One thought on “Creature Club Episode 19 – Carrion Crawler”

1. Hey, guys! My name is Daron (pronounced like “Darren”); I’m a sometime-3pp tabletop publisher and a full-time D&D nerd. I heard you mentioned on a WebDM podcast (at least I think that’s where it was) and checked you out for the first time today, starting with this Carrion Crawlers episode.

   You guys have good chemistry and pacing; I really enjoyed the episode and I wanted to leave you some tips about stat blocks and the crunchier side of things.

   1.) You mention that an ability to make opportunity attacks against everything in reach would be neat for a larger version of the crawler, and that opportunity attacks are only eligible against creatures within 5 ft. This actually isn’t true; such an ability would be redundant – that’s already how opportunity attacks work (see the PHB, page 195).

   2.) While it’s possible that the carrion crawler’s tentacle attack bonus is simply a “doubled” bite attack bonus, it’s much more likely that the crawler simply adds its proficiency bonus to the attack more than once (three times, in this case). Monster Manual monsters do have concrete math behind their scores, it’s just not spelled out until you dig into the DMG (somewhere at the back of chapter 8). A ton of monsters have “expertise” (which is not indicated in the stat block) in one or more of their skills or attacks, applying the bonus twice (or, rarely, three times). It’s likely that the crawler simply adds its proficiency to the attack three times instead of just once.

   3.) The crawler’s damage is low – as you noted – but remember that every single attack the crawler makes against a paralyzed target is automatically going to be a critical hit. That’s about 17 damage a round, guaranteed, which could certainly drop a 2nd level character (especially one who has already been munched on in the round in which s/he was paralyzed).

   That’s all! Keep up the good work, guys.

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