I love how this "How to slay x monster" series provides great tips for GMs on how to run the monsters and how to slay them for the players at the same time
I was fighting a mind flayer, and my team failed to kill it before it plane-shifted away. The DM went to the trouble of describing a fresh, throbbing scar we had carved into its head, which was “in the shape of a reverse question-mark.” We immediately realized that in the future, we would likely be facing two or more mind flayers, one of which was identifiable, and had a grudge. It sent chills through the party and was one of the best multiple encounters we ever had.
I would love an elder brain video. In my game, the players wake up in their base that they've established to find that some of the townsfolk that have set up there have gone missing. The ranger in the party tracked the kidnappers back to a cave which they continued to follow to a mind flayer colony. It happens to be the same colony they were rescued from in session 1 where the campaign began, and I tell the players that they recognize it as such. While the party distracted the mind flayers at the bridge leading to the colony with ranged attacks and spells, the sorcerer flew over the colony, searching for the elder brain, in a desperate attempt to kill it (they felt this was a necessary step to eventually freeing the slaves). The sorcerer was stunned out of the air by a mind blast and fell in the brain's pool of brine where tadpoles fought to infest his body. He sustained enough damage and failed his saving throws, and so died. The players failed, and they retreated. They ended up just blowing up the cave entrance. At the end of the session, I reminded them that the sorcerer had some valuable items, one of which was a phylactery they needed to kill the BBEG at the presumable end of the campaign, so they would have to go back in there at some point. I have no idea how they should tackle this. I have a plot hook where they will run into some Gith that will need their help, and will be rewarded with an amulet that makes the wearer immune to the mind flayers mind blast (maybe have the Gith offer to assist them, if the players bring it up?). I'm sure they'll come up with a solution, but I'd love your guys' ideas on how the mind flayers should play. note; the players are level 12 now, so maybe level 13 when they attempt to tackle this
You could also be an artificer. At level 10 you have +10 to Int saves (added +1 from C o P). At level 20, you can guarantee a 20 for the roll, so a standard Mind Flayer is something you can handle on your own while the rest of your party escapes/ foils plan, etc.
Planning on using mind flayers in my next campaign. Really hoping I'm able to keep up with the 'plans within plans' aspect of their lore without irritating my players to the point of being frustrated instead of engaged.
I loved the idea that Kelly was trying to convey about the completely alien creature not communicating with the player characters as it simply slammed them back into an operation table, showing complete dispassion towards its "lab rat". I hear you, Kelly. I hear you.
Personally, I don't think that fully applies here, since the prey they are hunting is intelligent. I agree that it wouldn't really give a f about bargaining with the players (unless it's in a position where it absolutely has to in order to survive ofc), but it could still find a way to mislead the players by lying to them, luring them places or trash talking them into making mistakes. These are not typical strategies we use to hunt because the food we hunt is typically not human level intelligent, but they would be effective for mind flayers.
@@f.a.santiago1053 I don't understand why you seem to have taken it so personally. I wasn't saying you liking the concept is wrong or anything, I was just giving my thoughts on the matter in question and trying to have a discussion. It wasn't meant as an attack, so if you percieved it as one, I apoologize.
@@filipferencak2717 I must have misread your comment. I understood it as you telling me that I was wrong in my perception of the thing. Thank you for the clarification! I apologize as well!
Fantastic vid, as always, Dungeon Dudes! I ran a Mind Flayer story back in 2004ish with 3.5. The 18th-level party found clues of a world-ending cult. But after barely surviving run-ins with very well-prepared goons, the players got angry and broke character to accuse me of metagaming them with too well-designed encounters. Sigh. Anyways, after I assured them there was an in-game explanation, they jumped [correctly] to the conclusion that it was Mind Flayer(s) behind the cult. The cult had all this imagery of transformation like butterflies. However, instead of working out how to defeat the Mind Flayer, the players just quit the campaign. Some heroes, lol. I double-checked with them, "Y'all gonna end up victims of the world-ending scheme 100%, but if you try to fight them, at least there is a chance, no?" Nope. They all quit and let the world burn in Mind Flayer's madness. First time I ever ended the world as DM. Hard to forget.
That sounds like a great start to another campaign. The world is plunged into mind flayer rule, and you dear adventurers, have to escape, and fight them.
@Faxmine one 2e official campaign had as a possible ending if the players fail but survive that the entire multiverse is ruled by the Mindflayers whose empire never fell (so no Githyanki, Githzerai or Gith Pirates as they didn’t rebel) and only the players and anyone with them know what the multiverse used to be like. So not just one world fallen it’s everywhere!
@@baynemacgregor8441 Would you happen to know the name of the campaign???? I have a huge save file given to me by a friend with a shit ton of dnd campaigns and stuff from different editions, so they might actually have this one and I can just transfer it over to 5e
It’s the campaign that works with the Monstrous Arcana Illithiad Sourcebook, a trilogy of adventures being: A Darkness Gathering, Masters Of Eternal Night and Dawn Of The Overmind. An extremely underrated campaign. Of course being in a universe where the Illithid Rule Everywhere is only a brief suggestion for what happens if the PCs lose but it’s the most Illithid campaign ever. I’m going to run it (for the third time) as a continuation of Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis as the Illithid plot perfectly explains what caused the problem the Astral Elves are destroying worlds to stave off the mere symptom of.
Debuff their int saving throws, maybe silvery barbs it, then cast feeblemind. Hard to land but it will absolutely eviscerate a creature who's pride is its intelligence.
Super helpful.... I had to make a cut in my D&D campaign yesterday because I led my group into an abandoned dwarven city where a mindflayer is livimg and I had no idea how to use it... thanx to you, now I do
Every time there was an unexplained event in our underdark campaign, a perversely dapper derro with crazy hair would appear out of nowhere, and then look back into nowhere's middle distance. Calmly and authoritatively, with hands about a foot apart like he was recounting a good fishing story, he would state: "Mindflayers... ...or Unicorns." I think his name was George Tookus or something.
As a DM, my favorite thing about Mind Flayers is that, while they might not be the most powerful of monsters, they are among the very short list of things that aren't realistically beaten. Considering their lore, no party of rag tag adventures will ever be more than sport for a Mind Flayer.
A high elf Great Old Ones Warlock is a great counter to a mind flayer. Resistance to charm, immunity to having their mind read, and reflecting any psychic damage back to the attacker. Not to mention their access to spells like detect thoughts, dominate person, and create thrall can all directly undermine the Mind Flayer's scheming.
Man! This brings back my memory of the one and only TPK I've ever experienced as a player. Yes, that mind blast and all players failing their saves happened to our party! Just one successful save would have tipped the battle; this was just one mind flayer versus a party of four.😔 High respect to this foe, indeed!👍 Thanks for this video tip, dudes!😊
My first character was a human Alchemist named Zeno. He spent two years in the underdark serving one of the high house of 3.5 drow. His roommate was actually a mind flayer named Alfric. The sick S.O.B Was operating on my masterwork flesh golem once and forced me to study anatomy that evening. He then knocked me out then implanted to rune on my brain and grafted a tendril onto my brain. The rune was a kill switch implanted at the quest of the lady of the high house that I served whie conducting my own research. The tendril was a buff that gave me intelligence, and Wisdom Checks when I was in the proximity of a mind flayer.
This reminds me of one of my proudest moments in D&D. My party was up against 3 mind slayers and an andro sphinx that was being dominated. The entire party but my Sorcerer was stunned by the mind flayers. I was able to use a heightened hypnotic pattern to catch one of the mind flayers, and by the luck of the dice it was the one concentrating on the dominated sphinx, so now it was me and the sphinx vs 2 mind flayers because of poor rolls for the rest of the party.
I'm running my group through Dragon Heist (Alexandrian remix, but set on Ravnica). They took a job to whack Xanathar's mind flayer at around level 4. They called in a favor from the Boros Legion to get a paladin ally and six infantry to back them up, then offered a favor to the Dimir for info on the mind flayer's movements. (I should mention now that in my version of Ravnica, plane shifting requires an ability check) They ambushed the mind flayer in the undercity as it was escorting two dazed-looking goblins from the Xanathar hideout back to the surface. The alpha strike went about as planned, and the mind flayer failed its ability check to plane shift on round two, so it died before its third turn. The clues that the players hadn't picked up on were that the goblin minions they'd been ignoring were actually intellect devourers, so the fight actually got worse for the players after the mind flayer died! The party paladin (not the Boros ally) got his brain ate and the party had to work for the Boros to earn a Greater Restoration.
Mindflayers are SUCH fun nightmare fuel. We once had to deal with a spellcasting 'flayer who was just... SUCH a problem. This was in 3.5, so, for those who don't know, no counterspell. You could counter spells if you made a Spellcraft check and had the spell the foe was using prepared/in your known spells as a sorc or w/e by "casting" that spell, using the slot/prep, as a reaction, OR use Dispel Magic (but that competes with fireball and fly and stuff in 3rd lv slots), OR use the improved counterspelling feat to counter a spell using any spell/slot at least one level higher than the spell to be countered. Upcasting wasn't really a thing, but you could use a fourth+ level spell slot to cast or use a third level spell if you NEEDED more third level spells, and metamagics were feats that let you prep/cast spells with the enhanced effect at the cost of increasing the required spell slot level (As examples, silent spell boosted by one, maximize boosted spell level by 3, and quicken increased it by 4). This all mattered because this 'flayer was BIG on illusions, and we didn't know it was a spellcaster at the time. At first it was mostly concealing its presence, but once it knew we knew about it, it moved to... different strategies. Our GM gave it a trick where it could treat thralls as spotters for its spells as long as the spell target location was still in the mind flayer's range, and it had a bunch of people in town it could use for that. Brief glimpses of the mindflayer leading us on wild goose chases, sudden ambushes in alleys that weren't even real forcing us to use resources, if just pre-fight buffs, as well as stalking us invisibly from above to re-learn our habits as we got more paranoid, among other things. It was nightmare fuel and we still had no idea where it was actually based out of. Trick set number 2: It WASN'T based out of anywhere most of the time! It had multiple safehouses around town that it would shift between, as in places operated by its now-thralls. It had decided that we were potentially dangerous, so it was doing everything to make us run ourselves ragged until it could start making the decisive blow. Trick set 3: Suggestion.... SUBTLE suggestions. Specifically to make us think one of the other PCs had been enthralled. Just... slight changes in their behaviors and habits, unusual attention to enunciating things clearly, things a person could think to do but that it's weird to suddenly focus on, and is in line with some of the things the few thralls we'd identified would do. Not helped by the DM being someone who, yunno, also talked to us otherwise (and in my case my sister), so she would give us instructions regarding magical effects, personally-known info, etc. out of session pretty often for different campaigns. Trick set 4, once we'd finally found the mind flayer: The classic, intellect devourers! With a twist. It had I think 4 prisoners who looked like they were on the block to be eaten or converted but were actually pre-prepped to be hazards by A) being implanted with intellect devourers and B) having incisions in their skulls so the devourers could break out easily. Also a couple other pre-prepped thralls were standing around. Invisible. This mind flayer had brought most of its resources, as in I think all of its intellect devourers, into play to deal with us. So, as you might have guessed, eventually the "prisoners" stood up from where they were not actually cuffed down and rushed us to release the intellect devourers at us as soon as we were vulnerable. Also it kept throwing around more illusions (through the thralls, as it turned out, I'll get to that in a sec), which is where the counterspelling issue comes in. Invisibility on thralls AND on us so we couldn't tell where each other were while it still did through telepathy and see invisibility, blocking lines of sight with darkness and fog-like effects, blinding flares of light, blur or blink on the intellect devourers as we tried to fight them off... it was CHAOS. Trick set 5: The mind flayer was not *THE* mind flayer. Just *A* mind flayer. The actual big bad had already left and had its lieutenant (who had been quietly managing the main lair the big bad had been distracting us from) fight us. They had finally gotten the chance to find... whatever they needed, pack, up, and get ready to get going. The big bad stayed close enough to keep casting and sustaining spells, namely going to a room directly above the chamber we were in. The lieutenant also ended up escaping eventually, and we barely got out with our lives, but also got some clues about the bigger picture. Turns out the mindflayer was investigating the same thing we were! For different reasons, but still. Never ended up finding the mind flayer again, though.
As DM i love MindFlayer. i have a recurrent scenario i play, i have a small group of mindflyers that use a tavern in the road as a usual eating spot... they do not attack if the party is to strong for them... The owner of the place its always left alive with the riches of the victims .. its great mid journey one session mistery adventure.
Kinda want to run a campaign against a mind flayer where, after a certain point in the story, I secretly get one of the party members to sabotage things, make wrong decisions, or just generally act against the party's interests. Then at a critical story moment, reveal the fact that they've been under the control of the mind flayer the whole time. Then the party have to decide how best to rescue their friend AND defeat the mind flayer.
I was in a mid-high tier campaign a year or so ago and our group was raiding a Mindflayer colony. While we stuck together (I think we had a cleric, wizard, druid, a barbarian, and my fighter...) we just swept right through; no problems. The instant my fighter got separated from the team I was cornered by 3 flayers and would've died had the barbarian not teleported himself (I forget the exact spell inside their Spell Storing Ring) into my place; he ended dying to the brain devour ability but my fighter got the opportunity to avenge his fallen friend. He even used the barbs axe to cut the 3 flayers down a few sessions later.
Top party comp for handling a Mind Flayer: - **Watcher Paladin:** Advantage on mental saves, Aura of Protection, Divine Smite to knock concentration minions out (or the mind flayer itself), Initiative bonus, Bless. A sorcadin build with it has higher octane smites and can also use quicken spell to further nuke the enemy. - **Valour Bard:** AoE control, Bardic Inspiration to cement safety for saves, Cutting Words to help land your own saving throws. - **Twilight Cleric:** Any Cleric would have done just because Spirit Guardians is good for mob clearing. Healing with healing word is also nice, and will be i charge of giving the party Aid. - **Gloomstalker Ranger:** Pass Without Trace for infiltration and Surprise, Alpha strike against the mind flayer, main damage dealer. Can also put down Conjure Animals for additional battlefield strength. - **(Optional) Chronurgist Wizard:** Someone has to figure out the Mind Flayer's plans, identify them, put down magic reconaissance and divination, and other utility. The Chronurgist edges out over Divination Wizard due to the ability to give additional spells for the party to use, such as Mirror Image, Greater Invisibility, Misty Step, etc.
Just finished a session where we went up against a vampiric mind flayer in its lair. I am a reborn elf necromancer, and was attacked by one of its vampiric mind flayer minions who implanted me with it's tadpole. It turned me into a mind flayer, but because I was already undead, I stayed in control. Anyways, we destroyed the creature and are now in charge of it's Nautoloid as a new base. It's crazy being be a minion-creating necromancer undead mind flayer.....😅
I'm 13 minutes into a 29 minute video on how to slay a mind flyer and all I've gotten so far is how to effectively play a mind flayer bbeg as a dm lol... I love it
In my current nautical campaign, this gave me great insight into having an "at sea" session where their ship is infiltrated by a lone mind flayer with a couple of intellect devourers. I've also wanted to try some in-between session "1-on-1" downtime and RP, and this would be a fantastic introduction for the mind flayer minimission. The possibilities are truly endless with mind flayers!
Very timely post guys! My group just entered into a fray with Mind Flayers in a Nautiloid as a cliffhanger from our last session. next session is a combat!
I’m a new player and am in a campaign where there are mind flayers working for an elderbrain... We’re literally supposed to fight them in our next session and all of us except for the DM are newbies, I think this video just saved our life! 😭 Dearest DM, if you see this, have mercy 🥹
Last week my players found themselves in the unenviable position of facing a nest of mind flayers. Five of the buggers, supported by a group of ten minotaur thralls (a war party that was caught sleeping by Intellect devourers), and a pack of six intellect devourers. The barbarian was NOT happy with me. At one point or another, everyone in the party wound up stunned except the divination wizard. The cleric used Spirit Guardians to great effect against the devourers, as the range on their stun attack is 10'. The wizard actually wound up fireballing the party to scrape minions off repeatedly. At 8th level, they had a rough time of it, but made it through.
Play an artillerist artificer and you hit all the right notes. Intellect fortress? Check. High int save? Check. Bail out others' (or your) saves? Check. Bail out intellect devourer contests? Check. Thunderwave for grapples? Check. Your turret also breaks grapples, and at range. Ranged spell attacks? Your specialty! I played an artillerist in a one shot that ended up fighting a mind flayer and it just felt like my fight.
One of the scariest mind flayers I used as a villain was from DnD 3.5.. a mind flayer assassin. Who was paid huge money to take out the most dangerous and difficult of missions
We fought a nasty flayer colony and elder brain in a heavily home brewed version of Waterdeep Dragon Heist where the PCs were Lv 10-13. Potions of psychic resistance were literal life savers. We got and used as many as we could. Bless was a life saver on helping with those psionic blasts. Medicine checks on EVERY NPC to check for signs of tadpole infection became standard operating procedure. I still shudder when even solo flayers come up in other campaigns.
I was listening to the video, and it reminded me a bit about the video on Rakshas from MrRhexx, and how they also used espionage and subterfuge to get their way. Now I'm planning a one shot where Rakshas and Mind flayers are "fighting" over a city, but using adventures and mercenaries as their pawns.
i really thought 25:14 was going to be "even though they can have all these plans, right, i like to think of that classic, classic line, 'everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face'."
Underground beehive-ish cave system. Stone giant thralls derping near large pools of tadpoles. Encounter ensues. 5 mindflayer proceeded by a fog cloud enter the fight wherever and whenever is the most advantageous through the beehive network of tunnels, that only a great mind would be able to comprehend.
I find that one of the best strategies when you are fighting any one of the many different kinds of supernaturally intelligent creatures, is be unpredictable. So do the most out-there thing you can think of. Is a pincer maneuver an obvious option? Then try to collapse the roof. Are they pulling back, seemingly retreating? Don't charge, instead retreat as well. That will mess up their plans and make them think you have a plan, hopefully resulting in them second guessing themself and making a mistake.
Just took 3 out in 2 rounds but got lucky that we knew where they were in an underground chamber. My Oath of the Watchers Paladin with +15 initiative got first go and used his flamethrower do engulf them quickly. My DM let my alcoholic Paladin have a special decanter of endless water made that creates 151 Rum, and I suddenly got the idea to hold a torch in front when using it geyser mode and he went with it and gave it the damage of 6th lvl fireball so 11d6 which I was not going to argue about being little high. I did it more for fun and flavor, but it works for me.
I had a magic-using mega elder brain that had establed a vast network of magic-using mind flayer colonies along the Sword Coast. It was powerful enough to be a warlock patron for which I created an NPC sub-class. I didn't get to finish that campaign. I envisioned the party getting to 20th level to take it on. The smarter thing to do though would have been to reach out to the non-magic-using mind flayers, who hate magic, and convince them to take it out.
Good video, excellent series as I have learned a lot from your channel. It probably goes without saying that these videos depend greatly on how they are played by the DM. I recently lost a 3 year character as there was a random Flayer behind a simple door, no warning or clues that one was around or behind the door. I got hit with its mind blast which did 75 points of damage (which is beyond what the MM states) it then walked up to me and hit me with extract brain, which then hit me with another massive amount of damage, killing my character, no rolls for intitiave, no saving throws nothing.
Why do I bring this up? Well, I would ask that in your videos you add warnings in relation to basics of rules and mofifications directed at DM/GM or inspiring DM/GM to remind them that bulking up NPC's, Homebrewing or changing the game is a talent that quite frankly not many people have. If they did, they would have a best selling book out for others to buy.... It is the simple things that people forget and it is those basics that carry over to all aspects of the game.
I came by to quip on title but was sold on the gorgeous artwork concept of your Dungeons of Drakkenheim! It's gorgeous!! OK, so it's an alternate universe title: How to Flay a Mind Slayer. Eh? Is this mike on?
I'm the DM and my gaming group scouted mind flayers in a tunnel nearby in our last session and our next session is in just a couple days. I hope they don't see this video!
I'm working on an arch where a nautilus crashed an eon ago and after a war with a lost civilization was sealed underground with powerful psychic wards that are now failing. The party is gonna have to work through the Underdark and encounter nearly empty cities of Drow and Svirfniblin that succumbed to mass insanity due to the psychic static constantly in their minds which is louder the further you get from the failing wards. Ultimately they'll have to work through the mindflayers who still can't plain shift due to the wards and battle to the heart of the nautilus where they'll face the Elder Brain. I'm looking forward to it but it'll be a lot of work to keep the whole eldritch horror thing going. Wish me luck.
My party was investigating some strange charitable priestlike people, who were "servants of the elders". Listening to their stories, healing injuries and diseases. The party found out, that once in a while there was a 'celebration of passing', when a venerable person was telling his lifes story and in the middle of the celebration simply vanished. Sometimes vanished people returned for a short time and talked to those left behind to comfort them and told them, how great it was on the other side. The party considered it to be some kind of suicide cult, but everyone took part voluntarily. Something was fishy. Little did they know, that the 'cultists' were spellcasters controled by intellect devours. Bards can cast healing magic, too. During the events an Elder Oblex was behind the stage, ate the memories (very carefully to almost neglect the damage), and then sent a Sulfurous Impersonation to the stage, which after saying a few words - disappeared. The star of the show was shipped to the colony with his old brain full of memories. The returned were also just Sulfurous Impersonation. There was a small research colony nearby which just wanted a slow but steady source of food, while keeping its low profile. When the party finally found the colony and entered it, they realized, that there was something wrong. Little did they know, that shortly after they entered it, a large Githyanki Raiding Party arrived to destroy the colony and was hard on their heels. The party found itself between a rock and a hard place. They were led to the colony by hints from the mind flayers to delay the raiding party till the colony was evacuated. And it is hard to reason with Githyanki on a hunt, that you are not on the mind flayers side.
Mind flayer arcanists have Wall of Force. One I threw against my party just used the dome version, trapping itself with a beloved NPC and just munched on its brain while the rest of the party couldn't do a thing about it right before planeshifting away.
If you aren't in a position to coerce the dirt, then talking it into going along with your desires would be useful. I think this should be kept in mind. Just as the mind flayer is capable of reading the PC's minds to lay traps, the creatures are also capable of being shrewd diplomatic manipulators. They know what the dirt craves, and they can make the dirt's dreams come true. It's in a position to convince the PCs that it is the lesser evil by empowering them to defeat a lich/dragon/whatever (who just so happens to be a rival to the mind flayer's interests), and it's smart enough to recognize the long term value of utilizing finesse. What is perhaps more unsettling is the mind flayer's ability to, when confronted with the possibility that it may die in a combat encounter, suddenly propose to cut a deal with special insight into what the PCs have an intense desire for: including what could get a party member to betray the others for. Sure, the creature may have been a menace to the local town and will certainly be a continue threat, but in its big wrinkly brain is a cure for the barbarian's sister's magic AIDs.
My first and only encounter with a mind flayer so far involved three of them against a four member party at level five, LEVEL FIVE! I was a ranger with a +2 to my intelligence and the only one who had any idea of what these were, I shot down the first one facing me first and our fighter who dumped intelligence was caught by the second one, his only saving grace was that the DM rolled poorly on his attacks to eat his brain. I was able to save him by killing that mind flayer. The last one was trying to attack the warlock that casted mirror image but kept hitting his images. I think the fighter landed the final blow. The combat ended when the DM used an intellect devourer on me and rolled nine, yes nine, D-sixes on its devour intellect ability which, RULES AS WRITTEN, is only three D-sixes.
My 4E campaign was a tale of intrigue and conspiracy where the villains were attempting to subvert Fate, and Mind Flayers unwittingly acted as their spies. Fate in this world was understood to be the collective will of the Gods, which indirectly manipulated the choices ("Free Will") of mortals toward their desired ends. Mind Flayers, however, were from outside the universe and literally fed on thought. When an Illithid devoured and digested your brain, they would learn everything you knew, even if this was well after you had died because your thoughts had "imprinted" on the structure of your brain. That knowledge was then funneled to the Elder Brain at the center of that colony. The villains had figured out how to tap into the minds of the Elder Brains, learning what they knew and subtly manipulating them to direct the colonies where they wanted. Around the point of the big Act II climax, creatures of the Far Realm including Illithids had begun to infect the Plane of Dreams. Things were gonna get (sur)real. Never did finish though.
My group ran into a mindflayer as a random encounter in the Underdark during OotA. Gloomstalker Ranger (multiclass rogue) in our party, out of range of the mindflayer's telepathy. One shot and that guy dropped 50-something HP and he planeshifted outta there fast enough to give the rest of us whiplash.
I'll never forget the first time I ran a Mind Flayer. My players were facing off against a Mind Flayer and 4 minions all with Intellect Devourers in their brains. They were at a relatively low level for the encounter and nobody had a very INT score. They killed on of the minions and out pops the Intellect Devourer. The amount of fear they had realizing the deadly scenario they were in and how screwed they were if they just kept killing the minions was a truly epic moment. Every saving throw, every attack, they were on the edge of their seats sweating every single dice roll, pulling out every trick they had in their back pockets. In the end the Mind Flayer escaped while the party was busy with the minions/Intellect Devourers and they were constantly looking over their shoulders after that waiting for the Mind Flayer to make another appearance.
I'm running a homebrew campaign where a solo surviving Ulitharid Mindflayer is attempting to start a new colony without the need for an elder brain, instead becoming the focal point of the colony and the receptor of all information and instructions herself
When I play and my character learns that there are things that can charm, dominate and or control you fully, one of the first things I seek is a way to protect my mind in some semi permanent fashion. Simply because if you loose, there is nothing you can do and who would be okey knowing that without having protection.
I love this video! I’d love to see a companion one about how to run thralls/intellect devoured minions for a mindflayer. Maybe for like.. NPCs the party hasn’t met? Ones they have, or even party members? I like the idea of this but it always feels like it would require machinations and fooling of the PLAYERS that might cross boundaries for some people at the table. How do you lie for the story without people feeling like they’ve been tricked in a way that ruins fun?
A really like Mind flayers, they are probably on the top 3. During the video I kept thinking about how effective a Blade Singer Wizard would be against them, hey are super intelligent and have ways to get in front on the monster and start targeting that low AC.
A mate of mine had an occult slayer paladin / occult slayer prestige class 1 of there ability is deflect ray attacks back at the attacker which happened to be a Beholder so the beholder failed it's save resolved in it's death after the DM read the rules on the prestige class It was D&D 3.5 edition 1 of the best D&D edition in my opinion
My next campaign has an Alhoon BBEG (lich mind flayer) the scheming and mystery of the party exploring his old colony that’s decrepit and ruined and rotting is going to be the best part of that campaign and I cannot wait
this would have been useful in my last campaign. long-way into a mind flayer investigation, we tried to hijack a ship and oops! 3 mind flayers and 2 ropers aboard. It was a trap. A few rounds into combat, my bard got stunned by 1 mind blast, grappled and knocked unconscious by a roper, and then mind blasted again & had my brain eaten by a second mind flayer, unlucky saves. but it was ok in the end because we had a druid with resurrection :)
Doing waterdeep dragon heist now. The players decided to follow the Mind Flayer after making fast work of the other part of the encounter. The dice was on there side. He escaped but plans are being made.
I haven't had the chance to do it yet, but I've always wanted to homebrew a mind flayer barbarian. Rage-fueled mind blast, and enough strength to tear your head clean off before sucking the brains out.
Hey hey hey! I commented on Colby's channel when he represented some great Canadians with an awesome dungeon dudes shirt. Now I'm going to do they same by saying way to support a top tier Optimizer from south of the border. Love the d4 merch.
Ooh! My favorite prey!! I despise aberrations, but illithids most of all! I would even help an Aboleth against the 'thids! ) I always go GEM dragonborn , try to roll for decent high Intelligence scores no matter the class. Love Sorcerer with Mind Fortress, also especially Psi Warrior and/ or Gloom Stalker kill squad. And true Gem dragons make a mockery of abberations. Speak with any Sapphire dragon who lives in the Underdark ( who snack on giant spiders, make deals with drow, deep gnomes and loves enchanted military gear + stories) and they will likely help you. They make anti abberration plans mostly with Emeralds, but Amethysts make nice gem stalker servants of abberations and even Topazes and Crystals/ Quarts dragons might join the hunt! The psionic gem dragons silently protects as best they can, the worlds from abberation infestations. Lets terrorize and squash the squiddly noodle brainiacs! The Gith will be happy for it too unless competition😁
I think there is a DM's guild Product "Call from the Deep" that deals with Mind Flayers invading a part of the sword coast. Heard its pretty darn good.
In a campaign I'm in, our party is on a ship mapping out a large underground river, we've gotten clues that there are mindflayers ahead, and now we're in the very unenviable position of having to protect ourselves *and the crew* from a mindflayer colony that is almost inevitably on the route.
At our Adventurer's League table, our DM has almost exclusively tossed huge hordes of Mindflayers at us, and just recently we ran into an Elder Brain. He... kinda doesn't pull punches on that front, really. Kind of amazing none of us have died yet, if I'm being honest. Especially since I'm playing a squishy-assed Wizard.
My favorite mindflayer fight was a rabbit. I was playing a gith foreign exchange student in a strixhaven game. Being from the astral sea, my character was weirded out by rabbits beforehand, so when an illithid tadpole escaped from the holding tank in the cryptozoology classroom and the teacher's pet rabbit went missing.... Yeah kinda hard to top a tentacled bunny jumping around walls like a mind blasting xenomorph
I have a kingdom in the campaign I run that's really strict on 'wild' magic, loves arcano research, and has a ban on combat magic items in big cities. Did I realize before now that there's obviously a mind flayer or two in the upper echelon of the kingdom? Nope. But my players don't know that.
It's actually really easy to slay a mind flayer without even fighting it, assuming the campaign follows established illithid lore. You have to approach it like the Witcher: copious amounts of research for a very short payoff period. You see, there are a few things to keep in mind: 1. all illithids in a colony are connected through a psychic link; 2. the elder brains convince their mind flayer followers that being consumed by it means they join an all-powerful collective consciousness, but the truth is, they just die. So, if you tell a mind flayer the truth, the elder brain it's connected will probably use its psychic link to kill it before it can spread this truth to its fellow mind flayers.
My players killed one with one spell, one uncommon item and a horrible save on my part. The mind flayer psion dropped out of invisibility (I homebrewed that they have it, it only makes sense if they stock come seeing invisibility, they should be able to cast it) and hit the party with its cone mind blast. Everyone but the wizard and barbarian (who was not raging at the time) Wizard is up next, casts polymorph on the mind flayer. I rolled a 1 and a 2. They turned the mindflayer into a chicken. The barbarian dove for the mind chicken and dropped the bag of holding over it. Trapping it in the bag of holding. They kept it in there for the next three sessions to make sure it was dead.
Hands down, the Harpells found the best way to take down mind flayers. Just read Siege of Darkness by R A Salvatore. Genius to use polymorph to swap their brains and colons.
