Let's Read: The Dungeons and Dragons 5e Monster Manual!

[MrConsideration]

How much do you think unlimiting its stone gaze range would increase its effective challenge rating by? (Within reason of course, if you're standing a kilometer away and the basilisk itself is just a tiny pinprick it 'aint gonna be stone-gazing you.)

Not much, overall - maybe a single CR. After all, it stops PCs being able to stand a distance away and ping away, but the Basilisk could easily move towards them to make sure its Gaze is affecting everyone.

[Naanomi]

A fun combo: basilisk (or other petrifying monsters) and stone golems: is that another victim or another combatant?

[INDYSTAR188]

A fun combo: basilisk (or other petrifying monsters) and stone golems: is that another victim or another combatant?

Oohhh I like this! Or maybe the basilisk is a guardian of a medusa's stone garden...

[Naanomi]

Oohhh I like this! Or maybe the basilisk is a guardian of a medusa's stone garden...

Yeah I've played the 'petrification squad' (a medusa riding a gorgon with basilisk 'hunting hounds') once before back in 2e. Just make sure your party has some access to de-petrification before you go into it.

A note on petrifying monsters: it can be a good way to get loot out of a game. Sometimes party deaths just end up reinvesting gear back into the party as they strip their dead companion dry of anything useful; it can be especially bad if you have a system for starting higher level characters with some magic items in place (dying becomes item farming?). Petrification (and a few other types of death) can be a way that actually removes items from play... oh I'm sorry, that cloak was destroyed when the statue broke during the fight...

[Ralanr]

How much do you think unlimiting its stone gaze range would increase its effective challenge rating by? (Within reason of course, if you're standing a kilometer away and the basilisk itself is just a tiny pinprick it 'aint gonna be stone-gazing you.)

Wouldn't everything in its line of sigh become stone?

[JackPhoenix]

In one of the Eberron novels, there was a medusa (who politely averted her eyes in the presence of her guests) with pet blind basilisk that scared the hell out of one character when he saw him for the first time and wasn't yet aware he's harmless.

I think it's a great idea for a villain: he keeps blind basilisk close to him as a distraction, he's safe from it's gaze, but the characters don't know that, and keeping their eyes shut will limit their combat effectivness. And after (if) PC's defeat them, they may wonder what magic the villain used to keep himself from being turned into stone...

[smcmike]

Fluff
Much Basilisk fluff focuses on their uses to humanoids. They can be domesticated and are useful for alchemists. This is all a little bland, but necessary for plot-hook generation beyond the old staple ‘the Basilisk wants to eat you and is in your way’. Their ability to devour stone is a great explanation for why their gaze exists (otherwise they’d be depriving themselves of prey with every kill) and the idea of the chewed-upon stone reforming into flesh in the digestive tract is an appropriately disgusting end of foolhardy player characters. This doesn’t seem to gel with the fact that you recognise their lair by the abundance of statues – wouldn’t the big bad Basilisk have eaten them all?

Eventually, sure, but petrification is a pretty effective means of food storage. He's just a big squirrel storing nuts for the winter.

[Ralanr]

Eventually, sure, but petrification is a pretty effective means of food storage. He's just a big squirrel storing nuts for the winter.

If he eats stone.
I think that's kinda how 5e describes petrification. Paralysis might be better for food storage.

[SharkForce]

If he eats stone.
I think that's kinda how 5e describes petrification. Paralysis might be better for food storage.

short-term, maybe, but a petrified person will keep for years, decades, or even centuries.

[Sindeloke]

That potentially implies a hibernation cycle, which could make for an interesting plot hook.

[Envyus]

A thing about the Basalisk is that you don't need greater restoration to fix the problem. It's pointed out that their gullet can be used to create oil that can restore petrified creatures. An extension of the fact that Basalisks eat stoned creatures that turn back into flesh in their bellies.

[Forum Explorer]

Mythologically they were not body guards really since there was nothing you could do to 'fight fate' once you heard their cry (and they would be fae not undead), they were at best a warning to get your affairs in order

Yeah, but mythologically speaking they weren't really a monster to be fought.

A thing about the Basalisk is that you don't need greater restoration to fix the problem. It's pointed out that their gullet can be used to create oil that can restore petrified creatures. An extension of the fact that Basalisks eat stoned creatures that turn back into flesh in their bellies.

Very much this. Get some use out of those skills!

[MrConsideration]

The Behir

Much like people commented with the Banshee or the Azer, this is a monster I have never used or seen used or even heard of anyone using. Which is odd - it's a D&D creation with a lineage as least as old as the Owlbear or the Mind Flayer, without an obvious mythological forebear (well, apart from the fact that it's a slightly more naff dragon). For some reason this dragon, which only speaks Draconic and has a breath weapon, is relegated to the 'monstrosity' category instead.

I always found 'lightning breath' to be quite difficult to visualise, so I'd refluff that as breathing out some kind of static cloud - you want to retain the rare damage type which is fairly difficult to resist.

Art
I like this depiction - it's lithe and wet and sinewy, and manages to look monstrous yet simultaneously plausible as a living thing. My only objection is the art could have been used to demonstrate the tactics that are alluded to in the fluff, and that its not clear that the Behir is supposed to be pretty Huge. It's tucked up in the corner (partially off the page in fact) to make room for flavour text and statblock. Surely you can fit a snake-like creature in anywhere you like?

It does suffer from being opposite another blue reptile with loads of legs, though.


Purpose and Tactics
The Behir is a man-eating (and apparently troglodyte and Mind Flayer-eating - gross) monster, clearly developed with a strong emphasis on ambushing the party and swallowing a hapless PC. The Behir has solid Stealth and Perception scores, and can grapple and bite for immediately swallow one PC before fighting the other. As a tactic, it creates great drama - even if the mechanic of being swallowed isn't altogether onerous, players will immediately feel a very strong sense of peril and engagement once they're residing in a Behir's belly. It is an impressive climber and moves extremely quick - whilst the players are scaling a cliff-race or traversing a mountainside or sloshing through a murky cavern, you ambush them. If you fight the Behir an empty room, the fight will fizzle. If you fight it on a storm-wracked mountain side, it's a true monster. Use that 40ft climb speed to ambush and nab a character, then retreat through tough terrain. This terrain also lines up the characters for the Behir's breath attack, which is a line - fairly useless as an Area of Effect attack in the open fields, but brilliant when players are clinging to the cliff-face. Try to embrace the kinetic side of this monster - it climbs on the wall, the roof, biting and scratching and retreating and winding its away across territory - it never stops weaving in and out, it never just stands to trade blows. As a CR 11 threat, using these tactics will help reduce the action-economy issues normally faced by solo monsters, as the Behir lacks the luxury of lair actions and other legendary saves and other privileges that it's big brothers have.

The Behir is also, to a degree, intelligent. With an intelligence of 7, it about matches a moronic human- but you can talk to it, and it presumably possesses desires and needs beyond eating adventurers. As an encounter, the Behir's chosen tactics don't lend themselves to having a conversation, but if your players successfully spot or anticipate a Behir, it could make a social encounter. I imagine a Behir would be easily tricked or manipulated - the fluff seems to establish them as fairly gluttonous and grasping.


Fluff
The fluff establishes the Behir's habitat and hunting strategies, which mesh extremely well with the statblock opposite. I think they've very simply captured the platonic ideal of Behirness with a few simple mechanics. The text here gives a great sense of how the Behir, which helps visualise this very weird creature for the DM.

Another focus in the fluff is the rivalry between Behir and Dragons. I imagine most Dragons see Behir as hillbilly cousins due to their low intelligence, and that Behir despise those high-falutin' Dragons as putting on airs. 5e has the Behir as being made by Storm Giants to combat Dragonkind, but I'd rather simply have Dragons, Wyverns, Dragonnes, Behir and the like to be just trees on some vast taxonomic branch. I find D&D has a preponderance of races being created and subsequently abandoned, and Storm Giants don't seem up to the task - aren't they just big Vikings with a superiority complex?


Hooks

The Dwarves of the Roaring Mountains have always warned traders not to cross the passes when a storm is brewing - for whenever the tumult is at its worst, whole caravans disappear. One ambitious merchant wants you to investigate and solve this mystery - find what lurks in the tenebrous tempest, and stop its predation.

The Terror in the Tempest has grown fat on Dwarf-meat and rich in stolen gold. His last wish is to find and slay a Dragon, that he might know he has lived a good and full life. Will your players lure the Terror to glory or death?

Verdict: A good monster and dragon-alternative.

Next: the Beholder.

[VoxRationis]

5e has the Behir as being made by Storm Giants to combat Dragonkind, but I'd rather simply have Dragons, Wyverns, Dragonnes, Behir and the like to be just trees on some vast taxonomic branch. I find D&D has a preponderance of races being created and subsequently abandoned, and Storm Giants don't seem up to the task - aren't they just big Vikings with a superiority complex?

Eh. Storm Giants do have magic-users among them, and the Behir isn't a particularly elegantly-designed creature, nor even one that well-optimized for fighting dragons (frankly, a manticore, which has both a fly speed and ranged attacks, seems better suited in principle, and swallow whole is an ability suited to fighting humanoids, not dragons). It comes off as a slapdash job, or one done without a terrible amount of expertise. They took a serpent, tried to make a dragon of it, and got this. They forgot that they'd need to program the middle limbs' development differently to make wings, and so they wound up with extra legs.

[SharkForce]

Eh. Storm Giants do have magic-users among them, and the Behir isn't a particularly elegantly-designed creature, nor even one that well-optimized for fighting dragons (frankly, a manticore, which has both a fly speed and ranged attacks, seems better suited in principle, and swallow whole is an ability suited to fighting humanoids, not dragons). It comes off as a slapdash job, or one done without a terrible amount of expertise. They took a serpent, tried to make a dragon of it, and got this. They forgot that they'd need to program the middle limbs' development differently to make wings, and so they wound up with extra legs.

or perhaps they wanted the behir to be forced to rely on their magic for flight. not much point in making a servitor creature that can just fly away and you can't do much to stop it.

also worth noting that inside a typical dragon's lair, flight is probably a much smaller advantage so long as you can walk on the walls and ceiling.

[DireSickFish]

The problem I have with the Behir is that it comes at a time when I'm mostly likely to just use a dragon instead. My games don't run much past the teens so mid/high CR monsters are either intelligent and not likely to be fought or.. intelligent and the big bad of the game.

The Behir strikes me as a "monastery" monster much like the Owlbear you mentioned and Ankhegs. You could throw one in anywhere tearing apart an area. Or just living in a dungeon in high level games to provide fodder. You don't wear out a dragons welcome by having it play mook or monster.

As story purposes I've been tempted to use them as the driving force for why the party has to deal with a Dragon. It either drove out a younger dragon that is giving the PC's fits. Either because its chromatic and trying to take over a populated are or because it's good and the PC's want to help it out. The PC's can go deal with the Behir instead of dealing with the dragon, or just let the Behir be in the background of the story and never encountered.

[Naanomi]

I like behir or other dragony monsters, I get tired of killing baby dragons and these offer alternatives (saving full grown dragons for later)

These work well in particular for underground encounters where flying types don't work (and skittering through narrow, steep tunnels is creepy fun)

[Ralanr]

Ahh the Behir, one of those monsters in the awkward category of CR 11.

I ended up writing a short story with a behir as the monster. It was actually quite fun, it could communicate with its intelligence as is and it was more enjoyable than I thought to write up a monster obsessed with eating his prey.

I also had fun with its constrict and devour abilities. So much fun in working with that.

[Bohrdumb]

Jumping back to the Basilisk (note I don't yet have an MM, it's in the mail):

The 30' gaze does seem a little strange. I might rule that players outside of 30' still have to make the save but could do so with Advantage.

I might also utilize 'facing' against this creature and create paper templates to lay on the mat that serve as the field of vision for players. If they turn to face the basilisk or the basilisk enters their field of vision and they don't close their eyes - saving throw!

[MrConsideration]

I personally like to reserve Dragons as the ultimate monster - you don't get an ego boost murdering pint-sized ones at level 7. The only ones that exist are barely known, unique and preside over vast swathes of wilderness (I also don't colour-code them - Dragons are individuals who are just a step below gods. No-one knows what they're into or up to!) There's a wasteland on the map and everyone knows a dragon lives there, and my players are free to wander to that region.....but they're probably not coming out again.

Due to this, I get a lot of mileage from Wyverns and Behirs and whatnot. You don't get no lame-ass CR 10 dragons in my world. It's Ancient Red Dragon with 8th level casting and rare magic items or bust.*

I find keeping track of where people are facing really irritating, so I tell myself that people would be looking around frantically in combat anyway. You can't track where the Basilisk is and somehow avoid inadvertently catching eyes like its your ex-girlfriend at a party when you're fighting for your life!

Behir, like many D&D original monsters, are clearly designed to live in dungeons and eat Orcs in 10 x 10" rooms.

I'm sure Storm Giants do have Wizards, but they just don't seem particularly academic.



*This generally results in me never using dragons.

[DireSickFish]

lol you use Dragons like I use Aboliths.

[Shining Wrath]

The Behir is what you get if you cross-breed a Purple Worm with a Blue Dragon. And I agree, it's a tough one to find a good use for, but an easy one to just throw in as mini-boss.

[Nifft]

My personal take on Behirs was to make them slithering, burrowing, draconic egg-eaters.

They were feared and hated by Dragons because they sought out their nests and at their young.

(I also changed some Dragons to not have a burrow speed, so it was a very asymmetric war.)


Storm Giants as creators could fit this use -- perhaps they deliberately enlarged the Behir progenitors, and then they deliberately infested their mountain homes with the things so they wouldn't have to worry about Dragon roosts. Lighting breath is basically tickling a Storm Giant so they didn't worry about over-breeding the slithery buggers.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

hard to visualize

I'm not sure why. It opens it's mouth and lightning comes out. I don't see why that's harder than lightning shooting from someone's hands. I picture the lightning as bluish-white for behir, which matches their color scheme well.

Behir are pretty nice creatures, I like to set up encounters were the party has the option to bribe them, maybe to team up against a true dragon. They were lesser dragons (dragon type but not true dragons) in 3.5, I believe, odd that they're monstrosities now.

jumped up vikings

You're actually thinking of Frost Giants. Storm Giants tend to be more Greek, like lesser titans. They still don't seem magical enough to be engineering creatures, though.

[RazDelacroix]

Well of course the giants these days do not seem to be up to snuff for fluff regarding the magical reworkings of nature. That's what they did in the PAST when they had a stable empire in the throes of a war against the dragons! Heck, the most probable sorts to blame for any magical experiments gone right/wrong, the eldritch giants, have yet to be statted up for 5th edition. So we'll blame them.

Giant wizards did it!

[Flashy]

Giant wizards did it!

A wizard is never giant, nor is he tiny. He is precisely the size he means to be.

[NNescio]

Personally I love animated armor. From experience it's AC and damage is a bit high for a level 1 encounter (party of 3, my character almost got killed). But it's something I would just love to use in any scenario.

DM sicced a horde (8) of animated armors on a Level 2 party. His intention was for us to retreat, or possibly hold them off at a corridor.

We killed all of them after going through multiple bags of ball bearings, caltrops, flasks of oil, and pitons (to ram doors shut). Also a bunch of readied actions to shoot at the first animated armor that shows up.

That encounter took nearly 2 hours (real time), due to all the running around and up to 5 saving throws being rolled each time an animated armor moves.

Yes, creatures can move through caltrops and ball bearings at half speed without triggering the effect, but animated armors are too dumb to do that anyway.

The armors basically chased us all around the place they're guarding while slipping and falling with the occasional fire they have to walk through. Or a jammed door, which they will try break open, only to be hit by 4 readied ranged attacks the moment they do so.

And yes, the party bard was playing the Benny Hill theme the whole time this was happening.

[MrConsideration]

The Beholder

The Beholder is one of the most iconic monsters of D&D history - a unique, if kooky, monstrosity born specifically into the fabric of D&D - in its DNA, a Beholder epitomises that weird combination of po-faced fantasy and gonzo silliness that is at the very heart of D&D. It's a big Nazi eye-ball that floats around zapping people randomly. Whats not to like?

I'll cover the Beholders, like the Angels, as one. Again, they are fairly similar- there's the proper one, the stupid low-level one for parties who want their egos stroked by killing Baby's First beholder, and the silly undead one, because all evil monsters must have a silly undead version* with a higher CR - I'm looking at you, Alhoon, you Al-loon.


Art
We have a lot of options, here.

Firstly, the cover art features a Beholder prominently. When I first ever played D&D, aged around ten, I remember looking at the original D&D Monster Manual with its eccentric use of scale and perspective and random hodge-podge of amateurish drawings and genuinely believing that the drawings had been done my friend's Dad, our DM - no-one could seriously sell something so poor quality, right?

We have come far indeed. The scene is dramatic and intense, and emphasise the monster rather than the characters - who are both about to flee. Hey, this isn't their manual. The Beholder is starkly lit, the central eye focusing on the viewer, vicious teeth bared whilst the subsidiary eyes dart around. It's a very powerful image, and I'm sure they picked the Beholder as the poster child-eater of D&D to stress their heritage as 'the world's greatest role-playing game'.
In the manual entry there are other depictions. One shows a single Beholder mournfully drifting over a forlorn vista with only a petrified adventurers for company. I find this strikes a real chord of loneliness, and evokes pity for the Beholder whose hate drives him into further madness. I find these sophisticated pieces much more of a boon to bringing a Beholder into my campaign story than another scene of one snarling mid-battle. The next page features a Beholder almost rubbing its hands with malevolent glee - great, but not ground breaking. Then we have the Death Tyrant (which should clearly be called a Beholich via standard Monster Manual naming conventions) which just looks silly. The Spectator says 'gleeful puppy' to me, not 'monster': but maybe blame for that belongs to Monsters Inc. All in all, some great, evocative art, and a few functional pieces.

Purpose and Tactics.


Beholders are bosses. They're masterminds. They're running the Thieves' Guild, the Church of Pelor, the city of Neverwinter, the World Bank, the IMF - they're the Illuminati with poor depth perception. As masterminds, you will encounter their slaves and underlings, which means at lot of levels you can make really interesting encounters featuring a Beholder AND their trio of Tiefling assassin triplets or their pet Manticore or their Ogrillon bodyguards or whatever mix of abilities will make for a really interesting fight. After you've trashed their plans and bumped off their minions, your storm into the lair, the Beholder turns around, using its Mage Hand eye stalk to caress a chaotic-evil moggie and telepathically announces that it has been expecting you, Mr Drizzt.

The exception is the Spectator, which is a basic guard-dog monster to thoughtlessly put in almost any dungeon anywhere. Yawn.

There's the potential of diplomacy with a Beholder, and one could make a really interesting patron or quest-giver in a grittier campaign. Perhaps the Beholder grants much-needed stability as the Godfather of the criminal underworld - if anyone topples it, there will be blood in the streets. As eccentrics, their motivations can be as varied as any; maybe the Beholder wants to gather the corpses of Beholders to remind itself of its own perfection, or gain control of a cavern from Mind Flayers or Troglodytes, or acquire items of prophetic value - any of these could lead to hooks for your PCs. In an intrigue-laden campaign, Beholders fit right in - but they're very likely to betray your inferior players. Bear in mind that they only speak Undercommon and Deep Speech by the book.

In battle, the Beholder functions as a maelstrom of chaos and weirdness. Using its legendary actions in addition to its normal abilities can net you six random eye blasts a round, all offering some pretty brutal affects - sleep, paralysis, disintegration - to affect the party. Combining with with a huge 120ft cone anti-magic field, the Beholder is a mighty combatant when it comes o disabling characters, but its damage is not dependable. A Beholder with some minions to strike the killing blow while it knocks characters out of the combat is a much more frightening prospect, and fits its role as an overlord of slaves. The Eye Tyrant's variant, which prevents healing, seems weaker than the anti-magic cone, but allows the Eye Tyrant to zap those victims with its eye rays as well. You could easily homebrew other effects for Eye Rays as well, that might match the personality of a well-established Beholder character in your campaign.

To maximise the power of the Beholder, you should use it in an open area - a cavernous room, or an actual cavern, to take advantage of the enormous range of the Beholder's abilities without allowing the Beholder to be cornered - its slow movement will otherwise limit the damage it can inflict. Using Levitation to boost the Beholder is bigger in 5e than previous editions of the game, as Flight spells and similar are limited by Concentration. If the fighting is taking place in ruins or atop a mountainside, Levitation massively increases he ability of the Beholder to disrupt player's strategies, and simultaneously the geography will expose the PCs to even more danger if they are debilitated by Telekinesis or other effects.


Fluff

The fluff discusses the strange nature of Beholders; their nigh-solipsistic xenophobia and aggression. The fact that almost every Beholder is unique is great for a Dungeon Master who wants to take on player expectations about how the creature functions: maybe this Beholder is an aquatic Beholder with gills and tentacles, maybe this other Beholder has skin like a chameleon, allowing it to blend with its surroundings, maybe this other Beholder has vestigial limbs granting it proper spell-casting. Their contempt for other Beholders is brilliant, and helps differentiate them from the normal procession of ancient fantasy Nazis like the Aboleths or the Ithilids - it is rich in character and plot hooks.

There is also a fair amount of information in the fluff that establish that Beholders hoard things, and make their lairs in strange regions empty of life except that which they dominate. This is one of those bits in the Monster Manual which is a wink-and-a-nudge telling you that it's ok for this monster to be sitting on a pile of treasure in some random dungeon somewhere - that's what Beholders do. The fact that each dungeon is built along the Beholder's own avant-garde aesthetic means you can use whatever weird set-pieces appeal.

There's no origin for the Beholder, which I think is brilliant. This allows you to fit them into whatever cosmology or setting you want.

Hooks


A Beholder king-pin is threatened by another gang which is exploding onto the scene. He wants someone to get to the root of this other gang, and whatever faction has been arming them. How will your players intervene in this struggle?

A Beholder collector desires the wings of a sprite, the teeth of a chimera, the fingers of a great pianist, or some other arcane object to complete their collection.

The Beholder Vagarraz esteems himself the greatest living creature. He looks always for new challengers to do battle with - can you players find him a match....or be that match themselves?

Verdict: A fantastic monster, designed to be monstrous.

*One thing I really like about 3.x and Pathfinder is the use of templates to create those special snowflake villains. "Yes but THIS Beholder...." shouldn't need an entry. It's when people start applying templates to player-characters (or multiple templates) that silliness creeps in. If you're a half-fiendish, half-dragon, half-celestial, half-genasi half-Orc and you're munchkin-ing requires creative abuse of fractions and Ancestry.com, I'm going to say no.

[Nifft]

The Beholder

(...) they're the Illuminati with poor depth perception.

Objection.

They have lots of depth perception.

[MrConsideration]

For some reason I've never seen the eye-stalks as letting them see. They do have +12 Perception, so I think you might be right.