D&D 5E Demon Wall

So, I had an interesting Idea for my Rise of Tiamat campaign. I have lots of ideas, just not sure how to stay in the rules of the campaign.

I have Rebel Red Wizards playing with magical trinkets that they've stolen from Thay to support the Cult. Rath Modar is the big bad wizard in charge of this rebellion. His whole mission to raise Tiamat, is to distract the world while he makes a political play for a coup to overthrow Severin. However, Rath had a major character flaw... He didn't think the cult and his little rebellion would succeed at raising Tiamat. Heh. Oops.

Anyways, so back to my idea. A dwarven town has been over powered by corrupting magics that cause the dwarves to be subservient and it accelerates them making them stronger, faster, and more or less magical meth heads for the purpose of mining ore and producing weapons faster....

The Red wizard in charge of occupying this town has made a deal with a demon... Some dwarven souls for the corrupting magic hold the town as a massive slave labor camp. The red wizard there didn't have the forsight to realize making deals with demons is a bad idea. This has led many dwarves in the town to go insane, to kill each other, etc. The characters have walked into this mess, nearly succombed to the overpowering demon magic, however, have saved against the magics at play.

So, the idea I had, is that the Demon is only partially in this world. The Demon head is formed through a wall on the second floor of the refinery. In it's eyes are two phylacteries each filled with a swirling glowing myst. Souls of sacraficed and/or living dwarves. I wanted to make the demon the final boss battle of this refinery. However, I don't really see a monster that fills this need. The idea was some type of extremely difficult demon wall, similar to a demon wall in old Final Fantasy games. Where the wall moves in on the characters as they throw everything they have at it. As it moves in to crush the characters it buffs and heals itself, seals the only exit with a wall of force, and proceeds to crush everyone. They have 1d6 + 1 rounds before it starts crushing them, as it crushes them it gets a bite attack from the face in the wall.

I suppose, I could just create my own monster, but, wanted to see if anyone has a template for something like this, or even something that's close to something like this. I want it to be challenging to a party of 5 players that are all level 9. And they've defeating two CR 10's and a CR 13 (faced at once). They were at full power when they faced that though.

Any ideas or suggestions?

As a general rule when I'm doing things like this I simply create custom monsters. Find something kind of close and go from there. I've never played the Final Fantasy games (I know, I've lead a barren life devoid of such gaming goodness) but I will mention a few things.

First, the image you paint for your players is in many ways more important than the monster you base things on. Let's say you decide to base your monster on an adult red dragon. The fear effect makes sense as waves of despair emanate from the wall, claw and bite attacks can be different "appendages" reaching out from the wall, a mouth opens up and breaths fire and so on. Lair actions are the result of the very environment fighting them.

If you want to use lair actions, take a gander through various monsters that have lair actions and pull actions that make sense for the scene. They don't have to be from the same creature.

Take a look at the guidelines for building monsters and expected HP/AC and damage per round to get a general idea and adjust as necessary.

Remember though that solo monsters are generally easier to defeat than a group of monsters. So give the wall companions (possessed dwarves?) or up the CR a little bit.

tk32 said:

So, I had an interesting Idea for my Rise of Tiamat campaign. I have lots of ideas, just not sure how to stay in the rules of the campaign.

I have Rebel Red Wizards playing with magical trinkets that they've stolen from Thay to support the Cult. Rath Modar is the big bad wizard in charge of this rebellion. His whole mission to raise Tiamat, is to distract the world while he makes a political play for a coup to overthrow Severin. However, Rath had a major character flaw... He didn't think the cult and his little rebellion would succeed at raising Tiamat. Heh. Oops.

Anyways, so back to my idea. A dwarven town has been over powered by corrupting magics that cause the dwarves to be subservient and it accelerates them making them stronger, faster, and more or less magical meth heads for the purpose of mining ore and producing weapons faster....

The Red wizard in charge of occupying this town has made a deal with a demon... Some dwarven souls for the corrupting magic hold the town as a massive slave labor camp. The red wizard there didn't have the forsight to realize making deals with demons is a bad idea. This has led many dwarves in the town to go insane, to kill each other, etc. The characters have walked into this mess, nearly succombed to the overpowering demon magic, however, have saved against the magics at play.

Click to expand...

Just a quick idea. Back in AD&D's day, the haste spell (which sounds an awful lot like the enchantment on the dwarves) also had the side effect of aging the recipient 1 year. So, you could incorporate some kind of "methuselah syndrome" of rapid aging in the community as a side plot.

So, the idea I had, is that the Demon is only partially in this world. The Demon head is formed through a wall on the second floor of the refinery. In it's eyes are two phylacteries each filled with a swirling glowing myst. Souls of sacraficed and/or living dwarves. I wanted to make the demon the final boss battle of this refinery. However, I don't really see a monster that fills this need. The idea was some type of extremely difficult demon wall, similar to a demon wall in old Final Fantasy games. Where the wall moves in on the characters as they throw everything they have at it. As it moves in to crush the characters it buffs and heals itself, seals the only exit with a wall of force, and proceeds to crush everyone. They have 1d6 + 1 rounds before it starts crushing them, as it crushes them it gets a bite attack from the face in the wall.

I suppose, I could just create my own monster, but, wanted to see if anyone has a template for something like this, or even something that's close to something like this. I want it to be challenging to a party of 5 players that are all level 9. And they've defeating two CR 10's and a CR 13 (faced at once). They were at full power when they faced that though.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Click to expand...

Two separate but related issues here: Monster design & Challenging your PCs.

For the Demon Head/Wall, there are a lot of monsters you can re-skin to get your desired effect. For example, you could use the stats of a Balor as the wall with a few quick changes. First, re-skin its "Fiery Aura" to Demon Head Bite (or whatever), changing the damage to piercing. Second, re-skin its "Whip" to a Grasping Claw. Third, maximize its HP to 378 (since your party chewed through a pretty tough encounter already), possibly as a replacement for its Death Throes. And maybe you can have it "summon" some minor demons when the fight begins.

Then set up the fight in the conditions you describe. A stone corridor with a wall of force blocking their retreat. The Demon Head/Wall (aka Balor) advances 1/3rd of the distance toward the wall of force on initiative count 20 each round after the first (i.e. it will press against the wall of force on initiative 20 of the 4th round). And when it does that, have it deal catastrophic amounts of damage to anyone caught in the middle (e.g. as a comparison the collapsing roof trap in the DMG deals 22 (4d10) damage).

Thanks, gives me a lot of ideas I will use most if not all of the suggestions!