Armor Class
12
Hit Points
16
(3d8 + 3)
Speed
40 ft.
STR
6
(-2)
DEX
14
(+2)
CON
13
(+1)
INT
6
(-2)
WIS
10
(+0)
CHA
8
(-1)
Skills
Stealth +4
Damage Vulnerabilities
Radiant
Damage Resistances
Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Thunder; Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks
Damage Immunities
Necrotic, Poison
Condition Immunities
Exhaustion, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Prone, Restrained
Senses
Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 10
Languages
--
Challenge
1/2 (100 XP)
Proficiency Bonus
+2
Traits
Amorphous. The shadow can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing.
Shadow Stealth. While in dim light or darkness, the shadow can take the Hide action as a bonus action.
Sunlight Weakness. While in sunlight, the shadow has disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws.
Actions
Strength Drain. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) necrotic damage, and the target's Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. Otherwise, the reduction lasts until the target finishes a short or long rest.
If a non-evil humanoid dies from this attack, a new shadow rises from the corpse 1d4 hours later.
To all the "how is this only CR 1/2?" folks: the strength drain doesn't actually factor into CR calculations. Only the usual defensive stats (AC, hit points, resistances/immunities, etc.) and offensive stats (to hit bonus, damage, etc.), as well as certain abilities and features, really matter. Based on that stuff, it's only CR 1/2. The strength drain ratchets it up immensely in practice, but not in the calculation.
People complaining about it being OP: This monster is a glass cannon, compared to many other monsters that are straight up just meat tanks with comparatively weak attacks. Yes, with 2 natural 20s and rolling max Str. Drain they can kill a character with only 8 Str, but not all characters have 8 Str, and the likelyhood of hitting and rolling max twice is extremely low. Meanwhile, it's AC is really low, it's HP is negligible (even with resistances), and overall it's a minion. A specialized minion, yes, but still a minion.
A common D&D party has 3-6 members.
There atleast 1-2 tank class (Barbarian, Cleric, Fighter, Paladin) characters and at least one of them will be strength based (Barbarian). They should be taking the hits from the Shadow. Maybe on a surprise round the small squishy people will be hit.
There should be atleast 1-3 character focusing on damage (Rogues, Fighters, Monks) and they can hurt the shadow even though the shadow is resistant to most of their attacks.
Lastly 1-2 characters are healers. They can ensure other characters don't die (though not Strength Drain). They can also do damage and if one of these healers is a cleric they have radiant damage cantrips that can hurt the shadows.
Though a party can consist of any variety of class types. You could all just attack in a single turn. If your DM is not a jerk or not inexperienced, you would not be facing more than the party can handle.
With quick one-liners meant to attack its ego.
"So you're a shadow? I've seen darker."
"I've seen more shade on RuPaul's Drag Race!"
Shadow? More like Sha-don't!"
Didn’t know how o.p these creatures were untill I put 3 of them against my two level two P.C and literally killed both of them in 3 turns. They were lucky that they had a paladin zombie 😂
Every class besides barbarian has ways to get magic, and if you have THAT DM, you can be pretty sure that every character can deal with magic
OP? A Light Domain cleric can one shot a whole room of these with a single Channel Divinity.
Resistant, not immune. It's just half damage.
If your a necromancer you could make an army of these things. That would be very op against a single target.
My party just faced a group of these in our last session as our first encounter fun fight our cleric end up taking out all but one which the bard dispatched and our wizard managed to be the only one not to get hit XD
I have to admit, as a DM I feel a little tinge of guilty pleasure when I see that Strength Drain in RAW.
There not hard to kill I killed one with one attack using branding smite with a magical lance and it took 20 radiant damage. But did find this page very helpful
I think they are over powered. I created my own mess as a GM when I allowed a player to run the UA mystic. He now can and does summon 2 shadow hounds at every combat and their resistances is making it hard for even devils to dispatch them.
the shadow can be summoned and controlled by the unearthed arcana mystic and that is why they keep this ability
And then it does 1 to 4 points of Str damage...? That wouldn't kill a commoner let alone a level 20 character. Unless you're talking about 3 20's in a row, with max Str damage being done on all 3 attacks, all while that level 20 just stands there and does nothing... I dont see how this is a threat to a high level character, sorry. That's some epic level white-rooming ability you have there.
Excellent illustrating. Spook-show.
But relying on a monster to crit to call it overpowered is like relying on a player to fumble to call them underpowered
I ran this monster against 1st level party with the intention to kill two PC's, and bring them immediately back due to a plot-related curse; it worked easily. Definitely too strong as is and will need to nerf in future encounters.
There isnt a difference between the 2. Magical fire and natural fire is still just fire.
Boy wish that guy getting attacked was me.