How to use Babau in your encounters?
How to use Babau in your encounters?
Babau is one of my favorite creatures to use in encounters because of the mechanics that being posses. He is fast, possesses a significant action of Weakening Gaze, which lets your PC's that concentrating on the strength builds feel a bit less confident in their abilities and not only that, they have spells and multi-attack in range and out of range. So okay, what can we do to make an interaction with Babau stand out in your game?
One of the things that seem inspiring when looking at a Babau is the "Alien" like creature mixed with demonic influences. Still, when thinking how to roleplay the encounter, it's a great moment to convey this creepy an arrie nature of them, and for that, "Alien" movies are a huge inspiration point. Also, the Lore of Babaus indicates them as assassins, and they fit that kind of theme perfectly wit their abilities. So should you use them alone or in batches? In my opinion, they work great for lower-level party play as a boss creature.
The only thing that I love to give them is the ability to see in their darkness spell. Nothing is scarier than casting this thing on the party in close combat scenarios where they are going through small caverns and blasting them in total darkness with this creepy fiend giving opportunity attacks in the middle of them. Dealing some damage and lurking away in the dungeon, preying on the PCs in the long run. They try to leave the darkness getting an opportunity attack, using range from the dark while the PC's are on their toes thinking what in the hell this thing is and how to get it out of there. Maybe somebody tries to fireball the darkness or other area effects. Then you see a burned Babau face that extinguishes it fires due to resistance as he starts to go on the offensive clawing the party to many claws, but let's not forget... the Weakening Gaze. The good Fighter or Barbarian feels the weakening gaze of the Babau, infusing the character with fear and doubt on which he relies, hitting the monster while he scoffs the attack grabbing his sword in this half attempted chance to do something.
Something happens, maybe the PC's managed to hit the Babau, but now he could use fear, for the PCs to get another kind of check as his fiendish face and eyes make the party flee away. And to be fair, I want the PC's to be afraid of this Babau, he is a god damn demon assassin, chaotic, evil to its teeth and looking for blood, playing dirty doing everything to make the parties time miserable in its way. I would love to give this creature a disengage action, where he would he do the fear spell, putting himself once again in the middle or in an advantageous position where he could get some opportunity attacks.
If he would finish off one character or two in this way, maybe even the most STR based class first, when PC's would lose the damage dealer or a fragile mage at the start and then carry on with the rest of them and the party will be shitting their pants. Maybe there is another heavy damage dealer and guess what weakening gaze. If Weakening Gaze fails to work, perhaps heat metal spell that gets a paladin to drop his weapon or heat his shield or armor, making the Babau next attack on a vulnerable character. And if the Babau is getting in trouble, he could dispel the magic of a nasty spell, use darkness evading the encounter what so ever, or darkness on the remaining of the party and finishing the party in the blows with his multi attacks.
That's why I love Babaus, versatility, ferociousness, nature of the creature, and demonic predisposition to prey on the weaknesses of the player characters. Using them makes very dynamic combat encounters only with this one creature or using a bunch of them two or three against the party lose their marbles how to deal with them. And the synergy between couple Babau, works wonders making as much confusion, skirmish attacks, and chaos at the party.
I think this shouldn't be mentioned, but try to use most of what Babau is trying to offer. Change the ways of how it's using its abilities and strengths against the party, especially if you are considering giving special homebrew boons as the Disengage action and ability to see in their darkness. The Boons make sense, but I don't know the reason why wouldn't a demonic assassin wouldn't use darkness to it's an advantage in combat and be unable to see through its abilities and spells. The Disengage is a small kicker but, I fell as the assassin background of this fiend and the high dexterity couldn't do something with it. I also feel as Spider Climb would be a great addition to this monster for couple reasons 1) It's thematic of a stalker type of monster 2) I just saw too much Alien, I suppose.
Kidding aside, having this terrible thing jump down the cavern, deal some damage, mock around the party, create some chaos ir terrifying. This subconsciously says to the party after the introduction to the Babau, that wherever you and your party is going, it's not safe and I'm just only one of many or something of that nature. Not only that, letting the party see a couple of Babau tricks would help the party to prepare accordingly to deal with the problem later on, maybe inspiring some roleplaying moment with the PC's to prep for the future. And even then, when they know some of the Babau tactics, that's a great place to introduce another creature that is mechanically is doing something to help the Babau or force players to adopt new tactics to finish the Dungeon.
Oh, and the levitation thing... I guess it could be used as a climbing that doesn't require the spider climb ability. Still, another idea that pops to my head is the use of it in intimidation and this demonic way that we see in Diablo 4 trailer at the end where a poor sage is being twisted upside down to a sacrifice alter. Beautiful. Why not build something like that for the encounter. Or remind a warlock that he is not doing well with his Patron or something in that nature.
As I said, using Babau is much fun, which causes fear to the party on the right conditions, confusion, and chaos upon your players in many ambush scenarios. My tip of using them in your campaign would be in close corners, secluded parts of your world where Babau would have a great place to ambush the players, maybe between small caverns, caves, or underground ruins, where the Babau would have some high ground on the party. What do you think? Thank you for reading, and please tell me how you impediment the Babau in your encounters and story and lore, please let me know in the comments down below. Like and subscribe, or I'll personally hire Babaus to get will get you. Much love, Goblin out.
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