My party (4 x Lvl5) is a handful of sessions away from the final encounter with the BBEG of the campaign at the end of a big cave dungeon. This BBEG is a Drider spellcaster kind of based off of this homebrew stat block from another DM (just the drider form). In my campaign, the BBEG has been working closely with a Doppelganger (they are actually lovers) so it would make sense for both of them to be together for this final encounter.
BUT
I've got this cool and versatile Drider spellcaster with a variety of abilities next to a Doppelganger who can...slam. Any tips or advice on how I can make the Doppelganger's involvement be more interesting instead of just trying to constantly whack the PCs? I saw one idea about maybe having the Doppelganger shapechange into a PC and have the party roll an Insight check when they attack it to determine whether they hit the right target or not...but I'm not sure how well this will work (first time DM here with no similar experience).
Would really appreciate any help on this one, want the BBEG fight to be fun!
You have a few options, but the most important thing to remember is that Dopplegangers are essentially humanoid with stats as good as any adventurer, so they are perfectly capable of behaving like one. They can wield weapons, use magic items, trigger traps, etc. If you plan to give your PCs magic item rewards after the fight, feel free to have them being used, rather than sitting in a random chest.
Anything you do to it, including playing as an intelligent creature, will skew the effective challenge rating. However, with that in mind, the world is your oyster.
You could always buff it with some rogue abilities, give it stealth as a bonus skill (+6 to the roll should cover the bonus), give it the rogue cunning action and maybe upgrade its sneak attack to Assassinate, give it a bow or crossbow so it can harress the party from range and use hide bonus actions to reposition itself in the shadows.
You can also add a couple of minions, either Drow or Changelings, with some level 2-3 Wizard or Sorcerer levels whose role is to shape the battlefield or act as diversions, they adopt the image of either the drider ro doppleganger and then cast mirror image or toss out web spells or fog clouds or maybe lay down some "surpressing fire" with a volley of magic missiles.
Failing that basic traps, spiked pits, minor explosive devices etc, would probably do.
It depends what the make up of the party is and how savvey the players are.
These are some great ideas, I never really considered changing the stat block but you guys make a very fair point. I may turn this doppelganger into a rogue with Cunning Action and Sneak attack; don't want to add too much or add more enemies since the encounter is already 'Deadly' with just these two. Also I haven't got the faintest idea on what magic item could be used so if you have any suggestions I'd be open to them. Otherwise I'll play it safe with the Rogue (maybe also lower HP a bit).
If the assumption is that the monsters obtained their magic items through killing adventurers, then they can be pretty random. No need to worry about optimizing. Just choose an appropriate rarity and pick something you don't mind your players getting their hands on. Be careful not to give it anything that synergizes too much with its existing strengths, otherwise you might kill your players too easily.
Consumables, like Potions of Healing and Potion of Fire Breath, are good candidates because it gives them spell-like abilities, without making them a caster, and creates a reward that changes with their behavior. If they kill the Doppleganger quickly, they can loot more potions, and have a way to recover after the battle. (Giving players a way to resurrect dead party members after a particularly deadly encounter is often encouraged. Giving a Potion of Revivify to whichever monster doesn't die first satisfies that, and also gives you an option to up the stakes, if the party comes in a little too strong.)
In the end, the theme of a doppelganger is supposed to be confusing people with duplicates, and the standard Doppelganger really doesn't do that very well (to be fair to D&D: this is a hard problem). If you can come up with a satisfying implementation, just give it to your monster as a special power. For example:
Skills. Add Athletics (+2) to the Doppelganger's skill list.
Mimic. The doppelganger selects one creature within 5', uses Shapechanger, and makes a Deception check against the passive Insight score of observers. Any deceived observer cannot determine which creature is the doppelganger. If a deceived creature tries to use a power targeting either creature, roll a d6; on 1-3 it targets the doppelganger, on 4-6 it targets the victim. This effect ends if the doppelganger is no longer able to retain its shape, or if either creature takes an action that clearly reveals its nature while more than 5' apart. A creature may also use its action to attempt an Investigation check to determine which is which.
Multiattack. The doppelganger makes two melee attacks. It may replace either of these attacks with a Grapple check (+2) or a use of Mimic.
Sticky (Reaction). If a creature adjacent to the doppelganger and subject to its Mimic power moves, the doppelganger may move up to its speed to remain adjacent.
Funnily enough I did think about chucking in a Potion of Revivify somewhere in the dungeon before the boss fight, will have a think about that one.
That Mimic ability sounds like a lot of fun with the Sticky reaction. Thanks for the detailed ideas (and the excellent formatting!). Will definitely be using these.
Hey, kind of unearthing this, but is this a modified version of Phandelver?
Because I'm doing something like this (first campaign as a DM 🥺) for the BBEG, turned them into a drider because I felt just the random priest at the end was meh.
They're at the cragmaw Castle soon so I've gotta start preparing Wave Echo ~
I really wanna make it a scary time for my players, I have a lot of work to do on the ambiance :/ still not entirely used to it.
Any tips or advice? 💜 Note that I have only 3 players (including myself, had to put a DMPC in there for fight balance, we're a small group of friends), and with how I've tweaked the campaign they're actually gonna be lvl 4, not 5. But I'm nice with magic items to compensate.
Edit: Also, making the doppelganger and the drider in love is such a cool idea, I love it! Mind if I think about stealing it?
Ha did not expect to see this thread again, I'm actually part way through the fight and will be finishing next week!
UPDATE: Pantagruel's doppelganger stats were super fun to use against the bamboozled players, however she did eventually get smacked to death by the monk RIP. Black Drider is at roughly half HP and I think I'll have a couple of Giant Spiders come in for backup to keep things interesting.
SO on to your post; depends what you mean by 'modified'. It's still the pre-written starter set module adventure but I have redesigned a bunch of encounters (pretty much redid 90% of Wave Echo Cave) as well as of course going for a different kind of Black Spider/Drider.
One piece of advice I wish I had received much earlier in the campaign: THE MODULE IS NOT THE BIBLE! STOP FOLLOWING IT LIKE A HOLY TEXT!
One thing that I, as well as probably many other first-time DMs suffer from, is trying to follow these pre-written campaigns to the tee. We assume that the professionals know what they're doing and we don't want to mess things up with our noob ideas. WRONG. You should treat their content like bones; chop and choose whichever parts make sense for your group to form your own skeleton upon which you have free reign to put whatever kind of meat and skin you wish. Does that encounter look sleep-inducing? Grab the Monster Manual and spice things up. Is that side-quest pointless? Add a hook to a PC backstory. Why is that NPC doing that? Well it's time for you to decide. You get the gist. Don't be afraid to go wild. Your players will appreciate the effort and the variety of encounters they come across.
Feel free to steal whatever you want to, glad to be of service ;)
UPDATE: Pantagruel's doppelganger stats were super fun to use against the bamboozled players, however she did eventually get smacked to death by the monk RIP.
Glad to hear it worked well, it wasn't something I'd tested for myself.
Well thanks! Glad to hear that, I've actually tweaked a lot of things and was hesitant as to if that was the right solution.
Most notably, I've merged Dragon of Icespire with LMoP, and for now it's worked great. Icespire really helps flesh out LMoP, and LMoP provides the story Icespire so dreadfully lacks, imo at least. I just still have to come up with something as to how/why did the black spider manage to make a dragon set up shop in phandalin, but I don't think it'll be too hard.
But that makes balancing some stuff way harder (hi Venomfang), and I was wondering if going the easy route wouldn't be better... glad to hear it's not, and that I'm on the right track :)
Anyway, I'll stop polluting this thread, thanks for the help though!
- A happy newcomer 💜
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Hello all,
My party (4 x Lvl5) is a handful of sessions away from the final encounter with the BBEG of the campaign at the end of a big cave dungeon. This BBEG is a Drider spellcaster kind of based off of this homebrew stat block from another DM (just the drider form). In my campaign, the BBEG has been working closely with a Doppelganger (they are actually lovers) so it would make sense for both of them to be together for this final encounter.
BUT
I've got this cool and versatile Drider spellcaster with a variety of abilities next to a Doppelganger who can...slam. Any tips or advice on how I can make the Doppelganger's involvement be more interesting instead of just trying to constantly whack the PCs? I saw one idea about maybe having the Doppelganger shapechange into a PC and have the party roll an Insight check when they attack it to determine whether they hit the right target or not...but I'm not sure how well this will work (first time DM here with no similar experience).
Would really appreciate any help on this one, want the BBEG fight to be fun!
You have a few options, but the most important thing to remember is that Dopplegangers are essentially humanoid with stats as good as any adventurer, so they are perfectly capable of behaving like one. They can wield weapons, use magic items, trigger traps, etc. If you plan to give your PCs magic item rewards after the fight, feel free to have them being used, rather than sitting in a random chest.
Anything you do to it, including playing as an intelligent creature, will skew the effective challenge rating. However, with that in mind, the world is your oyster.
For general tactics for the doppleganger this is worth a read: https://www.themonstersknow.com/doppelganger-tactics/
You could always buff it with some rogue abilities, give it stealth as a bonus skill (+6 to the roll should cover the bonus), give it the rogue cunning action and maybe upgrade its sneak attack to Assassinate, give it a bow or crossbow so it can harress the party from range and use hide bonus actions to reposition itself in the shadows.
You can also add a couple of minions, either Drow or Changelings, with some level 2-3 Wizard or Sorcerer levels whose role is to shape the battlefield or act as diversions, they adopt the image of either the drider ro doppleganger and then cast mirror image or toss out web spells or fog clouds or maybe lay down some "surpressing fire" with a volley of magic missiles.
Failing that basic traps, spiked pits, minor explosive devices etc, would probably do.
It depends what the make up of the party is and how savvey the players are.
These are some great ideas, I never really considered changing the stat block but you guys make a very fair point. I may turn this doppelganger into a rogue with Cunning Action and Sneak attack; don't want to add too much or add more enemies since the encounter is already 'Deadly' with just these two. Also I haven't got the faintest idea on what magic item could be used so if you have any suggestions I'd be open to them. Otherwise I'll play it safe with the Rogue (maybe also lower HP a bit).
Thanks!
If the assumption is that the monsters obtained their magic items through killing adventurers, then they can be pretty random. No need to worry about optimizing. Just choose an appropriate rarity and pick something you don't mind your players getting their hands on. Be careful not to give it anything that synergizes too much with its existing strengths, otherwise you might kill your players too easily.
Consumables, like Potions of Healing and Potion of Fire Breath, are good candidates because it gives them spell-like abilities, without making them a caster, and creates a reward that changes with their behavior. If they kill the Doppleganger quickly, they can loot more potions, and have a way to recover after the battle. (Giving players a way to resurrect dead party members after a particularly deadly encounter is often encouraged. Giving a Potion of Revivify to whichever monster doesn't die first satisfies that, and also gives you an option to up the stakes, if the party comes in a little too strong.)
In the end, the theme of a doppelganger is supposed to be confusing people with duplicates, and the standard Doppelganger really doesn't do that very well (to be fair to D&D: this is a hard problem). If you can come up with a satisfying implementation, just give it to your monster as a special power. For example:
Skills. Add Athletics (+2) to the Doppelganger's skill list.
Mimic. The doppelganger selects one creature within 5', uses Shapechanger, and makes a Deception check against the passive Insight score of observers. Any deceived observer cannot determine which creature is the doppelganger. If a deceived creature tries to use a power targeting either creature, roll a d6; on 1-3 it targets the doppelganger, on 4-6 it targets the victim. This effect ends if the doppelganger is no longer able to retain its shape, or if either creature takes an action that clearly reveals its nature while more than 5' apart. A creature may also use its action to attempt an Investigation check to determine which is which.
Multiattack. The doppelganger makes two melee attacks. It may replace either of these attacks with a Grapple check (+2) or a use of Mimic.
Sticky (Reaction). If a creature adjacent to the doppelganger and subject to its Mimic power moves, the doppelganger may move up to its speed to remain adjacent.
Funnily enough I did think about chucking in a Potion of Revivify somewhere in the dungeon before the boss fight, will have a think about that one.
That Mimic ability sounds like a lot of fun with the Sticky reaction. Thanks for the detailed ideas (and the excellent formatting!). Will definitely be using these.
Hey, kind of unearthing this, but is this a modified version of Phandelver?
Because I'm doing something like this (first campaign as a DM 🥺) for the BBEG, turned them into a drider because I felt just the random priest at the end was meh.
They're at the cragmaw Castle soon so I've gotta start preparing Wave Echo ~
I really wanna make it a scary time for my players, I have a lot of work to do on the ambiance :/ still not entirely used to it.
Any tips or advice? 💜 Note that I have only 3 players (including myself, had to put a DMPC in there for fight balance, we're a small group of friends), and with how I've tweaked the campaign they're actually gonna be lvl 4, not 5. But I'm nice with magic items to compensate.
Edit: Also, making the doppelganger and the drider in love is such a cool idea, I love it! Mind if I think about stealing it?
Ha did not expect to see this thread again, I'm actually part way through the fight and will be finishing next week!
UPDATE: Pantagruel's doppelganger stats were super fun to use against the bamboozled players, however she did eventually get smacked to death by the monk RIP. Black Drider is at roughly half HP and I think I'll have a couple of Giant Spiders come in for backup to keep things interesting.
SO on to your post; depends what you mean by 'modified'. It's still the pre-written starter set module adventure but I have redesigned a bunch of encounters (pretty much redid 90% of Wave Echo Cave) as well as of course going for a different kind of Black Spider/Drider.
One piece of advice I wish I had received much earlier in the campaign: THE MODULE IS NOT THE BIBLE! STOP FOLLOWING IT LIKE A HOLY TEXT!
One thing that I, as well as probably many other first-time DMs suffer from, is trying to follow these pre-written campaigns to the tee. We assume that the professionals know what they're doing and we don't want to mess things up with our noob ideas. WRONG. You should treat their content like bones; chop and choose whichever parts make sense for your group to form your own skeleton upon which you have free reign to put whatever kind of meat and skin you wish. Does that encounter look sleep-inducing? Grab the Monster Manual and spice things up. Is that side-quest pointless? Add a hook to a PC backstory. Why is that NPC doing that? Well it's time for you to decide. You get the gist. Don't be afraid to go wild. Your players will appreciate the effort and the variety of encounters they come across.
Feel free to steal whatever you want to, glad to be of service ;)
Glad to hear it worked well, it wasn't something I'd tested for myself.
Well thanks! Glad to hear that, I've actually tweaked a lot of things and was hesitant as to if that was the right solution.
Most notably, I've merged Dragon of Icespire with LMoP, and for now it's worked great. Icespire really helps flesh out LMoP, and LMoP provides the story Icespire so dreadfully lacks, imo at least. I just still have to come up with something as to how/why did the black spider manage to make a dragon set up shop in phandalin, but I don't think it'll be too hard.
But that makes balancing some stuff way harder (hi Venomfang), and I was wondering if going the easy route wouldn't be better... glad to hear it's not, and that I'm on the right track :)
Anyway, I'll stop polluting this thread, thanks for the help though!
- A happy newcomer 💜