I am putting together the Aboleth fight my party have been heading towards, I have deep scions, Skum and Chuul in the chamber to fight alongside, but around the aboleth I want a swarm of “enslaved victims” diseases by the aboleth, available for it to remove hit points from to heal itself.
Just wondering what I should base these on, to my mind they won’t be very strong, I want to give the players a moral decision of killing them, or hoping to free them once the aboleth is killed.
If you want to put a lot on the table but not be a massive threat, make them all Commoners. You can swarm the players with these, and maybe they'll get a hit or two. Also, players will be more cautious about what actions they can take since the commoners have low hit points where they can essentially one-shot kill them.
One creature charmed by the aboleth takes 10 (3d6) psychic damage, and the aboleth regains hit points equal to the damage the creature takes.
Using a commoner would mean that it kills one every time it uses the ability, whereas it would be more interesting if they got drained a little slower.
I'm assuming you want to run the Aboleth as it's written without changing its abilities, so you need:
Enough hit points that the Aboleth doesn't kill each one without getting at least 10 hit points when it uses Psychic Drain
Ideally they should have 18 hit points, so that it gets full benefit even if it rolls a triple 6.
Enough of them that there is a plentiful supply
Few enough at weak enough power level that they aren't a massive threat to the PCs
If I were you, I'd just homebrew something so that it has exactly what you want it to have. Here's an example (low DEX because the Aboleth Mind-Slave is so bloated from floating around underwater - I think of these as swollen up creatures fed up on algae so that they serve as batteries for the aboleth).
I am putting together the Aboleth fight my party have been heading towards, I have deep scions, Skum and Chuul in the chamber to fight alongside, but around the aboleth I want a swarm of “enslaved victims” diseases by the aboleth, available for it to remove hit points from to heal itself.
Just wondering what I should base these on, to my mind they won’t be very strong, I want to give the players a moral decision of killing them, or hoping to free them once the aboleth is killed.
If you want to put a lot on the table but not be a massive threat, make them all Commoners. You can swarm the players with these, and maybe they'll get a hit or two. Also, players will be more cautious about what actions they can take since the commoners have low hit points where they can essentially one-shot kill them.
Psychic Drain states:
Using a commoner would mean that it kills one every time it uses the ability, whereas it would be more interesting if they got drained a little slower.
I'm assuming you want to run the Aboleth as it's written without changing its abilities, so you need:
If I were you, I'd just homebrew something so that it has exactly what you want it to have. Here's an example (low DEX because the Aboleth Mind-Slave is so bloated from floating around underwater - I think of these as swollen up creatures fed up on algae so that they serve as batteries for the aboleth).
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/2541222-aboleth-mind-slave
I have published a whole slew of ready to go, low CR NPCs you could use: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/homebrew-house-rules/132012-quick-customized-npcs).
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That aboleth mind slave monster is perfect, thanks,
Will be honest, not properly got into the homebrewing mechanics on here yet,