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

[bleezy]

Are you saying that the books don't let the DM know he can make a world where there is actually only one god, or that they don't let players know they can play a character who only believes in one god in world with a full pantheon?

 

[Jaelommiss]

I talked to my players and they are okay with replacing this week's session with a one shot boss fight. They have not been told anything about the boss, and they will not be telling me anything about their characters.

snip

I will return to report on the battles later this week.

So I ended up doing this. When I can finally wrap my head around what happened I'll post the details.

The first fight was more or less as anticipated. Symbol (stunning) is brutal, teleporting as a legendary action is ridiculous, and the one PC who was able to meaningfully contribute was no match for Moloch in a 1v1 match.

The second fight, the one that I'm still trying to figure out, ended up going well until the players saw the Deck of Many Things on their magic item list (I rolled randomly and it somehow came up). This would have been fine except the rogue decided that, since the deck had thirteen cards, it would be a good idea to wait until he engaged Moloch and then draw thirteen cards. Things went very wrong for everyone involved in short order, and both Moloch and the Rogue ultimately ended up banished to the Astral Sea after destroying the entire battlefield (I spent two hours working on that map!) and playing around with a Portable Hole and a Bag of Holding. The majority of the characters survived and returned as heroes. Booting Moloch from their plane is really the best they could hope for anyway. Killing him sends him back to the Nine Hells, so it's fair to say that they accomplished their goal as much as was realistically possible.

 

[jaelis]

So I ended up doing this. When I can finally wrap my head around what happened I'll post the details.

The first fight was more or less as anticipated. Symbol (stunning) is brutal, teleporting as a legendary action is ridiculous, and the one PC who was able to meaningfully contribute was no match for Moloch in a 1v1 match.

The second fight, the one that I'm still trying to figure out, ended up going well until the players saw the Deck of Many Things on their magic item list (I rolled randomly and it somehow came up). This would have been fine except the rogue decided that, since the deck had thirteen cards, it would be a good idea to wait until he engaged Moloch and then draw thirteen cards. Things went very wrong for everyone involved in short order, and both Moloch and the Rogue ultimately ended up banished to the Astral Sea after destroying the entire battlefield (I spent two hours working on that map!) and playing around with a Portable Hole and a Bag of Holding. The majority of the characters survived and returned as heroes. Booting Moloch from their plane is really the best they could hope for anyway. Killing him sends him back to the Nine Hells, so it's fair to say that they accomplished their goal as much as was realistically possible.

Thanks for the post. Inre the second fight, might say more about the DoMT than Moloch. But it sounds like a blast!

 

[dave2008]

So I ended up doing this. When I can finally wrap my head around what happened I'll post the details.

The first fight was more or less as anticipated. Symbol (stunning) is brutal, teleporting as a legendary action is ridiculous, and the one PC who was able to meaningfully contribute was no match for Moloch in a 1v1 match.

The second fight, the one that I'm still trying to figure out, ended up going well until the players saw the Deck of Many Things on their magic item list (I rolled randomly and it somehow came up). This would have been fine except the rogue decided that, since the deck had thirteen cards, it would be a good idea to wait until he engaged Moloch and then draw thirteen cards. Things went very wrong for everyone involved in short order, and both Moloch and the Rogue ultimately ended up banished to the Astral Sea after destroying the entire battlefield (I spent two hours working on that map!) and playing around with a Portable Hole and a Bag of Holding. The majority of the characters survived and returned as heroes. Booting Moloch from their plane is really the best they could hope for anyway. Killing him sends him back to the Nine Hells, so it's fair to say that they accomplished their goal as much as was realistically possible.

Thanks for posting. I look forward to more details when you get time (Group size and composition, battlefield size and composition, etc.

 

[Caliburn101]

Remarkable how many people think that HPs make or break a creature.

What rubbish - the very idea that a BBEG with such a suite of abilities and extremely high IQ will stand there and let people beat on it is hilarious.

As a GM, you'd be hard pressed in my game to find out Moloch was the one manipulating you into serving his agenda in the first place, and if you did, he'd string out your party and take you down piecemeal if you were dumb enough to stick around to take that beating.

The way to beat this guy is to do your homework and catch him unawares and unguarded. Then the smack down so often mentioned here would have a chance of working (you'd have made some arrangement to lock down planar travel and teleport for one...)...

... but first you'd need to find out his secrets to use against him - good luck with that.

 

[Delazar78]

Ok, let's imagine three scenarios. And note, as per the DMG, Legendary actions can only be used by a creature at the END of another creature's turn.

awesome tactics follow...

If only WotC would include this kind of Tactics breakdown somewhere, it would be awesome!

 

[Quartz]

The first fight was more or less as anticipated. Symbol (stunning) is brutal, teleporting as a legendary action is ridiculous, and the one PC who was able to meaningfully contribute was no match for Moloch in a 1v1 match.

Did no one Counterspell? Did no one use Dimensional Anchor? (Yes, I know the latter isn't in the 5E SRD.)

 

[jaelis]

Did no one use Dimensional Anchor? (Yes, I know the latter isn't in the 5E SRD.)

Is it in a book outside the SRD?

 

[dave2008]

Did no one Counterspell? Did no one use Dimensional Anchor? (Yes, I know the latter isn't in the 5E SRD.)

Did they even have those spells prepared? The scenario was (if I remember correctly), that the DM did not know the group's characters and the players did not know what they were fighting.

As of right now we don't even know:
# of PCs
level of PCs
class of PCs

It is a little early to start questioning their tactics.

 

[jaelis]

Did they even have those spells prepared? The scenario was (if I remember correctly), that the DM did not know the group's characters and the players did not know what they were fighting.

As of right now we don't even know:
# of PCs
level of PCs
class of PCs

It is a little early to start questioning their tactics.

Well, one could argue that a high level party should always have counterspell prepared. But if the Symbol was precast, it wouldn't have helped. Though probably dispel magic should be on the 'always prepared' list too