BBEG help

[j_spencer93]

I am working on making a main villain who basically psionically feeds on people, absorbing their knowledge (and spells) and gaining more power from it.
It will appear early in the campaign and keep reappearing until its defeated or becomes a CR 20 threat.
Basically i need help figuring out a mechanic to represent the psionic feeding, and how to increase its HD and such with each feeding.
Appearance wise its almost like a cloaked being who just barely is there, as it feeds it slowly becomes more "real" until its true self is remade once more.

Ideas and further suggestions would be nice.

[JackPhoenix]

Check Oblex from MToF for inspiration on eating memories.

For improving its statistics, you don't need any mechanics.... just increase it however you want, you're the GM.

[DrKerosene]

Check Oblex from MToF for inspiration on eating memories.
That seems better than my idea to reflavor a Night Hag as feeding to create a Heart Stone to then return to the Physical Prime Material Plane.

Maybe mix and match some abilities. Or just giving an Oblex Blink/Blur.

[ShirAhn]

I am working on making a main villain who basically psionically feeds on people, absorbing their knowledge (and spells) and gaining more power from it.
It will appear early in the campaign and keep reappearing until its defeated or becomes a CR 20 threat.
Basically i need help figuring out a mechanic to represent the psionic feeding, and how to increase its HD and such with each feeding.
Appearance wise its almost like a cloaked being who just barely is there, as it feeds it slowly becomes more "real" until its true self is remade once more.

Ideas and further suggestions would be nice.

I would consider this, maybe the NPC's meet him upon entering the town, the person seems sickley and weak. Maybe he is coughing allot, just a random man they come across. They might take pitty on the old man and give him some coin. Next day, they come across him again, just in passing by and now the man seems healthy. His skin has gained some color and he is walking upright. Maybe he casts a prestidigitation spell to clean some of his cloathing. It would probably be wise to keep the hints very small and subtle in the beginning but you can you make the hints more obvious as he gains strength and becomes a bit bolder.

Now about the mechanics, this is the first thing that came to my mind, I would need some time to work on the wording but Im sure you are better than me at figuring those out.

Etherealness: The Psionic Wraith of Death enters the Ethereal Plane from The Material Plane, or vice versa. It is visible on The Material Plane while it is in the Border Ethereal, and vice versa, yet it can't affect or be affected by anything on the other plane.

MindMelt:range 5ft - the Psionic Wraith of Death can use its action to try and consume the thoughts and memories of its target. The target must role a DC14 wisdom saving through or become affected by mindrot (the DC increases by 2 per mindrot stage). A unconcious (sleeping) target automaticly fails the saving throw. The Psionic Wraith of Death can use this abilitiy once per long rest. If the Psionic Wrath of Death uses this ability on the same target in subsequential days the mindrot level goes up for each day the target is affected.

Mindrot stages:
stage 1: For the Next 24h the target is very forgetful and cannot make new memories. The Psionic Wraith of Death gains access to the thoughts and memories of the target of the last weeks.
stage 2: All the effects from stage 1, and the targets intelligence is lowered by 1d6, if this sets the targets intelligence to 0 the target dies. The psionic wraiths of Death learns the targets spells level 1 to three.
stage 3: All the effects from stage 2, the target becomes comatose and is considered paralysed. The Psionic Wraith of death learns all the targets spells and memories.
stage 4: the target dies, the Psionic Wraith of death is able to mimic the targets speach patterns and voice precisily. The Wraith also goes up 1CR.


Using a stage mechanic like this gives you the opportunity to use it on players aswel if they spend a night without a guard. It can even seem like a plague is affecting a town and slowly killing the people. Maybe this helps, Ill keep an eye on the tread and will try to make better suggestions later.

[j_spencer93]

I will be taking all of these into consideration. Working on building it now.

A side boss in my campaign, an old PC turned NPC built as a mystic, I made this way. Is this OP? Not powerful enough?
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/384779-erza