I love the idea of monsters who snatch unwary PCs and drag them back to their lair, but in practice that's tough to pull off.
When players can't play, we come up with an excuse to have their characters out of commission. In this case, our human rogue wasn't able to play, so that meant the sporebear had "already gotten him" and was mimicking his voice. Of course, the players knew he wasn't playing, so they knew it wasn't him.
That left basic ambush tactics. The bear's screaming causes fear and panic, so it waited to see who failed and ran for their lives, and hunted them down. That was the plan, but that's not how it played out.
The current party is all eighth level: tiefling sorcerer, tiefling warlock, gnome artificer, elf druid, and elf ranger. Once the sporebear screamed, the druid and artificer panicked and ran. And then it was instantly incinerated by the sorceress.
Just like that, my ambush monster was defeated in under three rounds. So I added another one.
It turns out you can do quite a bit while grappled in Fifth Edition. The gnome cast thunderwave, which blew the sporebear back ten feet and stopped the grapple. That explosion gave the flying scouts a target as the thunderwave knocked over mushrooms as well as the sporebear. They directed the sorceress, who blasted the sporebear (along with much of the mushroom forest) into next week with an upcast fireball.
In theory, monsters can grapple characters and drag them away. In practice, grappling isn't enough to stop a character from fiercely resisting. That means grappling is probably not enough for an ambush monster to ambush anyone at higher levels. Instead, they'll need to inflict other conditions: incapacitated, paralyzed, petrified, stunned, or unconscious. Some of these are achieved by brute force attacks by reducing a PC's hit points to zero, which unfortunately takes away player agency.
Ambush monsters are most effective when characters lose their cool. Fear effects work well, and to that end the fear effect of the sporebear's scream tactically achieved what I was hoping for. But it required more than one monster to help separate the characters from each other, with one scaring a runner right into the waiting arms of the other one. If I had to do it all over again, I would emphasize effects that reduce movement or temporarily paralyze the character rather than just inflicting damage. And it's worth giving the monster some resistances or more hit points so it can withstand attacks as it drags victims back, or other means of transporting without leaving it open to attacks (burrowing, teleporting, etc.).
For those of you who celebrate, Happy Halloween!
Your Turn: How do you handle ambush monsters in your game without just insta-killing PCs?
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?
Inspired by the "screambear" from Annihilation, I wanted to have a fungus-controlled bear-like monster who uses the voices of its victims to lure characters to their doom. And then when that doesn't work it just leaps out from the darkness, grabs a victim, and drags them back to its lair.The surrounding mushroom forest had a strange hush to it. Giant mushrooms towered over their smaller brethren in a dizzying variety of shapes and shades. Where before the mushrooms were a riotous explosion of colors, in the dark some glowed in green and blue hues. Sparkling spores lit the air, and some kind of strange insect buzzed erratically. It was almost soothing if not for the obvious signs of a disturbance at their camp. The campfire was out. Several mushrooms had been crushed or pushed aside. Of Ra-Aten, there was no sign. Melarae kneeled to inspect the ground. She exchanged a worried look with Lilliyana.
“What?” asked Allumer, looking back and forth between them.
“This looks like bear tracks—” began Melarae.
“That’s one big bear,” said Sorrow with a smirk. “Would have to be, so Ra-Aten can carve his way out of it after it eats him.”
“That’s just it.” Lilliyana bent down to take a closer look at the tracks. “It’s a very large bear. And not a normal bear. At least not the kind native to the Gleanniguie forest.”
When players can't play, we come up with an excuse to have their characters out of commission. In this case, our human rogue wasn't able to play, so that meant the sporebear had "already gotten him" and was mimicking his voice. Of course, the players knew he wasn't playing, so they knew it wasn't him.
That left basic ambush tactics. The bear's screaming causes fear and panic, so it waited to see who failed and ran for their lives, and hunted them down. That was the plan, but that's not how it played out.
The current party is all eighth level: tiefling sorcerer, tiefling warlock, gnome artificer, elf druid, and elf ranger. Once the sporebear screamed, the druid and artificer panicked and ran. And then it was instantly incinerated by the sorceress.
Just like that, my ambush monster was defeated in under three rounds. So I added another one.
Ambush!
The gnome looked like a bite-sized snack, so the second sporebear chose him. The sporebear's bite initiated a grapple and it began dragging the gnome back to its lair to eat him. The gnome screamed bloody murder and the other heroes ran to the rescue. The hexblade cast fly on himself and on the ranger, who began tracking where the sporebear was from above. They couldn't see it from the mushroom forest canopy, but they could certainly hear the gnome's screams. The ranger pointed out that being grappled by the bear wasn't such a bad thing, as it might reveal the creatures' lair (and the fate of their missing companion). But nobody was interested in being mauled, so the party just threw everything they had at it.Hackney pulled a grenade from his pouch and set a timer, shoving it in the skull-like mouth. It beeped three times before going off. KA-BOOM! The explosion shattered the skull of the sporebear, launching Hackney backwards. “That’s my opening: Malprg comselh!” KA-FWOOSH! Allumer sent another ball of flame into the bear, scorching the surrounding mushrooms. The sporebear was on fire, relentlessly charging toward Hackney. Sorrow landed in front of it. “That’s as far as you go!” The bear-thing took a swipe at him and Sorrow blocked it with his blade. It reared up for another blow when it grunted and fell over, an arrow sticking out of the back of its skull.
It turns out you can do quite a bit while grappled in Fifth Edition. The gnome cast thunderwave, which blew the sporebear back ten feet and stopped the grapple. That explosion gave the flying scouts a target as the thunderwave knocked over mushrooms as well as the sporebear. They directed the sorceress, who blasted the sporebear (along with much of the mushroom forest) into next week with an upcast fireball.
The Art of the Ambush
It's a common horror trope, but it's worth distinguishing what makes an ambush monster so scary. The fear of an ambush monster is a delicate balancing act between ensuring a character is dragged against their will and promising a much worse fate when it drags the character to its lair.In theory, monsters can grapple characters and drag them away. In practice, grappling isn't enough to stop a character from fiercely resisting. That means grappling is probably not enough for an ambush monster to ambush anyone at higher levels. Instead, they'll need to inflict other conditions: incapacitated, paralyzed, petrified, stunned, or unconscious. Some of these are achieved by brute force attacks by reducing a PC's hit points to zero, which unfortunately takes away player agency.
Ambush monsters are most effective when characters lose their cool. Fear effects work well, and to that end the fear effect of the sporebear's scream tactically achieved what I was hoping for. But it required more than one monster to help separate the characters from each other, with one scaring a runner right into the waiting arms of the other one. If I had to do it all over again, I would emphasize effects that reduce movement or temporarily paralyze the character rather than just inflicting damage. And it's worth giving the monster some resistances or more hit points so it can withstand attacks as it drags victims back, or other means of transporting without leaving it open to attacks (burrowing, teleporting, etc.).
For those of you who celebrate, Happy Halloween!
Your Turn: How do you handle ambush monsters in your game without just insta-killing PCs?