I am trying to work a creature into the next campaign I'm creating that will be a hivemind made up of a handful of beings. The idea is to create a problem the party must deal with throughout the rest of the campaign if they make the creature into their enemy/kill the first one they meet, in which each member of the hivemind that they come across will attack them for killing one of them, and each iteration will have learnt from the previous battles due to the shared knowledge of the hivemind.
What I'm unsure about is how to even begin working that in mechanics wise? How do I fit in "this being has learnt how you fight from previous encounters" into the mechanics without making it impossibly difficult for the party? It's supposed to be difficult encounters for them, but I don't want to make it impossible either.
How powerful is the hive mind - does it have bodies in high places?
To beat the melee and ranged characters (using non-magical attacks) the hive-mind will adapt its tactics to counter theirs - if they are all melee, the hive mind will ambush them with arrows shot from treetops, for example.
To counter the magic users, the hive-mind will learn and remember each spell used against them, and have hard counters in place - wizard always uses fireball? A magic ring that consumes flames within 5ft will counter that. Sorcerer always uses a spell with a dexterity save? Send in a body with high dexterity.
That's a basis for countering them, but to make things more interesting, I would create a "knowledge" stat for the hive mind for each of the PCs. This is all off the top of my head, so might be unbalanced, but I would treat it like bardic inspiration or bless, where the hive mind adds an amount to their rolls, but it would be specific to the PCs. So the more a hive-mind fights each player, the more they learn and the harder they become to hit (boosting their AC and all their saves against the PC). Narrate these ones as them seeming to anticipate the move, and the players will soon work out that they will have to be more chaotic to beat them. Remove the bonuses if a PC does things they wouldn't normally do, because this will throw out the expectations of the hive mind - if the rogue always throws daggers, the hive mind will first start dodging them, and then start catching them.
If you want to go more in-depth, make a table of their attacks and add 1 to the bonus against each one each time they use it on them. So if one character endlessly bashes away with a greatsword, it will get harder and harder until it's impossible to hit without a natural 20. but pull out a knife and jab them, they will not expect it and that could get through much easier - at first.
This actually sounds like a good bit of fun, and an exciting thing to work out - how to defeat the hivemind before it learns all your moves. If you fail, back off and go level up some to learn new moves, and then have another go!
What I'm unsure about is how to even begin working that in mechanics wise? How do I fit in "this being has learnt how you fight from previous encounters" into the mechanics without making it impossibly difficult for the party?
I wouldn’t conceptualize it as a group of individuals because they aren’t. It would be more accurate to think of it as a single creature divided among multiple bodies that gets weaker overall as it looses pieces of itself.
You don’t really have to do it “mechanically” at all. As DM you personally have the information. If they were not a hivemind and they used the knowledge you possess against the party that would be a form of “metagaming.” However, as a hivemind colony, they would actually have a non-mechanical version that meta knowledge that you posses. (They wouldn’t conceive of things in terms of “features,” or “limited uses,” etc., like we do, but they would still get an idea of the party’s abilities, strengths, and vulnerabilities. So it would be appropriate if they each started customizing their equipment, etc. in ways particularly tailored to combatting whatever method(s) the party used against their colony in each of the previous battles. Just be sure to track what the hivemind learns from each specific encounter so you don’t accidentally prep it against stuff the party hasn’t previously use against it. (You don’t want to have a players pointing out something the hivemind couldn’t have known about because the didn’t get it until after their last battle against the hivemind. That would sorta spoil it for them.)
Basically I would treat it as I would any recurring enemy that kept escaping and coming back better prepared each time, but with different class features. That way, the enemy can continue to build upon the knowledge it has about the party, but the party will be completely unprepared every time. Then I would focus on the RP aspect of such an enemy to up the creepy factor for the players too. Like, I would probably give the hivemind a very distinct personality and immediately recognizable speech pattern. I would use those for all of the hivemind’s bodies, but give each body a different voice. (Just don’t get them mixed up!)
For inspiration you can read about the ilithid and Aboleth and how they are run in games and campaigns. Ilithid are a hive mind linked by the elder brain and Aboleths never truly die meaning every loss every success every slight is remembered by all Aboleths.
You can "counter" player abilities without making the fight extremely difficult. The campaign im running know has 2 monks, 2 rogues, and a Sorcerer. I had them fight a Salamander and a Remorhaz which deal damage when hit with a melee attack. The rogues adapted to throwing their daggers and monks to using their class abilities like water whip. Does the party have a Barbarian? Charm it. Lots of casters? Counterspell.
I think there have been some really good suggestions already that are way more well thought out than mine, so you might be better off going with one of those.
That being said my first thought was something along these lines: The first few times your players kill one of these things, make a DM note about how it died, specifically what the killing blow was. Let's say that the players kill 5 total of these creatures, 3 from slashing damage, one from fire, and one from piercing damage. Perhaps the next time the players encounter one, it has the added trait of Resistant to Slashing. So then they change tactics and kill a couple with fire, which leads to them then having Resistant to Slashing AND Resistant to Fire. You see where this is going.
You'd have to be careful in your pacing of it. You wouldn't want to give them too many resistances too fast or the difficulty might spike exponentially. That being said, this style of adaptation (not unlike The Borg from Star Trek) would force your players to be the ones who need to continually adapt and change to fight the creature, rather than the creature (and you) having to change and find new tactics to fight them.
This could also lead to an incredibly difficult and tense final boss in the long run. If these things become resistant to more and more types of damage (and even possibly gaining strait up damage immunities down the line if they power through an encounter and deal the final blow with a damage type already resisted), then the final boss might be immune or resistant to all but the most creative thinking from the group to deal a new type of damage (like causing a cave in on it to deal massive bludgeoning). It could also possibly start some grand end game quest to get a magical item that specifically deals some rarer damage type the group doesn't have normal access to (like a psychic damage dealing sword or something).
Idk, maybe someone will point out a reason why that's a bad idea but I feel like if you pace it well over the course of a campaign I think it could be a really neat idea that really gets the players sweating and asking themselves 'Has it adapted already? What can we hit this thing with?'
Well, this thread inspired me to throw some rules together to do what you wanted - I think it's a really cool idea. I've posted my rules in a thread seeking feedback:
Sposta said most of what I would say on this, but just to add some ideas as to what you want to counter:
Over the course of many battles, most PCs develop a "Plan A." They have certain features and powers and they tend to fall into a pattern of doing their signature thing whether due to the fact that it's the most effective or the most evocative of their character or just their schtick or whatever.
Your job should be to force them to Plan B. Don't completely shut them down, but have counters built for their go-to, default strategy. And be very upfront about how the enemy expected that attack or seemed to know what was coming.
This shouldn't really be limited to hiveminds either. If the party is gaining fame and renown, intelligent enemies are likely to have gathered some info on them. Being preceded by your reputation can be a bad thing. I don't do this often and I don't completely confound my players, but forcing them into new tactics and strategies keeps the game interesting and prevents fights from blending together into one long grind.
This has me curious about your hive-mind creatures... what are they, exactly?
Are they simply a race of intelligent humanoids that have individual personalities but still are all subservient to a "Queen"? Something similar to Illithids or even real life hive minds.
Or are they completely alien creatures that all share a single personality? A sort of "legion" creature that simultaneously inhabits multiple bodies.
Are they body-snatchers taking over the bodies of others and converting them into new members of the hive?
It's hard to say because the tactics I would suggest are vastly different depending on what type of creature they are. Would they consider negotiating with the party? Or even just deceiving them? Are they intelligent enough to manipulate the party into doing work for them? Are they more a single-minded bestial race intent on consumption? Would they counter the party's tactics by learning skills and acquiring specialized equipment, or would they adapt by mutating their bodies and adapting sudden resistances or new physical features?
I am trying to work a creature into the next campaign I'm creating that will be a hivemind made up of a handful of beings. The idea is to create a problem the party must deal with throughout the rest of the campaign if they make the creature into their enemy/kill the first one they meet, in which each member of the hivemind that they come across will attack them for killing one of them, and each iteration will have learnt from the previous battles due to the shared knowledge of the hivemind.
What I'm unsure about is how to even begin working that in mechanics wise? How do I fit in "this being has learnt how you fight from previous encounters" into the mechanics without making it impossibly difficult for the party? It's supposed to be difficult encounters for them, but I don't want to make it impossible either.
How powerful is the hive mind - does it have bodies in high places?
To beat the melee and ranged characters (using non-magical attacks) the hive-mind will adapt its tactics to counter theirs - if they are all melee, the hive mind will ambush them with arrows shot from treetops, for example.
To counter the magic users, the hive-mind will learn and remember each spell used against them, and have hard counters in place - wizard always uses fireball? A magic ring that consumes flames within 5ft will counter that. Sorcerer always uses a spell with a dexterity save? Send in a body with high dexterity.
That's a basis for countering them, but to make things more interesting, I would create a "knowledge" stat for the hive mind for each of the PCs. This is all off the top of my head, so might be unbalanced, but I would treat it like bardic inspiration or bless, where the hive mind adds an amount to their rolls, but it would be specific to the PCs. So the more a hive-mind fights each player, the more they learn and the harder they become to hit (boosting their AC and all their saves against the PC). Narrate these ones as them seeming to anticipate the move, and the players will soon work out that they will have to be more chaotic to beat them. Remove the bonuses if a PC does things they wouldn't normally do, because this will throw out the expectations of the hive mind - if the rogue always throws daggers, the hive mind will first start dodging them, and then start catching them.
If you want to go more in-depth, make a table of their attacks and add 1 to the bonus against each one each time they use it on them. So if one character endlessly bashes away with a greatsword, it will get harder and harder until it's impossible to hit without a natural 20. but pull out a knife and jab them, they will not expect it and that could get through much easier - at first.
This actually sounds like a good bit of fun, and an exciting thing to work out - how to defeat the hivemind before it learns all your moves. If you fail, back off and go level up some to learn new moves, and then have another go!
I might write some of this up for my own use XD
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I wouldn’t conceptualize it as a group of individuals because they aren’t. It would be more accurate to think of it as a single creature divided among multiple bodies that gets weaker overall as it looses pieces of itself.
You don’t really have to do it “mechanically” at all. As DM you personally have the information. If they were not a hivemind and they used the knowledge you possess against the party that would be a form of “metagaming.” However, as a hivemind colony, they would actually have a non-mechanical version that meta knowledge that you posses. (They wouldn’t conceive of things in terms of “features,” or “limited uses,” etc., like we do, but they would still get an idea of the party’s abilities, strengths, and vulnerabilities. So it would be appropriate if they each started customizing their equipment, etc. in ways particularly tailored to combatting whatever method(s) the party used against their colony in each of the previous battles. Just be sure to track what the hivemind learns from each specific encounter so you don’t accidentally prep it against stuff the party hasn’t previously use against it. (You don’t want to have a players pointing out something the hivemind couldn’t have known about because the didn’t get it until after their last battle against the hivemind. That would sorta spoil it for them.)
Basically I would treat it as I would any recurring enemy that kept escaping and coming back better prepared each time, but with different class features. That way, the enemy can continue to build upon the knowledge it has about the party, but the party will be completely unprepared every time. Then I would focus on the RP aspect of such an enemy to up the creepy factor for the players too. Like, I would probably give the hivemind a very distinct personality and immediately recognizable speech pattern. I would use those for all of the hivemind’s bodies, but give each body a different voice. (Just don’t get them mixed up!)
Good luck, sounds like fun.
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For inspiration you can read about the ilithid and Aboleth and how they are run in games and campaigns. Ilithid are a hive mind linked by the elder brain and Aboleths never truly die meaning every loss every success every slight is remembered by all Aboleths.
You can "counter" player abilities without making the fight extremely difficult. The campaign im running know has 2 monks, 2 rogues, and a Sorcerer. I had them fight a Salamander and a Remorhaz which deal damage when hit with a melee attack. The rogues adapted to throwing their daggers and monks to using their class abilities like water whip. Does the party have a Barbarian? Charm it. Lots of casters? Counterspell.
I think there have been some really good suggestions already that are way more well thought out than mine, so you might be better off going with one of those.
That being said my first thought was something along these lines: The first few times your players kill one of these things, make a DM note about how it died, specifically what the killing blow was. Let's say that the players kill 5 total of these creatures, 3 from slashing damage, one from fire, and one from piercing damage. Perhaps the next time the players encounter one, it has the added trait of Resistant to Slashing. So then they change tactics and kill a couple with fire, which leads to them then having Resistant to Slashing AND Resistant to Fire. You see where this is going.
You'd have to be careful in your pacing of it. You wouldn't want to give them too many resistances too fast or the difficulty might spike exponentially. That being said, this style of adaptation (not unlike The Borg from Star Trek) would force your players to be the ones who need to continually adapt and change to fight the creature, rather than the creature (and you) having to change and find new tactics to fight them.
This could also lead to an incredibly difficult and tense final boss in the long run. If these things become resistant to more and more types of damage (and even possibly gaining strait up damage immunities down the line if they power through an encounter and deal the final blow with a damage type already resisted), then the final boss might be immune or resistant to all but the most creative thinking from the group to deal a new type of damage (like causing a cave in on it to deal massive bludgeoning). It could also possibly start some grand end game quest to get a magical item that specifically deals some rarer damage type the group doesn't have normal access to (like a psychic damage dealing sword or something).
Idk, maybe someone will point out a reason why that's a bad idea but I feel like if you pace it well over the course of a campaign I think it could be a really neat idea that really gets the players sweating and asking themselves 'Has it adapted already? What can we hit this thing with?'
Well, this thread inspired me to throw some rules together to do what you wanted - I think it's a really cool idea. I've posted my rules in a thread seeking feedback:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/105945-seeking-feedback-on-some-rules-for-a-hive-mind
So have a look at them and see if they do what you're after!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Sposta said most of what I would say on this, but just to add some ideas as to what you want to counter:
Over the course of many battles, most PCs develop a "Plan A." They have certain features and powers and they tend to fall into a pattern of doing their signature thing whether due to the fact that it's the most effective or the most evocative of their character or just their schtick or whatever.
Your job should be to force them to Plan B. Don't completely shut them down, but have counters built for their go-to, default strategy. And be very upfront about how the enemy expected that attack or seemed to know what was coming.
This shouldn't really be limited to hiveminds either. If the party is gaining fame and renown, intelligent enemies are likely to have gathered some info on them. Being preceded by your reputation can be a bad thing. I don't do this often and I don't completely confound my players, but forcing them into new tactics and strategies keeps the game interesting and prevents fights from blending together into one long grind.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
This has me curious about your hive-mind creatures... what are they, exactly?
Are they simply a race of intelligent humanoids that have individual personalities but still are all subservient to a "Queen"? Something similar to Illithids or even real life hive minds.
Or are they completely alien creatures that all share a single personality? A sort of "legion" creature that simultaneously inhabits multiple bodies.
Are they body-snatchers taking over the bodies of others and converting them into new members of the hive?
It's hard to say because the tactics I would suggest are vastly different depending on what type of creature they are. Would they consider negotiating with the party? Or even just deceiving them? Are they intelligent enough to manipulate the party into doing work for them? Are they more a single-minded bestial race intent on consumption? Would they counter the party's tactics by learning skills and acquiring specialized equipment, or would they adapt by mutating their bodies and adapting sudden resistances or new physical features?
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