These sneaky fuckers pretend to be stalagmites or stalactites in the underdark or any other dark cave systems. They eat anything: creature, humanoid, and all the stuff that those dumby thick adventurers carry with them. It’s not unusual to kill a roper and find some slimy old goodies from an adventurer that came to an unfortunate end.

They are quite large averaging about nine feet tall and weighing at just over a ton. Much like a fucked up starfish, they use tens of thousands of “cilium” (a short microscopic hairlike vibrating structure found in large numbers on the surface of certain cells, either causing currents in the surrounding fluid, or, in some protozoans and other small organisms, providing propulsion.) to move around and upside down to better get the DROP on any idiot that wanders around the underdark.

They hold still for an ungodly amount of time and make this “horrifying guttural sound” as it reels in its prey with is weird tentacle arms before it chomps down with its stony maw. It devours anything that it can get its tendrils on but can’t quite conveniently digest certain items such as platinum, gemstones, and magical items.

STATS

Ropers. Are. Tough. Especially for a CR 5. They are perfect for any surprise encounter in the underdark as they can give your players a good challenge while also being a single monster rather than a mob, making your job a little easier.

They are pretty straight forward, being very strong physically. With a 20 AC and an average of 93 HP, they can take enough damage to last more than one round. Add their strength(+4), constitution(+3), and Wisdom(+3) modifiers, it can really add another wrinkle to the madness.

What Makes Them Cool

FEATURES

• 1. False Appearance: As long as the Roper doesn’t move, you can’t tell between it and any other spiky rock formations. So sneaky is sneaky.

• 2. Grasping Tendrils: A Roper can have up to 6 tendrils at a time. Your players can attack each tendrils individually (AC 20; 10 hit points; immunity to poison and psychic damage), or if a player hulks out and rips it out with a strength check with a DC 15.

• 3. Spider Climb: A Roper can climb upside without making a check basically. Which makes it a tricky opponent if it’s on the ceiling. Unfortunately it’s slow as fuck with only a 10ft climbing speed.

ACTIONS

Overview: So here’s the fun stuff: The Roper can make FOUR attacks with its tendrils that shoot out up to 50 FEET, which GRAPPLES the players who need to make a DC 15 escape check to get out of it. Then, on the same turn, can reel in every tendril that is grappling a player 25 ft closer to it. ALSO ON THE SAME TURN, it can use one bite attack that deals an average of 22 damage or 4d8+4 if you like to roll like G. Now remember, this all on ONE TURN. perfect for a surprise round and see how they get out of it.

Multiattack: The roper makes four attacks with its tendrils, uses Reel, and makes one attack with its bite.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 22 (4d8 + 4) piercing damage.

Tendril. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 50 ft., one creature. Hit: The target is grappled (escape DC 15). Until the grapple ends, the target is restrained and has disadvantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, and the roper can’t use the same tendril on another target.

Reel. The roper pulls each creature grappled by it up to 25 feet straight toward it.

IDEAS

1. In order to get the most out of a Roper, you need to surprise your player. They wont last exceptionally long if you see them coming. A roper’s bread and butter is the surprise-grab-as-many-players-as-you-can-and-see-how-they-escape move.

2. Perfect for a single encounter when players are exploring the underdark or cave system. Remember to always challenge your players, never let them breathe too much!

3. Do you have a big bad guy that has a secret tunnel underneath that allows the adventurers to sneak in and fuck shit up? Well don’t make it easy for them! Add a Roper! Perfect chance to help weaken the heroes before the epic boss fight to come!

4. You know what would be kinda cool? Using a Roper as like a Rancor style monster from Star Wars. If you have your heroes caught in prison, or you catch them all in a trap door, have them be thrown or end up into this small dungeon room with no easy way out. (I would let the players keep their gear as a team of heroes without their goodies would probably die). Make sure the room is small enough that (50 feet or less) so that the Roper is able to snatch and grab without anyone being able to kite the Monster. If you go the Trap door/player have their gear route, beef the Roper’s HP so he can tank a little bit more damage; this battle should be like a mini boss battle, and the players will Definity win the “I have more attacks that you” battle.

ROPER MINI BUY LINK

If you are looking to buy and use these minis for you campaign, I have three links here for you to go to. This is the website I always use for what I need: Miniature Market.

Painted

Unpainted

Adorable