Can an Intellect Devourer use devour intellect while inside a creature?

[Kryx]

The intellect devourer retains its Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores, as well as its understanding of Deep Speech, its telepathy, and its traits. It otherwise adopts the target's statistics.

Does traits include its actions? So if an intellect devourer is inside a creature can he devour a creature's intellect and then teleport into that new creature (if his body is hurt for example)

[hymer]

Does traits include its actions? So if an intellect devourer is inside a creature can he devour a creature's intellect and then teleport into that new creature (if his body is hurt for example)

Traits don't include actions. See MM p. 10, e.g.

[Kryx]

Traits don't include actions. See MM p. 10, e.g.
Ok, so it has access to Detect Sentience, but not its actions. Well that definitely makes it more obvious what happened and leaves no room for sneakiness.

But the player won't feel cheated.

Thanks!

[R.Shackleford]

I would play this off Rule of Cool than RAW/RAI.

[krugaan]

I would play this off Rule of Cool than RAW/RAI.

I get the feeling that this would make devourers even more of a ridiculous threat...

I present ... the Onion Devourer!

[R.Shackleford]

I get the feeling that this would make devourers even more of a ridiculous threat...

I present ... the Onion Devourer!

I'm not seeing the downside...

[Easy_Lee]

I'm not seeing the downside...

No downside for the sadistic DM, but nothing but downsides for the world. That'd be like the movie The Thing, but without cloning. Guess who it's in, and it can brain hop in combat without leaving the host first. Soon as it takes over a troll, it can cut off part of its own head and grow a whole new devourer-infested troll. Seems a little busted. Might take a party of only gnome wizards and EKs to stand a chance.

Edit: Actually, that gives me an idea...

Double edit: okay, confirmed that you can't grow an army of trolls this edition. Severed limbs die after the host grows a new one. That's good, because otherwise an intellect devourer, upon infesting a troll, could cut off parts of itself and grow more copies, potentially creating an entire army of itself in a matter of days.

[Kryx]

The party survived the intellect devourer. Huzzah!

[R.Shackleford]

No downside for the sadistic DM, but nothing but downsides for the world. That'd be like the movie The Thing, but without cloning. Guess who it's in, and it can brain hop in combat without leaving the host first. Soon as it takes over a troll, it can cut off part of its own head and grow a whole new devourer-infested troll. Seems a little busted. Might take a party of only gnome wizards and EKs to stand a chance.

Edit: Actually, that gives me an idea...

Double edit: okay, confirmed that you can't grow an army of trolls this edition. Severed limbs die after the host grows a new one. That's good, because otherwise an intellect devourer, upon infesting a troll, could cut off parts of itself and grow more copies, potentially creating an entire army of itself in a matter of days.

Higher the stakes the bigger the feeling of acomplishment.

I played in a game where we level 2 or 3 character's took out a Lich.


The party survived the intellect devourer. Huzzah!

I'm going to run some Int-devourers against a low level party.

Int-devourers are going to be the reason why all the wizards disappeared from the city causesing a power vacuum..

[krugaan]

No downside for the sadistic DM, but nothing but downsides for the world. That'd be like the movie The Thing, but without cloning. Guess who it's in, and it can brain hop in combat without leaving the host first. Soon as it takes over a troll, it can cut off part of its own head and grow a whole new devourer-infested troll. Seems a little busted. Might take a party of only gnome wizards and EKs to stand a chance.

Edit: Actually, that gives me an idea...

Double edit: okay, confirmed that you can't grow an army of trolls this edition. Severed limbs die after the host grows a new one. That's good, because otherwise an intellect devourer, upon infesting a troll, could cut off parts of itself and grow more copies, potentially creating an entire army of itself in a matter of days.

Basically this... there's no period of vulnerability for the devourer as soon as it gets into it's first host. Then its just hop hop hop until the party is dead.

[MaxWilson]

Higher the stakes the bigger the feeling of acomplishment.

I played in a game where we level 2 or 3 character's took out a Lich.

Did you get his phylactery, or did you just make him mad? :)

[R.Shackleford]

Did you get his phylactery, or did you just make him mad? :)

The player who got the phylactery, which was a magic dagger, ended up staying in heaven when we went for a banquet at the request of his deity (forget the deity). The character was offered a position of power, nothing huge, and stayed.

The DM figured that one of is would have *at least* taken the dagger but... Haha there's a Lich in heaven (until that deity absolutely destroys said lich).

4e was a fun time. I'm going to run a similar one shot to keep it going into 5e.