“She welcomed us with open arms. Gave us piping hot stew, a warm drink, and a generous discount on her nicer rooms in the inn. ‘Course, the first night we didn’t find the passages behind our walls, or see the peep holes cut into the painting. The second night, we didn’t hear the door creaking open.” Captain Breardon, dead.
Designing Old Raena was an interesting challenge, as it felt important to make sure she was sustainable while still upholding the archetype of a “squishy” magic user that can fold under pressure from powerful melee attackers. Rather than giving her a boatload of hitpoints, even though 152 is nothing to scoff at, a more interesting direction was to reinforce her survivability by making it difficult to pin her down.
This all begins with her Reaction Blessing of the Depths, which allows Raena to reduce the damage she takes from an attack that hits her and teleport 30 feet away. This gives her a much-needed response to aggressive martial characters, which can be nightmarish for monsters of her archetype. While it’s still best to keep her out of harm’s way, don’t worry if one of those pesky fighters or barbarians gets up in her grill, Raena always stays cool under pressure.
Pairing with her teleportation are both of her main offensive tools, Oceanic Burst and Surging Waves. While both actions deal decent damage, 14 Cold damage for three hits and 36 Cold damage in a 30-foot Emanation, respectively, the utility of these abilities is what stands out. Any creature she hits with Oceanic Burst has its Speed reduced by 10 feet until the end of its next turn. And this stacks. This allows Raena to keep characters at bay, especially those she just teleported away from. Surging Waves does allow for a saving throw to reduce damage and avoid the secondary effect, but players better hope they save or they won’t just be slowed down. Any creature that fails its save not only takes sizable damage but has its speed reduced to 0, allowing Raena to freeze a whole group of characters attempting to gang up on her at close range.
Her Legendary Actions work to reinforce her playstyle further, with one option allowing for additional Oceanic Bursts, letting Raena slow down players at the end of their turn. But more interesting is Plunder Spirit, which does a little bit of Psychic damage but more importantly Incapacitates its target while also providing Raena with Temporary Hit Points. So while she jumps around the battlefield keeping her distance, the hag will continue siphoning energy from the players until they’re in perfect condition to be sacrificed.
Old Raena was a great statblock to write, and hopefully, you’ll have just as much fun tormenting your players with her.
By Ivo Hoying
Epigraph by Inti Navia – intinavia.com
This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 (“SRD 5.2.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond. com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
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