Monster Remodel: Ettin

Last week I wrote about a new approach to monsters. This week, let's put that advice into practice.

This creature is aimed at 5e to allow you to use it at your table ASAP. I need to make some adjustments to the Odyssey math, but it will be easy enough to adapt it once that's done.

Step 1: Concept and Mechanics

The best monsters have a distinct identity. When you encounter one, it feels a bit different than anything you have faced before. The ettin is a two-headed giant. That feels distinct! It attacks twice. One attack knocks you prone. The other gives you disadvantage on your next attack.

I'm not exactly feeling the two-headed-ness shining through. Let's fix that.

An ettin is an elite, a creature meant to take on two characters at a time. As a rule of thumb, I make creatures of size Large or great elite as a default. It helps keep encounters from getting too cluttered, as big creatures can have serious issues engaging the characters.

Making the ettin elite also gives me a lot more design room to play with.

I want a two-headed giant to gave two benefits:

Superior detection abilities. Two heads are better than one. The ettin is very good at detecting hidden characters. It'll have an aura that makes it very hard to hide near it.

Multiple Minds. Ettins are hard to take down with Int, Wis, and Cha effects. They also can do well on those skills with brute force processing. Ettins always have advantage on such checks and saves and can never have disadvantage on them.

Teamwork or Solo Tactics. The ettin has two basic combat modes. In mode one, the two minds operate independently. They kick out a bunch of attacks as each goes to town, but they can't double up on a target (the two arms attack two separate sides).

In mode two, they work together to turn a single target into bloody pulp. They can focus fire, but have fewer attacks as they need to coordinate strikes

Static Initiative. I experimented with this last year, and after trying out some alternatives I'm back to it. Creatures have a static initiative. Elites and solos get multiple turns.

So, here is our stat block. Note that XP and proficiency bonus are doubled because this is an elite. They need more reliable bonuses to fill their role and count as two creatures in encounter building.

Ettin

Large Giant, Chaotic Evil, Elite Brute

AC 12, HP 170, Speed 40 ft.

Str +9, Dex +3, Con +7, Int +2, Wis +4, Cha +3

Senses Darkvision 60 ft.

CR 4 (XP 2,200; PB +4)

Traits

Four Eyed Menace. The ettin has a passive Perception of 25 to detect creatures within 15 feet of it.

Two-Headed Menace. The ettin always has advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma checks and saves and cannot gain disadvantage on them.

Actions

The ettin takes turns on initiative counts 15 and 5.

Club. Melee Attack Roll: +9, reach 10 ft. Hit: 14 (1d8 + 9) bludgeoning damage, and the target is knocked prone or pushed up to 10 feet away.

Two Heads, One Target. The ettin's heads focus their efforts, making two club attacks against one target.

Two Heads, Many Targets. The ettin's heads spread their efforts, making four club attacks. If it hits a creature, it cannot attack that creature again this turn.

Tactics

As a brute, the ettin wants to break through the party's front line and stomp the snot out of a wizard or sorcerer. Remember that creatures can spend movement between attacks. Use Two Heads, Many Targets to push the party's front lines into chaos, then push through the gap you created to turn a spellcaster into chunky salsa.

Ettins are also great at harassing stealthy characters. At higher levels, use them as watch dogs to provide an anti-stealth screen for other monsters. Their superior passive Perception allows them to spot sneaky characters then move in for the kill. Knock them into an area clear of cover or shadows, then immobilize them with a follow-up attack that knocks them prone.

Step 2: Lore and Story

"It's easy enough to distract an idiot. The problem is that what distracts one fools bores another. That's why I never trade with an ettin. There's so much stupid in their two heads that when you add them together it breaks the universe and turns into cunning." - Vento Tradefar

Once many years ago, when young ones heeded their elders and the traditions of old were respected, a group of hill giants petitioned the Mother of Titans for a favor.

"Please, oh beloved mother," they begged. "Our cousins in the sky are clever. When we trade the wheat of our fields to them they swindle and mock us. Our brothers in the mountains offer us only the cheapest plows and flimsiest swords. Our sisters deep in the earth speak riddles we cannot understand. Our brethren of the frozen north give us the very dregs of their trade in return for our richest goods. What boon can you give us to aid us?"

The Mother of Titans, a woman of simple but effective measures as befits one who forged the giants, reached down from the heavens, plucked the head off of every other hill giant in the entourage, and placed it upon another.

"If the one head I have given you is not enough, then perhaps two shall see you through this cruel world," she declared.

The hill giants, knowing better than to argue with a parent, returned home and became the first ettins.

To this day, perhaps mindful of petitioning their creator again and receiving a third head, the ettins remain suspicious of all outsiders, stubborn in changing their ways, and obstinate in dealing with others. When an ettin decides on a path, it sticks to it.

Their two heads act as a team, one thinking while the other talks. As thinking comes slowly to an ettin, this takes the form of one head rambling on like a fool. The second head interjects cunning insights - admittedly derived from a brute force approach to any intellectual problem - to keep other creatures off their balance.

Some ettins fall into bickering between their two heads. These creatures endless nattering makes them outcasts, eventually driven from their homesteads by their irritated fellows. Such ettins are endless wanderers, as their two heads can never agree on where to settle down, whether to take travelers hostage or eat them, if they should pillage smaller folk or hire out as mercenaries to them, or exactly how long to cook the sheep they stole.

Anyone unfortunate enough to encounter an ettin and its endless bickering soon understands why such creatures end up exiled from their homes. The two heads simply cannot agree on anything. Ever.

Owing to their brute size and strength, ettins sometimes gather bandit gangs to serve them. Each head has its own collection of henchmen. One head might intimidate a goblin gang into service, while the other bullies a pair of ogres into helping out. They argue over whose gang is more effective, and (sadly for anyone dwelling near them) test their theories through wanton raiding.

Anyone trying to recruit an ettin into service has to deal with keeping both heads happy, assuming they hire on an exile. A clever spellcaster might use illusions to appear as two different people, each striking a deal with a different head. Alternatively, a bandit lord might dispatch two emissaries, one for each head, to bring an ettin into service.

Despite their quarrelsome nature, ettins can prove useful. A canny villain pits the heads against each other, offering a reward to the one who does a better job rooting out scouts or turning opponents into a bloody pulp. A bickering ettin loves one upping its partner.