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JNAProductions
2017-10-03, 09:59 PM
Nymph
Medium Fey, Chaotic Good

Armor Class 17 (Sea's Beauty)
Hit Points 130 (20d8+40)
Speed 30', Swim 50'



Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
Intelligence
Wisdom
Charisma


12 (+1)
16 (+3)
14 (+2)
14 (+2)
14 (+2)
18 (+4)



Damage Resistance Cold
Skills Persuasion +7, Athletics +4
Senses Darkvision 60', Passive Perception 12
Languages Common, Elvish, Sylvan, Aquan
Challenge 8


Innate Spellcasting A Nymph's innate spellcasting is based on Charisma (+7 to hit, DC 15). A Nymph may cast the following spells:

At-Will: Druidcraft, Shape Water, Guidance, Create Water (no destroying), Water Walk, Water Breathing
5/day: Healing Word
3/day: Sleet Storm
1/day: Commune With Nature, Greater Restoration, Mass Cure Wounds

Water Fae A Nymph can breathe underwater without any difficulty.

Speak With Beasts And Plants A Nymph can speak with animals and plants in Sylvan.

Sea's Beauty A Nymph adds her Charisma modifier to her AC while not wearing armor.

Blinding Beauty When not wearing armor, a Nymph has such extraordinary beauty that she can blind those who look upon her. Anyone looking at her while within 60' must make a DC 15 Charisma save or be blinded for an hour, with a new save at the end of every turn. Once a save is made, the target is immune to the Nymph's beauty until they take a long rest.

Magic Resistance We all know how this works.

Actions


Water Whip Melee Spell Attack: +7 to hit, reach 15', one target. Hit: 9 (2d4+4) slashing damage.

Extra Attack 2: The Nymph makes three attacks with her Water Whip or other attack actions.

Bonus Action


Captivating Beauty The Nymph selects a target within 120'. The target is immediately subject to her Blinding Beauty, and must also make a second save. On a failed Charisma save, they are Charmed by the Nymph for 24 hours, treating her as a trusted friend and companion. Any time the target takes damage, it is allowed a new saving throw, as well as if the Nymph does something to betray the trust of the Charmed victim. The Nymph can only have up to 2 (proficiency bonus/2, rounded up) targets charmed at a time.

DCR is about 6, which means to hit 8, OCR needs to be 9 or 10. DPR is a mere 27 at +7 (CR 5) but I think the ability to blind simply by BEING THERE, a few good spells (notably Healing Word, to keep herself alive) and an at-will Charm effect are worth a few extra CR.

Let me know what buffs/nerfs you'd give to make this lady CR 8-that's my end goal.

Flashy
2017-10-04, 03:07 PM
Are you looking for CR 8 because you want the statblock to serve as an effective solo encounter at a particular level? If so it shouldn't be too hard to boost the offensive CR with legendary or lair actions.

Apart from that I'm a fan of padding HP numbers with a sort of minor resistance to broad damage types. I've had a lot of fun with monsters that subtracted a d6 from any elemental damage they took, for example, so I could have flavorful low level monsters that weren't totally dependent on their resistances for their defensive CR rating (roughly estimated as +2HP/10 preexisting HP for CR calculation purposes). Doing something similar here with weapon damage might be useful if you don't want to add full resistance or add to the actual HP pool.

You could tack some light psychic damage onto the initial and/or subsequent saves against blindness for a little boost to the offensive CR, or just increase the damage of the water whip.

On the whole though I suspect it's probably somewhere in the CR 7 range as currently written (as a total gut instinct guess)? I'd rate the ongoing blindness as similar to the medusa's petrifying gaze ability, but I'm away from my DMG and can't check how that impacts CR.

SharkForce
2017-10-04, 08:06 PM
i can't help feeling that sleet storm and a bunch of abilities that are sight-based have some countersynergy.

to the point where i'd almost suggest giving her gust of wind instead so she can blow away visibility-blocking effects instead. and maybe make her glowy or something (when she wants to be) so she's visible in normal darkness.

i do agree she really doesn't "feel" like a standout CR 8, if that's what you're aiming for. feels like it needs a bit of flashy punch to me. this is a sea nymph? maybe give her something like the sea sorcerer's curse to play around with.

Ninja_Prawn
2017-10-06, 10:34 AM
Were you trying to lure me out of hiding? :smalltongue: You know the proper term for a sea nymph is nereid, right?

I would definitely say that this needs more power to qualify as CR 8. At the very least, give it Magic Resistance; the dryad has that, so there is precedent. A few uses of a nice, punchy spell like tidal wave or maelstrom would be both fitting and useful, too.

I'd also suggest putting some more limits on Captivating Beauty: either 24 hour immunity on a successful save or the nymph can only have one person charmed at a time. Or just copy the dryad's Fey Charm.

JNAProductions
2017-10-06, 10:38 AM
Added Magic Resistance.

Added a limit to Captivating Beauty-proficiency/2, rounding up, so 2 at CR 8. This is probably her big defense-in a party of four, she can render herself immune to attacks from half the party, given time-though they probably won't fight for her against the party.

demonslayerelf
2017-10-08, 03:39 AM
How to get this to CR 8?
Well, there's the 5th edition version of CR 8, which means maybe the party has a problem if they're either being stupid or using poorly made characters, and there's the real version of CR 8, which means a party might actually need to think to deal with it.

If you want the first one, I'd say it's just fine.

If you want a real CR 8, which has a chance of actually killing the party if they're not thinking strategically at all;

The damage is too low. The nymph has absolutely terrible damage output. At most, it's 6d4+12, and with a +7 to hit, she's not going to be hitting most Martials any more than chance allows. Monks can hit 19 or so by this point, and barbarians can hit a 21 or so, then anyone in plate armor with a shield is at their 20. So she's not hitting reliably, but she's also not missing too much to be too low. With AC 17, she's also going to be taking a lot of damage from martials, who will be hitting her on an 8ish or better, depending on Ability Scores.

So, boost damage, or boost AC, or make it really hard for martials to actually get her. Captivating Beauty is a good start, but it can only tie down 2 people, and I'd say giving you the command to attack your allies is a breech of your trust. Blinding Beauty is okay, but a Lesser Restoration is pretty simple at 8th level.

As for the last point; I would give her the Ice Wall, released in the Mystic UA, or maybe the Ice Devil's wall ability. I haven't looked in a while, so I'm not sure which would be better right now. Maybe have it 1/day, maybe have it Recharge, I dunno. I'd personally go with Recharge, because if it seems like it's being too much of a problem, you can then say in the middle of the fight, "No, it's actually X/day, I was rolling for something else." If you'd rather not have a physical obstacle like that, I'd add Charm Person 3/day.

For AC boosting, if you do the last point, maybe don't. If you don't do one of those, you're gonna need to do something about that. Maybe do something like Water Shield. As a reaction, the nymph may create a bubble of rapidly moving water around her, increasing her AC by 4(Her proficiency mod). Alternatively, give her Cutting Words maybe once per turn, but framed to be something like Flirtatious Distraction, or whatever.

If neither of those, there are two options; A lot of fast healing, or good damage.

For damage, I'd say give the Nymph something like Snilloc's Snowball Storm at will and Chromatic Orb(Only it must be Cold) maybe 3/day. Sleet Storm's alright, but it's not much, and good damage is kinda crucial. Fire Shield would be good, with the Warm Shield option, but I'm not entirely sure how many times she should use it. Maybe 1/day, since it lasts 10 minutes. Storm Sphere might be okay in place of one of the last two.

And for healing, I'd say something like "While the Nymph is within a body of water, she regenerates 10 health each turn." Easy enough to overcome with damage, but good, consistent healing which doesn't rob actions from her. Alternatively, a version of the succubus' Draining Kiss would fulfill some healing and some damage, but probably not too much.


A few things to consider that follow a few of these things, but none of them neatly;
Give the Nymph Polymorph 1/day. That gives her more health, maybe more damage, maybe an option to escape.
Give the Nymph Melf's Minute Meteors, reframed to be ice-themed, and deal Cold damage, say 3/day. This would be a defensive option, but also provide damage. Maybe have them go off as a reaction, rather than a bonus action.
Armor of Agathys would serve a similar roll, giving more health, and more damage output.

Anyway, just my feedback as that guy who thinks 5e creatures are kinda terrible and weak. Hope I helped.