Help me stat out Tharizdun

[MortalPlague]

Glancing at your stat block, Tharizdun seems well-built (the triple actions will be especially potent), but I wonder if his damage output will be high enough? I'd be tempted to bump it up by half, or maybe even double it.

When I ran a group of five PCs against Ogremoch, Lolth, and Vecna (thread here, I didn't manage to down a single PC. Not once. And they all had contingency things that triggered "the first time they die during a day"...

The Lolth fight in particular had the goddess herself hitting for 4d6 + 24 damage and ongoing poison damage (20, I believe). With threatening reach 3. Then she had two gods fighting alongside. Vhaeraun had two attacks as his basic attack, hitting for 4d6 + 20 and 4d6 + 15 damage, and adding ongoing 10 poison damage on top of that. Then Selvetarm also had two attacks, hitting for 3d6 + 18 and 3d6 + 18, with the kicker "The target cannot gain hit points until the end of Selvetarm's next turn" and "The target loses resistances and immunities until the end of Selvetarm's next turn".

All that nastiness, and no PCs went down.

 

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

I agree, his damage output maybe isn't enough yet, but working from Celebrim's version I could immediately tell that his was using older damage expressions. This was my first attempt at an epic creature, so I'm expecting I'll have to bump the damage up even further. Depending on how many PC's it faces, I may even have to increase its damage adhoc at the table.

 

[S'mon]

Tharizdun appears in person (as a nice young man, AIR) in Gygax's "Dance of Demons" - might be worth checking out.

BTW Gygaxian Alignment is the opposite of WotC/4e - in Gygax the CE Demons OPPOSE Tharidun, while LE & NE support him, because they are the one Evil faction who do NOT seek Entropy.

 

[Celebrim]

I agree, his damage output maybe isn't enough yet, but working from Celebrim's version I could immediately tell that his was using older damage expressions. This was my first attempt at an epic creature, so I'm expecting I'll have to bump the damage up even further. Depending on how many PC's it faces, I may even have to increase its damage adhoc at the table.

Mine as well, at least in 4e.

Let me first say that I'm very impressed. Don't take these comments as tinged with anything but respect.

As long as you are playing with Ebon Ray's flavor, I suggest adding to its critical that the target loses a healing surge.

In line with your other needed damage boosts (now that I've actually taken the time to do some math in my head), I suggest boosting blast of utter cold's base damage to 10d6 (5d6 on miss) and boosting the base damage from howling purple chaos to 10d8. If more is needed (and doing some math, I think it is), try bumping base damage of God Killing Sword to 4d8+28 and base damage of Ebon Ray to 3d8+30 fire. This should give him the ability to do enough damage that he's actually threatening.

However, my only real complaint is the oversight of not giving a duration to Three Forms of Evil. It's absolutely critical that Three Forms of Evil ends on its own after a short number of rounds (I choose three). Not only will this end ongoing conditions, but big T needs to return to his primary black Avatar quickly because Three Forms of Evil is T's only recovery power. The intention is for him to be able to activate it at least twice during the encounter, because healing 333 damage should buy him nearly a turn of life and push the party closer to the point where they'll begin to run out of encounter resources. Without the heals, T 'just' has 1998 hit points and probably is going down in like 6 rounds or so. If Three Forms of Evil does not end on its own, then it will be too easy to whittle down Thardizun's life while he's in what is in some ways a weaker form and more quickly end the fight. Also, while you got the implicit hit points mechanic and the fact that by switching , the quick toggle between either of two forms was intended to thwart ongoing conditions as well as recharge Thardizun's powers in either combat mode.

Would love to see what you do with the outline of the 3 other avatars I provided.

 

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

Good catch Celebrim, I had intended to include the three round duration of Three Forms of Evil. I really liked how Tharizdun's numerology informed the monster design, but the limits of Power2ool in size for the gigantic stat block made it very difficult towards the end. I may end up trying it again in the new monster builder, don't know how well it can deal with a giant stat block yet.

 

[aco175]

I was just reading in Dragon 294, April 2002, about him and 3 other Gods of Greyhawk. It is 3e stats, but they have some minor fluff that could be useful. He seeks the utter destruction of the universe itself and his dire visions of this end was what caused the other gods to imprison him, to prevent these dreams for happening. They listed Madness and Force Domains.

A few spell ideas involve a lower level touch, lev2 Tharizdun's Touch, that prevents any actions for 1rnd/ caster level, I would give it 4e save ends. There is a few other daze/stun like spells and a cool level8 spell- Tharizdun's Endless Scream. It is a single target touch spell, but I would make it a blast spell5 or something. People just run around at random screaming like they are mad. For 4e I might make that Helpless, save ends, or even with an after effect; Dazed, save ends.

For Force domain- there is a lev3 Blast of Force, similar to the Wizard Force Ram spell. Maybe make it a blast 3 effect- push 3 and knock prone. The other one is the lev9 Annihilation which creates a Sphere of Annihilation for 1 round/lev. For 4e maybe sustain minor.

 

[hoyza]

(I just realized this post is from 2011. And yet ...)

By the time you battle he who shall not be named, you are not rolling dice. You are telling a collaborative story. Read "Role Playing Mastery" by Gygax. You might also want to read the Gord the Rogue Novels - all of them - starting with Saga of the Old City and ending with "Dance of Demons." You'll learn about the Theoparts that bound him, how he was freed, and what happened when Graz'zt tried to take him out with his sword Vs how Gord fought him. Good luck!

 

[hoyza]

(I just realized this post is from 2011. And yet ...)

By the time you battle he who shall not be named, you are not rolling dice. You are telling a collaborative story. Read "Role Playing Mastery" by Gygax. You might also want to read the Gord the Rogue Novels - all of them - starting with Saga of the Old City and ending with "Dance of Demons." You'll learn about the Theoparts that bound him, how he was freed, and what happened when Graz'zt tried to take him out with his sword Vs how Gord fought him. Good luck!

 

[Weiley31]

I think one way or the best way to look at this is how such a thing would be done. If we're talking about the PC's directly fighting Tharizdun like directly in his prison jail cell, then that would probably not go so well as being in his mere presence would probably drive anybody to sheer insanity. Likewise, fighting a freed Tharizdun would probably be not the best of things to happen, as again, a direct fight against him would be next to impossible.


A way to handle it or still have a boss fight against him, would probably be done against a high power avatar of Tharizdun himself. IIRC, in DND 3E/3.5, this actually ended up being Shothragot who was an immensely powerful Elder Evil that was the Herald of Tharizdun. So that would be the thing to chart out for in regards to having a final boss fight.

Just my humblest of opinions.