I think that the Fire Dreadnought only does the one attack on a person hit by the shields. The intent seems to be that you take one attack from the Giant when it enters your space, and are then either pushed to one side or pushed to the end of the move, and maybe also take the extra damage if you fail the save badly.
I've always known Beholders as aberrations. I like the idea of them dreaming either other into existence - it's pretty unique, and really ties in with how powerful and mad they are. It also helps explain the weird variety of them, without having to get into evolution or whatever.
Anyway, we now reach the first 'racial' entry, the Chitines, and I have decided that we'll cover both varieties at the same time. What we'll do with the rather plump Orc, Gnoll, and Yuan-Ti entries, I don't know.
I feel the need to assure you that the art in Volo's is a lot more menacing than this! The Chitine makes the most of the multiple arms, taking an imposing posture that highlights how alien these are, while the Choldrith ends up looking like basically just another spider but with a dagger-holding pair of hands at the front. I much prefer the Chitine art to the Choldrith, possibly because the former is a much more dynamic picture.
This is my first time meeting these guys. There are two types of Chitine: the critter itself, and the mamma Choldrith, which is Medium in relation to the Small Chitines. They come in at a reasonably standard CR 1/2 and CR 3 respectively, and I wouldn't be amazingly surprised if a future book expanded these options a touch. They were created by the Drow, but are actually not a slave race. After being brought into being by merging spiders and captured Elves, they broke free - thanks to Lloth being amusingly jealous about the whole thing - and now exist separately, though some colonies are controlled by Drow regardless. I have to say, it really sums up the Drow that they felt 'Spider elves' was a useful end product for magical experiments.
The Chitines, who rather oddly took their collective name from the weaker of their two races, seem a bit superfluous to me. I mean, they kind of cover the same ground that Drow do - pointy-eared evil underground people who like spiders - and being MOAR SPIDER isn't a particularly interesting direction to go, in my opinion. You can use them in a 'smart animals' way, but that niche is already pretty easy to fill. Doubtless people are going to swarm me, exclaiming how important and cool these guys are, but I'm not really seeing it.
I can think of two reasonably interesting ways to use these guys. One, have the party asked to enter one of their hives to retrieve something, letting you really amp up the spider climbing and webs with a hellishly 3d environment. That is probably their unique selling point, as intelligent spiders who can create something that is recognisably a settlement but also is completely alien in a way that Drow pointy purple buildings are not. The second interesting thing is to set up a war between a hive of them and a nearby Drow (or whatever) city, and then see whether the players can bring themselves to trust Lloth's favoured spiderkin over their opponents. Being so weird and unsettling, it'll really let you test the party's resolve if you make the Chitine's the superior choice of ally.
Let's talk about their combat tactics. The Chitines are pretty simple. They get Elven Fey Ancestry, a Spider's Web Sense and Web Walking, and Underdark-standard Sunlight Sensitivity. That is all reactive stuff, rather than actions that they take. They themselves cannot spin web fast enough to do it in combat, but they can make use of it if it was already there. Their only actual combat action is to stab with daggers three times, which will probably give them a consistent (if low) damage output.
The Choldrith is a bit more involved. They get a web action (which is not very hard to escape from, even for CR 3) and only the one dagger attack. In return, they get spellcasting, with some solid Cleric spells to spice things up; Hold Person is the highlight here, and will let those three Chitine dagger thrusts suddenly become very exciting. [1] Confusingly, they are listed as wearing 'studded leather armour', which their picture does not support.
Having been probably excessively hostile to these guys, I'll grudgingly admit that they have solid story potential, will probably come up a fair bit for Underdark campaigns, and have a distinctive combat style. Fine, whatever; if my party goes for Out of the Abyss, I'll toss these guys and some Cave Fisher pets in as a side plot. But I won't like it.
[1] Hold Person imposes the Paralyzed condition, which I think is the one where melee attackers get advantage to hit and every hit is a critical. Having a Fighter get Held and then stabbed by two Chitines for up to 12d4 + 12 will really send a strong message to the party.
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