D&D 5E Chill touch vs Troll regeneration

[CapnZapp]

The general solution to the entire Solo issue, I think, must be the hydra solution.

That is, to treat the Solo as a collection of several (at least three) individual monsters.

If not graphically, so at least for the purposes of withstanding save or suck spells.

Let Chill Touch or Hold Monster or whatever work exactly as normal. No legendary saves.

But against a Solo they only have one third of their effect.

Chill Touch reduces regeneration 12 to regeneration 8, and regeneration 45 to regeneration 30. Feel free to have all your casters in the party blast away! The next Chill Touch reduces regen to 4 or 15 respectively. After regenerating what's left, the monster's regen rate is restored to 12 or 45 and the cycle begins anew.

A paralyzing effect needs to be cast three times to have its full effect:
First failed save: the monster can't use legendary actions, except that at init 10 it saves to get rid of the effect.
Second failed save: the monster can't both move and attack during its turn, except at init 20 it saves again.
Third failed save: the monster is fully held or confused or bedazzled or whatevs, and at its initiative it saves yet again.

 

[Leatherhead]

Seriously you guys, regeneration is a mechanic that is supposed to work as follows:

1. It wastes about one turn of combat damage.
2. The DM goes into some purple prose about flesh mending.
3. The players make knowledge checks.
4. The gimmick is exposed.
5. The fight proceeds as normal, save for the gimmick that negates the regeneration.

It's just marginally better than raw HP padding, because it can be bypassed. And honestly combat healing is a crappy mechanic to begin with, anything that gets rid of it should be praised.

 

[dave2008]

And that creates another design conundrum. If you make a monster immune to cantrips, you might hurt a class that uses them as their standard form of damage like a warlock or eldritch knight. You have to be careful when granting spell immunity because you don't want to make certain classes base attack abilities useless. I'd just make them immune to effects that stop the target from regaining hit points.

Good point

 

[dave2008]

The general solution to the entire Solo issue, I think, must be the hydra solution.

That is, to treat the Solo as a collection of several (at least three) individual monsters.

If not graphically, so at least for the purposes of withstanding save or suck spells.

Let Chill Touch or Hold Monster or whatever work exactly as normal. No legendary saves.

But against a Solo they only have one third of their effect.

Chill Touch reduces regeneration 12 to regeneration 8, and regeneration 45 to regeneration 30. Feel free to have all your casters in the party blast away! The next Chill Touch reduces regen to 4 or 15 respectively. After regenerating what's left, the monster's regen rate is restored to 12 or 45 and the cycle begins anew.

A paralyzing effect needs to be cast three times to have its full effect:
First failed save: the monster can't use legendary actions, except that at init 10 it saves to get rid of the effect.
Second failed save: the monster can't both move and attack during its turn, except at init 20 it saves again.
Third failed save: the monster is fully held or confused or bedazzled or whatevs, and at its initiative it saves yet again.

That's a good concept, I might have to make use of it myself.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Cantrip immunity is just part of the game.

Tiamat's spell immunity is one of the reasons I never feel quite comfortable in a party without a Sharpshooter Eldritch Knight. Warlocks are great up until you hit spell immunity, then you realize that you need weapons too.

There are other ways around it of course, but many of them e.g. (conjured fire elementals) don't work on Tiamat although they do work on Rakshasas.

 

[Celtavian]

Cantrip immunity is just part of the game.

Tiamat's spell immunity is one of the reasons I never feel quite comfortable in a party without a Sharpshooter Eldritch Knight. Warlocks are great up until you hit spell immunity, then you realize that you need weapons too.

There are other ways around it of course, but many of them e.g. (conjured fire elementals) don't work on Tiamat although they do work on Rakshasas.

Having played a wizard in the Tiamat encounter, feeling completely useless other than casting a fly spell wasn't fun. I had exactly two spell slots to use against her. A 7th and 8th level slot. She would have likely saved or used Legendary Resistance to render those nearly ineffective. It's not fun for the player to be in that situation. It never was, not even when you ran into 90% plus magic resistant creatures back in 1st edition. It's not fun in a game with less spell slots. I doubt I'll use pure magic immunity as an ability for enemies again seeing the effect it had when combined with Legendary Resistance in that Tiamat fight.

 

[dave2008]

Having played a wizard in the Tiamat encounter, feeling completely useless other than casting a fly spell wasn't fun. I had exactly two spell slots to use against her. A 7th and 8th level slot. She would have likely saved or used Legendary Resistance to render those nearly ineffective. It's not fun for the player to be in that situation. It never was, not even when you ran into 90% plus magic resistant creatures back in 1st edition. It's not fun in a game with less spell slots. I doubt I'll use pure magic immunity as an ability for enemies again seeing the effect it had when combined with Legendary Resistance in that Tiamat fight.

After thinking about (and seeing your discussions of it), I think I agree that straigth up magic immunity is not, in general, the way to go. I'm think limits or resistance/immunity at a cost. Do you think you would feel more effective if legendary resistance (or immuniry) had a cost to the monster? What if legendary resistance cost it a legendary action as well?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

We have different approaches to spotlight balance. I see a monster that can shut down warlocks/wizards almost completely, like Tiamat or a MR 90% mind flayer, and think, "Hey, I should include stuff like this more often, to reward anyone who is playing a fighter, and wizards who prepare for indirect confrontations." The one tweak I would make is that I would consider an overcast spell like Disintegrate VIII or even Magic Missile VIII to be in all respects an 8th level spell, no matter what RAW says about it Tiamat's resistance/Globe of Invulnerability/etc. ignoring overcasting.

I think fighting Tiamat as an all-wizard party would be an interesting challenge.

 

[dave2008]

We have different approaches to spotlight balance. I see a monster that can shut down warlocks/wizards almost completely, like Tiamat or a MR 90% mind flayer, and think, "Hey, I should include stuff like this more often, to reward anyone who is playing a fighter, and wizards who prepare for indirect confrontations." The one tweak I would make is that I would consider an overcast spell like Disintegrate VIII or even Magic Missile VIII to be in all respects an 8th level spell, no matter what RAW says about it Tiamat's resistance/Globe of Invulnerability/etc. ignoring overcasting.

I think fighting Tiamat as an all-wizard party would be an interesting challenge.

That's not a bad way to look at it.

I thought RAW did treat a disintegrate VIII as a level 8 spell. That's how I've been playing it.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I thought RAW did treat a disintegrate VIII as a level 8 spell. That's how I've been playing it.

That is how RAW treats it - the slot level spent = the level of the spell, generally.

Globe of invulnerability has a specific exception in that gets to consider spells cast with higher-level spell slots as their natural level.

Tiamat's limited magic immunity, however, makes no such exception.