Nightwalkers D&D | Let's Build an Encounter | D&D Quest Ideas

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thanks for watching and thanks to Sam Fields, Cobra Gamer, and everyone else who recommended this video topic! Also, I made another spelling mistake ("unoccupied spaced"). But since it takes 2 hours to export and KZbin takes 3 hours to check for monetization, we're just going to live with it... If you enjoyed this video, check out the rest of the Let's Build an Encounter Series here: kzbin.info/aero/PLN3EWMJpTElMPfoxgFTAMuY3qdC7sGz_7

[@Dahaka-rd6tw]

Hey. Me again. I was just wondering, do you only do 5e? Unfortenally many of my favorite monster are from old editions and so far not appearing in 5e. For example, Gulguthydra

[@HiddenNerdySide]

@@Dahaka-rd6tw I'll definitely take recommendations from older editions, but the encounters I make are all for 5e (since that's where my experience lies), so I'd be converting them to 5e. And because I like to keep my videos as short as possible and converting stat blocks and abilities can eat up a lot of time, there is no guarantee I'll craft them. But I'll take the recommendations nonetheless!

[@Dahaka-rd6tw]

​@@HiddenNerdySide Okay. It just that, I once had idea of this Big Bad , an monstrologist mad scientist of wizard who likes to send his experiments to attack settlements and country sides. I was thinking that Gulguthydra, Thessalhydra or maybe some chimera crossbreeds like Gorgimera or Thessalmera would have been perfect as some of his specimen to use, but as I said before, no offical 5e stats as far as I know. So, can you think any monster from 5e that could fit the theme?

[@Emohawk707]

I threw a nightwalker against a 7th level party, as a ticking clock The heroes were in a dungeon (a hospital) that had basically been transported to the shadowfell, and the Nighwalker was just wandering around in the distance. During a session, the heroes ended up turning all the lights in the building on full blast and attracting a bunch of undead, sorrowsworn and all sorts to their location; as well as the Nightwalker During the final battle with the boss of the dungeon, the Nightwalker showed up and started making his way into the building, as the heroes Panicked to figure out a way to escape, and essentially the Nightwalker served as a ticking clock, getting closer and closer with every passing turn, his aura of annihilation moving in. I remember when i first described it, looming In the distance, the size of a 2 storey house, and they were nervous, but when they saw the thing at the table, making its way towards them they were blown away by how massive and imposing it was... even the players that didn't recognise this thing realised that they might be facing their own doom. One of the heroes sacrificed themselves to distract the monster, while the others figured out a way to escape and they returned to Earth, A hero down, who could not be returned from the dead It was pretty memorable; I'm still running that campaign at the time of this comment, the heroes are currently 12th & 13th Level, and that Nightwalker is still out there... somewhere

[@Fyre19]

That other version of the nightwalker sounds like a good encounter lmao

[@satinchartt2960]

a nightwalker to save my party. They where loosing to a bone claw wile I had a nightwalker roaming the area. One of the party made enough noise to draw it in and it killed the bone claw wile they ran. I just planned on them seeing it from a distance. Standing there menacingly, but my players are that special kind of dumb.

[@robusterbrown1291]

This is a little thing but I would have an aura of silence around the Nightwalker because there is something colder about the screams not being heard and it allows a Nightwalker to kill an entire village without anyone waking up. Also good for stopping spells with verbal components. For the fight I wouldn’t use a normal battle playlist but a darker and more subtle ambiance.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

That’s a nice addition!

[@sephikong8323]

Personally, of I were to use a creature with a field of silence around it that stealthily kills entire villages without waking up anyone as you suggest, I would go even further : Play the background music normally, but as soon as they are within the creature's range then I would cut all background noise, especially if they still haven't seen the thing yet, just make it's presence known by creating an uneasy silence (and I would also probably start talking as little as possible to keep this eerily calm atmosphere. This is the sort of thing that can very easily grip your players

[@bray2964]

And then Necromancer used Command Undead to tell it to go home in a civil manner

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Haha! Thats why you add our homebrew changes ;) Although, if you have a high-level necromancy wizard in your party and still run a nightwalker, I mean... you're kind of asking for it

[@TheTsugnawmi2010]

@@HiddenNerdySide Not necessarily. Nightwalkers can only be commanded by a MAX-level Necromancer. As the video suggested, the Nightwalker can be seen killing a monster earlier in the campaign. The DM describes a "tall looming creature that reeks of undeath" as it drinks the soul of a young dragon. Your Necormancer player might get overexcited and try to control this OP monster - only to be humbled and probably viciously attacked. Make it clear the only option is to escape (and have the Nightwalker be uninterested in the chase because it was busy eating a dragon's soul).

[@gamercore5216]

Actually that wouldn't work as the nightwalker according to the lore is a super genius and thus far higher than 8 intelligence, the reason of it's low int score in game is it's dislike and uncare towards anything in the prime material thus having bad checks, if you really pissed it off it would stop masking it's stats

[@fatefulrolls5734]

I managed to pull the Nightwalker mini from the Fangs and Talons set, and now you have helped me create a cool encounter! :D

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Love to hear it! I hope you have 29 shadow minis as well.............

[@fatefulrolls5734]

@@HiddenNerdySide Time to go find 29 lego minifigures

[@godzillatemybaby4263]

I just ran your harpy encounter yesterday and it was a blast

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Love to hear it!

[@godzillatemybaby4263]

@@HiddenNerdySide keep up the good work

[@IcsulX]

Ahh the nightwalker. A necromancer's best friend

[@levkrasovsky4920]

I've also had an idea of using a somewhat modified version of a night walker in a more military techno-magical setting, where a lich would take it under their command and transform it into an undead mech with the same stats for them to pilot shielded from enemy attacks and cast spells from, kind of inspired by Dr Zomboss and the Zombot from Plants vs Zombies but more D&D

[@HiddenNerdySide]

*chef kiss* I love it!

[@BHicklin15]

I've enjoyed much more mondays since i found this channel

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Awh geez, what you doing making a grown man blush! 😊

[@JNJTabletop]

Good stuff as always. Love the homebrew change of spawning a shadow after it gets hit! Shadows are great minions because, by themselves, they are not too bad to deal with but the potential for some lasting consequences are very much in your face (even for a tier 3/4 party). You're the best, Matt!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

No, you're the best! Thank you, brothers Tabletop!

[@AmariceSovald]

That intro xD

[@vaaccuummcleaner9214]

One of my players is a warlock with a pact with a nightwalker. I have some ideas for using this encounter...

[@HiddenNerdySide]

😈

[@bentri7964]

Great Video!, the nightwalker is one of my favorite monsters

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Grimm-rr1uw]

The joke in the beginning was what made me subscribe it was low brow as well as low hanging fruit and I’m all for it 😂😂😂😂 I love the video aswell

[@casvandijk8991]

This is hella cool, never heard of a Nightwalker before but I love it

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Glad I could help spread the good word!

[@an8strengthkobold360]

Never use a nigth walker if you have a high level necromancer in your party.

[@mrapeaslee8003]

Have you ever considered doing any specifically named creatures from books?

[@HiddenNerdySide]

I"m open to it! Because they usually have such a rich lore attached to them, for some people it's harder to get people to separate the creature from its lore and toss it into any homebrew world. But I got not issue with it!

[@mr.anonymous2876]

Great episode, please make another episode of this show on Scarecrows.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Going on the list!

[@robstevens1706]

Hi again so I’m doing a huge dungeon level based on the monster. Which we started last week. A stupid wizard stole a forbidden book to open a portal to the negative plain. (By sacrificing his loved ones) One week later the close village is plagued by death I’ll the flowers die the animals die and all the people turn into undead. Now I have a group (3NPCs ) who hunt down and keeps safe dangerous artefacts. And the party need the book to remove a curse. They decide to work together. (For now) Several trees and been inhabited by dark sprits and hit the party with a murderous intent (DC 16 was save… it was not good for the Barbarian repeat the save at the end of your turn.) it effected 1 player (the Barbarian) and 2 NPC’s who all attacked the others. Once the group realised it was the trees they attacked them only for the Trees to move and attack back. The Barbarian killed a NPC and downed a player. And the fighter was wounded and battered the Barbarian and a effected NPC’s Once the trees were down everyone was free but boy did they use a few spell slots and healing potions after. While everyone is now ok they found the wizards dead wife (a ghosts) they managed to talk to her getting information they also found the wizards note book which is full of mad scrawlings (and it mentions the Negative plain) They will be heading under the town next week though I have a zombie dragon to slow them down There is a room full of Zombies a wizard wrath all building up to the final chamber with the Nightwalker (who will off load shadows per 10 hit points) Now there isn’t really a pan place to have a long rest and if they do the monsters they have killed regenerate. Also the longer they are close their max hit points decrees. So yea tasty. My group have been taking out creatures and dungeons above their level so this is my Halloween special to bring them to the brink

[@TheKrstff]

You should do a video about bandits. Something common, but considered boring.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Bandits are an absolute classic that can easily be tossed into any game - so you bet I'll be doing a bandit encounter one of these days!

[@BewareTheCarpenter]

I once imagined a red dragon fight whose blood became lava monsters. A lot of small wounds became hosts of small things like magma memphits. Fewer larger injuries create a few larger monsters like salamanders.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Spicy indeed!

[@skyrexotron5031]

Don't mind me, I'm just going to use this in my game.

[@melvingoodman2552]

Check out deathwing from WOW.

[@TheTsugnawmi2010]

That Shadow spawning homebrew idea is beautiful... but let's make it even worse! Nightwalkers have a 30 ft aura that deals however much Necrotic damage, right? I'd homebrew it so undead creatures are HEALED for that damage as well and, wouldn't you know it, Shadows AND the Nightwalker itself are undead creatures

[@tysondennis1016]

The nightwalker is good enough as is. I love its low mental scores letting it get turned by a cleric, or become the party's necromancer's pet. It gives it an exploitable weakness.

[@d.thieud.1056]

Another idea, if your world doesn't have many high level characters in it, you can make the nightwalker even more deadly by giving it some kind of health steal.. perhaps for every person it permakills, it loses 10hp. This way it becomes almost impossible for even armies of lower level characters to kill it, as it will feed of them. Then, you can throw this thing at the party while even they aren't high enough level to beat it. And then the fun part. If your BBEG doesn't wanna despitroy the world, if their motivations are for power or eternal life or anything like that, this unstoppable monster becomes just as much of a threat to the BBEG as the party. And you can hype the fight up even more by having the BBEG offer to join forces with them, just for this one occasion.

[@Ciofey]

All Nightwalkers do not have Int 6. If they have the same stat variance as humans, they can reach a respectable Int 16. What if they have a society, and a motive to conquer other planes, such as supplying the kingdom with the delicious lifeforces of sentient creatures? One such incursion could be caused by a Storm Giant necromancer in a sky castle, who in seeking necromantic knowledge, finds intelligent Nightwalkers, and brings them to his abode for necromantic collaborations. Between the giant necromancer and his nightwalker colleagues, they'll lay waste to the countryside...

[@Mike-ve3pt]

The shadow idea is a nice addition, but you could also leverage the Nightwalker's ability to raise any humanoid it kills as a Bodak. If civilians are involved, that could be a dual reason for stress.

[@Nighttimelemon]

You should do a mind flayer encounter

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Here you go: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rHTYaXmijdOhpqs Haha. It’s an older video so it’s not as in-depth as my current ones, but it should do the trick!

[@CthulhuOnCam]

A CR 20 monster with 14 AC is such an odd choice. If you're game has a great weapon master. He's gonna love fighting the RAW version of this.

[@Emohawk707]

I feel like the Nightwalker that is presented in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes fits being an Aberration more than an Undead

[@pierrehurley]

My god that shadow idea is brilliant

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thank you!

[@mke3053]

Nightwalkers RAW are week and easy kill. Boost AC to at least 18 or it will not last enought. Also, the shadow idea is great.

[@alexjwhitcomb]

Lol I almost went to a different video thinking you were actually going to do the hooker encounter

[@mrapeaslee8003]

Once again Monday is my favorite day of the week

[@mrapeaslee8003]

Also I once made a grung shadow monk who got kidnapped by a nightwalker and his escape from the nightwalker is how he got his shadowey slapping powers

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Oooooo interesting!

[@esbeng.s.a9761]

What if the places a nightwalker drain spawns undead

[@Azgaroththewise]

I definitely loved the shadow mechanic, I wanted to use this as an avatar of death for a campaign but couldn’t figure out how to make it a lil more deadly and this is the way 🙌🏽

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Glad you like it!

[@deathcoredank521]

Bro this background music bumps hard af

[@nejccop9457]

I just watched a few of your videos and the quality was amazing. Decided to sub and couldn't believe that you had only 3k subs. Keep up the good work the subs will come sooner or later another great video.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thank you and welcome to the party! :)

[@robstevens1706]

Well I just ran the spicer version after a 3 week long epic dungeon And I can honestly say I loved it, but at one point all the players looked sick. They all ran out of spells one of the MPC’s was turned to ash. The barbarian and the fighter both had negative modifiers. (The barbarian got so wigged out he ran over to the artificer taking 4 opportunity attacks from shadows and lost 6 strength then on there turn they Attacked him. Apart from the Druid,who stayed over 300 feet away using her wild fire sprit to hit with cantrips, the party concentrate on the big guy. The fighter did 80 damage on the first attack and I didn’t have the shadows arrive until it was the night walkers turn. Add the rangers hits and 12 shadows appeared all around them I feel they were a bit lucky with the con saves and finger of doom, this could have been a TPK with the Artificer having 1 strength left and the barbarian end up with only 4 strength. I added an ageing thing to the shadows for added flavour so apart from the Druid they are all old now (though this effect is only temporary) I asked the fighter if she wanted to kill it or keep it alive (everyone shouted kill it) so the idiot wizard they were looking for is gone. Fortunately they found some hand scribbled nots to tell them were to go next) This was a great Halloween combat (and although most liked it I don’t think any of them will ever like you) Thank you Ps my party were 5 strong (plus 2 NPC’s) level 15.

[@robstevens1706]

I’m going through more of your vids now

[@DavidMarkovic646]

Good video but can you make one about centaurs

[@cobragamer7798]

short version of the lore big scary life stealer

[@snowboundwhale6860]

It seems like some other fair tweaks to the stat block would be to give them darkvision that sees through magical darkness, and play into the darkness side of their constitution a little, either by giving them Radiant damage vulnerability/ flat additional damage taken when taking Radiant damage, and regeneration while in dim light or darkness, or when a creature dies from damage dealt by the Nightwalker, which is negated by taking Radiant damage since their last turn, like a Darkness dependant version of Troll regen. Radiant damage killing it faster is something players would be inclined to abuse, but with your "bleeds Shadows every 10 hit points lost" effect that'd be liable to get them swarmed very fast if they try to brute force it too fast. "Heals in darkness" + magical darkvision would also mean it would do the "warlock devil's sight combo" if it could.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Nice tweaks! The Nightwalker has a really high CR because of it's perma-death mechanic, but it's not particularly strong in comparison to other high-tier monsters. Your tweaks definitely help make it more competitive

[@cmdbitesaw]

I challenge you to do either the tarrasque or a neolithid (the terrasque is in the monster manual and the neolithid is in Volo's guide to monsters) (also I know I didn't spell them correctly but I don't have the effort to look up the proper spelling......)

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Haha both on the list!

[@Keyce0013]

Wouldn't the Banishment spell end this encounter immediately, assuming the charisma save failed?

[@HiddenNerdySide]

That’s why we give it the homebrew changes we talk about. Even if it uses all three legendary resistances on banishment alone, that’s still 3-4 rounds of shadow madness 😈

[@christopheracea5835]

What is the audio track in the background? The quality of your videos continues to improve and I love it.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thank you, good sir! This track was just pulled from the freely available tracks KZbin provides content creators. It's titled "Savior Search" by DJ Freedom. Although you bring up a good point. I think I'll start putting audio tracks in the description :)

[@ReadySetPainter]

I love the shadows

[@Thisisnotadreamhaha]

Love the opening lol

[@disgruntledbob2812]

An excellent encounter! I think I’ll modify it for my campaign. My party isn’t that high a level, but when they go to fight an avatar of a great old one later, I’ll have their beloved cursed NPC kenku sacrifice themself to summon/become one of these to help em’ out.

[@couragew6260]

With a Cleric or Paladin, Aura of Life is one of the best spells to use against this creature, assuming you’re confident about maintaining your concentration checks. Remember! For Paladins, their aura of protection feature also applies to concentration checks because it’s a Constitution Saving Throw. So if you’ve maxed out your Charisma Modifier, you can combine that with your Constitution mod.

[@lorddreemurr]

I've got an encounter coming up for a party of 6 (all level 13), and I might be throwing 2 nightwalkers at them. I'm kind of excited to pilot these things and this info really helps

[@Woodomega]

I have plans of using a modified Nightwalker as the stats for a BBEG in my cosmic horror campaign- thank you so much for the suggestions and ideas of how to turn the encounter even more brutal!

[@RussellKingsfield]

Have anything up your sleeve for an encounter with a Coven of Hags?

[@HiddenNerdySide]

The Night Hag encounter on this channel should do the trick! It doesn’t involve tons of face-to-face with the hags themselves and more dealing with their trickery. But there are many more types of hags to make encounters for!

[@moonringXD]

A excellent video as usual! Keep it up!👍

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Excellent comment as usual!

[@joachimvaage3721]

Great video! I like this, but I would love for some more low level encounters if possible

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thanks! Here are all the lower-level encounters I've made so far (levels 1-5): kzbin.info/aero/PLN3EWMJpTElNzfEQaIJykAI6S2YW66GCm

[@joachimvaage3721]

@@HiddenNerdySide hahah Ive actually used 3 of them, lycantrophy, kuo toa (my favorite) and goblins and im planning on using more of them. Especially the kobold one im looking forward to. You did have more than I thought you did, and ill happily binge the rest

[@ironkeepgaming1936]

Use Radiant and Light attacks and the night walker will run back home.

[@ArBee123]

I like the idea of a legendary action to cause a creature to make a death save regardless of its current state, specific death saves that dont refresh until a long rest is taken. Another effect I add into campaigns is the idea that max hp loss only comes back 1 hit die per long rest.

[@skyrexotron5031]

What about a video on crab folk and Ogres? Crab folk are warped ogres magically adapted to a coastal environment and are really cool.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Only if I can call them crab people and have them chant "Crab People! Crab People!"

[@skyrexotron5031]

@@HiddenNerdySide sounds good. I just really like them because of how unknown they are.

[@YopanusRealmes]

An elder Oblex encounter Would be cool.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Love me an oblex! It's going on the list!

[@kevinjohns7807]

So if this was the bbeg to a group of four, what level should they be when they face him?

[@generellis3]

Shadow addition to this encounter is beautiful.

[@Notsogoodguitarguy]

The only problem with this shadow thing is that 1 good AoE on higher level can take out all shadows at once. At least as soon as they spawn. Like, a higher level wizard can just spam fireball or cone of cold or something. 16 HP, even with resist, is just barely above the average damage of a resisted fireball. And if it's upcast, it's gg. But, if the players don't have good AoE, then WOOO boy. A rogue smacks for 70 damage with a sneak attack. Now have fun.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

You're not wrong, but if the shadows all pour out right next to the nightwalker, who is most likely engaged with one or more of your martial classes already, you either: A) end up hitting your martial classes as well in order to get everything, B) angle the attack so it only hits the shadows but you would then most likely not be able to hit all the shadows at once, or C) hit the shadows and the nightwalker, but then the nightwalker will just spam more shadows immediately afterwards since it took damage. AOE definitely is useful in this encounter - but it doesn't make it any less deadly 😈

[@Notsogoodguitarguy]

@@HiddenNerdySide hahaa, this is where I got you! In our party, team damage is a strategy, not a mistake to be avoided 😁 But, yeah, I get what you're saying. But, I think that to challenge my party, even that won't be enough. I didn't know what I was getting into when I started DMing, and we started playing by rolling stats and with max HP on the level up. And there's 8 in the party. 6 have monster stats. They're level 10 and I gotta throw a CR 17 custom sorcerer with 400 HP + minions and they're still barely challenged. They had no short rest after a whole adventuring day, went in with less than half of their spell slots and resources, and still managed to absolutely obliterate the encounter. I think the Nightwalker, even with shadows, will be doomed. 😭

[@Notsogoodguitarguy]

@@HiddenNerdySide oh, and forgive me for spamming, but...have you thought about building an encounter with a shadow dragon? They are absolutely fascinating and I think a pretty cool boss enemy. Especially for high level play.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Well yes, if you have 8 players in your party - you're obviously going to need to make adjustments. Also, tanking damage will be a less viable strategy if you start dealing A LOT of it 😋 These encounters are designed for parties with 4-6 people in them since that's the average party size. You could toss a second nightwalker into the mix, but then you would be hitting TPK territory REAL QUICK! Despite having 8 players, you can still easily make encounters challenging. CR becomes less and less valid of an indicator after level 5 and once you hit level 10-12 - it's practically meaningless. To make encounters challenging at higher level play, you need to start dealing more damage, use creatures that apply conditions to your players and also use creatures that buff their enemies. For example, I just finished an epic level 20 boss fight for a group of 6 players that they LOVED and almost genuinely lost. Two out of the 5 creatures had 4 attacks a piece that dealt an average of 35 damage EACH and had a +22 to attack rolls. I also had one creature that focussed on dealing heavy damage to break concentration on spell casters (a single attack that dealt an average of 70 damage on a failed con save). I then had two creatures that buffed the other three with homebrew abilities (healing them, making them temporarily invulnerable, teleporting martial classes away from them, etc. etc.). If you want to make an encounter challenging, you first need to identify WHY you're having a problem challenging them. Are your players hard to hit? Increase your monster's attack modifiers or cast spells with saving throws. Have players that use OP concentration spells? Have your enemies focus them or use abilities that break concentration - and so on and so on. You can't solve a problem without identifying what's causing. Look back at your past encounters, see where the biggest issues lie, and counter them. Just don't counter all of them all the time or your players will start to feel cheated. Hope this helps!

[@MrRJPE]

Have an NPC, maybe the BBEG, require a Sphere of Annihilation and will perform a ritual to create one. To do this, they'll need Nightwalkers for their Annihilating Aura to power the Sphere. The ritual will involve having several NPCs as bait, some for throwing into the Negative Plane and some to lure the Nightwalkers into the ritual circle. The players will be tasked with stopping the ritual or possibly even assisting the NPC/BBEG in controlling the Nightwalkers until the ritual is complete.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Interesting indeed!

[@Notsogoodguitarguy]

Heya Mat, I've been thinking a little more about this encounter because it actually fits perfectly with something I am planning, but I stumbled upon a GLARING weakness. How do you prevent a cleric from completely trivialising the encounter? And also, what happens if someone banishes the nightwalker with the banishment spell? Is the nightwalker back and so the friendly NPC can just walk back in?

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Hey there, So there are two ways I actually bring up in the homebrew changes section that counter your problems. The first is my proposed addition of Turn immunity. This prevents a creature from being “turned” I.e the cleric’s channel divinity and other undead manipulation spells would be negated. Secondly, you can give it legendary resistances (I put actions on screen but I say resistances). This means even if it fails its saving throw against banishment, it can choose to succeed instead - keeping him unbanished. Now if a Nightwalker is successfully banished and the caster of the banishment can keep concentration for 1 minute - yes, the nightwalker would be sent back. But again, fighting through legendary resistances isn’t simple and every time the nightwalker is damaged, it unleashes shadow - shadow that can attack the caster and try and break concentration. Simple make those two changes and the “glaring” weaknesses are not issues in the slightest 😊 But also, and this important, not every single encounter will work for every single campaign or party composition. So be mindful of that. If you have a party with two clerics, a necromancy wizard and 3 people who can cast banishment - nightwalker are out of the question. That’s just how she goes 🤷‍♂️

[@Notsogoodguitarguy]

@@HiddenNerdySide Oh, wait, I think I should have clarified. I didn't mean turn undead against the Nightwalker. I meant it more against the shadows. The party can just blow up the Nightwalker in like 1 turn and the cleric can blow up the shadows with Destroy Undead, which by this level can destroy 3 to 4 CR undead in a 30 foot radius.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Well, the simplest route would be to extend the turn immunity to these homebrew shadow since they are technically "part of" the nightwalker, and therefore, destroy undead would not work on them because creatures need to fail their turn undead saving throw to be destroyed. But let's look at the situation. Your cleric only has so many channel divinites and the nightwalker has 300 hp, resistances, turn immunity, legendary resistances and possibly magic resistance as well if you give it that. It's doubtful even with its low AC it will be blown up in 1 turn. You also then have the shadow pouring out of it that your players cannot ignore, and if your players do end up dealing A LOT of damage right off the bat and the cleric's initiative is either too early or too late in the initiative order, multiple players could be outright killed if the shadow drains their energy. For example, if your wizard gets hit 3 times by a shadow - it could be killed immediately. And remember, if your player DO end up blowing it up in one turn, that's 29 shadow who possibly get a turn to TPK your party before the cleric has a chance to do something. When after a few turns your players see 10-12 shadow escaping from it with many more on the way, they will either realize they have to do something about the shadow or keep on attacking and making their problem worse. And every time your players decide to not attack the nightwalker and go after the shadow, that's one less turn they don't hit the nightwalker. But ALL THAT aside, like I said earlier - not every encounter is for every group. This encounter also has a very wide range compared to all my other encounters based on party comp and skill, from fairly simply to TPK. And also - sometimes letting your players do really well on an encounter is great as well. So don't be afraid to let that cleric shine either. Whether you add that additional homebrew change or not is up to you, but I'm sure your players will have fun no matter what :)

[@Notsogoodguitarguy]

@@HiddenNerdySide damn! Those are a lot of good points that you made! That's why we're watching your videos and not making our own! I guess I didn't think about it as deeply as I thought. Thank you very much! And I hope it wasn't annoying to address my conjectures! Keep up the amazing work, Mat!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

No worries - it’s what I’m here for!

[@mariusp9272]

I love your videos and i really wish for your channel to grow. Your are bringing top tiers videos! I would like to suggest the Xvart's for a future video. I would really like to see your ideas for them!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

These guys look really interesting. They’re going on the list!

[@sogassed4072]

The shadows make this encounter TERRIFYING 😂

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Haha right? Nothing like using a weak creature to spook your players!

[@pierrehurley]

Omg dude these are so awesome. Could you please do an encounter for the Demi-liche?!?!?

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Going on the list!

[@pierrehurley]

@@HiddenNerdySide Heck ya thank you I love your ideas btw

[@jackmalin2528]

Night walkers are perfect for enthrallment :D Feeding the algoritm as always. Any advice how to beat a bone naga with a lvl2 party of warlock, paladin, bard and fighter?

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Ooo a decent challenge but not impossible by any means if it's by itself. So long as you don't stand in a line for it's lightning bolt (although DMs shouldn't be using lightning bolt on a level 2 party to begin with), you can manage so long as you use your class abilities properly.

[@jackmalin2528]

@@HiddenNerdySide Well we and the gm do not play to the challenge rating rules. What fits the location should be in the location and it does not matter if we can handle it. We have a wounded nightmare to aid us. And the enemy has a few shadows and a elderich shadow eating eyeplant of unknown properties.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

I think anything in the right hands can work, and so long as the players are aware really dangerous things can pop out anywhere - go bananas. Sounds awesome! Just be careful because lightning bolt does 28 damage on average, and that can literally TPK a level 2 party 😬

[@jackmalin2528]

@@HiddenNerdySide O personally hope and intend for it to waste those lightnings on my silent images (ilusion goo warlock here)

[@isaactaylor8086]

You know my first night walker encounter I made for my group was great. I had it stalk them from the trees for a short while. After about 30 minutes of travel, it made a B-Line for them. I mean full on sprinting. Here is the thing tho, it was not running at them. A giant monster came out of the woods, chased it down and ate it. Remember, there are always bigger fish.

[@cockman8437]

“Serves no master” tell that to the level 14 necromancer wizard who just used “Command Undead” and now has permanent control of a non homebrew nightwalker.

[@cockman8437]

An idea I had while watching this video, is that add the ability for the nightwalker to absorb the creature that summoned it, and it take it’s mental stats and abilities. Making yes, a very strong fight, but something memorable if they already know its stats, and the spellcaster it absorbed.