Just Passing Through
Explorer
Few things stand up to testing in the field. It was for this reason that I ran a full combat with vox machina (using the stats from the reborn campaign book) against Nezha and his associates. The fight lasted just over five rounds. I used 2024 versions of certain spells and creatures, and probably made a few rules mistakes along the way (as I was solo running the whole thing), but overall I do not think it meaningfully affected the outcome.
Setup: Vox Machina came prepared. With some good lore checks, they knew who and what they were dealing with and came up with a plan accordingly. Heroes feast and multiple high level aid spells were cast to buff hp. Inspirations were handed out, a glyph of warding was prepared that would cast concentration free holy aura, and planar ally was used to summon an animal lord (2024 stats) ally for the fight. The bard and druid true polymorphed and shapeshifted into ancient white dragons (2024 stats). Shield other was cast by the artificer on the cleric to protect her, freedom of movement and death wards were placed on key members, and pass without trace allowed the party to get a surprise round on everyone (2 max level monks, 2 rakshasha, 1 marilith, 6 phase spiders) except Nezha, who rolled a 1 on his initiative.
Round 1: Things started out well for the party, with the fighter using action surge and a lucky crit to blast one of Nezha’s brothers apart. Nezha retaliated with two spears to the face, instantly bringing down the fighter, before trapping the rest of the party in a 120 damage wall of fire and detonating a lightning glyph, dealing almost half the hit points of the dragons instantly between the two aoes (LR kept them in dragon form). The rogue teleported through the flame wall using his vestige and with assassinate dealt multiple crits to Nezha’s other brother, nearly ending him immediately. Nezha grabbed him with his sash and dragged him into the fire wall, badly burning him. The artificer tried to dispel the fire wall, but his attempt failed, and he nearly fell unconscious from damage when he walked through it. Nezha used steal to maze the unconscious fighter, effectively killing and removing him from the fight. The bard/dragon flew into the air and breathed ice on everyone, wiping out the spiders and Nezha’s brother, and wearing away at Nezha’s temp hp. The druid/dragon did the same, bloodying the two rahshasha in the process and breaking Nezha’s temp shield. The cleric ran through the fire wall and cast holy aura on her allies using the premade glyph. The ranger with asassinate tore into the marilith with sharpshooter arrows, bloodying her. The barbarian charged in through the wall and with great weapon master dealt massive damage to the demon, neatly dropping her. The animal lord attacked Nezha, but discovered that they were unable to harm him, so finished off the demon instead. The dragons legendary action attacks (2024 shapeshift/true polymorph allows you to use them) had mixed results against Nezha, only sometimes damaging him.
Round 2: Nezha hasted himself and killed the cleric through shield other, death ward, and the vestige save from death ability. He then summoned another rakshasha, and whirlwinded the rogue into the wall of fire, knocking them unconscious. The artificer dispelled the fire wall, then fell to a whirlwind. One dragon breathed again, putting the two original rakshasha at critical hp, while the other pounced on Nezha, scoring a crit and actually drawing blood. The bloodied rakshasha’s killed the downed rogue and artificer out of spite, before the ranger shot them full of arrows, leaving only the recently summoned one standing. The barbarian got in a few lucky great weapon master hits on the demigod, bloodying him. The animal lord engaged the final rakshasha, bloodying them.
Round 3: Nezha started by killing the dragons, forcing the Druid and bard into normal forms. He then triggered another glyph, bloodying the Druid. The bard scrambled to help with a conjured hand of force that did nothing but annoy Nezha, who threw a 12 ton brick onto the druid, burying her under rubble and nearly knocking her out. She shifted into an earth elemental and managed to get out from under it. The animal lord and the ranger finished off the rakshasha, while the barbarian attacked Nezha, further injuring him.
Round 4: Nezha vaporized the bard and druid with a pair of back to back crits with his spear. He fireballed then forcecaged the barbarian, removing him from the fight. The ranger fired some arrows, then was crushed by a critical hit from a gold brick. The animal lord attacked Nehza, but was just as ineffective as before.
Round 5: The animal lord and barbarian were incinerated in Nehza’s flames.
Thoughts: A well geared and prepared party of 8 epic level pcs with a cr20 ally were tpk’d by a single cr24 creature and his cannon fodder allies.
When I look at a creature, I always look at a few things. Is the creature easy to run, does it have interesting and meaningful abilities, and is it fun for the players as well? Running Nezha was surprisingly simple, and his abilities were all interesting and on theme. However I have a couple of issues with the custom mechanics of the fight.
The ridiculous damage output made it impossible to maintain concentration on anything without LR. The damage was so high that several characters only got a single turn before dying. I know elsewhere you have x4 base weapon damage with +3 weapons, but honestly quadrupled martial damage just throws all the math off. You can see this with Nezha himself, his base damage is now almost as high as his sneak attack damage. A lot of abilities that exist to help martial characters reach near fighter damage (barbarian rage damage, sneak attack, hunters mark, paladin smites) will now be left in the dust because they are not getting that base multiplier. I suspect that they get the divine multiplier, but weapons get an x4 base multiplier applied before the divine bonus. I calculated that a fighter with Nezhas setup will do almost 3 times the damage that Nezah does because of this, whereas the gap is much closer between rogues and fighters pre epic. Casters are also left behind unless they get something major to compensate (do casters and warlocks get x4 base damage with cantrips, their weapon equivalent?)
My second pain point is the damage negation. The negation disproportionately affects certain classes and builds, and left several members of the party unable to effectively hurt Nehza. Combined with a generous helping of legendary resistance, and if felt like only certain characters were allowed to participate in the fight. Furthermore I see problems arising when pcs have this threshold as well, as many of Nezha’s minions and allies would not be able to hurt them at all, despite being part of the combat. I would genuinely prefer to have a much smaller amount of damage reduction, reducing incoming damage by a small amount instead of a wall that becomes obsolete once someone gets past the threshold.
Speaking of the minions, the fact that more enemies and reactions are added based on pc numbers instead of the intended CR of the overall encounter is baffling. Unless I am missing something, this means that a single demigod level pc would have an easier fight against Nezha than two quasi deities would, as he would have more allies and reactions against the second group despite both groups having the same effective cr.
I really enjoy many of the ideas in this stat block, but it currently seems overturned. In another thread you said that a demigod should be equivalent to six pcs. This one was fought by 8 fully prepared epic tier pcs plus a cr 20 ally, with advanced knowledge of their foes weaknesses who caught him by surprise. They didn’t even get to his second phase.
Setup: Vox Machina came prepared. With some good lore checks, they knew who and what they were dealing with and came up with a plan accordingly. Heroes feast and multiple high level aid spells were cast to buff hp. Inspirations were handed out, a glyph of warding was prepared that would cast concentration free holy aura, and planar ally was used to summon an animal lord (2024 stats) ally for the fight. The bard and druid true polymorphed and shapeshifted into ancient white dragons (2024 stats). Shield other was cast by the artificer on the cleric to protect her, freedom of movement and death wards were placed on key members, and pass without trace allowed the party to get a surprise round on everyone (2 max level monks, 2 rakshasha, 1 marilith, 6 phase spiders) except Nezha, who rolled a 1 on his initiative.
Round 1: Things started out well for the party, with the fighter using action surge and a lucky crit to blast one of Nezha’s brothers apart. Nezha retaliated with two spears to the face, instantly bringing down the fighter, before trapping the rest of the party in a 120 damage wall of fire and detonating a lightning glyph, dealing almost half the hit points of the dragons instantly between the two aoes (LR kept them in dragon form). The rogue teleported through the flame wall using his vestige and with assassinate dealt multiple crits to Nezha’s other brother, nearly ending him immediately. Nezha grabbed him with his sash and dragged him into the fire wall, badly burning him. The artificer tried to dispel the fire wall, but his attempt failed, and he nearly fell unconscious from damage when he walked through it. Nezha used steal to maze the unconscious fighter, effectively killing and removing him from the fight. The bard/dragon flew into the air and breathed ice on everyone, wiping out the spiders and Nezha’s brother, and wearing away at Nezha’s temp hp. The druid/dragon did the same, bloodying the two rahshasha in the process and breaking Nezha’s temp shield. The cleric ran through the fire wall and cast holy aura on her allies using the premade glyph. The ranger with asassinate tore into the marilith with sharpshooter arrows, bloodying her. The barbarian charged in through the wall and with great weapon master dealt massive damage to the demon, neatly dropping her. The animal lord attacked Nezha, but discovered that they were unable to harm him, so finished off the demon instead. The dragons legendary action attacks (2024 shapeshift/true polymorph allows you to use them) had mixed results against Nezha, only sometimes damaging him.
Round 2: Nezha hasted himself and killed the cleric through shield other, death ward, and the vestige save from death ability. He then summoned another rakshasha, and whirlwinded the rogue into the wall of fire, knocking them unconscious. The artificer dispelled the fire wall, then fell to a whirlwind. One dragon breathed again, putting the two original rakshasha at critical hp, while the other pounced on Nezha, scoring a crit and actually drawing blood. The bloodied rakshasha’s killed the downed rogue and artificer out of spite, before the ranger shot them full of arrows, leaving only the recently summoned one standing. The barbarian got in a few lucky great weapon master hits on the demigod, bloodying him. The animal lord engaged the final rakshasha, bloodying them.
Round 3: Nezha started by killing the dragons, forcing the Druid and bard into normal forms. He then triggered another glyph, bloodying the Druid. The bard scrambled to help with a conjured hand of force that did nothing but annoy Nezha, who threw a 12 ton brick onto the druid, burying her under rubble and nearly knocking her out. She shifted into an earth elemental and managed to get out from under it. The animal lord and the ranger finished off the rakshasha, while the barbarian attacked Nezha, further injuring him.
Round 4: Nezha vaporized the bard and druid with a pair of back to back crits with his spear. He fireballed then forcecaged the barbarian, removing him from the fight. The ranger fired some arrows, then was crushed by a critical hit from a gold brick. The animal lord attacked Nehza, but was just as ineffective as before.
Round 5: The animal lord and barbarian were incinerated in Nehza’s flames.
Thoughts: A well geared and prepared party of 8 epic level pcs with a cr20 ally were tpk’d by a single cr24 creature and his cannon fodder allies.
When I look at a creature, I always look at a few things. Is the creature easy to run, does it have interesting and meaningful abilities, and is it fun for the players as well? Running Nezha was surprisingly simple, and his abilities were all interesting and on theme. However I have a couple of issues with the custom mechanics of the fight.
The ridiculous damage output made it impossible to maintain concentration on anything without LR. The damage was so high that several characters only got a single turn before dying. I know elsewhere you have x4 base weapon damage with +3 weapons, but honestly quadrupled martial damage just throws all the math off. You can see this with Nezha himself, his base damage is now almost as high as his sneak attack damage. A lot of abilities that exist to help martial characters reach near fighter damage (barbarian rage damage, sneak attack, hunters mark, paladin smites) will now be left in the dust because they are not getting that base multiplier. I suspect that they get the divine multiplier, but weapons get an x4 base multiplier applied before the divine bonus. I calculated that a fighter with Nezhas setup will do almost 3 times the damage that Nezah does because of this, whereas the gap is much closer between rogues and fighters pre epic. Casters are also left behind unless they get something major to compensate (do casters and warlocks get x4 base damage with cantrips, their weapon equivalent?)
My second pain point is the damage negation. The negation disproportionately affects certain classes and builds, and left several members of the party unable to effectively hurt Nehza. Combined with a generous helping of legendary resistance, and if felt like only certain characters were allowed to participate in the fight. Furthermore I see problems arising when pcs have this threshold as well, as many of Nezha’s minions and allies would not be able to hurt them at all, despite being part of the combat. I would genuinely prefer to have a much smaller amount of damage reduction, reducing incoming damage by a small amount instead of a wall that becomes obsolete once someone gets past the threshold.
Speaking of the minions, the fact that more enemies and reactions are added based on pc numbers instead of the intended CR of the overall encounter is baffling. Unless I am missing something, this means that a single demigod level pc would have an easier fight against Nezha than two quasi deities would, as he would have more allies and reactions against the second group despite both groups having the same effective cr.
I really enjoy many of the ideas in this stat block, but it currently seems overturned. In another thread you said that a demigod should be equivalent to six pcs. This one was fought by 8 fully prepared epic tier pcs plus a cr 20 ally, with advanced knowledge of their foes weaknesses who caught him by surprise. They didn’t even get to his second phase.
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