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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Leatherhead" data-source="post: 8592537" data-attributes="member: 53176"><h3> Devourer (VGtM)</h3>The Devourer is an undead siege engine created by Orcus. Wherever one is sent, they start killing en masse, creating an entire undead army in little time. Any wounded humanoid caught within its ribcage suffers a swift and gruesome fate. Not only does the Devourer absorb their life force to heal itself, but the creature is ejected as another member of their undead army. It’s like playing Heroes of Might and Magic 2 with a Necromancer army, total easy mode.The most interesting thing about this creature is the fact it was once a Demon. Lesser demons vie for Orcus’s attention, and particularly “lucky” ones are changed into this undead.  This is, as far as I am aware, otherwise unprecedented in D&D metaphysics. Demons don’t leave corpses, nor do they have souls, and when they die they either warp back to the Abyss, or become nothing if they are already there. I’m sure there was some obscure 3.5 template that could accomplish this, but otherwise it seems like Orcus has actually done something previously thought impossible, and the possibilities for this kind of spirit manipulation are nearly as endless as the demon hordes themselves.In a stark contrast to their lore implications, the Devourer is a simple monster in combat. It will start off by blasting the area with a Soul Rend, to inflict massive AoE damage and send any low HD humanoids into 0 hp with death saving throws. Oh wait, I suppose I should interrupt this combat analysis to tell you that the Devourer is designed around the fact that NPCs can, in fact, use death saving throws at 0 hp, and you should be using that rule for this encounter. Anyway, once some juicy humanoids have been rendered unconscious, the Devourer is going to teleport them directly into its ribcage, where it will proceed to kill them. Technically speaking they could just let the humanoid stay there for a few rounds, but practically speaking there is absolutely nothing stopping the Devourer from stabbing the poor soul with a claw and instantly ending them. Which is really handy should the Devourer need some quick HPs and an ally. Adding injury to the insult of killing someone, the Devourer instantly recharges its Soul Rend, allowing it to start the combo all over again. As a warning, Soul Rend will damage any creature caught in the blast, which could destroy any recently created undead. It's important to note that the Devourer lacks a long ranged attack and is relatively slow. As a CR 13 creature, these problems can be something that makes the encounter almost trivial. They will need some help to cover such deficiencies: Plopping one down in the middle of a town makes the PCs scramble to protect the people rather than themselves. A less cruel DM will note that Cultists can cover much of this weakness, and serve as fodder for Imprison Soul once they are defeated, serving as a one-two punch. And don’t overlook the Wights spawned by the Devourer, they come equipped with longbows as a standard option, which can be used at extreme range.In the changeover the Devourer was turned undead instead of a fiend. I already touched upon the lore implications. But mechanically speaking, this makes them a little less useful for a mixed unit, as a fiend they would have been able to breach or resist any anti-undead magics that were employed against a group. Additionally, their Soul Rend was changed to hurt any kind of target instead of just humanoids, and had its bonus damage removed.  Does this make them deadlier? Their max damage was capped to make them more regular, so that’s nice. But the overall answer is, ironically, yes. It kind of makes them too deadly, to their own allies. Before they could have fired off that blast in the middle of their undead army and not faced any consequence for it. Personally, I would have changed it to only target living creatures at least. They also gained a bit more HP for their troubles.</blockquote>

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