Illithid are definitely my favourite villains. They're so cold, heartless and unsettling, but there's a certain sense in which their very existence is anathema to all other life, like the Daleks. But what I love even more than that is the way their society works. The Elder Brain is such a cool evil concept. A completely selfish mastermind that the illithid almost worship, sacrificing themselves at the end of their lives, happily, to merge with the creature. And that's not even getting started on their awesome origin story(ies). A multiverse-spanning empire, the end of time and desperate time travel...
Another GREAT inspiration for an Ilithid campaign (or just a good inspiration for what an evil MASTERMIND can get up to) is XCOM enemy unknown. One meta question that hangs over the whole game is "Well....if these aliens are led by what are basically mindflayers and can just dominate anyone they want, why not just do that and skip sending in Sectoids (your basic little grey aliens)?" While it starts out just seeming like a plot hole that exists for game design, the ending twist is the invasion was to strengthen humanity to make a STRONG slave race. They already have dozens if not hundreds of species under their control, why do they need a bunch of monkeys who need to send in their best soldiers just to stop what essentially amounts to some goblins? Because they found that humanity had psychic potential and invaded to force rapid progress of humanity towards unlocking its psychic potential, while preparing and weakening the species for subjugation so we didnt find out about it on our own and become a rival. That kind of long-game plan blew my mind. All of our victories and triumphs were all a part of their plan. They WANTED us to win and so they held back until we reached out max potential before pulling out all the stops to take us over just to move on and do it again.
The best way to deal with Mind Flayers I've found is to put gobs of undead summons in between you and them (undead can't be affected by mental magic so if your DM knows what's going on, they should be immune to everything that Illithids can do except physical attacks). Melee warriors tend to die _really_ quickly to the Mind Flayers' appetite for brains, and arcane spells have a nasty habit of just bouncing off of them due to their generally high magic resistance. Divine casters and archers are your best bet for dealing with these eldritch horrors. Pretty much all your mage can do is cast protection spells to prevent fear and mental domination and boost AC. You could also try what they suggested in the video and sneak past them all, but I've never had luck with that. Flayers have ridiculously high perception.
So me and my friends all went up against 3 of these guys as level 6 and the DM kept telling us that someone was probably gonna die that day, and when we encountered them one of us knew exactly what they were and basically said Heck No. So we're prepared to fight our hardest, right? Literally in the first round, before any of the ilithids can make a move, someone uses sleep dust and happens to put them all asleep, and so our paladin just cuts all their heads off..... and that's how we one our hardest challenge in the stupidest and easiest way possible....
had a lich i made once, worked on him all week. my entire adventure that night was going to be killing this undead abomination. well long story short about 6 months or so before hand my cleric managed to get a scroll for just this sort of occasion (damn random treasure generators) so my encounter literally goes roll initiative the cleric says i got this and bam my lich is banished lol made for a short night
they really are a great enemy, having so much variety - but in my campain i will try to use one of them as an ally instead, just to melt the mind of my seasoned player (the flayer being some level of vegetarian who happens to rule the local mages guild) Really love your monster-Series, great job
I remember the old 2nd Edition "Illithid Trilogy' adventure; as it went on it gave a VERY Sci-Fi feel, while still staying well within a fantasy setting (and is one of my favorite 'adventure paths' still to this day ^_^)
I was recently in a campaign where the mind flayers where exlusively targeting gnomes. so the party had to mind out why and it turns out they were building their elder brain a mechanical body like a giant warforged to and it became like a giant walking colony
Temotoes gnomes in the lore make great tinkerers and inventors ect. Therefore feeding the elder brain those brains would cause him to gain this knowledge and be able to command his minions to create something for it using the infomation it has absorbed.
Question: In the video they imply that Mind Flayer thralls will break free of the Mind Flayers control if the Elder Brain dies, but in Volo’s Guide its essentially stated that the Mind Flayers completely obliterate the Thrall’s Mind And rebuilds it from scratch, and the only way to restore a Thrall back to normal is to repeatedly subject it to high level healing spells over the course of several days? So what does happen to a Thrall when the Elder Brain dies, do they regain their mind, do they shutdown, or do they continue fighting along the surviving Mind Flayers?
Whatever you want it to be as the DM in order to fit your story. A cop out answer, I know. Otherwise, based on that sentence you just wrote, I would assume that rules as written the thrall simply shuts down until they can be healed. But it's typically more cinematic and epic feeling to have giant slave giant revolts.
In the case of a hive mind i once a wizard in my game develop a spell that would chain together psy damage to every member of a hive mind by hijacking the connection to inflect damage to all of them turning one of their greatest advantages into a crippling vulnerability. He used whispers as a base for the spell
I've always loved inserting that Lovecraftian element to my games... never used Illithids, though. My horrors of choice are Aboleths. I've also sort of redefined Troglodyte history in a Lovecraftian vein as well, creating a hidden necropolis of ancient Trogs (now shadows), ruled by priests of dragon-god-thing worshipers (now Liches). Super fun adventure setting if I say so myself.
It's funny how you advise to make it more fantastical to escape a high fantasy setting. I know you just made a vid on the topic so I'm gonna let this slide. Love the content you and other channels are giving me ample ammunition to play and to DM by...which reminds me today is game night
I think that Illithides are great monsters to introduce when the characters have no chance of beating them. The PC's can still defeat their minions and foil their plans, but when they encounter one Illithide, they better run. Even if they manage to defeat it... it doesn't make a big difference as long as the elder brain lives. If you want horror, you want this kind of overwhelming power without the necessity to kill the characters. The vulnerability to sunlight can really help you since your characters could escape just by getting out of a building. Furthermore, the initial helplessness which makes up horror can lead to crowning moments of awesome when the characters improved far enough to destroy the elder brain and get rid of this thread for good.
it almost seems like you would need to set up the campaign with several monsters and evil lords nearby. basically can make them work together to kill this invasion force.
I have a pantheon of eldritch deities for Warlocks to make pacts with and they often influence their adventures leading to sequences where the Warlocks get glimpses of the infinite or insanity inducing things or just other planes. Since Plane Shift started getting published I just have players wind up on Mirrodin
I have that limited edition gargantuan black dragon (I'm 15) I got it for my birthday along with the gargantuan blue when I was only 6 they've been collecting dust in my room since then, I didn't realize until now that they're D&D related
Supahboom I have a similar story except it’s a poster of all the ancient dragons I just thought it was cool poster when I was little I didn’t realize till sometime this year that I was actually a d&d poster
How would you Role Play an Illithid. In my campaign I have a rogue Illithid NPC who runs a funny farm but I'm really not sure how to RP him or what type of voice to do
In honor of Baldur’s Gate 3... How would you role play a Mind Flayer? Would it be different if it was a community? A Ulitharid? An exile? An Elder Brain?
You guys fancy doing one on the different planes sometime? I'm running a trip into Limbo with the matter altering rules next session (DMG p61). Maybe a trip to the Astral Plane next (some fun politics with the gith in my campaign). Would be great to hear your takes on how to take players on trips to other worlds.
Would a mindflayer ever take to piracy or something like that? An Illithid corsair with a mind controlled crew would be really cool but I wouldn't want to make one for my game if it wasn't really lore friendly and didn't fit the races personality.
Well arcane magic user Illithids are considered pariahs so they get kicked out of the hive. If they arent killed they have to make their way alone. So lore friendly pirate illithid makes sense there.
My Dwarf is actually a construct with a relic serving as his brain, functioning with extra planer dwarves at the atomic level working and living in the relic. Would i get advantage against mind flyers mental attacks? ;)
Illithids were my favorite monster before I knew they existed, as Iliterally invented a race of underground hive mind beings that enthralled their victims before I got hold of the monster manual and found that my creation had alreaddy been concieved by other minds. I try to make them as creepy and alien as possible, and in that spirit I actually haven't used them propperly yet, because nothing has warranted this special horror. When they speak with their...whatever oraphus they use, I speak on the inbreath, to both get the idea across that they rarely speak, and that they are not like us. I will never explain an illithids emotional state, because they don't have what we recognize as emotions in a way we could understand. I will vary in whether they pose a imidiate threat or not, because that both further obscures their thinking, and makes them creepier. I use experimental ambient "music" to indicate their presence, and I never have them working for any other beings, if they collaboratez they either dominate or there is mutual benefit. And before I use them I will develop their ecology and biology to be just a little more messed up (because parasitic reproduction, brain earing for nurishment, and mind controlled slave labour was too tame...ehe...)
I've often been curious to what happens if a mind flayer were to dine on the mind of the most pure soul. Would it make an interesting aspect of the game should the illithid not be evil? Just a fever induced thought.
these guys are cool and have the right theme or the campaign I have in mind but... I'm making up a powerful god-like mastermind to be the main antagonist. A puppet master! but the mind flayers are also puppet masters... I'm looking for something that's more of a mindless corrupted Brute, being controlled by a select few puppet masters. I mean I'm going to have cultists at the lower levels of control. but the middle to higher levels I need something more feral.
I might make a mind flayer insane asylum where people broken by magic, demonic influence, or have been mentally hurt by the far realm. Goblins are the caretakers and ogres are brutes and there all thralls and the mind flayers can see trough everyones minds but they have a hidden basement were there doing horrible experiments of the insane people and the players have to fight the mind flayers and since this is a spelljamer and some of the fight in space and the players get blasted by a HUGE rey that puts them into a comet so there frozen in time and they wake up 2,000 years in the future to find them selfs in the far realm
Mind Flayers are the main antagonists of my campaign. Any advice on making communities of mind flayers more approachable for players, but still a decent challenge? Right now, they can barely handle a single one, much less two. Obviously, they'll level up with time, but also my players have very mediocre tactical ability.
mageofmoltor , did you find a solution?... My advice (a year late) would be to reskin an appropriate cr monster and call it a mind flayer or a thrall of a mind flayer.
In my games that I dm for. I not only make the minions under level but I play them in such a away in which I let players use their aoe attacks. I let them get attacks of opportunity off. I let them feel like they are bad ass compared to minions and I will have vary clear mini bosses or bosses in which they are not meant to handle by fighting. They are meant to use another means because I may make a player boss that's a casual 8 levels higher then the players with + 1 to all stats or 2 free feats. I also in explaining the minions and bosses. I make the minions sound like weak, poor little thugs and easy to take on if they want and how useless they are. Yet if the players think they can take on that Boss who gets 8 attacks a around when they pcs only get 2 at most. Thats the thing though. I also plan on having the bosses come on term. With them aiding the PCs if they PCs work for them or just stomp the PCs when someone goes. "Hey, I'm going to just walk up to slap that bandit Leader." Trying to teach them early on, the Bosses are willing to work with the PCs with a low chance of back stabbing, over all and the back stabbers having a good / a bad that comes from it so it does not feel like I'm actively dicking them over just because. All of this added that I don't ask for many social roles so long the PCs rp out their encounter. I will even reward PCs not killing the Minions with giving them different ways of beating the boss with out even talking or fighting the boss head on.
Yes and no. The Ood are slaves rather than enslavers, and rather than being brain-eaters their brains are exposed. Really in story terms they're almost opposites other than their appearance and the hive-mind concept.
I suppose Mind Blast could be withheld for a while, but pretty much about it is innate, so unless the DM changes what Mind Flayers, quite simply, ARE for that D&D universe, they can only be nerfed very minorly.
Am I the only one who has used one nit as a full on villain? I've used one sort of like a vigilante thug murderer who was seen as evil but was actually trying to be good .
Depends on how creative your DM gets with it, I guess. I'm DMing the beginning of it and am using a lot of Cthulhu influences (since they're already THERE practically) to make it seem like he's going to be a spooky, impossible foe. The campaign book even mentions that he has some psychic powers.
I have watched a number of these vids and while I like them, when there are subtitles whoever is doing them does not know the difference between "your" (as in belongs to you) and "you're" (which is the contract of you are).
Are you sure? I don't have a copy of 3rd edition, but in the 3.5 monster manual they describe their mouths as "a mind flayer's mouth, a revolting thing shaped like a lamprey's maw" which is the way it's normally depicted in drawings.
The power of this not being a rigid game that you can do whatever the hell you want with! Give 'em dog mouths for all anyone cares, it's totally your game.
honestly I hate mind flayers. They are such a cool enemy but their entire ability to threaten the party relies on an AOE int save stun. I hate them for the same reason I hate banshee's its just a one and done type monster. It's a one trick pony and if that one trick works it's lights out for the party if it doesn't work fights over for the monster. I just don't find those types of fights to be mechanically interesting or very well done which is a shame because they are such unnerving enemies but fighting them is a total bore.
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Illithid are definitely my favourite villains. They're so cold, heartless and unsettling, but there's a certain sense in which their very existence is anathema to all other life, like the Daleks. But what I love even more than that is the way their society works. The Elder Brain is such a cool evil concept. A completely selfish mastermind that the illithid almost worship, sacrificing themselves at the end of their lives, happily, to merge with the creature. And that's not even getting started on their awesome origin story(ies). A multiverse-spanning empire, the end of time and desperate time travel...
How to lose friends:
Be a Mind Flayer.
How to make "friends":
Be a Mind Flayer.
I like to think of Illithids as evil planar pokemon trainers.
All Pokemon trainers are evil
shut up peta
You know, Malamar is basically a mind flayer. Like I'm pretty sure who ever designed it plays D&D cause that thing is very illithid-esqe.
@@EnnuiElpis yup
Another GREAT inspiration for an Ilithid campaign (or just a good inspiration for what an evil MASTERMIND can get up to) is XCOM enemy unknown. One meta question that hangs over the whole game is "Well....if these aliens are led by what are basically mindflayers and can just dominate anyone they want, why not just do that and skip sending in Sectoids (your basic little grey aliens)?" While it starts out just seeming like a plot hole that exists for game design, the ending twist is the invasion was to strengthen humanity to make a STRONG slave race. They already have dozens if not hundreds of species under their control, why do they need a bunch of monkeys who need to send in their best soldiers just to stop what essentially amounts to some goblins? Because they found that humanity had psychic potential and invaded to force rapid progress of humanity towards unlocking its psychic potential, while preparing and weakening the species for subjugation so we didnt find out about it on our own and become a rival. That kind of long-game plan blew my mind. All of our victories and triumphs were all a part of their plan. They WANTED us to win and so they held back until we reached out max potential before pulling out all the stops to take us over just to move on and do it again.
The best way to deal with Mind Flayers I've found is to put gobs of undead summons in between you and them (undead can't be affected by mental magic so if your DM knows what's going on, they should be immune to everything that Illithids can do except physical attacks). Melee warriors tend to die _really_ quickly to the Mind Flayers' appetite for brains, and arcane spells have a nasty habit of just bouncing off of them due to their generally high magic resistance. Divine casters and archers are your best bet for dealing with these eldritch horrors. Pretty much all your mage can do is cast protection spells to prevent fear and mental domination and boost AC. You could also try what they suggested in the video and sneak past them all, but I've never had luck with that. Flayers have ridiculously high perception.
i wonder if its a valid idea to send a beholder after one. cause if the beholder learned ofa midnflayer it would make a god damn bee line to them.
I don't think beholders anti magic works on mindflayers as they aren't magicusees
This show should definitely be a podcast, if it's not already.
So me and my friends all went up against 3 of these guys as level 6 and the DM kept telling us that someone was probably gonna die that day, and when we encountered them one of us knew exactly what they were and basically said Heck No. So we're prepared to fight our hardest, right? Literally in the first round, before any of the ilithids can make a move, someone uses sleep dust and happens to put them all asleep, and so our paladin just cuts all their heads off..... and that's how we one our hardest challenge in the stupidest and easiest way possible....
It wasn't stupid, though... Using strategies is the smart thing to do... It's not like you wanted a party member to die, right? Hopefully...?
Heather Anne not stupid, just very anticlimactic lmao
had a lich i made once, worked on him all week. my entire adventure that night was going to be killing this undead abomination. well long story short about 6 months or so before hand my cleric managed to get a scroll for just this sort of occasion (damn random treasure generators) so my encounter literally goes roll initiative the cleric says i got this and bam my lich is banished lol made for a short night
You do realise that a lich has legendary resistences for this sort of thing right?
unless that was a +5 lvld cleric with a 20 idk if it would out right banish you - and end the story, seems like heavy DM fiat
I once had 3 illithids trying to eat my brains for 5 turns. Good times.
You had me at
"The slithering tentical"
they really are a great enemy, having so much variety - but in my campain i will try to use one of them as an ally instead, just to melt the mind of my seasoned player (the flayer being some level of vegetarian who happens to rule the local mages guild)
Really love your monster-Series, great job
I remember the old 2nd Edition "Illithid Trilogy' adventure; as it went on it gave a VERY Sci-Fi feel, while still staying well within a fantasy setting (and is one of my favorite 'adventure paths' still to this day ^_^)
*Here i am again .*
*Watching classic Web DM videos again .*
I was recently in a campaign where the mind flayers where exlusively targeting gnomes. so the party had to mind out why and it turns out they were building their elder brain a mechanical body like a giant warforged to and it became like a giant walking colony
blaise breakspear I know this comment is old but how does the mechanical body relate to specifically targeting gnomes?
Temotoes gnomes in the lore make great tinkerers and inventors ect. Therefore feeding the elder brain those brains would cause him to gain this knowledge and be able to command his minions to create something for it using the infomation it has absorbed.
Oh ok I see that's pretty cool actually
Question: In the video they imply that Mind Flayer thralls will break free of the Mind Flayers control if the Elder Brain dies, but in Volo’s Guide its essentially stated that the Mind Flayers completely obliterate the Thrall’s Mind And rebuilds it from scratch, and the only way to restore a Thrall back to normal is to repeatedly subject it to high level healing spells over the course of several days? So what does happen to a Thrall when the Elder Brain dies, do they regain their mind, do they shutdown, or do they continue fighting along the surviving Mind Flayers?
Whatever you want it to be as the DM in order to fit your story. A cop out answer, I know. Otherwise, based on that sentence you just wrote, I would assume that rules as written the thrall simply shuts down until they can be healed. But it's typically more cinematic and epic feeling to have giant slave giant revolts.
The monster videos are really good.
AdamIsForGiants Thanks! We were trying something new with them. Glad you've enjoyed the vids!
In the case of a hive mind i once a wizard in my game develop a spell that would chain together psy damage to every member of a hive mind by hijacking the connection to inflect damage to all of them turning one of their greatest advantages into a crippling vulnerability. He used whispers as a base for the spell
I've always loved inserting that Lovecraftian element to my games... never used Illithids, though. My horrors of choice are Aboleths.
I've also sort of redefined Troglodyte history in a Lovecraftian vein as well, creating a hidden necropolis of ancient Trogs (now shadows), ruled by priests of dragon-god-thing worshipers (now Liches). Super fun adventure setting if I say so myself.
The little excerpt at the end? Brilliant bit of information to keep under the ol' toup.
Web DM is a very clever idea for a channel identity!
It's funny how you advise to make it more fantastical to escape a high fantasy setting. I know you just made a vid on the topic so I'm gonna let this slide.
Love the content you and other channels are giving me ample ammunition to play and to DM by...which reminds me today is game night
i once had a player whose goal was to survive ceremorphosis and become a mind flayer and an elder brain
I think that Illithides are great monsters to introduce when the characters have no chance of beating them. The PC's can still defeat their minions and foil their plans, but when they encounter one Illithide, they better run. Even if they manage to defeat it... it doesn't make a big difference as long as the elder brain lives. If you want horror, you want this kind of overwhelming power without the necessity to kill the characters. The vulnerability to sunlight can really help you since your characters could escape just by getting out of a building.
Furthermore, the initial helplessness which makes up horror can lead to crowning moments of awesome when the characters improved far enough to destroy the elder brain and get rid of this thread for good.
it almost seems like you would need to set up the campaign with several monsters and evil lords nearby. basically can make them work together to kill this invasion force.
Im flared that you maid a video about "NOT ME" its really nice of you.
I have a pantheon of eldritch deities for Warlocks to make pacts with and they often influence their adventures leading to sequences where the Warlocks get glimpses of the infinite or insanity inducing things or just other planes. Since Plane Shift started getting published I just have players wind up on Mirrodin
THOON IS LOVE, THOON IS LIFE. ALL PRAISE THOON.
DatsVatSheSaid PARDON ME, BROTHER, BUT CAN I HAVE SOME QUINTESSENCE?
Love the videos! Keep up the great work!
You guys are awesome! I'm loving these monster videos!!
LEAD HELMETS FOR EVERYONE!
I’m wondering if you’ll do a second edition on mind flares
As an old Spelljammer player I would be interested in checking out any Spelljammer 5e conversations.
I'm here for the artwork they make good wallpapers😁
I have that limited edition gargantuan black dragon (I'm 15) I got it for my birthday along with the gargantuan blue when I was only 6 they've been collecting dust in my room since then, I didn't realize until now that they're D&D related
Supahboom I have a similar story except it’s a poster of all the ancient dragons I just thought it was cool poster when I was little I didn’t realize till sometime this year that I was actually a d&d poster
How would you Role Play an Illithid. In my campaign I have a rogue Illithid NPC who runs a funny farm but I'm really not sure how to RP him or what type of voice to do
I think the deep thrumming being picked up form the background makes this all the more creepy
I will run a spelljamer were the main brain controls every living thing on a massive planet and the players sometimes get controlled.
I love this video so much right now. :)
In honor of Baldur’s Gate 3... How would you role play a Mind Flayer? Would it be different if it was a community? A Ulitharid? An exile? An Elder Brain?
Please make a video on the far realm
very useful information to use in my campaign! :D
+umm36 also thanks for that added bit on the end of DM meta-gaming, that honestly hadn't occurred to me before.
Can you do an episode on mundane weapons?
You guys fancy doing one on the different planes sometime?
I'm running a trip into Limbo with the matter altering rules next session (DMG p61). Maybe a trip to the Astral Plane next (some fun politics with the gith in my campaign). Would be great to hear your takes on how to take players on trips to other worlds.
Great show idea. We'll put it on the list. We just finished a Planescape Campaign a few months ago.
how did magic work differently against psionic creatures? this sounds interesting
Would a mindflayer ever take to piracy or something like that? An Illithid corsair with a mind controlled crew would be really cool but I wouldn't want to make one for my game if it wasn't really lore friendly and didn't fit the races personality.
Major Chowder If you're the DM you decide the lore. If you want to make a rogue mind flayer with a Davy Jones-esque feel then go for it
Well arcane magic user Illithids are considered pariahs so they get kicked out of the hive. If they arent killed they have to make their way alone. So lore friendly pirate illithid makes sense there.
If you're the DM it's your world and thus you get to make the rules. The books have always been guidelines, not ironclad rules.
My Dwarf is actually a construct with a relic serving as his brain, functioning with extra planer dwarves at the atomic level working and living in the relic. Would i get advantage against mind flyers mental attacks? ;)
So you functionally just remade the Teselecta from doctor who in fantasy?
Kinda cool, I assume it is extremely home brewed?
Jo Line Depends: Does your dwarf have any advantages versus the horde of minions(of all races and classes) that mindflayers have?
Illithids were my favorite monster before I knew they existed, as Iliterally invented a race of underground hive mind beings that enthralled their victims before I got hold of the monster manual and found that my creation had alreaddy been concieved by other minds.
I try to make them as creepy and alien as possible, and in that spirit I actually haven't used them propperly yet, because nothing has warranted this special horror.
When they speak with their...whatever oraphus they use, I speak on the inbreath, to both get the idea across that they rarely speak, and that they are not like us. I will never explain an illithids emotional state, because they don't have what we recognize as emotions in a way we could understand. I will vary in whether they pose a imidiate threat or not, because that both further obscures their thinking, and makes them creepier. I use experimental ambient "music" to indicate their presence, and I never have them working for any other beings, if they collaboratez they either dominate or there is mutual benefit. And before I use them I will develop their ecology and biology to be just a little more messed up (because parasitic reproduction, brain earing for nurishment, and mind controlled slave labour was too tame...ehe...)
Great vid.
I wish spelljammers would come back
It shoulda been - "The slithering tentacle... Your sanity slowly slipping away... Yep, that's fucked!"
I know they are usually bad guys looking to eat your brains but ive got a mindflayer in my capital city that runs a magic shop.
I love your channel.
I'm curious; did you guys ever find or develop any good 5e material for Spelljammer? Or, specifically, Illithids in 5e Spelljammer?
It would be fun to play a campaign where the gm is a mindflare and the players are the minions
That one american or where one player is a mind flayer, and the rest fight him or her.
I've often been curious to what happens if a mind flayer were to dine on the mind of the most pure soul. Would it make an interesting aspect of the game should the illithid not be evil? Just a fever induced thought.
can you guys do a beholder video?
I use mindflayers in numenara. They conquered Earth millions of years ago.
What is the art on the t-shirt Jonathan is wearing? It looks familiar but I can't place it.
where are people getting the beaked mouth description? All the art shows a lamprey like mouth beneath the tentacles. Did I miss something
these guys are cool and have the right theme or the campaign I have in mind but... I'm making up a powerful god-like mastermind to be the main antagonist. A puppet master! but the mind flayers are also puppet masters... I'm looking for something that's more of a mindless corrupted Brute, being controlled by a select few puppet masters. I mean I'm going to have cultists at the lower levels of control. but the middle to higher levels I need something more feral.
Demons are always good for that, the can be both manipulative and totally brutal at the same time.
Werethings are a good feral/brutal bad guys. I think there is some cutsies of that genre in the 2nd Monster Manual.
Terrasques might be what your looking for.
They look magic base and summoners?? Warlocks
second favourite bad guy.
anyone know which 3 booking module was on a spacestation with them
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
would a Cthulu worshiping Warlock have an advantage over them, due to their psychic powers?
You get immunity to mind control and resistance to psychic damage at lvl 10
and the half of psychic damage that you don't take is inflicted back upon the attacker
Ahh yes Expedition to the Barrier Peak's run it if you haven't already.
I might make a mind flayer insane asylum where people broken by magic, demonic influence, or have been mentally hurt by the far realm. Goblins are the caretakers and ogres are brutes and there all thralls and the mind flayers can see trough everyones minds but they have a hidden basement were there doing horrible experiments of the insane people and the players have to fight the mind flayers and since this is a spelljamer and some of the fight in space and the players get blasted by a HUGE rey that puts them into a comet so there frozen in time and they wake up 2,000 years in the future to find them selfs in the far realm
These are enemies of superiority, magic gets dominated by psionics.
Mind Flayers are the main antagonists of my campaign. Any advice on making communities of mind flayers more approachable for players, but still a decent challenge? Right now, they can barely handle a single one, much less two. Obviously, they'll level up with time, but also my players have very mediocre tactical ability.
mageofmoltor , did you find a solution?... My advice (a year late) would be to reskin an appropriate cr monster and call it a mind flayer or a thrall of a mind flayer.
2:11 Well then I guess if they could care less about you, then they're actually kinda nice, yeah ?
Soooo the chaos in Warhammer 40k?
Just bring a paladin to shut all their mental shit down with their huge buffs
In my games that I dm for. I not only make the minions under level but I play them in such a away in which I let players use their aoe attacks. I let them get attacks of opportunity off. I let them feel like they are bad ass compared to minions and I will have vary clear mini bosses or bosses in which they are not meant to handle by fighting. They are meant to use another means because I may make a player boss that's a casual 8 levels higher then the players with + 1 to all stats or 2 free feats. I also in explaining the minions and bosses. I make the minions sound like weak, poor little thugs and easy to take on if they want and how useless they are. Yet if the players think they can take on that Boss who gets 8 attacks a around when they pcs only get 2 at most.
Thats the thing though. I also plan on having the bosses come on term. With them aiding the PCs if they PCs work for them or just stomp the PCs when someone goes. "Hey, I'm going to just walk up to slap that bandit Leader." Trying to teach them early on, the Bosses are willing to work with the PCs with a low chance of back stabbing, over all and the back stabbers having a good / a bad that comes from it so it does not feel like I'm actively dicking them over just because.
All of this added that I don't ask for many social roles so long the PCs rp out their encounter. I will even reward PCs not killing the Minions with giving them different ways of beating the boss with out even talking or fighting the boss head on.
Granted I also do milestone over XP
I can't believe how much the Ood from Doctor Who copied the illithids.
Yes and no. The Ood are slaves rather than enslavers, and rather than being brain-eaters their brains are exposed. Really in story terms they're almost opposites other than their appearance and the hive-mind concept.
can u play as one of throws
+fier fang Not unless your DM wants you to be stupidly over powered.
aw you can dum it down or sumthig idk
I suppose Mind Blast could be withheld for a while, but pretty much about it is innate, so unless the DM changes what Mind Flayers, quite simply, ARE for that D&D universe, they can only be nerfed very minorly.
They remind me of liktors.
mind flayer domination made me look up mind flayer bdsm
mindflare vs beholder
The Rogue They make a Mind Witness.
now i aint saying its aliens....buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut
Am I the only one who has used one nit as a full on villain? I've used one sort of like a vigilante thug murderer who was seen as evil but was actually trying to be good
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do guns or gunslingers!!
Intelligence saves? What?
It's a 5e mechanic. Intelligence saving throw.
Illithid are grossly underrepresented in 5e published adventures. Can you think of any of them where you battle a fucking mind flayer?
Storm King's Thunder?
The main boss is literally a copy/paste of Cthulhu, lmao
Shoeberry Pie You're kidding. The main boss is an ancient blue dragon that my players killed like she was a cheese steak.
I'm talking about the Kraken, lol
Shoeberry Pie The kraken barely sets the players back, and Hekaton mostly kills it anyway.
Depends on how creative your DM gets with it, I guess. I'm DMing the beginning of it and am using a lot of Cthulhu influences (since they're already THERE practically) to make it seem like he's going to be a spooky, impossible foe.
The campaign book even mentions that he has some psychic powers.
love craft
I have watched a number of these vids and while I like them, when there are subtitles whoever is doing them does not know the difference between "your" (as in belongs to you) and "you're" (which is the contract of you are).
the sound mixing is buzzy
I love using zombies they don't have minds
Cthulhu
Beaked mouths.. since when?
since at least 3rd edition. squids have beaks underneath their tentacles.
Are you sure? I don't have a copy of 3rd edition, but in the 3.5 monster manual they describe their mouths as "a mind flayer's mouth, a revolting thing shaped like a lamprey's maw" which is the way it's normally depicted in drawings.
i sorta feel like anything squid-related should have a beaked mouth, is freaky and great
Have you seen a lamprey's mouth? Pretty sure that's freaky enough, and it makes sense since they suck your brains out.
The power of this not being a rigid game that you can do whatever the hell you want with! Give 'em dog mouths for all anyone cares, it's totally your game.
cool content. I disagree with your assertion that a dm can be guilty of meta gaming.
honestly I hate mind flayers. They are such a cool enemy but their entire ability to threaten the party relies on an AOE int save stun. I hate them for the same reason I hate banshee's its just a one and done type monster. It's a one trick pony and if that one trick works it's lights out for the party if it doesn't work fights over for the monster. I just don't find those types of fights to be mechanically interesting or very well done which is a shame because they are such unnerving enemies but fighting them is a total bore.
I clicked on this just cuz of strange things
These dudes are knowledgeable, but too glib. Kind of hipster-y humor.