D&D 5E Creature Features: Resistances, Vulnerabilities, and Bloodied Condition for all Creatures

[BookTenTiger]

A while back the players in my campaign said they really enjoy figuring out the vulnerabilities and resistances of enemies. We decided to add resistances and vulnerabilities to every creature (except for the characters)!

I wound up creating 19 categories that I "tag" enemies with. These tags grant new resistances and vulnerabilities. However, sometimes I change the resistance or vulnerability to fit the situation. I also gave each tag an ability that gets triggered when the creature is at half hit-points.

What's been fun is to switch up the Creature Feature tags for even the same species of enemy. For example, the characters were fighting a bunch of nothic cultists. Based on my description of them, I chose the tag "Creepy Crawly." The nothics gained a resistance to poison damage, and a vulnerability to bludgeoning. They also gained the ability to, when bloodied, move without provoking an attack of opportunity if they had made an attack.

But then the characters encountered a nothic covered in articulated armor. I used the "Armored" tag. This nothic was resistant to all bludgeoning and slashing damage, but vulnerable to piercing damage. The rogue soon figured this out, and it was fun describing how they were finding small gaps between the armored plates to stab through. When the armored nothic became bloodied, they gained some damage reduction, and this too added to the narration, as they made adjustments to their armor to cover those gaps.

This is definitely a work in progress! I may add some more resistances to tags that have very common vulnerabilities. I may change some of the bloodied powers, too. And it would be neat to combine some for especially powerful enemies!

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this list:

Arcane

• Resistance: Force
• Vulnerability: Radiant
• Bloodied Condition: +1 to all spell attacks and DC's

Armored

• Resistance: Bludgeoning, Slashing
• Vulnerability: Piercing
• Bloodied Condition: Gain Damage Reduction equal to 1 per 5 Hit Dice

Big

• Resistance: Piercing, Force, Poison
• Vulnerability: Lightning
• Bloodied Condition: Reach increases by 5 feet

Creepy Crawly

• Resistance: Poison
• Vulnerability: Bludgeoning
• Bloodied Condition: After making an attack, creature may move without provoking attacks of opportunity.

Divine

• Resistance: Radiant
• Vulnerability: Psychic
• Bloodied Condition: Immediately heal a number of Hit Dice equal to 1 per 5 Hit Dice (only applies once per combat).

Earthbound

• Resistance: Acid
• Vulnerability: Lightning
• Bloodied Condition: All attacks deal a extra acid damage equal to 1 per 5 Hit Dice.

Firebound

• Resistance: Fire
• Vulnerability: Cold
• Bloodied Condition: All attacks deal extra fire damage equal to 1 per 5 Hit Dice.

Frostbound

• Resistance: Cold
• Vulnerability: Fire
• Bloodied Condition: All attacks deal extra cold damage equal to 1 per 5 Hit Dice.

Metallic

• Resistance: Lightning
• Vulnerability: Acid
• Bloodied Condition: Adjacent creatures who make a melee attack suffer slashing damage equal to 1 per 5 Hit Dice.

Pack Minded

• Resistance: Psychic
• Vulnerability: Thunder
• Bloodied Condition: Gain the benefits of flanking when the target of attack is adjacent to an ally.

Quick

• Resistance: Force, Piercing
• Vulnerability: Poison
• Bloodied Condition: Speed increases by an amount equal to 5 feet per 5 Hit Dice.

Shadowbound

• Resistance: Cold, Necrotic
• Vulnerability: Radiant
• Bloodied Condition: May take the Hide Action as a Bonus Action.

Shielded

• Resistance: Piercing
• Vulnerability: Bludgeoning
• Bloodied Condition: Armor Class increases by an amount equal to 1 per 5 Hit Dice.

Skeletal

• Resistance: Piercing
• Vulnerability: Bludgeoning
• Bloodied Condition: Become immune to piercing damage and gain resistance to slashing damage.

Stormbound

• Resistance: Lightning
• Vulnerability: Acid
• Bloodied Condition: All attacks deal extra lightning damage equal to 1 per 5 Hit Dice.

Thick Hide

• Resistance: Piercing, Slashing
• Vulnerability: Acid
• Bloodied Condition: Gain resistance to all damage until the end of creature's next turn.

Tough

• Resistance: Bludgeoning, Force, Thunder
• Vulnerability: Piercing
• Bloodied Condition: Gain advantage on Constitution and Wisdom Saving Throws.

Wooden

• Resistance: Piercing
• Vulnerability: Fire
• Bloodied Condition: Adjacent creatures who make a melee attack suffer piercing damage equal to 1 per 5 Hit Dice.

Xenomorphic

• Resistance: Bludgeoning, Slashing, and Piercing
• Vulnerability: Roll 1d12 (1: acid, 2: cold, 3: fire, 4: force, 5: lightning, 6: necrotic, 7: piercing, 8: poison, 9: radiant, 10: thunder, 11: roll twice, 12: none)
• Bloodied Condition: Reroll Vulnerability

 

[dave2008]

Really cool idea. These are like little monster templates really. Do mind it is re-post or link to this thread over in my 5e Monstrous Compendium thread?

 

[BookTenTiger]

Really cool idea. These are like little monster templates really. Do mind it is re-post or link to this thread over in my 5e Monstrous Compendium thread?

Templates is exactly the term for it.

Go ahead!

 

[Inglorin]

I especially like the bloodied effects. Cool stuff.

 

[Dausuul]

This is a nifty idea!

And I agree with your players. Discovering monster vulnerabilities that you can exploit is like a little Christmas present mid-combat. In our last session, I was playing my bard as a debuff/support character as normal... until the DM mentioned that he was doubling the psychic damage from my Psychic Blades attack.

In thirty-plus years of playing this game, it was the first time I have ever seen a bard turn into a damage monster. Bards don't have a lot of raw damage options, but virtually all of the ones they do have are psychic. 6d6 damage (plus opportunity attacks from the barbarian and the cleric) with a first level spell? Don't mind if I do...

 

[Gadget]

This is a nice little bit of mechanical flair to add to monsters. Not to be controversial, but it reminds me a little of 4e monster design (Man I miss 4e monster design, even if it did take couple of iterations to really get it right). One thing I noticed is that there is a lot of Force resistance in there, something that is normally not resisted, or at least only very rarely. That might change the dynamic a bit for certain spells and abilities.

 

[BookTenTiger]

This is a nice little bit of mechanical flair to add to monsters. Not to be controversial, but it reminds me a little of 4e monster design (Man I mess 4e monster design, even if it did take couple of iterations to really get it right). One thing I noticed is that there is a lot of Force resistance in there, something that is normally not resisted, or at least only very rarely. That might change the dynamic a bit for certain spells and abilities.

That might have been a subconscious reaction to a warlock in the campaign.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I especially like the bloodied effects. Cool stuff.

Thanks! The bloodied effects have been really fun. Last week the group fought some azers, which I applied the Firebound tag to. When they were bloodied, they started dealing more fire damage, and I described it as their metallic bodies getting ripped apart and fire bursting through. Really made them seem threatening!

 

[BookTenTiger]

This is a nifty idea!

And I agree with your players. Discovering monster vulnerabilities that you can exploit is like a little Christmas present mid-combat. In our last session, I was playing my bard as a debuff/support character as normal... until the DM mentioned that he was doubling the psychic damage from my Psychic Blades attack.

In thirty-plus years of playing this game, it was the first time I have ever seen a bard turn into a damage monster. Bards don't have a lot of raw damage options, but virtually all of the ones they do have are psychic. 6d6 damage (plus opportunity attacks from the barbarian and the cleric) with a first level spell? Don't mind if I do...

I also have a house rules that characters can use a Bonus Action to make a Knowledge Check (Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion, depending on the creature) to learn facts about them. A lot of times during the first few rounds of combat the characters are trying to figure out what these creatures are vulnerable and resistant to, and that then changed their strategies.

 

[dave2008]

This is a nice little bit of mechanical flair to add to monsters. Not to be controversial, but it reminds me a little of 4e monster design (Man I mess 4e monster design, even if it did take couple of iterations to really get it right). One thing I noticed is that there is a lot of Force resistance in there, something that is normally not resisted, or at least only very rarely. That might change the dynamic a bit for certain spells and abilities.

The bloodied condition tends to trigger the 4e connotations. Nothing wrong with that, though I do use the bloodied condition (different than 4e though) in my game, it is not a standard 5e thing.