Giant Spider
Giant Spider — The Encounter
Armor-plated weaver of the deep wood, patient in its web · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Giant Spider
In the old foresters' almanacs these armored weavers are named the Patient Ones, for they do not chase — they wait. A giant spider strings its silk across game trails and ruined doorways, then retreats to the dark heart of the web where every tremor speaks to it like a tolling bell. Hunters who have lost kin to them warn that the creature feels you long before it sees you; a single thread brushed in the dark is invitation enough. Its venom does not kill so much as still, leaving the bitten quarry breathing yet helpless while the spider wraps it for a later meal. Country wisdom holds that fire is the only sure answer: burn the web, and the Patient One loses both its eyes and its larder. Those who cut the silk instead merely free their legs to flee — and learn how fast a thing so large can fall upon them from above.
Run Giant Spider in Sixty Seconds
- Hold for the ambush — don't reveal the spider until a PC is in the web. Open with Web on the lowest-AC backliner, not the front-line tank.
- Kill-priority: the snared caster — a restrained spellcaster who fails the DC 12 burst check is effectively removed; keep Multiattacking that target with advantage.
- When bloodied — climb a wall or ceiling with Spider Climb and break line of sight; melee PCs without reach or ranged options waste a turn chasing.
- Three ways to run it — lone lurker on a trail (skirmish), a brood with several spiders (the intended add-on use), or pure terrain in a fully webbed lair beside a bigger boss.
- Remember the venom rider — a bite that drops a PC to 0 leaves them paralyzed and poisoned for an hour even after healing; that's the scary part, not the d8.
Giant Spider
Large beast, unaligned
CR 2 · 450 XP · GUIDELINESpider Climb. The spider can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without making an ability check.
Web Sense. While in contact with a web, the spider knows the exact location of any other creature in contact with the same web.
Web Walker. Signature. The spider ignores movement restrictions caused by webbing. Its own webs are difficult terrain only for others, and it always knows the safest route across its lair-web to fall upon a snared meal.
Actions
Multiattack. The spider makes one Bite attack. If it has a target restrained by its web, it may instead Bite that target with advantage.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 12 Constitution saving throw, taking 9 (2d8) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. If the poison damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, the target is stable but poisoned for 1 hour, even after regaining hit points, and is paralyzed while poisoned in this way.
Web (Recharge 5–6). Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 30/60 ft., one creature. Hit: The target is restrained by webbing. As an action, the restrained target can make a DC 12 Strength check, bursting the webbing on a success. The webbing can also be attacked and destroyed (AC 10; hp 5; vulnerability to fire damage; immunity to bludgeoning, poison, and psychic damage).
A hound-sized hunter armored in overlapping chitin plates, its bristled legs clutching a torn web while curved fangs glisten with venom. The spiked abdomen rises like a scaled shield over its waiting body.
Giant Spider, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEBonded Sense (signature). While Giant Spider is within 60 feet of you, you share its blindsight and cannot be surprised while you are conscious.
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6 + 3) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 11 Constitution saving throw or take 5 (1d10) poison damage.
Reactions
Web Yank. When an ally you can see within 30 feet is hit by an attack, Giant Spider fires a silk line and the target of that ally's choosing must succeed on a DC 11 Strength save or be pulled 10 feet toward the bound spider.
A smaller, half-tamed weaver that rides on a handler's pack and drops on command, anchoring its silk to drag foes into reach.
Guideline numbers — formula-tuned and read from the miniature's design, not yet table-proven. Tell us how it ran in the comments.
How It Fights — by Tier
Same creature, scaled threat. The traits never change; only the numbers move.
Open from above or from the web edge with Web on the squishiest backliner, then close and Bite the restrained target with advantage. Kill-priority is anyone the party needs mobile — a caster glued in silk is out of the fight. Pair it with a web-lair (difficult terrain everywhere) or a swarm of smaller spiders so the party can't gang the one big body.
Run a brood: this matriarch holds the dark center while lesser spiders harry. Lead with Web to pin the healer or controller, Multiattack the snared target, then retreat up a wall (Spider Climb) to reset. Always pair it with minions or a tougher centerpiece — alone, a tier-2 party simply burns it down.
By now a lone spider is an environmental threat, not a fight — deploy it inside a fully webbed lair as terrain control with several broodlings. Web-and-bite the most mobile PC, exploit Web Sense to ignore invisibility on the silk, and flee upward when bloodied. Pair it with a bigger threat that benefits from the party being slowed and snared.
Put Giant Spider on the table
Download the presupported STL and run the fight tonight — the model, and the encounter that comes with it.
Get the STL on MyMiniFactory →Clay Cyanide Companion Rules v1
How a bound creature acts
- A companion acts on its owner's initiative, immediately after the owner.
- It uses the Companion block above — roughly ×0.6 HP and damage, no recharge abilities, and at most one reaction trait.
- It moves freely; it takes its Action only while its owner is conscious.
- At 0 HP a companion is broken, not dead — restored on a long rest unless your table rules otherwise.
Original Clay Cyanide material © Clay Cyanide LLC — explicitly not the non-SRD official sidekick rules.
Questions, Asked at the Table
What CR is Giant Spider?
Its home tier is CR 2 (450 XP), built for level 1–4 parties: AC 14, 52 HP, +4 to hit, save DC 12. Scale it up to CR 6 numbers for levels 5–10 or CR 11 numbers for levels 11–15 — the traits and actions stay identical, only AC, HP, to-hit, and DC change.
Can Giant Spider be a companion or ally?
Yes — use the bound companion sidebar, Skitter (AC 13, 31 HP). A half-tamed weaver that shares its blindsight with its handler, bites with a poison rider, and uses Web Yank to drag enemies toward the party. Roughly tier-1 in power, it's a scout-and-control pet rather than a heavy hitter.
Is the Giant Spider a good solo boss?
No. It has no legendary actions and no punishing reaction, so a four-PC party simply out-acts it. Run it as an add-on — with a brood of smaller spiders, inside a webbed lair as terrain, or alongside a larger centerpiece threat that benefits from the party being snared and slowed.
Tell Us How It Ran
This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 ("SRD 5.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
Clay Cyanide Miniatures is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC. This content is compatible with the fifth edition of the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. Companion rules, lore, names, and original mechanics © Clay Cyanide LLC.
Technical Specifications
32mm, 75mm
STL, Pre-supported STL
Standard or ABS-like resin, 0.05mm layer height
Yes — ready to print, optimized supports included
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