How powerful are the mind flayers ?

[PlayerOnline]

And how do they fare against other factions especially vampire counts ?

[Runic Tunic]

I mean are we talking stat block, RAW wise? Or in a lore, general way? I don't have the specifics in front of me, but Ilithids have an instant AOE psionic stun that does up to 22 damage and stuns for like a minute if you fail an INT saving throw, a tentacle attack that hits nearly as hard that also stuns if you fail a saving throw, and they cast spells, among other things.. A single AOE stun alone makes them scary. And that's just a standard Mind Flayer. All of their abominations, Elder Brain, etc. can be even worse.

Undead are a bit of a pain for ilithids because they're more resistant to some of what ilithids can do. However, vampires have a lot of weaknesses in general. So I guess it....depends? I don't have a stat block on vamps with me so idk their exact traits, but I do know Mind Flayers traditionally can't make them into more of themselves, or eat their brains. Vamps can turn a mindflayer, but vampiric mindflayers are basically weaker, feral versions of themselves.

I guess my money would be on the Mind Flayers if it was strictly them vs Vampires. If we're talking other undead, then things might change lol

edit: to add, Ilithids are known to be VERY intelligent as well, which kinda adds to everything else.

[PlayerOnline]

I mean lore wise. It seems mind flayers are rare in fantasy compared to other races. And they don't seem that scary or evil to me. I would be more afraid of ghosts, wraiths, banshees etc. as they are more grotesque and evil.

[qwerty]

Ilithids mind controling extraplanar species with perhapts millions years of history, their usual hobby is conquering worlds and enslaving civilizations. Vampires parasitic walking corpses accidentaly created by mages of real civilizations. They can suck ermmm... blood and... suck more... blood.

[stimpatch]

Mind Flayers psionics make them very dangerous opponents, and most of them are also powerful spellcasters as well. That said, they are schemers and likely to avoid open conflict with another faction. If there were an open war with Mind Flayers and Vampires you could expect the Mind Flayers to employ several layers of enthralled minions before they would ever dirty their own hands with combat. Also Vampires are notoriously difficult to kill, but getting de-brained usually fixes that.

[Runic Tunic]

Originally posted by Civilian X:

I mean lore wise. It seems mind flayers are rare in fantasy compared to other races. And they don't seem that scary or evil to me. I would be more afraid of ghosts, wraiths, banshees etc. as they are more grotesque and evil.

Lore wise, they're probably one of the biggest threats, maybe a rung or two below the devils, demons, and other lesser/greater evils of the world in terms of the damage they could cause.

Reason being is they are very organized, very powerful, and essentially ruled the entire galaxy/universe at some point (hinting to be from the far flung future). They are masters of subterfuge, manipulation, and see everything but their own as lesser; only worthy as cattle. And they still don't even like each other that much. Everything to them is food, or something to experiment on/torture. The only thing stopping them from being a massive threat is the fact they are small in number due to their empire collapsing, and are actively hiding from the Gith.

In terms of being evil, it's pretty objective. They're big on body horror kinds of scary, with a hint of Lovecraftian horror. But whether you find other creatures scarier is really just a matter of preference. Everyone's different.

[Dragon Master]

Ilithids also have a hive mind connected to an Elder Brain.

Part of what makes them so dangerous is is if you meet one then every other one connected to that elder brain knows who you are and where you are.

[seandeven]

There are also deviants.... Alhoons. They are magic casting Ithillids and not all are weaker.

Alhoons can turn into Ithillid liches or illithiliches that try to take over an elder brain.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

It helps to bear in mind that mindflayers are allergic to the sun. Their skin dries out in the sunlight and they need to moisturise in pools of mucky liquid (similar to the pols the tadpoles and the elder brains live in). They constantly scheme to find a way to extinguish the sun.

They fear the Undead (more specifically, non thinking unintelligent undead because they can't sense their approach).

Unless that weakness got retconned out in recent years.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Civilian X:

I mean lore wise. It seems mind flayers are rare in fantasy compared to other races. And they don't seem that scary or evil to me. I would be more afraid of ghosts, wraiths, banshees etc. as they are more grotesque and evil.

The Illithid are a race that are unique to D&D (as are beholders, although they've been copied in various places over the years).

An individual Illithid isn't a particularly powerful enemy in D&D (I forget the exact CR, but if memory serves I think it's around 5 or 6), but the Illithid race as a whole is a different subject and really campaign dependent.

Obviously, in BG3 the Illithid are either the primary antagonist, or working very closely with the antagonist.

[Klauth]

Back in BG1 & 2, I remember how scary Ilithids were.
They could cast "death" and if I recall correctly, your char needed a successful fortitude save, or he'd be insta dead !

[Piderman]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

Ilithids also have a hive mind connected to an Elder Brain.

Part of what makes them so dangerous is is if you meet one then every other one connected to that elder brain knows who you are and where you are.

Even worse when an Elder Brain decides to be mobile instead of just sitting in a Pool. Just recently ive learned that they are even able to merge with Dragons.

[765]

They are so powerful, they MADE you write this thread.

[Piderman]

^this

[God King 069]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

Originally posted by Civilian X:

I mean lore wise. It seems mind flayers are rare in fantasy compared to other races. And they don't seem that scary or evil to me. I would be more afraid of ghosts, wraiths, banshees etc. as they are more grotesque and evil.

The Illithid are a race that are unique to D&D (as are beholders, although they've been copied in various places over the years).

An individual Illithid isn't a particularly powerful enemy in D&D (I forget the exact CR, but if memory serves I think it's around 5 or 6), but the Illithid race as a whole is a different subject and really campaign dependent.

Obviously, in BG3 the Illithid are either the primary antagonist, or working very closely with the antagonist.

More like 7 to 8 which begs the question of how a party of level 4 adventurers would handle one let alone multiple and how in the world an imp or even 3 with a CR of 1 would take one down in the ship battle.

Luckily we don't have such a direct encounter with one yet (that isn't injured at least). However an Annis Hag has a CR of 6 and we all know how that fight went which should either tell you that CR is broken or that BG3 is not correctly scaled for difficulty.

[WuTaNiSt]

Originally posted by Klauth:

Back in BG1 & 2, I remember how scary Ilithids were.
They could cast "death" and if I recall correctly, your char needed a successful fortitude save, or he'd be insta dead !

No they couldn't. What they did was stun your characters from range with their psionics, then close in & eat their brains - their melee attacks (auto-hit when stunned) damaged int on a hit & hitting zero int meant dying. The Death spell could work against them because they were nearly all within its HD (was it HD or level?) cap but had to get through their massive spell resist (90 or 95% I think?)

Hilariously I don't think the elder brains had the spell resist so once you got to them in any Illithid dungeon, one death spell did the trick