I have a question about a specific encounter that I played in. I may be judging this too harshly, and I welcome people's opinions. The situation is a fight between the party and Intellect Devourers (ID). In this situation the ID were controlling Bugbears. The group were attacking the bugbears, not knowing they were being controlled (and knew nothing about ID creatures). The players are all level 5, with about half health. The group consists of a monk, a sorcerer, a necromancer, and a fighter (yep, no proper healer). The bugbears attacked first with their two claws, then attacked with Devour Intellect against the fighter and the monk (one ID against each player). The monk made the save but the fighter failed, and then the DM rolled higher than the fighters Int; subsequently taking him out of the fight (stunned, zero int). The two mages peppered the bugbears with damage spells, as then the monk took out one of the bugbears (everyone usually concentrates on single targets to burn them down faster).
On the second round, the lone bugbear did it's two claws on the monk and again hit it with Devour Intellect. This time the monk failed his save, and was almost knocked out from the damage alone. The DM rolled higher than the monk's Int, and he too was dropped. The ID in the fallen bugbear initiated an intellect contest against the fighter and won, devouring his brain, and teleporting inside his head (DM had done his homework on the D&D forums and learned that it was possible to teleport from body to body). More spells rained down on the last bugbear, but it survived.
On the third round, the ID in the fighter did Devour Intellect on the sorcerer, who failed their save, and the DM's 3d6 roll was higher than the sorcerer's Int, dropping him too. The monk was wearing a ring which the DM ruled protected his mind from Body Thief. The wizard pulled the sorcerer to safety, and they fled the dungeon.
Subsequently the controlled fighter dragged the monk out of the dungeon acting the part of a fellow adventurer, and managed to escape into the world at large.
So here is my question, are intellect devourer's actually a CR 2 creature, or are they more powerful than that? D&D 5E is not a system where magic items are anywhere close to as common as they used to be; so it would be quite possible for say a level 10 fighter or the like to equally fail their save versus the Devour Intellect, be dropped to zero int, and be an easy mark for Body Thief. They will then have to have a series of expensive spells cast on them to get them back up. There are very few spells that will restore intelligence, so even if the rest of the party wins the fight, anyone who failed their saves will be out for a few days to a week regaining their intelligence. Outside their puppets, ID are pretty weak, and can be killed fairly well, but inside a host, 2-4 of them could TPK even a high level party fairly easily. Your thoughts.
An intellect devourer on its own in a white room is CR 2. Once you add a host they are inside of, it would no longer be a CR 2 encounter (it would be higher).
Edit: also, an intellect devourer inside of a host cannot use its Devour Intellect action. From the Body Thief action (which lets it go into the host)
The intellect devourer retains its Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores, as well as its understanding of Deep Speech, its telepathy, and its traits. It otherwise adopts the target’s statistics.
A monster's traits are things like Darkvision, Damage Resistance, etc. That is separate from its Actions (claw attack, devour intellect, etc)
Yeah these intellect devourers sound like they were beefed up to around CR3 each. And since they have the ability to kill PCs outright, they can really punch above their weight class as is.
I once freaked the eff out of a party by having some guys walk into their home and tear their own heads open, releasing a surprise wave of Intellect Devourers, but Houligan's right, they can't do that from inside a host.
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I have a question about a specific encounter that I played in. I may be judging this too harshly, and I welcome people's opinions. The situation is a fight between the party and Intellect Devourers (ID). In this situation the ID were controlling Bugbears. The group were attacking the bugbears, not knowing they were being controlled (and knew nothing about ID creatures). The players are all level 5, with about half health. The group consists of a monk, a sorcerer, a necromancer, and a fighter (yep, no proper healer). The bugbears attacked first with their two claws, then attacked with Devour Intellect against the fighter and the monk (one ID against each player). The monk made the save but the fighter failed, and then the DM rolled higher than the fighters Int; subsequently taking him out of the fight (stunned, zero int). The two mages peppered the bugbears with damage spells, as then the monk took out one of the bugbears (everyone usually concentrates on single targets to burn them down faster).
On the second round, the lone bugbear did it's two claws on the monk and again hit it with Devour Intellect. This time the monk failed his save, and was almost knocked out from the damage alone. The DM rolled higher than the monk's Int, and he too was dropped. The ID in the fallen bugbear initiated an intellect contest against the fighter and won, devouring his brain, and teleporting inside his head (DM had done his homework on the D&D forums and learned that it was possible to teleport from body to body). More spells rained down on the last bugbear, but it survived.
On the third round, the ID in the fighter did Devour Intellect on the sorcerer, who failed their save, and the DM's 3d6 roll was higher than the sorcerer's Int, dropping him too. The monk was wearing a ring which the DM ruled protected his mind from Body Thief. The wizard pulled the sorcerer to safety, and they fled the dungeon.
Subsequently the controlled fighter dragged the monk out of the dungeon acting the part of a fellow adventurer, and managed to escape into the world at large.
So here is my question, are intellect devourer's actually a CR 2 creature, or are they more powerful than that? D&D 5E is not a system where magic items are anywhere close to as common as they used to be; so it would be quite possible for say a level 10 fighter or the like to equally fail their save versus the Devour Intellect, be dropped to zero int, and be an easy mark for Body Thief. They will then have to have a series of expensive spells cast on them to get them back up. There are very few spells that will restore intelligence, so even if the rest of the party wins the fight, anyone who failed their saves will be out for a few days to a week regaining their intelligence. Outside their puppets, ID are pretty weak, and can be killed fairly well, but inside a host, 2-4 of them could TPK even a high level party fairly easily. Your thoughts.
An intellect devourer on its own in a white room is CR 2. Once you add a host they are inside of, it would no longer be a CR 2 encounter (it would be higher).
Edit: also, an intellect devourer inside of a host cannot use its Devour Intellect action. From the Body Thief action (which lets it go into the host)
A monster's traits are things like Darkvision, Damage Resistance, etc. That is separate from its Actions (claw attack, devour intellect, etc)
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Yeah these intellect devourers sound like they were beefed up to around CR3 each. And since they have the ability to kill PCs outright, they can really punch above their weight class as is.
I once freaked the eff out of a party by having some guys walk into their home and tear their own heads open, releasing a surprise wave of Intellect Devourers, but Houligan's right, they can't do that from inside a host.