Innate Spellcasting. The couatl's spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 14). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring only verbal components:
At will: detect evil and good, detect magic, detect thoughts
3/day each: bless, create food and water, cure wounds, lesser restoration, protection from poison, sanctuary, shield
1/day each: dream, greater restoration, scrying
Magic Weapons. The couatl's weapon attacks are magical.
Shielded Mind. The couatl is immune to scrying and to any effect that would sense its emotions, read its thoughts, or detect its location.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 8 (1d6 + 5) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 24 hours. Until this poison ends, the target is unconscious. Another creature can use an action to shake the target awake.
Constrict. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one Medium or smaller creature. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 15). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and the couatl can't constrict another target.
Change Shape. The couatl magically polymorphs into a humanoid or beast that has a challenge rating equal to or less than its own, or back into its true form. It reverts to its true form if it dies. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying is absorbed or borne by the new form (the couatl's choice).
In a new form, the couatl retains its game statistics and ability to speak, but its AC, movement modes, Strength, Dexterity, and other actions are replaced by those of the new form, and it gains any statistics and capabilities (except class features, legendary actions, and lair actions) that the new form has but that it lacks. If the new form has a bite attack, the couatl can use its bite in that form.
Isn't that an Amphiptere?
I agree that the Couatl's AC and HP are really high for CR 4 but its attack is quite low, it has a good DC for restraining creatures with constrict but only deals an average of 10 damage, the Caoutl's bite has the potential to poison a creature for a day but DC 13 isn't that high, creatures can be shaken awake and it only does 8 damage on average, compare this to the elephant, another CR 4 that deals an average of 19 damage and if its trampling charge is successful, another 22
well canonically it's so beautiful even the most evil of people generally don't wanna hurt it and most typically they're pacifists so you gotta be a real dick to attack it. but yeah the CR should be higher.
Its Lawful Good so not hostile unless provoked
Is this to powerful as a mount for a twentieth level character? Assuming you are small enough to mount it, or you can somehow ignore the size.
Well that's really up to the DM of the campaign. As reference though, Hercules is basically a level 20 barbarian and he gets a Pegasus to ride (CR 2)
It totally should be higher
I believe the pronunciation is wrong. It should be only two syllables: CO (as in coat) + at (as in dot). The first syllable can also be pronounced CU (as in coup), but the L is silent ("tl" is a special phoneme that doesn't exist in English).
I'm just glad they aren't evil. I don't like the evil snake cliche.
The solution to that is just to say that it can only polymorph into things of CR 4 or lower - not to lower the couatl's CR. As it stands, it's just waiting to TPK the parties of unwary DMs who don't look at it closely enough before using it.
It shouldn't take a "wise" DM to make something feel like a lower CR than it should be; in fact, quite the opposite is true: a "wise" DM should be able make an enemy feel like a higher CR, whereas all you need to do to mimic a lower CR is to not use it to its full potential (i.e. pretend it doesn't have a certain ability or act like it's super unintelligent). DMs really shouldn't have to "dumb down" the encounter just to make an enemy match its listed CR, when nearly every other enemy/stat block seems to encourage the exact opposite. At the end of the day, it's just inconsistent.
WOOOOW
If it wasn’t immune to Bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing attacks, and didn’t make people become unconscious I think that this would be a good CR 4 thing, I agree it is more like 5 or 6. Maybe it is just to make people not want to kill it, because the XP reward isn’t worth the battle?
That's quite a fair point! I'm quite late to the party, but I DON'T CARE.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/dungeon-masters-workshop#CreatingaMonster
OMG how did you write so much
Ah, the counterpart to the pit fien- wait... this is CR4? Its spells are powerful, any non-magical caster would have nearly no effect on it, it's immune to certain spells, it has a constrict attack with a high DC, its bite attack is f*ckin lethal, and even if the non-magic casters found a way around its immunities, its AC is nearly impenetrable for mid to low level characters. In fact, literally every ability this thing has just screams "you shouldn't be in combat with me," from its bite attack to its spellcasting. wtf
well, it isn't. there are few hard rules for english.
*turns the beast into a new outfit for my fellow players*
Yeah, that was my thought as well. It seems like a being that could be negotiated with and not necessary to fight to the death, or at all.
I wish this was a large creature. This would be such a cool mount for my lvl 13 cleric