D&D General Custom Monsters and Enemies You’ve Made?

[doctorbadwolf]

Most DMs come up with custom critters, even if only by modifying existing creatures, but we could all use some inspiration from folks who think differently from us.

my most memorable recent custom baddie was a brood of drakes of various types who were given tentacles, and tentacle grapple, spiderclimb, and a 20ft poisoned spit attack, and their matriarch, which had all that, and legendary actions.

She could screech and cause all non aberrations within 100ft to make a con save vs light psychic damage and frightened, and call her brood, allowing all aberrations within 300ft to move toward her and attack any non-aberrations they could reach as a reaction.

The screech could be sustained as a bonus action (she also had bonus action attacks), causing a new save. If a creature failed a save while frighten of her, they also became poisoned.

If they failed a save while poisoned, they had to attack the nearest creature to them with a melee weapon attack as a reaction.

Oh, and she was huge and could fly, and could eat her brood to regain HP or gain THP.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I've been having fun making custom vampires by just slapping the Bite feature, Grapple Ability, and Undead Creature Type to various other monsters.

So far we've had a Vampire Bodak and a Vampire Ooze Master. But more fun should be on the way!

 

[el-remmen]

This makes me thing that I need to convert the "Bone Spider" I created for 3E to 5E - but it was an undead creating spider, that wrapped up its victims in webbings and pumped them full of a kind of embalming fluid that made them into zombies that burst out of the web sacks a day later. Also it spun ethereal webs that it could climb on and undead beings could walk through, but the webs phased into existence when living matter tried to pass through them, catching people for each grapple and webbing.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Back when COVID first hit and the idea that it had jumped to humans from pangolins was a leading theory I tried to get two different groups to face off with a pack of homebrewed "Dire Pangolins". Both of the avoided the fights. But one day...

 

[Shiroiken]

One of the first I did was a medium lancer, which wasn't actually used (the party avoided the patrol instead). It was an NPC, 3d8 HD (IIRC), 16 AC (ring mail + shield), and a lance for its primary attack. It also had javelins for ranged attacks, but since it was mounted, that didn't come up often. I did give it the same charge feature from the Centaur.

The most fun one I did was Lolth, to be used in The Vault of the Drow an Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Legendary Monster, with lair actions (duh) and shapechanging. Her spider form had excellent AC (25 IIRC), a poison bite, could create a Web as a legendary action, and had some spellcasting. In her drow form, she had lower AC (15 IIRC) but powerful spellcasting, including as a legendary action. The first fight against her avatar didn't go well for me, since they'd use Heroes Feast beforehand, becoming immune to poison (which was 75% of her damage). When they fought her simulacrum later, and her final form, it was a rough battle both times, nearly TPKs.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

The hodgepocalypse is my homebrew that essentially is rifts/fallout/half life using dungeons and dragons and a lot of mods.

I've done a ton of monsters, but one I'm particularly proud of is the Canadian Gryphon.

 

[CleverNickName]

One of the most terrifying monsters I ever created was a Spider Dragon. Started with an Adult Black Dragon as the chassis, put it up on blocks, and made the following modifications:

• Removed the wings and tail. Added 4 more legs, for a total of 8.
• Changed its Multiattack ability: the dragon can use its Frightful Presence. It then makes seven attacks: 1 with its bite and 6 with its claws.
• Always under the effect of spider climb and jump. Because jumping spiders are terrifying.
• Gave it a (very) poisonous bite, I think it did damage equal to the breath weapon and used Con instead of Dex for saves.
• Instead of breathing acid, it spewed swarms of poisonous spiders (instant CR 1/2 minions on a Recharge).
• Legendary actions: Move up to its movement (1 action), bite an adjacent foe (1 action), or cast web (2 actions)

That battle was epic. Six years later and we still talk about it. In hushed whispers around the campfire.

 

[Richards]

I've made plenty of custom monsters over the years. One of my less serious was the Dire Rhea...but while its creation was pretty much a joke (mainly just to see how many diarrhea puns I could fit into the write-up), I did actually finally use a couple of these critters in an island adventure I wrote for my last campaign.

Among my more serious creations are the impaler (an animated construct with a spike at the headless neck, upon which is impaled the severed head of a humanoid, which retains the memories and abilities it had while alive - it gave me the chance to "reuse" slain enemies I wasn't quite through with, in a different means than just having them raised or resurrected); necrospheres (flying metal spheres - kind of like those found in the Phantasm movies - that constantly shoot black lightning bolts between them, allowing me to attack any and all creatures they could "surround" as they flew past each round); and the grave medusa (an undead skeleton with writhing worms fused into its skull in place of the medusa's snakes-for-hair scheme). I haven't used that last one yet, but I've written the adventure in which it will appear; now it's just a matter of time....

Johnathan

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I have a few . . .

1. Shibboleths (inspired by a real world term with an age-old history). A Shibboleth is an elder aboleth that not only remembers that they were created by Pisaethces the Blood Queen, but worship her as their creator deity (after all, she predates the coming of the Gods to Abeir-Toril). Basically, they're archpriest-aboleths with blood and water-related spells, like Control Water, Create/Destroy Water, and so on, but the water that they control/create through their spellcasting appears as blood-colored mucus. They're essentially the "Hive-Mothers" of the few remaining aboleth dens, having the whole run of the place, commanding younger and less powerful aboleths, and having the most slaves (typically kuo-toa and sahuagin).
2. The Dream Watchers and Dream Snatchers. Hundreds of years ago, an Elder Evil from the Far Realm sent out a fragment of its whole self to venture into the now secluded worlds of Tor-eal, curious of the unique nature of the world. Eventually, this Elder Evil found a demiplane drifting through the Deep Ethereal that strangely felt a bit like home, the Demiplane of Nightmares. This alien entity decided that to use a bit of its aberrant powers to transform and expand this demiplane, separating it from being a part of the Deep Ethereal, and causing it to become a whole plane of existence; the Plane of Dreams. In the act of using great power to promoting a mere demiplane into a whole plane of existence, the Entity bound itself to this plane of existence, causing the fragment of it that is dwelling in Tor-eal to be incapable of leaving the Plane of Dreams so long as it exists. In order to balance out this major restriction to its ability to act freely in Tor-eal, the Entity used even more of its power to cause the minds of creatures to venture into the Plane of Dreams as they slept, forming their own "dream hubs" for their dreams to play out as the servants of the Entity watches (now being known only as "That-Which-Watches-Us-In-The-Night"). Its servants are the Dream Watchers (Medium-sized floating eyeballs with psychic-damaging mind-blasts) and Dream Snatchers (Medium-sized floating human hands that drag people back into the dream hubs if they ever somehow escape). That-Which-Watches-Us-In-The-Night dwells in the very center of the Plane of Dreams, appearing as a giant eyeball the size of the Sun with an aberrant-purple and deep-orange iris.
3. Gem Golems. They come in all variety of gemstones, typically serve Gemstone Dragons, and have minor telekinetic powers.

 

[cbwjm]

I made a wyvern brute using my brute template. It was a typical wyvern with more hit points than average, dealt an extra 5 points of damage on each attack and if it rolled a critical hit, it rolled extra damage dice. It also had a reaction that allowed it to immediately use its stinger when it was bloodied.

Made a bunch of swarms as well, my rules for them eventually evolving to make swarms both terrible to caught up in, but easy to handle with AoE effects. My players escaped from a swarm of mites (malicious tiny fey) that swarm about constantly nipping at those caught in the swarm (an aura dealing piercing damage at the start of the players turn). This aura disappears when the swarm is bloodied to signify that the numbers have been reduced to more manageable levels.

Branded gnolls. They set them selves alite using a magical symbol burnt into their skin. As they burn away they deal extra fire damage before exploding in a burst of flame when they're reduced to 0 hit points.