Cloaker 5e: Stats, Ambush Tactics and the 2024 Changes

A cloaker is a CR 8 Large aberration with AC 14, 78 hit points (91 in 2024) and a 40-foot fly speed that hangs motionless until it looks like a dark leather cloak. Then it wraps itself around a victim. While it is attached, the victim is blinded and every hit on the cloaker splits its damage with the person inside it (Damage Transfer). It frightens crowds with Moan and fills the air with copies of itself with Phantasms. All of it falls apart in bright light. In 2024, Moan and Phantasms became bonus actions, so the cloaker can use them and still attack in the same turn.

Table of Contents

• •Cloaker Stat Block (2014)
• •The Cloaker in the 2024 Rules
• •How Cloakers Fight
• •Running a Cloaker Encounter
• •How Players Beat Cloakers
• •Cloaker Encounter Ideas
• •Frequently Asked Questions

Cloaker Stat Block (2014)

The cloaker from SRD 5.1, the same as the 2014 Monster Manual.

The 2014 cloaker attacks with a bite (+6, 10 piercing) and a tail (+6, 7 slashing, 10-foot reach). The bite is the important one. On a hit against a Large or smaller target, the cloaker attaches. If it had Advantage on that bite, it attaches to the head: the target is blinded and can't breathe. While attached, the cloaker can bite only that target, with Advantage every time. Pulling it off takes an action and a DC 16 Strength check, by the target or anyone else.

Its other two actions replace the attack routine:

• •Moan. Every creature within 60 feet that can hear it and isn't an aberration makes a DC 13 Wisdom save or is frightened until the end of the cloaker's next turn. A success grants 24 hours of immunity.
• •Phantasms (once per short or long rest). Three illusory duplicates appear if the cloaker isn't in bright light. Anyone attacking it or targeting it with a harmful spell rolls randomly among the four. A duplicate vanishes when an attack hits it or when it fails a save against a damaging effect. Creatures that can't see, or that rely on senses other than sight, aren't fooled.

Light Sensitivity gives it Disadvantage on attacks and sight-based Perception checks in bright light. Stealth +5 and False Appearance (indistinguishable from a cloak while motionless with its underside hidden) make it an ambusher.

The Cloaker in the 2024 Rules

SRD 5.2.1 keeps CR 8 and 3,900 XP and reorganizes the action economy.

The big one is the action economy. A 2014 cloaker that moans or summons phantasms gives up its attacks that turn. A 2024 cloaker can Moan on turn one and Phantasms on turn two while making its full Attach-and-two-tails routine both times. The 2024 cloaker also blinds every creature it attaches to, not just ones it lands on the head of, and its Mirror Image is much harder to see through: each time an attack hits, the cloaker rolls a d6 per remaining duplicate, and any 3 or higher sends the hit to a duplicate. With all three up, a hit reaches the real cloaker only 1 time in 27.

How Cloakers Fight

Open with surprise. A cloaker hanging in a wardrobe or from a ceiling hook makes a Stealth check (+5) against the party's passive Perception. If it is unseen when it attacks, it has Advantage. In 2014, an Advantaged bite means the head: blinded and unable to breathe. Under the SRD suffocation rules a creature can hold its breath for 1 + its Con modifier minutes (minimum 30 seconds), so the danger isn't drowning in the cloak, it's being blind and pinned while the rest of the fight happens.

Pick the target that the party can't afford to hit. Once attached, the cloaker is armor made of a friend. Damage Transfer means a fighter who hits the cloaker for 20 deals 10 to the cloaker and 10 to the wizard inside it. Choose the character with the fewest hit points, and the party has to decide between hurting their friend and leaving the cloaker alone.

The damage adds up. Against AC 16, +6 hits on a 10 or better (55%). The 2024 routine (Attach 13, two Tails at 8) averages about 16 damage a round before attaching. Once attached, the victim is blinded, so attacks against it have Advantage (about 80% to hit) and the routine averages about 23 a round, all into one person. The 2014 cloaker does less: about 9 a round unattached, about 12 once attached (the bite always has Advantage then), and about 14 if it is on the victim's head and the tail also gets Advantage against the blinded target. A head-attached victim also can't breathe.

Moan first, then mirror. The Moan covers 60 feet, more than most rooms. Frightened characters have Disadvantage on attacks while they can see the cloaker and can't move toward it. In 2024 the cloaker is immune to Frightened, so pair it with other frightening creatures freely. Phantasms come next, before anyone manages to get a light source onto it.

Stay in the dark. Bright light ends Phantasms and imposes Disadvantage on its attacks. When someone casts Daylight, the cloaker should fly out of the bright area (40-foot fly speed) and wait in the dark beyond it. Its walking speed is only 10 feet, so it fights from the air or from a ceiling.

Running a Cloaker Encounter

A cloaker is 3,900 XP. With the 2024 budget for four characters:

Two cloakers (7,800 XP) are a High encounter for four level 8 characters: over Moderate (6,800), within High (8,400). A cloaker with a few darkmantles or a grick turns an Underdark cavern into a ceiling full of threats.

Under the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide guidelines (used by our encounter calculator), one cloaker is Hard for four level 6 characters (3,600 Hard, 5,600 Deadly). Two cloakers count as 11,700 XP with the ×1.5 multiplier, beyond Deadly for level 8 (8,400).

Lighting is the difficulty slider. The same cloaker in a pitch-black cave and in a brightly lit hall plays like two different fights. Decide before the session how much light the party will have. Darkvision lets a character see the cloaker in the dark, but only bright light weakens it.

How Players Beat Cloakers

• •Light it up. Bright light gives the cloaker Disadvantage on attacks and ends Phantasms. A torch only sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius, so the light has to be on the cloaker, not on the party. Daylight (60-foot radius) or Continual Flame on a thrown object does it.
• •Peel it off instead of hitting it. Every hit on an attached cloaker hurts the victim too. The detach check (DC 16 Strength in 2014, DC 14 Athletics in 2024) costs an action but transfers no damage. A character with +6 Athletics needs an 8 against the 2024 cloaker.
• •Area damage while it's attached. If you hit the cloaker and its victim with the same Fireball, the victim takes its own damage and half the cloaker's. Single-target attacks are kinder.
• •See through Phantasms. Blinded creatures and creatures with blindsight or truesight ignore the 2024 Mirror Image. In 2014, anyone who can't see or relies on other senses is unaffected. Faerie Fire doesn't stop the duplicates, but light does.
• •Protect against Moan. A creature that saves is immune for 24 hours. In 2014 a deafened character can't hear it, and aberrations are immune.
• •Use its weak saves. It has no Magic Resistance and no save proficiencies. In 2014, Con, Int and Wis are all +1; in 2024, Cha −2 is the worst, then Con and Int at +1. Hold Person can't target it (it's an aberration, not a Humanoid), and Dispel Evil and Good doesn't cover aberrations. Protection from Evil and Good does: the warded creature can't be frightened by it, which shuts off the Moan, and the cloaker has Disadvantage on attacks against it.

Cloaker Encounter Ideas

The coat check. A noble's masquerade in a cliffside manor. The coat room off the main hall holds forty dark cloaks on hooks, and one of them isn't a cloak. The cloaker waits until a guest comes in alone. The party is hired to find out why guests keep disappearing between dances, and the room is lit by a single candle.

The drowned chapel. In an Underdark cavern, a ruined chapel's stained glass once let in sunlight from a shaft above. The shaft collapsed. A family of cloakers roosts in the dark nave. The party can reopen the shaft by clearing rubble, which floods the floor with bright light around noon for an hour. The fight is a waiting game, or a gamble.

The tailor's bargain. A tailor in an Underdark trading post sells a "living cloak" to an adventurer. It is a cloaker, and it has made a deal with the tailor: carry it into a surface city, and it will wait until its wearer goes to sleep.

Frequently Asked Questions

What CR is a cloaker in 5e?

A cloaker is CR 8 (3,900 XP) in both the 2014 and 2024 rules.

How does a cloaker's Damage Transfer work?

While the cloaker is attached to a creature, it takes only half of any damage dealt to it (rounded down), and the creature it is attached to takes the other half. In 2024 the rule is part of the Attach attack and works the same way.

What does a cloaker's Moan do?

Each creature within 60 feet makes a DC 13 Wisdom save or is frightened until the end of the cloaker's next turn. A creature that succeeds is immune for 24 hours. In 2014 it is an action and only affects creatures that can hear it and aren't aberrations; in 2024 it is a bonus action.

How do Phantasms work for a cloaker?

The 2014 cloaker creates three illusory duplicates as an action, and attackers roll randomly to see whether they target the real one. The 2024 cloaker casts Mirror Image as a bonus action. Both end in bright light, and both recharge after a short or long rest.

Is a cloaker weak to light?

Yes. In bright light it has Disadvantage on attack rolls (and, in 2014, on sight-based Perception checks), and its Phantasms end. Bright light is the single best counter.

How do you get a cloaker off someone?

Take an action and make a DC 16 Strength check (2014) or a DC 14 Strength (Athletics) check (2024). In 2014 any creature, including the target, can try; in 2024 it's the target or a creature within 5 feet of it. The cloaker can also let go by spending 5 feet of movement.

Stat blocks: System Reference Document 5.1 (2014) and 5.2.1 (2024), Wizards of the Coast, CC-BY-4.0. Tactics, encounter math and ideas are Loreify's own.