Soon I will have my players encounter a mad mage that has taken to flesh warping people. I have some ideas of homebrew abilities and spells that I could possibly add to its stat block. But what i'm really looking for are spells or monster abilities that already exist that may fit well with this concept.
Please let me know if you have any idea's for things to add to a Fleshwarp mage's statblock.
You definitely need true polymorph like ability. Yes it's 9th level but for an NPC you don't actually need to obey that rule for an npc and can make an ability which does any effect under it you want. It does anything you want from disfiguring players to turning allies in to minions.
Giant insect is a good minion creating spell as you mutate a bug into a monster. Generally its just fun to have spells to turn things into monsters. you could also have effects like enlarge/reduce and Tenser’s Transformation as an ability to make minions hulk out.
sibriex and eldritch lich have similar flesh warping vibes if you want to steal some of thier abilities
a regenerate like ability is also a classic limbs dropping off and regrowing.
If homebrew is on the table I have just the things: Sposta's Terrible Wrath & the Bone Golem. They are both published so you can add them to your collection ready to use.
The rules expansion Deep Magic from kobold press is filled with horrifying, creative, well designed spells. If you want something unique to give your BBEG, then I would certainly recommend checking it out (they aren’t paying me, I swear). Apart from that though… Dominate Person is truly awful, Polymorph is a lotta fun, and I always give my baddies some conjuring spells so as to bring angels, devils, and demons along. Conjuration adds flavour and is a fun minion generator.
Seconding Horrid Wilting. Anything that deals necrotic damage can be described as flesh-rotting. So, Finger of Death, Time Ravage, Spirit Shroud.
Animate Dead/Create Undead if the players get to see the corpses animate...
Antipathy/Sympathy if you want to be a bastard about it... Say the wizard has an intellect devourer/cockatrice/basilisk for a pet... Now one of the PCs wants to pet it.
Feeblemind. Geas. Hunger of Hadar. Immolation. Maddening Darkness. Power Word Pain. Psychic Scream if it kills someone... Watery Sphere.
Mordenkeinen's Tome of Foes has a good amount of higher level monsters in it you could mine for abilities to pass as spells for your bad guy. Specifically the Shadowfell creatures, which I forget the specific names for right now but I remember them having a good bit of body-horror style motifs. One of them was called Hunger I think.
You also can't go wrong with just having the Mage summon twisted abominations as minions into the fight to pad out that action economy a bit.
Disintegrate. What it sounds like. If you want torture, Ensnaring strike cast at a high level can do a lot of damage. or finger of death fits with the theme, it does up to 7d8+30 damage, and if a adventurer gets killed by it, they become a zombie permanently under your command, scarring the rest of the party.
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Dear dungeon masters,
Soon I will have my players encounter a mad mage that has taken to flesh warping people.
I have some ideas of homebrew abilities and spells that I could possibly add to its stat block. But what i'm really looking for are spells or monster abilities that already exist that may fit well with this concept.
Please let me know if you have any idea's for things to add to a Fleshwarp mage's statblock.
Thanks!
Contagion and Polymorph are obvious choices.
If you're open to homebrew, I recommend one from my collection: Mongrel Mutation
Horrid wilting sucks the water out of their bodies.
Flesh to stone, depending on just how they flesh warp
Polymorph seems like a go to.
Animal shapes seems like a good fit.
They could use draconic transformation (from fizban) on themself.
I have some suggestions
If homebrew is on the table I have just the things: Sposta's Terrible Wrath & the Bone Golem. They are both published so you can add them to your collection ready to use.
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The rules expansion Deep Magic from kobold press is filled with horrifying, creative, well designed spells. If you want something unique to give your BBEG, then I would certainly recommend checking it out (they aren’t paying me, I swear). Apart from that though… Dominate Person is truly awful, Polymorph is a lotta fun, and I always give my baddies some conjuring spells so as to bring angels, devils, and demons along. Conjuration adds flavour and is a fun minion generator.
Be Excellent to one another. Rock on dude.
Seconding Horrid Wilting. Anything that deals necrotic damage can be described as flesh-rotting. So, Finger of Death, Time Ravage, Spirit Shroud.
Animate Dead/Create Undead if the players get to see the corpses animate...
Antipathy/Sympathy if you want to be a bastard about it... Say the wizard has an intellect devourer/cockatrice/basilisk for a pet... Now one of the PCs wants to pet it.
Feeblemind. Geas. Hunger of Hadar. Immolation. Maddening Darkness. Power Word Pain. Psychic Scream if it kills someone... Watery Sphere.
Mordenkeinen's Tome of Foes has a good amount of higher level monsters in it you could mine for abilities to pass as spells for your bad guy. Specifically the Shadowfell creatures, which I forget the specific names for right now but I remember them having a good bit of body-horror style motifs. One of them was called Hunger I think.
You also can't go wrong with just having the Mage summon twisted abominations as minions into the fight to pad out that action economy a bit.
Disintegrate. What it sounds like. If you want torture, Ensnaring strike cast at a high level can do a lot of damage. or finger of death fits with the theme, it does up to 7d8+30 damage, and if a adventurer gets killed by it, they become a zombie permanently under your command, scarring the rest of the party.