D&D 5E How Defeat this Coffelock Villain?

I'm playing in a high-level campaign. 14 ~ 17th level party. 6 PCs. Lore Bard (My Character), Sorcadin, Barbarian, Evocation Wizard and Abjuration Wizard. A villain is a Hexblade Coffelock. The DM said he learned the combo in this forum.

We discovered in the adventure that the villain would give an artifact to anyone who can survive a challenge. We managed to win easily. The villain used his simulacrum to deceive us, used Sutble Metamagic + Enemies Abound secretly.
The barbarian's attack defeats instantly the Evocation Wizard (Alread damaged). Meanwhile the Simulacrum has gone far.
Then appeared the Villain and his Simulacrum flying (Free Divine Soul wings) a long distance.
The Villain's attack was devasting:
Distant Metamagic + Empower Metamagic + Spellsniper feat + Repeling Eldrich Blast (480 feet, Repelling 10 feet each hit, WTF) and Quicken Spiritual Weapon
While the Simulacrum was using Distant Metamagic + Earth Bind (600 feet range, Wait what?) + Quicken Empowered Repelling Eldrich Blast.
While I was Earth Binded, Quicken Empower Magic Missale + Repelling Eldrich Blast was devasting against me.

My bard was quickly defeated.

Quicken Death Ward, Heal, Life Transference, Freedom of Moment Silence, Revify and contingency : Revify (The villain's spells avaiable)

The Abjuration Wizard casted Fly to help the team (Concentration), but lost concentration check when attacked.


The DM closed the session at that time.

How to defeat him? As he said he learned the combo in this forum. So does anyone know how to defeat him?

Edit: Coffelock is a Divine Soul 17/Haxblade Warlock 3, arbitraly high numbers of spells 1~5th level and sorcery point.

Wow. I knew there was a reason I don't play high level...

Sorry I can't help, but welcome to the boards.

Croesus said:

Wow. I knew there was a reason I don't play high level...

Sorry I can't help, but welcome to the boards.

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Thank you!

But, we are 6 PCs... Losing an Artefact...He can't be enough to defeat us...

Your first step is to determine whether or not you actually need the artifact. This might be an avoidable encounter. Even if you think you need it, your group should brainstorm ways to complete your quest without it. Perhaps there is an alternative possibility that you all missed.

Aside from that, consider that with every challenge come rules. Your group could figure out a way to game the rules of this particular challenge in your favor. Maybe you can summon a devil specialized in twisting around fine print in order to help with this endeavor?

You could also try getting the artifact without participating in the challenge. You could break into the villain's vault in order to steal it out from under his nose. Alternatively, you could try bartering for it, either by trading something else that he desperately wants, or by using some sort of leverage. Maybe you could discover some sort of dreadful secret that he would prefer stays secret.

Have you secured the favor of any allies? It is possible that you've gained the patronage of a local lord. Imagine a group of militia gathered at the villain's doorstep to collect the artifact as back taxes, all to your group's benefit.

There, multiple possibilities for defeating this challenge.

Run away?

Have you considered that there may,not be a solution for your particular set of pcs to this puzzle set piece battle against a selected foe in selected setting especially if *your side* is the only side with victory conditions? Unless you can xhange the battlefield to force close range and allow your close in guys a production... Get items to allow them uninterruptable flight, etc... You may not be the ley to this lock.

Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

What is a "coffelock"? First time I've ever seen that term. Is it anything like covfefe?

Ganymede81 has some good points in his post. You may be able to think around an encounter like this if you know it is coming.

Monsters don't have to play by the same rules as character creation. So that said these things may not work. But if the Villain is behaving like a player they may.

If the villain is like a player, may have limited spells it can know. Otherworldly wings, means that your Player-like villain would be least a 14th level Sorcerer, In addition because Contingency (self only) and Simulacrum is limited to Wizard, your villain is at least a 17th level Sorcerer with the wish spell (or he convinced another wizard with wish spell to use it to replicate the effect). Plus the villain has at least 2 levels of warlock.

When I am playing high level campaigns, potent villains and players require preparations. Divination, Commune, Scrying, True Seeing when dealing with beings at negotiations, your own contingencies, or teleporting. Think about what preparations you can do.


Tips if your preparations fail.
Can't target what you can't see. You may have wanted to use obscuring spells. Fog or some of the Wall Spells. Probably should stay away from invisibility because See Invisible has no range. Don't fight a spell sniper in open terrain if your ambushed, get in complete cover or create it. Walls, Walls, Walls lots of wall spells. Many of the wall spells block line of sight and are not subject to damage. Perhaps Magnificent Mansion.
If ambushed and reasonably believe your villain isn't using True Seeing or has truesight try illusions. Hard to spot the real vs the non real at that range. Mirror Image, Mislead, Projected Image, Major Image all good choices.

I don't know about others, but I can't be much help without more details. I don't know what a coffelock is. What level is the coffelock? (In order to have the wings, it must be at least Sorcerer 14 / Warlock X. ) What is the terrain like where the battle is taking place? (Cover seems like it would be really useful.) You said 6 PCs, but only listed 5; who is the 6th? Since many of the PCs are casters, your question is really hard to answer without knowing what spells the PCs have available.

The villain's actions that you have listed seem to cover at least two rounds; what were the PCs doing during that time? It sounds like at least two PCs (bard and evocation wizard) were way down on HP; seems like a bad time to accept a challenge, but maybe you had no choice?

All that said, if you have no way to close the range on your opponents, and no way to take cover, I see no obvious way for you to win at this point. Maybe one of you has a spell that could create cover (e.g., Wall of Stone)? Probably the Paladin should rez whoever has the most useful spells. If the Barbarian is a Berserker, he could choose to rage and you might be able to convince the DM that that would suspend the effect of Enemies Abound (because it makes him immune to fright).

(Aside: I get a bit of a feeling that the DM has pulled a jerk move here, but I don't really have enough info to judge. He certainly has exploited material from Xanathar's, which I assume was not available to the PCs.)

EDIT: Some of this now redundant with good suggestions from [MENTION=77498]phoffman[/MENTION].

Harzel said:

If the Barbarian is a Berserker, he could choose to rage and you might be able to convince the DM that that would suspend the effect of Enemies Abound (because it makes him immune to fright).

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Good ideas from Harzel. But the barbarian should be back to his senses as soon as the simulacrum followed up with the Earthbind. I assume the Villain and the Simulacrum waited until the Barbarian was dealt with before engaging. Both spells Enemy Abound and Earthbind are concentration. The simulacrum would have to drop the first spell for the second.