I thought it’d fun to open up our bestiaries and come up with mixed encounters of creatures that people wouldn’t normally think are associated but are actually pretty fitting per their lore.
Devils + blights: a blight-spawning gulthias tree comes from a tree inhabited by a fragment of an evil mind. Devils collect damned souls and find many uses for them, from reproduction to currency to fuel. So what’s stopping a devil from taking a few souls it owns and putting them in trees to get a group of quick minions?
Relentless slasher or relentless juggernaut + redcaps: redcaps are born from murder, something the relentless killers do regularly, and sometimes team up with their originator. Despite their danger, redcaps are also a little comical, making a potentially affective contrast with the far more serious killers.
Grey render + boneclaw: both of these seek out and serve a a person they find, so at some point one of each had to have attached themselves to the same person. There’s even some comedy potential with the renders antics annoying the boneclaw, and the boneclaw trying to kill the render without their master noticing.
Stuff like that. So what are some team-ups that you’ve run or thought of?
Want your dragon encounter to feel even more epic and frantic? Want your monster to truly feel like a living force of elemental destruction? Have its breath weapon leave behind mephits after firing, as residual energy coalesces into hostile elementals right after the party took a beating from the beast's greatest weapon. The boss gets naturally respawning nuisance minions to keep the players distracted, and the monster feels far more dangerous when its breath alone can create hostile, angry life. The older a dragon gets, the more minor elementals its breath can briefly awaken.
Also goes extremely well with siege type encounters - a dive-bombing dragon's breath weapon leaves behind elementals that start causing their own havoc, forcing players to divide their attention even further.
Doppleganger/mimic. For all the obvious reasons. Be anyone/anything, anywhere any time. And not as villains, but rather as annoyances: Say the doppleganger buys the characters old magic items, leaving behind a chest of gold - but then the chest just sneaks off, and rejoins it's master.
It does require the mimic to be able to switch off it's stickiness, which I think it cannot by RAW. But who cares, I could have too much fun with this to care about the rules.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I was going to make a suggestion with rot grubs. When did they change the rot grubs!??!
Third edition changed them from a monster to a hazard since they're not really capable of chasing or attacking anything.
What I meant was, they went from this:
Bites. Melee Weapon Attack: +0 to hit, reach 0 ft., one creature in the swarm's space. Hit: The target is infested by 1d4 rot grubs. At the start of each of the target's turns, the target takes 1d6 piercing damage per rot grub infesting it. Applying fire to the bite wound before the end of the target's next turn deals 1 fire damage to the target and kills these rot grubs. After this time, these rot grubs are too far under the skin to be burned. If a target infested by rot grubs ends its turn with 0 hit points, it dies as the rot grubs burrow into its heart and kill it. Any effect that cures disease kills all rot grubs infesting the target.
To this:
Bites. Melee Weapon Attack:+0 to hit, reach 0 ft., one creature in the swarm’s space. Hit: 7 (2d6) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned. At the end of each of the poisoned target’s turns, the target takes 3 (1d6) poison damage. Whenever the poisoned target takes fire damage, the target can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success. If the poisoned target ends its turn with 0 hit points, it dies.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
A mob of Commoners and a Gibbering Mouther. Mass chaos as everyone is Kung Fu fighting everyone (poorly) thanks to the Gibbering effect. Throw in some adventurers and it turns into a real bloodbath. Good luck on those morality choices.😈
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
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I thought it’d fun to open up our bestiaries and come up with mixed encounters of creatures that people wouldn’t normally think are associated but are actually pretty fitting per their lore.
Devils + blights: a blight-spawning gulthias tree comes from a tree inhabited by a fragment of an evil mind. Devils collect damned souls and find many uses for them, from reproduction to currency to fuel. So what’s stopping a devil from taking a few souls it owns and putting them in trees to get a group of quick minions?
Relentless slasher or relentless juggernaut + redcaps: redcaps are born from murder, something the relentless killers do regularly, and sometimes team up with their originator. Despite their danger, redcaps are also a little comical, making a potentially affective contrast with the far more serious killers.
Grey render + boneclaw: both of these seek out and serve a a person they find, so at some point one of each had to have attached themselves to the same person. There’s even some comedy potential with the renders antics annoying the boneclaw, and the boneclaw trying to kill the render without their master noticing.
Stuff like that. So what are some team-ups that you’ve run or thought of?
A critter with a breath weapon plus mephits.
Want your dragon encounter to feel even more epic and frantic? Want your monster to truly feel like a living force of elemental destruction? Have its breath weapon leave behind mephits after firing, as residual energy coalesces into hostile elementals right after the party took a beating from the beast's greatest weapon. The boss gets naturally respawning nuisance minions to keep the players distracted, and the monster feels far more dangerous when its breath alone can create hostile, angry life. The older a dragon gets, the more minor elementals its breath can briefly awaken.
Also goes extremely well with siege type encounters - a dive-bombing dragon's breath weapon leaves behind elementals that start causing their own havoc, forcing players to divide their attention even further.
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I was going to make a suggestion with rot grubs. When did they change the rot grubs!??!
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Third edition changed them from a monster to a hazard since they're not really capable of chasing or attacking anything.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Doppleganger/mimic. For all the obvious reasons. Be anyone/anything, anywhere any time. And not as villains, but rather as annoyances: Say the doppleganger buys the characters old magic items, leaving behind a chest of gold - but then the chest just sneaks off, and rejoins it's master.
It does require the mimic to be able to switch off it's stickiness, which I think it cannot by RAW. But who cares, I could have too much fun with this to care about the rules.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
What I meant was, they went from this:
Bites. Melee Weapon Attack: +0 to hit, reach 0 ft., one creature in the swarm's space. Hit: The target is infested by 1d4 rot grubs. At the start of each of the target's turns, the target takes 1d6 piercing damage per rot grub infesting it. Applying fire to the bite wound before the end of the target's next turn deals 1 fire damage to the target and kills these rot grubs. After this time, these rot grubs are too far under the skin to be burned. If a target infested by rot grubs ends its turn with 0 hit points, it dies as the rot grubs burrow into its heart and kill it. Any effect that cures disease kills all rot grubs infesting the target.
To this:
Bites. Melee Weapon Attack: +0 to hit, reach 0 ft., one creature in the swarm’s space. Hit: 7 (2d6) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned. At the end of each of the poisoned target’s turns, the target takes 3 (1d6) poison damage. Whenever the poisoned target takes fire damage, the target can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success. If the poisoned target ends its turn with 0 hit points, it dies.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
A mob of Commoners and a Gibbering Mouther. Mass chaos as everyone is Kung Fu fighting everyone (poorly) thanks to the Gibbering effect. Throw in some adventurers and it turns into a real bloodbath. Good luck on those morality choices.😈
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.