What's Marut?
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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Marut MPMM p173
The nigh-unstoppable inevitables serve a singular purpose: they enforce contracts forged in the Hall of Concordance in the city of Sigil. Primus, the leader of the modrons, created maruts and other inevitables to bring order to dealings between planar folk. A wide array of disparate creatures, including yugoloths, will enter into a contract with inevitables if asked.
The Hall of Concordance is an embassy of pure law in Sigil, the City of Doors. In the hall, parties who agree to mutual terms—and who pay the requisite gold to the Kolyarut, a mechanical engine of absolute jurisprudence—can have their contract chiseled onto a sheet of gold that is placed in the chest of a marut. From that moment until the contract is fulfilled, the marut is bound to enforce its terms and to punish any party who breaks them. A marut resorts to lethal force only if a contract calls for it, if the contract is fully broken, or if the marut is attacked.
Inevitables care nothing for the spirit of an agreement, only the letter. A marut enforces what is written, not what was meant by or supposed to be understood from the writing. The Kolyarut rejects contracts that contain vague, contradictory, or unenforceable terms. Beyond that, it doesn't care whether both parties understand what they're agreeing to.
I don't get it.
Empowered with the certainty of law, contract maruts were terrifying opponents whose strikes always connected, invariably dealing devastating damage.
my first thought was 'that damage doesn't seem like enough if these fellas are supposed to be deaths backup squad' then i got to
A marut commanded an array of magic, replicating the spells air walk, dimension door, fear, greater command, greater dispel magic, mass inflict light wounds, locate creature, and true seeing as often as it willed; chain lightning, circle of death, mark of justice, wall of force each once a day; and earthquake, geas/quest, and plane shift each once a week.[3][4]
ooh thats a spicy boi
5e Marut: I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that
Maruts don’t have to roll to hit - they’re creatures of true order, so they just hit when they plan to.
That is.... terrifying
It's a thing about Law, specifically the realm of Law, Mechanus, who's power I would guess they carry with them.
One of the (I think optional in 5e) realm rules for Mechanus is you do not make attack rolls. Instead, you treat any roll as a 10 and add your stat and proficiency as the realm removes the idea of random chance and focuses on clockwork regularity. Even damage die default to their average, which makes combat a lot more straight forward but also means you can come up on something you literally cannot hurt.
There's a handy common level magic item in Xanathar's Guide, called the Clockwork Amulet, which let's you skip an attack roll and just take it as a ten, and do so once per day (No attunement, resets at sunrise). It's a good thing in certain situations
A well roleplayed Marut is great. As a CR 25 construct, it's going to be enforcing a universal law, such as attempting to stop a world ending threat.
It's primary aim is normally to planeshift it's quarry to court, rather than kill them, and may even prefer not to kill those who come between that goal.
Here's The Monsters Know What They're Doing's blog post on them. It really telegraphs how helpless a targeted creature is to them.
Good news is they really only exist to punish players who pissed off the DM, and would therefore hit anyways.
It's not like they can see what goes on behind the DM screen. I can say the dice did whatever I want. 😤
Unerring Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: automatic hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 60 force damage, and the target is pushed up to 5 feet away from the marut if it is Huge or smaller