

On initial engulfment the Clay Golem is healed 3d6 damage, and becomes restrained moving along with the Gelatinous Cube. To ensure the Clay Golem complies the Clay Golem's builder may have built in a command like ride around the Gelatinous Cube until a threat reveals itself. Gelatinous Cubes can engulf any creature of Large or smaller, Clay Golems are large. And Gelatinous Cubes happen to do a load of acid damage every round. Clay Golems are not only immune to acid, but they have Acid Absorption, healing from acid damage. Perhaps the builders set the guardian there to protect their vault, and planted a few Gelatinous Cubes for good measure. Meanwhile the Will'o'Wisp, can fly into the engulfed party member causing damage, dealing lightning damage (which the Shambling Mound is immune) with shock, and once the party member is at 0 hp from engulf the Will'o'Wisp can use consume life.ģ) Clay Golem + Gelatinous Cube (CR 8 Deadly): Imagine a Clay Golem that rides a gelatinous cube around a dungeon. Shambling Mound can engulf a party member, and is immune to lightning damage. Not too shabby for a medium level 1 encounter.Ģ) Shambling Mound + Will'o'Wisp (CR 6 Hard): Will'o'Wisp may lure the party. A total of 2d4+2+1d8/10+1+2d6 possible damage with advantage on all attacks against a single melee target in the same turn. Pack Tactics means the Wolf can Bite with advantage if the hobgoblin is within 5ft of the target, which can knock the target prone giving the hobgoblin advantage on its attack with bonus damage from Martial Advantage. With the Wolf's Pack Tactics, and Bite which knocks prone, plus the hobgoblin's Martial Advantage.

I'll start:ġ) Hobgoblin + Wolf: (CR 1 Medium) A hobgoblin and a pet Wolf can make for an excellent low level random encounter. Any CR calculations I make will assume a party of 4 equal leveled PCs based on the encounter difficulty rules on page 82 of the DMG. Posts entries should have at least two different monsters, with a small explanation as to how the monsters synergize, and if you feel so inclined some fun tactics for DMs to run the encounter. The goal of this thread is to post monster combinations and tactics that make interesting and challenging encounters. What this thread isn't: showcasing how powerful single monsters are. Monsters whose abilities complimented and/or augmented other monsters, so it would make tactical sense for these creatures to pair (or more) up. I remember back in the 3e era there was a Dragon article about monsters who synergized together. Let's design some challenging encounters.
