Spider Climb. The spider can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Web Sense. While in contact with a web, the spider knows the exact location of any other creature in contact with the same web.
Web Walker. The spider ignores movement restrictions caused by webbing.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 11 Constitution saving throw, taking 9 (2d8) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. If the poison damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, the target is stable but poisoned for 1 hour, even after regaining hit points, and is paralyzed while poisoned in this way.
Web (Recharge 5–6). Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, range 30/60 ft., one creature. Hit: The target is restrained by webbing. As an action, the restrained target can make a DC 12 Strength check, bursting the webbing on a success. The webbing can also be attacked and destroyed (AC 10; hp 5; vulnerability to fire damage; immunity to bludgeoning, poison, and psychic damage).
Manipulate Webs - The Web Master may use its action to perform any Lair, Legendary, or Reaction abilities by using minute movements invisible to the naked eye.
Web Shield - The Web Master can, once per dexterity bonus per round (similar to Combat Reflexes), choose to place its webs between it and an incoming attack. Doing so will prevent damage, but the webs will instead be destroyed in line with the damage absorbed. Webs used in this manner may be pulled from up to 3 squares away.
Constricting Webs - The Web Master can pull upon its webs to constrict any other being currently in its area of control. Intruders must make a DC 12 Strength or Dexterity check (whichever is higher) to escape. Failure results in being grappled. Grappled creatures may use an action to escape, with each failure resulting in a +2 to the DC in the following turn. Constricting Webs is performed automatically and freely as a surprise attack if the Web Master is aware of the creature's incursion before the start of battle. Should an intruder fail to escape these webs in 4 rounds, it is cocooned and rendered paralyzed until freed by outside help.
Animate Victims - The Web Master animates 1d4-1 corpses of its previous victims. These undead use skeleton stats and operate as independent creatures added to the initiative tracker. They are controlled by webs and, as such, have a move speed of 15 and cannot travel beyond the Web Master's lair without collapsing. It is at the DM's discretion to determine how many corpses are in each room of the Web Master's lair (default 4).
Web Master's Control - The Web Master can choose to teleport to another section of its web (as if casting dimension door). This legendary action is limited to 2 uses per combat encounter.
Cut the Thread - If any section of the Web Master's lair begins to uncontrollably burn, it can detach from the danger by sacrificing a wall of webbing between unaffected webs and burning webs (Ex: a single square of burning web can be safely extinguished by sacrificing the webs on all adjacent squares, including diagonal). As a semi-intelligent creature, the Web Master may selectively use this ability to protect itself and steer the fire toward intruders. Burning web causes 2d6 fire damage per round to any creature in said square. Burns out after 3 rounds.
Description
The Web Master is an aberration rarely seen anywhere except in the oldest and most well-established nests of giant spiders. At the size of a large dog, it is not particularly strong, venomous, or tough. Its armor is nothing special and it can be dispatched with a few well-placed attacks. It rarely moves from its lair, except to expand its cover of webs (of which it can cover up to four squares per day) or to feed upon the prey brought to it by the hunter-spiders of its nest.
Every inch of the Web Master's entire body is covered with the minute hairs common to all spider-kind. Through these it is able to control webs with far more precision and ability than any other non-magical creature. In nests where it has made its lair at the entrance, it can use these abilities to quickly immobilize prey and even cocoon and transport them without direct physical contact.
Lair and Lair Actions
Thick Webs - The Web Master's Lair has been painstakingly fashioned to fit its ability to defend it's queen's nest. Almost universally, it will have made its home at either the entrance to the whole nest, or the main pathway between said entrance and the queen's chamber.
Silky webs of varying thickness saturate every single inch of its lair, not only coating the walls, but filling the air between as well. Adventurers will notice that the vast majority of these webs are not sticky, but their sheer volume will still give the effect of difficult terrain for all non-spider related creatures. Webs cut from their moorings will fall to the ground and continue to create difficult terrain.
All vision is obscured beyond two feet, but shapes can be glimpsed through the webs if they are backlit by another light source. The lair can extend through one room, or the entire nest at the DM's discretion.
Webs have a default health of 20 per square. They possess Resistance to bludgeoning and piercing, and Vulnerability to fire.
Illusory Foes - The thickness of the webs ensure that any mass glimpsed through them cannot be identified. The location of the Web Master can only be guessed at through deductive reasoning (eg. That shadow is moving, it must be the Web Master!). So long as the Web Master does not move, it is impossible to distinguish it from any other foreign objects in the lair (corpses, plants, treasure chests, etc.)
Lair Actions:
The Grand Nest - The Web Master possesses very few offensive tactics - it is a purely tactical creature. Realizing this, it has woven singular massive threads leading to every room of its nest. As a lair action, it can tap on these webs to communicate danger. Doing so will summon any living spider-like allies in these connected rooms. These spiders can travel along the Web Master's threads without penalty and will come to the Web Master's defense. Adventurers would do well to clear out as much of the nest as possible before engaging the Web Master, or else risk being overwhelmed by the entire dungeon's host. It is at the DM's discretion how quickly these new spiders arrive and what actions they take upon arrival. Interlopers can, with a high DC perception check, understand this form of communication and can disable it by cutting these 'summoning threads'. Like the Constricting Webs Legendary Action, this Lair action is automatically used if the Web Master is aware of interlopers before the start of combat.
Comments