Archdevil Moloch (Mordenkainen's tome of foes preview from Dragon+)

[neogod22]

It’s probably a waste of time. If he can avoid dying, he probably would, since he can run away and get back to full health in mere minutes, amass a small army of charmed humanoids in mere hours, and reanimate their dying bodies constantly during a fight. I’m sure he would let himself die and go back to Hell if it meant securing a really important objective, but I assume he generally avoids pointless deaths.

And I agree with you. Hell is not where he wants to go. There's one thing about Asmodeous that I find interesting. He never kills Archdevils. He will punish them by changing their forms. Modoch for example is interesting because of the term "banish" from Hell. He can enter and leave any time he wants it seems. Just entering will strip him of most of his power, and of course he will have to hide from those who may attempt to take advantage of his weakness. But the interesting thing is, none of the other Archdevils can leave Hell. They are all pretty much trapped.

 

[neogod22]

It’s probably a waste of time. If he can avoid dying, he probably would. He can run away and get back to full health in mere minutes, amass a small army of charmed humanoids in mere hours, and reanimate their dying bodies constantly during a fight. I’m sure he would let himself die and go back to Hell if it meant securing a really important objective, but I assume he generally avoids pointless deaths.

He is insanely mobile, and very good at attrition. An amazing skirmisher.

He is a very good campaign villain. Where he can be the central villain from 1-20.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

And I agree with you. Hell is not where he wants to go. There's one thing about Asmodeous that I find interesting. He never kills Archdevils. He will punish them by changing their forms. Modoch for example is interesting because of the term "banish" from Hell. He can enter and leave any time he wants it seems. Just entering will strip him of most of his power, and of course he will have to hide from those who may attempt to take advantage of his weakness. But the interesting thing is, none of the other Archdevils can leave Hell. They are all pretty much trapped.

The Archdevils can leave Hell. It's just not easy and most of them don't have much reason to.

 

[Demetrios1453]

The Archdevils can leave Hell. It's just not easy and most of them don't have much reason to.

Which is why I assume we aren't going to see the full slate of them given stat blocks in MToF. I'm guessing they are wanting to concentrate on those whom adventurers might reasonably encounter scheming outside their planar layers.

 

[bleezy]

Maloch finally gets to go and regenerates 20 hit points. He is still most likely around 150 hit points at this point and given he's a demon lord decides screw this fight, I can't win, I'm fleeing. If he's fighting on the material plane and decides to fight to the "death", he already has his concentration spell up, so he's rather limited. We'll assume he teleports next to the barbarian or ranger and breathes his breath on them. Most likely, he does this to the barbarian unless the ranger has spent her bardic inspiration dice somehow. The barbarian likely fails the save unless one of his allies give him inspiration (which they will, because duh). Still, for arguments sake, we'll assume he fails.

Moloch doesn't do this. He teleports away (cannot be counterspelled). Either the PCs fight him in an antimagic field, the area of a Forbiddance spell, Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum or the equivalent, or they will never be able to fight him for more than one round at a time, and every time he shows up he is at 253 hit points. Because he doesn't have Dispel Magic, he is fairly easy for a high level party to keep 'at bay', but he can't easily be defeated in a fight using normal tactics. I didn't finish the thread, but your example combat is pretty silly.

 

[CapnZapp]

Anybody who is thinking that their PCs can take down Moloch is vastly underestimating him... He has INT 21 & can cast Geas at will... Why would he ever allow his enemies to even approach having a tactical encounter against him? Am I the only one thinking that this probably neutralizes any and all threats to him before they even start?

Am I the only one thinking having tactical encounters are the point of the game?

 

[Mirtek]

Even isn't deadly. Even is 50%-50%.

And that's deadly in D&D. Because normally PCs are supposed to win and to not die. 50% dying in a single fight? of which they are supposed to have serveral every day? That's crazy deadly in D&D terms.

A normal D&D fight is not about whether the PCs win, only about how much ressources they spend for their victory

 

[Parmandur]

Am I the only one thinking having tactical encounters are the point of the game?

Means and ends, an interesting question: tactical encounters are an element of the game, but it is easy enough to have full four hour sessions without any tactical encounters, so I would say they are hardly the point.

 

[Ranthalan]

Am I the only one thinking having tactical encounters are the point of the game?

Depends on the style of the game the DM is running. They can be, but they don't have to be. I'm working on an urban campaign where combat is best avoided.

 

[Iry]

Am I the only one thinking having tactical encounters are the point of the game?

Among the many RPGs out there, D&D has some really strong roots in wargaming - so a big chunk of the game is about tactical combat. If I was picking out which RPG system to play, I would probably choose D&D if I wanted a focus on tactical combat. But it's not necessary.

My group tends to play other RPG systems, but even when we play D&D we still strongly favor the social and exploration pillars.

Likewise, D&D is a large market share of the players, so many players will stick with D&D even if they would prefer less tactical combat.