Five Deadly Low-Level Monsters in Dungeons and Dragons 5e
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ก.ค. 2024
- MONSTERS OF DRAKKENHEIM is 300+ pages of eldritch horror inspired monsters for 5e by the Dungeon Dudes! Coming to Kickstarter March 26th, 2024: www.kickstarter.com/projects/... These five monsters only have a challenge rating 2 or lower, but still pose a mortal challenge for player characters of any level! We'll discuss their abilities, lore, and tactics to find out what makes them such a dangerous threat.
2:08 Shadows
6:34 Swarms
11:30 Intellect Devourer
17:35 Gelatinous Cube
21:22 Kobolds
You can read the original full Tucker's Kobold's story here:
media.wizards.com/2014/downlo...
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You could easily call this video "Five Ways For a DM to Lose Friends".
Bingo!
"5 ways to deal with murder hobos"
"Five Ways to Make Someone Hate D&D"
Shadows kill spellcasters, Intellect Devourers kill melee classes, Gelatinous Cubes kill scouts and sneaks.
For everything else, there's Master Card.
I've been playing a wizard, so I've been pretending my character was scared of Intellect Devourers. But nope... It's actually me that is.
Took me a while to get the joke
Hey who turned off the lights?
For everything else... Just drop a mountain on it
The irony is that wizards are the least threatened by Intellect Devourers because they have a high Intelligence and proficiency on INT saving throws
1 goblin isn't a threat. 47 goblins, however....
Still not a threat to Goblinslayer.
@@HiopX GAWWWBLINS!
Fireball
Lvl 3 we killed 44 Orcs 6 bugbear 1 war chieftain 1 hill giant 1orge
Kayl Archibald hate to break it to you. Your dm did 1. Not play the monsters right 2. Probably fudge a bunch for of rolls
There's a great blog series called "The Monsters Know" which details how to use different monster types effectively. It seems to take inspiration from "Tucker's Kobolds", turns it up to 11 and runs with it.
"The Monsters Know What They're Doing"?
There is a book of it now
I got the “monsters know what their doing” book.
I have killed more PCs with rats than with dragons
And that might be one of the most useful things to remember as a DM
A bunch of rats magically fused into the shape of a dragon
never forget the friendly rust monster.
"This strange looking creature approaches like a big happy St Bernard, Wanting to rub against you and gently hug you with its tentacles."
(Jester from Critical role loves the cute things)
"4 more little ones show up also acting like friendly puppies..."
(Jester wants to adopt the little ones)
Next thing you know... the Ford's armor is rusting and falling off and everyone's metal items are falling apart (including all magic items) Ford calls forth his falchion and the big one touches it... and the falchion dissolves to rust.
(Because even an artifact can be taken out by these creatures)
@@johnjustjohn5866 The Rat King from the show Hilda....
@@fhuber7507 No Rust Monster wants to hurt anyone, just give them your metals
"Your favorite low-level monsters" - Honestly, just regular animals. At low levels you can sort of inject a feeling of believability into your setting just by including real animals like wolves and boars and bears. Sure, Goblins are fun, but what about happening upon a small scouting pair of goblin corpses, only to find that a pack of wolves ambushed and killed them? Or when trapsing through the jungle and your party is on the look-out for Yaun-Ti and Lizardfolk, blindly walking into a Gorilla's nesting ground. Moments like these inject a healthy dose of verisimilitude into your setting, (unless you're going for a particularly alien setting on purpose) and makes your party realize the dangers and harshness of the wilderness in general than say happening upon a more fantastical creature like an Owlbear or a Griffon.
I hate wolves. For me, wolves are the least imaginative being in the Woods.
You could fight: deers, carnívoros plants, swarms of wasps, smurfs, a mud elemental, a giant hawk, sentient swamp gas, a duck with a sworded Bill fighting it's territory, the Chupacabra.
But no, here comes the pack of wolves
@@AndrusPr8 I'm using that sword duck
I like this idea, but I think the more fantastical creatures are more interesting than normal animals. Injecting normal animals every once in a while is fine, but if it’s done too often then it gets boring pretty fast.
For me, normal animals constantly attacking humans is unrealistic to the point where it breaks immersion. Animals rarely behave this way, with few exceptions (hungry polar bears, hippopotamus, etc.) If you want to have common wildlife be hostile to adventurers, you should provide a reason why. Perhaps there is a rabies epidemic, or, more fantastically, demonic possession of local wildlife?
Party hops a fence. Oh, look, a squad of viscious farm dogs (some can kill packs of wolves in groups), or stampede of cattle. Party goes through forest, attacked by startled moose who does 1d8 plus trample damage to wiz and flees into the underbrush. No fight, just a hit and run.
Something that wasn't mentioned about gelatinous cubes that wasn't mentioned that's really fun to bust out:
Have a digested adventurer inside the cube, your players will think they are running in to fight a skeleton, and they will end up running smack into a cube
That's a good trap. I'm gonna steal it.
when my characters attempted to look into a room they were about to enter they rolled perception (One fumbled he saw the empty blackness inside the room)the other player they saw a floating shield, bones and other bits and bobbles, not moving but sitting in the air, They had opened the door looked in and saw this right past the threshold of the door, the rouge who didn't think much of it (And even though HE knew something was up he didn't quite know what) so he walked right through and wound up inside it on round 1
I like putting gelatinous cubes in pit traps or dropping them on players from above
I like putting my cubes in narrow hallways and placing something tantalizing like a chest at the end of said hallway behind the cube. Or better yet have the cube sitting right on top of a magical chest or item lol. The favorite use of a cube I have ever employed though was when I had a magical sentient blade that was stuck inside the cube, and it had exerted its will over the cube and controlled it. That cube wasn't really an enemy though.
Jazz Jiggleballs
Have it sit on a mimic!
Always remember: Casting a "Protection from good and evil" spell on a person controlled by an intellect devourer will make the creature burst out of its skull. This is a great way to introduce the creature to a new party especially in a mind controll plot:
My players came into a town which was cut of by heavy snow storms from the rest of the world for longer than usual and discovered that several things seemed odd with the population. Some people there characters personally knew acted strange, others died in that winter. After they consulted a lich about the strange behaviour (Yeah sorry thats my go to support "villain". Ancient liches that just because goofballs after they achieved everything they wanted and got bored for centurys) he recommended to cast this spell onto the person. The characters thought they would be curing the father of the rouge and instead were just like "WHAT THE..." when suddenly his head exploded and this creature popped out.
I could see the lich watching their reaction with a spell
Did you just explain the plot of the “the thing” but just with dnd terms
I'm loving the idea of lichs becoming deranged clowns because they get So Bored and want some excitement.
PC: makes kobold mad.
Kobold: Throws angry skunk at his face, then kick him in gelatinous cube pit.
*Dungeon walls:* start speaking kobold
*Adventurers:* panic
almost as bad as when the trees start speaking Vietnamese
@@luzfire7523 Or when the snow starts speaking finnish
(screams in flashbacks)
Cue music: How could this happen to meee!
TUCKERS KOBOLDS!
Y'know what I like about you guys? You have the answers in the description. You don't muck around and play coy with it, you just tell us. Thank you for that
Exactly. I can look and go: "wait why is this on the list"
Then go to the timestamps and listen to the reasoning.
One of my favorite monsters I've come across for 5th Edition has been the Fire Snake. It's a CR 1 elemental that works as a great wake-up call to players who are getting complacent or new players realizing that there's more than just "hit the thing till it dies" as a tactic. It has a multi-attack of a bite and tail whip that does 1d4+1 physical damage and 1d6 fire damage on a hit. And when it gets hit in melee, the sheer heat of its body is enough to hurt the player for 1d6 fire damage.
If you have some smug level 1-2 Min-Maxing fighters or barbarians who thought they made impenetrable characters, throw a couple of these at them and watch the horror in their faces as they find themselves scrambling for ranged weapons and the mage cursing himself for only taking Fire Bolt and Burning Hands for damage dealing spells.
@Jake Bear Heh, thanks. Granted, I wrote that when I was in a bit of a bad mood with my table last year. But I do think the Fire Snake is a great monster to shake up how combat is handled and gives players with range specialties (archers, spellcasters and the like) a chance to shine.
Wouldn't use it to counter the spell caster. That is a dm vs player mindset. However, against the fighters and other brawlers, these creatures aren't necessarily a counter. They merely test exactly what the melee characters are good at. If you hit it enough it will die, but you will take damage as well. Agaisnt the spell caster, if you weren't already planning on using the fire snake, then that is toxic mindset. Honestly, do not do this. Settings are much better with plausible encounters and versatility in your monsters.
Be wary of the elderly in a profession that has a high mortality rate.
Hey guys, long time fan. I just wanted to point out you actually got the intellect devourer's ability wrong. Their Devour Intellect ability doesn't just stun the target if the 3d6 beats the target's intelligence, it reduces it to zero, meaning the target is stunned until it can regain intelligence. There is only one way by RAW that the ability score can be restored, which is greater restoration, a 5th level spell.
That also means their intelligence contest for their Body Thief ability AUTOMATICALLY wins.
Which actually means if you get hit with Devour Intellect, and the 3d6 beats your intelligence, your allies have a single round to kill the devourer or you die. If there are multiple devourers, the target could be dead before any of their allies get a turn.
They are the single deadliest creature in the monster manual, by far. The DM doesn't even need a "rocks fall" situation. Four or five intellect devourers in an ambush will kill a party very easily.
Yikes. I remember reading their stat block, looking at their cr, and being like "this can't be right"
Wtf. Both the shadow and the intellect devourer are way way unbalanced.
Plus you aren't even regular dead you are *very* dead. Raise Dead or Revivify won't work, you need at least Resurrection.
I came here to point this out too, but I will note that there is an alternative, optional method of restoring an ability score. Xanathar's outlines in the "Downtime Revisited" an option for "Relaxation" which, among other possibilities can restore a missing ability score, but it does take a week.
@@whateverhappens4917 Not like the 0 intelligence-having PCs have too many plans at this point, why not plop down on the couch and relax a while?
The problem with using Rot Grubs to attack a high-level party:
"I cast fireball on myself"
If I'm going down I'm taking the shrubs with me!
Yeah, but... you're not going down to a mere fireball.
At high level you can kill swarms with regular weapon attacks pretty quickly and if ur a tank ur ac will be so high they won’t be able to touch you
Unless they roll a nat 20, which is always a possibility.
If the character even knows that fire is a solution. What if the character doesn't know.
Shut up, stop it! My DM watches your channel, you're gonna get my character killed!
actually, let them keep going
if you know where your DM takes ideas from, you can prepare accordingly
@@Konpekikaminari Yes just have high int high str, carry a flamethrower and hold it out in front of you to test for cubes.
@@lystic9392 few are the problems a flamethrower can't solve
@@Konpekikaminari encouraging metagaming. For shame
Fire elemental says hello
I recently ran a 1-shot where the party had to deal with a mage who'd been taken over by an intellect devourer. The foreshadowing was there well in advance, but when they killed him and the beast popped out of his head, they panicked, as they knew what was going to happen. In one turn, it downed one of the party members and went to devour the brain of their low INT barbarian. Thankfully, he rolled a Nat20 on the save, which let them finish it off in a couple turns. That said, if that barbarian had failed that save, there was most certainly going to be at least one PC death that night. Was a tense couple of rounds.
I TRULY hate Intellect Devours. It was my first death since coming back to 5e.
I've died at least once in every edition I've played in to them. My druid in 2nd ed disabled and murdered his whole party from falling to just 1.
Sounds very fun my dude
Had this happen recently.
Players were tracking a dude who was running away from them, who they didn't know was Intellect Devoured.
They discovered a small tower where they thought he had decided to stay, so they wander in.
They find 2 people, a Kenku & a human monk. While two party members talk to the people there, other two investigate the tower & find the dead body of the guy they'd been tracking. Whilst doing this, they discover his head is empty.
A moment later, the two people attack them, and just before they kill the monk, the ID leaves the body. Party SHAT themself, but they were surprisingly fine; Bard passed on two saves against 'Devour Intellect' whilst they dealt with the Kenku.
Saves don'T have natural 20.
The fact that such low CR monsters can still be a legitimate threat to higher level PCs in the right circumstances is one of the things I love about 5E. In some of the previous editions, some of my favorite monsters just became completely superfluous without monkeying with their stats a lot.
EDIT: Also I am legit super happy that kobolds came out as the deadliest low CR monsters. Not enough DMs play them the way they would actually behave when you look at their stats and the kobolds' awareness of their own capabilities compared to adventurers.
My party's rogue hired a kobold as his servant,
I KNOW!!! I love kobolds, and honestly get frustrated when people (and certain modules) describe them as dumb weaklings so much. I love to use them to set some of the deadliest traps I can create.
I was watching this and toward the end thinking "damn, they better not forget kobolds". Suddenly their first place creature is the kobold. Fist pumps!!
Praise the egg!
*pokes you* Spoiler alert.... lol
Slew trolls, giants, and demons with little drama.
Goblins, Kobolds, and rats still terrify me.
Something far too many DM's fail to remember is monster intelligence. I've nearly TPK'd several high level parties with Kobolds and Goblins. Have them react to parties like parties do to them.(started before these two got there)
Played by their intelligence, dragons and vampires should be nearly impossible for even very high level parties.
Dragons and Vampires are incapable of being smarter than the DM and have known exploitable weaknesses for an intelligent party to target. I agree with the primary sentiment of your comment, but disagree with that closing remark.
TheAchilles26 They are smart enough to know what their own weaknesses are and strategise around them. The DM knows they will be running these monsters and they have the whole internet to search for intelligence-appropriate strategies.
@@dascientist8443 Humans are smart enough to know what their own weaknesses are and strategize around them as well...this does not make them undefeatable.
@@robertburns4429 corect but we arnt imortal so we cant plan for hundreds of years
@@dollarestoreoffbrand5545 It is less the fact that they are immortal and more the fact that the human's are trying to punch typically very far up when it comes to Dragons and Vampires.
Until you are very late game with endgame equipment a Vampire or (Big) Dragon is stronger than almost any individual PC in a straight fight.
This is why I agree with OP's sentiment about them being nearly impossible since a lot of how players beat enemies as by using mechanics or strategies to make up for a lack of overall power. But when fighting intelligent enemies that aren't going to blindly attack your frontline while they dodge action every turn and your backline whittles it down it becomes a whooole lot harder and reqipres a lot more tactical accumen.
And that is all assuming that the dragon/Vampire is caught by surprise. If they have time to notice/plan/avoid the party they might just do that, or just ambush the party themselves, slap/kill a player and disengage before they can do as much in return. There is a lot of factors to combat.
Enjoyed the details and tactics.
1. Shadow
2. Swarm
3. Intellect Devourer
4. Gelatinous Cube
5. Kobolds
Goblin Slayer knows fully well how dangerous low level monsters are.
Goblin Slayer is basically Tucker's Kobolds - The Anime
GOBLINS
@@Archimonde259 except rated r
Gang bang dangerous
No one warned me of Goblin Slayers FIRST EPISODE!
Suddenly I feel a lot better about giving all of my characters unnecessarily high intelligence. . .
It is not very rewarding indeed, but you know, that history check might make your entire game more interesting ! :D
I like high intelligence characters, but I also like Monks and unless you roll godly you wont get both
@@trequor Yeah I rolled a 17, 20, 18, 6, 16, 20 wizard. I laughed.
@@tkgwildfire5339 wait how does one roll a 20 for stats??????
@@duraemakye1384 Used a d20 instead of 4 d6s. I re-rolled stats afterwards with DM.
*when you have a 19 in Str and a 17 in Int* I'm a glass cannon susceptible to everything *except* these monsters!
@Lezerni Wolf eldersnight?
I made a character and made their strength stay as low as possible......
Finding gauntlets of ogre power and a headband of intellect vs these guys;
Know what my dirty DM secret use of swarm is? Big baddies and lieutenants with plague and terror themes call upon swarms who mount on the them and serve as armor, terrible, disgusting and terrifying armor, which attack, and only after the death of the swarm, the baddie begin to take hits on their Health Points. Nasty.
Stolen
Your tactic reminds me of Ram from Gears of War with his shadow swarm thingys.
@@MarkATorres1989 I literally clicked the "View more replies" button hoping that someone would mention that fight. One of the most epic fights in videogame history right there.
I believe they were called krill.
Shamelessly stolen
I'm just imagining a mountain with a dragon's lair, and then camps of kobolds throughout the whole mountain.
I jsut ran Rise of the Redscales for my players the past 2 weeks www.dmsguild.com/product/266042/Rise-of-the-Redscales. Though they didn't even make it to the big pile they did manage to kill their rivals Frank, Paul and Martha Stewart. Iit was a blast! If you're looking for a kobold-focused adventure it's a great choice.
Sounds like the Dragon Mountain boxed set from '93.
Exactly what our GM did few days ago. My warrior almost lost an arm there 😶
You're doing a great service, sharing the ancient knowledge of Tucker's Kobolds with the newest generations of DMs. Keep it up!
And GREAT advice at the end, about not busting out some of these asymmetrical threats against brand new players. Many of them take a good deal of system mastery to understand how to effectively fight them, and new players are likely to feel confused and frustrated instead of feeling like it's an exciting challenge. As always, every DM should know their group, and design their game to give them the kind of fun that they're after. But these monsters are GREAT tools for throwing some curveball creative challenges at experienced players.
thats good advice, i start my own newbie group at the moment and i plan on give them something to think about. i like the idee of traping kobolds, but i would not let them surpise my new player, i would do it like before the enter the dungeon the wittnes how one kobold is setting up a trap like a bear trap and if the look at them the see that is more than a simple trap, like beartrap with a little bomb below that blows up after few moments of beeing trapet. Like: i show you in a smal encounter what will happen and then escalate it in the real fight.
@@Barlmoro Yes! It's a very good idea to have a "training" situation to introduce a new type of challenge (like tricky kobolds) to your players. Not only does it help them feel better prepared for the mechanics of the challenge, it also can help them get into the story themes that the challenge conveys. Similarly you might have a dragon fly over the party to let them know they should worry about fighting a dragon later, or have a complex Dwarven door to prepare them for a bunch of high-tech Dwarven traps later on, etc. It sets the scene, both for gameplay and story.
Funny thing is, I have been playing D&D for the last 3 or so decades but had missed that Dragon Mag and the entire story of Tucker's Kobolds. I have been playing ALL humanoids based on their Intelligence stat from AD&D onwards, so hearing that someone else did the same and became famous in the community for it is amusing. 1st time I heard about Tucker's Kobolds my first questions were "Haven't all DMs been doing this? Isn't it just the standard way to play average+ Int monsters?"
Oh god, a pit trap with a gelatinous cube in it?!
That's terrifying
21:43 Oh god **flashbacks to total party kill at the second encounter of our first session when the DM rolled 3 nat 20s in a roll, causing 4-5 kobolds to absolutely demolish us**
Oh dear.....
🤨
We took this to another level on our one-shot night. 5:1 kobold vs premade basic adventurers in a defend the abandoned tower game. The kobolds were given a number of traps, and a few secret doors to build thier defenses before the adventures arrived.
Nobody has taken kobolds for granted since.
Great discussion, showing how creatures can be used entertainingly as well as realistically. Good points on how to implement such encounters in a balanced way, too.
Appreciate the tribute to Tucker's Kobolds, too. I was inspired by that article to have a lone PC encounter goblins that dropped narcotic seedpods into his campfire from overhanging trees: his dismay and rage at waking up hogtied, surrounded by goblins happily looting his gear was truly beautiful. He escaped (of course) and eventually got his revenge, but was much more wary about adventuring on his own afterwards...
As a Kobold fan and user of the Kobold monstrous adventurer, I approve of this video.
Kelly makes a blind turn into a narrow, squeaky-clean dungeon corridor:
"Chewy, no, wait, DON'T!!!"
I remember reading a dnd story where a group invited a vietnam vetran into a game of dnd and they had a "tuckers kobolds" scenario planned. It was a *very* intense gaming session.
I'm currently playing a barbarian and have 78 HP and one kobolt inventor dowend me in a single round.
How
OMG 😂😂😂
@@trarzene well naturally it crit on it's role. So every single scropian in the basket landed on me. I then rolled really badly on my con save and that was it poison just melted my health and the gm rolled really well on damage.
curtis cokayne That takes a statistical minimum of 10 d8 and an average of 19 d8 wtf?
Scorpions fall, everyone dies.
When you started talking about rot grubs, it reminded me of my group's first encounter with them. Our fighter had opened a standing casket filled with them, and they collapsed on him and started to begin their burrowing. Just five minutes before, I had given him a potion of fire breath that I had. Now, none of us were familiar with this enemy, so it was by pure luck that he decided that he would chug that potion and breathe fire on the entire swarm, setting them and himself on fire. It killed the entire swarm all at once, and our DM told us following this encounter that him choosing to set himself on fire to kill the grubs was the one thing our party could have done in that circumstance to prevent him from certain death. He was initially suspected of meta-gaming (which our group heavily frowns upon), but he was just as shocked by the information as the rest of us. He just wanted to kill a lot of enemies at the same time (fighter, remember? And a bugbear on top of that), and figured a free fire breath was the best option. One of our players who wasn't present for that game was told about the encounter, and he would have been the only person other than the DM who knew the severity of this swarm.
After we finished that particular dungeon (which our DM warned us at the start was specifically designed to kill the party), he congratulated us on how incredibly smart/lucky we were to only have one player die. It didn't even end up being permanent, because our party hired a high level cleric to cast resurrection on my bard's corpse, and he was reborn as an Aasimar. Our DM gave out a huge laugh before revealing what he was reborn as, because that's a hell of an upgrade for a narcissistic wordsmith.
I was going to put a beholder zombie in my dungeon for Saturday... not anymore ;)
Infest him full of rotgrubs
I would rule that a paladin would lose all divine abilities if he was taken over by an intellect devourer.💀
Yah same for cleric. Warlock maybe maybe not depending on the pact the old one might get a kick out og it.
I agree.
I agree with that, as well. Even if there was memory stealing, how would the intellect devourer commune with the paladin's or cleric's chosen diety? These classes can't be treated as mages since they gain power from favor of their god. I would say all power stops at that point, as well.
Clerics that would make sense. However according to RAW, Paladins do not get their powers from a deity, but rather the strength of their oath. 😮
I threw a few shadows at my party in an outsider/Un-dead themed dungeon once, one player had a magic dagger that allowed them to raise up a creature they killed for the next few hours, and I had a Shadow demon encounter planned after that fight. For those who don't know it from memory, shadow demons have a 1 for their STR scores, so this shadow the party re-animated was able to One shot the boss monsters, and frankly I never saw that coming
Thank you for introducing me to Tucker's Kobolds
....is there a swarm that's immune to the gelatinous cubes damage after being swallowed? That would be a crazy symbiotic relationship between the two...
crawling claws maybe
Anything immune to acid damage
Shove a clay Golem inside there.
@@dgtlrn No, a SWARM of clay golems.
You can always alter something to work. Take a beetle or snake swarm and make them mechanical or golem like in nature that is immune to the cube.
The cube could be altered to suit certain types of beasts for the same synergy. In an underdark or subterranean adventure perhaps its in a volcanic area and surves a simular function but with fire or lava instead. Striking out with gouts of flame or streams of molten rock that pool back into its form. Its surface black and crusty and seeming wall like while its idle but its surface becomes cracked and molten when it surges forth. More pouring itself forward than sliding along.
Or one that freezes and lives in the halls of an icy ruin. Hidding like a glossy frosted surface until it fractures and strikes forth with shards of deadly ice. Wrapping around its victims in flowing arctic water and a latice of freezing crystals. Leaving statues in its wake and eventually shattering its victims or leaving them to be devoured by other things as you see fit.
I remember Tucker’s Kobolds! Thank you for bringing up that classic story. 😃
I still have my Dragon magazine issue 127, and I'm going to sit and read the editorial all about Tucker's Kobolds right now.
The deadliest monster for a low-level party is a Tarrasque.
Me the lvl 2 tabaxi monk running away at mach 3.
Nah do time dragon
Technically can be deadliest for every level party's
Vampire hydra
Nah. Its the commoner. Why? They can destroy a parties reputation and lead a mob to kill the party.
Regarding the gelatinous cubes, I had a GM pull out a Black Dragon who lined their lair with the damn things. It's too big to use their engulf on, and it's immune to acid anyway.
In 3.5 I remember legion devils being the "Kills things WAY above their CR" hammer with which to slap down munchkins. Their pile of infinitely stacking bonuses based on how many of them are in the area just scaled way too hard.
I just shared this with my dm, i feel our party just overpowers him a little too often with our tactics.....
YOU FOOL YOU FOOLISH FOOL, YOU'VE DOOMED YOURSELF.
Prepare to roll up a new character ...
Depending on your ability allocation and how much he sticks purely to by the book encounter design and lack of enemy intelligence. You just might be overwhelming his encounters. At least as low level.
You done messed up A-A-simar
He/she probably knows about stronger characters but like me is terrified of making the game impossible. I'm often slapping my forehead after I fight I thought was fairly balanced lasts about 3 turns with the party remaining at 80% HP.
My character died two weeks ago to two mimics. He's a level 11 Ranger with 100 maximum hitpoints, but we had just slogged through a deathtrap of an assassin's hideaway (which included a Gelatinous Cube falling from the ceiling on top of him), he got locked in the room alone with only about 30hp remaining, and he was down to one weapon after two of the ones he had were destroyed by black puddings, so he couldn't benefit from his Two Weapon Fighting fighting style and Dual Wielder feat. A few good attack and damage rolls later and the rest of the party shows up to open the door and dispatch them just a little too late for me to fail my last death save.
It was a great session, I'd do it all over again with all the mistakes because almost immediately beforehand he found a treasure cache with a diamond in it that allowed the bard to cast Raise Dead on him. Even without that, seeing the characters different reactions for that watching your own funeral feeling was priceless. AND I finally get to put a years-old joke to rest that my character would be the first in the party to die.
Lag Incarnate a mimic nearly ate my monk two weeks ago. 😂
😶🙃🥳
All hail Mr. Tucker and his Kobolds!! As a long time D&D player, you two get an instant like and sub for bringing up not only Tucker's Kobolds, but the genuine uses for the other four creatures were spot on as well. Very sneaky, and much applause as a player and DM.
The quality of the content continues to improve. Keep up the good prep work and solid editing. It makes them so much more compelling than videos of people rambling unprepared.
SPURT! "I WIN!"
- How long you lived down here?
+ ELEVEN DAYS.
- How long do Kobolds live?
+ ELEVEN DAYS.
And eleven days it was.
@@asdasdasdasd714 lol a natural 20 with a scorpion on a stick for 7 damage had me dying.
@bryan diaz varela do you even dnd bro?
@bryan diaz varela critical role
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The ghostly three facing the gelatinous cube in the sewer of Drakkenheim 😉
It was hilarious watching that. Kelly realizing what was happening just before Sebastion face plants into it as its revealed.
I love the dungeon materials you guys are using. They work really well with the minis.
Dopplegangers. Just. Dopplegangers. It only takes 2 to mess up an upstart 5 person party of 4th level characters.
Funny you mention kobolds. I've got a party that just lost their fighter to a flame trap surrounded by kobolds. The idea was that it was a false encampment; they'd been slaying kobolds for the past five or so sessions for a Dwarven noble. Lo and behold, a Dwarven friend they knew fell from a tree, hanging dead and mangled. They immediately rushed out to find the kobolds and followed tracks the kobolds had laid, leading into a thicket. As soon as the fighter saw huts in the thicket and a pile of dwarves, he rushed in, tripling a rope that lit the thicket on fire. He had already noticed the wet matting of the forest but continued, not realizing it was oil. The thicket surrounding the hits (maybe a fifteen foot space) lit aflame. He was trapped, surrounded, targeted through the brush. The kobolds couldn't see what triggered the trap, but didn't need to. Their projectiled, covered in a deadly poison, stunned and held the fighter in place while the oxygen around him grew thin. His compatriots rushed to his aid. After being poisoned, burned, and eventually suffocated, the kobolds retreated only after the corpse of the fighter that had destroyed a kobold nest single-handedly lie bloody, torn, and defeated. All in all, the party thought it a valuable lesson and thoroughly enjoyed it. They knew there were kobolds. They knew they were prone to trappings and trickery. They realized they could have been more careful and they shouldn't be as overconfident. The next session is tomorrow; with a new character they plot vengeance for their fallen friend.
The only deaths ever occurring in my PCs party was when i sent some kobolds after them. Once, a kobold inventor threw a rot grub swarm at them while, in the back, another kobold summoned a shadow.
This video gave me so much inspiration for my next arc of our campaign. Thanks!
Great video, guys!
The bounded accuracy of 5e is great in that it allows dungeon masters to have the entirety of the Monster Manual at their disposal, regardless of the level of their players. They may have to use more monsters with mixed unit tactics, but a party of level 15-20 can just as easily encounter a threatening host of skeletons and goblins as well as a dragon. This can keep things fresh and varied, rather than just limiting parties to the same handful of high level endgame monsters over and over again.
Gelatinous cubes and intellect devourers? Looks like my eldritch knight is frontlining those fights.
Intelect devourer is still one of my favourite low cr monsters.
Used it against a wizard, on a short solo section of the campaign, and even though he survived being hunted down, he was scarred by the experience ^_^
my personal favorite encounter for early encounters (haven't tried higher levels, but I'd imagine it scales up) is an animated armor on a warhorse. everyone focuses on the armor, then get pretty beat up when they get trampled by the horse. being knocked prone can be pretty rough with multiple enemies. plus, it feels more fair than dying instantly.
I have used Mongrelfolk in our recent campaign and it was such a nice breath of fresh air when it comes to encounters and player experience.
Honestly, I'd probably run intellect devourers differently. The "teleport inside your brain to kill you and take over your body" is insane. Maybe make them sit on top of your head and control you. That way you can kill the devourer and get back your character. Makes the combat itself just as challenging, while being way more forgiving in the long run.
Ghost was my party's first monster encounter. It was kinda scary for 4 level 1 characters!
Balcamion I DM a party of 8. Because the Action Economy vastly favors them, I tend to throw higher CR monsters at them and they tend to enjoy these encounters. The first time I did this was when they, at second level, fought a Drow Elite Warrior, CR 5, and a modified version of Asha (a priest npc with the drow race features), CR 3. They barely came out of it and it took everything they had to beat them, and they said they really enjoyed this as a first boss fight
@@jammo7370 yeah, the intensity and threat if character death of lower level play really does give a thrill unlike the super power feeling you get at later levels. We fought a Drow elite warrior, several giant spiders, and an ettercap in the cave once we defeated the ghost. I just started DMing for a party of 8 myself using the Spelljammer setting and 5e rules. It's been great so far!
yeah that band is great...
oh the creature, yeah they're great too :P
Specters are fun. Have a normal looking ghost wandering a room. Muttering to themselves, or wailing and crying. When the specter eventually notices the players, have it's normal features melt away and reveal your version of what's in the monster manual. Screaming, pointing, dimming the lights around it. Give the players a sense of dread and impending doom. I threw two at my last group, and they got freaked out both times. I absolutely loved it.
@@Balcamion79 with a group of 8 remember that it's easier to send more realistic hordes at them as well. A hall of 8 or 10 living armor and living weapons can be a very challenging encounter and may be wary of future "display" setups in relatively safe places like nobles homes and castles. At a bit later levels golems that resemble statues decorating a ruin or the like thoroughly can do the same.
Living armor is cr1 and a.c. 18. So even starting op or large parties may find the handful of them fairly tricky to deal with.
love how you mention the gelatinous cubes i used those once and paired them with some rogue dwarf colony in one of my games where the dwarves used the cubes to help in crafting so i kept describing everything as acid etched
“They can be messy if they get all up in your space...” That is both hilarious and frightening at the same time.
I knew Tucker's Kobolds were coming :P Good Show!
Love the cinematography on this one!
Definitely one of my favorite videos by you guys. Top notch job!
One of my first characters I played was a high elf arcane trickster who almost died at level 3 from rot grubs. He survived because he used sleep centered on self. As a high elf he was immune to effects that put him to sleep so while the grubs were asleep he got another player to perform surgery on him to get them out.
Pixies are dangerous too for their CR. A group of creature with such powerfull spells is relly hard to fight
T-Rexes are over rated considering the full suite of their abilities and the ability to combine with things like living armor.
@@Quandry1 I talk about pixies, not t-rex. With a huge number of pixies due to their CR, you will not face one t-rex, and they are also able to change your caracter into rats with the same spell, or cast entangle, confusion or dispel magic... all this with a CR of 1/4
@@cyrilmartin5613 I'm more than aware what cheese you mean. I'm saying it's not necessary. It's also potentially highly impractical. You do not fight pixies in a void. You can meet them in plenty of places where most dinosaur shapes and such are impractical.
Pixies don't fight though, per their MM description.
*Tiny Tricksters* While the arrival of visitors piques their curiosity, pixies are too shy to reveal themselves at first. They study the visitors from afar to gauge their temperament or play harmless tricks on them to measure their reactions... If the visitors respond with hostility, the pixies give them a wide berth.
*Opposed to Violence.* Unlike their fey cousins, the sprites, pixies abhor weapons and would sooner flee than get into a physical altercation with any enemy.
@Minnek They can't. Polymorph is limited to beast of the same or lower CR rating so Pixies can't transform themselves to T-rexes. The cheese is if the PCs summon the pixies and have the pixes turn the PCs into T-rexes.
2 creatures I find scary for their relatively low CR are:
1) the banshee, CR 4 and has a built in save-or-suck attack with her wail
2) also CR 4, the Helmed Horror- immune to conditions, resistant to magic (with immunity to 3 DM chosen spells) resistant to nonmagical, non-adamantite weapon, the _only_ resistance to the beloved force damage in the MM (which is a full blown immunity BTW); oh, and an intelligence score of 10, higher than the average lv 4 fighter. these things are the terror of every spellcaster
The banshee never stops being brutal.
@@paranoidrodent no, the bloody thing most certainly does not
Pretty sure it was designed to be a clear message from the DM
Thank you guys I've taken away a couple great ideas to use against in my campaign.
I'm so happy you mentioned foreshadowing and warned DMs against using these creatures against new players. They are, however, fantastic encounters for experienced players at lower levels. Straightforward encounters balanced as per the guidelines in the DMG can be pretty boring for experienced players but show them a completely clean hallway, corpses with their brains sucked out shadows doing funny things immediately ramps up the excitement precisely because the players know what danger they are in. As a players being able to leverage your experience is a satisfying feeling.
velociraptors are usually a quite deadly encounter.
Not because a velociraptor is anything scary on its own, but they often come in packs.
Just ordered my skullsplitter dice. Thanks for the code and love the videos and twitch streams
One time my character died to a kobold. One. Single. Kobold.
and that kobold was promoted to dragonshield
I had a villain organization in one of my games have their army based on the idea of shadows and shadow-like apparitions. It made for some interesting battles when they'd get ambushed or run into a trap: they'd find themselves surrounded by shadows, which proved a tense but fun challenge.
I've been watching a ton of your videos lately as I have (after almost 15 years) gotten back into DMing! My whole party is new to the game and the last version I dm-ed was 2.5/3. Thank you for giving me some many ideas to use! Plus my players love the class guides I've sent them of yours!
What I'm getting from this is always have a paladin or cleric D:
Never put your treasure in one place, actually.
There's always room for 10 x 10 jello!
One of the quest rewards I gave a party in an old hexcrawl was team of kobold sappers for use in defeating a Death Knight's castle defenses.
If you haven't already, you can read the original full Tucker's Kobold's story here:
media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/TuckersKobolds.pdf
Last session it was vegepigmys and we had little to nothing that we could start on fire....one torch between 6 pcs so it was dropping them to 0 and getting the one player to burn the bodies before they regenerate.
Six PCs and nobody had _Fire Bolt?_ Interesting cantrip choices going on then...
Sounds like the perfect counter for rot grubs is the flames of phelagos feat.
Need to burn them off? I'm on fire!
A gelatenous cube in a hallway was one of the most dangerous and memorable moments for my party which was level 4 at the time and somehow getting them at the right angle.
I was never able to re-create this threaat level with it since but that time was sure great!
My favourite cube story involved the party triggering a trap that caused a trapdoor in the roof to loudly open in front of the party and drop a cube. The party then proceeded to run straight into the cube that was silently dropped around the corner behind them. They were reasonably high level and so survived the fight, but it was fun to double cube them.
As a player, I really worry about all these "kills you outright" abilities given to all these low level monsters.
I imagine these are meant to be thrown at a party of high-level adventurers in massive numbers.
As a DM I dislike how Intellect devourer is written... In general I dislike anything with a SoD before res becomes available. I spend the majority of my DM prep time on weaving my PCs backstories into the main plot (my games are generally focused on PCs personal stories) so a death of a PC is huge loss of content for a single bad dice roll. Gelatinus cube is interesting but I have found most melee characters will just attack it from inside since restrained doesn't prevent attacks and disadvantage doesn't matter since it's AC 6.
George R.R. martin had a saying when he was asked why a characters death wasn't heroic and seemed needless. "Death is needless. Sometimes people just die and their story IS left unfulfilled. That's Life." (something to that effect anyways)
It's best summed up here: www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/17/george-rr-martin-game-of-thrones-characters-die-it-has-to-be-done-song-of-ice-and-fire
You must gather your party Before venturing forth
Nothing about what the OP said is inherently boring. They just weave the PC’s backgrounds into the main plot and focus on their characters.
The no-death thing you could make a case for being boring.
@You must gather your party Before venturing forth I didn't say no death. I said I don't like SoD. The loss of a character and the work put into them on a single bad dice roll is neither fun nor interesting. The general response I have gotten to a character death by SoD or even instant massive damage is an annoyed sigh and something along the lines of "well that happened. So what should I make next guys?". There is nothing interesting about walking into a room and the barbarian getting their brain telefragged because they had a bad roll at level 3. Now the party fighting tooth and nail to save the fighter who can't quite make it out of a room that's going to be overrun with demons over the course of 5 rounds only to be denied as they slam the door shut and bolt it to save everyone else... That is far and away more interesting. Or even to have to shut the door themselves as they realize saving that character is a lost cause...
Like I said SoD is the problem. I would just replace the SoD with something farm more interesting. For example the way I would run a Intellect devourer would be that if you failed it's save it then enters your mind and a mental battle insues as you drop into a coma Requiring the party to finish the fight then go out and find a way to enter your mind and have a big RP session of them trying to help you find your sense of self as the devourer slowlyt eats away your thoughts and memories.
@@SiberianPhoenix Death should be a spice. Before GRRM books were bland because you knew no one would die. But you can also over spice your food to the point it's hard to eat. I'll let my players die but I'm not going to add Fuck You mechanics
Combining threats is one of my favourites. Like zombies filled with rot grubs or an enemy with an intellect devourer already possessing that enemy so that whenever they have taken out the first enemy they now have a second one right on its heels
I really appreciate this video. I have been avoiding writing the next part of my campaign since my heroes have crushed everything I have set up. I have only run hard encounters according to websites as I know they aren't newbs despite being new to D&D. Going to add some of these to my labyrinth and have them hopefully stress a bit. Keep up the great work. Loving Drakkenheim.
Back a few D&D Editions I almost had a TPK when I threw a Nilbog at a 2 & 3rd level party... The party beat the crap out of that "goblin" and freaked out when it wouldn't die..
My favorite trap: 30' pitfall right into a Gelatinous Cube
.
Dude.
The gelatinous cube was one of my favorite favorite scenes in drakenhiem.
As a point of clarification, if the Intellect Devourer rolls above its victim's intelligence score, its intelligence is reduced to 0 and it is stunned until it regains its intelligence. This makes the Intellect Devourer stealing the body trivial, unless of course you're a really lucky vegetable.
Who's territory would you rather trespass upon:
A colony of kobolds
Kevin McAllister's home
MW Finks Ka'Vin McUllister, God of Kobolds
Both of those are a death sentence.
Kobold McAllister
Random thought for a possible rumor.
"What do you mean there's a dwarf named Kevin who is working with kobolds? That's the most absurd thing I've heard." Next thing, rumor proves to be true.
@@laughingfurry make it a gnome for a little more absurdity and a little more tinkering proclivity
Do the dark souls! Show the players the deadly enemy in an isolated situation which allows for experimentation, exploration, etc. Then, once they have an idea of how the monster works, throw a pack (only after they have had a chance to learn, and always leave an escape route if the players find they are unprepared)
Oh, man, I still remember reading about "Tucker's Kobolds when I got my latest issue of Dragon magazine back in the 80s, and have loved the idea ever since, both as a DM, and as a player! Many curses were heaped upon my name as a DM when I created my own personalized version of Tucker's evil tribe, and unleashed then on my players' adventuring crew! I'll never forget hearing my friend, who played a very nasty & deadly Wood Elf Rogue griping at me about how he'd "rather tonguewrestle a Mind Flayer than mess with my Goblin tribes ever again!" ;-P
Awesome video!! You just give me tons of ideas to put against my party! More like this please!
Broom of animated attack laid crit damage on my party's fighter in death house. The swarm of rats took down my party's ac 18 cleric.
ok, THIS is my last dnd video for the night.... wait what are the five cantrips I must have?....
This is a great video. I am definitely using many of these monsters in my encounters.
Just remember that combos of these monsters can drive adventuring parties crazy. Kobold layer with arrow slits and murder holes, that also use traps full of swarms and/or gelatinous cubes. A couple of kobolds full of rot grubs in a pit, ect...