The third time’s the charm for Demogorgon in 5e! He made his first appearance in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. He was 10-ply, baby-soft there. He came back in Out of the Abyss, no better for being so popular. But here we are, with the release of Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. They fixed Demogorgon: a book I didn’t think I needed seems to have justified itself to me with one stat block.
It was a simple fix, and one I would have made if I was using the aforementioned archfiend in a normal campaign. In the Coliseum, however, I run the monsters as published. This is because I generate the encounters at random, and the encounters tend to be relatively complex. I don’t need the added difficulty of modding monsters on the fly. Plus, it helps make things seem fair. I already change the encounter calculations significantly.
Fixed Demogorgon Doesn’t Care If You Look at Him
It’s really just that simple. The original version of Demogorgon was written so that players could choose to look away from him. All his gaze attacks were reliant on players choosing not to look away. They pretty much always did, unless they had good reason to be confident that they would be able to pass his DC 23 wisdom save. In practice, they pretty much never risked it and just dealt with having disadvantage. His 22 AC is a little more daunting with disadvantage, but not enough to be problem.
Now, they don’t get the option to look away. He can also use spellcasting as a Legendary Action. The bad news is Demogorgon only has two legendary actions. I would have preferred 3 but I’m not going to complain.
Wanna know what other monsters are on my Hotlist? Or, maybe instead of the deadliest you want monsters that provide interesting challenges in and out of combat? Check out my Blocklist.
0 Comments