How to run a Banshee encounter in D&D 5e

Who doesn’t know about the mythical Banshee. A screaming woman who did not have a fulfilling life and now wants revenge on you, your loved ones and maybe even your cow! This is of course an outdated view of the Banshee. In this day and age a banshee can be anything they want to be. It is a fantastic creature to add into your campaign, because of its recognizability and amazing abilities. Let’s explore how to do this!

Understanding the Banshee

Visually

The woeful banshee is a spiteful creature formed from the spirit of a female elf. Its face is wreathed in a wild tangle of hair, its body clad in wispy rags that flutter and stream around it.

Basic Rules, pg. 118

Above is the description of the Banshee as described in the Basic rulebook. I think this is a great starting point when thinking about the Banshee. They are a spiteful creature who’s body is a bit translucent and maybe ragged. 

How do they come to be

A Banshee can have multiple reasons for becoming a Banshee. For example they can be bound to a place where they were wrongfully murdered and then took out their assailant. In the process, becoming a Banshee that now attacks everyone it sees because the Banshee thinks that they are trying to murder them.

They could be a cloud of mist with a barely formed face in a well. Where they fell down as a child and starved to death wailing for their parents. 

They could be an angry person who was so passionate about defending their house against people who wanted to build a bigger house that they died from exhaustion.

Ideas to use

I think Banshees can be the perfect haunt or final boss of a mystery quest. They are quite strong when you pair them with a lower level party (level 3-4). And they can be annoying when you put them in the middle of a dungeon or quest for higher level parties.

Some areas where you can put a banshee are a well. Maybe in a crypt inside your dungeon. You can also use them as the sole occupant of manor. If you want to combine the Banshee with another creature for a higher level you can use a Cult Fanatic who created the Banshee and now controls it to do their bidding.

Preparing for the Encounter

The lair

Everything can be a Banshee lair. You can get as creative as you want. Below are some ideas.

Well

The bottom of a well works really great for a Banshee encounter, because their Wailing ability works with a range. This way you can make sure to hit the entire party to really up the suspension at the start of your combat encounter. 

Crypt

Crypts work really well thematically for a banshee since they are undead creatures who don’t want to leave or resent what happened to them. So if you want a creature that haunts the place they are, you can use a crypt as the lair for your banshee from where they can haunt an entire dungeon.

Manor

Similar to the lair above you can use a manor as the hunting ground for your Banshee. You can create a story around the previous owner of the manor who got murdered or died there. You can then for example use one of their most prized possessions as the source of their power and use that location of that item as a lair.

Running the Encounter

Abilities

The banshee is a feature rich monster. It has two non combat abilities and three combat action abilities.

Non combat abilities

Detect Life. The banshee can magically sense the presence of creatures up to 5 miles away that aren’t undead or constructs. She knows the general direction they’re in but not their exact locations.

Using this ability in combination with a dungeon or a manor can make the banshee the perfect hunter and recurring monster in your quest. You can use the Banshee to ‘find’ the PC’s attacking them and then use Incorporeal movement to retreat when it has done one or two swipes. 

Incorporeal Movement. The banshee can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. She takes 5 (1d10) force damage if she ends her turn inside an object.

Incorporeal movement can be a real fight changer when used in combination with small spaces with lots of corridors. If you want to use this to phase in and out of combat you will need multiple rooms, because the Banshee cannot survive inside a wall. So for the well lair you can use this to retreat after a swipe to not trigger an attack of opportunity (since you have total cover in your coze wall) and then reappearing outside of melee range.

Corrupting Touch. Melee Spell Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (3d6 + 2) necrotic damage.

This is your main attacking ability when using a Banshee in combat. If it is possible always try to combine using the Corrupting Touch ability together with phasing into a wall. This way you can stay out of melee range of your enemies (since you have 40ft flying speed).

Horrifying Visage. Each non-undead creature within 60 feet of the banshee that can see her must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened for 1 minute. A frightened target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, with disadvantage if the banshee is within line of sight, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a target’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the target is immune to the banshee’s Horrifying Visage for the next 24 hours.

With this ability you can immediately create some great tension in your combat encounter, being a hunter the Banshee can go after the creatures it has frightened. Hitting it with Corrupting Touch and then retreating via a wall outside their melee range but within line of sight. This way the Banshee can really do a number on the party without taking too much damage itself. 

Wail (1/Day). The banshee releases a mournful wail, provided that she isn’t in sunlight. This wail has no effect on constructs and undead. All other creatures within 30 feet of her that can hear her must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, a creature drops to 0 hit points. On a success, a creature takes 10 (3d6) psychic damage.

This is a game changer ability for the Banshee. To get the full benefits of this ability make sure the entire party is within range. The Banshee has a movement speed of 40ft so you can always reposition yourself to be in perfect range and also to not include any possible allies of the Banshee.

Combat tactics

When starting a combat encounter you always want to be prepared. So knowing the possible abilities of the Banshee is a great start. 

For the Banshee it is important to remember that Horrifying Visage will be useless after someone saves it and if it succeeds they will be frightened and cannot move closer to the Banshee. Therefore I would start with Wail. make sure you use Incorporeal Movement to try to ‘appear’ in the middle of as many PC’s as possible. This might take out a couple of the PC’s at the start of the combat to immediately increase the stakes of the encounter. You can then use Horrifying Visage on the rest of the PC’s and then chase them around using a combination of Incorporeal Movement and Corrupting Touch. Remember that at lower levels melee users will not do too much damage to the Banshee due to their resistance to non magical weapons. So it would make sense to go after magical users and PC’s with magical weapons first.

If you want more tips for engaging combat read our top 5 tips for D&D encounters.

Weaknesses

The Banshee is not vulnerable to any damage types. But being an undead it is weaker against Paladins and Clerics. 

It can be affected by the Turn undead ability from clerics. And the Turn Unholy ability from paladins. However being a CR 4 creature it is not affected by the Destroy undead ability until the PC reaches level 17. It has a lot of resistances but this does not include radiant damage. This means most of the cleric and paladin spells will hit for full damage even at lower levels. Your melee based party members will be thankful.

Thank you for reading this deep dive into the mystical Banshee. If you are interested in more monster deep dives check out our other monster spotlights. If you need some help thinking of the encounter after your amazing Banshee encounter, check out our encounter generator and let us help you with your next encounter.