New series, it’ll be interspersed when I don’t have a Friday Night D&D specific idea, we’re going to be doing the Monsterpedia, where we look at a monster, probably in alphabetical order and break them down as to how you can use them in your game. Very few rules for this, other than that I’m starting with evil aligned monsters. No real reason for that, I just needed to start somewhere.

Aboleth

The Aboleth is a monstrous aberration that is more than just bestial. It lives under the water but expects to be worshiped. It’ll surface when worshipers or when visitors want to treat with it. It’s a large creatures that can speak telepathically.

In the monster manual, it’s CR (challenge rating) is 10. This means that for your standard adventuring party of 4, you’re probably looking at level 7 for when they’d face off against one of these. Now, when calculating encounters, remember that numbers do mean something, so if you could find a handful of CR 1/2 to 1 that you could add to the mix, I’d say that a party at level 8 with a few pesky lower level monsters pinging them would work best. Generally solo monster battles when you have a party of 4 or more, are going to be easier simply because your players attack more often than the monster does.

But to balance that out, the Aboleth does have what are known as lair actions and legendary actions. These allow it to have affects take place outside of it’s turn. So a level 7 party with those legendary actions would probably still win but find it a tougher battle.

How Would You Use It?

For me, this seems like a side quest monster. This is after your players have made a name for themselves, and as they’ve dealt with the first arc of the campaign, there’s a reprieve in a small town where people are going missing or something like that, being sacrificed to the Aboleth. Or if you have a slightly higher level group at this point, it’s a good one shot that you can get done in a night when one of the players can’t make the game and you don’t want to progress the main story.

If you want to use it as larger part of a bigger story, this is a first arc boss. The players would be investigating a cult or something that is worshiping the Aboleth. We’re probably again looking at sacrifices or kidnapping or something along those lines. And basically give the Aboleth an unending horde of cultists. It’ll be pretty easy to mow through, but the Aboleth has mind control powers, so let it use them. Eventually the players will have to find a way to fight it on it’s terms not theirs. That means going to the Aboleth, which wouldn’t leave the water anyways, and find a way to get into the water to fight it. This is going to make the fight even tougher, because how good are the players at holding their breath, or can they find a way to bait it into surfacing. Use the monsters intelligence. If it’s losing, it’ll go hide in the depths, make the players figure out how to bait it and then keep it from running away. Maybe give them a crack at it, have it leave, and then make them come back and try again.

How would you use an Aboleth in your games? Is it a monster that you’ve used often before or is it something you’ve never seen used?

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