Medium Monstrosity, Neutral Evil
- AC
- 13
- Initiative
- +2 (12)
- HP
- 44 (8d8+8)
- Speed
- 30 ft., Climb 30 ft.
| Score | Mod | Save | |
|---|---|---|---|
| STR | 14 | +2 | +2 |
| DEX | 15 | +2 | +2 |
| CON | 13 | +1 | +1 |
| INT | 7 | -2 | -2 |
| WIS | 12 | +1 | +1 |
| CHA | 8 | -1 | -1 |
Traits
Spider Climb. The ettercap can climb difficult surfaces, including along ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Web Walker. The ettercap ignores movement restrictions caused by webs, and the ettercap knows the location of any other creature in contact with the same web.
Actions
Multiattack. The ettercap makes one Bite attack and one Claw attack.
Bite. Melee Attack Roll: +4, reach 5 ft. Hit: 5 (1d6+2) Piercing damage plus 2 (1d4) Poison damage, and the target has the Poisoned condition until the start of the ettercap's next turn.
Claw. Melee Attack Roll: +4, reach 5 ft. Hit: 7 (2d4+2) Slashing damage.
Web Strand (Recharge 5-6). Dexterity Saving Throw: DC 12, one Large or smaller creature the ettercap can see within 30 feet. Failure: The target has the Restrained condition until the web is destroyed (AC 10; HP 5; Vulnerability to Fire damage; Immunity to Bludgeoning, Poison, and Psychic damage).
Bonus Actions
Reel. The ettercap pulls one creature within 30 feet of itself that is Restrained by its Web Strand up to 25 feet straight toward itself.
How to run Ettercap
An ettercap as ally is a creative ask, and the framing that earns its keep is the druid's tenant. A druid PC has spent a season clearing wolves out of a wood, and the local ettercap has decided the druid is a useful predator to live alongside. The ettercap doesn't speak (Languages: None) but communicates through body language and through the spider colony it tends. The deal is implicit: the druid leaves the canopy alone, the ettercap helps when the druid is being hunted in its forest.
In a forest fight, the ettercap is positional control. Web Strand at DC 12 Dex pins the enemy archer to a tree, Reel drags an enemy paladin off her horse, and the spiders the ettercap has herded toward the engagement do the killing. The ettercap itself stays in the canopy and uses Bite plus Claw only on prey that has already been Restrained. Web Walker means the ettercap and any party member with Spider Climb or Freedom of Movement can navigate the rigging while the enemy bogs down.
The exit is fast. Once the immediate threat is gone, the ettercap retreats up the nearest trunk without a goodbye and stays out of sight for a week. It does not enter towns. It does not negotiate. It will not help the party against another ettercap or against the spiders it has been raising. If the party tries to bring it on a long road trip, it leaves at the first crossroads.
Have the ettercap leave a single web-wrapped offering at the druid's camp the morning after the fight. Whatever was killed nearby, plucked clean, neatly bound. That is the entire conversation.
An ettercap is a low-CR ambush specialist whose entire job is to make the party's encounter against giant spiders worse. They live in the same web-strung canopy, they coordinate with the spiders through Web Walker, and they exist to pick the ranger off the back rank while the brutes engage the front. Run an ettercap as the brain of a spider encounter, not as a solo. Solo ettercaps die in two rounds and feel like nothing.
Open before the party knows the ettercap is there. Spider Climb plus Stealth +4 puts it on the ceiling above the marching order. The ideal first action is Web Strand at DC 12 Dex on the squishiest target within 30 feet, then Reel as a Bonus Action to drag the Restrained creature 25 feet straight up into the web canopy. Now the party's wizard is hanging from the ceiling, Restrained, separated from the cleric, and the spiders below have a free round on the rest of the party. Web Strand is Recharge 5-6, so use it the moment it comes back.
Multiattack on subsequent turns is one Bite and one Claw at +4. The Bite does 7 damage and applies Poisoned until the start of the ettercap's next turn, which means Disadvantage on the next attack and the next ability check the target makes. The Claw does 7 slashing on top. Web Walker means the ettercap moves freely through the web rigging it has been refining for years, while the party fighter who wants to climb up to it is paying double movement and rolling Athletics. Stay in the webs, never come down.
Ettercaps are cowards once outnumbered. With 44 HP and AC 13 they evaporate under focused fire, so once Bloodied the ettercap drops the current victim, climbs to the highest part of the canopy, and flees through tunnels in the web that the party can't follow. Make sure the party hears it chittering as it goes. Next session, the same web has twice as many strands and three more spiders.
Stat block from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 © Wizards of the Coast LLC, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.