Lightning Absorption. Whenever the shambling mound is subjected to lightning damage, it takes no damage and regains a number of hit points equal to the lightning damage dealt.
Multiattack. The shambling mound makes two slam attacks. If both attacks hit a Medium or smaller target, the target is grappled (escape DC 14), and the shambling mound uses its Engulf on it.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage.
Engulf. The shambling mound engulfs a Medium or smaller creature grappled by it. The engulfed target is blinded, restrained, and unable to breathe, and it must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw at the start of each of the mound’s turns or take 13 (2d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage. If the mound moves, the engulfed target moves with it. The mound can have only one creature engulfed at a time.
We had a level 20 person accompanying us one this one quest and she got ambushed by one of these. We tried to kill it before it ate her but we killed both of them on accident. The DM just split her XP between us so we all went from level 5 to level 10.
so this...vegetable is stronger than the boss in my adventure :(
I had an idea for this thing specifically where an entire hoard of them is migrating through a swamp and the MC's have to dodge between them to find a muguffin but have to do it quick because the bbeg cult is also doing it at the same time so its a race to avoid the mounds and find the thing.
of course the mound won't attack them, they are focused on migrating and will only retaliate when hurt
THIS IS WHAT KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT
If your party has a good source of ranged damage, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. It's movement speed is less than the typical 30 feet of movement speed that most humanoids possess.
The wizard in the party I DM likes fire. If and when they battle this baddie and the swarms of twig blights with it, the shambling mound will deal an extra 1 or 2 d6 fire damage while burning. Heh heh heh.
One almost killed me, as a level 10 player, since it engulfed me and I kept making bad save rolls.
fought this at lv 2 in the death house, kite and pray
I split DM duties with another player in our group, and we bounce ideas off each other. I think he's planning to make these be the minions for a blue dragon of yet unknown size.
Our party was split in two, with this monster in each room, we are all level 3. One of the players decided that they were going to flirt with the monster, and they rolled an 18, and gained an inspiration point for acting it out beautifully.
On the other hand, the side I was on killed the thing. Lol
IIn my first campaign this killef us we were level 3 and 2 members level 2. As the bronze dragonborn I electrocuted water in case anything was in the vine pile but it got temporary hit points thanks to me killing us all.
[SPOILER COS]This thing is put to be a fair fight in the death house in CoS at level 2 this painfull but yea it would be a nice challenge for a lv 5 party
is this good for the boss of my first encounter
this crit me twice in a row instantly killing my lvl 2 paladin :(
No, this thing would be a good encounter in a day of like 4 other encounters for a 5th level party. It is a pretty tough challenge for a 2nd level party, but appropriate for 3rd as the main encounter for the day. I know it's easy to forget because they fail to mention it more than once or twice in the book, but you actually have a daily exp budget to base encounters on which far exceeds one CR 5 monster for 4 5th level characters. You're supposed to go by the daily budget if you're only running one encounter per day. But characters can end up very strong in 5e and able to punch way above their weight class even following RAW, so you need to kinda do the work yourself to figure out what's an appropriate encounter for your party, don't worry about CR too much.
What level?
I was looking at this stat block, and my group have defeated this just yesterday. It was extremely hard and we are lucky that we even survived, let alone won.
Shambling Mound is Immune to being Deafened. Does this mean it has no ears and therefore already deaf, or it can still hear and its biology prevents it from deaf?
A PC had cast Dissonant Whispers which states, "only one creature of your choice within range can hear". So can the Shambling Mound hear?
c-ya:-j
I don't see anything that expressly says either way.... But it is technically just a plant. It has blindsight, and is expressly blind beyond the 60' radius..So, I imagine it wouldn't be able to hear. In the end it's up to the DM, I would say it can't hear, but I probably wouldn't have thought of that, until I read your question.
i skipped death house it felt out of place to me