Medium Undead, Neutral
- AC
- 11
- Initiative
- +1 (11)
- HP
- 45 (10d8)
- Speed
- 5 ft., Fly 40 ft. (hover)
| Score | Mod | Save | |
|---|---|---|---|
| STR | 7 | -2 | -2 |
| DEX | 13 | +1 | +1 |
| CON | 10 | +0 | +0 |
| INT | 10 | +0 | +0 |
| WIS | 12 | +1 | +1 |
| CHA | 17 | +3 | +3 |
Traits
Ethereal Sight. The ghost can see 60 feet into the Ethereal Plane when it is on the Material Plane.
Incorporeal Movement. The ghost can move through other creatures and objects as if they were Difficult Terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) Force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
Actions
Multiattack. The ghost makes two Withering Touch attacks.
Withering Touch. Melee Attack Roll: +5, reach 5 ft. Hit: 19 (3d10+3) Necrotic damage.
Etherealness. The ghost casts the Etherealness spell, requiring no spell components and using Charisma as the spellcasting ability. The ghost is visible on the Material Plane while on the Border Ethereal and vice versa, but it can't affect or be affected by anything on the other plane.
Horrific Visage. Wisdom Saving Throw: DC 13, each creature in a 60-foot Cone that can see the ghost and isn't an Undead. Failure: 10 (2d6+3) Psychic damage, and the target has the Frightened condition until the start of the ghost's next turn. Success: The target is immune to this ghost's Horrific Visage for 24 hours.
Possession (Recharge 6). Charisma Saving Throw: DC 13, one Humanoid the ghost can see within 5 feet. Failure: The target is possessed by the ghost; the ghost disappears, and the target has the Incapacitated condition and loses control of its body. The ghost now controls the body, but the target retains awareness. The ghost can't be targeted by any attack, spell, or other effect, except ones that specifically target Undead. The ghost's game statistics are the same, except it uses the possessed target's Speed, as well as the target's Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution modifiers.
The possession lasts until the body drops to 0 Hit Points or the ghost leaves as a Bonus Action. When the possession ends, the ghost appears in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the target, and the target is immune to this ghost's Possession for 24 hours.
Success: The target is immune to this ghost's Possession for 24 hours.
How to run Ghost
A friendly ghost is the patron of an arc. It haunts the place the party needs to investigate, it knows things no living NPC could know, and it will help, but only with the part of the problem that touches its own unresolved business. The framing that always works is a wronged spouse, a murdered scholar, or a soldier who died holding a line that no longer exists. The ghost has waited a long time for someone competent to walk in.
Use the ghost as an information source and a scene-setter, not as a frontline ally. Withering Touch and Multiattack are real damage, but the ghost has 45 HP and AC 11, and it does not benefit from healing. Send it ahead through walls with Incorporeal Movement and Ethereal Sight to scout the next room. Have it Possess a willing party member with their consent, swap in to deliver a message in its own voice to a person who needs to hear it, then leave the body unharmed. Possession is also how the ghost interacts with the physical world for any task more delicate than touching.
The ghost does not fight unless the fight is part of the haunting it has waited centuries to finish. When the moment arrives, open with Horrific Visage on the murderer, the heir, or whoever wronged it in life, since a Frightened condition there means more than damage to a stranger. Save Etherealness for the moment after the killing blow lands. The ghost says one line and fades.
The exit is the point. Resolve the unfinished business and the ghost departs for whatever waits beyond. Players will remember a clean farewell longer than any combat round.
Write the ghost's last line before session and read it slowly when the moment arrives.
A ghost is a haunting first and a combat encounter second. The fight should be the back half of a longer story, and that story is what the ghost wants resolved. Run the haunting for a session or two before initiative gets rolled. Cold spots, half-heard whispers in Common plus that one other language, objects moved between scenes. By the time the ghost manifests for combat, the players should already know who it was in life and roughly what went wrong.
Open with Horrific Visage. DC 13 Wisdom save in a 60-foot cone, 10 psychic on a failure, Frightened until the start of the ghost's next turn. A passed save grants 24-hour immunity to that specific ghost, so it's a one-shot panic button and you should fire it on the round most of the party can see the ghost at once. Then settle into Multiattack with two Withering Touch at +5 for 19 necrotic per hit. The ghost has Incorporeal Movement, so position it inside a wall and have it lean its head and one arm out to attack. The fighter cannot path to it. The wizard can.
Etherealness is the disengage. The moment the ghost takes serious damage, it slides into the Border Ethereal and watches the party panic, then re-enters somewhere worse on a later turn. Possession is the wild card on Recharge 6: DC 13 Charisma save against the Humanoid the ghost is willing to gamble on, and a failed save hands the ghost the body, the party's spell slots, and any magic items the body is wearing. Use Possession on whichever PC has the highest damage output and the lowest Cha save, then turn that PC on the cleric.
Ghosts do not flee in the normal sense, since they cannot be killed in the normal sense. Reduce the ghost to 0 HP and it reforms in 24 hours unless its unfinished business is resolved. The party's real win condition is the haunt, not the HP bar. Reward them for figuring that out.
Decide the ghost's unfinished business before the session, and write it on a sealed envelope. Open the envelope at the table the moment a player guesses correctly.
Stat block from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 © Wizards of the Coast LLC, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.