Dragonlance Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen shows up in the wild!

[Weiley31]

Found them.

Very flavorful, but I have to ask: does this seem like an "average" difficulty encounter against a party of 19th level PCs?

Lord Soth can be charmed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A 19 CR solo monster, by the numbers, should be a challenge for (4) PCs in the 8-10 range. IIRC, that is where this adventure ends.

FYI, also by the numbers, Soth is a "Medium" encounter for (4) 19th lvl PCs. As a reminder a Medium encounter is:

" A medium encounter usually has one or two scary moments for the players, but the characters should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or more of them might need to use healing resources."

Like I said, I hate the 5e CR system. That doesn't seem like medium risk to me, and there are no scary moments in combat if you're assumed to emerge victorious with no casualties. To behave otherwise under those conditions, to me, is play-acting.

 

[Weiley31]

Also: since Soth is pretty much a "modified" Death Knight, I think he should ALSO have the Parry reaction as well.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Very flavorful, but I have to ask: does this seem like an "average" difficulty encounter against a party of 19th level PCs?

That is not the way the CR system is supposed to work. A CR 19 solo is supposed to provide a difficult encounter for a party of 6 level 14 characters, or 5 level 15, or 4 level 16 characters - from the encounter guidelines in Xanathar's Guide.
By my reckoning you could drop the character level by 1 in each case.

 

[dave2008]

Like I said, I hate the 5e CR system. That doesn't seem like medium risk to me, and there are no scary moments in combat if you're assumed to emerge victorious with no casualties. To behave otherwise under those conditions, to me, is play-acting.

That isn't really the CR system, it is the encounter building guidelines. CR is just a relative rank. How you use it is what matters.

 

[dave2008]

That is not the way the CR system is supposed to work. A CR 19 solo is supposed to provide a difficult encounter for a party of 6 level 14 characters, or 5 level 15, or 4 level 16 characters - from the encounter guidelines in Xanathar's Guide.
By my reckoning you could drop the character level by 1 in each case.

However, even "difficult" as defined by WotC is really not much of a challenge. And Xanathar's is weird in that it gives guidelines for an "optimal" encounter, but as far as I can tell never describes what an optimal encounter is. I prefer the DMG method which at least let's me know that WotC definition of "deadly" =/= my definition of deadly

 

[UngainlyTitan]

However, even "difficult" as defined by WotC is really not much of a challenge. And Xanathar's is weird in that it gives guidelines for an "optimal" encounter, but as far as I can tell never describes what an optimal encounter is. I prefer the DMG method which at least let's me know that WotC definition of "deadly" =/= my definition of deadly

"Difficult" is a bit of a moveable feast even for a given group, since the party composition and magic items can change it quite a bit.

 

[overgeeked]

Found them.

Huh. His hit points are low. Most CR19 monsters should be sitting around 300 hp. His sustained damage is a little low. He should be doing another 20 damage per round, without casting or dailies. I like the "if you hit zero hp from this, you die" stuff. Especially the raise dead fireball. That's nice.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

For Soth, I think that I'd mix a Sword Wraith Commander and a Warlord (both in MPMM) with a regular Death Knight and buff him with a Mythic trait, just to go easy on magic attacks and make him more martial.

 

[overgeeked]

It’s worth remembering that Soth will at least be riding a death dragon and likely accompanied by lots of draconian and skeleton troops. You won’t be fighting him alone in a white room at the end of the module.