Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

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Wights have been in the game since its beginnings, part of the original Undead Power Ladder. Here, they are present only on the Monster Manual.

The Lore

I might have touched upon this before, but in the implied D&D setting mortal beings are composed of three main metaphysical “pieces”: the body, the soul, and the will. The will is also known by sages as the “animus”, and is the “glue” that holds body and soul together. This is also quite similar to Exalted’s division of the body, “higher soul” and “lower soul”.

What usually happens when someone dies is that the soul separates from the body, and the animus disintegrates. You get undead when something intereferes with this process and the animus sticks around, or when someone introduces an artificial animus into the equation via necromancy. What type of undead you get depends on the final configuration of post-mortem body, soul and animus.

When the soul departs but the animus sticks to the body, you get a wight. Wights are intelligent, since they retain the use of their brain-meats, but they’re not really the same person they were in life. In place of a soul they have this gaping void, which they are compelled to fill by slaying the living and drinking their life force. A wight doesn’t need to do this in order to keep existing, though, so they hang around for a long time in their haunts waiting for a victim to wander by.

Wights typically inhabit the places where they died, though they are not really bound to them. More ambitious wights might take over catacombs and crypts and go about finding victims (and treasure!) in a more proactive way. These can find themselves commanding lesser undead, or perhaps acting as lieutenants for more powerful villains.

The Numbers

Wights are Medium Natural Humanoids with the Undead keyword. As such they’re immune to disease and poison, and have tier-based necrotic resistance and radiant vulnerability. They also have darkvision.

Wights are famously able to drain the life energy of others with a touch. In previous editions this meant they drained levels (in AD&D) or inflicted “negative levels” (in 3e). Here this means they eat your healing surges.

While you can still get them back via a long rest, this does significantly impact your resources, which is a real bummer in those instances where you can’t just plop down and rest for six hours whenever the fancy strikes you.

Deathlock Wight

This one was either a necromancer in life, or learned how to be one after it died. It’s a Level 4 Controller with 54 HP and all standard wight traits. Its speed is 6.

A deathlock wight’s basic claw attack does necrotic damage, and causes the target to lose a healing surge. Their Grave Bolt (ranged 20 vs. Reflex) is a much better attack, dealing necrotic damage and immobilizing (save ends). Their magically-enhanced Horrific Visage (close blast 5 vs. Will; recharge 4-6) does untyped damage and pushes victims 3 squares.

Once per encounter they can Reanimate (Ranged 10; minor action) a fallen non-minion undead ally. The target stands back up with 25% of its HP.

The MM stat block for deathlock wights has pitifully low damage all around. Fixing this is a priority if you want to use them.

Wight

The standard model is a Level 5 Skirmisher with 62 HP and all standard wight traits. Its speed is 7.

The basic wight’s only attack are its life-draining claws, which do necrotic damage, eat a healing surge, and allow it to shift up to 3 squares on a hit. It’s simple, but the shift and the life-draining make it quite dangerous since it can reach your squishies and ruin their day.

Battle Wight

A wight with more formal combat training. It wears plate, and wields a sword and shield. It’s a level 9 Soldier with 98 HP and all standard wight traits, plus speed 5.

The battle wight has learned to channel its dark powers through the sword, and so its basic attack is a Souldraining Longsword that does necrotic damage, eats a healing surge and immobilizes (save ends). It can also attack at range with Soul Reaping (ranged 5 vs. Fortitude; recharge 5-6). This only affects immobilized targets, but deals high necrotic damage and heals the wight for 10 HP.

Battle Wight Commander

A smarter and more powerful version of the Battle Wight, this one is a Level 12 Soldier (Leader) with 106 HP and all wight traits. It has the same gear as the basic battle wight, and speed 5.

The commander’s Souldraining Longsword does everything the battle wight’s does, and also weakens on a hit. A save ends both the immobilization and the weakness. Soul Reaping gets upgraded to Soul Harvest (ranged 5 vs. fortitude; recharge 4-6) which works the same but heals both the commander and 2 undead allies within 10 squares.

Slaughter Wight

Much like the basic wight, this one is a monstrosity in rags that attacks with its claws. It’s just a whole lot stronger and tougher.

Slaughter wights are Level 18 Brutes with 182 HP, all standard wight traits, and speed 7. Their claws do necrotic damage and have a lot of riders: eat a healing surge, weaken (save ends), heal the wight for 15 HP, and a partrige in a pear tree.

When killed, these monsters emit a Death Wail (close burst 5 vs. Fortitude), which does necrotic damage to enemies in the area, and allows undead allies in the area to make a basic attack as a free action.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

We get several encounters here:

  • Level 3: 1 deathlock wight, 3 zombies, and 6 zombie rotters.

  • Level 11: 1 battle wight commander, 4 battle wights, 1 shadar-kai witch, 2 shadar-kai chainfighters.

  • Level 18: 2 slaughter wights, 3 abyssal ghouls, 1 nabassu gargoyle.

Wights are a very distinctly D&D monster, but at the same time they kinda get lost amid all the other similar undead in the game. This might explain why they were left out of the Monster Vault.