social encounter

April 4, 2024

BLACK DRAGON WYRMLING: Using Darkness and Fog as Weapons

How to Use: Wyrmlings My first piece of advice regarding wyrmlings would be not to use them. Dragons are the most epic, the most awesome, of all fantasy monsters, and a dragon encounter should be a hard one, with the players struggling to survive. (Especially the first time you use a dragon.) Wyrmlings shatter this… Continue reading

attacker (CR 0-4), independent

Combat rating 3, Combat rating 4, Combat rating 5, difficulty 3, difficulty 4, dragons, social encounter
March 7, 2024

DOPPELGANGER: How to use an Impersonator in DnD

How to Use – Social Encounter When building an encounter using a doppelganger, you will be better served by building a short encounter rather than an entire storyline. Build a long storyline, and you might end up with a doppelganger who gets exposed when you’ve barely started. Or, you might reach the part where your… Continue reading

attacker (CR 0-4), independent

Combat rating 4, Combat rating 6, Combat rating 7, difficulty 4, difficulty 5, social encounter, traps
January 21, 2024

IMP: How to Make Really Bad Bargains

An imp will be looking for ways to corrupt its master, as well as anybody else that it can. To achieve that end, it will look for ways to suggest evil deeds that have some chance of being persuasive. Continue reading

guardian (CR 0-4), minion

Combat rating 1, Combat rating 2, Combat rating 3, devils, difficulty 4, difficulty varies, social encounter
January 9, 2024

ERINYES: Fighting the Furies in a Burning House

How to Use: Persuasion Tactics As the only devils to not look obviously evil, I would imagine that they get the job of convincing important mortals to trade their souls and otherwise bargain with the hells. (Run of the mill devils will be approached by imps, the hell’s errand boys. Succubae and/or rakshasas would be… Continue reading

guardian (CR 11-16), minion

Combat rating 13, Combat rating 15, Combat rating 16, devils, difficulty 15, difficulty 17, difficulty 20, difficulty 21, puzzle, social encounter, traps
December 18, 2023

YOCHLOL: Dangers of the Yochlol’s Web

The yochlol comes with one of the strangest abilities in D&D. It has the ability to turn into a cloud of toxic mist, with will render anyone inside it poisoned, making it harder for them to attack and easier for them to be attacked. Continue reading

guardian (CR 8-10), minion

battlemap, Combat rating 12, Combat rating 14, Combat rating 17, Combat rating 20, demons, difficulty 11, social encounter, traps
December 7, 2023

QUASIT & Making Familiars and Other NPCs Interesting

Before we get into uses for this monster as an enemy, I’m going to start with how to use the quasit as an ally. Specifically, how it can be used when it’s playing the role of a warlock’s familiar. Continue reading

guardian (CR 0-4), minion

battlemap, Combat rating 1, Combat rating 2, Combat rating 3, difficulty 1, difficulty 2, difficulty 3, puzzle, social encounter
December 5, 2023

NALFSHNEE: Talking Fancy and Fighting Dirty

How to Use: Roleplaying a Discussion with a Demon With the nalfshnee, I am going to give a couple of different strategies that it is likely to use. You can use them all, to set up one large boss fight, or you can use one or two of them to spice up an otherwise basic… Continue reading

guardian (CR 11-16), leader

Combat rating 16, Combat rating 18, Combat rating 21, Combat rating 22, demons, difficulty 15, social encounter, traps
November 22, 2023

A Deadly Friend: How to Play Corruption in DnD

This was originally part of the glabrezu article, and part 1: Deception appears there. As this seems like something that I’m going to need for more monsters, I decided to publish it separately as its own article. This way I can refer other monsters to here, and people won’t need to skim through the glabrezu… Continue reading

independent

social encounter
November 20, 2023

GLABREZU: Deadly as a Friend, Lethal as a Foe

The glabrezu is an extremely powerful demon, powerful enough that I have no idea why its CR is only 9. Continue reading

guardian (CR 8-10), minion

Combat rating 11, Combat rating 13, Combat rating 16, Combat rating 18, demons, difficulty 11, difficulty 12, difficulty 13, difficulty 15, social encounter
September 28, 2023

CRAWLING CLAW: Using These CR 0’s as Flavor and as Foes

The crawling claw’s most obvious use is to showcase the fact that a specific NPC is a necromancer. With that said, unlike in a television show, where the hand can be doing different things in the background and Continue reading

guardian (CR 0-4), minion

battlemap, difficulty 2, difficulty 3, difficulty 4, social encounter, theater of mind, traps

About Me

I’ve been a DM since I was about 10 years old. (Not of D&D, admittedly, but still.) After growing bored of fights that were all the same, dungeons heavily populated by one monster type, and a general shortage of ideas, I figured I’d embark on my own trip through the Monster Manual, one monster at a time. Feel free to join the quest.

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