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D&D 5E What if a shambling mound ate a little girl...
- Thread starter vivsavage
- Start date
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Guest 6801328
Guest
Fabulous artwork.
Spooky monster. Well-written.
Spooky monster. Well-written.
G
Guest 6801328
Guest
CapnZapp
Legend
Fabulous write-up and art!
It feels almost petty to take notes on the game stats in comparison, but since you specifically asked...:
- you switched out the lightning immunity for cold. While I understand why you dropped the lightning regeneration, the creature description still makes winter a hardship for Paddy. "Unlike a regular shambling mound, she can remain active during winter by absorbing small animal heat" is a poor fit for a cold-immune creature, which you would expect be right at home in the cold, and actually thrive from it. Based on the description, Paddy is cold-resistant but not cold-immune.
Not saying cold immunity is a mistake here. Just asking you to consider either reinforcing her proclivity to thrive in cold conditions in the running text, or dropping her immunity to resistance.
- The Engulf ability ends with an orphaned sentence fragment.
- Swarm of Poisonous Snakes. This is the name of a standard monster. I suggest you either drop its stat block, referring instead back to the Monster Manual by setting the name in bold, like so: she summons a Swarm of Poisonous Snakes to protect her. Or, of course, rename your swarm to clarify it is a unique stat block (if indeed it is a custom-made swarm, haven't checked its stats in detail)
- Since Paddy is intelligent, can she voluntarily stop bludgeoning an engulfed creature? I mean, since she's trying to make friends and all. (It's okay if you're going for the tragic angle where she can't, only that unlike a regular Mound, you might want to explicitly call out the fact the save vs bludgeoning damage is mandatory)
- Paddy should probably not be "unaligned". Neutral? Sure. But Unaligned? That's generally reserved for mindless entities with no intelligence, morals or sense-of-self, like plants...
Other than that, things look to be in good order. You've increased the hit points but otherwise Paddy is roughly the same as a regular Mound. This makes it a weak CR 7. The summoning ability comes into play too late to save Paddy (at 50 hp, chances are she'll be dead before the swarm can even act once) and shouldn't affect CR in my opinion. I would free her to summon her swarm anytime she likes (for instance "once per day"), and then instead put any tactical recommendations into the adventure where she's encountered ("Paddy uses her summon swarm ability when she only has 50 hp left"). I hope you see the difference - if in the stat block, it binds the DM to it, while if in the adventure text, it's more of a recommendation.
(Given my players, I would probably have her summon it as soon as she takes significant damage, and then have her break off combat, hulking like a little girl and asking for forgiveness, in a ploy to gain the sympathies of the heroes and thus save her existence. To do that given the stat block as is, I need to break your rules)
It feels almost petty to take notes on the game stats in comparison, but since you specifically asked...:
- you switched out the lightning immunity for cold. While I understand why you dropped the lightning regeneration, the creature description still makes winter a hardship for Paddy. "Unlike a regular shambling mound, she can remain active during winter by absorbing small animal heat" is a poor fit for a cold-immune creature, which you would expect be right at home in the cold, and actually thrive from it. Based on the description, Paddy is cold-resistant but not cold-immune.
Not saying cold immunity is a mistake here. Just asking you to consider either reinforcing her proclivity to thrive in cold conditions in the running text, or dropping her immunity to resistance.
- The Engulf ability ends with an orphaned sentence fragment.
- Swarm of Poisonous Snakes. This is the name of a standard monster. I suggest you either drop its stat block, referring instead back to the Monster Manual by setting the name in bold, like so: she summons a Swarm of Poisonous Snakes to protect her. Or, of course, rename your swarm to clarify it is a unique stat block (if indeed it is a custom-made swarm, haven't checked its stats in detail)
- Since Paddy is intelligent, can she voluntarily stop bludgeoning an engulfed creature? I mean, since she's trying to make friends and all. (It's okay if you're going for the tragic angle where she can't, only that unlike a regular Mound, you might want to explicitly call out the fact the save vs bludgeoning damage is mandatory)
- Paddy should probably not be "unaligned". Neutral? Sure. But Unaligned? That's generally reserved for mindless entities with no intelligence, morals or sense-of-self, like plants...
Other than that, things look to be in good order. You've increased the hit points but otherwise Paddy is roughly the same as a regular Mound. This makes it a weak CR 7. The summoning ability comes into play too late to save Paddy (at 50 hp, chances are she'll be dead before the swarm can even act once) and shouldn't affect CR in my opinion. I would free her to summon her swarm anytime she likes (for instance "once per day"), and then instead put any tactical recommendations into the adventure where she's encountered ("Paddy uses her summon swarm ability when she only has 50 hp left"). I hope you see the difference - if in the stat block, it binds the DM to it, while if in the adventure text, it's more of a recommendation.
(Given my players, I would probably have her summon it as soon as she takes significant damage, and then have her break off combat, hulking like a little girl and asking for forgiveness, in a ploy to gain the sympathies of the heroes and thus save her existence. To do that given the stat block as is, I need to break your rules)
CapnZapp
Legend
Addendum: looking at the Swarm stats, it looks as if you are aiming for an "area of swarms", rather than a Swarm creature.
Perhaps you should redesign the ability to be more like a spell effect; looking at Entangle, Spike Growth etc for design pointers...?
Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app
Perhaps you should redesign the ability to be more like a spell effect; looking at Entangle, Spike Growth etc for design pointers...?
Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app
Both of your posts bring up some very good issues. I've already made some changes based on them. Thank you!
Raith5
Adventurer
My experience with little girls is that they never, ever eat their greens. If it was a shambling mound of fries on the other hand...
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