Monster Meddling: Making A Bigger Otyugh

[Zhorn]

I like the otyugh as an encounter, but unfortunately my players are a good deal higher in level that playing it out of the book is not going to pose a serious challenge.
As a 1 of 6 encounters in an adventuring day, it'll still cost some resources, but I'm looking to make this a centrepiece monster in a small sidequest dungeon, and as such I want to give it a bit more of a boost.

Looking for some general tips and brainstorming some ideas to to turn this into a beefier encounter.

Ideas so far
Size: bump it up to huge to give it more of a presence. This thing is going to be a mutant alpha otyugh.
Tentacles: Making them function like hydra heads. They split, regrow, multiple. It gets a number of tentacle attacks based on the number of active tentacles
Bite: Still only one per turn, but add on a swallow mechanic. Target's for bites are restricted to tentacle grappled targets
Fling: If it's grappling more than 1 target, the other grappled targets can be flung with their associated tentacle's attack.

What else to throw onto this thing? Ideally I want it to be a solid CR for a party of 5 level 8-10, with a couple of medium encounters beforehand to soften them up a little. The group has a cleric, ranger and celestial warlock, so they'll have enough healing to pull through a deadly encounter, but ideally there should be a couple of close calls so the victory feels earned.

[JNAProductions]

I like the otyugh as an encounter, but unfortunately my players are a good deal higher in level that playing it out of the book is not going to pose a serious challenge.
As a 1 of 6 encounters in an adventuring day, it'll still cost some resources, but I'm looking to make this a centrepiece monster in a small sidequest dungeon, and as such I want to give it a bit more of a boost.

Looking for some general tips and brainstorming some ideas to to turn this into a beefier encounter.

Ideas so far
Size: bump it up to huge to give it more of a presence. This thing is going to be a mutant alpha otyugh.
Tentacles: Making them function like hydra heads. They split, regrow, multiple. It gets a number of tentacle attacks based on the number of active tentacles
Bite: Still only one per turn, but add on a swallow mechanic. Target's for bites are restricted to tentacle grappled targets
Fling: If it's grappling more than 1 target, the other grappled targets can be flung with their associated tentacle's attack.

What else to throw onto this thing? Ideally I want it to be a solid CR for a party of 5 level 8-10, with a couple of medium encounters beforehand to soften them up a little. The group has a cleric, ranger and celestial warlock, so they'll have enough healing to pull through a deadly encounter, but ideally there should be a couple of close calls so the victory feels earned.

I have work real soon, but I'll take a stab at a Greater Otyugh when I get home, if you'd like.

What you've got so far are some great ideas, though!

[PhoenixPhyre]

If it's going to be a solo fight, give it legendary actions. At that level, you might want to consider legendary resistance as well, but it's not mandatory as it would be at higher levels.

And/Or lair actions.

[stoutstien]

I like the otyugh as an encounter, but unfortunately my players are a good deal higher in level that playing it out of the book is not going to pose a serious challenge.
As a 1 of 6 encounters in an adventuring day, it'll still cost some resources, but I'm looking to make this a centrepiece monster in a small sidequest dungeon, and as such I want to give it a bit more of a boost.

Looking for some general tips and brainstorming some ideas to to turn this into a beefier encounter.

Ideas so far
Size: bump it up to huge to give it more of a presence. This thing is going to be a mutant alpha otyugh.
Tentacles: Making them function like hydra heads. They split, regrow, multiple. It gets a number of tentacle attacks based on the number of active tentacles
Bite: Still only one per turn, but add on a swallow mechanic. Target's for bites are restricted to tentacle grappled targets
Fling: If it's grappling more than 1 target, the other grappled targets can be flung with their associated tentacle's attack.

What else to throw onto this thing? Ideally I want it to be a solid CR for a party of 5 level 8-10, with a couple of medium encounters beforehand to soften them up a little. The group has a cleric, ranger and celestial warlock, so they'll have enough healing to pull through a deadly encounter, but ideally there should be a couple of close calls so the victory feels earned.

Are you building this purely as a combat encounter or as potentially a social or exploration one?

The limited telepathy is a great feature to breath some life into it.

[Zhorn]

Are you building this purely as a combat encounter or as potentially a social or exploration one?

The limited telepathy is a great feature to breath some life into it.

The resolution is going to be expected as simply combat based (the otyugh's primitive mindset is just "eat everyone"), but I do intend to fluff the telepathy into the exploration/discovery of the encounter. Read once about someone's otyugh encounter having people receiving visions of things they really wanted, and going missing shortly after (with the reveal the otyugh was drawing in victims with its telepathy). Plus with enough latent psychic energy floating about in the air I can justify a swarm of flumphs harmlessly floating about the area... because flumphs :smallwink:

[Prince Vine]

Rather than building from the Otyugh, build from the Kraken. Already legendary, lots of tentacles, take away the aquatic stuff and add a stink.

Or I suppose if you don't hate your players you could go more like the hydra.

[Zhorn]

Rather than building from the Otyugh, build from the Kraken. Already legendary, lots of tentacles, take away the aquatic stuff and add a stink.

Or I suppose if you don't hate your players you could go more like the hydra.
I could, but there's more I'd be cutting off the kraken and adding to it compared to what I'm just adding to the Otyugh to get it to where I want it.

The tentacle fling is pretty much already being copied from the kraken.
The multiple tentacles is the reskinning of the hydra heads.

Attribute scores, speed, AC saves and senses are all pretty close to baseline if not unchanged.

The encounter space is going to have a bit of a sarlacc pit vibe to it. Steep sloped terrain leading down to the Otyugh's wallow, prone creatures will have an involuntary movement towards the pit at the top of each round. with the creature utilising it's fling with held creatures or nearby debris to knock over the characters at range, force then into melee reach.

[MrStabby]

Things I would Suggest:

1) A hide ability. Having this thing emerge from a pool when the players are close would make it tougher. Instead of pulling them in, thisislooking to stop them escaping.

2) A swim speed. A deep pool of filth is not only a good place to hide but a way of making the encounter more scary. With the PCs in the water and ahving disadvantage on attacks and diffuculty making spells with verbal components the Otyugh has a real advantage.

3) More HP. Loads of HP can suck up a lot of resources and ensures the beast gets a go

4) A stinking cloud type effect. Maybe triggered as a reaction when it takes more than a certain amount of damage?

5) A swallow whole ability. This and a hide ability can work well. The party may want to stay back and use ranged attacks, but if the Otyugh surprised the party and grabbed and ate one of them then they may need to wade in and focus on a quicker resolution.

6) Four arms, four reactions. Great for hurting the PCs for running away.

7) General increase in proficiency: +2 to hit, +2 con saves, maybe giving proficiency to strength saves, +2 to DC

8) Legendary stuff. Actions and saves.

9) More flexible abilities. Maybe something like: lunge - move up to 10 ft and make a single tentacle attack; belch - force a con save of all PCs within 10 ft are incapacitated till the end of their next turn; malignant telepathy - wisdom save or take a small amount of psychic damage and be stunned - a good range of about 60 ft should be enough.

[Zhorn]

Liking the suggestions so far. Will look into the swimming and stink cloud a bit later.

Here's a draft of what I've written up so far:

Otyugh Pit Lord

Huge aberration, neutral
Armor Class: 16 (natural armor)
Hit Points: 250 (20d12 + 120)
Speed: 30 ft.
STR 19 (+4)
DEX 11 (+0)
CON 23 (+6)
INT 6 (-2)
WIS 14 (+2)
CHA 6 (-2)

Saving Throws: Con +10
Senses: darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages: Otyugh
Challenge: 12 (8,400 XP)

Limited Telepathy.
The otyugh can magically transmit simple messages and images to any creature within 120 feet of it that can understand a language. This form of telepathy doesn't allow the receiving creature to telepathically respond.

Multiple Tentacles.
The otyugh has two tentacles. Whenever the otyugh takes 30 or more damage in a single turn, and the source did not include fire or frost damage, one of its tentacles splits into two.
After 24 hours, any extra tentacles it has above two are shed from the otyugh's body.

Reactive Tentacles.
For each tentacle the otyugh has beyond one, it gets an extra reaction that can be used only for opportunity attacks.

ACTIONS
Multiattack.
The otyugh attack once with each of its tentacles, each of which can be replaced with a fling, followed by a single attack with either its bite or swallow.

Bite.
Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 18 (3d8 + 4) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw against disease or become poisoned until the disease is cured. Every 24 hours that elapse, the target must repeat the saving throw, reducing its hit point maximum by 5 (1d10) on a failure. The disease is cured on a success. The target dies if the disease reduces its hit point maximum to 0. This reduction to the target's hit point maximum lasts until the disease is cured.

Swallow.
The otyugh makes one bite attack against a Medium or smaller target it is grappling. If the attack hits, the target is also swallowed, and the grapple ends. While swallowed, the target is blinded and restrained, it has total cover against attacks and other effects outside the otyugh, and it takes 14 (4d6) acid damage at the start of each of the otyugh's turns. A otyugh can have only one creature swallowed at a time.
If the otyugh takes 30 damage or more on a single turn from the swallowed creature, the otyugh must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw at the end of that turn or regurgitate the creature, which falls prone in a space within 10 feet of the otyugh. If the otyugh dies, a swallowed creature is no longer restrained by it and can escape from the corpse by using 15 feet of movement, exiting prone.

Tentacle.
Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 15ft., one target.
Hit: 8 (1d10 + 4) bludgeoning damage plus 5 (1d10) piercing damage. If the target is Medium or smaller, it is grappled (escape DC 16) and restrained until the grapple ends. The otyugh can grapple one target with each of its tentacles.

Fling.
One Large or smaller object held or creature grappled by the otyugh is thrown up to 40 feet in a random direction and knocked prone. If a thrown target strikes a solid surface, the target takes 3 (1d6) bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it was thrown. If the target is thrown at another creature, that creature must succeed on a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw or take the same damage and be knocked prone.

Tentacle Slam.
The otyugh slams creatures grappled by it into each other or a solid surface. Each creature must succeed on a DC 16 Strength saving throw or take 10 (3d6 + 4) bludgeoning damage and be stunned until the end of the otyugh's next turn. On a successful save, the target takes half the bludgeoning damage and isn't stunned.

LEGENDARY ACTIONS
The otyugh can take 1 legendary action, choosing from the options below, and only at the end of another creature's turn . The otyugh regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.

Tentacle Attack or Fling.
The otyugh makes one tentacle attack or uses its Fling.

Telepathic Compulsion.
The otyugh bombards the mind of one target within the range of the otyugh's Limited Telepathy. The target must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become charmed. While under the otyugh's sway, it must use its full movement on its turn to approach the otyugh in the most direct path possible.
If the target takes any damage it may repeat the saving throw, end the effect on a success.
This effect ends if the charmed creature is taken out of range of the otyugh's Limited Telepathy, or if the otyugh dies, falls unconscious, or targets another creature with Telepathic Compulsion.