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My party are level 14 and we are running a high-level version of Tomb of Annihilation.

My players are now trying to break into Fane of the Night Serpent, the Yuan-Ti stronghold in Omu.

Based on lore,

The Yuan-Ti had superb intelligence compared to other races.

The yuan-ti took advantage of their great intelligence during battle, planning traps and making excellent use of their surroundings. They favored ambushes over direct attacks. If in groups, they sent their least valuable members forward first, meaning that purebloods advanced before halfbloods who advanced before abominations.

My party's current strategy is to go in through one of the entrances, kill a few enemies, and teleport out when things get hot. That is a strong counter to the ambusher-style combat of the Yuan-Ti. I'm not sure how the Yuan-Ti would handle this sort of repeated attack.

I'm looking for ways that have been previously described in lore about how the Yuan-Ti have defended their lairs against invaders. Even if not specifically described in lore, what specific abilities do the Yuan-Ti have, that could help in such situations, and how would they be efficiently deployed?

BlueMoon93
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    Love the question but it is clearly opinion based – Dale M Aug 30 '20 at 10:04
  • Voted to close as is. Generic defense mechanisms in the Forgotten Realms is too open and opinion-based. Would vote to re-open if it were restricted to something like "what specific abilities do Yuan-Ti have access to that could counter such tactics, and what is the most effective way to deploy them". – Kirt Aug 30 '20 at 14:33
  • Added both your suggestions in. How does it look? – BlueMoon93 Aug 30 '20 at 14:42
  • I think the body is now able to attract focused, high-quality answers. I would suggest changing the title (in addition making verb tense consistent) to something more specific than "strong enemies". Something like "enemies with teleport", "hit and run attacks", or "attacks of attrition". – Kirt Aug 30 '20 at 18:58
  • @Kirt Hopefully last necessary edit! Thanks – BlueMoon93 Aug 30 '20 at 19:50

1 Answers1

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General Warding

When adjusted an encounter for higher level players, you always have to consider the higher level abilities and the repercussions of them. The very first thing is that the most important parts of the temple would be under a permanent Forbiddance. Another spell which would be pretty useful if defending a high level temple is Guard and Wards.

Darkness

Next, as many of the Yuan-Ti you mentioned have darkness penetrating darkvision or blindsight. Darkness should be used liberally in their defense strategies. As it prevents many spells from targeting, including counterspell, and gives the Yuan-Ti significant advantages. Each Yuan-Ti might have a darkness enchanted item it receives before it begins a patrol, so that when encountered, multiple dispels are required to remove the effect. They also might use darkness with the glyphs of warding you mentioned.

Isolation

Finally, recognizing the party's hit and run tactics, the Yuan-Ti should not be focused on attempting to thwart the entire party, but instead on how to disable one of them at a time, or isolate them so that they cannot use the escape ability together.

The Anathema for example, once it has a target grappled should move away (especially around corners or taking the target to other waiting Yuan-Ti).

Spellcasters with AoE crowd control like Hypnotic Pattern also greatly help with Isolation, although single target control abilities help as well.

Poison

Another trick specifically useful for Yuan-Ti would be poison effects, as they are immune. Sticking with glyphs of warding, loading them with Cloudkill would be highly effective.

Beyond the cloudkill spell itself. The Yuan-Ti might be able to flood their temple with more mundane poisonous gas. They also could fill pits with poisons to augment the classic pit trap.

Its effects would be up to you, the DMG has several inhaled or contact poisons which could be used or simply used as guidance.

Synergy

These abilities even can work together, for example, if there are glyphs of warding with cloudkill on them (or maybe just a customized poison damage glyph of warding). Once a Yuan-Ti grapples a character with their Constrict attack, they could drag the character to a nearby glyph.

Daveman
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    Are there examples of this in lore? This seems like ideas generated off if yuan-ti descriptions and not based on events in lore. This was the type of answer I was hoping to avoid :( – NotArch Aug 30 '20 at 15:26
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    "They use many methods for capturing enemies, such as poisoning, knocking out an opponent instead of making a killing blow, throwing nets, using magic such as suggestion, or restraining them in the coils of a giant snake." - Volo for use of poison and magic crowd control. – Daveman Aug 30 '20 at 15:29
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    " allow the yuan-ti the opportunity to study their opponents and implement better tactics. " Volo for adapting to enemy tactics. – Daveman Aug 30 '20 at 15:29
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    "Their immunity to poison gives all yuan-ti a tactical advantage in dealing with other creatures. " -Volo – Daveman Aug 30 '20 at 15:33
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    "Any enemy who chases a group of fleeing yuan-ti might be on the victorious side of a rout or could be heading into a trap; if the enemy has been encountered before, it is likely that the yuan-ti have prepared a special ambush at the end of the pursuit." - volo on setting special traps and leading parties to them – Daveman Aug 30 '20 at 15:34
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    @Daveman It would be good to add these quotes (or maybe just page/section references, if you feel you're quoting too much) to your answer rather than in comments, which are ephemeral. – Ryan C. Thompson Aug 30 '20 at 17:13