Fey Ancestry. The drider has advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put the drider to sleep.
Innate Spellcasting. The drider’s innate spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 13). The drider can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
At will: dancing lights
1/day each: darkness, faerie fire
Spider Climb. The drider can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, the drider has disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Web Walker. The drider ignores movement restrictions caused by webbing.
Multiattack. The drider makes three attacks, either with its longsword or its longbow. It can replace one of those attacks with a bite attack.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 2 (1d4) piercing damage plus 9 (2d8) poison damage.
Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) slashing damage, or 8 (1d10 + 3) slashing damage if used with two hands.
Longbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) poison damage.
im glad i don't have to make a homebrew lol
The people who worship The Spider Queen and who chose her as a diety often do so purely for power. The vast majority of her followers straight up just hate her, but worship her anyways.
From my understanding it's a show of weakness, you were so weak that Loth needed to give you this boon.
Drow are transformed into driders for good reason. If they were simply driven out or killed, that would also be a punishment, but it would not show who punished them or why. And killing them would provide, at best, short-term suffering, compared to life as a drider. Lloth's curse satisfies both, which satisfies her. She is pure hatred. The only reason they were tested to begin with is that she thought they might prove useful to her. But they didn't, and they disappointed her. So they get shunned and live on the fringes, but she makes it clear: it's not a political failure, it's not that their fortune ran out, it's not that they simply grew weary of their super violent, oppressive society. It's that they mad her, specifically, upset with them. So she disfigures them in a way that no other being in their world does, so that everyone, at a glance, knows that that drow in particular has displeased Lloth, and will wear her image forever as a reminder to the other drow, and as a reminder to the transformed drow, that they all exist at her pleasure, and because no one in their society can look at the drider without remembering the absolute power Lloth holds over them. She's one of the few gods that regularly turns up on the Material Plane to make one of her followers suffer, even for minor sleights. (It comes up less in the newer books, but older lore books on the drow are quite specific about how petty and hateful she is.)
It's explained in the Legend Of Drizzt series, that the main reason it is is such a terrible punishment is because of the pain of the transformation. They literally feel their limbs being ripped apart to become the drider, and the pain is so intense that it makes them go crazy.
would it be possible to play a drider with human legs without it teetering too much into drow territory? so if the advantages/disadvantages/etc. stay the same could it work?
Im working on a homebrew race based on driders but not actually being driders. So reproduction. A medium size. And webbing.
I mean a drider is basically just a drow with spider legs. So flipping that back would immediately flip back the race to drow. With the exception of spiderclimb and web walker basically all a drider is is a drow with some chonky stats.
If you just want someone with webwalker and spiderclimb theres slippers of spiderclimb as a magical item, as well as spells. And the same for preventing webbing issues. Also i think rangers and/or druids get immunity to movement restrictions caused by natural effects such as plants and webbing.
"Sullivan! Bring me that child!"
Can you play them as a race? It would seem fun to play lol
Maybe worth reading up on, but this could be a possible explanation:
The drow KNOW that Lloth is evil and by extension they also know that they are evil. And even if they like spiders (they might not) they still like their original form better. And they probably do not want to get any closer to their goddess. It might not be that the drow love Lloth. IT's that they fear her the most and worship her diligently, because they know that the ones who are in her good grace will suffer the least amount.The goddess is literally a demon, so think of it like advanced "being scared of this demon together"
THe driders are claimed and twisted by Lloth, and the others keep the damn away, because they don't want to be claimed too.
That's exactly it. The drow don't worhip Lolth because they love her, but because they fear her.
I mean, her favorite hobby is to torture the drow, and her favorite sacrifices are her own clerics, which is one of the reasons why there is so much infighting. Her clerics are trying to avoid being sacrificed.
in the r.a. salvatore books it's not as simple as "transformation".... it's an unfathomably torturous procedure where the limbs are literally cracked, ripped and split very slowly starting from between the fingers and toes from 4 into 8 limbs the hard way and they're made to feel absolutely every nerve in their bodies torn to pieces while being kept conscious and alive as much as possible by magical means.. and those who are lucky enough to pass out from the pain? well all they do is sleep and it continues again once they wake up.. all the while the priestesses laugh and mock and torture them in other ways for entertainment.. this process takes as long as they want it to.. days, weeks.. even longer? and THAT is how they're minds and souls are destroyed and enslaved.. so the final result is a fate worse than death because there is no peace.. and if they are sent to fight any friends and family they might have had in the previous life it's just a bonus because they still bear the likeness of the person they used to be which can inflict emotional and psychological torment onto those that knew him.. and i say him because female drows were often either killed outright or subjected to even worse fates than that.. the idea is that anyone turned into a drider will be of value and subservience to their superiors despite any will of their own, that they are worthless on their own and deserve nothing than to be utterly destroyed and forced to serve whether they want to or not. and thus, the will of Lolth is further and preserved, and as a symbol of what happens to those who betray her, simple execution would never suffice because death is normal for the drow, this is much more affective deterrent and of course, they enjoy it much more.
*their (sorry, I'm a perfectionist when it comes to grammar)
I thought they'd be held in higher esteem as they look more like Lolth...
2019? Good thing I play a Necromancer.
So, this gets a little *Deep Lore* here but; the whole bloodline ending thing doesn't actually apply to Drow. Or elves in general.
There are only a finite number of elven souls to go around, no new ones can ever be made, all elven souls are constantly being reincarnated into new bodies, *and* elves remember all of their previous lives. Elves don't really give a damn about family bloodlines because at the end of the day they all know they are of the same singular bloodline, and if one dies, you'll just see them later born into a new body.
Because Drow committed the big evil a long time ago, they are exempt from the normal cycle of reincarnation, Lolth has to personally step in and directly take over that reincarnation process every time a Drow dies (if she doesn't they permanently die, just gone forever). Drow houses are based less on bloodlines and more on political power with souls being funneled into various houses based on their value to Lolth. Less favored souls get funneled into less powerful houses.
A Drider might get sent to the lowest of houses, or might not get reincarnated for a really, really, really long time as Lolth has a tendency to torture souls who failed her, some never being given the chance to reincarnate (or at least, they haven't *yet*)
It's not much of a punishment... 🙂
I will definitely homebrew to add stinger and web attacks, which should have been present from the beggining.
Isnt it weird they dont have a web attack
Can you play as one? And which book do I have to purchase in order to put it as my race? And do you have to be a Drow?