Air Warden

Oh, baby! We’ve got another big-time Bunker Buster for today’s Dungeon Delve Wandering Monster table entry today. Let’s take a deep breath of musty underground air and take a closer look.

Bunker Buster Wandering Monsters are especially nasty because barricading your resting spot does little good. All these meanies need is a small one-inch crack to slip through so they can start throwing haymakers at all the unsuspecting sleepers.

We searched our inventory and Google images high and low and just couldn’t peg where we got this specific model from, so if anyone knows, please drop us a comment on our Facebook or Instagram posts. We adore this sculpt, though, and want to praise the author! We can almost feel this gust of menacing air brush against our shoulders. Also, a nice tip of the paintbrush to resident painter Kimmy Utah on the fab coloring job. We love its simplicity but striking appearance.

For the DnD 5e stat block, we like the large Air Elemental on D&D Beyond. Its 15 AC, 90 HP, and numerous damage resistances will ensure a couple of rounds of stressful combat. Regarding fighting style, the DM has two slam attacks (+8/2d8+5) and a really, really nasty Whirlwind action (including a recharge 4-6).

Now, many of you are probably saying to DM Ben that this encounter difficulty for six fourth-level characters is too trivial. However, a surprise round is likely thanks to its 20 Dex (Stealth +5 check vs the watcher’s Wisdom (Perception) check). Plus, several characters will be sleeping, so they’ll need an initial initiative round to put on their armor.

Just picture it—the player on watch bumbles the contested stealth check. For the surprise round, the Air Elemental strikes several players within its 2×2 d20 radius for Whirlwind. The DM then successfully recharges the ability and uses it again in round one’s initiative order. Dice damage is flying with all sorts of d8s, and a successful DC 13 strength save still means half damage! Yikes. Yikes. Yikes.

DM Ben likes this blustering Air Elemental for both a dungeon and wilderness counter, so we’ll add this guy to each table.

Until next time!