Gibbering Mouther

So in an effort to get right back into the game after being gone for six weeks I picked up the map and monsters where they were and leapt back into the DM’s seat.  Seeing as the PCs had been stranded in the desert by an NPC whose only notable ability was casting teleport they had no choice but to advance towards the Fire Temple.  So along the way I thought I would set up an ambush, a sort of guard post.  This post was manned, well not so much manned but aberration-ed I guess by a Gibbering Mouther.  So the initiative was rolled and the battle commenced. 

            I will save you the round by round, but suffice it to say I was disappointed in the little abomination that couldn’t.  So let me count the ways in which he let me down:

·         No CR 5 creature should do one damage even if it has the possibility to lead to much more damage. 

·         Movement is horrible 10ft, with 20 ft for swim.  This almost solidly places this as a niche monster. 

So two, there are two ways in which it disappointed me, and those two were enough to show me that the CR 5 is fairly skewed.  The Mouther may be effective in a tight quartered underground chamber or in a pool of water were his move is comparable to the PC’s, but beyond I am hard pressed to think of a reason it shouldn’t sit somewhere around four maybe even three. But, assuming he is in fact quite deadly in the above mentioned scenarios then I would go with four. 

I will say that I did find some of his abilities nice:

·         The free spitting was nice and pretty effective.

·         The gibbering took the cake as the most effective ability of the Mouther.  It was able to remove one of the PCs for something like 4-5 rounds. 

It was these abilities that made it fun to use the monster, so to finish up I will end on the two things that were middle of the road for me.  I will say these are the only middle of the road as most of the stats were pretty decent, but nothing special.  Middle of the road here really is just my way of saying I didn’t get to use it or I found its application nearly pointless except in prolonging the inevitable. Without further ado:

·         Blood Drain, I was not able to use it in the encounter so I can’t give it a fair assessment.  I will say it ups the Mouther’s deadliness.

·         Ground Manipulation, this was a waste of energy unless I used it to plan some sort of ambush where the PCs get caught and he then pounces to drain blood.  Wait that would have been cool.  See even I can learn things from myself….awkward. But, true.

Anyone have any Gibbering Mouther stories or tips to share let’s hear’em.  Happy Gaming.