D&D 5E My PC's and the Stirge Scourge

[Caliban]

Stirges are one of those creatures that can either be incredibly easy to deal with, or be a near TPK. It simply depends on luck (initiative order can make a huge difference) and the party makeup.

I've played that through that encounter a couple of times, on one it was a cakewalk because of my specific build, the other time it was a near TPK.

The "perfect" build for that encounter was Human (variant) Fighter 1/Warlock 3. My character had Heavy Armor Mastery and a precast Armor of Agathys up, and had cast Blade Ward before walking into the room and triggering the encounter (because he was expecting to swarmed by the skeletons on the floor.)

Every Stirge that hit him took 10 points of cold damage (Armor of Agathsys) and died after doing 0-2 points of damage (DR 3 and remaining damage halved due to Blade Ward).

My character the second time I played through that scenario was a monk. No DR, no Blade ward, and no Armor of Agathys. I couldn't kill them faster than they swarmed me.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Anyone in any edition who's ever had enough battles with stirges to end up on the bad end of a die roll hates those things with a burning passion - they're like the flying rat version of Tucker's Kobolds... If you can't hit them first in a decisive fashion, they'll shred you like paper.

 

[Nebulous]

A flock of stirges nearly killed the whole party in Tomb of Annihilation when they were in Firefinger. In fact, if I hadn't had the weretiger guide go catshit crazy on them it would have been a party loss. Only one PC died.

Anyway, we have this encounter coming up soon again in Lost Mine. Ten of the little bastards. As others have noted, it can be a cakewalk encounter or a horribly, horribly deadly encounter.

On another interesting note, the stirge has a real life Greek mythological basis, the STRIX, or stirges for plural:

Strix (mythology) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[CapnZapp]

In fact, if I hadn't had the weretiger guide go catshit crazy

Upvoted for cats aren't bats

 

[Charlaquin]

Wait till your players encounter... a Swarm of Stirges!!

 

[Eltab]

My character was scouting in Wave Echo Cave and the whole flock of stirges beat my Initiative roll. Fortunately I had Message going and I did my best impression "You hear 'They're all over me they're all over me there's bugs all over me !' - and the voice goes dead." Wouldn't you know the character I was talking to was the only player who did not get the reference !
Several death saves and a Revivify later, I said "I look really pale and really thin, and feel woozy."

 

[Jediking]

So I guess my questions to the community are: did I do something wrong? Is this just a fluke encounter which has a crazy difficulty curve under the perfect storm? Did I misinterpret some of the rules?

I think your rulings were fair and consistent. Sounds like it was a tough situation that rarely occurs - both rolling the max amount of enemies (8), stirges winning initiative after surprise, and the two AoE members getting downed which sound like they would have been the most effective in this situation.

Overall it sounds like a one-off tough encounter. for newer players who are synergized/tactical experts makes it’s even more tough as stirges have some nasty mechanics.

You did well in the circumstances in my opinion, I would have run it similar


edit: typo

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I actually thought 5e made them a bit weak as they used to do automatic CON damage instead of HP damage in previous editions. But, I almost TPK'd my group in HotDQ when they encountered the stirges in the cave so I guess they are suitably lethal. It's still a running joke for the group.

I'll second the comments that a stirge encounter can go both ways. A low level AOE can make the encounter quite easy but, if you lose initiative and the dice are unkind, it can be quite deadly.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

The old B series modules are full of stirges. I swear every module has the little buggers in them. The Basic set had a limited number of monsters so you tended to see the same monsters over and over. Stirges are everywhere and they had bad treasure, too.

I can testify that a stirge is the very first monster I encountered as a player, 35 years ago.