So I've got an idea brewing in my head for a DnD game that centers around mind flayers. They are cool, they have a cool backstory and there is a lot of lore to go with them, especially with spelljammer being introduced. I'd absolutely love to run a game with Mind Flayers as the main focus . . .
But, I mean, they are widely regarded as the most broken creatures out there. I mean, just, one unlucky brain blast and then it gets to leasurly eat the entire party who are all stunned. (sure, new save at the end of every level, I did say unlucky). And that's just 1 Mind Flayer. Four Mind flayers against a party of level 10 adventurers or so? Four brain blasts, most likely each member of the party has failed one of those, and then it's time to eat.
So what can I do to make mind flayers less broken? I was thinking of maybe giving the PCs an item that makes them immune to the stun effect of Brain Blast (and only brain blast)? Or is there another option.
I have some fun ideas for this campaign, but they don't work if the party dies to every mind flayer that crosses their path.
Don't forget that PCs get to save again each round if they are stunned by Mind Blast.
antimagic field would protect you. Anything that gives you advantage on saving throws will also help; as would certain spells which increase your saving throw roll.
The PCs will find out about this horrible effect, and will likely go looking for a way to avoid it or reduce its effect - this sounds like a good series of adventures (especially if the protection only protects one person, so they need to find several).
Not every encounter *has* to be a mind flayer. Your campaign can be centered around a main theme, and allow for other creature types.
Removing the threat might not bring the fun and enjoyment that you are hoping for. Part of what makes mind flayers cool is their ability to lesisurely eat PCs brains.
Mind Flayers aren't inherently broken. What makes them feel powerful is their ability to outright kill a PC on a failed save of many a melee character's dump stat. Intelligence. It's a lesser-used saving throw, so many players will not invest in it, especially if they know ahead of time that there won't be a need for it. Your elevator pitch for the campaign might tip them off that their PC's brains could be eaten. The PCs backgrounds might include some myths and legends about the Flayers and what their capabilities are, before they even meet up with one. I would also suggest that the party wouldn't meet up with a Flayer until around maybe 7th-8th level. By this time in their adventuring career, they should have access to some magic, and some protective trinkets. Their ability to survive first contact with the insidious evil should likely be only one creature.
Allow the party to learn the lore that is drawing you into this campaign idea. Let the players interact with that knowledge. I wouldn't do too much to thin out the Ithillids, until the party has proven they can't cope. IMHO, that first encounter with the mind flayer shoud be terrifying to the players. Any win by them should be narrow and make everyone at the table highly stressed.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Oh no, I wasn't suggesting the party get those before fighting their first mind flayer. But if I want the party, later on, to be fighting MULTIPLE mind flayers maybe with some cool new abilities to show off plot progression, that sounds like a recipe for disaster unless there is some way to prevent the party from just dying instantly. Remember, that is an INT save, which I think only wizards are proficient in? (And I guess high level monks?)
Once they meet their first mind flayers, your players will start coming up with tactics to protect themselves.
Other things you can do:
Don't have them fight multiple mind flayers in a constrained area. This will let the players spread out.
They don't have to all throw mind blasts at the same time.
You don't have to have them fight multiple flayers until high levels. A mind flayer with minions can be a real threat.
That mind flayer with minions isn't going to blast its minions; it'll do something else.
You can home-brew "lesser mind flayers" that don't have the area-effect blast.
Eating somebody's brain is a two+ round action that leaves the mind flayer exposed; it's not something they'll try immediately unless they know they're safe.
If the party knows what they are up against, it can be fairly simple, plot-wise. They know the real enemy is these mind flayers, and the mind flayers will stun them and eat them. So they need to prepare for the battles to come. The early part of the campaign could be finding items, spells or rituals that will allow them to fight the mind flayers. Things that help them resist psychic damage or the stunned condition or something. The mind flayers, clever little bugger that they are, realize what’s happening and send their dominated minions to stop the party. But sooner or later, the PCs find what they need. Then once they have the gear, the hunted become the hunters.
You might want to allow Githyanki and Githzeri PCs into the campaign. Also remind the players they will want to take RESILIANT: Intelligence. Also, if your going to run a mindflayer rich game don’t forget to create a few items that make folks resistant to psychic damage. You might also want to look at the several recent threads on creating a psionic class for some possible ideas for new character types.
Mind Flayer love minions, which they call slaves. If you’re running a full campaign, they should have slaves hiring people to work for them. Your players will need to stop the hirelings, track down the minions from there, and only later when they’re high level discover that mind flayer are pulling strings behind the scenes.
Oh no, I wasn't suggesting the party get those before fighting their first mind flayer. But if I want the party, later on, to be fighting MULTIPLE mind flayers maybe with some cool new abilities to show off plot progression, that sounds like a recipe for disaster unless there is some way to prevent the party from just dying instantly. Remember, that is an INT save, which I think only wizards are proficient in? (And I guess high level monks?)
If they meet a single mind flayer earlier in the campaign (accompanied by other non-mind flayer creatures), then they will realise how dangerous they can be, and will plan accordingly for future meetings.
I like to think of a mind flayer campaign a bit like an alien invasion narrative. They'd land, take over an area (maybe the players have to escape), start mentally taking over the populace for minions, then they send out the minions to infiltrate other human areas while they plan to push their invasion. The actual mind flayers would be an overwhelming force to be reckoned with, like in most alien invasion narratives, and the goal for the players when dealing with them en force is mainly to survive.
My current campaign may lead into a mindflayer storyline, it depends on where the characters go with it all, but one of the characters is a Warforged who was built by a Gith (not sure if rezai or Yenki yet, still all work in progress) as one of 1000, they where meant to be artificial golumns designed to be able to fight mindflayers and have no mind to take over but something went wrong and they gained a soul. The player has no idea about this, he woke up after being uncovered by a dwarven excavation team having been "switched off" for many hundreds of years. He also doesn't know that his creator's "mind" is trapped within his own, planted there much like Spock did with mccoy in startrek. (although he is starting to get visions within a large mind palace and is hearing a voice).
What this means is that while the players have no idea about Mindflayers if they do come up against them then the Warforged can be drip fed information as the mind within him slowly becomes more and more sentiant. There is also an idea in my head that ultimatley a Mindflayer may be needed to help extract the gith mind from the warforged to avoid him having a psychotic breakdown.
If you are looking at how to run a mindflayer based campaign I would recommend getting call from the deep (an independently published D&D campaign). You can either just run the campaign as is or just use some of its ideas.
I played it with a somewhat unusual party in that although we knew nothing about the campaign the late campaign (when we started facing mindflayers) there were just three of us, I played an armorer artificer and there was a bladesinger and a warlock who for background reasons had a solid Int (about 12 I think).
You do it by employing good campaign form, the kind which is not exclusive to any specific big bad. To whit, characters who intend to oppose an enemy will need time to learn about that enemy. That means you have to keep the enemy remote long enough for them to do so. How will you do that? It also means you need to include NPCs who have interacted with the enemy. Who are they and how will you introduce them? You mentioned that the backstory for Mind Flayers is cool. If that's the case, the characters need to hear that backstory. Who knows it? Who will tell it to them? These are all questions which I'm sure you can find answers for. Game on! As for how to deal with Mind Flayers' abilities, that's up to the PCs to invent.
So I've got an idea brewing in my head for a DnD game that centers around mind flayers. They are cool, they have a cool backstory and there is a lot of lore to go with them, especially with spelljammer being introduced. I'd absolutely love to run a game with Mind Flayers as the main focus . . .
But, I mean, they are widely regarded as the most broken creatures out there. I mean, just, one unlucky brain blast and then it gets to leasurly eat the entire party who are all stunned. (sure, new save at the end of every level, I did say unlucky). And that's just 1 Mind Flayer. Four Mind flayers against a party of level 10 adventurers or so? Four brain blasts, most likely each member of the party has failed one of those, and then it's time to eat.
So what can I do to make mind flayers less broken? I was thinking of maybe giving the PCs an item that makes them immune to the stun effect of Brain Blast (and only brain blast)? Or is there another option.
I have some fun ideas for this campaign, but they don't work if the party dies to every mind flayer that crosses their path.
Don't forget that PCs get to save again each round if they are stunned by Mind Blast.
antimagic field would protect you. Anything that gives you advantage on saving throws will also help; as would certain spells which increase your saving throw roll.
The PCs will find out about this horrible effect, and will likely go looking for a way to avoid it or reduce its effect - this sounds like a good series of adventures (especially if the protection only protects one person, so they need to find several).
Couple things:
Mind Flayers aren't inherently broken. What makes them feel powerful is their ability to outright kill a PC on a failed save of many a melee character's dump stat. Intelligence. It's a lesser-used saving throw, so many players will not invest in it, especially if they know ahead of time that there won't be a need for it. Your elevator pitch for the campaign might tip them off that their PC's brains could be eaten. The PCs backgrounds might include some myths and legends about the Flayers and what their capabilities are, before they even meet up with one. I would also suggest that the party wouldn't meet up with a Flayer until around maybe 7th-8th level. By this time in their adventuring career, they should have access to some magic, and some protective trinkets. Their ability to survive first contact with the insidious evil should likely be only one creature.
Allow the party to learn the lore that is drawing you into this campaign idea. Let the players interact with that knowledge. I wouldn't do too much to thin out the Ithillids, until the party has proven they can't cope. IMHO, that first encounter with the mind flayer shoud be terrifying to the players. Any win by them should be narrow and make everyone at the table highly stressed.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Oh no, I wasn't suggesting the party get those before fighting their first mind flayer. But if I want the party, later on, to be fighting MULTIPLE mind flayers maybe with some cool new abilities to show off plot progression, that sounds like a recipe for disaster unless there is some way to prevent the party from just dying instantly. Remember, that is an INT save, which I think only wizards are proficient in? (And I guess high level monks?)
Once they meet their first mind flayers, your players will start coming up with tactics to protect themselves.
Other things you can do:
There's more broken stuff than mind flayers. For example, rather than using multiple mind flayers, mix them up with intellect devourers.
If the party knows what they are up against, it can be fairly simple, plot-wise. They know the real enemy is these mind flayers, and the mind flayers will stun them and eat them. So they need to prepare for the battles to come. The early part of the campaign could be finding items, spells or rituals that will allow them to fight the mind flayers. Things that help them resist psychic damage or the stunned condition or something. The mind flayers, clever little bugger that they are, realize what’s happening and send their dominated minions to stop the party. But sooner or later, the PCs find what they need. Then once they have the gear, the hunted become the hunters.
You might want to allow Githyanki and Githzeri PCs into the campaign. Also remind the players they will want to take RESILIANT: Intelligence.
Also, if your going to run a mindflayer rich game don’t forget to create a few items that make folks resistant to psychic damage. You might also want to look at the several recent threads on creating a psionic class for some possible ideas for new character types.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Mind Flayer love minions, which they call slaves. If you’re running a full campaign, they should have slaves hiring people to work for them. Your players will need to stop the hirelings, track down the minions from there, and only later when they’re high level discover that mind flayer are pulling strings behind the scenes.
Professional computer geek
If they meet a single mind flayer earlier in the campaign (accompanied by other non-mind flayer creatures), then they will realise how dangerous they can be, and will plan accordingly for future meetings.
I like to think of a mind flayer campaign a bit like an alien invasion narrative. They'd land, take over an area (maybe the players have to escape), start mentally taking over the populace for minions, then they send out the minions to infiltrate other human areas while they plan to push their invasion. The actual mind flayers would be an overwhelming force to be reckoned with, like in most alien invasion narratives, and the goal for the players when dealing with them en force is mainly to survive.
My current campaign may lead into a mindflayer storyline, it depends on where the characters go with it all, but one of the characters is a Warforged who was built by a Gith (not sure if rezai or Yenki yet, still all work in progress) as one of 1000, they where meant to be artificial golumns designed to be able to fight mindflayers and have no mind to take over but something went wrong and they gained a soul. The player has no idea about this, he woke up after being uncovered by a dwarven excavation team having been "switched off" for many hundreds of years. He also doesn't know that his creator's "mind" is trapped within his own, planted there much like Spock did with mccoy in startrek. (although he is starting to get visions within a large mind palace and is hearing a voice).
What this means is that while the players have no idea about Mindflayers if they do come up against them then the Warforged can be drip fed information as the mind within him slowly becomes more and more sentiant. There is also an idea in my head that ultimatley a Mindflayer may be needed to help extract the gith mind from the warforged to avoid him having a psychotic breakdown.
If you are looking at how to run a mindflayer based campaign I would recommend getting call from the deep (an independently published D&D campaign). You can either just run the campaign as is or just use some of its ideas.
I played it with a somewhat unusual party in that although we knew nothing about the campaign the late campaign (when we started facing mindflayers) there were just three of us, I played an armorer artificer and there was a bladesinger and a warlock who for background reasons had a solid Int (about 12 I think).
You do it by employing good campaign form, the kind which is not exclusive to any specific big bad. To whit, characters who intend to oppose an enemy will need time to learn about that enemy. That means you have to keep the enemy remote long enough for them to do so. How will you do that? It also means you need to include NPCs who have interacted with the enemy. Who are they and how will you introduce them? You mentioned that the backstory for Mind Flayers is cool. If that's the case, the characters need to hear that backstory. Who knows it? Who will tell it to them? These are all questions which I'm sure you can find answers for. Game on! As for how to deal with Mind Flayers' abilities, that's up to the PCs to invent.