Fire archomental

[Casimir Liber]

I was inspired by this clip (see firepower trait at 5:05 min in) after being unimpressed by Maegera's stats in STK - to make a more interesting fire archomental. Using the Firepower trait to make Fireballs a bit more interesting. I plan on using something like this in place of Maegera to give a bit more of a challenging and interesting encounter

 

[Cleon]

Well while solo monsters have a serious problem with the action economy against parties of PCs, which is why they have things like Legendary Resistance and the like, I suspect this ability might be overcompensating.

Functionally, the defensive traits of Firepower is equivalent to a 5/day Legendary Resistance that regains three uses per round and works against effects that don't allow saving throws. That's pretty powerful. It seems unlikely that a midrange party would be able to impose an effect on the Fire Archomental: to be sure of it biting they'd have to spam more effects in a round than it has Firepower Points remaining AND it needs to fail any required saving throw. Even if they do succeed, it can trivially burn the effect away the next round when it regains its Firepower.

I'd be inclined to make it a bit more expensive. Maybe it costs more "Firepower points" to break an effect than to succeed on a save, or it allows a reroll of a save rather than granting an auto success? Perhaps have the "break an effect" application use a Legendary Action and/or Bonus Action?

Also, the Firepower Red Dragon in that video can only use Breath Weapon by expending Firepower points, so it has to "charge up" for a couple of rounds before letting rip. The Archomental above can use Fireball as a standard action, so it has less motivation for saving up its points to reach 10 Firepower. A few extra d6 fire damage are a lot less useful than automatically making a saving throw or shrugging off an effect!

Oh, and having it gain Magic Resistance when it's at 10+ Firepower seems overly fiddly. Furthermore, doesn't it only gains it briefly, since it loses the trait as soon as it fireballs and is required to use Fireball ASAP, so doesn't that mean that when it gains 3 Firepower on its turn and reaches 10+ it has to fireball with it's action that turn and immediately lose its Magic Resistance on the same Initiative beat it gained it? I doubt that was the author's intent, though.

Personally, if you want the Archomental to have Magic Resistance just give it Magic Resistance! It'd be a lot easier to adjudicate as the GM won't have to remember if it's Firepower Resistance is up or down.

Come to think of it, if you use my suggestion above that Firepower can allow a reroll of a saving throw that is similar mechanically to Magic Resistance: the target rolls twice and picks the best result.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Ok so I've given it Magic Resistance...

the other thought I had is ditching the FirePower mechanic and giving it something like FireBoost (recharge 4-6(?)): its fireball does an extra 5 (2d4) d6 fire damage as a wild surge?

 

[Cleon]

Ok so I've given it Magic Resistance...

Yes, that just seems simpler.

the other thought I had is ditching the FirePower mechanic

I like the Firepower concept but would like a different take on it, like incorporating it into the Legendary Action system.

and giving it something like FireBoost (recharge 4-6(?)): its fireball does an extra 5 (2d4) d6 fire damage as a wild surge?

If you go that route, you might as well just list the total damage dice rather than make the DM add the base fireball's number of d6s. As in "Wildfire (Recharge #-#). 52 (15d6) fire damage" instead of "Fireball. 35 (10d6) fire damage".

I'd also suggest expanding its damage options a bit. If the Archomental faces an opponent who's immune to fire it is pretty stuffed. Its Touch does a bit of bludgeoning but the amount is trivial for the CR.

 

[Casimir Liber]

So maybe combining the firepower and smoke cloud as a legendary action ?

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Firepower. The fire archomental starts every initiative with 5 Firepower. At the start of every turn it gains 3 Firepower. Whenever it is subjected to an effect or saving throw, it can choose to end the effect and automatically succeed the saving throw to burn the effect off. It can also end a magical effect within its attack range by spending 2 Firepower to incinerate it to nothing. When it reaches 10 Firepower, it must use the points in one of the following ways:

(1) Smoke Cloud. The fire archomental exhales a billowing cloud of hot smoke and embers that fills a 60-foot cube. Each creature in that area takes 11 (2d10) fire damage. The cloud lasts until the end of the fire archomental's next turn. Creatures completely within the cloud are blinded and can’t be seen.

(2) Fire Bolt. The fire archomental shoots a searing beam of fire for 33 (6d10) fire damage and 33 (6d10) force damage, up to a distance of 240 feet.

After this, its firepower goes down to 5. As the archomental’s Firepower increases, it visibly appears to produce more flames from its body, becoming a searing yellow to white-hot.
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also made its melee attack:

Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 26 (6d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage plus 35 (10d6) fire damage.

(seems odd using "touch" and "bludgeoning damage" together, maybe call it "fiery fist"?

 

[Cleon]

So maybe combining the firepower and smoke cloud as a legendary action ?

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Firepower. The fire archomental starts every initiative with 5 Firepower. At the start of every turn it gains 3 Firepower. Whenever it is subjected to an effect or saving throw, it can choose to end the effect and automatically succeed the saving throw to burn the effect off. It can also end a magical effect within its attack range by spending 2 Firepower to incinerate it to nothing. When it reaches 10 Firepower, it must use the points in one of the following ways:

(1) Smoke Cloud. The fire archomental exhales a billowing cloud of hot smoke and embers that fills a 60-foot cube. Each creature in that area takes 11 (2d10) fire damage. The cloud lasts until the end of the fire archomental's next turn. Creatures completely within the cloud are blinded and can’t be seen.

(2) Fire Bolt. The fire archomental shoots a searing beam of fire for 33 (6d10) fire damage and 33 (6d10) force damage, up to a distance of 240 feet.

After this, its firepower goes down to 5. As the archomental’s Firepower increases, it visibly appears to produce more flames from its body, becoming a searing yellow to white-hot.
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also made its melee attack:

Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 26 (6d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage plus 35 (10d6) fire damage.

(seems odd using "touch" and "bludgeoning damage" together, maybe call it "fiery fist"?

I was thinking more something like this:

Firepower. A fire archomental's body contains Firepower, an energy it spends to power certain actions. The fire archomental starts every initiative with A Firepower. At the start of every turn it gains B Firepower; if this increases the archomental's Firepower to more than C it must spend enough Firepower that turn to reduce its Firepower to C or less.

Incendiary Resistance. Whenever it is subjected to an effect that allows a saving throw, the fire archomental can spend X firepower to burn the effect away, automatically succeed at its saving throw.

Actions

Firefist. Melee Weapon Attack: +## to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: ## (#d# + #) bludgeoning damage plus ## (##d6) fire damage. The fire archoelemental can spend up to Y Firepower, adding ## (##d6) fire damage to the attack per point of Firepower.

Cleansing Flame. The fire archomental spends Z firepower to burn away a single condition or effect.

Fireball. ??

Incandescent Bolt. basically the Firebolt you proposed.

Bonus Actions?

Smoke Cloud. ??

Legendary Actions

Cleansing Fire. The fire archomental uses cleansing flame.

Purifying Fire. The fire archomental spends #Z firepower to burn away all effects and conditions it is subject to except for those it placed itself.

Smoking Fire. The fire archomental uses smoke cloud.

…and so on.

The amount of Firepower and how much Firepower various applications cost needs to be worked out, and may be tweaked to favour certain strategies (i.e. if the special attacks cost a lot more Firepower than the special defenses it'll fight more defensively).

 

[Casimir Liber]

ok, so restructured it as advised. I think it needs to do more damage. So question is where and how much....

 

[Cleon]

ok, so restructured it as advised. I think it needs to do more damage. So question is where and how much....

It looks like it needs some boosts to justify Challenge 23.

Will think about it…

 

[Casimir Liber]

I buffed its firefist to - Hit: 33 (8d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage plus 35 (10d6) fire damage. i.e. 68 damage/rd x 3 = 204 damage

 

[Cleon]

Okay, I tried running the numbers through the CR Calculator and ran into a slight problem.

It doesn't have the right "to hit" on any of it's attacks. It should either be +12 to hit due to STR or +13 due to DEX with its CR Pro Bonus of +7.

Which is it? it makes a significant difference in the Generator as a +12 attack bonus is typical for CR 25 and 26 while +13 is for CR 27 to 30.

Going by those precedents, I'd lean towards +12 since CR 23 is closer to 25 than 27!

With a target CR of 23 and a few "approximations" for the special traits I make it that the Archomental needs a DPR from 159 to 194 hit points of damage per round which we need to divide between its Actions.

That averages out to just under 177, or three attacks each doing 59 damage.