Apologies in advance if anything here is confusing or not up to standard, I've never made a D&DBeyond forum post before. If anything needs to be changed/move, feel free to tell me. Thanks ^^
I'm a DM running a Homebrew campaign with a group of 3 Lvl 4 Players, with access to a group of about 4-5 helper NPCs for this specific quest. The players are about to explore the liar of a homebrew monster I made called the Sea Basilisk (which is basically just a normal basilisk but with Swimming speed and slightly beefier health) and I need some help building the encounter.
The general location they are in has very heavy themes of glass and mirrors and the Sea Basilisk Den is a sort of buried maze of slightly-reflective glass under a beach/shoreline. A. So far, the plan is that the players will traverse maze-like den, looking for the treasure, avoiding some minor traps as well as making sure the Sea Basilisk doesn't notice, and at the end the players end up in the "arena" to fight the Sea Basilisk that's guarding the treasure.
I was considering making the Sea Basilisk blind (or at least visually impaired enough not to perceive it's own reflection) so it doesn't go petrifying itself in the glass maze, but then the players wouldn't get to make use of reversing the petrification during battle. Making the Sea Basilisk adapted to be immune to it's own reflection is another option, but then again, still removes one of the satisfying parts of actually fighting one. I was considering making the boss fight a sort of "Mirror Maze" where the players would manipulate the direction of several mirror to bounce the Sea Basilisk's petrifying gaze back onto it, but if I make it blind or immune, it doesn't really work.
Should I homebrew a new gimmick or weakness to make fighting it fun? Any ideas would be much appreciated.
TL;DR: Players are exploring a glass/mirror lair that belongs to a Basilisk but I don't want the Basilisk to petrify itself just by looking at a wall. Need ideas
What's the context? Was the sea basilisk a guard-beast for some sort of wizard or warlord? That would explain the dungeon and traps. If not, then maybe you could make it a crystal cave where while not every surface is reflective, there are many to produce the danger of being petrified by the basilisk's gaze from unexpected directions.
Either way, rather than making the basilisk blind or immune to its own gaze, you could make it abnormally intelligent, enough so that it understands the concept of reflections, and avoids angles that would direct its reflection back at itself, as it uses them to see around corners to look for intruders. Mechanically, this really only amounts to it having a better Intelligence Save, and it using better tactics than might otherwise be expected. That increased intelligence could be explained as it having been a research subject of a wizard... maybe the party could eventually find the wizard, still a statue, his surprised expression facing a crystal/mirror near a corner.
Thanks for the idea! The context of Sea Basilisks (especially this specific one) was that they nearly went extinct, but the government artificially recreated the species with the aim of creating super-powerful treasure guards to keep thieves out, enchanting them to have an inherent ‘need’ to guard something valuable. The primal Sea Basilisks they revived were sort of like drone Sea Basilisks queen Sea Basilisk (like bees), so they could construct hive-like walls from organic material to keep people out. This worked for a while but it eventually backfired when thieves found workarounds to them, luring them out of their posts with equally valuable (or what the Basilisk would have thought was equally valuable). Most of them escaped into the wild after this, creating elaborate sea glass maze lairs to guard whatever piece of treasure they were lured out with. These hordes tended to accumulate with the number of adventures that would get lost and killed (and looted). The players are raiding this lair (at the idea of the helper NPCs who are general soldiers of the government who don’t really enjoy their lives) because the government would usually repossess any treasure the Basilisk has, and they want it.
edit: spelling mistakes
For traps, most of them are naturally occurring “traps” (quicksand, flooding rooms due to unstable walls, good ol fashioned falling gravel/sand trap).
I like the idea of making it abnormally intelligent, or at least really good at doing its job. I wanted to play on the fact that, despite it being trained by the government, it is still a wild animal at heart, and in turn, is easily tricked. Smart but Gullible.
Apologies in advance if anything here is confusing or not up to standard, I've never made a D&DBeyond forum post before. If anything needs to be changed/move, feel free to tell me. Thanks ^^
I'm a DM running a Homebrew campaign with a group of 3 Lvl 4 Players, with access to a group of about 4-5 helper NPCs for this specific quest. The players are about to explore the liar of a homebrew monster I made called the Sea Basilisk (which is basically just a normal basilisk but with Swimming speed and slightly beefier health) and I need some help building the encounter.
The general location they are in has very heavy themes of glass and mirrors and the Sea Basilisk Den is a sort of buried maze of slightly-reflective glass under a beach/shoreline. A. So far, the plan is that the players will traverse maze-like den, looking for the treasure, avoiding some minor traps as well as making sure the Sea Basilisk doesn't notice, and at the end the players end up in the "arena" to fight the Sea Basilisk that's guarding the treasure.
I was considering making the Sea Basilisk blind (or at least visually impaired enough not to perceive it's own reflection) so it doesn't go petrifying itself in the glass maze, but then the players wouldn't get to make use of reversing the petrification during battle. Making the Sea Basilisk adapted to be immune to it's own reflection is another option, but then again, still removes one of the satisfying parts of actually fighting one. I was considering making the boss fight a sort of "Mirror Maze" where the players would manipulate the direction of several mirror to bounce the Sea Basilisk's petrifying gaze back onto it, but if I make it blind or immune, it doesn't really work.
Should I homebrew a new gimmick or weakness to make fighting it fun? Any ideas would be much appreciated.
TL;DR: Players are exploring a glass/mirror lair that belongs to a Basilisk but I don't want the Basilisk to petrify itself just by looking at a wall. Need ideas
What's the context? Was the sea basilisk a guard-beast for some sort of wizard or warlord? That would explain the dungeon and traps. If not, then maybe you could make it a crystal cave where while not every surface is reflective, there are many to produce the danger of being petrified by the basilisk's gaze from unexpected directions.
Either way, rather than making the basilisk blind or immune to its own gaze, you could make it abnormally intelligent, enough so that it understands the concept of reflections, and avoids angles that would direct its reflection back at itself, as it uses them to see around corners to look for intruders. Mechanically, this really only amounts to it having a better Intelligence Save, and it using better tactics than might otherwise be expected. That increased intelligence could be explained as it having been a research subject of a wizard... maybe the party could eventually find the wizard, still a statue, his surprised expression facing a crystal/mirror near a corner.
Thanks for the idea! The context of Sea Basilisks (especially this specific one) was that they nearly went extinct, but the government artificially recreated the species with the aim of creating super-powerful treasure guards to keep thieves out, enchanting them to have an inherent ‘need’ to guard something valuable. The primal Sea Basilisks they revived were sort of like drone Sea Basilisks queen Sea Basilisk (like bees), so they could construct hive-like walls from organic material to keep people out. This worked for a while but it eventually backfired when thieves found workarounds to them, luring them out of their posts with equally valuable (or what the Basilisk would have thought was equally valuable). Most of them escaped into the wild after this, creating elaborate sea glass maze lairs to guard whatever piece of treasure they were lured out with. These hordes tended to accumulate with the number of adventures that would get lost and killed (and looted). The players are raiding this lair (at the idea of the helper NPCs who are general soldiers of the government who don’t really enjoy their lives) because the government would usually repossess any treasure the Basilisk has, and they want it.
edit: spelling mistakes
For traps, most of them are naturally occurring “traps” (quicksand, flooding rooms due to unstable walls, good ol fashioned falling gravel/sand trap).
I like the idea of making it abnormally intelligent, or at least really good at doing its job. I wanted to play on the fact that, despite it being trained by the government, it is still a wild animal at heart, and in turn, is easily tricked. Smart but Gullible.