Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Let's Read: Volo's Monsters
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 6999873" data-attributes="member: 32659"><p>The <strong>Elder Brain</strong> is the centre of Mind Flayer culture and hierarchy, and it is a surprisingly interesting antagonist for a giant organ sitting in brine. </p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4tJ86MvrFM4/hqdefault.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>I couldn’t resist posting some Baldur’s Gate love! I’m a big fan of the art in the book, as the Eldar Brain rises from water that is glowing pink, its tentacles looking armoured and dangerous. It gives the creature a real sense of menace, as opposed to its usual helpless victim visual. </p><p></p><p>The Elder Brain is vitally important to the Illithids, being both the leader of their colony and something akin to their god and guardian of their afterlife, so in general it is not something that the players are going to stumble across in a random dungeon room. This creature is meant to be the very pinnacle of the Mind Flayer dungeon, and it can track the thoughts of creatures from five miles out. They are essentially immobile, and it is usually impractical for the Mind Flayers to move one once it is fully grown and ensconced (they grow from Ulitharids, up next), so the Elder Brain is not going to flee your players; however, it is also likely to have the most stern defences possible. </p><p></p><p>There is some plot potential around the Elder Brain beyond just the final boss of a Mind Flayer dungeon. The first is its ability to dip into the minds of those within five miles. This means that if one is able to be near a humanoid settlement - either from a colony settling there, or the Mind Flayers managing to move it - then it can cause all kinds of chaos. There are a lot of monsters in D&D that can infiltrate or mind control members of a city; the Elder Brain is, let’s say, better than most. In addition, the Elder Brain needs brains to live; if all the Mind Flayers are dead - perhaps because the Brain managed to survive an attack that its minions did not - then it will be forced to use its mind control powers to draw food to it. This could be spun into a ghost-haunted dungeon, perhaps, with the players fighting various spectral undead before finding a half-starved Elder Brain, in what would be a good change of pace.</p><p></p><p>In combat, the Elder Brain is CR 14, and really underwhelming. It has terrible AC but loads of HP, which probably balances out. The real problem is that it has dreadful action economy and it is very likely that the players will fight it and take little or no damage. On its turns, the Elder Brain can do a single <em>Mind Blast</em>, or a single <em>Tentacle</em> attack, both of which do only slightly more than a single attack from a Giant. The Tentacle is basically a waste of time, unless you are wanting to go easy on the players, while the Mind Blast is critical to unlock any of the actually interesting elements of the Elder Brain’s abilities. Instead of making these attacks, the Elder Brain can use its action to do <em>Psychic Link</em>, which lets it read the mind of one creature and, using various Legendary Actions, do mildly nasty things to them - but it can only do that to an incapacitated opponent. So to get access to the psionic abilities that you want this creature for, you need to first use <em>Mind Blast</em>, hope that it stuns someone for long enough that on its <em>next</em> turn it can use <em>Psychic Link</em> - which does not require a saving throw - to then use Legendary Actions thereafter. By the time that you make this chain work, the combat will be over. It does sound terrifying though, so any players that have not read the statblock will likely be impressed by what is going on. However, the Elder Brain is actually going to do the most damage from random <em>Tentacle</em> attacks done as Legendary Actions, and I suspect that you’ll do better to challenge your players by just totally ignoring the <em>Psychic Link</em> stuff - leaving it to be the explanation for Thralls under its sway in humanoid settlements - and instead just use Tentacle legendary actions and Mind Blast actions to fill the combat with, which is really quite disappointing for a CR 14 master psionicist.</p><p></p><p>What do you guys think; am I being too harsh here? Am I, as usual, missing out on key synergies and interesting abilities?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charles Rampant, post: 6999873, member: 32659"] The [b]Elder Brain[/b] is the centre of Mind Flayer culture and hierarchy, and it is a surprisingly interesting antagonist for a giant organ sitting in brine. [img]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4tJ86MvrFM4/hqdefault.jpg[/img] I couldn’t resist posting some Baldur’s Gate love! I’m a big fan of the art in the book, as the Eldar Brain rises from water that is glowing pink, its tentacles looking armoured and dangerous. It gives the creature a real sense of menace, as opposed to its usual helpless victim visual. The Elder Brain is vitally important to the Illithids, being both the leader of their colony and something akin to their god and guardian of their afterlife, so in general it is not something that the players are going to stumble across in a random dungeon room. This creature is meant to be the very pinnacle of the Mind Flayer dungeon, and it can track the thoughts of creatures from five miles out. They are essentially immobile, and it is usually impractical for the Mind Flayers to move one once it is fully grown and ensconced (they grow from Ulitharids, up next), so the Elder Brain is not going to flee your players; however, it is also likely to have the most stern defences possible. There is some plot potential around the Elder Brain beyond just the final boss of a Mind Flayer dungeon. The first is its ability to dip into the minds of those within five miles. This means that if one is able to be near a humanoid settlement - either from a colony settling there, or the Mind Flayers managing to move it - then it can cause all kinds of chaos. There are a lot of monsters in D&D that can infiltrate or mind control members of a city; the Elder Brain is, let’s say, better than most. In addition, the Elder Brain needs brains to live; if all the Mind Flayers are dead - perhaps because the Brain managed to survive an attack that its minions did not - then it will be forced to use its mind control powers to draw food to it. This could be spun into a ghost-haunted dungeon, perhaps, with the players fighting various spectral undead before finding a half-starved Elder Brain, in what would be a good change of pace. In combat, the Elder Brain is CR 14, and really underwhelming. It has terrible AC but loads of HP, which probably balances out. The real problem is that it has dreadful action economy and it is very likely that the players will fight it and take little or no damage. On its turns, the Elder Brain can do a single [i]Mind Blast[/i], or a single [i]Tentacle[/i] attack, both of which do only slightly more than a single attack from a Giant. The Tentacle is basically a waste of time, unless you are wanting to go easy on the players, while the Mind Blast is critical to unlock any of the actually interesting elements of the Elder Brain’s abilities. Instead of making these attacks, the Elder Brain can use its action to do [i]Psychic Link[/i], which lets it read the mind of one creature and, using various Legendary Actions, do mildly nasty things to them - but it can only do that to an incapacitated opponent. So to get access to the psionic abilities that you want this creature for, you need to first use [i]Mind Blast[/i], hope that it stuns someone for long enough that on its [i]next[/i] turn it can use [i]Psychic Link[/i] - which does not require a saving throw - to then use Legendary Actions thereafter. By the time that you make this chain work, the combat will be over. It does sound terrifying though, so any players that have not read the statblock will likely be impressed by what is going on. However, the Elder Brain is actually going to do the most damage from random [i]Tentacle[/i] attacks done as Legendary Actions, and I suspect that you’ll do better to challenge your players by just totally ignoring the [i]Psychic Link[/i] stuff - leaving it to be the explanation for Thralls under its sway in humanoid settlements - and instead just use Tentacle legendary actions and Mind Blast actions to fill the combat with, which is really quite disappointing for a CR 14 master psionicist. What do you guys think; am I being too harsh here? Am I, as usual, missing out on key synergies and interesting abilities? [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Let's Read: Volo's Monsters
Top