Medium Monstrosity, Chaotic Evil
- AC
- 11
- Initiative
- +1 (11)
- HP
- 38 (7d8+7)
- Speed
- 20 ft., Fly 40 ft.
| Score | Mod | Save | |
|---|---|---|---|
| STR | 12 | +1 | +1 |
| DEX | 13 | +1 | +1 |
| CON | 12 | +1 | +1 |
| INT | 7 | -2 | -2 |
| WIS | 10 | +0 | +0 |
| CHA | 13 | +1 | +1 |
Actions
Claw. Melee Attack Roll: +3, reach 5 ft. Hit: 6 (2d4+1) Slashing damage.
Luring Song. The harpy sings a magical melody, which lasts until the harpy's Concentration ends on it. Wisdom Saving Throw: DC 11, each Humanoid and Giant in a 300-foot Emanation originating from the harpy when the song starts. Failure: The target has the Charmed condition until the song ends and repeats the save at the end of each of its turns. While Charmed, the target has the Incapacitated condition and ignores the Luring Song of other harpies. If the target is more than 5 feet from the harpy, the target moves on its turn toward the harpy by the most direct route, trying to get within 5 feet of the harpy. It doesn't avoid Opportunity Attacks; however, before moving into damaging terrain (such as lava or a pit) and whenever it takes damage from a source other than the harpy, the target repeats the save. Success: The target is immune to this harpy's Luring Song for 24 hours.
How to run Harpy
A harpy ally is a stretch, and the stretch is where the fun lives. The most playable framing is that the party has captured a harpy who has agreed to sing for them in exchange for not being killed, or that a coastal druid has tamed one and lent it to the party for a specific job. The relationship is transactional and unpleasant. Run it that way.
The whole reason to bring this creature is Luring Song. DC 11 Wisdom save on every Humanoid and Giant in a 300-foot Emanation. That is a battlefield-clearing crowd control effect at CR 1. Use it on enemy ranks that include lots of low-Wisdom mooks (orcs, bandits, hobgoblin warriors), and let the party handle the few who saved while the rest walk obediently into the killing ground the rogue prepared. The harpy must concentrate on the song, so it cannot do anything else useful that round, and any damage it takes ends the effect.
The Claw attack is irrelevant. With +3 to hit and 38 HP, the harpy contributes nothing in melee. Keep it perched 80 ft. up on something stable, with the rogue ready to climb and pull it out if a ranged enemy starts shooting at it. The harpy will sing for as long as the party pays it (gold, prisoners, leftover food) and will defect the moment a better offer turns up. It is not loyal and the party should never forget it.
Have the harpy sing when the party does not want it to. Walking into a tense diplomatic scene with a harpy on your shoulder humming the opening notes of Luring Song is the kind of complication that makes the table laugh and the negotiation harder.
A harpy is a low-CR encounter that reads as a puzzle, not a fight. The Claw attack is mediocre (+3 to hit, 6 average slashing), but Luring Song is the entire creature. DC 11 Wisdom save, 300-foot Emanation, on a failure the target is Charmed and Incapacitated and walks toward the harpy by the most direct route. That route can include a cliff, a swamp, or a campfire. Place the harpy somewhere the walk matters.
Open the encounter at long range. The party hears the song before they see the singer, and you call for the Wisdom save before initiative. Anyone who fails wakes up next round walking toward sound. They do not avoid Opportunity Attacks. They repeat the save when they take damage from anything other than the harpy, which means a friendly slap from another PC is a legal way to break the spell, and the players figuring that out is the whole arc of the encounter. Run two or three harpies together for a real threat. A single harpy is a tutorial, three harpies are an ambush.
Once melee starts the harpy fights badly. AC 11, 38 HP, +3 to hit. The flight (40 ft.) lets it back off to maintain Concentration while a Charmed PC stumbles into spike pits, but the moment it loses Concentration, the song is gone on those targets and the encounter collapses. Players who hit the harpy hard enough to break Concentration are doing the right thing.
Harpies do not negotiate. They sing because they like the result. If the party Bloodies the singer, the harpy keeps singing as long as it has Concentration and then drops. A harpy's nest is full of jewelry pried off corpses, so the loot should be good.
Set the encounter on a cliff edge, a frozen lake, or a rope bridge over a chasm. Luring Song is a bad ability in a featureless field and a great one anywhere a 30-foot fall is possible.
Stat block from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 © Wizards of the Coast LLC, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.