Dodkong minions

[Cleon]

Updating Stone Giant Wight.

By the way, don't forget that tweaking the WIS up by another ability score bonus point also increases the Perception skill to +7.

Okay, I've run it through the CR Calculator and it comes to Challenge 16 but that isn't allowing for it inflicting levels of exhaustion. There's no convenient checkbox for inflicting fatigue in the 5e.tools calculator.

Overall the Actions look fine, and I like the Rolling Rock attack although personally I'd have called it Rock Bowling.

However, I have one caveat. Why does it have necrotic damage and exhaustion levels on ALL its physical attacks? A normal wight's life draining touch only affects a single victim per turn and it has to make a deliberate touch attack. You're allowing it to do it with a rock it chucks at someone 80 yards away.

I'd prefer something more like the original Wight, which has:

Multiattack. The wight makes two longsword attacks or two longbow attacks. It can use its Life Drain in place of one longsword attack.​

Also, if it can summon shadows with Rend the Veil, perhaps its Life Drain creates shadows instead of zombies? It seems more fitting if that Legendary Action summons its previous victims rather than abducts some random shadow minding its own business in the Shadowfell.

Although I'd call it something different from Life Drain since it's mechanically distinct from the necrotic damage causing touch of a standard Wight. Maybe Death Touch or Soul Drain?

Oh, and the restoration wording is a bit confusing, especially the "or greater restoration (if there are 3 levels of exhaustion)" bit. What, do you have to use greater restoration for three levels of exhaustion. What about four or five levels of exhaustion?

If we make it a separate attack from the rocks/greatclub it will only get one opportunity to Soul Drain per round (unless we give it a Legendary Action that can Death Touch?) rather than up to five levels of exhaustion per round like the current draft (since its Multiattack and Legendary Actions allow for five greatclub attacks in the same round). With a single attack I'm wondering if you should open the possibility of it doing more than one level of exhaustion with a single hit, probably based on the success of the saving throw.

Finally, rather than "creature" I'd use "humanoid or giant" so it's can't create undead out of random vermin it squashes.

Putting that all together, the approach I'd go for would be along these lines:

Multiattack. The stone giant wight makes two greatclub attacks. It can use its Soul Drain in place of one greatclub attack.​

​

Soul Drain. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 15 ft., one creature. Hit: LOTS (#d# + 8) necrotic damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or suffer 1 level of exhaustion. If the target fails the saving throw by 5 points or more, it suffers an additional level of exhaustion. This exhaustion remains until it is healed magically: a lesser restoration will remove one level of the exhaustion, a greater restoration will remove three levels. The target dies if it suffers 6 levels or exhaustion.​

​

A humanoid or giant slain by this attack rises 24 hours later as a shadow under the stone giant wight's control, unless the victim is restored to life or its body is destroyed. The stone giant wight can have no more than twelve shadows under its control at one time.​

I'm open to adding a Legendary Action that attacks with Soul Drain, i.e. "Death Touch (Costs 2 Actions). The stone giant wight uses Soul Drain."

Any thoughts?

 

[Cleon]

You know, I'm leaning towards reverting to the earlier WIS (+1), CHA (+2) like before since it's a Minion now.

EDIT: the primary reason for fancying a reversion to CHA 14 or 15 was to soften my proposed Soul Drain to DC 15 from 16, which felt a tad too high. Having a +2 Wisdom modifier doesn't bother me if you'd like to make it, say WIS 14, CHA 15? :ENDEDIT

I'm also wondering whether it should do less damage to reduce the Challenge. With CR 16 you can't really have one of them team up with a few troglo-wights to face a 13th level party without accusations of being a killer DM.

Removing or reducing the necrotic damage from its attacks would be the simplest way of doing that, as would reducing the number of Legendary Action Greatclub attacks. If the Death Touch costs 2 then the Greatclub should have the same cost if we're allowing it to swap a Soul Drain for a Greatclub attack with Multiattack.

Hmm… Also, a regular Wight can make two ranged attacks with Multiattack, so I'm tempted to give this lad the same, i.e.:

Multiattack. The stone giant wight makes two greatclub attacks or two rock attacks. It can use its Soul Drain in place of one greatclub attack.​

If we do that we'd want the Rock attack to do the same or slightly less damage than the Greatclub.

i.e. if the Rock does 28 (4d10 + 6) then the Greatclub should do about 28-30, so maybe 19 (3d8 + 6) bludgeoning plus 9 (2d8), 10 (3d6) or 11 (2d10) necrotic?

Of those, I like the 3d6 necrotic the best for 30 average damage per Greatclub smack. That adds to 90 DPR for two Multiattack smacks plus a 2 Cost Legendary Action smack, which comes to Challenge 14 (11,500) according to the CR Calculator.

 

[Cleon]

Oh, the Legendary Action version of Fling says "The stone giant wight may fling a grappled target."

However, it does not have any attacks that grapple a target! Wouldn't it make more sense to use "Fling. The stone giant wight uses Fling." Although I'd rather call the Legendary Action Fling something different from the regular Action Fling for the sake of distinctiveness.

The wording of its standard Fling could do with some work but I'll leave that til later.

Hmm… I've just had a really evil idea for a grapple attack…

 

[Casimir Liber]

- I always hated that about a wight (claws doing drain attack but swords don't) - visualising it just made it look really stupid to me (and the barrow wight and ringwraith had dark weapons that did some sort of essence drain) - so keeping necrotic damage on melee attacks, but can live with removing it from rock attacks.

- love the idea of a grapple attack


- make 'fling' a reaction or bonus action with grappled target?

- like "Rock Bowling" and using it

- greater restoration is for three (or more) levels of exhaustion

- tempted to remove legendary actions - make the Rend the Veil a bonus action (with a flick of its wrist)

- 'minion' is trhe wrong word

- dropped WIS to 13 and Cha to 15


Gotta sleep now - more in abt 7 hours

 

[Cleon]

- I always hated that about a wight (claws doing drain attack but swords don't) - visualising it just made it look really stupid to me (and the barrow wight and ringwraith had dark weapons that did some sort of essence drain) - so keeping necrotic damage on melee attacks, but can live with removing it from rock attacks.

- love the idea of a grapple attack


- make 'fling' a reaction or bonus action with grappled target?

- like "Rock Bowling" and using it

- greater restoration is for three (or more) levels of exhaustion

- tempted to remove legendary actions - make the Rend the Veil a bonus action (with a flick of its wrist)

- 'minion' is trhe wrong word

- dropped WIS to 13 and Cha to 15


Gotta sleep now - more in abt 7 hours

I'll leave responding to this for another day. Got quite a few notions to figure out. Might be easier just writing out a complete Working Draft for the beastie.

Before I get too far into it, could you confirm approximately what Challenge Rating you'd like the Giant Wight to end up with?

 

[Casimir Liber]

About the same fighting prowess as current. I've used them a couple of times and one is meaty enough as a single opponent against 7th level party...which is why it needed some sort of legendary or villainous (to quote Matt Colville) action

 

[Cleon]

Troglo-wight
Medium undead, chaotic evil
Armor Class 14 (natural armor)
Hit Points 60 (8d8 + 24)
Speed 30 ft.

STR​	DEX​	CON​	INT​	WIS​	CHA​
17 (+3)​	14 (+2)​	17 (+3)​	6 (–2)​	11 (+0)​	12 (+1)​

Skills Perception +2, Stealth +4
Damage Resistances necrotic; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren't silvered
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages Troglodyte
Challenge 4 (1,100 XP) Proficiency Bonus +2

Chameleon Skin. The troglo-wight has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide.

Necrotic Stench. Any living creature that starts its turn within 5 feet of the troglo-wight must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw, or take 5 (2d4) necrotic damage and be poisoned until the start of the creature's next turn. On a successful saving throw, the creature cannot be poisoned by the stench of all troglodytes and troglo-wight for 1 hour. The creature can still take necrotic damage from a troglo-wight's necrotic stench during this hour, but only takes 2 (1d4) necrotic damage if they fail their saving throw.

Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, the troglo-wight has disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Actions

Multiattack. The troglo-wight makes three attacks: one with its bite and two with its claws.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage plus 5 (1d10) necrotic damage. f the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or suffer 1 level of exhaustion. This exhaustion remains until it is healed magically: a lesser restoration can remove one level of exhaustion from a victim with two or fewer levels, a greater restoration will remove three levels of exhaustion. The target dies if it suffers 6 levels or exhaustion.
 A humanoid slain by this attack rises 24 hours later as a zombie under the troglo-wight's control, unless the victim is restored to life or its body is destroyed. The troglo-wight can have no more than twelve zombies under its control at one time.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) slashing damage plus 5 (1d10) necrotic damage.


Description

Troglo-wights can be created when troglodytes are slain by an undead being of great power or in a locale blighted by great evil. Dark powers then granted their spirits corporeal undeath, leaving them to wreak havoc among the living. They appear as deathly pale troglodytes with dark eyes, which blaze with a white spark when living prey is attacked.
 Possessing the (admittedly limited) intellect of their formerly living selves, troglo-wights have some capacity for planning and free will. This is usually overridden by their compulsion to serve the agents that made them.
 Unearthly Cave Dwellers. Their subterranean origins allow troglo-wights more freedom than sun-fearing undead have above ground. They are less likely to be bound to a specific lair location

(Original monster designed by Casimir Liber and Cleon on the Creature Catalog Monster Homebrews forum)

 

[Casimir Liber]

You missed the Rock Bowling and Rend the Veil (Having hte sight rip a hole in the fabric of the material plane and shadows coming through freaked the players right out!)

Ok I like the skull mace and soul drain and will adopt same.

 

[Cleon]

You missed the Rock Bowling and Rend the Veil (Having hte sight rip a hole in the fabric of the material plane and shadows coming through freaked the players right out!)

Dang it, I just forgot those.

Easy enough to add…

EDIT: And done. The version of Rock Bowling and Rend the Veil in my Blue Giant Group are somewhat different to yours.

The Bowling does the same damage as a thrown rock and has the same range. Since it's a normal attack, the giant wight can either roll a single rock or throw two with Multiattack so by the "AoE count as double damage" rule they balance if both rocks inflict the same damage.

The Rend the Veil basically just adds a Shadow to the giant's gang of up to a dozen. I dithered about whether it should cost more than 1 action but Shadows are only Challenge 1/2 so would be negligible compared to the Big Guy.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Also - the reason I had in Greater Restoration was to force players to fork out money for a high level cleric to cast for 3+ lvls of exhaustion (otherwise they'll just get loads of lesser ones).