There are a few bits of coolness in 5e’s MM I forgot to mention yesterday. First are lairs. Many monsters has a special “lair actions.” These special actions don’t count towards the usual limit of actions a monster has and happen on initiative count 20 (though after any tying initiatives). Most are just extra attacks:
A cloud of swarming insects fills a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point the [black] dragon chooses… Any creature in the cloud when it appears must make… a DC15 Constitution saving throw, taking 10 (3d6) piercing damage on a failed save...
A lot also knock people prone. Many are clearly designed to give a single monster a fighting chance against the
focused alpha strikes PCs will (wisely) unleash against “legendary” monsters. Some are suitably creepy and atmospheric, such as eyes opening on solid surfaces in a beholder’s lair to fire off an extra eye-ray attack, or walls suddenly sprouting “grasping appendages.”
These legendary monsters also create “regional effects.” These are very similar to the sorts of things that precede the attacks of the dragons or the arrival of the monsters in Raphael Chandler’s
Teratic Tome. These range from the atmospheric to the mechanical. Some look fairly lame on the surface of things: the first time you enter a demi-lich’s lair you take 16 points of necrotic damage, a sum that will certainly keep out the riff-raff, but barely serves to slow down a party of adventurers over 4th level. On the other end of things, they can make otherwise mundane encounters far more interesting. For instance, the terrain around a blue dragon’s lair can develope dangerous hidden sinkholes. Rodents and birds within a mile of a green dragon’s lair serve as its eyes and ears. Kraken can control the weather within 6 miles of their lairs.
These are both cool ideas and, frankly, I wouldn’t object to extending them to more monsters than got them. Those of you who enjoy playing with
mythic-underworld dungeons might even want to come up with lists for orcs, goblins, and similar humanoid manifestations of the evil that lurks where the sun never reaches.
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8 comments:
@ Trollsmyth:
Huh. That is very interesting/different from anything I've seen before in D&D (certainly not a return to Old School ideas). Were these Lair specials present in 4th edition?
JB: not that I recall, but I never owned a copy of the 4e MM, so I can't say for certain. So far as I can tell, this is brand new. The only other thing I've seen like it is some of the entries in Chandler's LTeratic Tome.
4e had environmental effects that added to the encounter. An area on the board that could give you a buff or cause damage, etc. But, nothing (that I recall) to this extent or as thematically cool as what they have done with 5e. I agree this could be extended to a lot of other monsters.
Wrathamon: as I recall, those environmental effects had nothing to do with the creatures per se, but with the environment. That is, it was more about the pool of lava or slime-slick on the stairs, and was completely independent of the monsters. They'd operate the same way whether you were fighting kobolds or a beholder.
Is that the case, or is my memory showing its weakness here?
So yuo want to catch a sphinx out wandering as opposed to home, does that hold up for many monsters?
JDJarvis: yep, many, though not most. Dragons, beholders, vampires, sphinxes, aboleth, kraken, lich and demilich and things like that all have these special in-lair specials.
You are right, at least as far as the 4e MM1 and MM2 were concerned.
@trollsmyth
yes it was independent but you normally used the environment stuff as part of the tool box to theme your encounters to make it more interesting. In a way its more powerful for the DM since its not linked, you have more control,but thematically, its not as interesting. I think some of the later monsters may have had some of this stuff, but it was never as explicit as this Lair feature, or a creature is more powerful in its lair. That is all new.
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