D&D 5E Chasmes, crits, and Necrotic Damage

[Werebat]

Wow, chasme demons are NASTY when they crit! 22d6+2 damage, and most of it can't be easily healed!

Running OotA, and a random encounter with some chasme was much more difficult than some of the scripted major boss battles like the Pudding King!

First, does a PC have to save against the drone of EVERY chasme within 30 feet? A separate save? That's four saves against four chasme. I gave the party a break and just put them at disadvantage due to the multiple chasme and still half of them fell unconscious.

Then two of them critted the shield guardian with the party and KILLED it, doing over 145 damage total!

One grabbed the unconscious paladin and flew 60' up to the ceiling with her where it critically hit (due to her being unconscious) for enough damage to bring her to 1 hp. She was able to Misty Step and Catfall to get away with minimal damage after burning healing hands, but it buzzed down and critically hit her again -- and I think she may be dead! The necrotic damage taken is greater than her total hit points! What do I do in this situation?

These are NASTY demons!

 

[Werebat]

Oh, wanted to ask -- can a construct like a shield guardian take necrotic damage? Nowhere does it say that they cannot, but I wonder if there is a rule somewhere that I am not seeing.

 

[Croesus]

Typically all immunities are listed in the stat block, and a shield guardian is only immune to poison damage. In addition, the shield guardian has the following: Construct Nature. A shield guardian doesn't require air, food, drink, or sleep. So no immunity to necrotic damage.

 

[Staffan]

Oh, wanted to ask -- can a construct like a shield guardian take necrotic damage? Nowhere does it say that they cannot, but I wonder if there is a rule somewhere that I am not seeing.

Creature types in 5e have zero mechanical weight by themselves. They are just "hooks" for other things to refer to. So unless the construct in question has immunity to necrotic damage listed in its stat block, or a specific source of necrotic damage specifies that it doesn't affect constructs (like the way ghoul paralysis calls out that it doesn't affect elves), they take just as much necrotic damage as anyone else.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Wow, chasme demons are NASTY when they crit! 22d6+2 damage, and most of it can't be easily healed!

Running OotA, and a random encounter with some chasme was much more difficult than some of the scripted major boss battles like the Pudding King!

First, does a PC have to save against the drone of EVERY chasme within 30 feet? A separate save? That's four saves against four chasme. I gave the party a break and just put them at disadvantage due to the multiple chasme and still half of them fell unconscious.

Then two of them critted the shield guardian with the party and KILLED it, doing over 145 damage total!

One grabbed the unconscious paladin and flew 60' up to the ceiling with her where it critically hit (due to her being unconscious) for enough damage to bring her to 1 hp. She was able to Misty Step and Catfall to get away with minimal damage after burning healing hands, but it buzzed down and critically hit her again -- and I think she may be dead! The necrotic damage taken is greater than her total hit points! What do I do in this situation?

These are NASTY demons!

Fully concur. Chasmes are bad news. If someone falls victim to the drone, your best bet is a quick Burning Hands or similar low-damage AoE to wake them up before they get auto-critted. Also, try to stop your ears beforehand (like Ulysses facing the sirens). And leverage Protection From Evil if you can.

Chasmes are one of my favorite demon types in 5E. Barlguras are surprisingly good too if you leverage Entangle.

8 Chasmes vs. an 11th level party of four makes me happy.

 

[MarkB]

I had a very similar experience in OotA. The party had Glabbagool the gelatinous cube with them, weighing in at 84 hit points, and fortunately for them he was the first to land a serious hit on the chasme, leading to it focusing on him. It only got a couple of hits in, but nevertheless came close to killing him, leaving him on less than 20 hp with no way to heal up until their next long rest. Any of the PCs taking those hits would have died.

In the end, after the party wore it down, Glabbagool engulfed and digested the chasme, leaving nothing but a hideous exoskeleton. It was, he said, the worst meal he'd ever experienced. I also had the novel requirement of having to describe the effects of massive necrotic damage on an ooze, which I described as looking like he'd been hit with a blowtorch and then partially deflated.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Based on the language of drone, there's an argument to be made that the saving throw only needs to be made once (without disadvantage). It says, "...is immune to the drone for the next 24 hours". Compare this with something like a dragon's frightful presence which is phrased, "...is immune to the dragon's Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours". While the language isn't clear, most power immunity is phrased as the latter (indicating immunity to one specific creature's ability, but not similar abilities from similar creatures). Since the chasme's drone lacks an indication that the immunity is towards a single individual, it can be argued that it was intended to function against all chasmes encountered within that 24 hour window. As such, the PCs would have needed to make only a single DC 12 Con save (without disadvantage) to avoid unconsciousness. That would certainly make encounters with multiple chasmes less of a likely TPK (because the odds of failing at least 1 out of 4 Con saves are fairly good unless your bonus is huge).

Of course, rulings not rules, asking for a single saving throw with disadvantage is totally within your prerogative; I'm not suggesting you were wrong to do so. I'm simply proposing that the RAI might be intended to be a bit more merciful.

As to the crits, the dice can be a fickle mistress...

 

[Werebat]

When they fall unconscious from the drone, they fall into a dream state that's like:

"Summer breeze! Makes me feel fine! Blowin' through the chasmes of my mind..."

 

[Kalshane]

I'm playing in a 9th level party of 6 in a demon-heavy campaign and we all absolutely hate fighting chasmes. I don't think any other demon we've faced so far has filled me with dread like those things. (The fact that we tend to encounter them in groups doesn't help the feeling.)

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Necrotic damage covers a range of things from life force draining to massive dehydration; it is basically a catchall for "weird" damage, and it isn't hard to imagine "weird" damage that can affect constructs (like some kind of sped up entropy). Also animated things (whether alive or magically animated like constructs) are different in some way than inanimate objects. A number of spells and magical abilities only affect creatures, so for example, a warlock can zap a normal table all day with eldritch blast without doing any damage, but he can "kill" an animated table. That means that a shield guardian is more like PC than like a statue for purposes of magical attacks.