D&D 5E Could Use Some Help Fleshing Out A Mission

[ElterAgo]

Party is 7th level. Pretty good at straight standard combat. They sometimes get into trouble when wierd stuff happens though. They are only fair-middlin at social and investigative stuff.

I intend this to be difficult-to-nearly-impossible if they just stupidly charge. With good tactics, preparation, and information gathering; it should be challenging. I don't want his allies to be completely ignore-able mooks. If they have to fight decent numbers of them, it should be a challenge.

• BBEG has occupied an abandoned keep on a small storm, wind, wave wracked isle. It will be hard to get to the isle.
• Rumors say the BBEG is a dragonborn blue dragon bloodline sorcerer. I don't really care if he is or not, but he should at least be able to start those rumors.
• He theoretically has a moderately powerful 'something' that lets him create bad storms that are sinking ships.
• Rumors of one huge and/or many small flying and/or swimming things attacking the ships during the storms.
• BBEG is fairly clever, but also at least partially crazy (side effect of something else).

What kind of race/class/build would you recommend for the BBEG?
What kind of walking, swimming, and/or flying allies should he have?
Is there an already existing magic something' that is at least reasonably level appropriate or do I need to make up something?

 

[tommybahama]

I just played in a Tier 2 (average party level of 8 but ranged from 6 to 10) Adventurers League module that featured a 17th level Warlock that had an innate spell casting ability to cast Finger of Death and Feeblemind. She had a fire giant, two hell hounds, and some orcs as henchmen.

It was a tough fight and the DM didn't pull any punches. Exchange the Warlock with your sorcerer. Give him a storm giant, two CR 3 creatures (kua-toa monitors?), and a bunch of winged kobolds as henchmen.

Spoiler: The specific AL module in the spoiler

ELMW2-1 Trendrils in the Fog

 

[Quickleaf]

Number of PCs? I take it you're looking for a combat encounter?

Do the PCs have a way to reach the isle without being targeted by devastating storms?

I'm thinking a blue abishai (from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes) with no proficient saving throws, spellcasting reduced to 9th level, so it wouldn't have chain lightning & teleport, spell slots 4/3/3/3/1, and would reduce its save Dc to 18 / +10 to hit with spell attacks. Without knowing your party specifics, I'd roughly recalculate its CR thusly...

Defensive CR 15
195 * 1.25 damage resistances + 30 mirror image = 273
effective AC = 19 + 2 magic resistance = 21

Offensive CR 11
DPR = (( (2 * 36) cone of cold + (3 * 28) ice storm + (2 * 28) lightning bolt )) / 3 = 70
save DC 18

Total CR = (15 + 11) / 2 = 13

For minions, I'm thinking ice mephits and/or will-o-wisps. So gaining resistance to cold or lightning damage will be very helpful. Countering flight will be very helpful. Turn Undead could be helpful against the will-o-wisps. The ability to deal bludgeoning or fire damage could be helpful against the mephits.

 

[ElterAgo]

Wow! I think 17th level is a bit high level. Though I did want this to be tough.

Won't be just 1 encounter. It will be the BBEG and all his minions/allies on, in, and near the keep.

I am sure of at least 1 way to reach the isle. We will see if they find/think of it. There are at least a couple other possibilities within their capabilities.

I like the idea of mephits. Not so sure about the will-o-wisps though. Undead have occurred a lot lately and there have been a few comments about being tired of them.

I will look up the blue abishai. I haven't heard of them before.

 

[Quickleaf]

Wow! I think 17th level is a bit high level. Though I did want his to be tough.

Won't be just 1 encounter. It will be the BBEG and all his minions/allies on, in, and near the keep.

I am sure of at least 1 way to reach the isle. we will see if they find/think of it. There are at least a couple other possibilities within their capabilities.

I like the idea of mephits. Not so sure about the will-o-wisps though. Undead have occurred a lot lately and there have been a few comments about being tired of them.

I will look up the blue abishai. I haven't heard of them before.

Yep, I had a party of four 6th level PCs take down a CR 12 titanoboa (Tome of Beasts), and it was a harrowing fight which they just barely managed to pull victory from the claws of death without losing any PCs. So PCs about your party's level hitting a CR about +6 above their level is very possible.

I'm assuming this will be the only combat in their adventuring day, so I went with the Adventuring Day XP Budget. Since the easy/medium/hard/deadly designations assume a 6-8 encounter day, and thus have an assumption of resource attrition built into them. The Adventuring Day XP Budget represents the upper threshold for what a party can face before needing a long rest.

If you have five 7th level PCs, their Daily Budget is 25,000 adjusted XP.

Thus, if you use the de-powered CR 13 blue abishai and 5 ice mephits, their combined total would = 21,000 adjusted XP.

This is toward the higher end, but they can be countered in similar ways (cripple flight & resist cold/lightning damage) and ice mephits have vulnerability to fire - a very common damage source. Plus the blue abishai is very vulnerable to counterspelling tactics. I felt comfortable pushing towards that upper limit since there are pretty clear weaknesses the PCs can exploit.

 

[GMMichael]

No, I don't have a Monster Manual recommendation, but I am attempting to help:

How did these:

BBEG has occupied an abandoned keep on a small storm, wind, wave wracked isle. It will be hard to get to the isle.
Rumors say the BBEG is a dragonborn blue dragon bloodline sorcerer. I don't really care if he is or not, but he should at least be able to start those rumors.
He theoretically has a moderately powerful 'something' that lets him create bad storms that are sinking ships.
Rumors of one huge and/or many small flying and/or swimming things attacking the ships during the storms.
BBEG is fairly clever, but also at least partially crazy (side effect of something else).

come before these?

What kind of race/class/build would you recommend for the BBEG?
What kind of walking, swimming, and/or flying allies should he have?
Is there an already existing magic something' that is at least reasonably level appropriate or do I need to make up something?

If you start with the latter, who the BBEG is, then it generates the former, the signs, all on its own. For example, if you decide your villain is a fat, illusionist sahuagin, then it follows that there are rumors of a talking blowfish, villagers disappeared after seeing mermaids across the water, and locals get paid to haul seawater into a mysterious ruin.

But if you say you need a villain that:

• has been rumored to be a talking blowfish
• uses mermaids to lure victims
• and is researching the (dry) site of a legendary illusion,

then you've created a mystery for the GM, instead of for the players.

(That being said, you could just throw out the signs and let the players tell you what it is by discussing their own ideas amongst themselves.)

 

[ElterAgo]

If you start with the latter, who the BBEG is, then it generates the former, the signs, all on its own. For example, if you decide your villain is a fat, illusionist sahuagin, then it follows that there are rumors of a talking blowfish, villagers disappeared after seeing mermaids across the water, and locals get paid to haul seawater into a mysterious ruin.

But if you say you need a villain that:

• has been rumored to be a talking blowfish
• uses mermaids to lure victims
• and is researching the (dry) site of a legendary illusion,

then you've created a mystery for the GM, instead of for the players.

(That being said, you could just throw out the signs and let the players tell you what it is by discussing their own ideas amongst themselves.)

Yeah well big mouth GM (me) was just talking about some background color stuff which then somehow became a major story arc when they got excited about it. Apparently the idiot GM did too good of job making up some wierd sh.. stuff on the fly for color commentary on the city. It was deemed more interesting than what they were originally heading to this part of the world to do. {shrug} So yeah, kinda coming at this one backwards this time.

 

[tommybahama]

Please do a write up on what you decide. I'm interested in hearing how it turns out!

 

[ElterAgo]

Hmm... Kinda like the Blue Abishai. You are definately correct that as written, it is too powerful. Yes on dropping the caster level to 9th. That is still enough to scare them when the spells hit. Think I will also change the fire immunity to resistance. Drop the ability stats by 2 each. I think I will drop the HD a bit also. Maybe -4 HD.

Might swap out some of the spells for more defensive and divination spells. This guy is gonna be kinda cowardly and is also searching for something of magical power.

Mephits are some kool allies that the group hasn't encountered yet. Maybe a few of each kind harrying them as they approach (if they weren't sneaky enough to avoid detection).

Need some water allies also. So I think the will be Kou-Toa around the isle and maybe a few locations on the isle near water. They will just make hit and run attacks trying to drag some people into the water to drown.

Add in a few basic cultist for servants in the keep and I think I've got all the opponents necessary.

Thanks for the help folks!

Now I need to find a good map to use.

 

[aco175]

A death hag with a few levels (5-7) of wizard. Just give it some abilities to walk on water and such. You can have it be a follower of Talos the storm god and experimenting on sahuagin to make them able to breath air longer that normal. Give a few corrupted abilities and more than the normal power.