Ho Ho Holy sh#t - he's a big one
To tie off the festive season and heading into the New Year, I thought we'd look at CR20 SANTA (stat block here). I've ran him multiple times this season and last season, and the players had a blast coming up against him and his problematic reindeer.
CR20 Santa is intended to be a happy NPC that spreads joy and cheer - but in our recent games, we made him the ADVERSARY.
CR20 Santa holds his own well with a powerful party, and has a good array of abilities to use on your players.
Starting with notable base stats, he has a HP pool of 300, an AC of 20 a 30ft movement and 60 ft flying speed. He is naturally immune to Cold damage, the exhaustion and petrified conditions and is resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons.
He also has some boons to his sight, boasting a 60ft blindsight, 120 ft darkvision.
Let's now look at some of the tools he has against players.
Lair actions
On initiative count 20 (which goes first before all other entities in combat), Santa can take a lair action. We used this is a town that evil Santa had turned into a tundra home for him, his creatures and his reindeer. These abilities are:
- Magic mistletoe
- grows down from the ceiling and attempts to grab up to three creatures Santa can see within 120 feet of him. Those creatures must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be restrained until the start of Santa’s next lair action. On its turn a creature restrained this way can try and free itself as an action with a DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. Another creature can attack the mistletoe and attempt to destroy it (AC 15, HP 20, immune psychic, vulnerable slashing).
- Spectral jingles bells
- appear and sound. Each creature within 120 feet of Santa who can hear the bells must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw. Santa can slide any creature who fails 30 feet in the direction of his choosing.
- Santa laughs and the ground shakes like a bowl full of jelly within a 60-foot radius around him. Every creature on the ground within the area other than Santa must succeed on a DC 15 saving throw or be knocked prone.
Santa also has a range of regional effects that kick in when he's around and setup his lair. For my game, he was the adversary, but if he's on the nice list for your games, the following can be done with Santa:
Regional effects
On initiative count 20 (which goes first before all other entities in combat), Santa can take a lair action. We used this is a town that evil Santa had turned into a tundra home for him, his creatures and his reindeer. These abilities are:
- All pack animals (such as horses, reindeer, and oxen) gain a fly speed equal to their speed within 6 miles of the lair.
- For non-evil creatures any snow within 6 miles of the lair tastes like peppermint and provides nourishment. Such creatures automatically succeed on Constitution saving throws against exhaustion due to harsh climate within 6 miles of the lair, warmed by a delightful feeling which comes from within their hearts. (I mostly kept this, but changed tastes to bitter, and had CON checks at disadvantage)
- Snowmen created by creatures with the good alignment within 1 mile of the lair come to life and point the way to Santa’s workshop. Evil creatures who build snowmen within 1 mile of the lair find the creation explodes upon completion, dealing 11 (2d10) cold damage to anyone within 5 feet of it. (We had choatic aligned players could be pointed in the direction of Santa, and Good creatures snowmen woudl explode).
Now, when Santa was "killed" in our game, the evil spirit infesting Santa was expelled, turning any negative effects of the above to the original descriptions. What a happy ending!
The flavourful regional effects are a great way to build up Santa before players event see him, while the Lair actions obviously act as a large boon considering how damaging his abilities can be.
There's also inate abilities he has, such as Amorphous (meaning he can fit through holes an inch wide), can Discern alignment (allowing him to tell who has been... naughty or nice), does 2d8 extra damage to 'naughty' creatures, and has 3 legenary actions and resistances. In addition (I know, it's a lot!), he can cast these spells inately:
- At will
- bless, invisibility, locate creature, misty step, ray of frost, scrying, sleep, zone of truth
- 3/day
- cone of cold, hold monster, mass cure wounds, sleet storm
- 1/day
- teleport, time stop, wall of ice
He has a spell save DC of 21 and a +13 to hit with spells, so all of the above will HURT!
Lastly, there are a slew of other things Santa gets in addition to his multiattack (x3) which are:
- Sack of gifts
- Jolly Holly
- Open up your present
- peace on earth.
As part of Santa's legenary actions, he can use Jolly Holly, You've been Naughty, and Twinkle eyes.
I don't want to spoil everything about this amazing homebrew, so be sure to check out the stat block on the original site which can be accessed here.
I recommend using this in a seasonal themed game (or just adapting it for a Winter themed monster). What was great with this monster block is that there is an amazing attention to detail. In my games, players were worried about the environmental effects Santa had, with presents being an indicator of who it is. That in addition to the actual abilities he has gave players clues and hints before the big reveal, which is something that's really fun to see with something as iconic as Santa!
Well, that's CR 20 Santa!!Check out the original stat block and we really want to say that we hope you;ve had an amazing festive period, and go into the New Year renewed and ready to take on the world (even if it's in a TTRPG!)
Happy New Year when it comes folks!
-KJ
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