It IS dang creepy looking. Idk why, but it creeps me out.

What about the Mimic? They are also highly iconic Aberration monsters.

It makes a good guide in the underdark or abandoned under cave

@Unraveler 31:26

@Esper the Bard Oh come on, why did they change that?

I second this abberations are one of few more untapped monster catagories vs the other monsters and mind flayers and beholders each have enough for a full 30 minutes each with the others being their own section.

... or, "hello, mind-slave/minion". 'Flayers have only those two criteria: food or slave.

Aboleths only respect respect the mind flayer and vise versa!

What about the WTF-LOLs?

@@debreczeniarpad9956 or the WTFBBs short for what the fuck buffalo bill if you're curious.

Fwuumph is it’s own category

I wish we did just get some more plain weird stuff.

They are a combination of both derp

How long had it been guarding? After years and years of wardening in solitude, Spectators can be prone to going a bit crazy.

That's kinda cool actually

Now THAT'S power

A Spectator of Culture I see.

Is it possible to learn this power?

Great comment. I will screenshot this and read it again while on the john four months from now

Get a couple of big mimics and an elder oblex and you can make a whole fake village.

Hell yeah, very creative for a 1st level adventure! Sounds fun

Stealing this

@@sectionsixty4020 How it went?

Need a bucket and a mop for your wack ass personality

@@themostdiabolicalhater5986 oof you got one!

I'd rather gain thee coveted "Begone Thot" ability, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers.

As if you're getting any xD You're playing DnD

Bitches love rangers

Well if you a Bard then you can never get rid of thots

@@derrickpack5162 I just use detect thought and then use heat metal (considering all thots wear jewelry) and if that doesn't work I'll just use vicious mockery on her ass

Potato Mato Gnaars from Serious Sam are.

……...I can never look at him the same way I used too

Why? Why must you do this?

Welp, that severely changes the tone of monsters inc.

How did yous not notice this before? He's a cute and stunted beholder-kin.

you do realize that elephants and octopie don't have thumbs and yet they are perfectly capable of tool use as much as a person is

But... they dont have houses or architecture or anything either..

@Mackenzie Jackson i still don't believe a humanoid body plan is needed for sapience

The Jurassic Warewolf being able to manipulate your environment is. Otherwise you’re in the same position as dolphins. Higher brain to body mass ratio than humans. Can’t effectively manipulate their environment

RE: Beholders I think I prefer a little mystery to the origins of the Beholders. There isn't some grand creation tale. Beholders ARE. Or, rather, a Beholder IS. All Beholders see themselves in the singular sense, and consider themselves the epitome of what it means to be a Beholder. All others - including the "progeny" they produce from dreams - are pale and inferior imitators. But they are DANGEROUS imitators, and the inferior beings who are LEAST inferior. Thus, all other Beholders are a Beholder's greatest foes. After all, if one of them kills the Beholder, that would mean they would be the next least inferior. Bringing down the whole standard of Beholderdom. And we can't have that, now can we? Getting back to possible origins, I like the idea some of the WotC staff had. That Beholders were a cosmic error, a glitch in the system that gained a life of its own. Hence why Beholders are singular beings, unlike and apart from all others. They are creatures that no power in the universe _wants_ to take credit for.

RE: Mind Flayers One sort of edit I like to toy with is to modify the Illithid diet. In my conception, Mind Flayers don't need to eat the brains of intelligent beings. What few physical nutrients they require can be synthesized in their laboratories, or taken from the brains of vermin if they are truly desperate. A Mind Flayer CAN eat the brain of an intelligent being, of course, but would do so to get a lump sum of what they're really after: psychic energy. My Illithids subsist on the psychic energy found in minds, but can obtain it quite easily. Without needing to kill or seriously harm a person (at least physically). Rather, they can use the psychic link created with telepathy to draw out mental constructs in a creature's mind. Their thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, memories, delusions, fixations, and even hallucinations. These get sucked out of the creature's head, and feeds the Illithid. Of course, different mental constructs "taste" differently to a Mind Flayer. As such, while an Illithid could subsist entirely on whatever he can covert siphon from people, most Illithids demand more. They want a range of sensations - a plethora of tastes - and will do what they must to obtain it. Thinking themselves superior to all lesser races, they have no qualms about "coaxing" vessels towards particular strains of mental activity, through whatever means necessary. Hence the horror. My Illithids built enormous prison complexes, where intelligent creatures are held and psychologically _tortured_ . All to elicit particular thoughts, feelings, memories, and derangements, to supplement the refined palettes of the Mind Flayers. If a particular vessel breaks from repeated and regular draining, they can always be repurposed as test subjects and thralls. Until then, though, their minds are fertile soil in which these mental vampires grow their crops. If a lone Mind Flayer can't accomplish the whole "torture prison" thing, they can always infiltrate a community and subtly manipulate the residents. Sow discord and emotionally twist people, and they provide all the sustenance a solitary Mind Flayer could require. I can also see one teaming up with a Hag, in order to cause mischief. The Illithid produces new "dishes" to consume, and the Hag just loves doing evil for evil's sake. Win win.

One word, thumbs.

Write a book ...

I'd think of Cloakers as similar to Octopi. They're relatively intelligent (on par with the average humanoid), but they probably don't care for their young (either because they don't survive reproduction, or because they don't stick around afterwards), so a young Cloaker has to teach itself how to survive, meaning inter-generational teaching opportunities, and thus cultural development, are limited. While they do probably work together with other beings in their biome sometimes, their hunting tactics are effective enough that they often don't need to. As an aside, the fact that a Cloaker is intelligent and can disguise itself as a cloak means that it can have some fun uses at times.

This whole video is opinion

*gasps in spanish*

I think Aboleths need a 5 in lore.

Friends are trully the greatest of all evils.

i'm sayin

hmm, never thought about it that way. But yeah, i can see that.

So is Goblin Slayer, btw.

“I cant just beat up the ice king for no reason man, thats against my alignment” -Finn, Chaotic Good Arcane Fighter

I saw a Dungeons and dragons adventure time manual being sold online once a while ago.

Oh and all but 2 of them are currently impregnated and its about a month in so side effects are bound to start taking place

Hear, hear! Now, tell that to 28:10

30:28 damn sneks

Primus is a god.

The Clockwork god can go fuck himself. Most useless god of order ever created, man he failed to bring order to the chaos plane and accidentally created the weirdest race of chaotic beings...

"Clockwork Nirvana" is the place he rules, more commonly known as mechanus

thanks Skuarf! more to come ...

yep, I found out that D&D Beyond has the official pronunciations, and that's how Otyugh sounded

I appreciate the effort you put into this feedback, though unfortunately your points are not quite accurate. Versatility has to do with a creature's ability to express itself in different ways, take different approaches, and have a variety of goals. The gibbering mouther has Versatility 1. Is it a cool monster that I enjoy running? For sure. But other than an encounter here or there, I can't do anything else with it. It's always the same over and over again. The mind flayer and aboleth maybe should have received Versatility 4, but the Versatility 3 represents how they do have some different motivations and approaches, but also are typically within a somewhat limited frame of routines. Having a specialization does not necessary exclude a creature from versatility. The intellect devourer is quite specialized in what it does, and it has Versatility 4, due to the large variety of goals and tactics it can employ, especially once inhabiting a host body. Yuan-ti received Versatility 5, and they are by no means uninteresting or lacking in fun roles. Again, I thank you for your input, and I'll try to be a little less stingy on the Versatility attribute.

@@esperthebard, could you cover the aberrations from Volo's guide and Mordenkainen's Tome?

@@esperthebard have a gibbering mouther that has mutated in such a way that it splits apart, and each mouth is able to separate with a pair of eyes, somewhat resembling a face, luring heroes and adventurers alike to the big beast, make it a very primal trapper, or use it as a giant unmoving hunk of madness within the central chamber of a dungeon, one so bloated and loud that no matter where you are, you hear it, but are unable to kill it, and every time you travel to a new floor or wing, it's there, a constant reminder of your fate should you fail, and lastly, you could make it something that isn't even there, it's not a spirit, it's not a ghost or magical apparition, it's just a collection of madness of fallen adventurers, sorrowful and resentful villagers, a mental manifestation giving way to emotions, voices to chaos, and it is only visible to those who have seen a real one, or suffers or has had suffered from some form of madness, because who would imagine a creature so twisted without having seen one or being maddened yourself? Versatility isn't a rating you should give to the monster itself as is, but rather the ability of dungeon masters, and to a slightly lesser extent, players, to interact and play with a creature, it's the ability of the dm to build on to the building blocks given to us, and abarations are some of the most flexible and intangable building blocks we have just because of how alien they are, they aren't wolves who are very basic and hunt in packs, that has a basic breeding origin and nothing more, needing some sort of outside force to make them mystical, alien by nature means alien by focus, go nuts

that might have been the most respectful and personal response to critique i've seen on KZfaq

Allow me to correct you friend. "Versatility has to do with a creature's ability to express itself in different ways, take different approaches, and have a variety of goals." One example, to save space and energy for us both. The beholder, if you truly did the research you say you did, should have easily received both versatility 4 and roleplay 4. Beholder's literally become different beholder's based on the way they express themselves. Their lairs change to reflect their dreams, nightmares, and thoughts. They wear adornments and act based on their own personal goals, which could be a solitary terror controlling an elderbrain in the underdark or a mighty master pulling strings in waterdeep (both canon representations of two different beholder). Their goals can change at the drop of a hat. Whether from a defeat, a victory, a shift in its plan, or even a random dream. They have many goals, as you can take from studying Xanathar himself, and then reading up on The Eye and Uthh who both had many and varied goals. Beholder's could be evil, good, benevolent, crazed, blind, mad, foolish, and the list goes on. They are whatever they believe themselves to be and they change themselves and those around them based on that fact. If a foe or ally can mastermind then they certainly "take different approaches." If you didn't want to give them a 5 in either, that I suppose I could understand. All beholders, after all, are paranoid... unless they imagine themselves not to be. You could do with rethinking the intricacies of your ranking system and doing a bit more research on the more complex creatures.

I understand im an exception but Ive used otyugh as simple minded but curious creatures, kind of like big dogs, numerous times. Each party interaction has been different in every new encounter. I think the great part of aberrations, other than their otherworldly style and mechanics, is the vagueness of them, easily allowing the DM to mold most of them as he sees fit to his world or style.

I always thought Slaads were literal embodiments of Chaos until they hit Death Slaad level. Their behaviour is completely unpredictable, they could be your best friend one second and trying to rip off your head the second. They don't have ANY sense of order or law. Even a pirate has some rules they follow, Slaads are liable to do anything at any time for any reason. The reason they're a threat is simply due to their unpredictability. You can't coexist with them because there's no way to ensure they'll cooperate.

@@LAZERAK47V2 It's true, you're right Chaotic sentient creatures doesn't mean they have no moral compose Except that's what they are, the slaadie have no moral compose I would forgive it if there were other chaos-spawn characters that counter the slaadi by being more reasonable but still chaotic The Githzerai effectively live in limbo, and are lawful natural, but I wouldn't consider them aberrations

Slaadi being purely typed as aberrations is something new to D&D. In D&D 3e, their type was Outsider - a being native to Outer or Inner planes. In chaoskampf-inspired cosmology of D&D 4e, slaadi's origin was elemental, just like demons', who were also described inhabitants of Elemental Chaos. The foundation of slaadi lore is that they are "exemplars" of Chaotic Neutral - native inhabitants of Limbo who embody the randomness of the plane. As D&D 5e replaced vague and wide cathegory of "Outsider" with "Celestial", "Fiend" and "Elemental", modrons and slaadi, as well as many less-known planar creatures who are neither good nor evil nor native to Elemental planes, were left out. Thus, modrons are now officially constructs and slaadi are now officially aberrations, though both are actually closer to celestials and fiends in their nature.

Aberration entries are less common because they're among the most difficult to design and still be interesting. Especially without violating copyrights.

@@dankeller4103 Talking about DnD's Aberrations. Most of them are specifically copyright IP. Beholder, Astral Dreadnought, Illithid, etc

Huh you just named a new monster! Beloder, the levitating monster that acts as a magical lodestone, attracting all metallic objects (eg. weapons and armour) to itself, such that it usually looks like a great flying ball of junk. It can manipulate magnetic fields in close proximity, for instance magnetising items attached to it and flipping their polarity to send them shooting outward as missile weapons. By dint of this power over magnetism it is immune to lightning and can reflect it as desired, and has a chance to dispel magic every turn.

Welcome LostMage!

They fit the category of aberrations, they are ordered chaos. Which can only repopulate through slaying other beings, or impregnate other beings, or being spawned from a motherfucking crystal in the sky...

Well, modrons were originally just geometric shape people, and we came to love them. Slaadi look like twisted toad humanoids because why the hell won't they look like twisted toad humanoids. As some wise man once noticed, the only creatures aside from toads and frogs that undergo more pure change in its form, shape and lifestyle are internal parasites, which slaadi also mimic. And slaadi aren't supposed to be outright horrific - not any more than modrons. The problem with slaadi in 5e is that there is no cathegory for outsiders that are neither good nor evil nor elemental, thus modrons being constructs when they are as much alive as angels and demons and devils, and slaadi being aberrations when inherently not being much different from the same.

DLAlucard the giant floating fact mushroom?

Many thanks

Good call, definitely an aquatic theme throughout

Considering how many aberrations take HEAVY influence from Lovecraft's works, it's not surprising. Especially considering some of his biggest players (Like Cthulhu and the Elder Things) are all aquatic beings in some sense. "Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of time." In short: He was fascinated with the unknowable depths of the ocean as it paralleled the unknowable reaches of the universe.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/baqphdud27OdhoE.html Kinda my thoughts on stating Lovecraftian things (which kinda extends to deities in general, albiet in a slightly different way)

It is also a meateater and a solitary, generally stationary creature. A big part of what allowed us to become so successful is our strong social structure, allowing for the development of languages and intergenerational learning. This is the same problems octopi face. They are technically very intelligent beings, likely on the level of primates, but they are solitary and thus don't form societies.