Damage Transfer. While attached to a creature, the cloaker takes only half the damage dealt to it (rounded down), and that creature takes the other half.
False Appearance. While the cloaker remains motionless without its underside exposed, it is indistinguishable from a dark leather cloak.
Light Sensitivity. While in bright light, the cloaker has disadvantage on attack rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Multiattack. The cloaker makes two attacks: one with its bite and one with its tail.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) piercing damage, and if the target is Large or smaller, the cloaker attaches to it. If the cloaker has advantage against the target, the cloaker attaches to the target's head, and the target is blinded and unable to breathe while the cloaker is attached. While attached, the cloaker can make this attack only against the target and has advantage on the attack roll. The cloaker can detach itself by spending 5 feet of its movement. A creature, including the target, can take its action to detach the cloaker by succeeding on a DC 16 Strength check.
Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one creature. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) slashing damage.
Moan. Each creature within 60 feet of the cloaker that can hear its moan and that isn't an aberration must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened until the end of the cloaker's next turn. If a creature's saving throw is successful, the creature is immune to the cloaker's moan for the next 24 hours.
Phantasms (Recharges after a Short or Long Rest). The cloaker magically creates three illusory duplicates of itself if it isn't in bright light. The duplicates move with it and mimic its actions, shifting position so as to make it impossible to track which cloaker is the real one. If the cloaker is ever in an area of bright light, the duplicates disappear.
Whenever any creature targets the cloaker with an attack or a harmful spell while a duplicate remains, that creature rolls randomly to determine whether it targets the cloaker or one of the duplicates. A creature is unaffected by this magical effect if it can't see or if it relies on senses other than sight.
A duplicate has the cloaker's AC and uses its saving throws. If an attack hits a duplicate, or if a duplicate fails a saving throw against an effect that deals damage, the duplicate disappears.
Damn sea vampires...
Guys don't worry I slept last night so we don't have to worry about Phantoms
Really fun to pair with Phantasmal Force. Make one of these babies with it and they can use their Moan, then make the target think they're grappled.
Just thought of these a minion for a GOO warlock villain, who wears them like a cloak for protection and company.
Is it bad that I want one? They're kinda cute.
I did that once. The party came across an insane wizard school professor who was making aberrations in his basement. He’d wear a cloaker and throw it on people when he needed to run.
I don't know why I like it so much... I don't know why I feel compelled to do a tier 4 adventure that revolves around Cloakers...
I just threw this at my level 4 party expecting it to be a challenge, and they took it out in three rounds, which led me to ask, why is this thing CR 8? The Phantasms ability will only protect it from maybe two hits at best and a spell like burning hands will just get rid of the ability immediately. It can attach itself to a player but the DC to get it off seems way too low considering that strength is usually a pretty high score on almost every character say for the wizard. Plus it only has 80 hitpoints, its attacks aren't that strong, only an AC of 14, and no resistances to anything at all. When compared to other CR 8 monsters like a frost giant, chain devil, young green dragon, or just a plain old t-rex, this thing is trivially easy to kill
DC 16 is not _low_, but it's true that in a party of 4 someone should be able to pull it off easily, at the cost of an action during combat.
I think a lot of support creatures get weighted a bit heavier for their utility, & thus have CR that doesn't really make sense on their own. When supporting a bigger bad, they could become a harrowing ordeal. Consider crossing a subterranean lake, with these above & an aboleth below...
When you see one of these, flying along with a darkmantle on a leash...
The reason why cloakers are CR 8 is when this thing hits and attaches itself to a PC without others noticing, choking it. Also, watching cloaker appearances in various official campaigns (I'm crazy enough about cloakers to do this sort of thing), I noticed that to compensate for their relative lack of resistance, they would come up with opportunistic tactics, like hit-and-run tactic.
Still, they are quite disappointing when compared to the other creatures of CR 8. Anyone who introduces cloakers into their campaign must absolutely take into account their behavior in battle to avoid seeing their precious aberrations get destroyed. And being a fan of cloakers to an exaggerated degree, I decided to create a boss for them that could strengthen the cloakers, for the day when my PCs would finally be in tier 4. What I think is that what makes cloakers interesting is not their brute strength, nor their resistance, but their unusual appearance and abilities that make them versatile and suitable for inclusion in situations though... Humorous :
-An evil magician with a cloaker as a cape
-A cloaker in my basement ! Plz help !
-And what would happen if a cloaker had a special personality? A friendly and curious cloaker, a conspiratorial cloaker, or even a cloaker with a stereotypical chaotic neutral personality...
Bruh this is perfect look for a Minecraft phantom lol.
Definitely a phantom!
i hate these things. when your the tank and the other party members can't figure out that you can get them off on your turn and shot it with a rifle its not the best for your hp
My haunted one Eladrin has one of these, his father passed a curse down to him. But instead of the Cloaker mentally torturing the week old baby, it became attached to him. So thats how he knows Deep Speech.
skeletons in the wardrobe
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/39xiwe/the_cloaker/
You might be interested in that then if you haven't seen it already.
I already read it before christmas :)
Thanks anyway!
Tell me if I'm reading this wrong -- a cloaker can attach, but it can move at full speed after it attaches to something, dragging it along? Shouldn't grappling rules apply here?
i headbutted one of those things to death...