COMING SOON! Dungeon Delver's Guide: A Sourcebook for 5E and A5E. An essential tome for creating, exploring, and running dungeons in your 5E or A5E game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 8570314" data-attributes="member: 20323">Really appreciate  your feedback [USER=59848]@Hawk Diesel[/USER], [USER=3400]@billd91[/USER], and [USER=13968]@MatthewJHanson[/USER] ! Simplicity is good, I'm just stumped on how to get there – yeah in terms of verbiage, but more importantly in terms of making it simpler while preserving the monster's concept/themes.That's pretty much my #1 challenge with most of the monsters I homebrew – how to maintain the monster's design niche, while keeping the stat block tight.Fiendishness: Yeah, you're right [USER=59848]@Hawk Diesel[/USER], demons have cold, fire, lightning resistance. I was trying to represent something that felt like it was relatively recently turned into a fiend or straddled a sort of middle-ground between mortal and fiend. It's a fiend, but it is not a demon. Er, well, the distinction made sense when I was originally writing the monster...Deceptive Attack: Yes, the "(1/Turn)" is shorthand meaning that it can only deal that damage once per turn, like a rogue's sneak attack, just like you said [USER=59848]@Hawk Diesel[/USER]. That's a good question about why I'm not just using sneak attack verbatim [USER=13968]@MatthewJHanson[/USER] – the reason is that this monster is designed to work in many situations where it will be fighting by itself (either entirely, or for the first part of combat while it waits for the cavalry to arrive). That's why I cut the "You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn’t incapacitated, and you don’t have disadvantage on the attack roll." And replaced it with "a beguiled enemy." Because it's something the monster can do on its own without support. As far as cognitive load, it's a great point - from my perspective my version has LESS text than sneak attack, so that's less cognitive load. But I can see how other DMs who've memorized lots of player facing rules might differ.Masked Soul:Yeah, [USER=59848]@Hawk Diesel[/USER], the reason I went with different verbiage than <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/nondetection" target="_blank">nondetection</a> is that the spell only applies towards magical means of detection. I wanted to include things like the paladin's divine sense, ranger's primeval awareness, summoning a pixie to use heart sight, any subclass or racial features that are nonmagical but involve reading thoughts/detecting emotions, etc. That's something that no monster in the game currently does AFAIK.I also didn't want the ability to be a "hard counter" to players investing in divination magic – e.g. the <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/gynosphinx" target="_blank">sphinx's Inscrutable </a>is a "hard counter." Trying to play up the elements of a "touch of mortality" and "chaos" in the monster's theme. It's not the unknowable mystery of a sphinx, but the caginess of fiend-that-was-once-mortal and knows how to act the part.Teleport:Actually, [USER=13968]@MatthewJHanson[/USER] you reminded me that the Teleport is supposed to work more like <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/dimension-door" target="_blank">dimension door</a> (i.e. don't need to see destination), so they can "teleport through walls", but I was struggling to trim down the verbiage of dimension door. And the stat block was feeling bloated already. I'd like to get it to that "teleport through walls" version – that is a unique and scary niche in 5e & harkens back to my source material – but not sure on the wording or the recharge/uses per day yet.Reactions:Yeah, I think you're right [USER=3400]@billd91[/USER] and [USER=13968]@MatthewJHanson[/USER] - I need to cut one of the reactions. Shell Game is at the core of the monster's identity – it's a unique niche that no other monster in 5e has. And it's meant to evoke an "oh crap" moment for players who've used a <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/cape-of-the-mountebank" target="_blank">cape of the mountebank</a> – have I been leaving a monster illusioned to look like me in my wake every time I teleport with this thing?!? As much as I love the image of this monster catching a dagger...or actually, my original idea was catching thrown things like a bead of force or bead from a necklace of fireballs... I guess I'll nix Deflect Missiles.Beguiling Stare:I'm thinking on what you guys shared, and still pondering what I'll revise with this one...</blockquote>

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