Monster Design Contest Voting Thread-Shapeshifters! [5E]

[JNAProductions]

Please post your top three votes.

Number one earns 5 points, number two earns 3, and number three earns 1.

You cannot vote for yourself.

Voting... BEGIN!

[Requilac]

Alright here are my votes and my rationale behind them...

1) The Twisted Shaman by PheonyxPhyre : Wow this is both terrifying and incredible goofy. I suppose it depends on how you play it. The explosive walkers are especially eldritch. Both cool thematically and interesting to use in combat. Great job!

2) Mimics by WarrentheHero: I don't really like that this is just a rework of another monster, but it is definitely a cool approach. And were I to run a humorous adventure, I would consider using this. They are goofy and sort of quirky. I would have liked if it were a little more creative, but ultimately it is well done.

3) Intelligent Armors by JNA Productions: These really seem like they would be better of as a magical item than as a monster. And while thematically they are interesting, they don't really have any special feature to help them in combat. Its just attack after attack, without any feature to supplement it. All of their features are incredibly unlikely to come up to. Not a big fan, sorry if this seems offensive.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My votes:

1) Yubsharasehn for the detailed lore. The name, though...you nailed the "hard to pronounce" part dead on
2) Intelligent Armor for the notes about their narrative potential. I don't think I'd use them as such, but it's a good idea.
3) Mimics: A competent extension of an old standby. I'm worried that the "auto-crit" thing on the Lorderan ones may be a bit much though.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I like all of these. My order really just came down to personal taste in the end...

1. Mimics. I love mimics (https://nailsofvecna.tumblr.com/post/174297620578/while-the-garden-variety-treasure-chest-mimic).
2. Yubsharasehn. I like that the whole lifecycle is represented. There are a few niggles in the stat blocks but overall very good.
3. Twisted Shaman. It definitely shifts its shape! Kind of unconventional having to fight it twice though... do you treat it as one monster or two for CR/XP purposes?

There's nothing wrong with the intelligent armours, either. They're just a bit less shapeshift-y than everything else.

[Blackbando]

1. Gonna go with Requilac's Yubsharasehn! I love these buggers and will definitely be using them sometime soon.
2. Twisted Shaman for me, I really like them, and also am glad to add another monster that has babies as a part of their attacks to my oddly specific collection.
3. Mimics! I like mimics a lot, and they fit the theme more than the armors, imo.

[Fire Tarrasque]

1. Yubsharasehn.
I love these things so much. They're vampiric, but distinctly not vampires. They're fey, but also unique. My one complaint: It doesn't feel shapeshiftery enough.
2. Mimics.
Mimics are cool. I like the Dark Souls one, and it's the most shapeshiftery of the shapeshifters.
3. Twisted Shaman. Great monster, in fact i'd say it's better than the mimics, but it's barely a shapeshifter, and I have to deduct points for that.

I'd like to put in an honorary vote for the Deep Ones. If they were submitted, i'd put them at #2 instead.

[Requilac]

Here are my counts for the votes so far...

Yubsharasehn by Requilac: 11
Mimics by WarrentheHero: 9
Twisted Shaman by Pheonyxphyre: 7
Intelligent Armors by JNA Productions: 3

Yubshrasehn are in gold, Mimics are in silver, and Twisted Shaman is in bronze.