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Mind flayers
| Mind Flayer | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medium Aberration | |||||||||||||
| Level 8 | |||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||
| Stats | |||||||||||||
| Armour Class | 15 | ||||||||||||
| Hit points |
| ||||||||||||
| Weight | 60 kg (120 lb) | ||||||||||||
| Initiative | +1 | ||||||||||||
| Ability scores | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Proficiency bonus | +3 | ||||||||||||
| Saving throws |
| ||||||||||||
| Features | |||||||||||||
 | Advantage on Saving Throws against spells and magical effects | ||||||||||||
 | Automatically attack an enemy moving out of reach | ||||||||||||
 Tactician | Prevent an enemy from attacking you until next turn, as a reaction | ||||||||||||
Mind flayers or illithids are a non-playable race of Aberration creatures. The Githyanki word for mind flayer is ghaik. Multiple specific creatures titled Mind Flayer also exist in the game and are, as their names would suggest, all mind flayers.
Overview
| “ | Psionic tyrants, slavers, and interdimensional voyagers that feed off the brains of thinking creatures. |
„ |
| — in-game racial description |
Mind flayers are psionic aberrations with a humanoid-like figure and a tentacled head that communicate using telepathy. They feast on the brains of intelligent beings and can enthrall other creatures to their will. Every mind flayer is connected to an Elder Brain, a colossal and powerful psionic brain that commands the mind flayers it is linked to.
Mind flayers reproduce by infecting other creatures with a tadpole that consumes its host from the inside, transforming them into another mind flayer in a process called 
ceremorphosis.
Thousands of years ago, mind flayers were a dominant planar power. Using massive flying vessels called Nautiloids, they traveled to hundreds of worlds, harvesting intelligent humanoids to consume, propagate their race, and use as slave labour. One of their enslaved races, the gith, rose up and destroyed their empire, leaving only small pockets of mind flayers behind.
Interactions
Mind flayers play a major role as antagonists throughout the game, from the prologue into the endgame. Though most are immediately hostile, in some cases a mind flayer can be friendly or downright ingratiating. Whether their pleasantness is genuine or a self-serving veneer on their psionic charms is often left for the player to contemplate.
| Mind Flayer (Prologue) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medium Aberration | |||||||||||||
| Level 8 | |||||||||||||
| Stats | |||||||||||||
| Armour Class | 15 | ||||||||||||
| Hit points |
| ||||||||||||
| Weight | 60 kg (120 lb) | ||||||||||||
| Initiative | +1 | ||||||||||||
| Ability scores | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Proficiency bonus | +3 | ||||||||||||
| Saving throws |
| ||||||||||||
| Features | |||||||||||||
| | Advantage on Saving Throws against spells and magical effects | ||||||||||||
| | Automatically attack an enemy moving out of reach | ||||||||||||
Mind Flayer Characters
Spoiler warning! This section reveals details about the story of Baldur's Gate 3.
- The Emperor
- In the endgame, the player can choose to transform a character completely into a mind flayer:
Mind Flayer enemy variants
- Mind Flayer (prologue): A unique mind flayer in the prologue has a slightly larger health pool than mind flayers encountered later in the game. It also does not gain
on Tactician. - Illithid Arcanist
Attacks and abilities
AoE: 14 m / 47 ft (Cone)
Recharge: 
Range: 18 m / 60 ft 
Gallery
A mind flayer in Early Access
Mind flayer model
Mind flayer consuming a brain
External links
Mind flayer on the Forgotten Realms Wiki