Shadow Dragon would go hard attacking a populated place. Like it gets a bunch of commoners in that breath, congrats you have an army of shadows to deal with now.
That's similar to what I did for a lvl 17 one-shot. It was set about 1000 years in the past from my main campaign and was about the fall of the city of Veralos in the Rift Canyon in the Greyhawk setting. In the lore the city fell to a Shadow curse that turned everyone into shadows. I added the dracolich Dragotha that got kicked out of Tiamat's harem because he started worshipping Kyuss. He actually does have a layer in the canyon close to the city in lore. I used the elder brain dragon's breath weapon as a base and modified it to spew Kyuss worms instead. If the creature was downed by the breath weapon they immediately died and rose as a Spawn of Kyuss 2 turns later. Even if they weren't downed they were still infested with worms that dealt 3d10 necrotic damage at the start of their turn. If that killed them they would also transform. So there were shadows spawning each turn from the curse, plus the Kyuss zombies.
Or a cult praying to it.. set it up where they are gathered in the town square/cemetery performing a ritual, your party thinks they are going to stop it, but the dragon always arrives right before and just wastes as many as possible, returns to it’s lair.
I would honestly nerf the strength reduction of shadows or just outright remove it. 10 shadows hitting and insta killing half your party feels dumb, especially since there is no counter.
@robertparks3670 I adore spawn of Kyuss. I adapted them to my own dungeon which was overrun by a cult dedicated to pestilence and disease. I called them Writhing Carrion and my party still remembers them to this day because of how dangerous they were when the worms jumped to nearby creatures
The Gas Spore Fungus sounds like a great start to a mini adventure. Oh no, you've all been hit by it's poison and will die in [1d12] hours. The local healer can't help you, but she hears of a cave spring that can give the effects of Lesser Restoration. Sadly, the cave system is infested with other monsters and hazards. Best of luck, adventurers
I feel like make it a day and we are cooking. Doe i think doing the "Jaks racing game" plot of everyone been posioned and the only cure is the one you earn by winning my games or beating up that Dragon.
I would probably make it more like a session. I might have a combat encounter with a lot of them, thrown them at the party, maybe set a minimum so it’s not 1 hour and insta kill someone, but it does sound fun, especially since everyone has the poisoned condition. (Provided they failed the save, or aren’t immune to poisoned).
I like the idea of a Solar choosing to fight up close to keep things fair or because they want to show mercy, but then the moment they decide someone needs to die they fly straight up, and that's everyone's cue to flee or surrender.
The article on the Solar in the Monsters Know What They're Doing also talked about something like this. Basically, the article said that Solars are Good, which means they only break out the instakill bow when someone really deserves it. Or if it's fiends.
to be honest, as a player and as a GM, i allways loved the deadlyness of the oldschool monsters. The fear you could bring into the Players if they realize that they are about to face a ghost was great. Also, i it was very rare that players made a fuzz if there char died.
one of my DMs homebrewed the Demon Lords instead of using their 5e stat blocks because with those stats they were, and I quote, "pussies" and then we dropped a shadow magic ICBM on Orcus
Agreed. This is why I’m glad the Shadow didn’t have their Strength drain removed. It’s so unique and adds a level of real dread to fighting them. There’s no horror I’ve ever felt in gaming greater than going up against an undead from 1e or 2e that had a life drain ability. Having character levels drained from you on a hit is the scariest thing I’ve ever faced. Now, I don’t want THAT back per se…. But nothing really comes close anymore
I once hit a character with a Gas Spore Fungus while they were clearing out an infested mine, and when they returned to the tavern to get their reward, they got caught in a Groundhog Day style time loop 'whodunnit' mystery situation. The loop would reset every hour, and since the players had come from outside the loop, their time was not looping. I counted loops as they progressed through the mystery, getting more and more desperate to solve it before their companion hit their time limit. Very fun!
My party ran into a gas spore fungus as a random encounter in out of the abyss, being a relatively new dm i didnt realize how dangerous they were, thank god there was a paladin who could lay on hands cure disease
@EugeneTChu Create food and Drink would definitely work. Not sure if I'd want to eat rotten food that has been purified though. I always imagine it's like you just took the food out of a trash heap after several weeks. Even if you cook it in the oven at temperature and know it's safe, there is still the ick factor and weird look/texture. If the person with those spells was one of the cursed ones though, they won't recover those spell slots. As a fun homebrew, you could just say your rations and water turn to sand. That is very thematic and terrifying, especially when you try to take a drink in the desert and get a mouthful of sand.
Be a monk at level 10 and your good also depending on where you are one could cast forbiddance and then that Mummy lord would likely be in serious shite
There was a giant mosquito that drained a constitution in 3.0, and the vampire did as well. Normal Shadows used to all so in 3.0 kill you and turn you in the shadows.
The Stirge, right? A swarm of those appeared in the very first adveture I DMd (Forge of Fury, 3.5e, not the 5e remake), and it was BRUTAL. Each of them could drain 1d4 Con/round after latching on. And sure, after accumulating a total of 4 Con worth of blood, it would get off and leave, but there were many of them... Perhaps even worse, though, were the creatures that did Level damage. Like the Wights energy drain. You got hit, you lost a character level.
Bodak. If you're within 30 feet of it when you start your turn, it can force you to make a Con save. Fail the save by 5 or more and you're instantly reduced to 0 HP.
@@DungeonDudes No, but you did open it up to the history of D&D, so I had to go with a personal favorite for making my players' characters question their life choices. :P
In one of the campaigns I run, the party had a side adventure where they faced yuan-ti for the first time with the big fight at the end containing a yuan-ti anathema. The gasps when the wizard went down and then got curb stomped by the yuan-ti causing 4 failed death saves was priceless. It was the first time that they had run into anything that "finished" the kill before moving on and really took them by surprise. They were victorious and the cleric had revivify prepared so the wizard was returned to life, but they still talk about that fight and are get really nervous anytime I mention yuan-ti in game.
12:49 I’m planning on making my BBEG a Mummy Lord (with one extra Pointy Hat inspired clause to make it plot relevant) and this video just made me really excited to have him show up for the first time
While running a published module for a table of new players, I had a scripted encounter with a beholder zombie while the party was still LVL 2 or 3. None of them where familiar with a beholder and I was worried they wouldn't understand the danger of the encounter. To give them a demonstration I made an NPC that fit one of the factions and had the NPC knock on the door. While the panicked NPC is asking for help, the beholder zombie floated up behind the NPC and hit the NPC with its disintegration ray. I rolled the damage and announced how much it was. The NPC was dust. Roll initiative.
15:21 that doesn't matter though, even at level 8 w/ reliable talent and expertise, a rogue hits 21 (10 minimum on d20 via reliable talent, plus 5 dex, plus 3+3 from expertise) on their stealth checks all the time. Passive perception higher than 27 is where a rogue has a 50/50 chance of not making their stealth saves, otherwise thieves can even loop stealth and force the monster to waste actions to find them, given they have access to full cover of course. That said the monsters being deadlier is very welcome, actually. I can imagine parties packing hill giant potions while fighting shadows, for example, or remove curse becoming a staple spell; and the no death save bits also incentivise mid-combat healing instead of only healing when a party member is down (all this boosting both clerics and the healer feat, among others). Preparation before combat is good and crucial, and if a DM knows the players don't do it, then they can either teach their players via incentive or just not run them. I welcome these changes wholeheartedly because they are opt-in, in a sense. You don't have to run shadows or gas spore fungus in every sub level 3 campaign.
@y2a1979 a rogue only needs full cover against truesight (as line of sight also matters) to hide, and the flying hundreds of feet in air is irrelevant especially against a longbow or a heavy crossbow (long ranges of 600 and 400 ft respectively). It isn't even guaranteed that given the perfect ambush is laid (hidden thief w/ sneak attack at 500ft or so range), the solar even figures out where the attacks are even coming from with only 3/4th cover available as their truesight does not extend past 120ft, and this can potentially waste at least one round, possibly more, for the solar. Even if we consider flight, truesight and cover and skew everything in the solar's favor (no cover for miles, rogue within 120ft), the deciding factor for the situation being quite serious has nothing to do with its passive perception, which is the thing mentioned at the timestamp in the video.
7:55 that happened to me in 5e with the wraith. The rest of the party locked in after my cleric died and couldn’t be healed, and then was raised as a specter next turn. It really is a game changer when the monsters say “no revive for you”.
Had a fun moment with a solar midway through a campaign where a player said something like "what if we just attacked her" and I saw that as a fun opportunity to get them scared without having to just drop the statblock by giving them a "quicksave" at that point and just playing out that encounter as though they had
In early versions of D&D, like first and second edition. There were undead that can daring your levels, Wight, Wraith drain 1 level per strike. While Specters and Vampires will drain 2 levels per hit. You lose maximum hit points, lose spells. A wizard hit by a vampire could not access all of their 5th level spells, because the wizard is now level 7 and not anymore level 9. There is no saving throws. You needed a Cleric with a restoration spell, or Wizard with Wish to restore your levels back or try to adventure to regain XP. This was devastating in older D&D. I can understand why in latter editions they removed this.
it was still around in 3.5, though since it's been a while since I looked at those books I cannot recall if they were just 'negative level's' that gave some pretty bad negative's to you, or if they were actual losing levels.
@@Atalas5 If I remember your character would die going below level 0 and your character would become the undead just as the undead that drained your character. A new vampire would rise if drained by a vampire and so forth.
Hearing about the Solar reminded me of a campaign from a couple years ago. I created a weapon that could temporarily shut off divine based powers so the party could have a chance to actually succeed in killing a very powerful foe. If you want, it is on D&D Beyond and is called The Sundering. You had to get close to use it and know the creatures name so it was still a substantial challenge. Anyway, great vid you guys. Always fun to hear your perspective on things.
I DM’d a fight for 5 level 9 players recently, with a small hoard of varying undead, and the ones that came closest to killing them were the shadows, despite the fact they were almost the weakest. Two players were panicking at having less than 5 strength.
Putting it in terms of "making players squirm" emphasises the fun in these monsters. Thank you. That would be more fun than "haha, you die!" style (which is just petty anyway).
This reminds me of the famous statement by the director Alfred Hitchcock. I will paraphrase: An audience surprised by a sudden explosion gets you a few seconds of shock. An audience seeing the timer get set on a bomb gives you 5 minutes of suspense.
I was running the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan adventure that has a gas spore in it. However, because my players are lvl 15 instead of the 5 the adventure is written for, I had the gas spore reveal a Death Tyrant after it's death burst. That almost killed half the party with petrification. We did have one PC who automatically failed the second save against the petrification cause he got put to sleep. That was the same player that got infected with the gas spores.
@twoshu8940 I'm not running the adventure as is. They teleported to the Amedio Jungle where the adventure is set. I'm using the map and modifying most of the encounters to be more level appropriate. This was mainly a diversion so myself and one of the players had time to world build her village when they teleported before we were ready.
I would argue that one of the benefits of a long rest is avoiding. Exhaustion has a long rest is part of not any exhaustion when you eat and drink. If you ate and drank but did not get a long rest benefit, it sounds like you did not fully qualify for avoiding exhaustion and therefore would gain one
One of my favorite ways I've scared my party with something that could happen but didn't was to have them watch the final boss of a 5th level one-shot use Power Word Kill on an NPC, then hand the spell description card to the player that rolled highest on an Arcana check. They spent the whole fight doing anything and everything to prevent that spell from happening again. It made them sweat the whole time, and they appreciated it so much more when they finally took him down.
If you’re 5th level the only way of stopping it is constant CC. No 5th level character has the health required to not always get one shotted by power word: kill
@twoshu8940 I intentionally built the boss with only one casting per day, so I didn't actually insta-kill a player. Of course, THEY didn't know I couldn't use it again . . .
Once, I prepared an encounter for my party which had Bodak and Wisps. Basicaly, my party was traversing cursed swamp. Wisps tricked them and lured them to Bodak. First round, everybody fainted because of Bodak's "I'm so ugly that you die looking at me" ability, except our paladin. Then Wisps used their ability to drain life and kill people with 0 HPs. It was BRUTAL. We had 2 people (and a companion) dead for good in first round, with paladin healing cleric who was able to get the others up. Luckily, cleric stockpiled diamonds, so he revived all he could , but it scared my party a lot (plus it chewed from their diamond reserves and made later parts of the advanture more stressful for them).
A flock of Stirges can be quite bad, because they don't attack after they are attached. Stirges and Shadows are worst in groups, which limits their usefulness in 5E. Gas Spores are really deadly if the players don't KNOW that they die when the clock runs out; most Poisoned conditions just expire. Rakshashas have always been really deadly; who cares about HOW they kill you, the fact that they are so well disguised means that they WILL. They are very patient and will engineer a situation where the Wizard is alone with them.
I spotted the same issue regarding the Gibbering Mouther on Treantmonk’s video about Bane/Bless. Definitely not sure I like the move to debilitating conditions being an auto-success on hit for the reasons that were listed (less ability to interact with it as a player, more reliability) plus the fact that you can’t separately tune monster damage and monster status reliability. Maybe they were going for making monsters more deadly or maybe they were trying to save time at the table, either way though I’m not convinced of it as a good thing as of now.
I wonder if the Rakshasa still have their 2014 ability where they can just ignore spells of 6th level or lower, because if they do that monster is just a straight up F-you to Paladins after the Divine Smite nerf, especially since they'd otherwise take *extra* damage from Divine Smite due to being Fiends.
Awesome vid. Amen on telegraphing... I was in a campaign where the DM spawned in 8 shadows that all attacked one player (I was a little livid as I thought that was very harsh) and not surprisingly that person just insta-died. I would say even with experienced players you should still telegraph and remind them. Slightly sad to hear that fey counterpart - Reflections didn't get into the monster manual. :o)
My first campaign as a dm, we were playing Dungeon of the Mad Mage. The party had just easily wiped what was supposed to be a difficult encounter and had begun looting. The Warlock had wandered into a side room that had not been cleared, he had darkvision and most everyone else did not. There was a single monster in there, which was a intellect devourer...he failed all the saves and checks and just died before anyone else knew 😂
The single deadliest encounter I've ever made as a DM was an ancient red shadow dragon attacking a major city. It kept using its breath weapon on the civilians and staying out of reach of most of the party's abilities. 😅
So, my advice to players would be to take advantage of the new explicit rules for making spell scrolls. The Acolyte back ground gives you proficiency with calligraphers tools. So, a Cleric with the Acolyte background can innately scribe scrolls of Greater/Lessor Restoration and Remove Curse. Assuming you have the time and resources to prepare these before you need them, you can have those spells available for your party without having to take space in your prepared spell list.
on "Shadows" - its attack basically creates a separate HP pool that never scales, and is more dangerous to low strength characters. Very interesting to run.
There've been exhaustion gains around food and water since 2014 (PHB p. 185). The Food and Water section is nothing but "here's a few ways to get exhaustion". In fact, the box on Exhaustion itself (PHB p. 291) calls out again, you only get rid of a level of exhaustion after a long rest if you've had food and drink".
I really like the mechanics that try to convince players to heal. So many players ignore RP and wade in with 1 hp, especially after seeing the initiative order. I'm glad the game beefed up healing, also.
My experience with high levels is that whether attacks or saves are more dangerous is very campaign-dependent. Save DCs and attack bonuses go up at about the same rate for monsters (about +10 over 20 CR). Base AC without special abilities, attunement required items, and spells typically goes up by 4-6 over 20 levels depending on armor type and key stat (more if you use a shield), averaging around +5. Base save without special abilities, attunement required items, and spells typically goes up by 0-8 depending on save proficiency and whether it's a key stat, averaging around +4. This leaves spells, special abilities, and attunement required items, and whether you have more stuff that applies to AC or more stuff that applies to saves is build dependent. The main distorting factor there is whether you have a paladin, because there's just no AC adjustment in the game that's nearly as effective as aura of protection.
Just dont upset anything from the Upper Planes. Animal Lords, Solar, Planetar..., exactly what Monty says: "DON'T PROVOKE DIVINE WRATH!" Its gonna be a bad day if you do.
Threw a mummy lord, part of the loot was n-1 remove curse scrolls where n= number of party members cursed. Made it very dramatic. Good ol fashioned self sacrifice
So the wording on the _Belt of Giant Strength_ and the _Potions of Giant Strength_ has changed. They no longer say your Strength can't be lower than the listed value. They say "your Strength changes to a score granted by the belt" and "When you drink this potion, your Strength score changes for 1 hour. The type of giant determines the score." Does this mean you can still have that Strength score drained by Shadows?
Having players who love to dump their strength stat is a great place to send out shadows once they reach mid levels and have some reasonable AC. Not to kill them, but just as that little distraction through the battle to make them feel the heat. I think those monster abilities that affect charisma/strength/... instead of hit points are fun every now and then to break the loop for the players as they get too confident in their hit point management. So I will keep using them and the Bodak from previous editions :)
How are damage types? In 2014 poison was pretty much useless because so many things were immune or resistant. Is that still the case? Are you seeing different damage types coming from monsters? How common are those effects with no saving throw like the dire wolf’s trip?
@@thetowndrunk988 The thing I think is the most crazy it is considered "normal" to advocate picking up and learning a entire other game systems to "fix" DnD issues... instead of just homebrewing fixs 😂 I literally had like 5 people aruge with me about and they were so assured that, they couldnt think it was possible to not instantly lick someone else boots.
I'm super happy to hear the monsters are stronger. I'm a BIG fan of monsters, and I like to run encounters with a single big, tough boss that the players have to use teamwork and strategy to defeat, or Witcher-style hunts for a specific scary, threatening beast that might last an entire session or two. I like my monsters to have story, presence and threat. Don't get me wrong, minion and swarm battles are fun, but the way newer editions stack so much power into the Player Characters, it puts a lot of pressure on DMs to buff monsters with homebrew or use more of them, and some of the most interesting monsters in the game quickly become irrelevant as the PCs climb levels. So this is a positive change and I'm there for it.
The Book of Many Things included a monster called a Breath Drinker that was a CR 14 version of the shadow. Incorporeal so it can duck through the walls or ceiling, and it has at will invisibility so you never see it coming. Claw attacks that drain max HP. Its signature ability, Drink Breath, would lower your Charisma by 1d6 unless you make a DC 18 Charisma save (plus 8d8 necrotic damage, which also healed the breath drinker even if you make the save). Reducing Charisma to 0 was an instant kill, and there was no way to revive the dead person as long as the breath drinker remains alive short of a wish. Also just to throw players off... it is weak to necrotic damage and healed by radiant. Very, very nasty and difficult to fight.
I had a fairy wizard with 6 STR due to rolling for stats who got hit by a shadow for -3 to strength. Thankfully the paladin took his turn to yeet her out of another shadow's reach before its turn. She was terrified of anything remotely shadow like for the rest of the campaign.
I started my first campaign a few months ago, we are currently level 3 and last session nearly had a TPK from those damn Gas Spore Fungus. One character was killed outright and mine only just survived the encounter. 😅
Oh man, I was wondering what happened to you two recently! I used to see your videos on my homepage all the time, but one day I just stopped getting notified and haven't seen one of your videos show up in my recommendations in nearly a year now.
They fixed Bashees? I recall my DM somehow being surprised that it was even possible for level 15 characters to fail even one of the six DC 13 Wisdom saves we were called to make. With a +2 to my own saves, I had a whole 50% chance of passing an individual save and 1.5% chance of saving against them all. Honestly I'm amazed that two of our four party members did make all their saves.
Against the Solar...Level 14 Dance Bard sharing their evasion with everyone! Couple this with a Paladin using their Aura protection...you might survive if you bunch up. MIGHT.
If my Bear Totem Barbarian didn't have his Potion of Giant Strength, I definitely would've died from a Greater Shadow encounter, with his 4 shadow minions. Oh, and it was a double encounter because a paladin was a bit hasty and decided to solve a riddle by ignoring it and pushing the sarcophagus wide open. Nightmare! xD
One thing that sticks out to me is the fact there is no in game or otherwise mitigating circumstance for hp reduction to 0. In my opinion insta kill moves should have atleast one counterbalance to them. What about the 2024 Durable feat? "Defy Death" it reads: you have advantage of death saving throws. I feel like if you took this feat, you should be rewarded with the option to at least make death saves if you find yourself in mortal peril.
yeah, we faced 4 mindflayers in the last Session, with a bunch of intellect devourer (old Version) I nearly escaped by the way. And, we were one rogue and one Monk/warrior at lvl3. Yup, 2 man party. To be fair, the Dm didnt want us to go into that direction, but its was a labyrinth with no hints so it happened. Not mad at the DM by the way, I kill their party as dm also way more than i want. But I thought talking about deadly im mentioning it here.
The deadliest monster shall always be the scheduling conflict.
Or the dreaded Drama Goblin. Causes your party members to attack you for no good reason 😂
The single deadliest foe every gaming group will ever face, fersure fersure!
@@BryceKatz Legit TPK machine.
Flu season has killed ours…
@@taidashar7 I had a english teacher recommend that I play over zoom.. I still need to build up before i do that but you can try it?
Shadow Dragon would go hard attacking a populated place. Like it gets a bunch of commoners in that breath, congrats you have an army of shadows to deal with now.
Great set up for an adventure.
That's similar to what I did for a lvl 17 one-shot. It was set about 1000 years in the past from my main campaign and was about the fall of the city of Veralos in the Rift Canyon in the Greyhawk setting. In the lore the city fell to a Shadow curse that turned everyone into shadows. I added the dracolich Dragotha that got kicked out of Tiamat's harem because he started worshipping Kyuss. He actually does have a layer in the canyon close to the city in lore.
I used the elder brain dragon's breath weapon as a base and modified it to spew Kyuss worms instead. If the creature was downed by the breath weapon they immediately died and rose as a Spawn of Kyuss 2 turns later. Even if they weren't downed they were still infested with worms that dealt 3d10 necrotic damage at the start of their turn. If that killed them they would also transform.
So there were shadows spawning each turn from the curse, plus the Kyuss zombies.
Or a cult praying to it.. set it up where they are gathered in the town square/cemetery performing a ritual, your party thinks they are going to stop it, but the dragon always arrives right before and just wastes as many as possible, returns to it’s lair.
I would honestly nerf the strength reduction of shadows or just outright remove it. 10 shadows hitting and insta killing half your party feels dumb, especially since there is no counter.
@robertparks3670 I adore spawn of Kyuss. I adapted them to my own dungeon which was overrun by a cult dedicated to pestilence and disease. I called them Writhing Carrion and my party still remembers them to this day because of how dangerous they were when the worms jumped to nearby creatures
The Gas Spore Fungus sounds like a great start to a mini adventure. Oh no, you've all been hit by it's poison and will die in [1d12] hours. The local healer can't help you, but she hears of a cave spring that can give the effects of Lesser Restoration. Sadly, the cave system is infested with other monsters and hazards. Best of luck, adventurers
I love this hook! Clever!
I feel like make it a day and we are cooking.
Doe i think doing the "Jaks racing game" plot of everyone been posioned and the only cure is the one you earn by winning my games or beating up that Dragon.
Yonk - definitely using that
These spores sound like they make for a decent bomb with catapult. 🤣🤣🤣😁
I would probably make it more like a session. I might have a combat encounter with a lot of them, thrown them at the party, maybe set a minimum so it’s not 1 hour and insta kill someone, but it does sound fun, especially since everyone has the poisoned condition. (Provided they failed the save, or aren’t immune to poisoned).
I won't die. I'm a goldfish.
WERE GODS!
Dies of 300 hubris damage 🐟
The most powerful creature in the game
@@quinnculver8039 Counterspell.
Gravity would like to have a word with you....
I like the idea of a Solar choosing to fight up close to keep things fair or because they want to show mercy, but then the moment they decide someone needs to die they fly straight up, and that's everyone's cue to flee or surrender.
The article on the Solar in the Monsters Know What They're Doing also talked about something like this. Basically, the article said that Solars are Good, which means they only break out the instakill bow when someone really deserves it. Or if it's fiends.
Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die.
they are written down in eternity
Giant dad D&D character blocks anyone?
to be honest, as a player and as a GM, i allways loved the deadlyness of the oldschool monsters. The fear you could bring into the Players if they realize that they are about to face a ghost was great. Also, i it was very rare that players made a fuzz if there char died.
one of my DMs homebrewed the Demon Lords instead of using their 5e stat blocks because with those stats they were, and I quote, "pussies"
and then we dropped a shadow magic ICBM on Orcus
Agreed. This is why I’m glad the Shadow didn’t have their Strength drain removed. It’s so unique and adds a level of real dread to fighting them. There’s no horror I’ve ever felt in gaming greater than going up against an undead from 1e or 2e that had a life drain ability. Having character levels drained from you on a hit is the scariest thing I’ve ever faced. Now, I don’t want THAT back per se…. But nothing really comes close anymore
I once hit a character with a Gas Spore Fungus while they were clearing out an infested mine, and when they returned to the tavern to get their reward, they got caught in a Groundhog Day style time loop 'whodunnit' mystery situation. The loop would reset every hour, and since the players had come from outside the loop, their time was not looping. I counted loops as they progressed through the mystery, getting more and more desperate to solve it before their companion hit their time limit. Very fun!
My party ran into a gas spore fungus as a random encounter in out of the abyss, being a relatively new dm i didnt realize how dangerous they were, thank god there was a paladin who could lay on hands cure disease
Shadows are always scary. Death House, anyone?
I’m glad my light cleric was the solution to this before they became to much an issue
Don't forget Mummy Lords spoil all food and drink in their lair cannonically, so your party won't have any food or water to resist exhaustion after...
Counter to that is if someone in the party has either the purify food and drink spell or the create food and drink spell.
@EugeneTChu Create food and Drink would definitely work. Not sure if I'd want to eat rotten food that has been purified though. I always imagine it's like you just took the food out of a trash heap after several weeks. Even if you cook it in the oven at temperature and know it's safe, there is still the ick factor and weird look/texture.
If the person with those spells was one of the cursed ones though, they won't recover those spell slots.
As a fun homebrew, you could just say your rations and water turn to sand. That is very thematic and terrifying, especially when you try to take a drink in the desert and get a mouthful of sand.
Be a monk at level 10 and your good also depending on where you are one could cast forbiddance and then that Mummy lord would likely be in serious shite
I’ve been away for a while, and glad to see you guys are both looking super well. Love to see it. Keep up the good work.
They need to add the Lute Goblin, CR 100 level fiend.
He makes you d a n c e.
i like how you described for the different challenge levels. all of your selections here are classic
You also forgot the encephalon cluster which if it reduces you to 0 you simply die.
The long rest thing is 100% intended to cause exhaustion
There was a giant mosquito that drained a constitution in 3.0, and the vampire did as well. Normal Shadows used to all so in 3.0 kill you and turn you in the shadows.
The Stirge, right? A swarm of those appeared in the very first adveture I DMd (Forge of Fury, 3.5e, not the 5e remake), and it was BRUTAL. Each of them could drain 1d4 Con/round after latching on. And sure, after accumulating a total of 4 Con worth of blood, it would get off and leave, but there were many of them...
Perhaps even worse, though, were the creatures that did Level damage. Like the Wights energy drain. You got hit, you lost a character level.
The difference is more there ways to negate and deal with ability drain or damage on 3.5. Not so much in 5e.
Bodak. If you're within 30 feet of it when you start your turn, it can force you to make a Con save. Fail the save by 5 or more and you're instantly reduced to 0 HP.
Indeed deadly, but not in the 2025 MM
@@DungeonDudes No, but you did open it up to the history of D&D, so I had to go with a personal favorite for making my players' characters question their life choices. :P
Bodak is one of my favorite non-legendary boss monsters. It's got such fun stuff for a solo fight with a low-level party.
It’s a bodak moment.
Not in the MM 2025
Love this video. Maybe do a follow up with your personal favorites sorted by CR?
Coming thursday!
In one of the campaigns I run, the party had a side adventure where they faced yuan-ti for the first time with the big fight at the end containing a yuan-ti anathema. The gasps when the wizard went down and then got curb stomped by the yuan-ti causing 4 failed death saves was priceless. It was the first time that they had run into anything that "finished" the kill before moving on and really took them by surprise. They were victorious and the cleric had revivify prepared so the wizard was returned to life, but they still talk about that fight and are get really nervous anytime I mention yuan-ti in game.
I'm actually glad to hear D&D is becoming somewhat deadly again.
12:49
I’m planning on making my BBEG a Mummy Lord (with one extra Pointy Hat inspired clause to make it plot relevant) and this video just made me really excited to have him show up for the first time
Another amazing video dungeon dudes can't wait for the new episodes of Drakkenhiem today it's time to crown Wilhelm as king
While running a published module for a table of new players, I had a scripted encounter with a beholder zombie while the party was still LVL 2 or 3. None of them where familiar with a beholder and I was worried they wouldn't understand the danger of the encounter. To give them a demonstration I made an NPC that fit one of the factions and had the NPC knock on the door. While the panicked NPC is asking for help, the beholder zombie floated up behind the NPC and hit the NPC with its disintegration ray. I rolled the damage and announced how much it was. The NPC was dust. Roll initiative.
So, are there any monsters that use the new Bloodied mechanic?
Yes, quite a few!
15:21 that doesn't matter though, even at level 8 w/ reliable talent and expertise, a rogue hits 21 (10 minimum on d20 via reliable talent, plus 5 dex, plus 3+3 from expertise) on their stealth checks all the time. Passive perception higher than 27 is where a rogue has a 50/50 chance of not making their stealth saves, otherwise thieves can even loop stealth and force the monster to waste actions to find them, given they have access to full cover of course.
That said the monsters being deadlier is very welcome, actually. I can imagine parties packing hill giant potions while fighting shadows, for example, or remove curse becoming a staple spell; and the no death save bits also incentivise mid-combat healing instead of only healing when a party member is down (all this boosting both clerics and the healer feat, among others). Preparation before combat is good and crucial, and if a DM knows the players don't do it, then they can either teach their players via incentive or just not run them. I welcome these changes wholeheartedly because they are opt-in, in a sense. You don't have to run shadows or gas spore fungus in every sub level 3 campaign.
You still need a way to sneak up on a creature hundreds of feet in the air, though, and with truesight to boot(iirc).
@y2a1979 a rogue only needs full cover against truesight (as line of sight also matters) to hide, and the flying hundreds of feet in air is irrelevant especially against a longbow or a heavy crossbow (long ranges of 600 and 400 ft respectively). It isn't even guaranteed that given the perfect ambush is laid (hidden thief w/ sneak attack at 500ft or so range), the solar even figures out where the attacks are even coming from with only 3/4th cover available as their truesight does not extend past 120ft, and this can potentially waste at least one round, possibly more, for the solar.
Even if we consider flight, truesight and cover and skew everything in the solar's favor (no cover for miles, rogue within 120ft), the deciding factor for the situation being quite serious has nothing to do with its passive perception, which is the thing mentioned at the timestamp in the video.
Monty Mommy Lord Martin goes insanly hard 😂
Mommy Lord = Rudi
7:55 that happened to me in 5e with the wraith. The rest of the party locked in after my cleric died and couldn’t be healed, and then was raised as a specter next turn. It really is a game changer when the monsters say “no revive for you”.
Had a fun moment with a solar midway through a campaign where a player said something like "what if we just attacked her" and I saw that as a fun opportunity to get them scared without having to just drop the statblock by giving them a "quicksave" at that point and just playing out that encounter as though they had
A lich, a mummy lord, a shadow dragon, and a pit fiend would make an intense final encounter to a campaign
13:01 I think the devs wanted to buff remove curse
In early versions of D&D, like first and second edition. There were undead that can daring your levels, Wight, Wraith drain 1 level per strike. While Specters and Vampires will drain 2 levels per hit. You lose maximum hit points, lose spells. A wizard hit by a vampire could not access all of their 5th level spells, because the wizard is now level 7 and not anymore level 9. There is no saving throws.
You needed a Cleric with a restoration spell, or Wizard with Wish to restore your levels back or try to adventure to regain XP. This was devastating in older D&D. I can understand why in latter editions they removed this.
it was still around in 3.5, though since it's been a while since I looked at those books I cannot recall if they were just 'negative level's' that gave some pretty bad negative's to you, or if they were actual losing levels.
@@Atalas5 If I remember your character would die going below level 0 and your character would become the undead just as the undead that drained your character. A new vampire would rise if drained by a vampire and so forth.
I have been saying this for weeks! Players will die. It's gonna happen!
Wait, hold up. Players? Or player characters? Because that changes the stakes a bit.
I like having Shadow as a pact of the chain option for Warlock
I like having MY Shadow as a familiar option. Really cool when it detaches.
@@bukharagunboat8466 "Flock of Familiars" - when you want more than one shadow.
I'm loving the new fungal enemies in this book. My next underdark campaign will be a banger
Hearing about the Solar reminded me of a campaign from a couple years ago. I created a weapon that could temporarily shut off divine based powers so the party could have a chance to actually succeed in killing a very powerful foe. If you want, it is on D&D Beyond and is called The Sundering. You had to get close to use it and know the creatures name so it was still a substantial challenge. Anyway, great vid you guys. Always fun to hear your perspective on things.
I DM’d a fight for 5 level 9 players recently, with a small hoard of varying undead, and the ones that came closest to killing them were the shadows, despite the fact they were almost the weakest. Two players were panicking at having less than 5 strength.
Putting it in terms of "making players squirm" emphasises the fun in these monsters. Thank you. That would be more fun than "haha, you die!" style (which is just petty anyway).
No! Sleep! Til’ Brooklyn…monastery!
Watch out for the brass monkey!❤😊
This reminds me of the famous statement by the director Alfred Hitchcock. I will paraphrase:
An audience surprised by a sudden explosion gets you a few seconds of shock.
An audience seeing the timer get set on a bomb gives you 5 minutes of suspense.
I was running the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan adventure that has a gas spore in it. However, because my players are lvl 15 instead of the 5 the adventure is written for, I had the gas spore reveal a Death Tyrant after it's death burst. That almost killed half the party with petrification. We did have one PC who automatically failed the second save against the petrification cause he got put to sleep. That was the same player that got infected with the gas spores.
Why would you run level 15 characters in a level 5 dungeon that’s stupid
@twoshu8940 I'm not running the adventure as is. They teleported to the Amedio Jungle where the adventure is set. I'm using the map and modifying most of the encounters to be more level appropriate. This was mainly a diversion so myself and one of the players had time to world build her village when they teleported before we were ready.
I would argue that one of the benefits of a long rest is avoiding. Exhaustion has a long rest is part of not any exhaustion when you eat and drink. If you ate and drank but did not get a long rest benefit, it sounds like you did not fully qualify for avoiding exhaustion and therefore would gain one
One of my favorite ways I've scared my party with something that could happen but didn't was to have them watch the final boss of a 5th level one-shot use Power Word Kill on an NPC, then hand the spell description card to the player that rolled highest on an Arcana check. They spent the whole fight doing anything and everything to prevent that spell from happening again. It made them sweat the whole time, and they appreciated it so much more when they finally took him down.
If you’re 5th level the only way of stopping it is constant CC. No 5th level character has the health required to not always get one shotted by power word: kill
@twoshu8940 I intentionally built the boss with only one casting per day, so I didn't actually insta-kill a player. Of course, THEY didn't know I couldn't use it again . . .
Reminds me of Arena of Champions where my DM threw a Planetar, Qirin, and Solar at our party for the tournament finals.
I love shadows, always use them at least once against low level parties to add an extra level of pressure
Once, I prepared an encounter for my party which had Bodak and Wisps. Basicaly, my party was traversing cursed swamp. Wisps tricked them and lured them to Bodak. First round, everybody fainted because of Bodak's "I'm so ugly that you die looking at me" ability, except our paladin. Then Wisps used their ability to drain life and kill people with 0 HPs. It was BRUTAL. We had 2 people (and a companion) dead for good in first round, with paladin healing cleric who was able to get the others up. Luckily, cleric stockpiled diamonds, so he revived all he could , but it scared my party a lot (plus it chewed from their diamond reserves and made later parts of the advanture more stressful for them).
If you see something that looks like a beholder and you are level 1, you run like hell. That still checks.
A flock of Stirges can be quite bad, because they don't attack after they are attached. Stirges and Shadows are worst in groups, which limits their usefulness in 5E. Gas Spores are really deadly if the players don't KNOW that they die when the clock runs out; most Poisoned conditions just expire. Rakshashas have always been really deadly; who cares about HOW they kill you, the fact that they are so well disguised means that they WILL. They are very patient and will engineer a situation where the Wizard is alone with them.
I spotted the same issue regarding the Gibbering Mouther on Treantmonk’s video about Bane/Bless. Definitely not sure I like the move to debilitating conditions being an auto-success on hit for the reasons that were listed (less ability to interact with it as a player, more reliability) plus the fact that you can’t separately tune monster damage and monster status reliability. Maybe they were going for making monsters more deadly or maybe they were trying to save time at the table, either way though I’m not convinced of it as a good thing as of now.
I wonder if the Rakshasa still have their 2014 ability where they can just ignore spells of 6th level or lower, because if they do that monster is just a straight up F-you to Paladins after the Divine Smite nerf, especially since they'd otherwise take *extra* damage from Divine Smite due to being Fiends.
Awesome vid. Amen on telegraphing... I was in a campaign where the DM spawned in 8 shadows that all attacked one player (I was a little livid as I thought that was very harsh) and not surprisingly that person just insta-died. I would say even with experienced players you should still telegraph and remind them. Slightly sad to hear that fey counterpart - Reflections didn't get into the monster manual. :o)
The new books were done really well IMHO. I'm just sad that the Artificer wasn't in the PH.
My first campaign as a dm, we were playing Dungeon of the Mad Mage. The party had just easily wiped what was supposed to be a difficult encounter and had begun looting. The Warlock had wandered into a side room that had not been cleared, he had darkvision and most everyone else did not. There was a single monster in there, which was a intellect devourer...he failed all the saves and checks and just died before anyone else knew 😂
The Shadow, the intellect devoured...Don't forget skin kites (some horrifying thing, but for Charisma)!
The single deadliest encounter I've ever made as a DM was an ancient red shadow dragon attacking a major city. It kept using its breath weapon on the civilians and staying out of reach of most of the party's abilities. 😅
So, my advice to players would be to take advantage of the new explicit rules for making spell scrolls. The Acolyte back ground gives you proficiency with calligraphers tools. So, a Cleric with the Acolyte background can innately scribe scrolls of Greater/Lessor Restoration and Remove Curse. Assuming you have the time and resources to prepare these before you need them, you can have those spells available for your party without having to take space in your prepared spell list.
on "Shadows" - its attack basically creates a separate HP pool that never scales, and is more dangerous to low strength characters. Very interesting to run.
There've been exhaustion gains around food and water since 2014 (PHB p. 185). The Food and Water section is nothing but "here's a few ways to get exhaustion". In fact, the box on Exhaustion itself (PHB p. 291) calls out again, you only get rid of a level of exhaustion after a long rest if you've had food and drink".
I really like the mechanics that try to convince players to heal.
So many players ignore RP and wade in with 1 hp, especially after seeing the initiative order. I'm glad the game beefed up healing, also.
Umber hulks in 3.5 were surprisingly deadly. I caused several pc deaths with the confusion ability, and making the party fight itself
Great video as always! Where do I find Kelly's shirt? It's amazing!
Really enjoyed this one, guys.
My experience with high levels is that whether attacks or saves are more dangerous is very campaign-dependent. Save DCs and attack bonuses go up at about the same rate for monsters (about +10 over 20 CR). Base AC without special abilities, attunement required items, and spells typically goes up by 4-6 over 20 levels depending on armor type and key stat (more if you use a shield), averaging around +5. Base save without special abilities, attunement required items, and spells typically goes up by 0-8 depending on save proficiency and whether it's a key stat, averaging around +4. This leaves spells, special abilities, and attunement required items, and whether you have more stuff that applies to AC or more stuff that applies to saves is build dependent. The main distorting factor there is whether you have a paladin, because there's just no AC adjustment in the game that's nearly as effective as aura of protection.
Absolutely insane that they kept the shadow as is.
Just dont upset anything from the Upper Planes. Animal Lords, Solar, Planetar..., exactly what Monty says: "DON'T PROVOKE DIVINE WRATH!" Its gonna be a bad day if you do.
Threw a mummy lord, part of the loot was n-1 remove curse scrolls where n= number of party members cursed. Made it very dramatic. Good ol fashioned self sacrifice
So if you had a gaints str belt, would that counter the shadows str drain? Since it set your str score to 2x at all times.
So the wording on the _Belt of Giant Strength_ and the _Potions of Giant Strength_ has changed. They no longer say your Strength can't be lower than the listed value. They say "your Strength changes to a score granted by the belt" and "When you drink this potion, your Strength score changes for 1 hour. The type of giant determines the score." Does this mean you can still have that Strength score drained by Shadows?
Having players who love to dump their strength stat is a great place to send out shadows once they reach mid levels and have some reasonable AC. Not to kill them, but just as that little distraction through the battle to make them feel the heat. I think those monster abilities that affect charisma/strength/... instead of hit points are fun every now and then to break the loop for the players as they get too confident in their hit point management. So I will keep using them and the Bodak from previous editions :)
How are damage types?
In 2014 poison was pretty much useless because so many things were immune or resistant. Is that still the case?
Are you seeing different damage types coming from monsters?
How common are those effects with no saving throw like the dire wolf’s trip?
I’d argue a bad DM is the deadliest monster of them all (neutral evil, specifically).
Most of the DM you read about are choatically evil, will beat you for like not liking their waifu.
@ It’s gotten bad, from what I hear.
@@thetowndrunk988 The thing I think is the most crazy it is considered "normal" to advocate picking up and learning a entire other game systems to "fix" DnD issues... instead of just homebrewing fixs 😂
I literally had like 5 people aruge with me about and they were so assured that, they couldnt think it was possible to not instantly lick someone else boots.
The deadliest threat is a DM who acts like Monty during the intro
I'm super happy to hear the monsters are stronger. I'm a BIG fan of monsters, and I like to run encounters with a single big, tough boss that the players have to use teamwork and strategy to defeat, or Witcher-style hunts for a specific scary, threatening beast that might last an entire session or two. I like my monsters to have story, presence and threat.
Don't get me wrong, minion and swarm battles are fun, but the way newer editions stack so much power into the Player Characters, it puts a lot of pressure on DMs to buff monsters with homebrew or use more of them, and some of the most interesting monsters in the game quickly become irrelevant as the PCs climb levels.
So this is a positive change and I'm there for it.
The Book of Many Things included a monster called a Breath Drinker that was a CR 14 version of the shadow. Incorporeal so it can duck through the walls or ceiling, and it has at will invisibility so you never see it coming. Claw attacks that drain max HP. Its signature ability, Drink Breath, would lower your Charisma by 1d6 unless you make a DC 18 Charisma save (plus 8d8 necrotic damage, which also healed the breath drinker even if you make the save). Reducing Charisma to 0 was an instant kill, and there was no way to revive the dead person as long as the breath drinker remains alive short of a wish. Also just to throw players off... it is weak to necrotic damage and healed by radiant.
Very, very nasty and difficult to fight.
I had a fairy wizard with 6 STR due to rolling for stats who got hit by a shadow for -3 to strength. Thankfully the paladin took his turn to yeet her out of another shadow's reach before its turn. She was terrified of anything remotely shadow like for the rest of the campaign.
I started my first campaign a few months ago, we are currently level 3 and last session nearly had a TPK from those damn Gas Spore Fungus. One character was killed outright and mine only just survived the encounter. 😅
The rakshasa curse is gonna be deadly if your divine healer doesn't have remove curse at the ready.
Are monsters better at saving against spells like banishment and polymorph?
Who remembers the old days when vampires would drain character levels when they hit
I wouldn't use those rules of instadeath, but I might not let them roll death saves until a remove curse.
Oh man, I was wondering what happened to you two recently! I used to see your videos on my homepage all the time, but one day I just stopped getting notified and haven't seen one of your videos show up in my recommendations in nearly a year now.
Do you guys know when the 2024 MONSTER Manuel will be released for us who per-order online?
Feb 18
Honestly, I'm pretty sure the shadow is CR 1/2 just so level 5 clerics have a fun time with Destroy Undead and Sunlight has one incredible use.
Have you done a video about the 2024 redesigns for the Dragons?
They fixed Bashees? I recall my DM somehow being surprised that it was even possible for level 15 characters to fail even one of the six DC 13 Wisdom saves we were called to make. With a +2 to my own saves, I had a whole 50% chance of passing an individual save and 1.5% chance of saving against them all. Honestly I'm amazed that two of our four party members did make all their saves.
Shadows are scary, but I think his big brother Shadow Assassin is little more scary lol.
Exhaustion for lack of food was a thing in 5e too. You just likely missed or ignored it in the dmg under hazards.
They kept the shade but not the intellect devourer that’s crazy
The Tulani/Ghaele are both cool.
They're close to Kobold Press monsters, but not there yet.
Ghoul is sneaky tough because of causing paralyzed condition which makes every melee hit a crit. Plus a few other nasty attacks and effects.
The Rogue in my game plays a custom race with only 60ft vision. I think he'd opt for trying to assassinate _me_ instead of fighting The Solar
Against the Solar...Level 14 Dance Bard sharing their evasion with everyone! Couple this with a Paladin using their Aura protection...you might survive if you bunch up. MIGHT.
If my Bear Totem Barbarian didn't have his Potion of Giant Strength, I definitely would've died from a Greater Shadow encounter, with his 4 shadow minions. Oh, and it was a double encounter because a paladin was a bit hasty and decided to solve a riddle by ignoring it and pushing the sarcophagus wide open. Nightmare! xD
I have a short story about a Shadow Dragon taking on a Mind Flayer nest
Hmmm…no mention of elder brain despite popularity from Baldur’s Gate 3…
Elder Brains are not in the 2025 Monster Manual, sadly.
One thing that sticks out to me is the fact there is no in game or otherwise mitigating circumstance for hp reduction to 0. In my opinion insta kill moves should have atleast one counterbalance to them. What about the 2024 Durable feat? "Defy Death" it reads: you have advantage of death saving throws. I feel like if you took this feat, you should be rewarded with the option to at least make death saves if you find yourself in mortal peril.
"A low CR monster that causes a surprising threat to high level character" is another way of saying "this monster's CR is too low."
Am I the only worried about Monty's dangerous smile?
yeah, we faced 4 mindflayers in the last Session, with a bunch of intellect devourer (old Version) I nearly escaped by the way. And, we were one rogue and one Monk/warrior at lvl3. Yup, 2 man party. To be fair, the Dm didnt want us to go into that direction, but its was a labyrinth with no hints so it happened. Not mad at the DM by the way, I kill their party as dm also way more than i want. But I thought talking about deadly im mentioning it here.