Driders 5e: Stats and Guide for Players & DMs

Last Updated on November 2, 2023

The Drider is a Large, CR 6 Monstrosity that is a tauric combination of a spider’s lower body and a drow head, torso, and arms. It excels in all forms of combat and spellcasting.

Drider Statblock Breakdown

The first thing we can see at the very top is that this monster has a high armor class, has a boatload of HP, and can climb and move with equal ease. 

Its stats are in the positive range across the board, and it has bonuses to stealth and perception.  It also has the best kind of darkvision there is.

Already, we can see this is a boss-level monster for Tier 1 adventurers, and if played correctly, it can also be a boss monster for Tier 2. 

This thing is powerful.

It combines the abilities of the drow and what you would expect from a spider. It has fey ancestry and innate spellcasting as a drow does. 

In addition, it can move freely on any and all webs and can spider climb on vertical surfaces and upside down. 

It excels in melee combat, where it can interchange its weapon and powerful bite attacks. However, it isn’t limited to that. The drider is capable of wielding ranged weapons just as easily.

Player’s Guide

Chances are good the DM just dropped a drider into your story and you are sitting in your chair right now trying not to spill your Mountain Dew because you’re shaking so hard. Good thing you clicked on this post! 

Driders: Their Combat and Tactics

Its movement abilities mean that the Drider will attempt to approach your party in stealth and establish a secure position from which to pepper you with ranged attacks before closing in for melee.

Expect their spellcasting to be used before the battle begins, distracting you with dancing lights or hiding their position with darkness. 

When you notice your skin starts glowing from faerie fire, you can guess that you are about to get jumped and the driders are in their best possible position. 

From there it is simply a matter of shooting at your spellcasters and archers until they stop shooting back.

Driders:  Your Tactics When Facing a Drider

The first thing you should do is somehow counter the assistive magic they are wielding. Use Dispel the darkness or faerie fire to give yourself a chance to see what is going on.

From there, the driders can still see you from 120 feet, so you’ll want to make sure you can close the distance. 

After that, put the tanks in front of the ranged attackers, and slowly move your way into position to start changing your defense to offense.

Offensively, you’ll definitely want to have someone close into melee in order to give the rogue of the party a chance to get in a sneak attack. 

However, that is a very dangerous place to be. Don’t go in unless you have boosted your defenses as much as possible.

The drider’s lowest saves are Intelligence and Charisma, so make sure to use as many enchantment or illusion spells you can to attack, or at least distract, these powerful foes.

If the driders are using webbing at all to assist their movement, consider burning it. The web spell states that webs are flammable, dealing damage to any creature that starts its turn in a burning web space.

DM’s Guide

Driders are quite specific to drow, the Underdark, and Lolth; you will be able to throw them into any of those adventures freely.

Our hope in this next bit is to give you, oh faithful and clever DM, a new way to think about driders and then see where you take it.

Environment

Driders are obviously great in the Underdark where they can use the three-dimensional environment to their advantage, stay out of the sunlight, and be close to their drow strongholds.

However, when out ranging, they can be in dense forests where the sun rarely hits the ground.

Driders can burrow into the sand of a desert day and then skitter across the ground at night like a trapdoor spider, or they can be hidden in the hold of a pirate ship out of the sun.

Environmental features such as chasms, webs, and ceilings will add more difficulty to scale your encounter properly.

Organization

Driders will naturally fit with drow of any type. They can also make for a good hit squad, traveling where normal drow would find difficult. 

If you want driders to work with any other type of monster or race, they will need to be acting either as emissaries of their larger drow community or as lone hunters following the will of Lolth.

Consider what drow are interested in and then what can the drider’s unique social and power position do to help.