D&D 5E Intellect Devourer

jasper · Jan 10, 2017

Question 1. Body Thief. I assume Intelligence contest is an ability check of Int vs Int. Correct?
Question 2. Brain dead. I assume if the pc becomes brain food, and in Tier 1 you is out of luck to raise your pc.

iserith · Jan 10, 2017

1. Yes.

2. Depends on the campaign.

Krachek · Jan 10, 2017

They are pets for Mind Flayers, not exactly Tier 1 monster.

AaronOfBarbaria · Jan 10, 2017

A thing which could fix a character driven to 0 Intelligence score by an intellect devourer, a spell scroll of greater restoration, is a possible result of the random treasure charts in the DMG in any CR bracket - by which I mean that the game clearly suggests that if you are using magic items, it's not a problem to give any level of character that sort of scroll in a treasure hoard.

So if you want to use intellect devourers, but don't want the characters to be facing retirement because it would reasonably take too long to fix them for the player to keep playing that character until that point, you can make the fix available to the party without ramping up the game's default power level (when assuming magic items exist).

FormerlyHemlock · Jan 10, 2017

jasper said:
Question 1. Body Thief. I assume Intelligence contest is an ability check of Int vs Int. Correct?
Question 2. Brain dead. I assume if the pc becomes brain food, and in Tier 1 you is out of luck to raise your pc.

Unless! the fight with the Intellect Devourer gave the PC just enough XP to go from 3rd to 4th level, which lets him or her use an ASI to raise his intelligence from 0 to 1 or 2, ending the perma-stun vegetative state.

Yes, I had a PC actually do this.

He was IIRC a Shadow Monk 7/Moon Druid 6 at the time, and chose to spend his XP on Shadow Monk 8 and boost his Int by 2. He'd been wanting to raise his Int anyway apparently because he was tired of being the "dummy" in the party (Int 10, originally 9 but he had raised it with a previous ASI).

I thought about it, and then shrugged, "Why not?" (He did get himself healed with Greater Restoration fairly shortly thereafter thanks to a favor he was owed by a Couatl, which was originally how I had expected him to deal with the perma-stun.)

Ralif Redhammer · Jan 10, 2017

Yeah, depending on the tier of play, if you don’t want it to be a save or die moment, something like changing it to be reversible by Lesser/Greater Restoration would be fine.

At the same time, if we’re talking a Mind Flayer-rich environment, the PCs are already a few bad rolls away from character death. The argument could be made both ways, for keeping the monsters as deadly as written or easing back on the danger.

AaronOfBarbaria · Jan 10, 2017

Ralif Redhammer said:
...changing it to be reversible by Lesser/Greater Restoration would be fine.

To be clear, greater restoration does not need to be changed to reverse an intellect devourer having reduced a character's intelligence score to 0 - ending any reduction to one of a character's ability scores is a standard effect of the spell.

jasper · Jan 10, 2017

Thanks. I am prepping for Season 3.
Correction "In volo's wake" and they are plenty of foreshadowing.

NeverLucky · Jan 10, 2017

Intellect Devourers are easily the worst designed monsters in 5e, with multiple save-or-die abilities that don't allow Raise Dead on a supposed CR 2. My advice: replace them with more appropriate monsters that aren't quite so ridiculous.

iserith · Jan 10, 2017

NeverLucky said:
Intellect Devourers are easily the worst designed monsters in 5e, with multiple save-or-die abilities that don't allow Raise Dead on a supposed CR 2. My advice: replace them with more appropriate monsters that aren't quite so ridiculous.

Eh, telegraph the threat and you have no worries in my view. It's when it's a "gotcha" that it's a problem. Leave clues to the impending doom and any threat is avoidable with proactive players. And if they fail to do so, at least you provided enough clues to make it a fair challenge.