Dungeons and Dragons fans have spotted a major problem with the updated statblock for the Carrion Crawler in the new Monster Manual. Taking the rules as written, once a creature succumbs to the Crawler’s ‘paralyzing tentacles’ attack and becomes paralyzed, there’s simply no way for them to shake the debilitating status effect.
When the Crawler attacks with its paralyzing tentacles, the target must make a Dexterity saving throw to attempt to escape its grasp. If the target fails, it suffers the Paralyzed status effect. This lasts for one minute, during which time the character can’t move or speak. It’s permitted to repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns – but under the new DnD rules, creatures automatically fail Dexterity saving throws while they’re Paralyzed.
Fans on the OneDnD and DnDnext subreddits highlighted the issue, suggesting that it may be an editing error that needs an errata. Certainly, the fact that the Crawler’s victim is permitted to make a save which they cannot pass is the kind of redundant writing that designers normally avoid. Perhaps the saving throw to shake the Paralysis should be a Constitution save.
Then again, if you were playing back when the DnD races were the same thing as the DnD classes (or you like to run modern games inspired by those old DnD editions), this won’t seem that unusual.
DnD monsters often used to have very powerful abilities that could shut players down completely. That’s not much fun with the game’s current focus on tactical combat, but powerful monsters are a source of interesting strategic decisions in older versions of DnD that focused on exploration and resource management.
Carrion Crawlers have a fond place in my heart for odd reasons. My partner has a friend who milks venom from deadly animals to find useful chemicals for science (yes, he’s basically a super villain); this includes trying to isolate the part of Brazilian wandering spider venom that causes priapism from the part that causes necrosis and death.
As a result of this knowledge, and the general degeneracy of my DnD group, it’s now canon at our table that Carrion Crawler venom is a powerful aphrodisiac. Two characters in the current game are both part-shareholders in a firm that makes Carrion Crawler viagra.
I’ve parsed the new Monster Manual and, sadly, there’s nothing at all about interesting side effects of Carrion Crawler venom in there. You can see for yourself when it hits the DnD release schedule later this month. But the new book does bring many interesting changes to monster stat lines: check out this article explaining how updated initiative stats will overhaul boss fights completely.
Source: Wargamer
