Homebrew Creatures: Apsara and Caryatid

[jjordan]

Self-scrubbing for reasons.

[Loek]

The main question I have is: What kind of Challenge Rating are these supposed to be?
That bit of information will help greatly in determining if things are balanced/make sense.

Then, onwards to the critters:
Apsara
The higher dex/cha score with lower modifiers... I'm curious as to why you'd want this (as in actually curious, please tell).
But I think you should probably do give them normal modifiers, but then slap on an ability/feature that lowers the modifiers in practice.
To avoid the appearance of it being a typo (plus, you can add the reasoning as fluff in said ability)

Truesight 120 basically means "I don't like illusionists/shapeshifters". Probably okay, but be aware that you might make someone's whole character invalid that way.

Innate Spellcasting is where the whole CR question comes into play. As it stands, these are very minor spells and some (like create/destroy water) that seem like their bread and butter are limited per day. The only reason that this would be okay, is if the intended CR is very low.

Multiattack: "two attacks" versus any of her actions (which included spellcasting, which isn't - always - an attack) weird phrasing at the very least. That said, with the current spell list, it'll probably be okayish if the Apsara goes for double spells.

Slam an interesting attack, but unlike the spellcasting, this seems to indicate rather high CR. That said, my main thing with this, is rather bland name versus the rather flavorful attack. I'd recommend giving this a unique name to reflect it's unique qualities (reach, possible repell)

Summon Caryatids Along side the "Slam", this seems to be the main threat of the Apsara. I'm curious how you'd handle a recasting of this one. Will there be aditional Caryatids or will the originals stop. Or can you just not cast it again, while the first is still active? Or is it limited by the amount of possible sculptures?

Silence As written, this would also affect the Apsara. Leading to some questions like: Do her lair actions require vocal components? And is the Apsara the one providing the concentration for this spell?


Caryatid
Outside of their HP, these things are kinda terrifying.

Compared to a dire wolf:

Smaller (thus easier for them to gang up on the PCs)
Better armor class
More HP
slightly lower speed (40 is plenty in most in doors brawls)
Immunities and resistances
No knock prone chance
But 2 attacks, for more damage and with a better to hit
bonus disengage action (probably not going to be adding much, I guess, but since they have no other bonus actions, it's basically immunity to attacks of opportunity)


Like I've said a few times before, the target CR becomes really relevant to properly judge all this.

Finally, I'm kind of curious about the +6 to hit. Dex + 2 prof mod? (Which would point to a low CR, which would really make the proposed 2 attacks with 3 dice of damage look rather big. - And in turn make the summon ability REALLY powerful on the Apsara)


So yeah, interesting creatures. But feels really caught between low and high CR. Some information about that will help.

[Loek]

Don't know why. They are considerably scaled back from animated statues, stone golems, and such.

A stone golem is a CR 10 creature. These guys should probably be about a CR 1 or 2 at max, since the Apsara can summon multiple.

But 3 of the Caryatid will have:

The same AC at 17
Roughly the same HP at 150 vs 178
They are faster 40 vs 30
They trade the golems non-magical weapons immunity for certain damage type immunity (and some resistances)
They have weaker condition immunities
They don't have the magic resistance
But they do 6 attacks vs the golems 2
Which will probably have advantage, as per pack tactics


So yeah, way weaker vs magic (the effects, the damage types, they might do okay/better), not doing magical damage with their attack and no slowing stuff.
But in return they get more attacks, probably some with advantage and increase mobility (speed and disengage)

a pack of 4 of the Caryatid would probably rate in the CR6-8 range, if not higher (don't hold me to this, as I'm not really a CR expert, I just do comparisons usually)

(Another comparison, beyond the wolf/golem would be the animated glass statue. But it's critical role and thus generally seriously overpowered for it's CR. And even then, it's already CR 1 with 10 ac and 22HP)
(And yes, I'll keep comparing to the wolves, as those *bleep*ers can be scary versus a non-magically optimized party way past where they are supposed to be scary)

[jjordan]

Noted. I've scaled back the damage they inflict, reduced their hit points to make it possible to kill them in two rounds (for a tier 2 character), and lowered their AC.

[Metastachydium]

Caryatid
Medium Construct, Neutral


(Interesting fact: incidentally, 3.xe got these right when it referred to them as caryatid columns in the FF. Caryatids as creatures are really just walnut tree nymphs.)