D&D 5E Get The Vecna Dossier Free At D&D Beyond

WotC is offering a free product which you can claim by signing into D&D Beyond, including Vecna’s 5E statistics.

The dossier includes the stat block plus a half page or so of lore. Vecna's stat block is a CR 26 undead wizard, prior to the fallen paladin (and former bodyguard to the lich) Kas's betrayal. That means he still has his hand and eye, although he is a time traveller and can appear in different worlds and eras.

The archlich Vecna is one of the most iconic villains of Dungeons & Dragons lore. And now you can bear witness to his necromantic magic with the Vecna Dossier! Available at no cost with your D&D Beyond account, this thrilling supplement details the legacy and statistics of the Undying King himself!

This claim unlocks the contents of this promotional supplement for use with D&D Beyond, including the supplement in digital format in the game compendium and in the searchable listings, character builder, encounters, and digital sheet.

Claim The Vecna Dossier now! - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Shardstone]

Free Level 20 D&D Adventure: Face Off Against Vecna in an Epic Battle in 'Don’t Say Vecna!' Vecna has lair actions in the adventure too. Sick!

 

[Bitbrain]

Reply to OP.

Pass. Never cared for vecna. In my opinion he’s just another boring necromancer wizard BBEG lich.

Now, if D&D Beyond perhaps offered up (and this is just me spitballing here) a free dossier on a conjuration wizard BBEG who decided lichdom was so last year and instead became an evil miniature star... I might be interested enough to subscribe.

He can counterspell it though. It autofails because it is a cantrip and he deals 10 damage the caster.

Every 5e Sorcerer I’ve ever played: laughs in subtle metamagic.

 

[dave2008]

So it's truly official:

Spellcasting monsters are trash. No thanks to the "even-more-simplified aka watered down" D&D rules for them.

Pretty sure Vecna has way more spells at his disposal than that.

Bring back the old spellcasting blocks, where we had each spell level and spell slots. What the heck is going on with this game and their designers?

Different strokes for different folks. I much prefer this to the 5e lich for example. I don't need all the spells he can use in his statblock. What I want are fun an interesting abilities that I can run without looking at another book. If I know a spell well and I want Vecna to cast it, he can. I don't need the statblock to tell me that. I much prefer an easy to use statblock than an all encompassing one.

 

[Thomas Rainsborough]

I think you have a different view of CR then WotC does for high level encounters.

4 PCs are very powerful due to action economy and the stacking of an absurd amount of features between them. T3 characters, that is, characters 11-16, can with take on a creature almost anywhere in the range of 21-30 when they are fresh/rested and have their magic items. This is normally mitigated by running games where direct, isolated combats aren't common, such as games where the enemies actually run away and don't fight to the death, and use their own resources to ambush, weaken, and harass the party.

Imagine, someone as smart as Vecna is never going to go into a fight even with no preparation before hand against someone who can cast 5th-9th level spells, attack 3-8 times a turn, bring back the dead, use any of hundreds of different spells at any point during the combat, and so on. Why would he do that? Instead, Vecna gathers together his forces, sets up the battlefield how he wants to set it up, and forces the players into his own game. Its only sensible.

If you want to run Vecna as a solo battle in an arena, that's fine, but high level D&D is not that kind of game unless you give a monster all the things I mentioned in my last post. And its ok that most high level challenges are team efforts, because high level play has a lot of powerful things flying around and, when ran right, becomes a chain of fun and insane encounters that really brings the most out of the 5Th edition system.

And now you have so many moving parts (minions) that the entire game bogs down into quicksand, and players are waiting 20 plus minutes for their turn to come around. I design my encounters to keep players engaged. That means solo monsters whenever possible, but ones with a ton of LA's.

The concept of a fight you are proposing is the standard style that WOTC promotes. And that concept is horribly wrong, if you want to keep players engaged. Let alone many DM's simply do not have the brain power to operate all the functions/features of multiple bad guys simultaneously and adjudicate the player's moves.

 

[Dausuul]

Uh huh...and The Sorcerer Quickens Shocking Grasp. Vecna is going nowhere, and is toast.

Except that Vecna engages you at range with plenty of cover handy, and a bunch of skeleton archers that he's animated with his at-will animate dead. They all focus fire on the sorcerer PC with shocking grasp, who is toast.

How does he know which PC has shocking grasp and that he needs to engage you at range? Same way you know that his defenses rely on reactions and teleports. Why is he allowed to prepare for the battle by animating an army of skeletons? Same reason you're allowed to tailor your entire build to fight him. What's good for the PCs is good for the Big Bad.

In any real D&D game, no sorcerer ever would lead off combat against an epic foe by charging into melee range and double-tapping a cantrip.

 

[dave2008]

Every 5e Sorcerer I’ve ever played: laughs in subtle metamagic.

I've never seen a sorcerer in play and I am not really familiar with what they can do. Can you clarify?

Wait, doesn't subtle mean you can hide your spellcasting (and therefor couldn't counterspell), IIRC?

 

[Zubatcarteira]

An Open Hand Monk also has this:

Whenever you hit a creature with one of the attacks granted by your Flurry of Blows, you can impose one of the following effects on that target:

• It can’t take reactions until the end of your next turn.

Trading LAs for reactions isn't a great idea overall, although it should be mostly fine if the PCs don't have that, or Shocking Grasp, or other similar stuff.

 

[Shardstone]

The tower even has defences! Each time a PLAYER or CHARACTER says the name Vecna, they take 1d10 necrotic damage, which icnreases by 1d10 to a max of 5d10. You know that'll pop up around the table a few times!

All in all, this sounds like a super fun creature to run. I'm super impressed with the design of the lair actions, the tower's defenses, and vecna's stat block. Slap this bad boy with some fun minions and you've got a super epic campaign finale!

 

[Bitbrain]

I've never seen a sorcerer in play and I am not really familiar with what they can do. Can you clarify?

Wait, doesn't subtle mean you can hide your spellcasting (and therefor couldn't counterspell), IIRC?

Subtle metamagic means you can’t be counterspelled.

 

[Shardstone]

And now you have so many moving parts (minions) that the entire game bogs down into quicksand, and players are waiting 20 plus minutes for their turn to come around. I design my encounters to keep players engaged. That means solo monsters whenever possible, but ones with a ton of LA's.

The concept of a fight you are proposing is the standard style that WOTC promotes. And that concept is horribly wrong, if you want to keep players engaged. Let alone many DM's simply do not have the brain power to operate all the functions/features of multiple bad guys simultaneously and adjudicate the player's moves.

You sound very closeminded and unwilling to see this game from the perspective of another player. Someone who only has one frame of perspective has an inadequate understanding of the work to really talk about it! Need to be able to see it from more then just your lens!