Medusa inspired question about Enthrall

[Dungeon-noob]

So i'm planning out many mischievous monsters to put in my encounters for my play group in my campaign. And while thinking about a Warlock Medusa i'm planning to use, i came across the spell Enthrall. It's a spell that is all about making people look at you. And i wondered if a Medusa casting it on someone would get any benefit out of it other then the RAW effects of the spell. Which don't seem to suggest any interaction with the Medusa's features. Or be all that good, as many an optimiser will know. I was wondering if the Forummind would be willing to weigh in on this, both to check my RAW reading and to help suggest some way to run this RAI or ROC?

[JNAProductions]

Technically, the spell doesn't say you have to look at the creature. Only that it's harder to perceive others.

How I would rule is that the vast majority of NPCs will just look at the source. If someone is forewarned of the stony gaze, they wouldn't look, but if caught by surprise, they'd be subject to a save against it. I might apply some ad-hoc penalties to other actions as they struggle to not look at the enthralling source.

For PCs, I'd let them act how they see fit. I trust my players to roleplay appropriately. (Heck, I had one of my players apply disadvantage to herself on a save, simply because it was a charm-like effect from a source her PC was already a bit smitten with.)

[Sorinth]

Yeah RAW there's no real interaction in part because Enthrall is about hearing the caster not necessarily seeing them. For RoC you could rule it that if you were already averting your eyes before Enthrall was cast even if you fail your save then you can continue to avert your eyes. However if you weren't averting your eyes when Enthrall was cast and fail your save then you can't choose to avert your eyes at the start of your turn.

Another RoC type interaction is if someone is incapacitated and the Medusa shakes them awake (Say after a Hypnotic Pattern/Sleep spell) then the player is treated as "surprised" and can't look away that 1st turn. But if others wake them up then it's fine. The Command spell on the other hand should give you the more RAW effect, have the command be "Look" or "Watch" and anyone who fails shouldn't be allowed to look away during their turn.

By the way is there a reason you went with Warlock instead of Bard, because a Medusa Bard focused on spells that get/force people to look at them sounds pretty interesting.

[Dungeon-noob]

Yeah RAW there's no real interaction in part because Enthrall is about hearing the caster not necessarily seeing them. For RoC you could rule it that if you were already averting your eyes before Enthrall was cast even if you fail your save then you can continue to avert your eyes. However if you weren't averting your eyes when Enthrall was cast and fail your save then you can't choose to avert your eyes at the start of your turn.

Another RoC type interaction is if someone is incapacitated and the Medusa shakes them awake (Say after a Hypnotic Pattern/Sleep spell) then the player is treated as "surprised" and can't look away that 1st turn. But if others wake them up then it's fine. The Command spell on the other hand should give you the more RAW effect, have the command be "Look" or "Watch" and anyone who fails shouldn't be allowed to look away during their turn.

By the way is there a reason you went with Warlock instead of Bard, because a Medusa Bard focused on spells that get/force people to look at them sounds pretty interesting.
Interesting ideas, i'm going to think on those. As for the class choice, it's because i wanted this Medusa to be the dark servant of a bigger bad. And warlock sells that a lot better. Could have gone with cleric, but that's too.....healthy and organised a relationship for what i'm going for.

[Amechra]

Dumb idea (that probably doesn't work with the character you have envisioned)... Medusa Conquest Paladin with the Blind Fighting FS and an obsession for creating "statues" of great warriors. You know, like an evil snake-themed valkyrie.

She wears a blindfold (or similar eye-blocking headwear) when fighting "the weak" (because they aren't worthy of being added to her "gallery"). If she takes someone seriously, though, she opens up the fight by whipping off her blindfold (or blindfold equivalent) with a shouted Command to "BEHOLD!" I'd also rule that Compelled Duel would make it kinda tricky to look away from her, for a lot of the same reasons that Enthrall would.

[Lord Vukodlak]

So technically speaking the spell doesn't say it MAKES you look at the caster but that's certainly within the spirit they'd be unable to avert their eyes.
But.... technically speaking you are the DM and are free to create new spells, or even alter abilities. Such as change the Archfey warlock's ability Fey Presence to force creatures to look at her instead.

[MrStabby]

Dumb idea (that probably doesn't work with the character you have envisioned)... Medusa Conquest Paladin with the Blind Fighting FS and an obsession for creating "statues" of great warriors. You know, like an evil snake-themed valkyrie.

She wears a blindfold (or similar eye-blocking headwear) when fighting "the weak" (because they aren't worthy of being added to her "gallery"). If she takes someone seriously, though, she opens up the fight by whipping off her blindfold (or blindfold equivalent) with a shouted Command to "BEHOLD!" I'd also rule that Compelled Duel would make it kinda tricky to look away from her, for a lot of the same reasons that Enthrall would.

Even ignoring shenanigans a paladin medusa is going to be very solid (if we are broadly talking about class levels), even just by being able to jack up AC. Forcing disadvantage doesn't matter so much when the PC still has a chance to hit with it. Basically attack rolls won't work so well... which then leaves trying to take the medication down with save effects that are well protected against by aura of protection (and possibly not seeing the medusa). And the paladin healing is more efficient (in terms of the number of turns worth of damage you can undo with an action).


These could make for some nasty encounters.

[Sorinth]

Interesting ideas, i'm going to think on those. As for the class choice, it's because i wanted this Medusa to be the dark servant of a bigger bad. And warlock sells that a lot better. Could have gone with cleric, but that's too.....healthy and organised a relationship for what i'm going for.

Ok makes sense, but keep in mind you don't have to be all that strict following PC rules, so for example even though Command isn't a Warlock spell you can still give it here. Hold Person is potentially another option, if a PC was only averting their eyes instead of closing them completely if they get paralyzed then the medusa could probably very easily force a look so long as she is close to the victim. In the end a spell list focused on enchantment/illusion stuff with maybe an escape spell as well.

Not sure if it fits your story, but I can imagine a scene where the medusa is disguised and performing in front of a large crowd, casts Enthrall, reveals herself to be a medusa, and starts turning everyone in the crowd to stone as her villainous introduction to the PCs. The fact that Enthrall has a larger range then Petrifying Gaze is actually great since this means she has to move through the crowd to get everyone and those that are enthralled are just standing/sitting there waiting to be turned to stone. If the PCs were attending that performance and were in that 31-60 foot range when the reveal happened then it might not be super deadly but could still be scary if a good number of PCs failed against Enthrall, and it gives them a goal beyond fighting since they presumably should try to save as many enthralled people they can in the crowd before they get turned to stone.

I would probably even flesh out the Medusa a bit more and have her only want/keep statues of beautiful people with happy/serene looks on their face, she thinks the standard medusa trope of wanting horror/fear in the statues is beneath her refined tastes. So she prefers to charm her victims first so that she gets a better looking statue. As she's turning the enthralled people in the crowd to stone she's also judging them on their looks, "Oh I just can't stand mustaches" and then tips the statue over breaking it, moves on to the next one, "What an ugly nose, there fixed it for you" as she breaks the nose off another statue and laughs.

[Yakk]

If you want your Medusa to have an AOE "look at me" ability, give it to the Medusa.

It will impact its CR, but so will using a spell to do it.

[Sorinth]

Even ignoring shenanigans a paladin medusa is going to be very solid (if we are broadly talking about class levels), even just by being able to jack up AC. Forcing disadvantage doesn't matter so much when the PC still has a chance to hit with it. Basically attack rolls won't work so well... which then leaves trying to take the medication down with save effects that are well protected against by aura of protection (and possibly not seeing the medusa). And the paladin healing is more efficient (in terms of the number of turns worth of damage you can undo with an action).


These could make for some nasty encounters.

Rogue levels are also quite strong on a medusa. If everyone is averting their eyes then being able to BA Hide is very strong, and the Snake Hair uses Dex so could conceivably work with SA, though they already have two Shortsword/Longbow attacks so probably not even needed.

[MrStabby]

Rogue levels are also quite strong on a medusa. If everyone is averting their eyes then being able to BA Hide is very strong, and the Snake Hair uses Dex so could conceivably work with SA, though they already have two Shortsword/Longbow attacks so probably not even needed.

I would add though that I wouldn't usually recommend directly adding class levels to monsters, but I do think that classes are nice intuitive packages of abilities that can be added to build out a threat. The intuitive element is nice to telegraph to players...

Having added the obligatory disclaimer, I agree that rogue/cunning action is good!

[Amechra]

Yeah, the risk behind building monsters like PCs is that they're designed very differently — PC vs. PC fights are going to end up feeling very rocket-tag-y in comparison to a PC vs. Monster fight.

[Dungeon-noob]

Thanks to everyone for weighing in. I'm well aware of the PC build risk, and tht won't be a problem. I'm just slapping a few spells on a base creature, since warlock is such an easy change to make in story too. I'm specifically going for an interesting single bossfight, so i don't need it to be more complicated than that. She's going to be the surprise boss to a snake cult abducting people to induct them into the cult. Deep in the swamps, after the party has defeated the rest of the cult, they rush over to concern themselves with the young girl who they think is a sacrifice or unwilling idol, only for her to throw of her cloak after she's in the midst of the group with all eyes on her. Should be a fun introduction, i think.