Hunting Displacer Beasts || D&D w/ Dael Kingsmill
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ต.ค. 2024
- Welcome to MonarchsFactory! On this channel you can find videos covering Dungeons and Dragons, mythology, games, ridiculous fun with friends; all kinds of stuff. Today's video is the first in our #MonsterMadness series. You voted for your fave #DnD monsters and over the course of April I'm talking about how I'd run them.
Here's the link to the monster stat block: www.gmbinder.c...
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"I sense a disturbance in the ferns." ~Fighter.
Damn you and take my upvote.
Dang that mini game is actually genius
I agree!
Its honestly got a lot of similarities to an exploration-based hex crawl - its definitely a great game structure!
I think that is just the way now. Minigames for EVERY MONSTER TYPE
Used it. It really is.
I'm gonna use it in my next session. :D
Kneeling over the track in the red soil, the ranger at once felt a chilling pang run down her spine. Something big shifted, far to close, in the foliage at the rim of her periferal vision. Then she felt hot, gory breath, ripple in the humid air. "Clever girl!".
Displacer Beasts are hunted for their pelts in my setting. They're popular as a fashion piece for the wealthy, and one person I'm working in as a side villain is Cruella de Ville inspired.
I love that
One of my first PCs wore a displacer beast cloak with his head coming out of the mouth like the way Aztec Jaguar Warriors are depicted in art (probably not in reality though). It might have also been a cloak of displacement, I can't remember.
the cloak of displacement magic item is made of displacer beast hide, so it's like dnd cannon too.
@@EvelynNdenial yup! That was the inspiration
"Raise your eyebrows, go hmm, and jot something down" is one of the best tools at your disposal as a dm. For added effect roll your heaviest, loudest dice.
This is so brilliant I had to write the mechanics down:
Goal: find and kill displacer beasts before sundown since they are stronger at night
Setup:
* 6x6 Grid
* Create pathway in forest that displacers have followed away from village
* Traps set up along the way by the townspeople. Roll 2d6 3 times to see where 3 traps are set on the grid.
* DM has a marked grid and players have the same grid but empty
* Players roll a stealth check at the beginning. Anyone proficient in survival or nature may add their modifiers for one of those skills to their total or to the total of another party member. DC set to 14: passive perception of a Panther.
* Number of stealth check successes sets the number of perception checks Displacer Beasts need to make before they realize that someone is encroaching on their territory.
* Players start in a random location along the A column.
Mechanics:
* 10 hours before nightfall
* Each square is 1 hour of travel
* Skill challenge to track displacer beasts. Characters choose a cardinal direction and then make a skill check, DC 16 to gather information about that cardinal direction. Note: East covers Northeast and Southeast squares, etc.
* One skill check is included in each square’s worth of travel. Each additional skill check from the same square adds another hour.
* Displacer beasts take their turn every hour. DC 14 perception check.
* Once Displacer Beasts realize the players are in the forest, they know where the players are and can take their turn after the players take theirs every hour and plan their attack. They may split up, with one group attempting to lure players in a certain direction and set up an ambush.
I sense a great disturbance in the ferns... as if several fronds suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly trampled.
A fun thought to add: the party thinks they are fighting one displacer beast, because maybe your party is used to the other fluff, or they google all your enemies the second you say their name, or you intentionally put that into their minds. Its actually four of them, and you let them believe its just one until a beast dies.
I have one of those "I look up all the monsters we have been fighting/have been teased" so I homebrew almost all my creatures to some level.
@@hopelesslydull7588 Once got an item "Bestiary" that was an in-world monster manual. Over a long rest or an unrestful short rest, our Ranger would study a section to learn things. (Knowledge retained for a month before needing restudy.) Could then roll an intelligence check during a fight to remember parts of the stat block or other aspects. DM would then share standard info, but not info for the modified beast.
@@drekfletch Absolutely stealing that.
@@hopelesslydull7588 I'd seen something about medieval bestiaries and told the DM that next time we were in a city I'd look for one. He was much more generous than I was thinking, given how ridiculous the medieval ones could be.
I grew up in the 90s. On the computer I had Solitaire and Minesweeper, and that was it. I NEVER knew that's what the numbers were for. I was Today Years Old when I found out that that's what the numbers were for.
Every time I watch one of your videos I go: "Damn, I should use something like this in my game." This time I didn't. I went: "Damn, I should use exactly this in my game." Great idea, love the raptor hunt vibes.
28:50 "Death in a sack" great reference!
I felt like the displacer beast hunt could be like the hunt of the Beast of Gévaudan in France. A single creature whipping out cattle and farmers. The king sent down hunters, but they all failed. Until one claimed to have slained the beast.
You could set up that the adventurers arrive after that claimed victory. The village is still ravaged because the beast wasn't gone. The hunt won't be recognized or bring glory, but it's needed to protect the villagers.
Very cool concept
That's what the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf was based on, right?
@@digitaljanus Yes.
@@javidproductions9353 The Rudraprayag Leopard would be an equally good choice. Either way, man-eaters were (and are) an element of life in extremely rural areas that are woefully underrepresented as threats in TTRPGs.
Deal's "but it would be dramatic though" is such a vibe and mood and a new motto
YES! Actual monster hunting! Did a Wyvern hunt and they learned some zoology to help them.
Why you hunt me, bro?
@@Torvik40 because they couldn't find the wherevern
@@benjaminholcomb9478 What Vern? Whose Vern?
a long video, but nothing could have been cut. absolutely packed with useful info.
I'm glad you said that - I was desperately looking for dead time to cut, and I really think this was about the best I could do
I was recently thinking about running a displacer beast session and I took inspiration from the Tsavo Man-Eaters: two real-life lions which attacked railroad construction workers in Kenya in 1898, killing upwards of a hundred people over their several months of frequent attacks. I wanted to use this idea as a way to introduce the party to my greedy industrialist bad guy; someone who just kept allowing people to die rather than resolving the problem or suspending construction. I also decided to give the displacer beasts the Umbral Sight feature of the Gloomstalker Ranger from Xanathar's Guide. Basically, the displacer beasts would be invisible in darkness, even to creatures with darkvision. I think this really amps up the sense of danger and paranoia and forces the party to make a decision about whether to use light sources or not. If they carry lit torches, then the beasts will be able to easily hunt them down. If they don't, they might walk right into the beasts' trap without even knowing it.
I could never hunt Big Cat and you know that
I do know that and I'm thankful for it
Death in a sack! That episode of The Storyteller was always my favorite.
I’m definitely stealing this for my Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign. I see a ship smuggling displacer beasts for a fantastical menagerie wrecking on an island...
Yes! Someone out there got my reference!!
20:12 implying that there is something in that forest that can disturb them.
That's the scariest part.
Well the party sounds disturbing
I threw some new gamers up against a displacer beast once.
They had already been through a couple rounds of combat, nothing too dangerous, but used up some of their resources. When the displacer beast first attacks, they're in close quarters, they move to a more defensible position. All of a sudden, the displacer beast appears behind them and attacks (it had been behind them the whole time).
The mage puts up an illusion of a brick wall in between the beast and the PCs. The (image of) the displacer beast leaps atop the wall and lashes out at the PC directly behind the wall.
From the player's perspective, there is now a large, extra-limbed cat beast perching on a wall that doesn't actually exist. They freak out and flee.
They could have killed it easily.
so im kinda the opposite idea about displacer beasts. i see them as more 'predator' style ambush hunters. i like your idea with the sprint ability. although i'd probably have it recharge more (maybe 5-6). but i do agree they should have offense, and they definitely should have some cool tail things. but i'd rather go with more of a rogue theme.
the way i'd do that is to give it features that are more tied to displacement. so first of all
'ambush predator': while displacement is active, the displacer beast has advantage on all attack rolls, can hide as a bonus action, and has advantage on stealth checks. the idea being that there's almost 2 separate cats moving around. so more like 'mirror image' than 'blur'. and while there are 2 cats, its obviously hard to keep track of which is real and so on.
'extra limbs': as part of the attack action the displacer beast may attack with its tentacles, or perform a shove, or grapple. if both tentacles attempt to grapple or shove the same target, teh displacer beast has advantage on the check. If attacking with them they deal 1d4 damage (no mod). if displacement is active, the tentacles instead deal 1d8+str damage. again, the idea being that the tentacles aren't super dangerous if you know where they are and can easily keep track of them. but can be absolutely devastating if they're able to get in just the right position.
i'd probably then combine this with a rogue, or maybe bugbear style sneak attack damage just to really nail home the idea that it can (and will) one shot you if it gets the chance.
combined with your idea of the hunting mini-game this would (i think) really enhance the clock. like, the players *really* don't want the beast to find them before they find it. or one of them might be toast.
Edit: for flavor, i really like the idea of narrating a displacer attack from one direction, describing to one of the players this large beast and its fangs leaping down at them. rolling to attack, then asking an entirely different player what their AC is. as, obviously, the beast they watched attack was not the real one.
I considered a solo Predator approach so this was an interesting read - I particularly love that edit you included! I might just steal that idea if my players ever come up against a Displacer
@@MonarchsFactory thanks! Always nice to have ideas validated.
I had a Feywild based campaign where a modified displacer beast was the bbeg, where it was the product of an experiment done during the war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts. The displacer beast was genetically modified to incorporate some of the abilities of local fauna. So its skin had shifting colors that made it blend into the forest (advantage on stealth) and its tentacles had a mushroom spore that would release on a hit that would be a CON save to not be paralyzed for 1d4-1 rounds (or can make a save as an action at the end of each turn). It also had a rapid teleport technique where it could teleport up to three times during its turn up to its movement in order to make things chaotic. Obviously boosted stats since the campaign ended at level 10.
All that to say is that displacer beasts are a lot of fun to run as an encounter and you can change so much from them to make them more interesting and scary and an actual threat. I love this idea as well, and that mini game is definitely something I will probably use. Already have a couple of ideas for it
Yes channel your inner Big Cat with max ferocity "Claw-Claw-Tentacle-Tenacle-Glock-AK47"
I like the idea that a wizard discovering displacer beasts, hunting them with his adventuring party, and then researching the remains is how the school of Illusions magic might have started, or at least that it was a major contribution to the study of illusions.
Nice design! The main thing is that the author understands what purpose each design/choise serves. Just half an hour of joy.
For years I have struggled to make displacer beasts anything more than a slight nuisance. Thank you so much, this is amazing! This weekend one of my groups will be traveling to a collection of jungle islands, shrouded in mist, and this was the perfect thing to put it over the top.
I love videos like this cause there's so much that can be applied in other situations or put into more of a general philosophy. Like I typically don't plan on doing any kind of animal hunting stuff for the most part because that just doesn't vibe with how I view fantasy conflict and just animals in general. But now I'm itching for an opportunity to use that minigame system for fighting a group of dark fey that have been taking people into the night, or an enemy party that have been giving the players trouble and targeting them
This is really excellent stuff! This is one of those deceptively simple frameworks that requires a lot of creativity to invent, but feels obvious once someone else shows it to you.
This is one of my favorite game design videos of all time, let alone a D&D video -- such excellent work!!
I am here to report that this exploration game (1) works with large groups and (2) is sound enough to build on top of. I added multiple trails to follow (using a printed map and different colored, numbered chips), integrated rolls (failed rolls still revealed the square and revealed what passed through the hex, just not the number), and added actions (making camp, etc.), and (3) as suitable for long explorations taking place over many days. Just here to offer a field report.
And to Dael, every single GM who has seen me run this system has asked to steal it. It's absolutely changed the way we play. Many thanks.
I've been going through a purge of my DnD content lately. So glad I kept this sub. This is my favorite of your videos so far. Love it.
This is a fantastic way to adapt a different game mechanic to D&D to create a distinct encounter/adventure!
Loved it. Mini game is amazing. Displacer changes make sense. You literally got me excited to run Displacers and spawned an entire earning trust with a tribe in the area my players are exploring idea. THANK YOU
Dael, I'd love so much to have you in my party. Running, playing, it doesn't matter! Your ideas ROCK!
Awesome! I like how you "exit stage left" at the end of each video-true theatre style
I love this Dael. I feel like this could be adapted for a search/chase in a heavily urban area and many other areas as well.
I remember when this first came out and I thought "I'm gonna have to do that one day." Last night was that day, it was a lot of fun.
I found that keeping track of which displacer beasts had displacement currently active and which ones didn't was a HUGE pain, so it quickly became "once hit it was over".
Then I added an Alpha Displacer which was a huge creature that could grab and throw characters with it's tentacles. They were not expecting that. Good times.
This is AMAZING! After my group gets back together (after we all get our shots) I am 100% using this. I love the feel of the old mine sweeper game mixed with hunting them while they hunt you. Keep up the great work!
It's a shame we can only give you 1 thumbs up- great work. The displacer beast is so iconic and this scenario is so well thought out. I am a big fan of your work. Keep it up!
Wait a second... this isn't BIG SPIDER!?
This “Mind-Seeeper” mini-game is so neat and inventive. Bravo, Dael.
This is incredible. Absolutely using this, I love your videos, literally the most creative TTRPG youtuber to date. Thank you!
"Why aren't you rolling?" is exactly the type of thing I'd love to hear as a DM. This is a great minigame, Dael! Simple enough to be versatile, specific enough to not be too easy. Definitely gonna use this in the future.
Literally will have an encounter with displacer beasts next session and this video is ginna help a lot! Thanks!
Sidenote, I think the displacement ability just imposing disadvantage ist really boring, so I'll make a variant where instead they make an illusiory copy of themselves. Displacement will be an Action they'll take (maybe with recharge); when casting the copy, I'll take the token away and place two identical tokens 5ft away from where the the displacer beast used its ability. So the fight will be about finding out which ones are real.
Hah I just bought 2 "phase cats" from Reaper minis in anticipation of a displacer beast encounter. Thanks for doing my DM work for me Miss Kingsmill 👌
The Divine Ether, whispering into Dael's ear: "...Mind Sweeper..."
This was such a good video, Dael! I definitely enjoy your usual "vague & evocative" style, but this foray into "defined & evocative" was really good, too! I hope the next 3 go smooth for you, and we get to see more of these. This was super helpful and...I really want to run this session for my friends. I already have some ideas I can add I think they'll really enjoy. Thank you for another great video!
Awesome idea Dael! The dice gods clearly wanted you to do this with sending you the dream vision. If I was to use this, I think I would add in a chance that on some of the off the trail spots a chance to find some herbs for potions if they were using nature or medicine checks. Just to add a little distraction to the party from the main objective to eat up their time.
How am I only just seeing this? I love it! Once again, reshaping the way we think about D&D. I'm excited thinking about whether this framework could be adapated to accomodate other creatures too. This could make "hunt the beast" adventures actually interesting and a worthy endeavour.
So evocative too. I loved when you were describing how the Displacers already figured out where the traps are, really selling them as these highly intelligent apex predators in their natural environment. I think what could add to that is if the players learn this from the villagers. One of them commenting that they tried setting traps for the beasts but the Displacers are too cunning. Also gives the players the opportunity to learn where, or at least get a clue as to where, some of the traps are. But while the villagers might be able to tell them where one, or maybe even two trap sites are... they then tell them, solemnly, that the last team that went in to set traps... never came back. Did they manage to set their traps before being ambushed? If so, where? No-one knows... well, the DM and the Displacers do but yeah...
SO CLEVER
I imagine adapting the size of the grid to the length of the trail, or changing the square/time/check numbers ratio to fit different trail sizes, quarries and terrain
Maybe adding a gimmick for the more territorial beasts like owlbears..
MY CREATIVE JUICES! They FLOW! Thank you !
Ohhhh! This concept for tracking is AWESOME! Thank you!
This automatically came on after watching your other video and your tracking minigame blue my mind. Completely changes how I'd run survival and tracking. Could even be the basis of a hex crawl campaign where the heroes wake up lost.
This is an incredible idea!! My one suggestion would be using hexagons instead of squares, as it allows easier visualization on the part of the players (considering diagonals and pathing).
I definitely thought about hexagons too! The main reason I went with squares for this video was so I could easily do the Battleship ABC by 123 labels for clarity. But as long as the DM can clearly see both maps and what's where during the game I don't see why you couldn't go hexagons. 😊
Evocative minigame reminiscent of scenes from movies!
I made some small tweaks to this system and ran it for my Fairy Tales campaign (the players were hunting the Jabberwock and the displacer beasts were the Bandersnatches hunting the party) and it went great! Awesome idea! Thanks Dael!
Loving the minigame. If I were running this, I'd give the displacers disadvantage on the first couple turns because they're nocturnal and probably sleeping at that time. I also don't like that they seem to know exactly where the players are at all times. Maybe they should do some tracking checks of their own, but at the very least, they should have to be in an adjacent square to perceive the players. Finally, I'd allow either party to use their turn to hide/ambush.
For some reason "da pwide are none da wyzuh" really made chuckle. The whole video is aces, but I have played that tiny segment over a bunch of times.
I love Displacer Beasts, they're my favorite creature in the game (aside from the ridiculousness of the Ogre Goblin Hucker). I'm also loving this idea how to spice up encounters with these magical beasties and will totally be using this one day.
It’s when I make complicated mini games like this that I’m most reminded that locate creatures is a spell
That tracking system is genius. Can't wait to use it!
I love this so much. I especially love the idea of how the mood at the table would change when the players realise that they're being hunted too - there's a huge amount of dramatic tension there :)
Lions are the exception to the rule among big cats though. Its a panther. Panthers are melanistic leopards in Africa or melanistic jaguars in South America. Jaguars are all terrain killers who can swim, climb trees, and overland travel. They can drop down on you from above, and kill alligators by biting through their skulls.
Personally I think a single displacer beast or perhaps a mother and almost adult juveniles is terrifying enough. You want to allow blink dogs to be the pack animals and lion based creatures I feel.
The minesweeper mini game is really cool though.
The mini game is great and I actually needed a one-shot for hunting displacer beasts. The stars have aligned 🌟 Thank you
I think "Clever Girl" is my new nickname for Dael.
So, this set my game designer brain on fire and I put together a basic rule set for large-scale army/siege combat using this gird and similar vibe. Thank you for the inspiration!
I would pay money for a print version of this on DMsGuild or similar.
“At night... whooh, your gone!” 😆
This is a very cool hunting/tracking minigame! I'm sure it would work for other creatures too, with a handful of monster-specific tweaks. And your displacer beast lore is good too.
If there was a GMbinder version of that minigame, I could feel heaven
Love this and will definitely be using the Minesweeper hunting mechanic. Displacer Beasts are one of my favorite monsters too, your redesign definitely does them more justice than the 5e stat block. Great video. 🍻
I love your homebrew changes! I love dnd but there are times where I really think the stat blocks are more a guideline then anything else! I’m going to use your version of Displacer beasts now! Love it
D&D activity is gonna be picking up for me this summer, so will definitely try an encounter like this. Maybe with a twist, like the townsfolk are actually using the displacers to weaken the party for blood sacrifice to their fertility demon god.
Thanks Dael youre a genius
I've been trying to figure out how to format a Monster Hunter (The Video game series from Capcom) DnD game and this cracked the code for me. I ran a mechanics one shot to see how it worked with the Monster Hunter Stat Blocks and it worked amazingly.
"Death in a sack" - for a throwaway reference, that was outstanding. 👏
really like the battleship-esque tracking minigame, will probably try to remember to use that
So many great ideas on this channel. I leave your videos so inspired but also overwhelmed with all of the details you have come up with that I fear I would forget in the moment. Regardless, you continually provide excellent resources for me. Thank you for the inspiration!
Hearing Dael say "you activated my trap card" in the most nerd voice she could pull off is all I needed today
Finally a beast that mechanically feels like the fluff attached to it. The mini monster hunter game is good as well and may be used at my game table. Thanks for all you give us.
Wow Omar sure is wonderful!
I liked the mini grid search too. Even hex grid is good. But it needed some landmarks like hill, cliff, taller trees, stream, meadow, etc... so players can move towards or away from landmarks using their own judgements instead of solely relying on skill rolls.
This is a great, simple, hex-crawl-like system for long hunts. I'll definitely use it.
This is an amazing video, I've watched it a few times and have taken it as inspiration for an upcoming event in my current game. You're amazing, keep up the great work!
Thanks for this! I ran this mini game for my players last session and they really enjoyed it. Very unique. Appreciate it very much.
I’ve been wanting to find rules for a monster hunter style game and this is PERFECT!!! Thank you
Clever Girl, that mini-game is pretty cool. I like your ideas for a pride of Displacer Beasts.
I ran a game where people were disappearing in the slums of Waterdeep. Then someone claims they saw a person dragged into the sewers by a black Tentacle,
Turns out a Mama DB is stalking the slums to feed her kitten.
Is it weird that my immediate reaction was "awww!"?
I finally had an opportunity to run this for my players, and it went over so well! Thank you so much for all of the incredible work you do!
This is so good...I'm gonna be thinking about this mini game and what other monsters or travel/exploration things could be done in that way for so long. I'd love to expand on some of this stuff and try it out as a way to make quick, easy, and interesting hex/dungeon crawl explorations. And it's interesting to think of something like a flying monster that maybe gets to move two squares a turn or some impassable chunks of squares that represent obstacles that monsters can travel through but unprepared players can't. I'm probably overcomplicating it already, but that's what my brain does on cool d&d ideas.
The mini-game is GREAT and honestly i can see how it could be used for loads of fun tracking-based segments
Love this structure, I'm running a oneshot this weekend that's an Adventurers' Guild certification exam and this concept is so perfect for it
This is really cool and I can see printing a really pretty map with different features then laying the grid over the top. This could easily work for any type of tracking and in many systems. I might use this in my Changling the Lost game for the players tracking something in the hedge!
This makes me want to run a witcher style game. Where successfully hunting the monster drastically changes the challenge of fighting them. Very inspiring!
There's actually a trpg system for the witcher. I didn't even know it existed until about a month ago
Love how deep you go on one monster stat block. I'm taking notes.
I literally just ran this as my first introductory adventure for my (starting at) 2nd lvl party last Sat. Ranger Fighters Wizard and Bard guarding a caravan through a forest road, there were a total of 2 Displacer though for story reasons only one was on the prowl. I had the same notions about making the beasts more interesting with homebrew and the cat and mouse game being the primary focus, but boy do I wish I would have watched this first. I managed as a newish DM to stumble through it, and my players were generous enough to say they enjoyed it, but yeah, this would have been much better.... Subscribed! Thanks for the content!
Turning this into an encounter in the Nessian Wood for my Theros campaign next week. Excited to see how it goes down, especially because we got a new player joining us, playing a Sacred Keeper Ranger from your Theros homebrew 😉
Omg you nailed it, I love your take on the displacer pride! I'll be running a version of this this weekend!
Perfect timing. I'm running a werewolf hunt in my Strahd campaign this weekend and will definitely give this a try. Thank you.
Ooh, let me know how that goes! A werewolf hunt would be 😙👌
@@MonarchsFactory just finished the session. Worked great. Players were extremely caution when they found human tracks then blood and then wolf tracks. All the while hearing the distant howls get closer as they ran for the safety of the mountains beyond the forest. Ended with them running out of the forest, chased by the wolves as the sun began to rise. Still a fight ahead but not as deadly a one. Thanks for the idea 👍
@@afinnerty32 Brilliant!
Awesome! I must say though that you have basically given them greater invisibility in dim light or darkness, which is a little brutal
Oh Hell yeah! I’m stealing this for a werewolf encounter I’ve been planning in my grim dark 5e game! I was feeling the perfect vibe throughout the entire video. Great stuff!!
Have one werewolf who "lost his brother to the beast" be legitimately distraught over it bc they are both monsters forever so that they trust him, and he is their guide... I'm imagining him becoming more and more stoic as the hunt progresses, and then he says, "better you than anyone else in the village" as the moon rises. He of course would try to lead them to fall in traps for easy pickings, etc. along the way.
@@lukedaniels5495 Now, that's awesome!
I do love this. Having a little mini game to simulate the hunt; genius!
This has been "The Phantom and the Shadow" by Dael Kingsmill. A oneshot drama and thriller.
Super cool! Trying this out tonight in my Shadowfell campaign.