Basilisk

Medium monstrosity, unaligned

Armor Class: 15; natural armor
Hit Points: 52; 8d8 + 16
Speed: 20 ft.

STR +3
DEX -1
CON +2
INT -4
WIS -1
CHA -2

Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 9

Challenge 3 700 XP · Proficiency +2

Traits

Petrifying Gaze

If a creature starts its turn within 30 feet of the basilisk and the two of them can see each other, the basilisk can force the creature to make a DC 12 Constitution saving throw if the basilisk isn't incapacitated. On a failed save, the creature magically begins to turn to stone and is restrained. It must repeat the saving throw at the end of its next turn. On a success, the effect ends. On a failure, the creature is petrified until freed by the greater restoration spell or other magic.

A creature that isn't surprised can avert its eyes to avoid the saving throw at the start of its turn. If it does so, it can't see the basilisk until the start of its next turn, when it can avert its eyes again. If it looks at the basilisk in the meantime, it must immediately make the save.

If the basilisk sees its reflection within 30 feet of it in bright light, it mistakes itself for a rival and targets itself with its gaze.

Actions

Bite

Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) piercing damage plus 7 (2d6) poison damage.

How to run it

Petrifying Gaze triggers when a creature starts its turn within 30 feet and the two can see each other, and it is the basilisk's action economy rather than its attack. A failed save restrains, a second failure petrifies. Characters have to close to melee to hurt it, and closing is what puts them in the gaze.

Speed 20 means it cannot chase. A basilisk in the open is a puzzle the party can walk away from; a basilisk in a lair they must cross is a real fight.

Building the encounter

One basilisk for a party of four at level 3 is a solid encounter with genuine stakes, because petrification is not a hit point loss. Two is deadly and probably unfair without a way to restore a petrified ally.

Before you place one, decide how the party can undo it. Greater restoration is out of reach at this level, so the answer is usually a quest, an NPC, or the basilisk's own blood. Petrifying a character with no route back removes them from the campaign.

What to pair it with

Nothing, usually. The basilisk is slow and its gaze is indiscriminate in fiction if not in rules, so it reads best as a lone hazard in a cave full of statues.

Those statues are the pairing. A room of petrified adventurers tells the party what this is before the first save, and that warning makes the encounter fair.

Reskins

A slow creature with a save-or-lose stare. Reflavour as a gorgon, a fungal thing that calcifies, a cursed idol with eyes, or something from very deep underground.

The statues are as important as the creature. Whatever you reskin into needs visible evidence of what it does, or the party has no chance to play around it.

Commonly played wrong

The gaze is not an action and does not need the basilisk's turn. It happens at the start of each nearby creature's turn, which means it can fire several times a round. Running it as an action makes it dramatically weaker.

A creature that averts its eyes or closes them can avoid the gaze in most versions of this rule, and players will ask. Decide before the fight how you are handling that, because ruling it mid-combat always feels arbitrary.

Compared to others at this CR

At CR 3 the basilisk deals less damage than the owlbear or the minotaur and is far more dangerous in consequence. Hit points come back after a short rest; petrification does not.

It is the CR 3 creature to use when you want a fight the party remembers losing something to. Use it sparingly and never as a random encounter.

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