D&D 5E Insights on a Warrior Antagonist creation using the books

[koga305]

How's this for a Challenge 12 martial enemy?

Blademaster
Medium humanoid (any race), any alignment

Armor Class 20 (plate mail, shield)
Hit Points 190 (20d8+100)
Speed 30 ft.

Str 20 (+5) Dex 16 (+3) Con 20 (+5) Int 10 (+0) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 8 (-1)

Saving Throws Str +9, Con +9
Skills Athletics +9, Intimidation +3, Insight +5, Perception +5
Senses passive Perception 15
Languages any one language (usually Common)
Challenge 12 (8,400 XP)

Duelist. The blademaster gains a +2 bonus to damage rolls while wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons (already calculated).
Superior Critical. The blademaster scores a critical hit on a roll of 18-20.
Action Surge (Recharges after a Short or Long rest). On its turn, the blademaster can take a second action. This feature can be used twice before recharging, but only once on the same turn.
Indomitable (3/Day). The blademaster can reroll a saving throw that it fails. If it does, it must use the new roll.

Actions
Multiattack. The blademaster makes four melee attacks.
Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 11 (1d8+7) slashing damage.

Reactions
Parry. The blademaster adds 4 to its AC against one melee attack that would hit it. To do so, the blademaster must see the attacker and be wielding a melee weapon.

Bang on target. I am valuing Indominatable as worth roughly a third of Legendary Resistance, as it's not nearly as powerful. I also took the liberty of increasing both Strength and Constitution to 20 - fighters get more ASIs anyway!

This could definitely be a legendary knight like Jaime Lannister or Barristan Selmy.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That bllademaster is very good. If you find it not tough enough you can still give him heavy armor mastery and the chamion regeneration. And better five him resilent wisdom. +1 wis save qon't be a villain for too long otherwise.

 

[dmnqwk]

Aluri Thistlebank, Master of Ceremonies.
Small Humanoid, any alignment.

Armour Class 22 (Studded Leather, Shield)
Hit Dice 180(18d10+90)
Speed 25'.

Str 12 (+1) Dex 20 (+5) Con 15 (+2) Int 13 (+1) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 17 (+3)

Saving Throws: Strength +7 Dex +11 Con +8
Skills: Athletics +7, Acrobatics +11, Performance +9, Stealth +11
Resistances: Poison
Condition Immunities: Frightened, Poisoned.

Legendary Resistance (3/day): When Aluri fails a saving throw, he can choose to expend 1 charge to succeed instead.
Combat Reflexes. Aluri does not require a reaction to perform Attacks of Opportunity. He may also perform Attacks of Opportunity when creatures leave his shield or his whip range.

Attacks (Aluri attacks 4times a round, performing 3 attacks with his whip and 1 with his shield). Whip Attack: 15' melee range, +11/2d4+7. Shield Attack: 5' reach +7/3d6+3

Legendary Actions (3/turn)
Riposte. Aluri can perform 1 whip attack against any foe within 15' who misses with an attack roll. Any creature struck by this attack must succeed at a Strength Saving throw (DC 15) or be knocked prone.
Whirlwind Trip (2 actions). Aluri performs a whip attack against each creature within 15'. Any creature struck by this attack must succeed at a Strength Saving Throw (DC 15) or be knocked prone.
Spinning Shield Strike. Aluri uses his Shield to batter an opponent senseless, performing a Shield attack against 1 creature within 5'. If it hits that creature must succeed at a Constitution Saving Throw (DC 15) or be stunned for 1 minute. At the end of their round they may make a new constitution save to break free of this effect.

Now this is using poetic license, taking battle commander superiority dice and using them for the ideas behind the legendary actions Aluri receives, utilising his magic whip to have some fun in creating a Melee character who, while following the rules of the game, expands on the abilities to creature an effective melee foe. While the HP might not make sense, imagine if Aluri had the Tough and Resilient (dex) feats as inspiration behind things.

 

[S'mon]

I think you are inferring too much on my insights. I don't have a preference. I'm just delving into the inner workings of the system. That's what I do here on ENWorld.

My point is that because of bounded accuracy, NPC damage and hitpoints grows fast with CR. This is fine with giants, angels, dragons, demon, and devils as those are usually large monsters with large weapons. No one would blink at a 250 HP giant who deals 40 damage a swing.

But a 250 HP human who does 40 damage a swing? A human who punches like a storm giant and can take more damage than one.

You clearly do have a preference. But it's not at all uncommon in D&D for PCs and NPCs to
have more hit points than storm giants and do more damage than them. High level D&D
characters basically are superhuman, Archmages and Fighter Lords alike.

 

[Minigiant]

How's this for a Challenge 12 martial enemy?



Bang on target. I am valuing Indominatable as worth roughly a third of Legendary Resistance, as it's not nearly as powerful. I also took the liberty of increasing both Strength and Constitution to 20 - fighters get more ASIs anyway!

This could definitely be a legendary knight like Jaime Lannister or Barristan Selmy.

That looks awesome. A bit swingy though. But awesome.

You clearly do have a preference. But it's not at all uncommon in D&D for PCs and NPCs to
have more hit points than storm giants and do more damage than them. High level D&D
characters basically are superhuman, Archmages and Fighter Lords alike.

It's my players.
They ambushed a boss NPC I didn't have stats ready for. So I did a quick creation via the guidelines. After the session, they complained that the orc champion fight felt more like a medium sized stone giant fight.

And that got me to this topic. 5th edition's NPC advancement are very different from the PC one. No problem with that. The issue is it makes high level humanoids play funny or unexpected.

 

[S'mon]

It's my players.
They ambushed a boss NPC I didn't have stats ready for. So I did a quick creation via the guidelines. After the session, they complained that the orc champion fight felt more like a medium sized stone giant fight.

Interesting, thanks. I've not had this. I guess the main thing is to have NPCs make more & more accurate attacks while giants do fewer but very high damage attacks. That was how it was pre-3e. 3e giants had
iterative attacks which didn't work too well IMO, and 5e giants generally attack twice when
maybe 1 attack + cleave would work better.

 

[MostlyDm]

Going over 20 HD is a big deal in D&D to many fans. You strain the idea of the humaniod being "mortal" and "human".

You don't need to hit go to 40 HD to make archmages in the past.



Well I did say the archmage misses the mark. It only gets there if you squint, can't do math, and rate time stop as high.

Away from books at the moment, but... I'm pretty sure the Archmage has a defensive CR below 12 and an offensive CR above 12. Is cone of cold really his best offensive spell? If so, fine, cast it in the 9th, 8th, and 7th level slots. Confirm the AoE calculations on number of targets.

I'm pretty sure if you look at his best possible damage output by DMG guidelines, he is well above offensive CR 12.

 

[Minigiant]

Interesting, thanks. I've not had this. I guess the main thing is to have NPCs make more & more accurate attacks while giants do fewer but very high damage attacks. That was how it was pre-3e. 3e giants had
iterative attacks which didn't work too well IMO, and 5e giants generally attack twice when
maybe 1 attack + cleave would work better.

Makes sense.
A giant should get a normal attack and a weaker AOE sweep and tons of HP.

A dragon gets a breath weapon plus bite/claw/claw/tail.
A demon gets a 2-3 attacks and a bunch of resistances
A weaponmaster/fighterlord/archwarrior gets 3-4 attacks, Action surge, and some sort of special defenses.

Away from books at the moment, but... I'm pretty sure the Archmage has a defensive CR below 12 and an offensive CR above 12. Is cone of cold really his best offensive spell? If so, fine, cast it in the 9th, 8th, and 7th level slots. Confirm the AoE calculations on number of targets.

I'm pretty sure if you look at his best possible damage output by DMG guidelines, he is well above offensive CR 12.

Well it depends.
His 8th slot is tied to mindblank.
His 9th holds time stop. I don't know how that factors to damage.

But the archmages NPC relies on hitting 2 targets with each CoC and having them fail (or 4 successes) to reach CR 12 damage.

 

[koga305]

That bllademaster is very good. If you find it not tough enough you can still give him heavy armor mastery and the chamion regeneration. And better five him resilent wisdom. +1 wis save qon't be a villain for too long otherwise.

That looks awesome. A bit swingy though. But awesome.

Noted! How's this for a final writeup?

Blademaster
Medium humanoid (any race), any alignment

Armor Class 20 (plate mail, shield)
Hit Points 170 (20d8+80)
Speed 30 ft.

Str 20 (+5) Dex 16 (+3) Con 18 (+4) Int 10 (+0) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 8 (-1)

Saving Throws Str +9, Con +9, Wis +5
Skills Athletics +9, Perception +5
Senses passive Perception 15
Languages any one language (usually Common)
Challenge 12 (8,400 XP)

Superior Critical. The blademaster scores a critical hit on a roll of 18-20.
Action Surge (Recharges after a Short or Long rest). On its turn, the blademaster can take a second action. This feature can be used twice before recharging, but only once on the same turn.
Indomitable (3/Day). The blademaster can reroll a saving throw that it fails. If it does, it must use the new roll.

Actions
Multiattack. The blademaster makes four melee attacks.
Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 9 (1d8+5) slashing damage.

Reactions
Parry. The blademaster adds 4 to its AC against one melee attack that would hit it. To do so, the blademaster must see the attacker and be wielding a melee weapon.

Blademasters are warriors who have utterly mastered the art of the sword. Good-aligned blademasters might serve as bodyguards to kings and queens, while evil blademasters use their unmatched skill to conquer realms and slay any who oppose them. Blademasters who are neither good nor evil wander the world, sometimes taking on disciples and teaching them the art of the blade.

I added Wisdom save proficiency and removed the Duelist feature to compensate; this makes the Blademaster more of a defensive foe than an offensive one (Challenge 11 offensive, 13 defensive). If you wanted to keep it balanced, you could change Constitution to 18 and leave Duelist. I also brought it down to 2 skills to match the Archmage.

I'd add that if you really wanted to build an engaging "final boss" type villain, I'd recommend giving them more unique abilities commiserate with their role in the story and desired combat style. This Blademaster is more for spur-of-the-moment needs, much as the given Archmage serves as a very generic master wizard.

 

[Minigiant]

Or a gigantic dragon or demon or avatar of an evil god or some-such, yes.

Very often, that final villain is the only spell-caster of meaningful power presented in the story.

Doesn't seem practical. One thing that makes casters viable antagonists is not just how much power they have in combat, but the way they're abilities let the DM hand-wave and set-up all sorts of things - magically-empowered toadies, magical traps, hideouts in other dimensions, existential threats to whole realms, and so forth. An "arch-warrior" is just one tough guy. He doesn't facilitate anything, he can't wipe out a kingdom. He can win duels, bully some people, maybe turn the tide of a conventional battle. That's about it. He just doesn't rate a party of adventurers.

hps can be pretty arbitrary. Single target damage is the one thing 5e allows that a warrior-type can be really good at, so that's a given. Presenting a credible threat to a whole party would require reaching well beyond the existing mechanics/concepts. At minimum, you'd want options like 3.5 WWA.

D&D turns the steroetypical knight or barbarian hero vs evil wizard or monster dynamic on it's head by making most PC options casting or at least magic-using (and having some moderately monsterous races). It only seems reasonable to swap the other side of the equation around and have a warrior as the ultimate antagonist. Usually such a character, a black knight or orc warlord or something, would only be a test along the heroes way or a lackey or lieutenant of the big bad. Upgrading it to the major, climactic challenge would be difficult. Not just because D&D gives martial concepts very little credit when it comes to anything other than DPR, but because the stereotypical arsenal of the genre 'evil wizard' &c is already in the hands of the many spellcasting PCs.

The issue is its rather limiting.

The member of the orcish nobility in fantasy in usually a warrior.
The king's bodyguard is usually a warrior.
Authority Equal Buttkicking is a major fantasy trope.

Unfortunately this tends to amount to nothing to little in D&D and many forms of fantasy. In the fantasy series and media where the orc warlord or black knight rival an archmage, the warrior is nigh unkillable due to their amazing toughness, absurd speed, extreme strength, or incredible skill. You usually only get to that level of raw power in warriors in video games, comics/manga, and cartoons/anime. As D&D is a teamwork game with share duties at all times, PC warriors are not allowed such power or allowed to branch out to skill.

Noted! How's this for a final writeup?


I added Wisdom save proficiency and removed the Duelist feature to compensate; this makes the Blademaster more of a defensive foe than an offensive one (Challenge 11 offensive, 13 defensive). If you wanted to keep it balanced, you could change Constitution to 18 and leave Duelist. I also brought it down to 2 skills to match the Archmage.

I'd add that if you really wanted to build an engaging "final boss" type villain, I'd recommend giving them more unique abilities commiserate with their role in the story and desired combat style. This Blademaster is more for spur-of-the-moment needs, much as the given Archmage serves as a very generic master wizard.

Looks great for a generic blademaster.

Well they killed the final boss early so I have to make a new one. I'm thinking about making a spear user. I could add defensive and offensive aspects to his spearfighting via range. Maybe an execution maneuver to add tons of bonus damage. Leak rumors that he kills prone or mounted foes instantly (AKA tons o' damage) and can disrupt elemental magic with special spear stances.