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<blockquote data-quote="Stalker0" data-source="post: 8259625" data-attributes="member: 5889"><p>Yeah, initiative is so important on high level fights....perhaps that's a good area to look at monster abilities for future monsters. I know lair actions have auto initiative spots, maybe some boss monsters should as well.</p><p></p><p>And yes I do use the legendary actions on Turn 1 regardless of initiative. Also this was the CR 19 variant, I said I was <strong>not</strong> using the meteor swarm.</p><p></p><p>I do run more low magic campaigns, but my last few campaigns have been in my "living universe", literally my campaigns each affect the next one. The core of this universe is the city of Taranya (which is actually "Sigil" in its most early form, I am playing that the universe is very young by normal standards, so a lot of the standard stuff hasn't happened yet). Taranya is a very high magic city, and the players serve as an expeditionary unit in this campaign (think of Stargate SG-1 if you have ever watched the show).</p><p></p><p>So for the real key missions like this....I always assume that the player's allies would help them with buffs and magic items, and in this case the bless and aid was due to the death of a god (the entire multiverse is under attack by the Abberations, and the god of civilization Erathis just sacrificed herself to give everyone in the multiverse "bless" and "aid" for the struggle. But at the same time, none of their buffs or items are out of line with facing such high CR creatures, I mean even an 8th level spell is "quaint" in that context. You could probably argue that bless is just such a crazy good buff spell...you are effectively giving 9th level characters the attack and save bonuses of 17th level ones....though without the special abilities and hitpoints.</p><p></p><p>Lastly, they aren't as suped up as you might think. Based on "standard treasure hordes" that the DMG recommends, a 9th level party has about ~19k in gold (based on the work done here: <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/deconstructing-5e-typical-wealth-by-level.402507/" target="_blank">D&D 5E - Deconstructing 5e: Typical Wealth by Level</a>). That's about 3-4 rare's worth of magic items. Most of my party only has 1 rare and 1-2 uncommons. The battlemaster has 2 rare's, his +2 armor and +2 shield (with his defense style brings him to the 25 AC). Obviously this is a grain of salt approach, but my party is not flowing with magic items or anything, even compared to a "standard baseline".</p><p></p><p></p><p>So at the end of the day, I think the key issue for me was the mishandling of Withering Touch....it is actually THE KEY ability of this monster, but I misunderstood it. That literally would have cut the damage many of my players were doing by half or more....not to mention the extra damage they would have taken. So I think the design is fine, things just need a little cleanup. Like I wouldn't call it Withering Touch....it implied the monster had to....you know....touch something (which is why I thought it must be an action), and it made it even stranger when the notion that the effect still worked when I hit the creature with a weapon....aka no touch occurred but the effect still worked. So I just recommend some language cleanup there, the ability is probably fine for a CR 19 (and frankly necessary to make the monster a threat).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Stalker0, post: 8259625, member: 5889"] Yeah, initiative is so important on high level fights....perhaps that's a good area to look at monster abilities for future monsters. I know lair actions have auto initiative spots, maybe some boss monsters should as well. And yes I do use the legendary actions on Turn 1 regardless of initiative. Also this was the CR 19 variant, I said I was [B]not[/B] using the meteor swarm. I do run more low magic campaigns, but my last few campaigns have been in my "living universe", literally my campaigns each affect the next one. The core of this universe is the city of Taranya (which is actually "Sigil" in its most early form, I am playing that the universe is very young by normal standards, so a lot of the standard stuff hasn't happened yet). Taranya is a very high magic city, and the players serve as an expeditionary unit in this campaign (think of Stargate SG-1 if you have ever watched the show). So for the real key missions like this....I always assume that the player's allies would help them with buffs and magic items, and in this case the bless and aid was due to the death of a god (the entire multiverse is under attack by the Abberations, and the god of civilization Erathis just sacrificed herself to give everyone in the multiverse "bless" and "aid" for the struggle. But at the same time, none of their buffs or items are out of line with facing such high CR creatures, I mean even an 8th level spell is "quaint" in that context. You could probably argue that bless is just such a crazy good buff spell...you are effectively giving 9th level characters the attack and save bonuses of 17th level ones....though without the special abilities and hitpoints. Lastly, they aren't as suped up as you might think. Based on "standard treasure hordes" that the DMG recommends, a 9th level party has about ~19k in gold (based on the work done here: [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/deconstructing-5e-typical-wealth-by-level.402507/']D&D 5E - Deconstructing 5e: Typical Wealth by Level[/URL]). That's about 3-4 rare's worth of magic items. Most of my party only has 1 rare and 1-2 uncommons. The battlemaster has 2 rare's, his +2 armor and +2 shield (with his defense style brings him to the 25 AC). Obviously this is a grain of salt approach, but my party is not flowing with magic items or anything, even compared to a "standard baseline". So at the end of the day, I think the key issue for me was the mishandling of Withering Touch....it is actually THE KEY ability of this monster, but I misunderstood it. That literally would have cut the damage many of my players were doing by half or more....not to mention the extra damage they would have taken. So I think the design is fine, things just need a little cleanup. Like I wouldn't call it Withering Touch....it implied the monster had to....you know....touch something (which is why I thought it must be an action), and it made it even stranger when the notion that the effect still worked when I hit the creature with a weapon....aka no touch occurred but the effect still worked. So I just recommend some language cleanup there, the ability is probably fine for a CR 19 (and frankly necessary to make the monster a threat). [/QUOTE]
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