D&D 5E Preview: Intellect Devourer

[Plane Sailing]

This has always been one of my favorite monsters. Wish this version was tougher. The 1e intellect devourer was one of the most terrifying creatures to face because it was so damn hard to hurt.

I seem to remember that magic weapons only did damage equal to the '+' of the weapon, lightning bolts did 1pt damage per die and so forth. They were almost unkillable!

I don't like the idea of them being mind flayer doggies though. I prefer to have them with their own intellect, plans and so forth - which makes their puppet making skills more fun/useful/interesting.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

It occurs to me that the MM doesn't have a visual scale reference for each monster like some bestiaries do. For example, the Monsternomicon has a silhouette of the monster standing next to the silhouette of a man so show the relative size.

This makes me a little sad.

 

[beej]

Oh, your dump stat is Int?

*evil DM laugh*

 

[Boarstorm]

Can anyone remind me what the rules are for healing ability damage? I'm away from book and I'm trying to figure out how devastating this critter is going to be.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I'm already thinking up varieties to mess with other dump stats...

Muscle Devourer (Str): A very long, thin worm; eats your muscles and wraps around all your bones, literally controlling your body like a puppet.
Vitality Devourer (Con): Stops your heart and turns you into a zombie.
Personality Devourer (Cha): A face on little legs that replaces yours, changing your personality traits and appearance but nothing else (the player retains control of the character, but must roleplay differently).

It doesn't work so well for some stats, though...

Agility Devourer (Dex): A molasses monster?
Intuition Devourer / Empathy Devourer (Wis): ???

Can anyone remind me what the rules are for healing ability damage? I'm away from book and I'm trying to figure out how devastating this critter is going to be.

I believe Greater Restoration is the only way to fix it.

 

[trystero]

You know, the thing that make me sad about this is that it seems to write the ustilagor out of the intellect devourer reproductive cycle.

If you want to have both monsters in your game, you could decide that a victim of the illithid ritual becomes an ustilagor until it consumes its first brain (or brains with n points of Intelligence, if you prefer a longer wait) and only grows into a full-fledged intellect devourer after that point. This still gives you the larva/adult relationship while keeping the new illithid-oriented flavour.

 

[Grazzt]

I think they were bigger in one edition - they shrunk themselves to fit into a human cranium.

They were listed as less than a foot in 2e. 1e had them as "M" (medium).

 

[Mouseferatu]

I just used these guys in a game. Trust me, you don't want them any tougher to hurt. Yeah, they die fairly easy, now. But that fact is the only reason they didn't get off a lot more of their brain-swap attacks, an we came within 2 points on 3d6 of losing the (6th level) cleric to that.

They're a lot scarier as glass cannons than they would be as damage soaks, IMO.

 

[Scorpio616]

I think they are too glass cannony, not to mention too much jerk ass in design. Hyper random One shot take out with a follow up Possession that kills you in a way that prevents Raise Dead.

 

[Lancelot]

I like it as a glass cannon option. If I want a glass cannon for an encounter, this is a good one. If I don't, I use a different creature. I'd be disappointed if there weren't some glass cannons in the MM, just as I'd be disappointed if there weren't tanks, snipers, area controllers, and whatever else I needed for a scene.

Interestingly, I've found that the best creatures to scare and fascinate my group are the seemingly "unfair" ones. My players yawn at giants and most demons, and even most dragons. They know that those creatures are largely about damage expressions. There are ways to mitigate lots of attacks rolls or high incoming damage. The things that scare my players are the creatures that kill you in ways other than pure damage. And here's the weird thing: the things that scare them are also the things that get them excited, and create the most memorable stories.

Medusae are scary (petrification). Wraiths are scary (max hp reduction or level draining, depending on edition). Mind flayers are scary (whether it be domination, mind blast or brain-boring). And intellect devourers...? Intellect devourers will be very scary, especially for that 8-Intelligence / highest-hp-in-the-party / resistance-to-all-weapon-damage barbarian who laughs off waves of incoming ogres. I need something in my toolkit for that guy. I'm not going to kill him with it arbitrarily, but I certainly want to be able to worry him.