Hello, I'm running my first campaign and I have seen my players enjoying the combat encounters when the intellect can be a part of the combat and defeat enemies from a more interesting way rather than just dealing lots of damage, for an example the medusa can be defeated using a mirror, a ghost can be vanished if you help him complete his unifinished business, etc...
You can create this for any creature that you want. It's much easier for humanoids, but all you need to do is get in the head of the creature and figure out what would be good enough to keep it from attacking you. A large steak for a carnivore, a false treasure map for a thief, an offer to do a job for them, or something similar. You could even do something like have someone try an intimidation check to scare someone away.
I agree that this is something you can add in yourself with lots of creatures, my criteria would probably be anything with Int 6+ that is capable of communicating with the party. A couple that I remember from RAW, Xorn are not usually violent but may be threatening and will go away if they get gems/coins to eat, and Mummys will only go after people that meet certain conditions, so if the party know what they did to attract its attention then undoing that action will cause it to leave them alone.
Tell us a little bit about the environment, the encounter, or maybe even the kind of monster you are thinking of including. With a little bit of a path to follow, I'll bet we can come up with something to help you out.
Thank you for all the comments, my players like to defeat the enemies, not just to avoid combat, or at least thats what I think since from the opportunities I have given them to avoid combat they will always choosed to fight.
Tell us a little bit about the environment, the encounter, or maybe even the kind of monster you are thinking of including. With a little bit of a path to follow, I'll bet we can come up with something to help you out.
About the enviroment its an entire continent and have diverse areas, so I'm open for almost anything, the enviroment thing they are closest is a swamp, but since its really open ended they can go into the sea, or a icy mountains or a dungeon, the campaing is planned to last long time, so any enemies could help me at least in the future.
Hello, I'm running my first campaign and I have seen my players enjoying the combat encounters when the intellect can be a part of the combat and defeat enemies from a more interesting way rather than just dealing lots of damage, for an example the medusa can be defeated using a mirror, a ghost can be vanished if you help him complete his unifinished business, etc...
What other creatures have weakness like this?
Well you don't have to give them unusual weaknesses. Sometimes it's just good have environmental advantages.
Example: The party encounters an ogre. The have a few options. The could stand and fight but the will probably lose, or they could run to the rundown mine that the Aarakocra spotted earlier.
Yeti have the fear of fire trait. The party can use that to their advantag . Cyclopse have somting about dept preseption making it so that they have disatvantag from furter away, the party can use that. Fire elemental take damage from water. Water elemental are slowed by cold damage. Earth elemental week to tunder damage. And wekneses simelar to this can be added to creturs that make sens
i know there are more creaturs with stuff like this, but cant remeber figthe now.
but there is also using the unike personalety of dragons against them. Il ad other creaturs if i remember.
Some monsters have interesting tactical weaknesses like :
beholder: Can't use it's eye rays in it's anti magic cone or if it cant see and has only a weak bite attack to replace it. If you magically block sight so it cant use the the eye rays then it has to use its cone to disable that but if it does then it cant use it 's ye rays due to the cone.
Lich monsters all have a unique way to be destroyed wether its a lich phylactery, an eldritch lich parasite or a [Tooltip Not Found] master
As for non combat solutions like "solving a ghosts business"
Most fey can fit strange shenanigans like having to finish a nursey rhyme, learning their name or similar fairy tail plots
Fiends can be summoned similar to ghosts like in allot of horror movies. You could run a ghost story with a demon as monster
All Outsiders may also not be able to appear fully in their true form and posses animals, humans or even nature as weird elemental type creatures so they can be banished or their link to the world severed.
Searching for D&D puzzle monsters can give you lots of ideas.
I like building skill checks into an encounter, like a golem that is invulnerable until you disable the two magical orbs on either side of the room.
Adding particular vulnerabilities can be fun too - in my setting, each demon has an elemental affinity and each affinity has a weakness. Getting a fire demon wet, reducing a lightning demon's speed to 0, breaking an earth demon's contact with the ground, etc. significantly weakens them. My group has really enjoyed figuring out each weakness and exploiting it when they encounter a new group of demons.
Also, demons of opposing elements hate each other, but will work together in the presence of a demon lord or a representation of their will contained within an object called a lordstone. Removing that presence causes the demons to attack each other, which the party loved the one time they got it to happen. You could do a similar thing with any two groups of monsters that disliked each other and a third monster or item that keeps them in line.
Adding particular vulnerabilities can be fun too - in my setting, each demon has an elemental affinity and each affinity has a weakness. Getting a fire demon wet, reducing a lightning demon's speed to 0, breaking an earth demon's contact with the ground, etc. significantly weakens them. My group has really enjoyed figuring out each weakness and exploiting it when they encounter a new group of demons.
Also, demons of opposing elements hate each other, but will work together in the presence of a demon lord or a representation of their will contained within an object called a lordstone. Removing that presence causes the demons to attack each other, which the party loved the one time they got it to happen. You could do a similar thing with any two groups of monsters that disliked each other and a third monster or item that keeps them in line.
I've done something similar with demons although in my version there were unaligned demons which had basically at will absorb elements they could be attuned to elements if they were hit with them allot becoming immune/healing from that element and infecting other nearby demons. Some elemental ones were also sign of a demon lord being involved because they'd align to be like that demon lord.
I like to elementalise allot of monsters and it is a good way to create custom weaknesses . As an example I had a necromancer once that had twisted a powerful water elemental into a kind of storm of undeath. Any one in the rain would take necrotic damage, undead would heal the same amount and if a corpse was in the rain it would rise as a zombie. The zombies had a kind of heat vision and would seek out anything warm trying to destroy all the fire element. The necromancer survived by using magic to hide their body heat and guided the storm around.
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Hello, I'm running my first campaign and I have seen my players enjoying the combat encounters when the intellect can be a part of the combat and defeat enemies from a more interesting way rather than just dealing lots of damage, for an example the medusa can be defeated using a mirror, a ghost can be vanished if you help him complete his unifinished business, etc...
What other creatures have weakness like this?
You can create this for any creature that you want. It's much easier for humanoids, but all you need to do is get in the head of the creature and figure out what would be good enough to keep it from attacking you. A large steak for a carnivore, a false treasure map for a thief, an offer to do a job for them, or something similar. You could even do something like have someone try an intimidation check to scare someone away.
I agree that this is something you can add in yourself with lots of creatures, my criteria would probably be anything with Int 6+ that is capable of communicating with the party.
A couple that I remember from RAW, Xorn are not usually violent but may be threatening and will go away if they get gems/coins to eat, and Mummys will only go after people that meet certain conditions, so if the party know what they did to attract its attention then undoing that action will cause it to leave them alone.
Tell us a little bit about the environment, the encounter, or maybe even the kind of monster you are thinking of including. With a little bit of a path to follow, I'll bet we can come up with something to help you out.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Thank you for all the comments, my players like to defeat the enemies, not just to avoid combat, or at least thats what I think since from the opportunities I have given them to avoid combat they will always choosed to fight.
About the enviroment its an entire continent and have diverse areas, so I'm open for almost anything, the enviroment thing they are closest is a swamp, but since its really open ended they can go into the sea, or a icy mountains or a dungeon, the campaing is planned to last long time, so any enemies could help me at least in the future.
Well you don't have to give them unusual weaknesses. Sometimes it's just good have environmental advantages.
Example: The party encounters an ogre. The have a few options. The could stand and fight but the will probably lose, or they could run to the rundown mine that the Aarakocra spotted earlier.
Yeti have the fear of fire trait. The party can use that to their advantag . Cyclopse have somting about dept preseption making it so that they have disatvantag from furter away, the party can use that. Fire elemental take damage from water. Water elemental are slowed by cold damage. Earth elemental week to tunder damage. And wekneses simelar to this can be added to creturs that make sens
i know there are more creaturs with stuff like this, but cant remeber figthe now.
but there is also using the unike personalety of dragons against them. Il ad other creaturs if i remember.
Some monsters have interesting tactical weaknesses like :
As for non combat solutions like "solving a ghosts business"
Searching for D&D puzzle monsters can give you lots of ideas.
I like building skill checks into an encounter, like a golem that is invulnerable until you disable the two magical orbs on either side of the room.
Adding particular vulnerabilities can be fun too - in my setting, each demon has an elemental affinity and each affinity has a weakness. Getting a fire demon wet, reducing a lightning demon's speed to 0, breaking an earth demon's contact with the ground, etc. significantly weakens them. My group has really enjoyed figuring out each weakness and exploiting it when they encounter a new group of demons.
Also, demons of opposing elements hate each other, but will work together in the presence of a demon lord or a representation of their will contained within an object called a lordstone. Removing that presence causes the demons to attack each other, which the party loved the one time they got it to happen. You could do a similar thing with any two groups of monsters that disliked each other and a third monster or item that keeps them in line.
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
I've done something similar with demons although in my version there were unaligned demons which had basically at will absorb elements they could be attuned to elements if they were hit with them allot becoming immune/healing from that element and infecting other nearby demons. Some elemental ones were also sign of a demon lord being involved because they'd align to be like that demon lord.
I like to elementalise allot of monsters and it is a good way to create custom weaknesses . As an example I had a necromancer once that had twisted a powerful water elemental into a kind of storm of undeath. Any one in the rain would take necrotic damage, undead would heal the same amount and if a corpse was in the rain it would rise as a zombie. The zombies had a kind of heat vision and would seek out anything warm trying to destroy all the fire element. The necromancer survived by using magic to hide their body heat and guided the storm around.