Let's use the Monster Manual

Long, long ago, there was a very popular thread on this site that went through the Monster Manual, commenting on the various monsters found within. (It can be found at https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...onster-Manual! for anyone looking.) I want/plan to do another thread in its spirit.
Rather than just redoing what was done, I am going to be focusing on something new, ways to use each monster within a campaign. (The original post did plot ideas, but that assumes that the monster is the focus of at least a sub-plot. I plan to suggest interesting encounters, both combat and not, that can be slotted into a campaign not focusing on the monster. Basically, ways to use.)
If anyone else wants to contribute at any point, go right ahead. I don't mind if they want to take on a different angle of the monster that I'm not discussing (plot ideas, lore, whatever), or if they want to continue what I'm doing. I plan to do 1 monster a week (I have limited time, sorry) but I don't mind skipping to whatever monster the thread is up to.

(If anyone likes my ideas and wants more, I have a blog doing this at https://dragonencounters.com/. I'm doing this thread partially to get feedback, partly because I want to, and I guess also partially to promote myself. The blog is also a free resource.)

With all that out of the way, let's get started.

6 Ways to use… aaracockra

1) Given that they fly, they can keep the players updated with what's going on the in the world, letting your quest have proper scale.
2) The enemies have an army. Can the PCs hold them off long enough for the aaracockra to complete the ritual?
3) The enemy at the top is too powerful for the aaracokra. It also has ranged capabilities. Can the aaracockra help the players reach the top, where they can fight it, without exposing themselves suicidally.
4) The enemy in the dungeon is too powerful for the players. The aaracockra won't fight indoors. Lure the enemy outside to claim victory. You'll still have to stop it from retreating, of course.
5) The aaracockra are hostile. If you don't want to climb the mountain while being sniped, you'll have to do it while the aaracockra are grounded on account of a storm. Of course, storms aren't exactly ideal climbing weather.
6) Yan-C-Bin [prince of elemental evil. Air] has corrupted the ritual. Stop the aaracockra before they summon a corrupted air elemental that will lay waste to the entire area.

I could have sworn Yan C Bin was the Prince of Elemental Earth. Perhaps I was thinking of Yancy Ben.

12 Ways to use… Aboleth

1) The aboleth will, when fighting PCs who are on land, try to “tag” as many as possible with its tentacles, then retreat underwater. Once affected by its slime disease, they’ll only way to survive will be if they pledge themselves to the aboleth. (In a D&D game, I would have there be someone who can help them, if they can get to him. The aboleth’s minions will try to prevent it.)
2) If it has a charmed minion nearby, it can project an illusion into any body of water, making the players think they know where it is.
Underwater fighting
3) The aboleth is much faster than them underwater. It will lead them on a pursui around sunken buildings, then double back and hit the back members. If they don’t chase, it has a lair action to do damage. This will inspire pursuit.
4) Another trick is to collapse structurs on pursuing PCs, thereby taking them out of the battle for a bit while it takes on the others.
5) The aboleth can trigger a mudslide, or just stir up mud with its tentacles, to make it hard for the PCs to see where it is. This is where phantasmal force lair action can be useful, to project a duplicate of itself being in another direction.
6) For a lethal underwater trap, drain a large cave system or structure of water, and seal it tight. When the seal is breached, the water will rush in, and the PCs will be dragged with it. Either add spikes, or seal the entrance behind them.

(I hope to add the next 6, all of which will be ways to use the people it has enslaved, later this week.)

An aboleth by itself is a mere speedbump. An aboleth with a few minions is very dangerous.

Not certain why you call it just a speed bump, the aboleth seemed a pretty decent monster (even without my suggestions, which will boost it.)
Are you talking about versus a level 10 party? I don't think any monster is more than a speed bump, when facing a party whose level matches its CR, by itself. (CR is meant for 8 such fights per long rest.)
Anyway, the second half of my aboleth list:

Ways to Use Enslaved Minions
7) The aboleth can send its minions further than a mile, if it has a friend/relative enslaved who they’ll care about. Probing telepathy means that deceiving the abolth about their loyalty to their friend is pretty much impossible. (As if eons of experience weren’t enough.)
8) When enslaving a PC, you can tell him that he made his save until you need him to obey the aboleth. Since the aboleth’s first command would be “Act like normal”, this seems perfectly logical.
9) A really nasty way to increase difficulty is if the aboleth has an NPC enslaved whom they need to rescue. They’ll have to rescue him/her before the aboleth is defeated, or the aboleth’s last command will be “Commit suicide”. (Combine this idea with any of the next three, to make it worse.)
10) Have the enslaved minion be standing in an especially precarious structure and throwing spells. If they retaliate, they’ll collapse the structure and kill the person for the crime of being enslaved.
11) Have the aboleth place one or more enslaved commoners near him. Spells thrown at the aboleth will very likely kill the commoners.
12) They meet an NPC chained to the wall. If they ask, he explains that he is immune to enslave. When they get the key and rescue him, he slaps other chains/handcuffs [not noticeable because of the first chains] onto his rescuer.] (He wasn’t actually immune.)

13 ways to use… angels

1) One to the classic questions is why, if there are angels, don’t they handle all the problems. I would suggest that, as most beings are a combination of good and evil, they have trouble distinguishing. Either that, or higher access to the mortal plane by celestials makes access for fiends easier.
2) Trouble distinguishing between shades of grey will also explain why celestial being living on the mortal plane prefer to live in the middle of nowhere. Virually all being have too much evil in them for comfort.
3) Angels are too proud, and too honest, to use invisibility to fight. Instead, they’ll use it to give the impression that they’re all knowing. Too use this, have the players be talking among themselves, and suddenly they realize that the angel was behind them, and they have no idea how he got there. (Deva’s will use change shape to achieve the same effect.)
4) Use an angel’s healing touch to provide small, min-quest rewards. If you want to annoy your players, have the angel decide who to heal based not on need, but on virtue [how pious they are.]

Deva

5) The deva will use its shapechanging ability to test whether they deserve to be helped. If you want to make it challenging, provide reasons for them not to help. (Example: An old lady needs help crossing a bridge, but they’re late for an appointment.)
6) The deva likes to give advice in the guise of kind old elderly people. This can lead to interesting circumstances, when such a person who is not the deva say something to the players. This can be either coincidence, or a villain taking advantage of it.
7) When evil [fallen], the deva will use its shape change ability to lead them into terrain that favors the deva. For example, a narrow path where they’ll have trouble using their numbers, with ample foliage to mess up ranged.

Planetar

8) When asking the planetar for help, have him grill them about their past deeds and/or hypothetical situations, to see if they’re worthy. He can tell if they try to lie. (Winning is spinning the answer to their advantage without outright lying.)
9) When hostile, have the planetar use Blade Barrier to isolate one PC, so it can duel and kill him. In mountains, Blade Barrier is especially nasty, as it will sever ropes and impose disadvantage on climb skill checks.
10) Control Weather is also a powerful spell to use in battle. You just need to set it up in advance. Bring down strong winds when climbing mountains, or a flash flood in a canyon. In addition, the planetar can send Flame Strikes against them as they try to reach safety.

Solar

11) For a plot complication, have the solar (or any other angel) insist on taking out a certain, less important villain. The players know that doing so would be a mistake (morally or strategically), but the angel won’t listen. If the PCs won’t do it, he’ll send someone else. What do they do?
12) In combat, the solar will use Control weather to fill the sky with scattered clouds. (With 25 INT, it’s not caught by surprise). It its turn, it will shoot, make a flying sword attack, and go back up. In between turns, it will teleport around, so they won’t know where to send area spells.
13) For an absolutely deadly battle, have the players be trying to beat the clock in a trap dungeon while fighting a solar. The solar can teleport to always be in the way, it can avoid many trap effect by flying, and it can blind them. Use for really powerful players only.

6 ways to use … Animated items

1) To get the greatest effect out of animated objects, present them as ordinary at first, and give the players time to get used to them as ordinary objects. Then animate them.

Animated Armor

2) A decent way to use animated armor is to to have the villain animate it when he sees he’s outmatched, to give himself time to flee. Stopping him will involve getting past the armor right away, which might force them to [briefly] split the party.
3) If you’re having them play a rogue mission, in which they don’t want to get discovered, animated armor is ideal. It makes perfect sense as a sentry, it won’t think to raise the alarm, and it’s very hard to take down silently.
4) Place the animated armor in a room full ] of armor. How do the players navigate the room when they don’t know which is animated? To stop them from breaking everything, give a need for silence, or other foes shooting them, or have some of the other suits be booby-trapped.

(I hope to finish later this week.)

Cool thread, you've got some nice ideas here! I like the water trap for the aboleth. How to fit it in so it doesn't feel like "rocks fall, everyone dies"...

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Originally Posted by Atranen

Cool thread, you've got some nice ideas here! I like the water trap for the aboleth. How to fit it in so it doesn't feel like "rocks fall, everyone dies"...

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Thanks for the compliment.

Regarding the trap, the truth is that I came up with the trap independent of the aboleth, and placed it here because it seemed as good a place as any. If you run it without an aboleth, or when the aboleth isn't right there, you could add a window so the players can see that the room/place beyond is empty. I think there's a good chance they won't realize the danger of opening the door, especially if you provide other things to do/examine in the same area to distract them, and give them some type of incentive to open the door. (They can see inside, via the window, so all you need is "Oooh, look, shiny gold coins!"
Also, the trap isn't meant to be fatal, just damaging.

(Sorry I'm late. I hope to post the ankheg this week as well.)

Flying Sword

5) The best use for flying swords might be to not have them attack the PCs at all. Instead, have them attack the rope bridge the PCs are on or need to cross.
6) For a difficult encounter, have the sword be guarding an area at the top of a cliff. If they try to climb, the flying sword will chop at their hands when they can’t retaliate, and make them lose their grip. If they don’t climb, the sword will hide behind a pillar.
7) While in general, PCs can walk through an area held by an enemy two or more sizes small, I’d argue that the flying sword should be an exception. It’s a sharp piece of metal, for goodness’s sake, how do you walk past that without impaling yourself?

Rug of Smothering

8) To make a rug of smothering encounter harder, have a lantern get knocked over, setting the room on fire. Whie the fire will eventually destroy the rug, it won’t be too healthy for the person wrapped inside the rug, either. They might need to move the rug before freeing him.
9) Once they know to be aware of rugs of smothering, you can put multiple rugs on the floor before a combat, and they’ll be scared of each one. Or they can be identifiable from the outset, with the players needing to shoot them down before they come close.
10) Create a scene where some of them have to distract an NPC while others steal something, and place a rug of smothering. Now they have to save their companion from said rug while still keeping the NPC distracted.

(I had hoped to post this last week, but "oh, well".)

6 Ways to Use… Ankhegs

1) Tactics: The ankheg will stay below the surface except when its acid is ready to be fired, then it will emerge, fire, and burrow back that same turn. It will also surface to attack someone standing in soil, but it will burrow back that same turn.
2) You can increase difficulty by not letting the players know how many ankhegs they face. For this reason, I would suggest starting the fight with their acid awaiting recharge. You can say that they only start building it up when they sense prey.
3) Because a fight where the enemy is constantly out of reach is very frustrating, I would give the players a different goal rather than defeating the ankhegs. For example, have there be a heavy treasure chest in the middle of their soil that the players need ot obtain.
Interesting Encounters:
4) When the villain sees he’s had it, have him run for it over ankheg land. For an even harder battle, through a tunnel that goes through ankheg land. (The villain himself is wearing ankheg repellent.)
5) For a lethal pit trap, have falling into the trap also trigger the release of ankhegs, who will immediately burrow into the trap. The players are surrounded by earth on all sides.
6) The players see the villains they are after, but there is ankheg land in the middle, and no easy way to go around in a hurry. The villains don’t know about the PCs, and may or may not know about the ankhegs. The villains should have at least some ranged attacks.

6 ways to use… azer

Offense

1) The azer are lawful. They fight well together. This gives rise to several basic strategies, such as swarming the same target, and changing position so that the target PC provides cover to the most wounded for ranged attacks.
2) Being grappled by an azer is worth 1d10 damage a turn, from touching it. This is almost half of an attack’s damage. I’d say they still need more reason to grapple. One way is to have one of them knock a PC prone, and another grapple to keep him that way.
3) When fighting, have them run through bushes and anything else flammable. Not only will this create obstacles that will only hurt the other side, but it will also limit visibility. Plus, fire spreads.

Defense

4) When in their base, the best thing they can do is dump a lot of coal onto the fire and fight defensively. If the players don’t take them down fast, the heat will become a deadly weapon. (Have them holding a key, or some such, to give the players motivation.)
5) Outside, they’ll run through bushes and anything else flammable. Try catching a fleeing foe when he’s leaving burning obstacles in his wake.
6) If they can reach a human dwelling, have them jam the door and start setting everything on fire. When the PCs force the door open, the sudden influx of fresh air will cause the fire to flare up in their faces.

6 Ways to use… Banshee

1) Incorporeal movement and fear don’t combine (fear requires eyesight). My solution – have the banshee draw out the melee, move past them through the floor, and then use fear to keep the melee away while attacking the mages.
2) The temptation is to start with the banshee’s wail, as that’s its strongest attack. If you wait until mid-combat, though, it can feel like the final blow to players who are already struggling, and it will be a lot harder to heal PCs not unconscious.
3) Evil creatures, or bandits, can ply the banshee with gifts and compliments, getting permission for themselves to share her domain. In case you were wondering how to work a banshee into your story.
4) Banshee can come from any elves, which means you can have a drow who became a banshee, which in turn means that your haunted house can have spiders (swarms, giant, or phase spiders). Plus, they fit a haunted house perfectly.
5) When a banshee has been defeated, that is a good time for her to disappear through the floor, only to harry them again later. She can hide on the other side of a wall, and use life sense to know exactly when to pop out.
6) Old castles, of the top that it’s fun to make haunted, have long twisting staircases. Knock out a PC there, or even trip him, and he might fall all the way to the bottom. If there are PCs below him, they might fall too. (Although there’s a chance they might catch him.)

6 Ways to use… Basilisk

1) When basilisks are near, players are going to be tempted to keep their eyes on the floor, especially near corners. Add in archers, or traps, and life becomes tricky. (The basilisks are tamed).
2) The fact that they can’t look around means that if the PCs separate, even slightly, they’ll have a hard time keeping track of each other. Cause this with multiple goals and time limit. (Manage this by keeping 1 battlemap behind the DM screen, and showing them where they are on the other during their turns only.)
3) Formation for an army with basilisks: Have the basilisks lead, put defenders with reach weapons to stop the PCs moving past, put archers behind. (You could just have the basilisks trained not to attack the enemy, but this will be more fun.)
4) The aftermath of a basilisk encounter creates more problems. They have to decide which NPCs to rescue, especially if they have limited potions. You can drop cluses, or just create multiple profiles and see who they pick.
5) Place two burrows. One contains a basilisk, the other contains a valuable but fragile treasure. If they try to grope for it, the run the risk of getting bitten. They obviously can’t look. What do they do?
6) The most important tip to running a basilisk? Don’t let them know that they’ll be facing one until it’s too late to go shopping. Everyone already knows about using mirrors.

6 ways to use… behir

1) The behir, when on its own, is a hit-and-run enemy. Not because it doesn’t have the HP for a long battle (the more typical reason), but because once it’s swallowed an enemy, it has no reason to continue the battle.
2) Hit-and-run tactics provide a good way to get the PCs together into a narrow area (tunnel). The perfect setup for lightning breath.
3) When chased into a tunnel, the behir is smart enough to hide in a hole, (which can be in the walls or ceiling, thanks to spider climb) and then come out after the PCs passed and return the other way. This also lets it ambush the squishy back ranks, if it’s still hungry.
4) Beware chasing the behir onto ledges. It will instinctively avoid the weak spots, going back and forth between the wall and the ledge (via spider climb) so it doesn’t fall. The PCs will step onto a weak spot, and plummet down as the ledge breaks under them.
5) To shake things up more, place a tunnel behind a pile of rubble, or loose boulders. The behir will wait there to ambush the PCs, and will end up sending the stones falling onto them as it lunges out.
6) In a stalactite cave, the behir will move/jump from stalactite to stalactite for increased mobility. While it won’t step anywhere that will cause a collapse, the PC spellcasters might not be that careful, which will add falling columns to the battle.

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Originally Posted by Alexander Atoz

6 Ways to use… Banshee

1) Incorporeal movement and fear don’t combine (fear requires eyesight). My solution – have the banshee draw out the melee, move past them through the floor, and then use fear to keep the melee away while attacking the mages.
2) The temptation is to start with the banshee’s wail, as that’s its strongest attack. If you wait until mid-combat, though, it can feel like the final blow to players who are already struggling, and it will be a lot harder to heal PCs not unconscious.
3) Evil creatures, or bandits, can ply the banshee with gifts and compliments, getting permission for themselves to share her domain. In case you were wondering how to work a banshee into your story.
4) Banshee can come from any elves, which means you can have a drow who became a banshee, which in turn means that your haunted house can have spiders (swarms, giant, or phase spiders). Plus, they fit a haunted house perfectly.
5) When a banshee has been defeated, that is a good time for her to disappear through the floor, only to harry them again later. She can hide on the other side of a wall, and use life sense to know exactly when to pop out.
6) Old castles, of the top that it’s fun to make haunted, have long twisting staircases. Knock out a PC there, or even trip him, and he might fall all the way to the bottom. If there are PCs below him, they might fall too. (Although there’s a chance they might catch him.)

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I think in previous editions Banshee's were under a curse. Taking that an extra step have the Banshee respawn every night. To permanently kill the Banshee, either the Banshee needs to atone for the evil acts they did in life (Extremely unlikely) or find the physical remains and cast remove curse or perform a cleansing ritual.

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I think in previous editions Banshee's were under a curse. Taking that an extra step have the Banshee respawn every night. To permanently kill the Banshee, either the Banshee needs to atone for the evil acts they did in life (Extremely unlikely) or find the physical remains and cast remove curse or perform a cleansing ritual.

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Interesting. I'd think you'd be better off with a more flexible undead for that idea, such as a ghost or wight, as that plot might involve fighting the undead multiple times and that seems hard to pull off with the banshee (assuming you want all the fights to be interesting.) Still, I like the idea. Thank you.

9 ways to use… Beholder


1) Before running a beholder, make a chart of which PCs are the best choice of targets for eye ray 1, which are okay targets, and which are last option targets. Do it for each eye ray. It might not seem complex, but it will speed up the battle a lot.
2) Beholders are from the class of villains who talk/brag through the entire battle. Prepare a list of prepared remarks. Don’t worry about them being cheesy. Don’t respond when the players make fun of them, just go on to the next one.
3) A beholder battle consists of seeing whether the PCs can reach the beholder before it slaughters them. Once they reach it, the battle’s won. Accordingly, set up traps, obstacles, minions, or anything else to stop them from getting near. Don’t run the beholder by itself.
4) Beholders are going to be especially fond of pit traps. They can float right over them, so the traps reinforce their feelings of superiority, and provide an obstacle that doesn’t hinder them at all.
5) An ideal situation for the beholder, and a very challenging one for the players, is if they’re stuck in an area (such as a pit) where they can’t avoid the main eye ray, and with ongoing damage (acid, at the bottom of the pit.) If the beholder keeps them there, it wins.
6) You can’t choose which eye rays will fire, so any plan requires the ability to work with multiple eye rays. I used barrels of slippery oil, which it can spill with teleport, destroy with disintegrate, or unbalance (and make fall) by petrifying the right part of them.
7) If you want a trap, the beholder could have crossbows with their strings drawn back magically, or weights hanging magically from the ceiling. As soon as the beholder looks at them, the crossbows fire, and the weights drop.
8) City invasion scenario: Monsters are attacking from multiple directions, and the players have to get past them to reach the palace. Every so often, the beholder will zap their magic for a round, then hit them with eye rays as it moves elsewhere.
9) Idea for players: To defeat a beholder, shine a bright light. If forced to close its eyes, the beholder is helpless.

In terms of tactics, a sensible one of the Beholder's side is using verticality. Floating up a or down a long tunnel forcing the PCs to follow, and the Beholder can easily keep them in his anti-magic cone and out of cover. Particularly if the Beholder needs a means of retreat, as without magical flight following may be impossible for many parties.

On the PCs side, particulates are their friend. Smoke, dust, fog and mist are all great ways to even the playing field.

Beholders make great villains because they are insane enough that you can justify pretty much any course of action they will take. You can play them as extremely clever, their paranoia making them have a prepared answer for everything the PCs can come up with. Or make the paranoia their downfall - they are so caught up in it they jump at shadows and assume the obvious solution is a cunning trap, leading them to make huge blunders.

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Originally Posted by emyrion

In terms of tactics, a sensible one of the Beholder's side is using verticality. Floating up a or down a long tunnel forcing the PCs to follow, and the Beholder can easily keep them in his anti-magic cone and out of cover. Particularly if the Beholder needs a means of retreat, as without magical flight following may be impossible for many parties.

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If the beholder isn't retreating, you have to figure out a means of doing damage as well. The anti-magic field works against the beholder doing it.
Otherwise, thank you. I liked your ideas.

Next monsters.

Death Tyrant

10) The Monster Manual tells us that death tyrants use their undead as decoys. To do this, send the players on a quest to identify undead sightings, then they come back and find that the death tyrant has captured most of the city.
11) Using undead to bait traps (mentioned in the Monster Manual) means that it sends a few undead to create a disturbance, and when the guards investigate it ambushes them. This is useful if you want guards replaced with spies/traitors.
12) When the death tyrant takes down the walls of a city, it will have its monsters make a show of killing and burning, while really herding the survivors to a central location, where they can be killed under its gaze. Raising zombie armies is much more efficient this way.
13) Large crowds are a great setting for the boss battle. The players have to take down the death tyrant, and meanwhile it’s busy animating zombies around them. (You can’t have a panicked crowd without someone getting trampled, and zombies cause more zombies.)
14) It seems logical that when the death tyrant’s eye ray reanimates a giant type, it should become an ogre zombie. If so, give the death tyrant giants among his minions, and remember, they’ll have to kill them twice.
15) When running a death tyrant, have enough minions and/or obstacles, and a narrow enough area, to stop any PCs coming within 30 feet of the death tyrant. It has no resistance to turn undead, so unless you want your boss to begin the second round by running away screaming…

Spectator

16) Unlike every other beholder type in the Monster Manual, spectators can choose which eye rays to use. I would have them ready a multi-attack, and use the eye rays on PCs as they climb over fences or jump pits. Timed right, it will cause them to impale themselves or fall in.
17) A problem with obstacles is that the PCs can stay low and sneak forward. Use it to your advantage. As they sneak forward, have the spectator do likewise, causing them to suddenly get hit with an attack from the side.
18) The spectator has the option to disintegrate a hole in an obstacle between it and the PC, and still have one more eye ray to hit him with. While this does waste one of its attacks, it can still be useful sometimes.

11 ways to use… Blights

1) Blights make ideal horror monsters. They’re vaguely humanoid and yet different enough to be scary, they make the forests around them so overgrown that the terrain provides appropriate background, and unlike undead, they haven’t already been done to death.
2) I would suggest that blights instinctively remain together somewhat. Either that, or haunt the same type of places. Also that they hide during the day, unless they sense prey. Having a number of them suddenly emerging out of nowhere is definitely the coolest way to use them.

Needle blights

3) The only type of blight that can’t disguise itself, it makes up for it with sixty feet of range and blindsight, which allows it to shoot through thick vegetation. The PCs shouldn’t be able to see more than 20-30 feet through the vegetation, and even that imperfectly.
4) It goes without saying that the needle blight won’t move closer, but if it also retreats after shooting, the players are going to be in trouble. They can’t see where it is, and it might retreat to the sides. (Retreating has to be instinct, as they have no intelligence.)
5) When moving toward a needle blight, have them get cut by thorns, tripped by vines, and stumble on hidden, overgrown holes. If you like, you could also have them suddenly get hit from the side by more needle blights, arriving once they heard the sound of the fight.

[To be continued later this week]

Twig blights

6) Twig blights rest inside the ground. When do they emerge? If the smell of blood, have a bunch of them suddenly emerge mid-battle, from anywhere on the battlefield. If it’s sensing vibrations, the players had better think twice when they step on bare earth during a battle.
7) Have the players be on a jutting-out piece of land that’s next to a cliff. T=Suddenly the twig blights emerge…. And the land gives way, causing everyone to fall. Whoops!
8) Twig blights are flammable. Why should they not keep burning after being killed by fire? Prest, mini walls of fire clogging up the battlefield. (I don’t they’d burn for more than a round, but that’s enough to be trouble.)

Vine Blights

9) The Monster Manual tells us that sometimes blights are occupying a village they recently ruined. If you break out of a tangle of plants inside a house, and the floor’s already weakened from vegetation, this could cause the floor to give way entirely.
10) The classic way to use entangle: have there be some danger that the PCs have to keep moving to avoid. This could be a fire, a pursuing swarm, or an onslaught of ranged attacks (see needle blights).
11) Have the PC slip off a cliff, and a vine blight catches him with its vine whip. How does he get free without killing himself? (The vine blight made a mistake. They’re unintelligent, anyway. Mechanically, it did it via a readied action.)