Hi folks; This is my first attempt at homebrewing up a Final Boss style monster for my PCs. I'd love some feedback from more experienced monster makers to see if this thing will squash them into paste or only *feel* like it will squash them into paste. The idea here is to have a monster that is also a lair - its movement is then effectively 0, but it has semi-mobile bodily extensions. To really do damage you have to get closer into the central mouth. The difficulty will really scale with how you build the lair. My PCs have already been warned that all their encounters are going to be deadly+ and are on board with it, but also, they should have a decent chance.
Background: Someone planted an egg of this monster underneath their organization's home base a couple of hundred years ago; they have been feeding it ever since for reasons of their own, and now it is huge, has taken over the foundations of the building and no one knows how to get rid of it (and are desperate to keep it a secret from everyone who works there).
The party: A bunch of new hires who've stumbled upon a plot to wake this thing up and have it destroy them all (Ie. 4 level 6 pcs ). If they are smart they'll recruit help, but who knows?
Why???? Why did I make this? Because I had a dream about a building that had a giant gaping maw in the sub-basement and now I have to inflict that on everyone else.
I would give the Tongue attack reach of 10ft., just to make it a little more potent.
Corrosive flesh is typo'd - "corrorsive"
Exhale dels 2d6 + 5 (2d6) damage, which is all wrong - either it deals 14 (4d6) damage, or 12 (2d6+5) damage
Inhale deals 33 (3d6) damage, which I believe should be 11?
For Sacrificial Flesh, I'd suggest looking at the Hydra statblock to get the wording for their multiple heads. It might be easier to specify how many heads it has rather than leaving it to random chance. EG:
"the Vorebeast has one primary mouth and 5 smaller auxiliary mouths. Each time the Vorebeast takes 50 points of damage, one of the mouths (the most recently damaged) is destroyed."
Then add a Legendary action (recharge 5-6) to gain 50hp and grow a mouth.
you keep changing the terminology for the mouths (tertiary, auxiliary) and you refer to consume attacks as bite attacks on the legendary actions.
Sacrifice Flesh going by the distance is a bit clunky, especially when they can only relocate within 60ft. of the primary mouth. I'd just give the whole thing resistance to non-magical attacks unless you attack the primary mouth.
As for its dangerousness, this thing is going to be a high CR. Presumably the players can't run away, so it's a fight to the death no matter what. It's dealing circa 60 damage each turn, which is a lot.
One option (which would be a bit of a rewrite so feel free to say nope!) would be to make the tongues more of a mechanic than an attack - the tongue lashes out with a reach of 30ft, and then grapples what it hits. At the end of the grappled creatures turn, it reels it in by 15ft. Then make the tongues have vulnerability to slashing and no resistances, so that the players can try to attack the tongues when they are dragging each other back in, sort of like a video game boss fight. Also make the tongues release if they are damaged. This would make what looks likely to be a TPK into a puzzle-like fight where the party have agency to avoid being damaged (tongues do low damage, bites do high damage, so don't get bit!).
If you have the player sheets, check their HP maximums and see whether you can down one of them in one turn. If you can, it's perhaps a bit too much! Also take an estimate of their damage output, nd see how long it'll take them to deal 420 damage, likely vs resistance for half of it (so 630 damage), and then see how much damage the vorebeast would do in that same amount of time. I think you'll need to tone down it's offensive output somewhat.
Thank you so much this is super helpful - I really like the idea of regenerating mouths and the tongues reeling people in. I pretty much figured I'd need one or two re-writes on this bad-boy before I'd be happy with it :D
One option (which would be a bit of a rewrite so feel free to say nope!) would be to make the tongues more of a mechanic than an attack - the tongue lashes out with a reach of 30ft, and then grapples what it hits. At the end of the grappled creatures turn, it reels it in by 15ft. Then make the tongues have vulnerability to slashing and no resistances, so that the players can try to attack the tongues when they are dragging each other back in, sort of like a video game boss fight. Also make the tongues release if they are damaged. This would make what looks likely to be a TPK into a puzzle-like fight where the party have agency to avoid being damaged (tongues do low damage, bites do high damage, so don't get bit!).
Like Duckslayer said, the tongues would be more appropriate as a mechanic. A great way to do this would be to make the tongue attacks part of the lair actions. Similar to the mouths explanation, you could have a set number of tongues (presumably the same number as mouths), or tentacles if they end up seeming like a better option, that could function as follows:
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the Vorebeast can take a lair action to cause one of the following effects; it can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:
Up to 5 creatures of the vorebeast's choice within 10 feet of a mouth must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or become grappled by the vorebeast's tongues. Each tongue can only grapple one target. The number of tongues is reduced with the number of mouths.
Each creature grappled by one of the vorebeast's tongues becomes restrained and is pulled 5 feet closer to the mouth from which the tongue originates.
This wording may not work, but I don't know of any other creatures with a similar ability that also have multiple mouths/heads. Also you could remove the text stating that the vorebeast cannot choose the same option two rounds in a row to make it a bit more challenging.
Thanks Drumitch and Duckslayer; I've done some mods to my beastie, taking some inspiration from both of your suggestions. I've toned down the damage and HP a bit so as to avoid one-shotting some of my PCS, and gone to lair actions instead of legendary.
Hi folks; This is my first attempt at homebrewing up a Final Boss style monster for my PCs. I'd love some feedback from more experienced monster makers to see if this thing will squash them into paste or only *feel* like it will squash them into paste. The idea here is to have a monster that is also a lair - its movement is then effectively 0, but it has semi-mobile bodily extensions. To really do damage you have to get closer into the central mouth. The difficulty will really scale with how you build the lair. My PCs have already been warned that all their encounters are going to be deadly+ and are on board with it, but also, they should have a decent chance.
The Monster: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/2632646-vorebeast
Background: Someone planted an egg of this monster underneath their organization's home base a couple of hundred years ago; they have been feeding it ever since for reasons of their own, and now it is huge, has taken over the foundations of the building and no one knows how to get rid of it (and are desperate to keep it a secret from everyone who works there).
The party: A bunch of new hires who've stumbled upon a plot to wake this thing up and have it destroy them all (Ie. 4 level 6 pcs ). If they are smart they'll recruit help, but who knows?
Why???? Why did I make this? Because I had a dream about a building that had a giant gaping maw in the sub-basement and now I have to inflict that on everyone else.
Anyway, I'd appreciate feedback!
dabbler in diverse and detailed worlds
First off, awesome concept.
A few things I can see:
"the Vorebeast has one primary mouth and 5 smaller auxiliary mouths. Each time the Vorebeast takes 50 points of damage, one of the mouths (the most recently damaged) is destroyed."
Then add a Legendary action (recharge 5-6) to gain 50hp and grow a mouth.
As for its dangerousness, this thing is going to be a high CR. Presumably the players can't run away, so it's a fight to the death no matter what. It's dealing circa 60 damage each turn, which is a lot.
One option (which would be a bit of a rewrite so feel free to say nope!) would be to make the tongues more of a mechanic than an attack - the tongue lashes out with a reach of 30ft, and then grapples what it hits. At the end of the grappled creatures turn, it reels it in by 15ft. Then make the tongues have vulnerability to slashing and no resistances, so that the players can try to attack the tongues when they are dragging each other back in, sort of like a video game boss fight. Also make the tongues release if they are damaged. This would make what looks likely to be a TPK into a puzzle-like fight where the party have agency to avoid being damaged (tongues do low damage, bites do high damage, so don't get bit!).
If you have the player sheets, check their HP maximums and see whether you can down one of them in one turn. If you can, it's perhaps a bit too much! Also take an estimate of their damage output, nd see how long it'll take them to deal 420 damage, likely vs resistance for half of it (so 630 damage), and then see how much damage the vorebeast would do in that same amount of time. I think you'll need to tone down it's offensive output somewhat.
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Thank you so much this is super helpful - I really like the idea of regenerating mouths and the tongues reeling people in. I pretty much figured I'd need one or two re-writes on this bad-boy before I'd be happy with it :D
dabbler in diverse and detailed worlds
Like Duckslayer said, the tongues would be more appropriate as a mechanic. A great way to do this would be to make the tongue attacks part of the lair actions. Similar to the mouths explanation, you could have a set number of tongues (presumably the same number as mouths), or tentacles if they end up seeming like a better option, that could function as follows:
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the Vorebeast can take a lair action to cause one of the following effects; it can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:
This wording may not work, but I don't know of any other creatures with a similar ability that also have multiple mouths/heads. Also you could remove the text stating that the vorebeast cannot choose the same option two rounds in a row to make it a bit more challenging.
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Thanks Drumitch and Duckslayer; I've done some mods to my beastie, taking some inspiration from both of your suggestions. I've toned down the damage and HP a bit so as to avoid one-shotting some of my PCS, and gone to lair actions instead of legendary.
Here's V2: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/2640998-vorebeast
dabbler in diverse and detailed worlds