The various versions of Link from The Legend of Zelda series have frequently had to contend with giant spiders that serve the will of Ganondorf, as massive arachnids known as Gohma have tried to turn the Hero of Hyrule into lunch throughout the ages. Gohma is one of the recurring bosses in The Legend of Zelda series and it can be brought into a Dungeons & Dragons campaign as a monster for the party to fight.

Gohma are massive, armored, spider-like monsters, that usually sport crab claws and a weak spot in the form of their central eye. The first Gohma debuted in the original The Legend of Zelda game for the NES, where Link needed to fire an arrow into its massive eye in order to slay it. Since then, different versions of Gohma have appeared in the series, with the recurring gimmick of needing to strike it in the eye with either a sword or a ranged weapon. The Dungeons & Dragons multiverse has no shortage of giant spiders that can act as boss monsters for players to tackle at the end of a dungeon, but the concept of a defined weakness can make Gohma an interesting encounter for the party, especially if the DM intends for weak spots to be a running theme.

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Setting The Scene

The most famous Gohma encounter is the one that takes place at the start of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, where Link enters the huge dark room and spots the orange eye staring back through the mist. This same scene is easy to recreate in Dungeons & Dragons, with the final area of the dungeon being a massive dark cavern that extends beyond the player's source of light/darkvision. They gingerly enter the cave and get a glimpse of the orange eye, before it leaps into melee range to do battle.

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Gohma has the Spider Climb ability, which allows it to run up walls. The usage of this ability should depend on the party's ranged potential. A party with few ranged attacks would allow Gohma to make the most of its Spider Climb ability, as it can get in some hits and then flee up a wall. It might take a few attacks of opportunity, but these will be affected by its Armored Body ability and resisted for half damage. If the party does have a few ranged attackers, then Gohma is best suited putting the pressure on the group with its melee attacks & bulk.

Gohma's Stat Block

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Tactics & Difficulty

The DM should make it apparent that the big orange eye is a weak spot, as it's an exposed fleshy part of its form, in comparison to the armored plates that cover the rest of its body. The DM should also state the eye is moving about and will make for a hard target, as well as playing up the fact that the hits against its body aren't doing as much damage as they should.

Gohma is a relatively simple villain in terms of difficulty and it can be faced by a party of levels 1-3, but the loadout, number of players, and the resources they bring into battle should be taken into consideration, as Gohma could easily overpower an unwary group. If Gohma is proving to be too much of a challenge, then the DM could have Gohma be stunned for a round after it takes a hit to the eye, which is something that happens in its boss battles in the games. This should at least give the party breathing room to cast some spells and drink some potions or pile on enough damage to finish Gohma off before it can recover.

If the party is overwhelmed by Gohma due to bad luck, then its bite & poison could be used as a convenient excuse for it to keep the party alive. It's possible that Gohma pulls a Shelob and uses its poison to keep its prey intact so that it can savor their screams when it eats them. This gives the DM the opportunity for one of the players to break free from the poison and attempt to save the party, especially if Gohma needs to rest to lick its wounds. It's also possible that an ally of the party could mount a rescue mission, which might seem like a cop-out, but some players will prefer this to losing their precious characters in the belly of a monster. It helps if the party already has an adventuring ally who has been established in the story and is the kind of person who will come looking for them if they need help. It's also possible that they now owe their savior a favor, which can act as the hook for the next adventure. If the DM hasn't established a character who can save the party and they want to spare the players from losing their precious characters, then it's possible that they are saved by a certain elven warrior, who is clad in green armor and doesn't say very much...

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