will we get to see a follow up video? would also be a great place to share some of these creative harpy stories in the comments, there's some unexpected gems in here
You also forgot that the Luring song also says: "A target that successfully saves is immune to **this** harpy's song for the next 24 hours." So they can take turns singing.
@@nikolaiandersson6024 That's a feature I directly incorporated into the encounter when I ran it for my family recently. The harpies were layering song, so even though PCs and NPCs were making some saves, they still then had to save against the other Harpies. It really only served to get the party to the fight, but it did work, despite itself.
@polarknight5376 correct, while I don't agree with Runesmith's assessment of Harpies there are some problems with the statblock like the fact they wield a weapon that is weaker than their natural claw attack. It's a messy statblock that can be made dangerous with homebrewing, and they're more dangerous with grappling and shoving. I ran an encounter where harpies tried to drop players on to iron fences as a stage hazard
@@secretsatanist8492 their strength is low, so they´d suck at both grappling and shoving, and they can´t even carry most medium creatures into the sky and drop them becasue of the carry weight limit
A fun Thing I do with Harpies is that their Song is a magic formula that everyone interprets as their deepest desire. So the Harpy doesn't know what they just promised someone unless they are experienced enough. A Barbarian in my campaign once lost the saving throw and demanded to get garlic bread. The harpy was kinda surprised because she didn't know what the hell garlic was.
In the classification for type weaknesses, goblinoids don't count as humanoids. According to rules as written. It's dumb. Which is why most dms take said rules and throw them out the window, because they break immersion and fun.
@@obiesenpai3869 Indeed, Goblinoid only exists as there a few things that refer to them as a group as they often are found together in Goblin Camps, and follow the same Goblin Gods in FR
Goblinoids are a type of humanoid, also i think a key thing with this is the hapies are met on a fair match, harpies are ambush hunters, if they don't get the surprise they aren't going to do well opening. Also i think its important to have them use push attacks, yeah its not on the stat block per se, but pretty sure all npcs are able to do it by RAW
Harpies probably get the singing ability because Greek Mythological sirens are deacribed as hideous, bird-womsn hybrids, similar to harpies, but they'd already made dnd sirens into fish women
So a few things I noticed but dont know if intentional or general mistake. 1. Goblins are humanoid. So the song would affect them. 2. If you pass the save your only immune to that particular harpy, idk where or why your claiming your immune to ALL harpy songs
I had a DM kill a party of 7 with harpies. Session 1, half the party had never even played before, and everyone failed their saving throw because there were WAY too many harpies each singing. Had us all walk off a cliff that was close enough to not give any of us a chance to roll for another save after we were charmed. The new players didnt come back for any more games
One of my deadliest encounters ever used harpies. They lured players off the side of a mountain they were travelling through, straight into a pit filled with cockatrice. (Basically monstrous chickens with a peck attack that petrified people) If a player got petrified, 2-3 of the harpies would pick up the statue together, fly directly up as high as they could in one turn, and drop the statues from high up. Two players died. It wasn't as fun as I thought it'd be
A petrified creature weighs ten times its normal weight. If two harpies can lift that thing up then a single harpy could fly around with five people on its back lmao.
Because they weren't using that speed at that point. Otherwise, they would not have fallen to begin with. A creature that is flying only falls when it falls prone (unless it is also "hovering"). Having a flying speed does not make you immune to falling.
Falling in D&D is dumb as hell. I'd recommend checking out Zee Bashew's take on it, the video is called something like "my favourite house rule". Basically, it's "Wil-e Time": reaction to postpone falling until the end of your next (or current) turn whenever you would fall 10 ft or more.
@@stammesbruderstill seems wrong. It doesn’t have to take an action to switch from ground to air movement so it should be basically free to happen at any time. If she didn’t move that turn taking flight would be held movement, not a readied action or bonus action. From what I figure, that should be an automatic thing, not even a reaction.
@AnkhAnanku mechanically probably. Realistically not really, it's actually really hard for any creature with wings to just start gliding while falling(eagles being a pretty good example of a bird that evolved to do specifically that.) And even then their body's are usually in position to start gliding, and its more of a controlled dive than a fall. And they arnt tumbling midair either. Short version: is that things fall fast and wings don't help you if your back is facing the ground. and even if you manage to flip around before you hit the ground you still have momentum, and if you try to put your wings out they are more likely to be broken from the force of the air than slow you down. Imagine a parashoot except its made out of flesh and bone with joints and junk instead of cloth.
So, this video is just... wrong... but whatever. Harpies may not be smart but at an 8 INT they are as smart as a barbarian. They have human level intelligence, they just can't, you know, read... Acting as though they are mindless or lack tactics is silly, they can plan, they can predict, and they can execute murders. In the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book there is an encounter with harpies where a harpy matriarch pretends to be a hapless woman being attacked by harpies (her daughters) to lure unsuspecting good Samaritans to her aid only to betray them and get the drop on them. Harpies are ambush predators in essence, the song itself being the ambushing attack, and their tactics should reflect that. Being able to fly they should always be perched somewhere no one can reach them normally in melee. Atop a tree, a cliff, a roof... or merely flying above. You should never be able to just walk up and hit a harpie or you are running them wrong. So the fighter being able to just run up and push one into lave is dumb and a bad encounter design from the DM. The encounter should always initiate with them in stealth or out of sight/reach, or by the players making an effort to find them (if they know in advance they are around or are specifically hunting them). If the players aren't the wiser to the harpies, or if they fail to spot them in advance, the harpies should have the upper hand and get a surprise round effectively by beginning to sing. The song's effectiveness is what determines how they continue the attack, if everyone passes, they would simply fly away and seek weaker willed prey, unless they greatly outnumber and can reasonably kill someone by dropping rocks and or heavy things on people. They shouldn't go into melee unless they believe they have a genuine chance to kill with reasonable safety. If the party (or most of it) is charmed then that's when their tactics come in. All charmed are essentially taken out of the fight so they should either all focus fire on those not charmed, gang up and kill those who passed their checks. Or... focus on the people charmed and get a quick kill. A harpy or 2 can pick up a person, so if your bard is charmed, sorry but your going into the air and being dropped from a hundred feet. That is assuming there isn't already a cliff to be dropped off of. Harpies also can separate the party by making the individuals charmed follow them, so they should always fly in opposite directions and divide the party, thus making a coordinated defense more difficult. And if some harpies get killed the rest should flee. They will come back to eat the dead harpy corpse anyway so its a mean either way. Fighting to the death is never an option they should take.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, but I know there are also people who think this is bad game design because an enemy that is impossible to hit is unfair. They are also correct. I however like to think of encounters as puzzles and it'd be boring to me if the solution is "hit with sword until gone"
@ToonedMinecraft yea a lot of people kinda forget monsters are meant to be fun to engage with, and many solutions to the harpy statbl9ck without hb is run an annoying tedious encounter wich punishes melee characters for existing hooray. Glad the archer and caster gets every encounter to shine and the melee chs get dunked on. Like one suggestion is have the harpy be out of site and use the song for basicly a whole other encounter. Which ignores the problem by making her a spell or trap that is used during the encounter. The other is to have the birds fly away of enough people save and than run away which is barley an encounter worth repeating. Like make the heroes track the nest and corner them do somthing that players will enjoy. Vs what often happens is here is how you kill or annoy players.
Counterpoint: put a party of humanoids against harpies (or just a harpy) that start flying, ambush you as you walk past a cliff or something so you get as few chances to roll as possible, and as soon as everyone makes the save they just leave and come back 24+ hours later next time you're in the area. Harpies are balanced around being run like a slightly stupid Tucker's kobolds. They don't use traps or weapons, sure, but they can still be dangerous in an ambush and can no-sell a lot of stuff due to flight.
Yea the problem with this kind of encounter is it genuinely isn't fun. Like the buy in for players is the encounter is meant to be memorable. An encounter like you mentioned isn't anything it's boring and tedius. Hit and run tactics only works when the players buy in to actually track or trap the creatures if you make it as tedious as possible it will be tedious as heck which isnt fun.
@@christianlangdon3766 well, it could be fun if it was expanded into a slightly larger part of the adventure. What if the party was exploring an area with a lot of dangerous but non-lethal drops, with a harpy flitting around trying to lure them off cliffs and just being a general nuisance. Whenever they actually fall down, the harpy laughs and flies away, if they land any kind of attack on her, the harpy shrieks and flies away, every now and then she sets down at the top of a nearby cliff and taunts them. Then, some time later once the party has started to get properly annoyed by her, they can track down her nest in a little cave somewhere and set an ambush to put her down for good. It's be emotionally satisfying, since they're beating somone who's made their lives that much more difficult, plus it'd make navigation easier because they don't have to warry about falling off of cliffs all the time.
@@somebody975 I mean sure but my point is that sometimes I feel people make these encounters to prove you can run them effectively as monsters who can threaten the players. And so the harpy can do so but it basically it runs down into either annoyance. Or ultra tedium and they don't have that many Hit points to make not shooting them a really effective option. A single harpy can get pretty dead real quick via Eldritch blast or a single fighter or ranger speckes into archery. So it seems odd to try and go to bat for a monster that is designed with non of its core strengths that are fun to deal with. Because the worst encounters are ones where you roll it's terrible and now you have several crappy turns while the entire rest of the party gets to play the game etc. Harpies invite such frustrating things to happen. Than it actively sucks at doing anything else it's song is the only thing it does yet encounters built around it either suck because it's a single die roll or two that determine the whole pace and encounter feel from ultra difficult to I can't believe we rolled initiative. Baldurs gate fixed it by three effective and easy hb. Increase HP, make creatures not immune to the song, but also give the song a distance make it so it's easy to interrupt. Make it so the song doesn't just have people fling themselves of cliffs. Because only high level charm stuff does that. And give them a ranged attack. The song is so ass when used and it falls flat but also to strong should a player fall into it for a turn and just die or get so behind the team they might as well zone out. Many effects on 5e are bad about this but I feel the harpy song kinda is the earliest version of hope you roll well otherwise you ain't playing today. And when many people's version of running the encounter right is the equivalent of a neiner neiner monster, like your just using worse goblins or any fey trickster who can do so better And likely have an interesting story. Vs harpies who whole you can make them interesting is up to the DM vs say a quickling tying the shoelaces together of a low level party Can have near the same effect.
@@christianlangdon3766 Yeah I can agree with that. Harpies aren't naturally threatening as written, save or suck effects are generally terrible, and BG3 handled harpies much MUCH better. Sadly, as written they only really fit as either neiner neiner monsters or as basically airborne goblins where you ignore the song. Those are alright niches, and sometimes you just need a bird lady to fill them, but harpies honestly can't shine the way they ought to.
@@somebody975 yea, thanks for that. I have since left 5e for a long while now but harpy was one of those stat blocks I ran and was one of those moments which made me distrust every statblock. The encounter I made was awful for half the party and the other half felt like gods for swatting them out of the sky and it just wasn't that for me or them except for the 2 powergamers I had at the time. I can count on one hand the amount of statblocks I consider good for straight out of the box encounters.
My players recently fought a harpy. the immune fey in the group counter charmed the harpy and forced the harpy to kill all her allies. Poor harpy couldn't make the save to break free, it was quite humorous.
Reguarding the opening move, Harpies do have fly. I would have given that harpy, who knows the lava is there because this is their home, a DC10 dexterity save. Basically a 55/45 chance to see if the sudden sucker punch was enough to confuse and stun the harpy. If successful, harpy avoids the lava by flying and only takes punching bag damage. Otherwise, the harpy is ded.
I wouldn't have it fall unless its prone. You push a harpy using the modified attack rule and it just instinctively starts flying while off the edge. If you knock it prone, however, it plummets 500 ft instantly and takes damage if it hits the ground in that time.
@@recurvestickerdragon She broke free of the glue, but still; fly The harpy didn't even need to be in range of the glue or punch at all. The song works for 300 feet, and she can fly. So just stay in the air or sit on some unreachable perch. If the song fails or enemies get too close, fly away. Longbows only have a normal range of 150 feet, so at 300 they are firing with disadvantage. Most spells have a maximum range far below 300 (fireball is 150 feet max) so your wizard isn't going to touch them either. Even with their garbage stats, they have the potential to be some of the most annoying low level enemies in existence. Stay out of range, sing opportunistically. A flock of harpies could dog an adventuring party for days or weeks and they can't do ANYTHING about it.
Looking at it from a strictly Realistically standpoint(which i dont recomend for games) not really, it's actually really hard for any creature with wings to just start gliding while falling(eagles being a pretty good example of a bird that evolved to do specifically that.) And even then their body's are usually in position to start gliding, and its more of a controlled dive than a fall. And they arnt tumbling midair either. Short version: is that things fall fast and wings don't help you if your back is facing the ground. and even if you manage to flip around before you hit the ground you still have momentum, and if you try to put your wings out they are more likely to be broken from the force of the air than slow you down. Imagine a parashoot except its made out of flesh and bone with joints and tendons instead of cloth. Of course it depends on how far they are falling too, the longer the fall the more time they have to slow down and position themselves before they are forced to try and glide.
@@jacobrutzke691 Disagree. A harpy has her wings out while fighting, basically flying just above the ground. You push her 5 feet back and she's just flying 5 feet away. If you knock her prone, then what you wrote applies. Otherwise, she just flies.
5:27 Goblins are humanoids. Immunity only affects the harpy the character saved against. So there is reason for multiple of them to sing. They also fly so there is no reason for them to be where characters can rush them on foot. They suck here because you’re using them wrong.
Ok, so it sounds like you should design harpy encounters to make them evasive, as well as having cover, and maybe some other monsters they are working along side in a symbiotic relationship with, preferably not humanoids, as they are affected by the song. A harpy could sit out of range or view of arrows and still affect the party. This is constant pressure on the party, which they cant deal with until they find or have a way to attack the harpy. A single unseen harpy is a great way to add tension to a low level encounter. As per the description, harpies are afraid of dying, (like most animals), so they would retreat rather than dive into combat. To prevent a boring encounter, I would probably just have them flee when heavily injured rather than prolong them dancing away from ranged attacks.
In the old sword and sandal movies, harpies would always hover just out of reach. They’re supposed to be annoyingly evasive and an evasive annoyance. Everything about this encounter makes no sense. What I found baffling is that this is the guy that came up with great scenarios for other “weak” monsters like goblins and kobolds by understanding what weak creatures think and how they act. Here he just shows such disinterest and I think that’s what comes through most in this encounter rather than the weakness of the 5e Harpy
When we encountered a bunch of harpies in our Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign, my character was the only one who could not succeed a single save against their song and I kept waltzing right off our ship. Guess the tough as nails dragonborn paladin with a tragic backstory is just really into gross bird women
I gave them the ability to grapple charmed targets with their avian legs to carry them up and kill them by reintroducing them to the ground, treating this as a hunting instinct. Encounters against 3-4 get a lot more tense when they take turns singing to charm while the others go in for air drops.
That is a good strategy! The thing is that's not something you needed to "add". Any creature can just grapple, shove, help, hide, ECT. These are basic moves available to all creatures. Any creature with a fly speed can and should use the excellent "grapple and fly straight up" strategy
@@jacobrutzke691 Trueeeeeee, BUT harpies also have multi attack so they can try twice. Harpies are also basically always fought near an environmental hazard such as a cliff, so a character only has to fail one strength contest to be in serious trouble. Harpies have an 8 intelligence (same as a kobold) so I would argue they are just smart enough to understand that the squishy wizard is an ideal target for this. Picking off the weak from the herd is basically their entire hunting strategy. Especially seeing as that club attack only deals (1d4) damage, any harpy not singing might as well gamble trying to drag a PC into a pit of lava or whatever.
@thomasdancy2873 I was specifying in the tweak that they use their taloned feet to grapple (since grappling RAW requires "hands" unless explicitly written into an affect or ability iirc (see Grell or roper, which have to grapples as a rider to an attack))
@@ChibiHoboProductions interesting point actually. The rules do say "hands" specifically don't they. Tho I think it's pretty clear that that's a RAW vs RAI distinction that most DM's would understand. Like I get why that line in the rules exists, they don't want a sword and board PC fighter grappling people without a free hand to do so. But I think the designers wrote that line for Players and forgot to think about it for monsters too. There are dozens of monsters that don't have "hands" per say, but logically should have no trouble grappling targets. Giant Eagles, Giant Snakes, Sharks, Grasping Vines, ECT. I would even argue something like an Ooze would be able to grapple something with a pseudopod or whatever. And not to be a pedant, but harpies still do totally have arms and "hands". Their stat block lists them holding a club. So mechanically at least they're good to go, having them use their talons or not is really just the flavor of how you describe the attack to your players. (I hope I don't sound like a douche, I just think it's fun to think about rule nuances like this 😁)
Harpies canonically do not baith, I remember one piece of lore that says you're likely to smell them before you hear or see them. So add that to the list of reasons they're useless. And if you still say you'd do a harpi, I know you're type, go back to your hole.
Makes for a good vicious mockery for bard to bard combat. "Your song is pretty, but I could smell you before I could hear you. Are those feathers in your hat, or are you shedding?"
There's a side quest plot hook for you. There is this annoying and lame harpy that keeps stupidly singing outside a king and queen's barred windows and the kings is like "look, my dear Queen, I know you feels sorry for her and she saves me some coin in hiring a idiot bard or a jester, but she reeks and it wouldn't be so damn unbearably bad if she at least took a bath, let's hire some adventures to a capture her and toss her into a bathtub."
Putting harpies on a cliffside road that is 5 - 10 feet wide is pretty fun....cuz of the shove version of attack. I put my level 8 party there and almost wiped them out with them constantly falling down and using polymorph and misty step to not die horribly.
An important note you fucked up on: The immunity to harpy songs only apply to THAT specific Harpy, you are still vulnerable to the next Harpy that starts singing. Now onto my actual point. I changed one singular thing on the 5e Harpies statblock that increased their lethality several times over: I gave them a grappling profiency. So one harpy would sing their song and the rest would jump whichever Humanoid (so most adventurers aka the players) and do atheletics skill challenges against the hopefully not a martial until they are successfully grappled. And since you need an action to attempt to escape a grapple (which you cant do whilst incapacitated by the Harpys song), the harpy just flies up until it is above a pit and releases the grapple which is a free action and boom the PC is dead
Goblins are humanoids. 3 harpies sitting around aren’t much of a threat, but you can try the same encounter with 8 harpies on a cliffside ambushing a group of 4 lvl5 Adventurers. As soon as the harpies start singing, each character must make 8 Wis saves, you fail one -> charmed by this single harpy and ignore all other songs. You succeed om a save while charmed? Well the other harpies didn’t stop singing so you have to continue rolling Wis saves until you succeed against all 8 harpies. 8 harpies on a cliffside was the hardest encounter for my lvl 6 group of 5 players 🤷 You gave your harpies almost the worst conditions in this fight. No wonder they „suck“ then.
Everyone falling for Runesmith's siren song about the goblins not being humanoids, technically by replying I did too. Still, it's a billion times more ethical than anything Hasbro has done in the last decade. Oh there's the lav...
I had two harpies prepared for my players, a couple. One of them showed up first and my wizard decided it was a great idea to shoot his shot. I let him roll and he rolled an 19.... I sighed and declared a success. Then, suddenly, the harpie's husband showed up. He was furious with the party but my wizard was not gonna leave that place without some harpy booty. He decided to roll to seduce the male harpy too (with disadvantage since... Well.... The creature had just seen him try to cheat with his wife). 18 followed by a 17..... That night a lot of bird noises came out of his bedroom
Celaeno from the Last Unicorn is how I will always imagine Harpies- proud, and extremely violent, ready to murder anything in their path. Like you said, these are flying sirens.
Something I found stupid about Harpies is: 1. That their singing has saves for basically anything. (like you said in the video) 2. Its range. I want Harpies to sit atop high cliffs hundreds of feet away and lure traders and travelers to their doom. If I could change it, it would be that if multiple harpies sing, the DC is increased, it removes the immunity to passing the save, and increases the range. And only when within 60 or so do they take the most direct route to the harpy. I'd also arm them with crossbows. Also, passing the same only works on the harpy that you passed the save on, so they totally could take turns singing.
I have seen a redux of a harpy in a third party supplement fleet mortals. The DC is bumped to 12 and both the range and the DC increases with the more harpies that join it, and the charm condition still lets the target take actions that don’t harm the harpies.
Pro tip, I'm sure it's been mentioned elsewhere too, but passing a save makes you immune to THAT harpies song, not ALL harpies. So 1 harpy starts singing and all the party passes those saves? Fine, that harpy stops singing and the NEXT harpy starts singing, causing everyone to save AGAIN. So a fight with 4 harpies has the entire party making 4 rounds of saving throws. Someone is gonna fail something eventually. Suddenly the low DC and need to fail 2 saves in a row to take environmental damage makes sense. Combine that with the fact that the harpy call range is 300 ft, and the harpy can sit safely out of range of all attacks making the party roll a bucket of saving throws to avoid walking off a cliff, and they unleash a flury of claw attacks on whatever creature eventually fails.
Thanks for the video! I just wanted to point out that at 1:55, you use the phrase "let alone" wrong. When you use the phase "A, let alone B" you're implying that A is easier to do/a lower standard to reach than B, such that if A can't be reached, B is out of the question. So for instance, of a very poor restaurant, I might say: "I wouldn't trust them to make my dog's dinner, let alone my own". I have lower standards of quality for dogfood, so if the restaurant can't even make decent dog food, making human food is out of the question. In your statement "[Harpies are] incapable of defeating a party of heroes, let alone a weak motley crew of nobodies", you're implying that "a weak motley crew of nobodies" is harder to defeat than a "party of heroes". Which might be true of some tables, come to think of it.
One thing that could help: A section of their stat block that gives them either thrown stones, or a pike that they can use on the fly. They may not be geniuses, but even a dullard can come up with the tactic of 'stay out of reach, and maybe push someone off a cliff'. I just fault you for playing the monsters a little bit too dumb. Another common tactic, even for relatively dull creatures, is to have one in the open to bait someone vulnerable in while the others hide, and then attack. If the song incapacitates, then that makes it easy for the rest of the harpy team to drag them into danger,
Honestly, a blanket rule for "find a rock and throw it" would be nice for chars or enemies having no ranged attacks. (what do you know, that's something BG3 has. In practice "throw stone" is a dagger without finesse, so 1d4+str)
I feel like a cool rework would be giving a bunch of variants to the harpies. Start by buffing the base song to also affect beasts. Maybe bump their stats up a bit as well, 14 in str seems to make the most sense for the 'pick up and drop on spikes' tactic -- to further facilitate this you can give them a second claw attack(instead of a weapon attack) and let them grapple if they land both attacks. Also allow them to hover as a reaction and give them a more normal humanoid form like in baldurs gate 3(so they can use weapons). Then the variants: One that is good at singing, enough to bypass the '24 hour immunity to harpy song'. Possibly even has a few bard spells. One that knows a warsong that can buff harpies and charmed beasts. Again, bard spells, or perhaps cleric spells. Possibly even give them a shriek that does thunder damage in a cone. If you want really strong harpies: Make one into a bladesinger. They're perfect for it since they have an elvish lineage and they're all about singing.
One thing I LOVE about Harpies is that they have a really unique attack pattern. They try and hit you with a rubbish attack, but if they miss them they try and make a stronger attack. It's really weirdly dynamic at the table.
So since Goblins are Humanoid and the immunity to Harpy song only applies to that Harpy, a better title for this video might be: "Runesmith doesn't understand how Harpies work."
So 2 mistakes here, first, goblinoids are technically humanoid as far as spells and features go, so the harpy song would also affect them. Granted, they have some fey ancestry now but they're still classed as humanoid. The other part, although admittedly not one that would have changed the outcome of the scenario presented in the video, but still worth mentioning, is that passing the saving throw makes you immune to the song that SPECIFIC harpy, not EVERY harpy song, which is relevant when several harpies are in a single encounter, and why more than one harpy singing at a time could be relevant. Still, DC 11 isn't that high of a threshold.
I used three harpies on my family game group last time we played. Granted, they were four 3rd level PCs and a 3rd level Sidekick, so it would have been an easy encounter regardless. But I switched it up a bit by having the fight in a forest, where there was a lot more cover to hide behind and the players could do some climbing shenanigans. Our Fighter scaled a tree and started fighting while balanced on branches. It was pretty cool. The singing was really only useful for getting the party to the attempted ambush, even with three overlapping songs to take up where the previous left off. Even among PCs that have poor Wisdom saves, they had a greater than 50% chance to shrug off the effects on any of the chances they have to do so. The lack of any kind of ranged attack is also pretty disappointing, since the harpies then can't make good use of their flying ability. I considered giving the eldest harpy (the ones my group fought had a whole Maiden/Mother/Crone thing going on) some bardic spellcasting, just to buff the encounter's difficulty. But then I just kind of didn't, and the fight ended very quickly in the party's favor. (To be fair, I had the other harpies flee pretty quickly once one of them died, because I didn't want the fight to drag on beyond the point it would be fun). If I were buffing the harpy, I'd give them some kind of ranged attack, like a bow or a sonic scream. Maybe some spellcasting, like Charm Person. Oh, and give them the Flyby ability, so they can employ aerial hit-and-run tactics. All of this serving to allow the harpy to NOT have to dive directly into melee combat with a brick shithouse in full plate and a sword, with no ability to escape effectively or avoid it altogether. Harpies are supposed to be cowards, why are they charging their prey?
Ok I hear u, but when harpies showed up on the road and attacked our party of 10, yeah half of us succeeded and were fine, but there were like 2 or 3 of us that were just stuck out of combat for the entire like 6 turns... cause like, if they dont deal damage to you, they can target some of you while your party is entranced, and then you just don't get a move for multiple turns as your friends fight alone. Harpied alone suck, but if u put em with something big, it can just turn a 6 vs 4 into a 4 vs 4 for the harpies.
Sure they don't make good traditional dungeon monsters, but they suit the siren roles of luring prey into danger or softening up a ship's crew numbers just fine. It makes more sense to have them as opportunistic scavengers who just fly away whenever something doesn't work, and then have them roost on mountaintops. That way if the locals get fed up with these pests and hire the party, or if the harpies rob/kidnap from the party, the players have to endure multiple attacks and traps on their way to the nest. The payoff is finally cornering them for a fair fight, not the fight itself.
To be fair, this stat block also means their song can theoretically kill a very powerful giant if he has very unlucky rolls. Harpies are like the "dice luck check" of the roleplaying world.
Holy crap! You have a cat named Frito? I also have a cat named Frito. I think we need to be arch enemies to determine who has the greatest fuzzy Frito. I have an advantage. Mine has a big brother named Dorito.
I remember during a Saturday campaign I was in, we were trying to find the next vault for the main quest but ended up running into these bird F***ers, most of our party was charmed except for the fighter and druid, I was playing a paladin at the time and I eventually broke out of the charm effect, when it was my turn in initiative, I would cast "Beacon of Hope" that would grant my party having advantage on the wisdom saving throw, thanks to a magic item I was wearing it didn't require concentration. So almost everyone was able to break out of the charm effect and didn't stear towards our death, the reason why we got charmed was because the big mama harpie had a DC 18 with disadvantage, and then there was the constant songs of harpies coming in after every turn of the party, so it was a huge counter against their horde, it was a pretty awesome moment for my character.
Pretty sure Sirens were originally very similar to harpies (winged women), maybe that's why harpies have that singing ability? Maybe they merged those two mythological creatures?
Give your Harpy a shortbow and the sneak attack trait and suddenly she's a lot scarier, especially paired with a big melee monster she can fly above and draw party into range against.
Rune: Would you have fun with a harpy? Me: Yes Rune: What about all these (proceeds to show more and more monstrous versions of harpies) Me: ...did i stutter?
Sometimes I don't feel like watching your videos right when they come out, but I still want you to continue making cool videos and for the algorithm to like you. So often my first 'watch' of your videos is while I am doing something else. I will still watch I promise.
Harpies were originally beautiful sky nymphs born from some wind god and his goddess wife. Then they were put to work ferrying souls to the underworld and torturing the evil ones. Then they were replaced with Charon for whatever reason and went around stealing things from people until the gods decided they needed to keep them busy and had them start torturing living people instead. Their legend is weird because there are these long gaps and when they come back they’re completely different with no explanation.
I personally had a great experience using Harpies as a DM. The trick was dumping the players on an extremely narrow mountain pass and having the harpies start out outside melee reach. A herd of scared mountain goats running in the party's direction and trying to push the players out of the way also helped.
1:29 Really? I somehow missed that fight, so something to look forward to in my next playthrough (about this time next year, just started Act 3, and then I'll probably put it down for a LONG time afterwards, having spent so much time on it already).
A more typical group that gets a little unlucky can be technically taken out immediately. That's nasty for a challenge 1 monster. This group conveniently was immune, turning it into a brute force battle.The harpy could have approached from the air or started singing before they were seen, but they were mostly attacked first.
Ah yes, the act 1 harpies, who are so dedicated to killing Gale that they literally do a "death or glory" to get him. Seriously, that whole damn fight is just babysitting him
I ran a Harpy encounter during my last session, and they almost TPKed the party if the party didn't make their saves at the last minute. The bard player was able to throw a Feather Fall on as the fighter broke out of their trance and was nearly dropped to their death and the druid nearly died as well from being beat on.
0:45 (not to be an asshole, and am DEEPLY sorry if I cause offense) Sunbclasses? Are these classes yearning for a rarely seen sun in this *Grim* setting? A false hope in this dread *Hollow*?
TBH seems like an easy fix to make them scary. Have the harpies team up with a group of goblins or kobolds. Or have a harpy in the employ of another creature like maybe a hill giant tyrant (he keeps her in a bird cage because he likes her song and she can pull adventures) bonus points if the harpy is willing to cut the party a deal to escape like telling them where a stash is, warning them about traps, or maybe even luring the tyrant so the party gets a bonus round of attacks in.
Hilarious as alway, but, I mean, why kick 5e in its giblies? Is there a single DM with two neurons to rub together that doesn’t know that CR is meaningless? And further, just my opinion, that RAW 5e is rpg easy mode? It is the same with harpies as with nearly all other low level creatures: little actual challenge unless the party is a bunch of nincompoops and the DM doesn’t do a little work to provide the challenge. QED, 5e is easy and harpies are a case in point. Meh. Luckily, you can throw numbers at a party along with strategy. Remember, plenty of RL animals have amazing hunting behavior without the benefit of sentience. And I always try to fiddle with abilities because there’s kind of nothing worse than a bunch of metagaming players with rote memory or a stat block in front of them snoozing their way through a fight. And I ran a harpy encounter a while back that sent a party fleeing to regroup. It’s not too hard. It just takes a smidgen of forethought. :)
I tend to just make Harpies backups for Hags. Fills both sides flaws and makes Hags more of a presence to my setting by directly implicating them as being responsible for monsterous things like Harpies.
Our dm had the harpies stay high in the pine trees we were crossing under forcing our characters with failed saves to climb up them because we all know that gravity has the highest CR of all Only our rouge managed to stay up his tree at the end of the fight but even then he had trouble getting down without damage
I homebrewed harpies in my campaign to be similar to their Greek myth roots (and not confused with Sirens) and just gave them two claw attacks and a fear shriek. Ironically, even without their luring song, which I gave to Sirens instead, they were responsible for the first and so far only actual character death in my campaign, when the party were fighting a flock of them across multiple storeys of a lighthouse and the ranger got excited and ran ahead to fight the Matriarch; she grappled him, dropped him to 0 with her claws and then clawed him twice on the next round and critted on one of them. The cleric couldn't get line of sight on him to cast healing word because she was downstairs and didn't know he'd gone down. Environment matters, folks.
After rereading the Harpy statblock, it slipped my mind that goblins are double noided and technically classified as humanoids as well. My bad
A shame, but just replace em with satyrs (who frankly have even more reason to just sitting around kissing all day).
And listenin to pretty songs@@elegantoddity8609
will we get to see a follow up video?
would also be a great place to share some of these creative harpy stories in the comments, there's some unexpected gems in here
You also forgot that the Luring song also says: "A target that successfully saves is immune to **this** harpy's song for the next 24 hours."
So they can take turns singing.
@@nikolaiandersson6024 That's a feature I directly incorporated into the encounter when I ran it for my family recently. The harpies were layering song, so even though PCs and NPCs were making some saves, they still then had to save against the other Harpies. It really only served to get the party to the fight, but it did work, despite itself.
Making the save against a harpy's song makes you immune to THAT harpy's song, not all harpies song
This is, in fact, true and was my first thought as well.
A very important distinction to make when you are running an encounter of multiple harpies
Also goblins are humanoid too. So if you actually read the rules, harpies aren't THAT bad.
@polarknight5376 correct, while I don't agree with Runesmith's assessment of Harpies there are some problems with the statblock like the fact they wield a weapon that is weaker than their natural claw attack. It's a messy statblock that can be made dangerous with homebrewing, and they're more dangerous with grappling and shoving. I ran an encounter where harpies tried to drop players on to iron fences as a stage hazard
@@secretsatanist8492 their strength is low, so they´d suck at both grappling and shoving, and they can´t even carry most medium creatures into the sky and drop them becasue of the carry weight limit
A fun Thing I do with Harpies is that their Song is a magic formula that everyone interprets as their deepest desire.
So the Harpy doesn't know what they just promised someone unless they are experienced enough. A Barbarian in my campaign once lost the saving throw and demanded to get garlic bread.
The harpy was kinda surprised because she didn't know what the hell garlic was.
That's amazing!!!
poor harpy, super vunerable to vampires
yes!
this is the perfect way to run creatively 🥰
Honestly, that's why I love Barbarians
Always the ones to make the wildest shit happen with their tiny peanut brains
That barbarian knows what is best in life. Garlic bread.
Goblinoids are a subtype of humanoids. Boi
Yeah, the only caveat on that mock up there. On 5e's Bestiaries' statblocks, goblins are "Small Humanoid (Goblinoid)".
In the classification for type weaknesses, goblinoids don't count as humanoids. According to rules as written. It's dumb. Which is why most dms take said rules and throw them out the window, because they break immersion and fun.
@@julianblankenship7564 What are you talking about? Goblinoids don't ignore type weaknesses bro
@@obiesenpai3869 Indeed, Goblinoid only exists as there a few things that refer to them as a group as they often are found together in Goblin Camps, and follow the same Goblin Gods in FR
@@julianblankenship7564 Where is that rule?
I accidentally party wiped with harpies. If you succeed a save against the song, you are immune to that harpies song, not the songs of all harpies.
Goblinoids are a type of humanoid, also i think a key thing with this is the hapies are met on a fair match, harpies are ambush hunters, if they don't get the surprise they aren't going to do well opening.
Also i think its important to have them use push attacks, yeah its not on the stat block per se, but pretty sure all npcs are able to do it by RAW
They are; it’s a basic attack, usable by anyone who can take the attack action
How could they ever get the suprise... they sing
1:03 Yes. Yes, I would
1:12 Still Yes.
Harpies canonically don't bathe.
I know you're type, crawl back inty your hole.
YEEESSSSS
Monster fuckers assemble!
@@HumanityAsCodeYESSSSS!
Would.
Harpies probably get the singing ability because Greek Mythological sirens are deacribed as hideous, bird-womsn hybrids, similar to harpies, but they'd already made dnd sirens into fish women
So a few things I noticed but dont know if intentional or general mistake.
1. Goblins are humanoid. So the song would affect them.
2. If you pass the save your only immune to that particular harpy, idk where or why your claiming your immune to ALL harpy songs
I had a DM kill a party of 7 with harpies. Session 1, half the party had never even played before, and everyone failed their saving throw because there were WAY too many harpies each singing.
Had us all walk off a cliff that was close enough to not give any of us a chance to roll for another save after we were charmed.
The new players didnt come back for any more games
The worst way to scare off players, taking away their agency which leads to their characters deaths. Big OOF
One of my deadliest encounters ever used harpies.
They lured players off the side of a mountain they were travelling through, straight into a pit filled with cockatrice. (Basically monstrous chickens with a peck attack that petrified people)
If a player got petrified, 2-3 of the harpies would pick up the statue together, fly directly up as high as they could in one turn, and drop the statues from high up.
Two players died. It wasn't as fun as I thought it'd be
An attack that steals their ability to move, followed by an insta kill attack they can do nothing about. Yeah, it doesn't sound very fun.
That's kinda evil 🤣
A petrified creature weighs ten times its normal weight. If two harpies can lift that thing up then a single harpy could fly around with five people on its back lmao.
@@pinkliongaming8769 Depends, on if it's an African or European Harpy.
@@Nioureux Blast you... blast you.
And thank you, that made me smile like a madman.
When the harpies got pushed.......why wouldn't they just fly?
Because they weren't using that speed at that point. Otherwise, they would not have fallen to begin with. A creature that is flying only falls when it falls prone (unless it is also "hovering"). Having a flying speed does not make you immune to falling.
Falling in D&D is dumb as hell. I'd recommend checking out Zee Bashew's take on it, the video is called something like "my favourite house rule". Basically, it's "Wil-e Time": reaction to postpone falling until the end of your next (or current) turn whenever you would fall 10 ft or more.
@@stammesbruderstill seems wrong. It doesn’t have to take an action to switch from ground to air movement so it should be basically free to happen at any time. If she didn’t move that turn taking flight would be held movement, not a readied action or bonus action. From what I figure, that should be an automatic thing, not even a reaction.
@AnkhAnanku mechanically probably. Realistically not really, it's actually really hard for any creature with wings to just start gliding while falling(eagles being a pretty good example of a bird that evolved to do specifically that.) And even then their body's are usually in position to start gliding, and its more of a controlled dive than a fall. And they arnt tumbling midair either.
Short version: is that things fall fast and wings don't help you if your back is facing the ground.
and even if you manage to flip around before you hit the ground you still have momentum, and if you try to put your wings out they are more likely to be broken from the force of the air than slow you down. Imagine a parashoot except its made out of flesh and bone with joints and junk instead of cloth.
@@AnkhAnankuI am nigh certain in 3.5/ pathfinder it’s simply a fly check to catch yourself.
So, this video is just... wrong... but whatever. Harpies may not be smart but at an 8 INT they are as smart as a barbarian. They have human level intelligence, they just can't, you know, read... Acting as though they are mindless or lack tactics is silly, they can plan, they can predict, and they can execute murders. In the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book there is an encounter with harpies where a harpy matriarch pretends to be a hapless woman being attacked by harpies (her daughters) to lure unsuspecting good Samaritans to her aid only to betray them and get the drop on them.
Harpies are ambush predators in essence, the song itself being the ambushing attack, and their tactics should reflect that. Being able to fly they should always be perched somewhere no one can reach them normally in melee. Atop a tree, a cliff, a roof... or merely flying above. You should never be able to just walk up and hit a harpie or you are running them wrong. So the fighter being able to just run up and push one into lave is dumb and a bad encounter design from the DM. The encounter should always initiate with them in stealth or out of sight/reach, or by the players making an effort to find them (if they know in advance they are around or are specifically hunting them). If the players aren't the wiser to the harpies, or if they fail to spot them in advance, the harpies should have the upper hand and get a surprise round effectively by beginning to sing.
The song's effectiveness is what determines how they continue the attack, if everyone passes, they would simply fly away and seek weaker willed prey, unless they greatly outnumber and can reasonably kill someone by dropping rocks and or heavy things on people. They shouldn't go into melee unless they believe they have a genuine chance to kill with reasonable safety.
If the party (or most of it) is charmed then that's when their tactics come in. All charmed are essentially taken out of the fight so they should either all focus fire on those not charmed, gang up and kill those who passed their checks. Or... focus on the people charmed and get a quick kill. A harpy or 2 can pick up a person, so if your bard is charmed, sorry but your going into the air and being dropped from a hundred feet. That is assuming there isn't already a cliff to be dropped off of.
Harpies also can separate the party by making the individuals charmed follow them, so they should always fly in opposite directions and divide the party, thus making a coordinated defense more difficult.
And if some harpies get killed the rest should flee. They will come back to eat the dead harpy corpse anyway so its a mean either way. Fighting to the death is never an option they should take.
This guy has read "The Monsters Know What They're Doing"
I wholeheartedly agree with you, but I know there are also people who think this is bad game design because an enemy that is impossible to hit is unfair. They are also correct.
I however like to think of encounters as puzzles and it'd be boring to me if the solution is "hit with sword until gone"
Well said.
@ToonedMinecraft yea a lot of people kinda forget monsters are meant to be fun to engage with, and many solutions to the harpy statbl9ck without hb is run an annoying tedious encounter wich punishes melee characters for existing hooray. Glad the archer and caster gets every encounter to shine and the melee chs get dunked on.
Like one suggestion is have the harpy be out of site and use the song for basicly a whole other encounter. Which ignores the problem by making her a spell or trap that is used during the encounter.
The other is to have the birds fly away of enough people save and than run away which is barley an encounter worth repeating. Like make the heroes track the nest and corner them do somthing that players will enjoy. Vs what often happens is here is how you kill or annoy players.
Counterpoint: put a party of humanoids against harpies (or just a harpy) that start flying, ambush you as you walk past a cliff or something so you get as few chances to roll as possible, and as soon as everyone makes the save they just leave and come back 24+ hours later next time you're in the area.
Harpies are balanced around being run like a slightly stupid Tucker's kobolds. They don't use traps or weapons, sure, but they can still be dangerous in an ambush and can no-sell a lot of stuff due to flight.
Yea the problem with this kind of encounter is it genuinely isn't fun. Like the buy in for players is the encounter is meant to be memorable. An encounter like you mentioned isn't anything it's boring and tedius. Hit and run tactics only works when the players buy in to actually track or trap the creatures if you make it as tedious as possible it will be tedious as heck which isnt fun.
@@christianlangdon3766 well, it could be fun if it was expanded into a slightly larger part of the adventure.
What if the party was exploring an area with a lot of dangerous but non-lethal drops, with a harpy flitting around trying to lure them off cliffs and just being a general nuisance.
Whenever they actually fall down, the harpy laughs and flies away, if they land any kind of attack on her, the harpy shrieks and flies away, every now and then she sets down at the top of a nearby cliff and taunts them.
Then, some time later once the party has started to get properly annoyed by her, they can track down her nest in a little cave somewhere and set an ambush to put her down for good.
It's be emotionally satisfying, since they're beating somone who's made their lives that much more difficult, plus it'd make navigation easier because they don't have to warry about falling off of cliffs all the time.
@@somebody975 I mean sure but my point is that sometimes I feel people make these encounters to prove you can run them effectively as monsters who can threaten the players. And so the harpy can do so but it basically it runs down into either annoyance. Or ultra tedium and they don't have that many Hit points to make not shooting them a really effective option. A single harpy can get pretty dead real quick via Eldritch blast or a single fighter or ranger speckes into archery. So it seems odd to try and go to bat for a monster that is designed with non of its core strengths that are fun to deal with.
Because the worst encounters are ones where you roll it's terrible and now you have several crappy turns while the entire rest of the party gets to play the game etc. Harpies invite such frustrating things to happen. Than it actively sucks at doing anything else it's song is the only thing it does yet encounters built around it either suck because it's a single die roll or two that determine the whole pace and encounter feel from ultra difficult to I can't believe we rolled initiative. Baldurs gate fixed it by three effective and easy hb. Increase HP, make creatures not immune to the song, but also give the song a distance make it so it's easy to interrupt. Make it so the song doesn't just have people fling themselves of cliffs. Because only high level charm stuff does that. And give them a ranged attack. The song is so ass when used and it falls flat but also to strong should a player fall into it for a turn and just die or get so behind the team they might as well zone out. Many effects on 5e are bad about this but I feel the harpy song kinda is the earliest version of hope you roll well otherwise you ain't playing today.
And when many people's version of running the encounter right is the equivalent of a neiner neiner monster, like your just using worse goblins or any fey trickster who can do so better And likely have an interesting story. Vs harpies who whole you can make them interesting is up to the DM vs say a quickling tying the shoelaces together of a low level party Can have near the same effect.
@@christianlangdon3766 Yeah I can agree with that. Harpies aren't naturally threatening as written, save or suck effects are generally terrible, and BG3 handled harpies much MUCH better.
Sadly, as written they only really fit as either neiner neiner monsters or as basically airborne goblins where you ignore the song. Those are alright niches, and sometimes you just need a bird lady to fill them, but harpies honestly can't shine the way they ought to.
@@somebody975 yea, thanks for that. I have since left 5e for a long while now but harpy was one of those stat blocks I ran and was one of those moments which made me distrust every statblock. The encounter I made was awful for half the party and the other half felt like gods for swatting them out of the sky and it just wasn't that for me or them except for the 2 powergamers I had at the time. I can count on one hand the amount of statblocks I consider good for straight out of the box encounters.
My players recently fought a harpy. the immune fey in the group counter charmed the harpy and forced the harpy to kill all her allies. Poor harpy couldn't make the save to break free, it was quite humorous.
Reguarding the opening move, Harpies do have fly. I would have given that harpy, who knows the lava is there because this is their home, a DC10 dexterity save. Basically a 55/45 chance to see if the sudden sucker punch was enough to confuse and stun the harpy. If successful, harpy avoids the lava by flying and only takes punching bag damage. Otherwise, the harpy is ded.
and the second Harpy shouldn't have been able to be shoved down into a spike pit, since she was glued to the ground
I wouldn't have it fall unless its prone. You push a harpy using the modified attack rule and it just instinctively starts flying while off the edge. If you knock it prone, however, it plummets 500 ft instantly and takes damage if it hits the ground in that time.
@@recurvestickerdragon She broke free of the glue, but still; fly
The harpy didn't even need to be in range of the glue or punch at all. The song works for 300 feet, and she can fly. So just stay in the air or sit on some unreachable perch. If the song fails or enemies get too close, fly away. Longbows only have a normal range of 150 feet, so at 300 they are firing with disadvantage. Most spells have a maximum range far below 300 (fireball is 150 feet max) so your wizard isn't going to touch them either.
Even with their garbage stats, they have the potential to be some of the most annoying low level enemies in existence. Stay out of range, sing opportunistically. A flock of harpies could dog an adventuring party for days or weeks and they can't do ANYTHING about it.
Looking at it from a strictly Realistically standpoint(which i dont recomend for games) not really, it's actually really hard for any creature with wings to just start gliding while falling(eagles being a pretty good example of a bird that evolved to do specifically that.) And even then their body's are usually in position to start gliding, and its more of a controlled dive than a fall. And they arnt tumbling midair either.
Short version: is that things fall fast and wings don't help you if your back is facing the ground.
and even if you manage to flip around before you hit the ground you still have momentum, and if you try to put your wings out they are more likely to be broken from the force of the air than slow you down. Imagine a parashoot except its made out of flesh and bone with joints and tendons instead of cloth.
Of course it depends on how far they are falling too, the longer the fall the more time they have to slow down and position themselves before they are forced to try and glide.
@@jacobrutzke691 Disagree. A harpy has her wings out while fighting, basically flying just above the ground. You push her 5 feet back and she's just flying 5 feet away. If you knock her prone, then what you wrote applies. Otherwise, she just flies.
*picks trash mobs thinking they would die easily*
*actually makes the fight way longer than if it was just 2 adventurers*
5:27 Goblins are humanoids. Immunity only affects the harpy the character saved against. So there is reason for multiple of them to sing. They also fly so there is no reason for them to be where characters can rush them on foot.
They suck here because you’re using them wrong.
Ok, so it sounds like you should design harpy encounters to make them evasive, as well as having cover, and maybe some other monsters they are working along side in a symbiotic relationship with, preferably not humanoids, as they are affected by the song. A harpy could sit out of range or view of arrows and still affect the party. This is constant pressure on the party, which they cant deal with until they find or have a way to attack the harpy. A single unseen harpy is a great way to add tension to a low level encounter. As per the description, harpies are afraid of dying, (like most animals), so they would retreat rather than dive into combat. To prevent a boring encounter, I would probably just have them flee when heavily injured rather than prolong them dancing away from ranged attacks.
In the old sword and sandal movies, harpies would always hover just out of reach. They’re supposed to be annoyingly evasive and an evasive annoyance.
Everything about this encounter makes no sense. What I found baffling is that this is the guy that came up with great scenarios for other “weak” monsters like goblins and kobolds by understanding what weak creatures think and how they act. Here he just shows such disinterest and I think that’s what comes through most in this encounter rather than the weakness of the 5e Harpy
When we encountered a bunch of harpies in our Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign, my character was the only one who could not succeed a single save against their song and I kept waltzing right off our ship. Guess the tough as nails dragonborn paladin with a tragic backstory is just really into gross bird women
1:13 even more so now
🎶”still I think she's rather tasty"🎶
You won't put puppy in for fear of hurting him, but the CAT is fine??? *[watches video]* oh....
I gave them the ability to grapple charmed targets with their avian legs to carry them up and kill them by reintroducing them to the ground, treating this as a hunting instinct.
Encounters against 3-4 get a lot more tense when they take turns singing to charm while the others go in for air drops.
That is a good strategy! The thing is that's not something you needed to "add". Any creature can just grapple, shove, help, hide, ECT. These are basic moves available to all creatures.
Any creature with a fly speed can and should use the excellent "grapple and fly straight up" strategy
@thomasdancy2873 harpys have pretty low strength tho so they wouldn't make most grapple checks.
@@jacobrutzke691 Trueeeeeee, BUT harpies also have multi attack so they can try twice. Harpies are also basically always fought near an environmental hazard such as a cliff, so a character only has to fail one strength contest to be in serious trouble.
Harpies have an 8 intelligence (same as a kobold) so I would argue they are just smart enough to understand that the squishy wizard is an ideal target for this. Picking off the weak from the herd is basically their entire hunting strategy.
Especially seeing as that club attack only deals (1d4) damage, any harpy not singing might as well gamble trying to drag a PC into a pit of lava or whatever.
@thomasdancy2873 I was specifying in the tweak that they use their taloned feet to grapple (since grappling RAW requires "hands" unless explicitly written into an affect or ability iirc (see Grell or roper, which have to grapples as a rider to an attack))
@@ChibiHoboProductions interesting point actually. The rules do say "hands" specifically don't they.
Tho I think it's pretty clear that that's a RAW vs RAI distinction that most DM's would understand. Like I get why that line in the rules exists, they don't want a sword and board PC fighter grappling people without a free hand to do so. But I think the designers wrote that line for Players and forgot to think about it for monsters too.
There are dozens of monsters that don't have "hands" per say, but logically should have no trouble grappling targets. Giant Eagles, Giant Snakes, Sharks, Grasping Vines, ECT. I would even argue something like an Ooze would be able to grapple something with a pseudopod or whatever.
And not to be a pedant, but harpies still do totally have arms and "hands". Their stat block lists them holding a club. So mechanically at least they're good to go, having them use their talons or not is really just the flavor of how you describe the attack to your players.
(I hope I don't sound like a douche, I just think it's fun to think about rule nuances like this 😁)
Harpies canonically do not baith, I remember one piece of lore that says you're likely to smell them before you hear or see them. So add that to the list of reasons they're useless.
And if you still say you'd do a harpi, I know you're type, go back to your hole.
Makes for a good vicious mockery for bard to bard combat.
"Your song is pretty, but I could smell you before I could hear you. Are those feathers in your hat, or are you shedding?"
@@MrPF i dont think birds smell like eggs, let alone rotten ones.
There's a side quest plot hook for you. There is this annoying and lame harpy that keeps stupidly singing outside a king and queen's barred windows and the kings is like "look, my dear Queen, I know you feels sorry for her and she saves me some coin in hiring a idiot bard or a jester, but she reeks and it wouldn't be so damn unbearably bad if she at least took a bath, let's hire some adventures to a capture her and toss her into a bathtub."
Harpies seem to be one of those “villager’s bane” creatures; not really meant to fight adventurers, but die by them for exp or a contract reward.
Putting harpies on a cliffside road that is 5 - 10 feet wide is pretty fun....cuz of the shove version of attack. I put my level 8 party there and almost wiped them out with them constantly falling down and using polymorph and misty step to not die horribly.
This is basically how it went for my party, even with the seven-ish harpies surprising us with a suped-up mimic
An important note you fucked up on: The immunity to harpy songs only apply to THAT specific Harpy, you are still vulnerable to the next Harpy that starts singing.
Now onto my actual point. I changed one singular thing on the 5e Harpies statblock that increased their lethality several times over: I gave them a grappling profiency.
So one harpy would sing their song and the rest would jump whichever Humanoid (so most adventurers aka the players) and do atheletics skill challenges against the hopefully not a martial until they are successfully grappled.
And since you need an action to attempt to escape a grapple (which you cant do whilst incapacitated by the Harpys song), the harpy just flies up until it is above a pit and releases the grapple which is a free action and boom the PC is dead
..aren't goblins humanoids? and thus effected by the luring song?
Nope, they're classified as goblinoids
@@LloydTavner wrong. in dnd 5e they are humanoids. and goblinoids at the same time.
Goblinoids are a subcategory of humanoid just like orcs and elves
Technically as of Mordenkainen’s Monster of the Multiverse they are now Fey.
@@InquisitorThomasAre they? I thought they had Fey Ancestry like elves, not actually Fey.
Goblins are humanoids.
3 harpies sitting around aren’t much of a threat, but you can try the same encounter with 8 harpies on a cliffside ambushing a group of 4 lvl5 Adventurers.
As soon as the harpies start singing, each character must make 8 Wis saves, you fail one -> charmed by this single harpy and ignore all other songs. You succeed om a save while charmed? Well the other harpies didn’t stop singing so you have to continue rolling Wis saves until you succeed against all 8 harpies.
8 harpies on a cliffside was the hardest encounter for my lvl 6 group of 5 players 🤷
You gave your harpies almost the worst conditions in this fight. No wonder they „suck“ then.
Everyone falling for Runesmith's siren song about the goblins not being humanoids, technically by replying I did too. Still, it's a billion times more ethical than anything Hasbro has done in the last decade. Oh there's the lav...
Harpies are bird at what they do
Hmmm… Harpies have a flight speed, so unless you also manage to drop them prone, they wouldn't fall for just being pushed.
Wait a minute, dungeons and dragons has harpies in it?
I don't think they were put in 5e but earlier editions have
Yeah
Ah, yeah. Never read the monster manual?
Yeah in monster manual
@@christopherhegarty1565 they were. monster manual 5e. 2014
Harpies, Sirens, and Mermaids are constantly being blended with each other.
I had two harpies prepared for my players, a couple. One of them showed up first and my wizard decided it was a great idea to shoot his shot. I let him roll and he rolled an 19.... I sighed and declared a success. Then, suddenly, the harpie's husband showed up. He was furious with the party but my wizard was not gonna leave that place without some harpy booty. He decided to roll to seduce the male harpy too (with disadvantage since... Well.... The creature had just seen him try to cheat with his wife). 18 followed by a 17..... That night a lot of bird noises came out of his bedroom
Celaeno from the Last Unicorn is how I will always imagine Harpies- proud, and extremely violent, ready to murder anything in their path.
Like you said, these are flying sirens.
Something I found stupid about Harpies is:
1. That their singing has saves for basically anything. (like you said in the video)
2. Its range. I want Harpies to sit atop high cliffs hundreds of feet away and lure traders and travelers to their doom.
If I could change it, it would be that if multiple harpies sing, the DC is increased, it removes the immunity to passing the save, and increases the range. And only when within 60 or so do they take the most direct route to the harpy.
I'd also arm them with crossbows.
Also, passing the same only works on the harpy that you passed the save on, so they totally could take turns singing.
I have seen a redux of a harpy in a third party supplement fleet mortals. The DC is bumped to 12 and both the range and the DC increases with the more harpies that join it, and the charm condition still lets the target take actions that don’t harm the harpies.
It might make more sense to give them slings or large (diseased/poisoned) darts that they dive bomb from on high
My brother in Christ, you’re the DM. You can do whatever you like, especially if it’ll make a better monster/encounter.
Pro tip, I'm sure it's been mentioned elsewhere too, but passing a save makes you immune to THAT harpies song, not ALL harpies.
So 1 harpy starts singing and all the party passes those saves? Fine, that harpy stops singing and the NEXT harpy starts singing, causing everyone to save AGAIN.
So a fight with 4 harpies has the entire party making 4 rounds of saving throws. Someone is gonna fail something eventually. Suddenly the low DC and need to fail 2 saves in a row to take environmental damage makes sense.
Combine that with the fact that the harpy call range is 300 ft, and the harpy can sit safely out of range of all attacks making the party roll a bucket of saving throws to avoid walking off a cliff, and they unleash a flury of claw attacks on whatever creature eventually fails.
It's been so long since I fought harpies in the tabletop that I didn't even realize how much BG3 buffed them.
Thanks for the video! I just wanted to point out that at 1:55, you use the phrase "let alone" wrong. When you use the phase "A, let alone B" you're implying that A is easier to do/a lower standard to reach than B, such that if A can't be reached, B is out of the question. So for instance, of a very poor restaurant, I might say: "I wouldn't trust them to make my dog's dinner, let alone my own". I have lower standards of quality for dogfood, so if the restaurant can't even make decent dog food, making human food is out of the question.
In your statement "[Harpies are] incapable of defeating a party of heroes, let alone a weak motley crew of nobodies", you're implying that "a weak motley crew of nobodies" is harder to defeat than a "party of heroes".
Which might be true of some tables, come to think of it.
One thing that could help: A section of their stat block that gives them either thrown stones, or a pike that they can use on the fly. They may not be geniuses, but even a dullard can come up with the tactic of 'stay out of reach, and maybe push someone off a cliff'.
I just fault you for playing the monsters a little bit too dumb.
Another common tactic, even for relatively dull creatures, is to have one in the open to bait someone vulnerable in while the others hide, and then attack. If the song incapacitates, then that makes it easy for the rest of the harpy team to drag them into danger,
Honestly, a blanket rule for "find a rock and throw it" would be nice for chars or enemies having no ranged attacks.
(what do you know, that's something BG3 has. In practice "throw stone" is a dagger without finesse, so 1d4+str)
@@GKplus8 sounds right, if you want to be meaner you could make the damage [1+Strength] range is probably 15 ft (maybe 20ft), 30 ft with disadvantage.
I feel like a cool rework would be giving a bunch of variants to the harpies. Start by buffing the base song to also affect beasts. Maybe bump their stats up a bit as well, 14 in str seems to make the most sense for the 'pick up and drop on spikes' tactic -- to further facilitate this you can give them a second claw attack(instead of a weapon attack) and let them grapple if they land both attacks. Also allow them to hover as a reaction and give them a more normal humanoid form like in baldurs gate 3(so they can use weapons).
Then the variants:
One that is good at singing, enough to bypass the '24 hour immunity to harpy song'. Possibly even has a few bard spells.
One that knows a warsong that can buff harpies and charmed beasts. Again, bard spells, or perhaps cleric spells. Possibly even give them a shriek that does thunder damage in a cone.
If you want really strong harpies: Make one into a bladesinger. They're perfect for it since they have an elvish lineage and they're all about singing.
"schmitmars" - the oneyplays influence is strong
0:49 “SUNBCLASSES”
One thing I LOVE about Harpies is that they have a really unique attack pattern. They try and hit you with a rubbish attack, but if they miss them they try and make a stronger attack. It's really weirdly dynamic at the table.
So since Goblins are Humanoid and the immunity to Harpy song only applies to that Harpy, a better title for this video might be: "Runesmith doesn't understand how Harpies work."
How the hell does pushing bird off a cliff accomplish anything?
It's the principle of the matter
1:04…well, there was this one time I got into a drinking contest in Whiterun…
So 2 mistakes here, first, goblinoids are technically humanoid as far as spells and features go, so the harpy song would also affect them. Granted, they have some fey ancestry now but they're still classed as humanoid.
The other part, although admittedly not one that would have changed the outcome of the scenario presented in the video, but still worth mentioning, is that passing the saving throw makes you immune to the song that SPECIFIC harpy, not EVERY harpy song, which is relevant when several harpies are in a single encounter, and why more than one harpy singing at a time could be relevant. Still, DC 11 isn't that high of a threshold.
I know the best way to buff them! Give them tons of magic items, the ability to summon more of themselves, and a pet dragon
Announcing every fight with 'It's time to d-d-d-d-duel!'
I used three harpies on my family game group last time we played. Granted, they were four 3rd level PCs and a 3rd level Sidekick, so it would have been an easy encounter regardless. But I switched it up a bit by having the fight in a forest, where there was a lot more cover to hide behind and the players could do some climbing shenanigans. Our Fighter scaled a tree and started fighting while balanced on branches. It was pretty cool.
The singing was really only useful for getting the party to the attempted ambush, even with three overlapping songs to take up where the previous left off. Even among PCs that have poor Wisdom saves, they had a greater than 50% chance to shrug off the effects on any of the chances they have to do so. The lack of any kind of ranged attack is also pretty disappointing, since the harpies then can't make good use of their flying ability.
I considered giving the eldest harpy (the ones my group fought had a whole Maiden/Mother/Crone thing going on) some bardic spellcasting, just to buff the encounter's difficulty. But then I just kind of didn't, and the fight ended very quickly in the party's favor. (To be fair, I had the other harpies flee pretty quickly once one of them died, because I didn't want the fight to drag on beyond the point it would be fun).
If I were buffing the harpy, I'd give them some kind of ranged attack, like a bow or a sonic scream. Maybe some spellcasting, like Charm Person. Oh, and give them the Flyby ability, so they can employ aerial hit-and-run tactics. All of this serving to allow the harpy to NOT have to dive directly into melee combat with a brick shithouse in full plate and a sword, with no ability to escape effectively or avoid it altogether. Harpies are supposed to be cowards, why are they charging their prey?
Ok I hear u, but when harpies showed up on the road and attacked our party of 10, yeah half of us succeeded and were fine, but there were like 2 or 3 of us that were just stuck out of combat for the entire like 6 turns... cause like, if they dont deal damage to you, they can target some of you while your party is entranced, and then you just don't get a move for multiple turns as your friends fight alone. Harpied alone suck, but if u put em with something big, it can just turn a 6 vs 4 into a 4 vs 4 for the harpies.
Sure they don't make good traditional dungeon monsters, but they suit the siren roles of luring prey into danger or softening up a ship's crew numbers just fine. It makes more sense to have them as opportunistic scavengers who just fly away whenever something doesn't work, and then have them roost on mountaintops. That way if the locals get fed up with these pests and hire the party, or if the harpies rob/kidnap from the party, the players have to endure multiple attacks and traps on their way to the nest. The payoff is finally cornering them for a fair fight, not the fight itself.
To be fair, this stat block also means their song can theoretically kill a very powerful giant if he has very unlucky rolls. Harpies are like the "dice luck check" of the roleplaying world.
Holy crap! You have a cat named Frito? I also have a cat named Frito. I think we need to be arch enemies to determine who has the greatest fuzzy Frito. I have an advantage. Mine has a big brother named Dorito.
1:12 ... I mean, yeah. Half of em seem alright.
Or have you considered sir: harpy anime waifu? Sure they raise WAY more questions than answers, but waifu.
I remember during a Saturday campaign I was in, we were trying to find the next vault for the main quest but ended up running into these bird F***ers, most of our party was charmed except for the fighter and druid, I was playing a paladin at the time and I eventually broke out of the charm effect, when it was my turn in initiative, I would cast "Beacon of Hope" that would grant my party having advantage on the wisdom saving throw, thanks to a magic item I was wearing it didn't require concentration.
So almost everyone was able to break out of the charm effect and didn't stear towards our death, the reason why we got charmed was because the big mama harpie had a DC 18 with disadvantage, and then there was the constant songs of harpies coming in after every turn of the party, so it was a huge counter against their horde, it was a pretty awesome moment for my character.
0:38 erhm achtually its pronounced "1d2"
Pretty sure Sirens were originally very similar to harpies (winged women), maybe that's why harpies have that singing ability? Maybe they merged those two mythological creatures?
In conclusion: if you want a flying seductress monster, just use a Succubus. If you want a big scary bird monster, just use a Peryton.
Give your Harpy a shortbow and the sneak attack trait and suddenly she's a lot scarier, especially paired with a big melee monster she can fly above and draw party into range against.
If a character succeeds the save, it is immune to the song of the one specific harpy who made it, not all harpies
Damn these videos get more unhinged by the day I love it 🤣
0:50 I love suNbclasses
I had hoped that the last upload would be the first of many. I'm so glad I was right. Welcome back, my friend.
Heres a nasty combo. Harpies + a Hill Giant. The guy cant beat the save and is a walking bird poarch for them.
Rune: Would you have fun with a harpy?
Me: Yes
Rune: What about all these (proceeds to show more and more monstrous versions of harpies)
Me: ...did i stutter?
Sometimes I don't feel like watching your videos right when they come out, but I still want you to continue making cool videos and for the algorithm to like you. So often my first 'watch' of your videos is while I am doing something else. I will still watch I promise.
Harpies were originally beautiful sky nymphs born from some wind god and his goddess wife. Then they were put to work ferrying souls to the underworld and torturing the evil ones.
Then they were replaced with Charon for whatever reason and went around stealing things from people until the gods decided they needed to keep them busy and had them start torturing living people instead.
Their legend is weird because there are these long gaps and when they come back they’re completely different with no explanation.
This had to have been the funniest sh*te I've seen in at least a month. I tip my fedora to you, good DM.😂
The greatest oversight is that mythologically accurate harpies poop EVERYWHERE.
My man really said Donkey Kong wants fried chicken LMFAO
I personally had a great experience using Harpies as a DM. The trick was dumping the players on an extremely narrow mountain pass and having the harpies start out outside melee reach. A herd of scared mountain goats running in the party's direction and trying to push the players out of the way also helped.
1:29 Really? I somehow missed that fight, so something to look forward to in my next playthrough (about this time next year, just started Act 3, and then I'll probably put it down for a LONG time afterwards, having spent so much time on it already).
It's to the east parts of the grove. Keep going east at the fork where you would go south to get to Alfira.
Some of your best work yet Runesmith. Glad to be a subscriber
Happen to be playing ER while listening, thought I'd lost my mind again, then it all made sense.
A more typical group that gets a little unlucky can be technically taken out immediately. That's nasty for a challenge 1 monster. This group conveniently was immune, turning it into a brute force battle.The harpy could have approached from the air or started singing before they were seen, but they were mostly attacked first.
Ah yes, the act 1 harpies, who are so dedicated to killing Gale that they literally do a "death or glory" to get him.
Seriously, that whole damn fight is just babysitting him
I was half expecting Esper to take over at the start of combat.
I ran a Harpy encounter during my last session, and they almost TPKed the party if the party didn't make their saves at the last minute. The bard player was able to throw a Feather Fall on as the fighter broke out of their trance and was nearly dropped to their death and the druid nearly died as well from being beat on.
'This ability is balanced so weird.'
Balanced is a very generous way to describe most things in 5e
dk's shove on the second harpy ignored the target being glued to the ground
Deliberately using the chords of "Still I think he's rather tasty" from "One jump ahead" from Aladdin, during the harpy pic montage?
So excited to run my harpy encounter for my players now, thank you.
Hearing the Song of Lament for the harpy song tickled my brain.
The DMG refers to being _submerged_ in lava but you'd actually float on top if you fell in. It's more dense than water
In DND 2024 they should make a special variant of harpies where they aren't useless wastes of a random encounter.
Ah yes the iconic shmitdmar of goblins
0:45 (not to be an asshole, and am DEEPLY sorry if I cause offense) Sunbclasses? Are these classes yearning for a rarely seen sun in this *Grim* setting? A false hope in this dread *Hollow*?
Note to self: use Harpies like especially large pigeons from now on.
I feel like harpies are one of the earliest stat blocks the team designed. That luring song ability is quite verbose, haha.
TBH seems like an easy fix to make them scary.
Have the harpies team up with a group of goblins or kobolds.
Or have a harpy in the employ of another creature like maybe a hill giant tyrant (he keeps her in a bird cage because he likes her song and she can pull adventures) bonus points if the harpy is willing to cut the party a deal to escape like telling them where a stash is, warning them about traps, or maybe even luring the tyrant so the party gets a bonus round of attacks in.
Hilarious as alway, but, I mean, why kick 5e in its giblies? Is there a single DM with two neurons to rub together that doesn’t know that CR is meaningless? And further, just my opinion, that RAW 5e is rpg easy mode? It is the same with harpies as with nearly all other low level creatures: little actual challenge unless the party is a bunch of nincompoops and the DM doesn’t do a little work to provide the challenge. QED, 5e is easy and harpies are a case in point. Meh.
Luckily, you can throw numbers at a party along with strategy. Remember, plenty of RL animals have amazing hunting behavior without the benefit of sentience. And I always try to fiddle with abilities because there’s kind of nothing worse than a bunch of metagaming players with rote memory or a stat block in front of them snoozing their way through a fight. And I ran a harpy encounter a while back that sent a party fleeing to regroup. It’s not too hard. It just takes a smidgen of forethought. :)
I tend to just make Harpies backups for Hags. Fills both sides flaws and makes Hags more of a presence to my setting by directly implicating them as being responsible for monsterous things like Harpies.
I feel like a winged creature ought to have some kind of saving throw before getting hucked off a taller cliff?
Our dm had the harpies stay high in the pine trees we were crossing under forcing our characters with failed saves to climb up them because we all know that gravity has the highest CR of all
Only our rouge managed to stay up his tree at the end of the fight but even then he had trouble getting down without damage
Those harpies annihilated my party when I first came across them. Was pretty new at the game at the time to be fair but goodness they were strong
“Donkey Wukongkey” got me.
I homebrewed harpies in my campaign to be similar to their Greek myth roots (and not confused with Sirens) and just gave them two claw attacks and a fear shriek.
Ironically, even without their luring song, which I gave to Sirens instead, they were responsible for the first and so far only actual character death in my campaign, when the party were fighting a flock of them across multiple storeys of a lighthouse and the ranger got excited and ran ahead to fight the Matriarch; she grappled him, dropped him to 0 with her claws and then clawed him twice on the next round and critted on one of them.
The cleric couldn't get line of sight on him to cast healing word because she was downstairs and didn't know he'd gone down. Environment matters, folks.