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Imagine being an old, retired adventurer and finally the Rakshasa comes back for revenge. "Remember me?" "I don't even remember what I ate this morning... Wait, are you my grandson?"

The one time I used a Rakshasha, the party completely missed it as an enemy. He appeared to be a seafaring merchant and the party spoke to him several times, bought a few misc items from him, potions and such. They never once doubted him or insight checked him. I hadn't set him up as the end boss or anything, he was supposed to be part of a smaller investigation, but they attributed all his crimes and actions to the big baddie of the campaign. He ended up sailing the party across the sea to hunt their original prey and wishing them luck. By the time the party returned to the city he was in, he had pretty effectively taken it over and the party congratulated him for his success! They even attended the banquet in his honor... I was fuming in my chair. I had written up a really neat mystery which they missed entirely. I contemplated poisoning the entire party at the feast but decided that since the party had inadvertently done so well at installing this guy as governor, he would maintain his cover by playing nice. My players couldn't figured out why I was annoyed eveytime they wanted to ask the Governor for help and supplies.

I always thought of the Rakshasa as a sneaky shapeshifting villain. He’d be the guy at the end of a story arc where it would be “Surprise! The high priest, king’s counselor, or whatever has secretly been an evil Rakshasa all along.”

This is the same argument people use when they always address any single thing, in a vacuum, against multiple foes. Furthermore, they tend to want to remove its intelligence, cunning, spells, special movement, etc... it just has “A/C and some claws” The weakest part of this creature (or any other that has to be locked in a box to be defeated) is the one running them from behind the screen. Good be this and every other monster credit. Play them to their strengths. If you don’t wanna use a creature to its strengths, don’t use it. Yes, Nate, “they’re using it wrong”.

I dm a lot for 5e D&D and at first I used many monsters as "boss" monsters and they got annihilated in the 1st or 2nd round. On that note, I learned many things about 5e encounter building as first thing Challenge rating don't mean anything. The designers of the game don't use it, there are many monsters that both hit above and below their weight class (incorporeal undead, Aberrations) and the CR system assumes too much about your game. The second thing I learned was monsters shouldn't fight alone as players will just overwhelm the poor monster. The third thing I learned was customize your "boss" monsters by increasing AC, HP, damage dealt, adding/changing spells and or effects etc.

Rakshasa are definitely not meant to be frontline fighters, or even boss monsters, and If they are the boss monster you'll probably never figure that out. Plus that whole "coming after your family 100 years after you're dead" thing is just nasty.

I'm currently using a Rakshasa in my campaign. I definitely don't think that it's a weak enemy, but you need to use it correctly. At this point the party has had several encounters with him, and only 1 was a combat encounter. That was when I actually revealed the Rakshasa to them. They are not high level enough to hurt him with spells, and none of them are good alignment so they can't even damage with weapons. I killed the mage by slitting her throat with a knife, (I knew as DM that someone in the party could gentle repose her until they got back to a temple) while the party slept. Then made some threats and other evil guy speech stuff and plane shifted away. Now he just shows up at night occasionally, usually when the players are feeling cocky and relaxed, and leaves obvious signs that he was there and knows about the party. They are now in a state of near constant paranoia about this creature and are spending vast ammounts of gold researching ways to protect themselves and running away from everyplace that they feel remotely comfortable in. It's absolutely brilliant. At some point I assume that they will come up with a way to deal with him, but for now it's an encounter that has spanned months of play sessions and provided a ton of entertainment and story. Probably one of the best monsters in the game IMHO.

Matt Mercer used it so perfectly in the first campaign after the whole party forgot it was even in the game. Terrifying monster.

ROCK. SHAH. SAH.

I think it comes down to thinking about the monsters intended role. I view Rakshasa as a 'Mastermind' villain. If the Mastermind villain is facing the party directly its because its either on his terms or he flubbed up (And probably has an escape plan as a contingency).

Way back when I thought Drow were nothing more than evil aligned Elves and used them to attack a Noble woman the party was escorting to her betrothed's estate. Had the attack take place in broad daylight... first thing out of the one player with an elf character was, "Get the sun at our backs!" Then he looks at me expectantly. Wondering what the look was for I scanned the MM entry again and finally noticed the 'Sunlight Sensitivity' trait, and promptly blurted out "Well CRAP, merry Christmas guys!"

The first place to look is the source material: according to Hindu lore, rakshasa emanated from Brahma's breath at the end of satya yuga - the era of perfection. They're personifications of corruption, of all things unclean and imperfect. They're portrayed as tigers because in ancient India, tigers were the most obvious threat to mankind in the untamed wilderness, seen not as animals but as literal monsters. The moment the rakshasa came into existence, they began eating Brahma. They're personifications of everything bad, they're manifestations of God's own nightmares, and *the moment they came into existence, they began cannibalizing God.* That's a start to giving you some idea of how to play these monsters.

"What if they're cornered?" Well, that's the trick, isn't it? Rakshasa can read minds and assume any humanoid form. A huge part of the battle is just finding out who the Rakshasa even _is,_ while not getting into a position where the fucker reads a character's mind and gets two steps in front of them. The players fuck up, and it's they who are cornered. And remember, rakshasa are devils. Yeah sure the PCs might kill it, but it just respawns in the Nine Hells. And now it's after the PCs. And their families, friends, acquaintances and pets. A shapeshifting mindreader with a grudge that won't quit. Unless the PCs are using True Seeing on _literally everyone_ they interact with, the rakshasa is going to get at least a couple hits in before the players realise, "Oh fuck! [insert name here] is back!" And do you think the Infernal motherfucker is going to pick a time when the PCs have nothing going on to strike? You did? Oh, that's just _precious._ No, the rakshasa is going to wait until the players are embroiled in a complicated adventure rife with political intrigue. And then kill the King while disguised as one of the PCs. Wait until they are engaged in a continent-spanning scavenger hunt. And burn their hometown to the ground. Disguised - yeah, you guessed it - as one of the PCs. Introducing a rakshasa into the campaign is introducing a long-term barbed thorn into the side of the party. If you want a one-shot villain, look elsewhere.

I am actually using a Rakshasa in one of my games, and he is working with the party (evil campaign) as the middle man between the party and the god he serves, who they have all sword allegiance too. One thing I find about intelligent monsters like the Rakshasa, if you feel like they are weak, give them class levels! A Sorcerer Rakshasa makes perfect sense. You have the liberty as the DM to alter the monsters as you see fit, and if you are worried that your mastermind creatures are not fit enough for head on combat, give them the tools. Another cool thing about the Rakshasa is the side of effect of his claws, which people often look over. Think about how terrifying that would be as his stipulation if the party signed a deal with him. "Of course I can show you where the stone of power is hidden, but if I tell you, you must do something for me afterwords." And if they don't help, fine, they die in one of the most unremarkable and unmemorable ways ever, which is something no one wants to do.

I had a party of five players fifth level running Storm Kings Thunder. They were at a crossroad inn when a group of six orcs and two hill giants attacked. I had the giants hold back until the orcs were dead in fear of wiping the party. I then found out hill giants are made of butter when both of them died before even taking an action. I learned if the players are all inside the inn fighting orcs, just smash the inn on top of the players instead of letting them run outside.

People need to read the entire MM write up on monsters, especially boss monsters, then design their encounters logically.

I think the DMs imagination and wit is what can make or brake a boss Rakshasa

Before watching the video: Rakshasa are sort of "plot-device" monster on a more mechanical rpg like 3e~5e (whatever for AD&D, CR didn't exist in those days), any good person with a pointy stick can kill it (look at what bypasses their imunities).

Someone obviously missed the Critical Role episodes dealing with this creature!

I have a group where their first quest was to retrieve a mysterious artifact that was just uncovered. Their instructions were to bring it unharmed, and unopened. They found the sealed vase and returned it. If they had opened it, there was a Rakshasa inside that would have threatened them menacingly for fun and left.

The last Campaign I ran the big bad was a Rakshasa that had a beef with the kings family (great great grandfather killed him). I bungled it royally and the players couldn't reasonable get 7th level spells before they got themselves to a point where they faced the Rakshasa. Their spells were all ineffective and was enough to make his cultists a huge challenge. I let them fail and he forced them to retreat and lick their wounds. As a result I made a special type of holy water that was blessed by the main god of the city personally that had the ability to neutralise his power of immunity to spells under 7th and non magical items and was in the royal keeps vault (where the Rakshasa was holed up in the first place). A priest told them about it while they recovered and they made a plan to sneak in and enter the vault, take the vial and blast the beast. They also decided killing him outright wasn't an option the priest conveniently mentioned that there was also a scroll in the vault of a high level spell I can't remember the name of which happened to be able to capture the beast in a gem (the great great grandfather was prepared also I took the liberty of multiple lower level spellcasters combining to use spells outside of their level for the sake of the story). All full of hope they set out and failed miserably with the sneaking so it became a timed event where the Rakshasa was going to turn up to the vault in a set amount of time. They managed to get into the vault in the nick of time, grab the stuff, hit him with the holy water got him down to low hit points and attempted to capture him in the gem. That roll was the most anticipated thing in the campaign and the players souls were crushed when they roll one under his spellcasting ability which I promptly said the gem shattered and the scroll burned up as a result of the use. As a result they resorted to kill him and unfortunately one of the players moved before they got to traverse the 9 hells in search of him and kill him for good. I did enjoy what I had to do to make the story work much more then my original intention but it was an oversight on my behalf.

You want a bad encounter? GM was running Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but felt that due to Party shenanigans, we garnered more attention than normal (Justifiable, I may have profaned a Tiamat Altar with my God's symbol hidden to steal prayers), so he added more dragons. We get to the part where your guarding a road being built and a Young? Black Dragon pops out of the water to ambush. I was a Bard. Guess what is unforgivable in the eyes of a dragon? Consecutively casting Tasha's Hideous Laughter over and over until all your spells are gone after telling a knock knock joke about interrupting cow. The Dragon fled after about 15 minutes of laughter, and came back the next day with it's Mommy. We were level 5-6ish.

Mercer made an amazing rahshashackalacka on crit role.

The monster's description says that it tries to woo the party into friendship and attack when it has serious advantages.

The BBEG of my campaign is a Rakshasa and after almost 3 years they've finally happened upon his lair. They've fought his pirate minions, his sellsword army and the assassin guild under his payroll, the monsters he allied with, his human body double, his master torturer, his Cambion son, a whole host of doppelgangers, and the minor devils and yuggoloths loyal to him. They never once came face with him, but they've found his letters. Until recently they thought he was just a Gnome until a clever use of Dream was used on one of his prisoners revealed that he was a Rakshasa (a creature that none of them knew was a thing). When they do fight him next session he's going to be hiding behind an army of guards and will not hesitate to plane shift out. A Rakshasa should NEVER be a frontline enemy.

You spend most of the video saying how people mis-conceive the use of a rakshasa in a combat encounter, then discuss how you'd use one in a combat encounter. It's a PLOT monster...but the only words you offer on that is "it's difficult". Great, thanks.

Give them class levels.

What is the name of psionic creature that has the head of a triceratops?

I would LOVE for you guys to build a Warlock patron pact around the Rakshasa! That would be fun! Emphasize battleground movement, disguise and illusion? Maybe invisibility, and force damage? Go heavy on the Eldritch Blast Invocations like Grasp and Repel?! I’m already thinking up a new char!!!

Well I've seen monsters misused twice, by the same GM. First was a slightly modified Fire Elemental that "transformed" after reaching half health. Admittedly he said later that one was a Dragon Ball Z "This isn't even my final form" joke, but the problem was he kept transforming, and transforming, and transforming, and the joke was the vaguest thing ever. He just kept boosting the damage it dealt while keeping the to hit modifier the same so my party of 5 (including me) dodged nearly every attack it threw at us, which of course was just a claw attack and nothing else, further adding to the boredom. Then, pretty much right after that, he had our party of 5 level 5-7s fight a Beholder. I'm not joking. I immediately pointed out the fact it had at least 4 eye rays that could kill any one of us instantly, and he responded by saying it only had two eye stacks (Telekinesis and Blindness/Deafness) and so we fought a damage sponge for an hour because everyone was blind and our Paladin, Eldritch Knight, and Bard (me) couldn't do anything to it. I really hope my friend gets better at being a GM quick.

Awesome!

8:50 Is that a change from previous editions that Rakshasa are no longer Outsiders that count as Native to the Material Plane, and, as such, when they die here, they stay dead?

Question, if a monsters biggest boons are not dying and running away, should that reduce its CR? The Rackshasa cant really hurt a party much. A DM could give the Rackshasa stuff to make them threatening, but put an army behind anything and that thing becomes a threat.

One GM I had used a tarrasque as a beast of burden. Completely messed the whole campaign up.

You didn’t mention that not only do they have information rings telling them about everything. They have the ability to read minds so, they know what they are thinking.

I fought a Rakshasa once. It took my ear. So I took his. And had my cleric graft it onto where my ear used to be. Now I have a +1 to listen checks. Rakshasa's sure can be useful.

I've had a group of high-level adventurers who were relatively new players for me. The boss, a Rakshasa made an appearance upon having his minions killed. The monster saw the party did not really have much of a chance to hurt it. The party had a few things the boss wasn't aware of that could have beat it. The Rakshasa taunted them and offered to allow them to serve him. They flat out attacked. 4 rounds later, sole survivor teleported out. The Rakshasa sent the bodies via courier to the survivor's home, in jars. My players thought I OP'd it. I didn't. He spent the battle taunting the PC's and the PC's did not figure out what spells and items they had that could hurt it. I am sending one of them a link to this video. Thank you. I thought the Rakshasa was a stupid boss monster too... until I created and ran the encounter.

I sent a pair of Rakshasa assassins after my party. They came with +2 studded leather, and some magic weapons. One had a bow and 2 arrows of slaying (keyed to the races of the tank PCs) and the other had a pair of sunblades, and coated them in wolfs bane (we had a werewolf pc). And they brought a number of spell scrolls, including counterspell, confusion, powerword kill, and some others. This was for a level 20 adventure, but personally I dont give my humanoid monsters just their base stuff, they get some amount of gear.

This made me think of an encounter I ran in a 4th ed game. The party was in a fight with an ancient red dragon. (obviously this was a high lvl encounter) One of the group was a gnomish rogue. Now a gnome stands about 3'6" (if he's a large gnome) and the dragon stands considerably larger. The gnome used his daily to paralyze the dragon. Now, I was thinking to myself, "How the hell does a gnome paralyze a dragon by striking it in the toenail?" I should also point out that I had also penned myself in because at various times throughout the campaign I had made it clear that spellcasting required more than just verbal components. So now, the dragon can't cast, can't physically attack, and can only breathe. As it had lost initiative (Badly), the party beat the snot out of it. By the time it could move again, it had lost sufficient hp that it could no longer fly. At that point, it was all over but the crying. Now, I know I could have probably ran that fight better, but that one ability just screwed the dragon completely.

I once put a bomb on a cow and then let a Roc take it (big boss giant was riding it). The Roc flew into the air, really high and then the bomb went off and the Roc couldn’t roll to stabilise/not be stunned and so it plummeted to the ground with the giant riding it. Causing a ton of damage to both making it really easy for us to take out.... DM had to make a new boss. Bless him

If you view your PCs as just nails, all of your monsters will look like hammers.

My first campaign was full of singleton monsters that I assumed would be challenging. When the party would destroy them, I would just up the CR for the next fight, but it would still be only one big bad monster and so it would just die. The best way to learn how to DM is experience.

Using a monster with 1 int (-5 to saves) vs a mystic whose save dc was 16. Stunlock ensued.

CR doesn't really work in 5e for single creatures. Action economy has a much larger effect in most fights than CR, if you expect any creature to last more than a few rounds you need multiple enemies in the fight. Also I think the CR system in 5e is pretty conservative

Im using a Rakshasa as a bit of a diplomatic boss. Hes charisma based. I added some spells to his list as hes a master spellcaster he has trapped my party forcing them to make a deal with him or attempt to fight him

So the worst misuse of a monster I have ever seen was when a GM that had the mindset of a monster is only good if it can get a death save rolled tried to use yuan-ti. We were a 2rd level party with 4 people. We came across a couple of yuan-ti purebloods that were pretending to be humans. There was 3 purebloods. They got us to an alley and attacked us. They got a couple of us low in the surprise round but we killed them easily the first round, as a rogue and a barb tend to do. He was complaining about how underpowered they were. He did not utilize the suggestion ability nor did he have any snakes to assist them. They also split their attacks, as he hoped to drop a party member and leave the rest low, instead of focus fire like they would tend to do. He also did not have any snakes helping them as they definently would have had against superior numbers.

Oh man, i think the worst one for me was when the GM rolled a rando encounter for overland travel and it was a Beholder. It was 3.5 and it was CR four above our norm and the GM was just like, "lol, surprise eyeball thing" and he didnt evem make the combat interesting. Think 30ftx30ft area of a forests and the floating eyeball monster of flight just sat in melee range the whole fight. So it was twice bad, a BS random encounter *and* a BS boring fight. As a GM myself i did in my early days have a hydra appear as a cave/dungeon endboss, the rest of the place was full of kobolds so it didnt make a ton of sense but the party wisely zipped out of the room and prepped to assault it further

I fully agree that it's about how they are played, and Rakshasa are a men behind the man, there is also the point that anyone who is using only base monsters (that aren't mobs) from the MM aren't DMing super well, at least IMO, why wouldn't this Rakshasa have a rind of fire elemental control _and_ a dancing sword? Why would they not have a few combat spells and about 40 traps between you and them before they let you force the plane shift? I feel like the intelligence modifier and life span always tell you whether this monster should be as written or not.

They might reform in the nine hells, but if they fail enough I doubt they would continue to come back as one. They might get demoted to a lower level devil.

If you're in a low magic setting, most of your martial characters might not have magical weapons - meaning the Rakshasa is essentially only beatable by level 7+ spells in that scenario (which only full casters have 1 of at level 13).

As far as I know, the pronunciation is something like "rock-sha-sa." How do I know? From a TV show that ought to be required reading/viewing at the DM Academy: "Kolchak - The Night Stalker," starring Darren McGavin. A true classic!

Love the vid', and for the most part, you guys nailed it... not so much in the comments though... Lesson for you about devils, demons, fiends, and immortals, kiddies... (for sake of argument, we'll stick to the Rakshasa here)... First, HUMANOID! Second INTELLIGENT!... There really isn't much else to say or contend about on the matter. These are not garden variety boss-monsters. These are specifically legendarily tough and bad-news mastermind level villains. Sure the basic creature is a CR13 (for what?) staying power... BUT... Demons of any kind prefer to avoid outright confrontation ANY way they can. Once inhabiting the Prime Material Plane, they absolutely will find gear, just like anyone in his or her right mind. That's going to mean a lair (bases of operations in all likelihood) and things like weaponry, magical focuses like wands, staves, and the like... clothing isn't a bad idea (along with armor) so take another look in the book. What CALIBER of gear are you probably talking about? This thing is already IMMUNE to enough that there's a crunch on what might give a noteworthy advantage over "the old-school way" of just stepping up to the barbarian toe-to-toe and slugging it out... which the Rakshasa is probably going to be able to do. He won't willingly, but he CAN. That's your biggest problem right there. He CAN do that with anyone. Now, he's a schemer. He's the ultimate "power behind the throne" arch'. He's the phantom behind the veil, or the man(?) thing behind the curtain pulling all the ropes and levers. He doesn't put himself in the spotlight, and he won't be visible when you finally look to corner him. Even when you think you've found him, whoomp... like a fart in a whirlwind, he's not where you expected, and YOU are now the one being surprised. By manipulating the political leader(s) he's gotten access to the same guilds and memberships any of the PC's could find or tap. He's manipulated them as well, and been able to get the super-special and secret X-level magical claw enhancers, the extensible scimitar of vorpal injustice +4 great cleavage... and practically any stupid thing else that would reasonably grant him a really high probability at a high to epic finale with a TPK... And if the Party has too easy a time with this one, let the "defeat" shake their reality a little. Show a spot of deja-vu... something truly dubious. Then one by one, they fall unconscious in fits (not too different from an epileptic seizure)... Only to wake up, some distance past in the campaign, someplace whereabouts they originally came across the Rakshasa... (whether or not they knew it then)... They've advanced in levels all the same, but they're waking up in all their old gear with all their old armor and so forth... just as if they went to sleep that particular night and dreamed all the rest of the game... (GM can make this as recent or distant past as he likes if he's kept track)... I'd advise this as a "one shot" retro-activity. BUT the narrative when thrown at a Party who willingly went after the demon boss is usually pretty great. It's been a couple years since I've pulled this trick out of the bag... BUT when I did, I'd marked when and where they first crossed paths with the Rakshasa character... AND they had been third level at the time. It was a LONG campaign too. You would have LOVED to see that play out. Admittedly, I wasn't "too" perfect about retro-acting their inventory... only most of it... AND the Players absolutely LOVED the way I pulled it off... They did manage to get back after the thing, but it made the actual finale a helluva thing to get through! Just remember Narrative is EVERYTHING! :o)

I'm looking at this cause I'm about to DM tricking my campaign into releasing one of these from a comatose state in a magical tomb. Lol. Wish me luck.

I had an environment with floating platforms. Chose a monster with no ranged attacks.

Most of my problems running monsters is playing them as dumb brutes, even when they are supposed to be thinking creatures. I'm turning that around slowly - if a group of monsters attack and it's down to just one against the players it will run away.

...These have been my favorite monsters for a long time, I probably use them too much. They will just stomp a caster heavy party and if you catch a barbarian off guard well now he is the Rakshasa's best buddy.... That said I have misused monsters more than a few times. One in particular the party was level 8-ish, I was a first time DM, and I put a lich's tower in their path fairly early in the campaign as a "hey you guys need to run away from fights sometimes" the lich was a CR 15-ish. They just stomped it into the ground. It went first so I used a smaller spell that nearly instantly killed one of them then the party of 7 unleashed hell upon the poor lich... It didn't get a second turn. I tired bribing them with an instant fortress but they meta gamed and decided it was the liches phylactery (none of their characters knew enough about liches to know about phylacteries). It was a good lesson for me honestly. I haven't been nearly as free with magic items and I've learned how to be more subtle so that meta gaming is much more difficult... I also have better players now and for the most part they are really good about not doing that with only the occasional slip up.

The party of all spellcaster says otherwise

Sure Rakshasa's magic resistance abilities are great but the biggest trouble is the "Evil Reborn" ability that this isnt the last time you face it and next time it knows your party better.

Clearly, this DM was not using the Rakshasa correctly. It is clear that he was trying to use a finesse monster as a combat monster.

Rakshasas are more of a scheming and using minions as pawns to hide behind type, becuase they have a weakness- the blow from a blessed bolt shot at them (or simply a bolt shot by a good aligned character) can instantly kill them. (this is true, but wasn't mentioned in the mm) Rakshasas lie and lie and lie, disguise, and lie some more to gain a following, example being an army of humanoids or other lower class Rakshasa. I plan on using a Rakshasa as a villain in a short-ish campaign for my family. My Rakshasa will have tricked a ringleader/owner of a traveling circus to go from city to city to kidnap innocents to bring back to him for consumption. To do this, the ringleader/owner will have clown minions capture people. Those who are captured are then either brought to the Rakshasa to eat alive with sides, or are tricked into joining the circus as another minion. I plan on having the Rakshasa be guarded by a crap ton of clown minions to make it hard to get to him. I will also keep it's weakness a secret unless someone asks if he has a weakness. (Will likely have them make an Arcana check to see if their character knows it or let them as an npc is they find out the villain is a Rakshasa too early.) Some of my info may be wrong so feel free to correct me. I'm a new dm, and I am willing to learn! (Also the clown idea came from Dark Chronicle)

I once DM'd a game where a rakshasa was in charge of the thieves guild the party was a part of, he inevitably tried to backstab them (partly sucsessful he killed 2 of the 4 man party) after the party slew a rakshasa he came back for revenge (after a few years in which he stayed in the shadows and sent out many spies to learn as much as possible about the party), he framed them for multiple crimes (including murdering a prince) in multiple locations whilst in disguise as an ally he also gave them multiple "gifts" each one of them was cursed. Although he was killed again the party did not kill him permanently he is now planning revenge for the ancestors of the party.....

I just watched the critical role episodes(20-21) where they had to deal with one. Definitely not weak "AF"

So a 12th Level party with no magic weapons ...it just ignores completely as they cannot even harm it at all ...and with any party that can hurt it it can get away easily at any time ...

Great video! I am DMing G3 in the giant series and the PC's are close to Room #17 on the first level of the fire giant fortress. 3 Rakshasa locked inside. After studying up on them it never crossed my mind that they were weak. Jezz, the party could lose a few members on that upcoming encounter.... Thanks for all your great videos!

If i had to guess id say Jafar off of Aladdin was secretly a serpent Rakshasa

I always wanted to make a character who is the grandchild of an adventurer who killed a Rakshasa and just have that as an enemy who is hunting the character from level 1 on. As for the effectiveness of a Rakshasa, they don't have many flashy offensive abilities. No one will remember it for its great attacks or spells, and they certainly aren't like beholders with their attack options, but they are quite tough to put down, and just getting them trapped in an encounter where they have to fight can be memorable in and of itself. But, if you as a DM think that they need more offensive abilities to contend with the party, throw in some extra spellcasting and see how it works. They probably don't need it just by virtue of staying power (and the fact that they should always have minions and should only ever fight on their terms), but it doesn't hurt to experiment. The worst that could happen is a tpk.

Carl Kolchak night stalker Rakshasa

The thing that makes Rakshasa so BADASS is their ILLUSION'S, they have the the ability to Cast ILLUSION'S with physical form, smells, taste, and sound. Which cause real Damage and if you Die in the ILLUSION you DIE from the shock to you System if you fail a Constitution Check. If the Rakshasa create's an a ILLUSION you have been teleported to the edge a 300 foot cliff overlooking a Volcanoes cualdera then you FEEL the Heat and Wind created by Air currents, SMELL and TASTE the acrid fumes from the lava below, you HEAR the sound of Hissing bubbling Lava, and if a gust of wind blows you forward, your feet slip on the crumbling edges of the cliff and fall into the Lava, your Body DIES from the Shock If you Fail your Con. Check at 1/2 your your Constitution. YOUR body would contort as if you had actually falling into LAVA. THE END.

Just a few weeks ago, i forgot the Death Tyrant's legendary actions. I used another one in another encounter, and the party killed it in less time. Monk with his stunning stryke and fighters... with big axe...

As a DM, I’ve had my players end a Rakasha by sending a water elemental at it and being that it couldn’t cast spells in the water elemental’s space when it was restrained the monster was killed off too easily

Rak-shaza

My favorite DND campaign was one where it was a me and the DM no other players and I was a werewolf in a werewolf hunting organization and I ended up going to the battlefield drunk with one of my friends who was an NPC but he was effectively a level 15 tank he was slaughtering where tigers left and right and where I had to effectively blind crippled and everything else just to be able to defeat one of these as a level 2 or 3 cleric life cleric the only reason I was even out there is me and him got into a drinking match and I woke up in a foxhole of sorts on the front line Battlefield and was in major trouble because I didn't let my superiors know that I was even going there so he was killing 20 of them at a time where I was trying to kill one and then it five of his buddies hop in grabbed him and hopped out before I could land the killing blow I whittled it down to like 15 Health before his buddies hopped in and hopped out with him

Are we completely forgetting that it can read minds at will? Also it's a freaking humanoid tiger. The old meme of "oh god I'm being eaten by a tiger" comes to mind. However this thing isn't a close-combat monster, it's going to turn your meat shield against you because it can read the minds of the entire party and it's intelligent enough to know that the weak minded tank is going to be able to crush the super smart caster with his bare hands let alone whatever weapons and armor the PC has on. Then he's left to fight the supporter PC's who now have no one to support. It's a tpk monster for a ballenced party, an ally and possibly a quest giver to a magic based party and a joke for a party of barbarians and fighters. It's not that it's a bad monster design, it's that you have to know what kind of campaign you're running and place it appropriately. If they are all fighting based characters then the monster should be suoped up to fight it, or it just takes out one PC and teleports away. This is absolutely worth the 13cr and also a very possible tpk or even a quest giver that may or may not make the PC's question their alignment.

Oooo how convenient my main boss is a Raksaakakaaaja125.

If you want to really fuck someone up you can try plane shifting them to the Sea of Fire. I mean if you fail that charisma throw or they don't have a successful counterspell, you just hand in your character sheet at that point.

Was playing with a large group in 3.5. The party split in a dungeon. Half found a bodak. The other half an illithid. Two rounds later, tpk. ...whoops.

This is how you use a rakshasa: www.reddit.com/r/dndbehindthescreen/comments/3eu455/_/

RAKSHASHA!!! *Jazz Hands*

One time my friend got bored and made a party of 2 (me and a companion he was using to help with combat) fight an ancient black dragon and then a kraken. Thankfully he was new to DMing so he didn't know how to use them to their full potential. For example, we fought the dragon in a cave and we fought the kraken on land. He also didn't use any tentacle attacks with the kraken, just bite attacks.

In my first Pathfinder campaign, I had the players encounter a brine dragon that was extorting people crossing a bridge for tribute. When they inevitably picked a fight with it, I forgot what spells it had. One of which was _Invisibility_, which would have been _very_ useful in making it a tougher fight, among some of its other spells. To my credit, I didn't have it land, and it mainly used its breath attack to swoop in, but the party machine-gun Ranger (mainly built for archery) and sorceress were able to bring it down fairly quickly anyway. In hindsight, I also should have given it some minions to fight with it. By this point, the party was starting to get up there in level, but I didn't understand how CR worked all that well (in that it doesn't, especially in mid to high level Pathfinder). It was a routinely difficult thing to grasp, especially since two of the PCs had amazing stats from rolling (I watched them roll, they were just _that_ lucky to not have a single modifier lower than a +2). Plus I didn't quite understand that I, as the DM, could make adjustments on the fly like boosting a monster's HP to make the fight more interesting than a 1 or 2 round game of rocket tag. There were other encounters where this was a problem, especially my boss battles. There was one in particular where it was the party of 5 versus 3 or 4 bosses, but no minions. On paper, it looked to me like it would be interesting. Instead, the party Paladin basically one-shot the devil boss with smite evil, and I realized the orc lich would be too pragmatic to stick around for what was clearly going to be a one-sided stomp, so he incited the third boss into rushing them and bugged out. The last guy only survived for like 2 rounds before he went down. It wasn't especially memorable, at least to my players I don't think. I mainly only remember it for how disappointing it was. So I learned a lot from this, and from watching a bunch of WebDM, Mercer's tips in the first one-shot CR episode and DM tips videos, plus some of your videos I found recently, and am going to be applying them to the 5E campaign I'm getting ready for. Wish me luck!

If you want to look like old dads trying to be hip, putting AF in quotation marks is a good way to go :P

This is a good use for a Rakshasa: Notables of the kingdom are disappearing, along with very valuable items or all their money. It is discovered, by accident or design, that something is taking control of their minds and making them take all their valuables and bring it to a remote holding; one held by the creepy Court Wizard or Kings Advisor. The twist being it was never them, but the seemingly harmless, foppish, artist making the rounds this season (secretly a Rakshasa) who was using its ability to manipulate and eventually Dominate certain wealthy nobles/notables.

I had a raksasha posing as a paladin of hoar.... he was waring plate mail, & carrying a shield.... an annoying reoccurring npc VERY hard to hit or damage at all....

not so much a story of using a monster porley more of just the monster got really unlucky. In this party I'm playing a good aligned drow cleric and another character is playing my sister. So we got a whole redeem the evil races thing going in our game. We of cores started by killing a bug bear and taking all of the goblins working for him to show them a better life (witch has been working out pretty well so far). How ever before we had helped the goblins settle down and build a life they had been traveling with us. Well one night when we make camp a creature attacks are party and we all jump up to see a chirmara flying in to camp to mess up our night. So our psionic member of the party takes a gamble and tries to freeze it in mid air. The chirmara has advantage on the roll to resist and its a str based check so chances are low its gonna work. It works. so this giant ass chirmara is stuck in the air 30 ft above us and all of our goblins have short bows. It took 3 rounds for the chirmara to break free and by the time it had the goblins had turned it in to a pin cushion. it tried to fly away to safety the moment it got free but it didn't even make it 50 ft before the goblins brought it down. Goblins are mean little bastards ill tell you now.

So much failure in encounter design on my part from 14 normal badgers (took ten rounds) to my oc (took 2 turns)... my favorite failure was the deer god (a character in 5e kept getting dropped by deer because a party member kept attacking them so I made a boss that comes to deal with anyone who kills a bunch of them and started making deer more aggressive... great elk with a will o wisp got a tpk against 5 level 3 characters for all the wrong reasons)

i love u guys :Dit's like i see my self in the future (biggest fan of ted) keep rocking!

Rak-sha-sa

One of my first times DMing I misinterpreted the cr of goblins, thinking that I could put 4 per party member at level 1. unfortunately 2 members of the group dropped out last minute and I ran what I thought was an easy encounter made a bit difficult. 15 goblins vs 3 party members with no tank. TPK.

My DM has a rakshasa keep popping up we kill it and it comes back later stronger, last session we had this guy stupefied and were ready to drag him to hell and kill him we rested and in the morning it had some how killed itself in the cage that it was locked in, we were going to take it to hell and end our troubles with it.

A good way to play smart, witty or charismatic monsters is to have them metagame and play smart. Kobolds going for annoying, nearly uncounterable hit and run, clerics making books filled with nasty runes that explode on proxy, charming fellows that manipulate someone else as bait and switch, social manipulators that turn the public against the murder hobos to refuse service, Portable Bag & Holding Arrows, a literally inescapable trap the players only get saved from after a week by pure chance and the baddie's looong gone (as with all traps please don't use DCs like an asshole, describe the traps logical impact on its environment, like starved skeletons biting each other, scratching on the wall, warnings written by other sad sacks, etc.) A smart enemy can sip from the GM's omnipotence cup nicely, such as things playing out a certain way because they knew it would, like in poorly written movies.

I remember we had a campaign with a new DM, he didn't quite understand resistances in Pathfinder. We ended up fighting a mist ooze, which requires magical weapons to damage, but none of us had any magic. Luckily we play around with physics so I responded to it by throwing fire on the ground, forcing an updraft that blew it away. It appeared later for us to fight when we were in a better position to do so.

What if you corner it? This thing is Hannibal Lecter meets Loki meets sher kahn good fricken luck cornering that badass cat the commenter really didn't do their homework you want challenging forget the Fact that this monster is immune to non magical damage and highly magical resistant this thing will throw a kingdom or a dragon at you

Rakshasa being weak? Every time I meet these fuckers in a video game, they're immune to almost every spell I've got! What's what? Immune to non magical weapons and any spell below 6th level? Okay, so basically my party shouldn't even approach one of these until we're close to Epic Levels, then? Who the hell thinks these things are weak?

Love your videos, but please not Me Lee its maylay for the pronunciation. Proceed.

I used monsters really bad once, they were the lowliest kobold minions, and they ganged up on my one player and almost killed him, then we dropped that game because it was way too slow (4th edition...)

Anyone who says a rakshasa is weak is getting it throw against them too late in the leveling curve. Being a wizard player I hate rakshasa you basically turn into a countee spell battery because it fucks up your party if it gets dominate person off. I mean the magic item immunity means that if you meet it early enough in the campaign your the one running because you maybe only have 2 players who have got magic items are just gonna see why we hate devils and demons these guys are supposed to be a quest monster and they send you to a place where you might have to best something stronger than them. It becomes a writing thing and for a large portion of time the players may not even be aware of it at all.

Good content, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people mispronounce words that are pronounced exactly the way they're spelled... rak-SHAH-sa, not rak-SASH-a.

The worst enemy I've ever seen someone use is a Couatl. This happened back when the basic description of a Couatl was 'It will kill evil and not kill good' so the DM (in all of his infinite wisdom) decided to have a really elaborate plot which we followed through to the end, with that end being a Couatl. Then, our paladin walks up to it and just straight up tells it to go away. The DM wasn't having any of this and prepared the Couatl to fight but the guy playing the paladin said 'I succeeded on my religion check, I know Couatl do not attack morally good people' The DM got annoyed at this and then got more annoyed when he realised the party consisted of a Paladin, 2 Clerics and a warlock (I used to avoid religious classes like the plague) and all of these people were morally good. The DM then got really angry for 15 minutes, called of the session and in fact cancelled the whole game. That was the first and last time I played with that DM but the paladin was a boss and took over the role of DM for another game we started afterwards.

To get some perspective, I put the 5e next to the 3.5e. A 3 CR buff, doubled HP but lowered AC, probably because 5e doesn't really play well with AC 21, even at touch 12. Still, more a hard target than a soft target. DR is more potent. 15 to all weapons that aren't Good+Piercing. Not as stiff a challenge, although an SR of 27 is still beefy, especially at level 10. More magical potency, functioning as a straight 7th level sorcerer. Which, combined with their other feats, makes them... just really good back-line supports that can hold their own in an up-close until they can book it. It even has support spells, whereas 5e only gives it manipulator spells and some light support. And no vulnerabilities. I wonder what happened, because the old one feels a lot more fit for the job. Nice mid level mastermind with some fiendish tricks that require osme decent prep. It's clear they wanted to hone the Rakshasa to being more mastermind-like for 5e, which makes it all the stranger that someone looked at it and went 'yup, single-monster boss'.