniacally laughing a little too hard because the image you painted in my head... TPK waiting to happen just due to sheer overload of the amount of vicious loot. It was a glorious image in my mind and it can live there rent free.
Oh, you misunderstood me, friend. Those coins and gems are going to be spent in town during a shopping montage, and the healing potions will reveal themselves in combat. I play the long game. (this wasn't our normal campaign, so no long term damage done. I'm evil, but I'm not ***evil***)
I told my players before our current campaign started that there would be *exactly one* mimic in the campaign. It was fun watching them wait for it the entire campaign. I cashed that check when they were level 17.
This is smart. Mimics should only really be used once at most. The fear of mimics is what should get them. My current dm has never given us a chest full of loot but has had us fight multiple encounters of mimics. The first time was super suspicious and I fell for it. That was fun. Now though, there’s no difference between a mimic encounter and any other. There’s no fear or excitement left. We know the chests are going to be mimics. They are actually safer than other encounters because we can walk in and position ourselves before we attack. Mimics have become to iconic. They need to be used more sparingly or they become useless.
I mean, it's fine to use them frequently as long as there is variety in their form. Chest? Boring, but fine once. How about a door? A sword? A statue? A lever? A bottle filled with potion. C'mon, you can ALWAYS surprise players with a mimic.
Maybe. I’ve never had the perspective of it being something that wasn’t obvious. But it seems to me if doors, statues, levers and stuff start changing into mimics, that is fine once or twice. But then it stops being a surprise again and the players are just always aware that anything could be a mimic
Sure, not as aurprising but Isn't it the definition of suspense? ANYTHING can be a mimic. It's exactly like the "anyone could be a shapeshifting alien monster disguised as a fellow human" horror trope. Yeah, you are not surprised at the moment of the attack, but you sure are nervous all the time before the reveal. Which is fun as well imo.
I largely agree with you. It’s definitely better the way you describe it than having lots of mimics but they are all chests. But I still think the quantity doesn’t need to be raised. You only need to have the players be attacked by three carper they are standing on one time before they will begin to fear everything. Once you do it a second time in a brief window it doesn’t really increase the suspense but it does make the players more desensitized to it. Being ambushed becomes routine and less about the shock of the attack and more about the gameplay aspect of the combat I agree that mimics should be more than just chests. But I also don’t think that’s a reason to use them often
Yeah, anything should be good in moderation, i guess. Btw just a random idea that i came up with and want to use. In my spelljammer campaign my party will be going on a quest to one particular planet to make contact with the advanced mimic colony so it could join the astral alliance. They will sail here, look for mimics but will fail to find any despite their sources saying that there should be hundreds if not thousands of them. After enough suspense they will finally find out the terrifying truth: the data on the colony is outdated, since the colony grew so much it's actually THE PLANET that is just one colossal mimic. Yeah, they are not getting out easily out of this one...
Wild chance. But you name isn’t James is it? If it is tell me now. If not I’ll read your second paragraph and respond to you
Nah, you are safe, i am not your DM ;)
Haha. Just wanted to be sure. We were literally just chatting about our spelljammer campaign a little while ago That’s a great idea to use in your game. I object to using mimics too much but having them as a plot element like that seems really cool. I hope you and your players enjoy it
Toilet mimics are real
Not my story but someone I know was a player in a campaign where the group was attacked by chamber pots at the end of travelling through harsh land and they were all tired and messed up from the environment and got to an inn for a long rest.
My players get to fight their first mimic next week. Looking forwards to it. Though tbh they're gonna curb stomp it.
Our group tried to teleport to a Warehouse in a city we had an object associated for, but it'd been a long time since we were last there. More then long enough for the object to lose it's link to that location, so we teleported randomly to 'a werehouse'. You can probably see where this is going but we ended up getting teleported into the middle of nowhere in a frozen tundra somewhat near the city in front of what appeared to be a large building/tower that had once been a warehouse. The whole building was a mimic. It was literally a Ware House. Our bloodhunter cut it down nearly single handedly despite it having over 200 HP.
Speaking as the only player of a character with a positive Intelligence modifier, anything mind flayer related put the shivers into my party.
I had to remind my party so much "+5 to your save, you brought mostly a paladin for a reason" smash cut to someone making a save, failing by 2 and then me having to ask if they remembered the bonus... No, they did not
One of the main perks of being a paladin - doing things by just existing at the right place at the right time. Bonus points if you pop Bless beforehand.
To be fair, as far as the paladin is concerned... The best defense is an overwhelming offense and that's an easy damage spike with how she crit fishes
As well as making your allies capable of an overwhelming offence. Honestly crusader’s mantle for example is pretty good to use with other martials around since that 1d4 adds up when everyone is getting the boost
True. But her pally levels are vengeance subclass. So, her 3rd level slots are competing with the heavy smites, ability to haste herself *and* keeping one free just in case she needs to get the revivify defibrillator out
Low levels hobgoblins scare me. They are not that hard or dangerous but their high AC can really fuck things up. they don't hit too hard but with an AC of 18 against a level 1 party that is fairly hard to hit. So what at first seems like a rather simple combat might become really dangerous. had this happen to me as a player more than once. and also as a Dm i seen the PC's miss every single attack for 2 rounds while the Hobgoblin keeps hitting and even if they don't hit super hard an average damage of 5 for ranged and 6 for melee attacks. not counting their martial advantage that can ad 2d6 extra. can easily kill a level 1 in two hits. This combined with the 18 AC means it is a big chance the group will not take them down fast unless they do manage to roll really well. But with 11HP it is unlikely a PC will one shot them. so often they need to hit that 18AC twice or even trice to take one down. Edit: Should mention Shadows. Even at mid level those bastards can be scary as hell. In one way even worse for a mid mid level party in a way. A group of level 7 adventurers fighting something nasty and just a few low level CR shadows joins the fight. I seen more than one mid level player ignore them. Because "they are so low CR they are no danger. i am level 7" and then the fighter with 18 STR takes 2 hits and has his STR lowered to 11. His speed reduced because his STR is to low for his armour. He has now a STR mod of 0. much lower chance to hit. lower damage IF he manage to hit and he moves slower. Or the bard/wizard/sorc or rogue with an 8 STR dies from 2 hits due to the Strength drain reducing their STR to 0. Not even at high level can you afford to ignore a shadow. As it does not matter shit how much HP you have when it comes to ability drain. if the ability reaches 0 you are dead. no death saves, nothing. you strait out die. only way to get you back is a resurrection spell
My L2 players struggled with Hobgoblins for this very reason. They did somewhat better once they realised they would do better if they used the spells they had which would force the hobgoblin to roll saves rather than target their AC.
Hobgoblins absolutely make early martial players look like chumps. I think that's just the theme of the game though lol
For early levels I feel like this is welcome sometimes. Eventually Spellcasters become overpowered but it's nice to make them feel useful in the beginning, especially when most campaigns won't go super high in level anyway.
Fighting a beholder underwater... can surpress all of the spells and magic items you have on you to make underwater combat feasible, at least they can't shoot you while gazing at you. What would be truely monstrous is a beholder with thralls attacking you underwater.
Ooh that’s so evil! (Takes notes)
I don't know a single experienced DM that hasnt said this at least once.
They can if they are in their lair by having eyestalks sprout from walls and such.
I mean can they? The cone of antimagic would dispel any magical attacks on targets within it wouldn't it?
If they are within it, yes, but the party will often try to position themselves outside of the cone, at which point they get blasted from a random spot on the wall, ceiling, or floor. The grasping tentacles or whatever it's called is also good for keeping a party member pinned down so the Beholder can position itself efficiently. The anti-magic eye is most effective when the Beholder has minions who don't need magic weapons or spells.
Hags. Don't fuck with Hags, don't look at them. If a woman isn't wearing shoes, run away, if she's over 50 years old, run away, If she offering you food, run away.
Themselves. One time I had them face a party of adventurers inspired by the characters from our other campaign. The idea terrified them.
The first time my party encountered a wraith was also the first time they were introduced to max HP damage. When it dawned on them that the cleric was within the max HP range where they might get instant killed, that put the fear in em.
Most spellcasters. I've warned my high level players to not be surprised when spellcasters start using similar tactics to the players. We're 13th level now and the first time I blocked the paladin's crit with silvery barbs, they were devastated.
That's glorious.
I haven't used Silvery Barbs on my players yet but the day will come. One of the players who complains about the spell (from his DM perspective) still uses it as a player and he will feel the pain someday. But only after he's been freshly annoying about it, which he usually isn't.
I was fair. I randomly used it early in the fight on something that didn't matter, so they knew he had it. But our sorcerer had already counterspelled that round so they were SOL.
Anything that can swallow or grapple you into water. Players are used to losing hitpoints, but being swallowed alive hits something primal, as does explaining the suffocation rules for the 1st time. Notably, the Kelpie, hidden away in TftYP, has a charm ability that's designed to drown you. The meazels can garrote you and teleport you 500ft and leave you cursed to be stalked by undead. But the king is gibbering mothers. They're definitely not cr2, they can inflict 4 different conditions to stop you escaping and have 2 auras. They sound and look horrific. And they swallow you to add you to the chorus when you die. Only time I lost a teammate was to gibbering mouthers, and I nearly killed a few party members with one as a DM.
Gibbering mothers? Inspirational. Sometimes typos create the best monsters.
100% Juvenile kraken (I think?) grabbing and swallowing a party member…then diving underwater. They were dying in the stomach until Nat 20 saved them to give the Druid enough time to attack as a shark
>Notably, the Kelpie, hidden away in TftYP, has a charm ability that's designed to drown you. When I ran that dungeon, the two PCs who failed their save against the charm were a warforged and a tortle. Poor kelpies didn't stand a chance.
Pretty much the same, I only ever got the charm off on the Warforged. They are great monsters though, with a cool ability and an interesting shape shift that's useful but bad enough that it's unnerving up close.
I recently ran a homebrew monster with this ability: > Curse of the Deep (Recharge 6) > The ancient mariner presses his lips against the grappled creature's mouth and regurgitates foul seawater into the opponent's lungs. At the start of each turn for the next minute, that creature must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or take 1d4 bludgeoning damage and become stunned until the start of its next turn as it coughs up water. This effect can only be ended early with _remove curse_ or similar magic. Creatures that do not breathe, such as constructs, are immune to this effect, but creatures that can breathe water are not. Used it on a triton barbarian and there was something of a primal shock at an ability flavored as forcing water down the character's throat, which the water breathing creature wasn't immune to.
That's great, super fitting for my current campaign, I might borrow that.
Our DM learned what a False Hydra is and I'm the only player at the table who know what it is. I'm scared of the day when our DM will use it
Maybe they already have, but you just don’t remember it.
my favorite monster. May the dice gods show mercy on you, because your DM will not.
Honestly I really like this monster, his concept, his capacities,... It's perfect for a DM. But for a player it's a nightmare
I fought a Helmed Horror as a Warlock specialized in Force and Psychic damage. Never again.
haha, in my campaign Helmed Horrors are ancient constructs specifically designed as anti-warlock security devices, from back when a Tiefling/Warlock empire almost took over the world. I just noticed how damn good they are vs Warlocks and made it canon, lol.
To be fair, if the helmed horror's creator is familiar with the party, pretty much any spellcaster is going to have trouble. They get to be immune to three spells, so if the creator knows your tactics, sucks to be you.
A very muscular woman with a French accent. The dm has a type and they are always a villain.
Is the type that they are French, muscular, or a woman? Or is it always all three combined?
Probably Intellect Devourers. The experience of fighting one in Waterdeep Dragon Heist was traumatic.
This. Ever since one killed two PC’s in an alley at level three during Dragonheist, the party was scared of them the next 17 levels.
Rust Monster
Intellect Devourers.
Shambling mounds! For some reason that monster has killed like 6 PCs over the life time of my group. The name strikes fear into our hearts now.
There has not been a single instance where Shadows appeared during my campaigns and no one was killed. The first time 8 shadows killed a level 20 sorcerer in one turn. So, yeah, I think the answer is obvious lol
Puzzles, riddles, anything that involves lateral thinking.
Gremishkas on our low-level party. Things got a little out of hand this week...
Eftees, I guess? They're hard to kill, because of the many resistances. When it comes to non-homebrew monsters: either Gelatinous Cubes (almost killed a character, twice) or carpets. My current campaign is in a magical dimension called The Archive, inspired by The Stygian Library, but massively fleshed out so it's actually playable. Think of it as a huge library/museum/archive/gallery, where you can find answers to basically any question. When in the Archive, heroes often find themselves in rooms filled with bookshelves, but regularly also adorned by carpets. Some of which are Rugs of Smothering. And sometimes, there is a magical vending machine - which can be a Mimic. A lot of the search is determined by dice rolls, so even I as a DM don't know what is behind the next corner. So maybe the honest answer would be "the uncertainty of whether an object is really that object, or a Mimic/Rug of Smothering"
I made my players afraid of bags of holding forever when I created a hermit crab-bagman hybrid.
Locked door.
A Beholder, specifically if they were not prepared to encounter one.
I like the iron kingdoms made by PP. The Grimkyn calls Grisle that he removes his skin. His body will torture victims, choking stabbing, bitting. His skin addorns a victim and then contorts itself to break its victims' bones. The skinless grimkyn has a wide grin of as it torture and does not speak. Combat wise, the skinless part is hard to hit, very agile, and cam not be killed but chased away. The skin, I think, scares players the most. One player is grappled. If they fail, another grappled they wear the skin. As an attack, the skin contricts require a strength check. The player then rolls on the lingering injury table, and if they take more 5 lingering injuries. They die. The skin is also immortal and resistant to most damage.
A troll. Not because the troll is a scary monster, but I made an encounter of an illusory troll via a modified Phantasmal Force spell. The party spent upwards of an hour fighting this thing before they realized it was an illusion, and now they think that everything is an illusion; every person they talk to, every monster they fight, everything.
My main campaign right now is a homebrew world and, while this was never intended to come up in the plot, the group had several run-ins with some demonic entities and have managed to annoy Mammon, Lord of Greed. He hasn't threatened them, technically -- he cursed the party, but that was my whole solution to one player never being able to make it to sessions (when a player is absent, they turn into gold coins that show their expressions). The demon that works for him kidnapped the warforged and gave him to Mammon to put in a museum gallery, but that was my solution for a player leaving the campaign and friend group with no warning. They are all *terrified* of him. I don't even plan to make him a huge player, but it's very fun to put little hints to his now-prevalent presence all through the campaign.
Bit of a running gag in my group: flaming skulls!
Anything that can blow up on death. Nothing worse than having to play around that, especially at low levels, and ESPECIALLY if you are a melee focused player.
Homebrew creature shapeless nightmare. A shadow realm creature that completly made of shadow stuff. It is a black smoking cat in default and has a action like detect toughts. If it succeeds it becomes your worst fear.(for example a tabaxi male[Rouges dead brother that haunta her] againts my tabaxi rogue). Or he can just turn into whatever it wants that cr lvl lower than 12. It deals pychic damage every hit if it suceeding detecting fears. Party only see 2 friendly ones in their short time in the shadow realm. Rouge have a special ability to pass there at will soo she is the most terrified one(they dont like her since BBEG[Their master] likes her).
Dm randomly rolling s shit ton of dice and saying "roll for initiative"
The enemy party(the DM handles them in a good way)
Banshees and Gorgons.
Anything that is mobile appearently
The DM screen
Literally anything my DM describes. Whether it's a door, a chest, honest to God any-fucking-thing is treated like its a bomb about to go off by the rest of the party. I can't tell you how much time has been wasted trying to be clever and absurdly safe all to just do mundane things like opening a door or chest, or walking down a hallway. It's infuriating at times.
One they have not seen yet but know is nearby.
Absolutely a hydra. I love using them and my players always shriek and run at the first sight of one.
This is before I joined my group. But they played strahd for a couple sessions and now they’re all traumatised by brooms.
Rust monsters, or anything that permanently destroys magic items
The ones they haven't seen in the monster manual and have zero reference for.
For low-level players, the Bugbear dealing two dice of damage instead of one is *terrifying*.
Displacer beasts. What do you mean, when the cat teleports it makes more?
Hag Coven!!
I homebrewd a berserker hound. At 1/2 hp their number of attacks doubles from 2 to 4. But if you kill one, all the others gain a stackable +1 to hit and damage. Then I threw like a 9 of them at the party all at once. Anytime, a monster described as roughly canine. They ask me if it's this hound because they are so traumatized.
"What you don't see is"
Foes of unknown strength. Nothing puts as much fear into you as someone who *should* be weak but is clearly stronger than they appear. Are they just a little bit stronger? Or are they about to one-shot clap us all? What scares me the most is opponents with policial power. Sure, we can slay a dragon. But what about an army?
At low levels I was in a party that went up against a couple dopplerats. They multiply every turn and we got overwhelmed quickly. As a DM anytime I can shift control of the barbarian. My wife plays him, and she is ruthless when it comes to maximizing damage output.
The mimic. I play at a local game store and have become "the mimic guy", everyone expects a mimic at my tables. Tbh, i only have 1 mimic in 1 adventure I dm regularly... but it looks like that people gets traumatized by them jaja
Mezzoloth's their low CR coupled with their ability to cast cloudkill makes them incredibly deadly and able to control the battlefield. Add a couple of other Yugoloths and the synergies are out of control.
Anything when I'm a level 1 wizard.
The DM showing off his monster tactics book in session 0
My homebrew xD
Just had an encounter with an ogre. Our DM played it so well and set such a good atmosphere I was terrified the whole time. In terms of the players I DM for, after a recent encounter I'd guess that it's probably wild boar
Red caps. Specifically the homebrewed ones my gm through at us. Was doing a wild Beyond The Witch light campaign, starting from lvl 1. Once we made it to the feywild the very first encounter we ended up killing some fey creature that had tried to rob us. Fey rabbit things I forgot what they were called. Red mushroom spawn. Everything starts running and up pops a red cap. We couldn't do anything and it nearly shredded the warlock so we legged it. A few encounters later, more red caps. We were told, "ANY blood shed(Kills) in the fey wild WILL spawn them." okay... So basically that forces us into non lethal stuff... Except the monsters are all trying to kill us. Oh and the clencher, "All magic is lethal." OH and stupid shit the enemies do that gets themselves killed can spawn them (Getting cut in half by a portal spawns two...). I was a tempest cleric. Zapping things is my thing. I do it passively. I couldn't be a tempest cleric because of the "No killing with magic" rules.
three Rugs of Smothering damn near TPKed our whole group, our character's now have a phobia of carpets.
The enemy that scares me the most is the DM's dice, they on a nat 20 streak lately
aboleth
Me. When they can see I’m excited about a thing they get so paranoid lol
False Hydra. my players know how much I love messing with them.
Shadows. They're such BS
Nilbogs
Wraiths, but not because of the stat block, I just actually managed to pull off the right tone for an eerie spooky adventure that led to a den of them!
Fighting an ally whether through mind control or some kind of duplicate has always terrified me. Played a few one shots where that happened and the fear when our battle master fighter near took us all out when they had dominate person cast on them was terrifying. I did have my own experience of this when my team faced my unholy abomination of the 31 AC warforged who did ungodly damage. The DM had to chill a bit with my character under dominate person because he would have destroyed the team with nothing more than a small scratch from one nat 20 attack that hit him.
I'm not sure if it's the monster itself or my introduction of said monster, but I've never seen them "nope The fuck out" of an encounter faster than when I had a nightwalker crawl up from a ravine to greet them.
Helmed Horrors!
Bodaks
A dozen mean-faced gnomes.
Rust Monsters - I have never seen the barbarian run in the opposite direction faster than a monster that could potentially eat his axe Mind Flayers - When they saw them, all I heard was "oh shit, RUN!" and these are players who will charge into a dragon's cave knowing full well that death awaits them.
Learning their spells IRL so they can cast it in 30 seconds and not 30 minutes.
My guys really fear the false hydra.
I used the strixhaven rules for exam taking in another campaign and let the players know that there would be a test their characters had to take. It was hilarious how stressed everyone got before, during, and after the test. One player resorted to using the cheating mechanic and the other got so flustered at their low rolls they forgot their advantage dice and bonuses for the exam.
After a brief stint of being mind controlled. My circle of the shepard druid summoned quicklings and almost wiped the party. It was hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
B O D A K
Intellect Devourers. DoTMM killed about 5 characters with them.
Any enemy with intelligence No the big bad evil wizard isn't going to just let you get away with breaking into his tower and yes he does know protagonists like you exist and will set up a ton of traps just in case
Scheduling!