D&D 5E Yochlol 5e stat block seems lack luster or am i missing something thoughts and discusion ?

[Nightbeat84]

I ran an encounter with Drow priestess and just had her summon the Yochlol and use its dominate person and the player saved afterward everything this demon did seemed lack luster and unflavorful. Ive read a good chunk of the Drizzt books and the drow priestes feared and respected the Yochlol they seem more powerful in the books compared to the monster stat block in 5e. I might have ran the monster incorrectly but it just seemed underwhelming to me any thoughts or ideas to run this guy to seem more scary vs party members that never read the drizzt books?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I ran an encounter with Drow priestess and just had her summon the Yochlol and use its dominate person and the player saved afterward everything this demon did seemed lack luster and unflavorful. Ive read a good chunk of the Drizzt books and the drow priestes feared and respected the Yochlol they seem more powerful in the books compared to the monster stat block in 5e. I might have ran the monster incorrectly but it just seemed underwhelming to me any thoughts or ideas to run this guy to seem more scary vs party members that never read the drizzt books?

Just use the option to have your yochlol summon another yochlol. One uses its at-will web and the other use its poison gas ability on any restrained creature to poison and incapacitate it.

The fun thing its that the other yochlol you summoned...well it can summon another demon also! That's what dangerous and frightening with demons: they are like a cancer on reality, an ever growing corruption that can multiply fast if you let them loose

 

[Nebulous]

I also used a yochol for the first time ever recently in any edition. It was a nanny for a drow prince/noble, which is weird, but the imagery was too cool to pass up. I had it crawl up a wall far out of melee range and spammed some webs and darkness on the party, which was mildly annoying at best. They didn't do much damage but managed to kidnap the baby and hold it ransom in front of the kid's mother and father, threatening to kill it if they didn't let the party go. In truth, I think it was going to be a TPK if the PCs didn't extradite themselves from the situation, as they were about to get pounded by five drow and a yochol and giant spider (and maybe a phase spider from the ethereal).

Was the yochol underpowered? Eh, slightly yes. Toe to toe against the whole party in a round it would probably die (they were 5th level). Now, like @vincegetorix said, summoning another yochol would DRASTICALLY change the encounter. As DM you can even fudge that 50% thing to 100%. Every yochol teleporting in and immediately summoning another yochol would turn this a nearly unbeatable scenario. And not to mention, it's poison damage slam attack is quite deadly, critting with that could one shot some heroes.

I highly suggest looking at the Expanded Monster Manual, it takes about every monster in the core MM and upgrades them to new types. The Yochol Elder is CR 13, and has a bevy of new attacks and defenses and is horrifying.

 

[Prakriti]

Yes, it's pretty weak. I'd give it a higher AC, legendary actions, and a superior version of Corrosive Form (the black pudding ability) that deals 4d8 poison damage on a hit.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I tend to use them as sneaky monsters, like where the PC's are fighting a bunch of giant spiders and one of them completely shrugs off fireball....

Or things go bad when the wizard tries to use the friends cantrip on a drow maid.....

For a straight up fight, I would recommend something like, when the demon takes at least 16 points of damage, a swarm of spiders erupts from it and attacks the nearest PC, or that a shadow demon emerges from the yochlol's shadow.

 

[TheSword]

Add, add, add. All the devils and demons in the core book are flat, but I believe they are base creatures intended to be modified and expanded on.

 

[Immoralkickass]

Ah Yochlols. In my Out of the Abyss campaign, i had one masquerading as an NPC cleric, travelling with the party. They started to suspect something during the travels, and when the Druid 'accidentally' cast a Moonbeam on it during combat, I thought, 'luckily it has magic resistance, to offset the shapeshifter disadvantage'. It failed anyway, and escaped in its mist form.

 

[Ashrym]

Summoned demons cannot summon more demons. It's one of those "learned from past mistakes" clarifications. So do it anyway. DM empowerment ftw.

Demons are more about the resistances. Yochlols cast web at will, cause incap in mist form, and can dominate once per day. A yochlol who summons another can dominate two party members, mistform, then incap two more. Then the dominated characters can do the damage for them.

The dominated victims don't need to be the PC's. An unfriendly NPC travelling with or parallel to the group works. Or a maguffin NPC the charaxters are trying to protect is now attacking them.

Work the controller aspect.

If you want to make the encounter more complex place an Abyssal gate in the vicinity. "Killing" the material body only causes them to instantly reform on the Abyssal plane. If they keep coming back see how long it takes the party to figure it out and either go ro the Abyssal plane for a permanent kill or find and destroy the gate.

 

[Nightbeat84]

Awesome thanks for the info

 

[Nebulous]

Add, add, add. All the devils and demons in the core book are flat, but I believe they are base creatures intended to be modified and expanded on.

For better or worse, I agree. Most everything is too bland, but that also makes it easy to add powers. I just wish WotC themselves were inclined to add official supplements, but third party does it quite well. There's the Monster Talents and Expanded Monster Manuals 1&2; between those three little books you have all the crap you would ever need to make a bland monster more interesting.