D&D 5E (2024) Tuning big single creatures into multi-part-creatures.

[mellored]

The idea is to turn big creatures into multiple connected smaller ones. Each part has it's own HP and turn.

This replaces legendary resistance, legendary actions, and multi-attack. As you get more turns to make saves, and do more small actions between PC turns.

AoE's only affect half the parts (rounded up). Monsters choice.
Teleport/banish needs to hit all living parts to succeed. Weaken it first.


Example

Adult Dragon (5 sub-creatures)
All parts have the following statistics unless otherwise noted.
Armor Class 19 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points 256 (19d12+133)
Resistance to element
Immune to Charm and Frightened (except the head)
Saving Throws Dex +6, Con +13, Wis +7, Cha +11
Initiative: head (+ 10), wing (+5), claws (+0), tail (+5), body (-10)

Head:
AC: 24, advantage on Dex saves
HP 50
Move: 0'
Actions: Breath, Bite
Incapacitated: when Incapacitated, the rest of the parts Move and attack the nearest creature, irrelevant of alignment.

Body:
HP 200
Bonus Action: Dragons Heart: heal another body part 20HP, and take 20 damage.
Bloodied: recharge breath weapon.

Wings
HP 60
Move: Fly 60'.
Action: each creature within 10' cone a save or is pushed back.
Bloodied: reduce fly speed by 30', and drops 10' at the end of each turn.
Incapacitated: the dragon falls.

Tail:
HP: 40
Action: Tail whip

Claws
HP 50
Move: 20', climb 20'
Action: Make a claw attack
Bloodied: reduce speed by 5'
Incapacitated: can still move 10' until all parts are dead.

 

[Tessarael]

Nice idea, but could be tricky to balance. How do PCs target an individual area of the large creature (e.g., are some portions higher or lower AC, or at disadvantage to attack), and does damage inflicted to them subtract off of its original total or not? For example, can I attack the less armored underbelly of the dragon?

I was thinking of something similar regarding legendary resistances. A spell that would take out a single non-legendary creature might just paralyze an ancient dragon's arm, for example.

 

[Deset Gled]

My gut reaction is that it sounds like a neat idea for truly colossal creatures, like a great wyrm or the tarrasque. Something that is large enough the characters don't even see the whole creature from up close, and can practically treat it as terrain. But it seems like a stretch for something "merely" the size of an adult dragon. At that scale, treating it as parts rather than a single monster seems too cumbersome to be worth the effort.

 

[dave2008]

The idea is to turn big creatures into multiple connected smaller ones. Each part has it's own HP and turn.

This replaces legendary resistance, legendary actions, and multi-attack. As you get more turns to make saves, and do more small actions between PC turns.

Still needs something about AoEs /teleports / Banishment. So any thoughts on that?


Example

Adult Dragon (9 sub-creatures)
All parts have the following statistics unless otherwise noted.
Armor Class 19 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points 256 (19d12+133)
Resistance to element
Immune to Charm and Frightened (except the head)
Saving Throws Dex +6, Con +13, Wis +7, Cha +11
Initiative: head (+ 10), claw (+7), wing (+5), claw (+2), tail (+0), claw (-2), wing (-5), claw (-7), body (-10)

Head: initiative +10
AC: 24, advantage on Dex saves
HP 50
Move: 0'
Actions: Breath, Bite
Incapacitated: when Incapacitated, the rest of the parts Move and attack the nearest creature, irrelevant of alignment.

Body:
HP 200
Action: Dragons Lungs: Stun 2 body parts for a turn ro recharge the heads breath weapon.
Bonus Action: Dragons Heart: heal another body part 20HP, and take 20 damage.

Wings (2):
HP 40
Move: Fly 30'.
Action: each creature within 10' cone a save or is pushed back.
Incapacitated: If one wing is incapacitated, the dragon falls slowly at the end of the turn. If both are, it just falls.

Tail:
HP: 40
Action: Tail whip

Claws (x4)
HP 25
Move: 10', climb 10'
Action: Make a claw attack

I've been using monsters in parts for years. I do like it for really big monsters; however, from experience having 3 parts is the sweat spot. I have a part be "disabled"* when it reaches 0 and there are consequences when a part is disabled, but the creature doesn't die until all parts are disabled.

*For example: if the head is disabled it has disadvantage on attacks and can't use its breath weapon (or something similar).

 

[DrJawaPhD]

I've seen a couple third party content creators publish "Mythic" monsters that worked this way and looked really well designed, but I never bought those PDFs and can't seem to remember for the life of me what they were called

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I like it.

I did something like this once with an undead slime dragon attacking a tower. The various parts of the dragon's skeleton were held together by a collosal blob. I had one character fighting the head at the top of the tower while other characters were fighting the claws on separate lower levels.

It was fun.

 

[Stalker0]

I've been using monsters in parts for years. I do like it for really big monsters; however, from experience having 3 parts is the sweat spot. I have a part be "disabled"* when it reaches 0 and there are consequences when a part is disabled, but the creature doesn't die until all parts are disabled.

*For example: if the head is disabled it has disadvantage on attacks and can't use its breath weapon (or something similar).

Yeah this is my thought. You really don't need a LOT of parts to make the concept work.

I would also keep things pretty consistent between parts most of the time: Same AC, same saving throws, same resistances, etc.


But overall I do think this is probably the "best" version of the boss monster in terms of creating a monster that:

1) Gets to go multiple times on the same round.
2) Cannot be taken out by a nova alpha strike (damaging a part does not transfer damage to another area).
3) Ensures control conditions are not insanely impactful (aka one paralyze and the monster is basically out of the fight).

That said, you do have a few issues to work through:

1) AOEs, do they damage all the parts? (this to me is the toughest one, because narratively its hard to reconcile that the parts are basically multiple creatures each woth their own HP pool....but an AOE can not damage two pools a tthe same time when I can damage two monsters at the same time.)
2) How does prone work when you prone a single part?
3) How do forced movement/teleport/banishments work?

 

[Smackpixi]

What’s the why? So players can target parts and have an effect when part controlled?

 

[Charlaquin]

I was tempted to vote “other” and say it’s not a good idea, it’s a great idea. But the joke wouldn’t be worth messing with the poll results in that way.

Yeah, this is awesome. It reminds me of how dragons work in Dragon Age Inquisition, which has some of the best dragon fights in any video game. I might not use it for every boss monster, but I think it’s a great way to handle some, especially really big ones.

 

[dave2008]

I don't have formal answers for all of these, but here is what I have done and/or what I might do in these situations:

That said, you do have a few issues to work through:

1) AOEs, do they damage all the parts? (this to me is the toughest one, because narratively its hard to reconcile that the parts are basically multiple creatures each woth their own HP pool....but an AOE can not damage two pools a tthe same time when I can damage two monsters at the same time.)
2) How does prone work when you prone a single part?
3) How do forced movement/teleport/banishments work?

1. In my "rules," if the AOE would hit multiple parts it damages each part. However, I leave it up to the DM to determine if the AOE actual overlaps with multiple parts. I suppose it might make sense to come up with a method to let a roll determine if an AOE affects multiple parts. I will have to think about that.
2. This depends. I typically have a trait that prevents these type of creatures from being knocked prone by attacks of creatures without the "colossal" trait. This would include spells.* Without that I don't have formal rules, but it depends on the part. You can't knock a creature's head prone, but instead that part might loose the ability to use reactions (my go to replacement) until the start of the next turn. I play it by ear based on what makes sense for the monster and the action.
3. Varies. For forced movement I treat it like prone (see #2 above). I only had to deal with teleport / banishment once and since the target was 1 creature (banishment) I had it affect the whole creature, bit I gave each part a save. If one part saved (which it did) the spell fails. I would probably handle teleport similar, though things will a size limit (like the teleport spell) might auto fail.

*I have been know to allow exceptions to this for 9th level spells and over-the-top heroic actions. Though I tend to require check (arcane or athletics).