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
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.
First time I ever encountered shadows I'd hit level 5 as a cleric at the end of the session before. The team had a nice cuddle in the spirit guardians aura and anhilated all of them. It made me think spirit guardians is much better than it actually is though.
Fire generates light.
I give a chiefs kiss to the absolute versatility and easy in game custom lore connections gust make it a cr 3 or 4 and we have a perfect monster
Wdym you literally get your strength back on a SR, its in the stat block
Why is this weak in only sunlight? What about bright light from a torch? I can see how this would make it way easier to fight, but is it not darkness? I like to imagine that it cannot attack in bright light or hide, and takes like 1 point of damage every round it starts in any bright light. Just a thought.
Ah yes, a 1/2 CR monster with the capability to TPK low level players
how come this doesnt come with the description?
its racist
Semi-colons op
does the mystic get these?
Theoretically, one could fill a bottle with as many shadows as they want, and tie the bottle to an arrow. Essentially, have a group of servants of a shadow dragon fire bottles of shadows at adventurers to make an especially hard time for your players. Or just fire em at cultists, Idc.
So agree about it being OP for 1/2 challenge rating.
It's resistant to those damage types unless they're counted as magical through the effect of a magical weapon, in which it will take full damage.
This chap and his 6 buddies killed our sorcerer last game just from the Strength Drain alone. And they almost got our rogue and fighter as well. We only lived because they left after stealing an item from our sorcerer's corpse.
We're level 5. The encounter calculator said the difficulty was supposed to be Medium. Our cleric's strength score is just 6, but luckily she's evil aligned, so they left her alone...
If there was a way to resist, or cure, the Strength Drain, I think it would make it more balanced. Like using "Lesser restoration" or succeed a save, for example. Or maybe you don't straight up DIE when your strength reaches 0. As things are now, I'm bolting next time I see one. They're literally not worth it.