8/13/2023 0 Comments Fog cloud 5e sunlight“The best movie villains are the ones you fall in love with. What Keith gets is that the monsters are the DM’s characters, and his work has been super helpful in adding logic, flavor, and fun in my quest to slaughter my players’ characters and laugh out the window as they cry in their cars afterward.” -Joe Manganiello “I’ve always said, the Dungeon Master is the whole world except for his players, and as a result, I spend countless hours prepping for my home group. Praise for The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters Spy & Owl Bookshop | Tertulia | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indigo | Kobo | Google Play | Apple Books | Libro.fm | Audible Order Keith Ammann’s books from your favorite independent bookseller, or click one of these links: Only one thing actually drives them away: sunlight, either natural or from a sunbeam spell. They aren’t smart enough to know that opportunity attacks are a thing. Hurt them with damage they aren’t resistant to, and they don’t waft away-they only move to the opposite side of the battlefield. Once they’ve started feeding, they don’t stop until they’re destroyed. Vampiric mists have no such intelligence, only the compulsion. Vampires, the regular walking-around kind, are smart while they, too, are compelled to feed, they have enough enlightened self-interest to plan out how they’re going to do that at minimal risk to themselves. As undead, they’re driven by compulsion-in this case, the compulsion to feed. Unlike a garden-variety predator, however, vampiric mists don’t flee when they’re wounded. Their above-average Wisdom gives them some ability to assess targets, but it doesn’t extend far beyond picking on the already weakened and shying away when struck by a magic weapon. They have no independent judgment and no ability to communicate. They Life Drain, again and again, until they’re defeated. Vampiric mists don’t Dodge, Disengage, Hide or do anything like that. Once you’ve decided you’re going to throw a vampiric mist at a group of characters who’ve left themselves vulnerable, there are no decisions of any consequence to make. Battlefields, full of bleeding wounded and impermanent bivouacs, are magnets for vampiric mists. If they can’t breach the perimeter of your boudoir, they’ll zero in on some shlub out for a midnight stroll instead. But adventurers spend a lot of time on the road, and a tent is not a building, period.Īnyway, vampiric mists are just out for blood, and they don’t care where they get it. There’s no ambiguity around monasteries and convents: as both permanent residences and hallowed ground, they’re safe. As Dungeon Master, you make the call regarding whether a player character has a permanent enough arrangement with an inn to construe their room as a residence. On the other hand, a rented room at an inn can be an individual’s primary place of residence and therefore, in a legal sense, their home. (“The mist can’t enter a residence without an invitation from one of the occupants,” but seriously, who’s going to invite a grayish-crimson, foul-smelling cloud of vapor to come inside, especially one that can’t even knock on the door or answer the question, “Who’s there?”) Inns are a gray area: If you’ve ever read a zoning ordinance, you know that inns are commercial, not residential. It’s nighttime or nothing.Īlso, thanks to the Forbiddance feature, one is safe from vampiric mist as long as one is inside a residential building, either one’s own home or someone else’s. Vampiric mist isn’t so much a creature as it is a punishment.īecause of their Sunlight Sensitivity, vampiric mists come outside only after dark, and they don’t mess around with civil, nautical or astronomical twilight. Moreover, it has no attack action per se, only Life Drain, an effect that requires a saving throw to resist. Vampiric mist has no judgment, only instinct. There’s only one stat that matters, and that’s its Intelligence, which is subsapient. I normally begin by looking at a creature’s ability contour, but in this case, there’s not much point. With no way to form a new body, it floats around aimlessly, feeding off victims by employing a sort of necrotic vacuum effect to pull blood out of victims’ pores and facial orifices. Alas, there isn’t much to say about vampiric mist, which is what you end up with when the body of a vampire is destroyed but its essence isn’t.
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