D&D 5E (2014) 5e EPIC MONSTER UPDATES
- Thread starter dave2008
- Start date
dave2008
Legend
It appears to be a file sharing site like dropbox. I'm not sure though. The link takes to the website where you can download a version of my PDF with bookmarks. Please not that I did not make it. However, this has inspired me to add bookmarks in my Future updates (end of March).
dave2008
Legend
I have added Koliada, the Winter Witch, to the Fey section. This is the first Arch-Fey in the Epic Updates. Koliada was converted from 4e by [MENTION=3547]Matrix Sorcica[/MENTION] , thank you very much for the help Matrix!
FYI, there is one part of Koliada's entry that is missing. She can turn enemies into "Pillars of Ice," which become frozen minions of hers. We still need to add the stat block for the Pillars of Ice, but I didn't want to hold off posting Koliada herself any longer.
Also, I think after finally getting the first Arch-Fey posted I will focus on these epic entities for the near future. Let us know what you think!
FYI, there is one part of Koliada's entry that is missing. She can turn enemies into "Pillars of Ice," which become frozen minions of hers. We still need to add the stat block for the Pillars of Ice, but I didn't want to hold off posting Koliada herself any longer.
Also, I think after finally getting the first Arch-Fey posted I will focus on these epic entities for the near future. Let us know what you think!
Matrix Sorcica
Hero
Thanks you so much for helping out.
dave2008
Legend
Thank you for spotting that - copy and paste at work. Funny, I thought I made Demogorgon first - I guess not! I have corrected it and will get it in the next update - thank you again.
P.S. If you end up actually using it with your group I would love to know how it worked or what you need to modify.
CapnZapp
Legend
Well, I shudder at the thought of you pitting your monstrosities against a regular 5e party, regardless of level... 
I find your work incredibly useful; not as ready-to-use stat blocks (your <s>rules</s> numbers differ too much from regular 5th edition) but as a very handy and userfriendly index sort of: what kind of abilities would monster X have had, had WotC not gone with the decision to remove complexity from epic monsters (which I don't like) along with their decision to remove complexity from low- and mid-level monsters (which I don't mind).
Having a level 10 NPC with ten different spells, magic items and potions she will never have time to use, with minimal impact of she had the time, requiring literally hours to precalculate but seconds to dispose of, was sheer insanity in 3rd edition. For somebody like Demogorgon not so much...
So I'm using the 5e stats as a base, then adding "the little things" from your work. For instance; your Graz'zt has four attacks, the OotA version has just two. How to reconcile? He's more like a humanoid than most other demon lords - give him Action Surge (so he can impress with four attacks at least once).
The actual numbers (to hit, save DC, damage and so on) are almost always sufficient in their official form. If anything, it's the hit points that look a bit anemic (something that's true for every 5e attempt at a BBEG; Count Strahd perhaps being the worst offender). It's the bells and whistles I mine your document for, safe in the knowledge you have been very true to your sources. Saves me endless work of cross-referencing and edition-converting (not to mention merely FINDING the critter): most if not all your monster abilities can be used as-is, if you just replace the numbers.
Just a single example. Giving the OotA Demogorgon the ability to grapple foes, and then to toss them up to 400 ft away for 1-20 dice' worth of falling damage: awesome. I will roll 2d20 though and take the lower die. Not even Demogorgon scores a 400 ft homerun more than once every four hundred attempts...
I do realize this means that except for general encouragement, I have little useful feedback for your actual project though. This also explains why I haven't been around much in the thread after we had the original discussion where it became clear to me you weren't interested in making stats that would be directly plug'n'play-able with the official stats. So consider me a lurker...
Good luck with your epic project!
I find your work incredibly useful; not as ready-to-use stat blocks (your <s>rules</s> numbers differ too much from regular 5th edition) but as a very handy and userfriendly index sort of: what kind of abilities would monster X have had, had WotC not gone with the decision to remove complexity from epic monsters (which I don't like) along with their decision to remove complexity from low- and mid-level monsters (which I don't mind).
Having a level 10 NPC with ten different spells, magic items and potions she will never have time to use, with minimal impact of she had the time, requiring literally hours to precalculate but seconds to dispose of, was sheer insanity in 3rd edition. For somebody like Demogorgon not so much...
So I'm using the 5e stats as a base, then adding "the little things" from your work. For instance; your Graz'zt has four attacks, the OotA version has just two. How to reconcile? He's more like a humanoid than most other demon lords - give him Action Surge (so he can impress with four attacks at least once).
The actual numbers (to hit, save DC, damage and so on) are almost always sufficient in their official form. If anything, it's the hit points that look a bit anemic (something that's true for every 5e attempt at a BBEG; Count Strahd perhaps being the worst offender). It's the bells and whistles I mine your document for, safe in the knowledge you have been very true to your sources. Saves me endless work of cross-referencing and edition-converting (not to mention merely FINDING the critter): most if not all your monster abilities can be used as-is, if you just replace the numbers.
Just a single example. Giving the OotA Demogorgon the ability to grapple foes, and then to toss them up to 400 ft away for 1-20 dice' worth of falling damage: awesome. I will roll 2d20 though and take the lower die. Not even Demogorgon scores a 400 ft homerun more than once every four hundred attempts...
I do realize this means that except for general encouragement, I have little useful feedback for your actual project though. This also explains why I haven't been around much in the thread after we had the original discussion where it became clear to me you weren't interested in making stats that would be directly plug'n'play-able with the official stats. So consider me a lurker...
Good luck with your epic project!
dave2008
Legend
Well, I shudder at the thought of you pitting your monstrosities against a regular 5e party, regardless of level...
That was what surprised me when I saw your comment as well.
I find your work incredibly useful; not as ready-to-use stat blocks (your <s>rules</s> numbers differ too much from regular 5th edition) but as a very handy and userfriendly index sort of: what kind of abilities would monster X have had, had WotC not gone with the decision to remove complexity from epic monsters (which I don't like) along with their decision to remove complexity from low- and mid-level monsters (which I don't mind).
Having a level 10 NPC with ten different spells, magic items and potions she will never have time to use, with minimal impact of she had the time, requiring literally hours to precalculate but seconds to dispose of, was sheer insanity in 3rd edition. For somebody like Demogorgon not so much...
So I'm using the 5e stats as a base, then adding "the little things" from your work. For instance; your Graz'zt has four attacks, the OotA version has just two. How to reconcile? He's more like a humanoid than most other demon lords - give him Action Surge (so he can impress with four attacks at least once).
The actual numbers (to hit, save DC, damage and so on) are almost always sufficient in their official form. If anything, it's the hit points that look a bit anemic (something that's true for every 5e attempt at a BBEG; Count Strahd perhaps being the worst offender). It's the bells and whistles I mine your document for, safe in the knowledge you have been very true to your sources. Saves me endless work of cross-referencing and edition-converting (not to mention merely FINDING the critter): most if not all your monster abilities can be used as-is, if you just replace the numbers.
Just a single example. Giving the OotA Demogorgon the ability to grapple foes, and then to toss them up to 400 ft away for 1-20 dice' worth of falling damage: awesome. I will roll 2d20 though and take the lower die. Not even Demogorgon scores a 400 ft homerun more than once every four hundred attempts...
I do realize this means that except for general encouragement, I have little useful feedback for your actual project though. This also explains why I haven't been around much in the thread after we had the original discussion where it became clear to me you weren't interested in making stats that would be directly plug'n'play-able with the official stats. So consider me a lurker...
Good luck with your epic project!
That makes sense, from our earlier discussion I was curious how you would use the big D. I'm glad you are getting some use out of them. So, what I am hearing is that you find the to hit, DC, damage basically OK from the WotC monsters, but they suffer from low AC / HP and don't have enough interesting ( competitive) abilities. Is that about it. Well that is something I am trying to get closer to with AD&D Updates. Though I still feel the official damage is to low on higher CR monsters.
Currently this project is on a bit of a hiatus until I figure out how I want to move forward with a design approach more similar to my hardcore (AD&D) monsters. I was going to wait until I finished all of the epic monsters and convert them all in the 2nd draft. However, since starting the hardcore series it just seems like a waste of time to do that. Now I want to move forward on this project with the new design concept. There a few things that make the Epic Updates different from the Hardcore updates and I just haven't taken the time to hash those out yet.
CapnZapp
Legend
This is obviously off-topic for the thread, but I...
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and SPOILERS for Out of the Abyss
---
---
---
...just came back from the final session of Out of the Abyss, where the heroes first battled Graz'zt (or rather, his ritual - see the final chapter of the AL scenario "Assault on Maerimydra") and then caught up to Demogorgon just as he broke Orcus' over his knee.
The most important tweak visavi the official stats was to give Demogorgon two actions, two initiative counts. Another rather big thing is auto-grapple on tentacle hit.
Each head could take the Multiattack action to make two tentacles attacks, so four tentacles maximum; but most rounds there was tentacles plus gaze or tentacles plus spell.
And legendary actions - in addition to tailswipe and the legendary gaze (whatever it was called), I added teleport and "bite and toss", much as your Demogorgon does.
Once he flung the Eldritch Knight some 300 ft, and that was from a height of 160 ft
(Demo teleported way up a huge-ass pillar in the middle of the chamber) so that was an easy calculation of fall damage ("yep, I'd say 20d6"). The player was pleased he took his two levels of Barbarian - changed death to not-even-bloodied (even if that was only because his max hp had been lowered 
)
Then Big D jumped on top of the Cleric for two tentacle attacks plus 11d6 falling damage (he himself is immune to non-magical damage, such as houses and stuff). He didn't get to enjoy the grappling action because the party Warlock promptly hurled Demo through hell (that is literally the name of the ability) which released the Cleric and gave them time to stand up and brush off the worst And then Power Word Stun stole his last action (a previous lucky Feeblemind had forced Hethradiah to spend the last legendary resistance, and it was nighty nighty time for ol' D.
One thing I think I got from your pdf was the idea Demo casts Symbol (as one of his spells) though as a single action, simply by forming his body like the spiraling Y. The exact symbol was a random d8, and the lucky bastards rolled a 3 - thanks to Heroes Feast (I believe) the party was immune to that particular effect!
In the end, I can't say I managed to threaten the party (5 chars, level 16) to an inch of their lives (like any good end-of-level fight really should go down...) but at least they didn't laugh Demo in the face and made him cry like a little sissy. Which I must say I do fear the book version could have led to.
What my practical experience shows me that these big guys can often keep more than one or two heroes from doing real damage in a given round (the others can't close in, or have DC 23 Wisdom saves with +1 bonuses to worry about...) so their hit points isn't quite the three-round lockdown it first looked like.
Give them just a few henchmen and the fight suddenly becomes WAY harder (like with Squallocks the spellcasting Vrock and Queen Hledh flanking Graz'zt).
But you knew that already.
The trick is to make the SINGLE bossmonster a match for the entire party all on his own. Giving it better legendaries, and a way to at least act twice otherwise (action surge, two heads, non-trivial bonus action thingies) and most of the remaining stats does work.
For the value of "work" that includes "getting ass-whipped by a party eight-ten levels lower". But still.
Zapp
PS. I believe this was the first and only time I really managed to truly fulfill the 8 encounters and no rest thing. (They broke off their short rest when they saw Demo kill Orcus; justifiably thinking he would have regenerated to max hp if they completed their rest before taking him on)
By the way, 8 encounter days is way too much work. Phew! Now I know for sure the "just have 8 encounters and the game works fine" argument is bollocks. Way too much work to set up the epic conditions required to make them not rest. The game simply must be made to assume shorter working days, since that's how 99% of actual adventuring days go down... I can't be arsed to pull off this epic amount of story and prep just to make the game's basics work.
---
---
---
and SPOILERS for Out of the Abyss
---
---
---
...just came back from the final session of Out of the Abyss, where the heroes first battled Graz'zt (or rather, his ritual - see the final chapter of the AL scenario "Assault on Maerimydra") and then caught up to Demogorgon just as he broke Orcus' over his knee.
The most important tweak visavi the official stats was to give Demogorgon two actions, two initiative counts. Another rather big thing is auto-grapple on tentacle hit.
Each head could take the Multiattack action to make two tentacles attacks, so four tentacles maximum; but most rounds there was tentacles plus gaze or tentacles plus spell.
And legendary actions - in addition to tailswipe and the legendary gaze (whatever it was called), I added teleport and "bite and toss", much as your Demogorgon does.
Once he flung the Eldritch Knight some 300 ft, and that was from a height of 160 ft
(Demo teleported way up a huge-ass pillar in the middle of the chamber) so that was an easy calculation of fall damage ("yep, I'd say 20d6"). The player was pleased he took his two levels of Barbarian - changed death to not-even-bloodied (even if that was only because his max hp had been lowered )Then Big D jumped on top of the Cleric for two tentacle attacks plus 11d6 falling damage (he himself is immune to non-magical damage, such as houses and stuff). He didn't get to enjoy the grappling action because the party Warlock promptly hurled Demo through hell (that is literally the name of the ability) which released the Cleric and gave them time to stand up and brush off the worst
And then Power Word Stun stole his last action (a previous lucky Feeblemind had forced Hethradiah to spend the last legendary resistance, and it was nighty nighty time for ol' D.One thing I think I got from your pdf was the idea Demo casts Symbol (as one of his spells) though as a single action, simply by forming his body like the spiraling Y. The exact symbol was a random d8, and the lucky bastards rolled a 3 - thanks to Heroes Feast (I believe) the party was immune to that particular effect!
In the end, I can't say I managed to threaten the party (5 chars, level 16) to an inch of their lives (like any good end-of-level fight really should go down...
) but at least they didn't laugh Demo in the face and made him cry like a little sissy. Which I must say I do fear the book version could have led to.What my practical experience shows me that these big guys can often keep more than one or two heroes from doing real damage in a given round (the others can't close in, or have DC 23 Wisdom saves with +1 bonuses to worry about...) so their hit points isn't quite the three-round lockdown it first looked like.
Give them just a few henchmen and the fight suddenly becomes WAY harder (like with Squallocks the spellcasting Vrock and Queen Hledh flanking Graz'zt).
But you knew that already.
The trick is to make the SINGLE bossmonster a match for the entire party all on his own. Giving it better legendaries, and a way to at least act twice otherwise (action surge, two heads, non-trivial bonus action thingies) and most of the remaining stats does work.
For the value of "work" that includes "getting ass-whipped by a party eight-ten levels lower". But still.
Zapp
PS. I believe this was the first and only time I really managed to truly fulfill the 8 encounters and no rest thing. (They broke off their short rest when they saw Demo kill Orcus; justifiably thinking he would have regenerated to max hp if they completed their rest before taking him on)
By the way, 8 encounter days is way too much work. Phew! Now I know for sure the "just have 8 encounters and the game works fine" argument is bollocks. Way too much work to set up the epic conditions required to make them not rest. The game simply must be made to assume shorter working days, since that's how 99% of actual adventuring days go down... I can't be arsed to pull off this epic amount of story and prep just to make the game's basics work.
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