D&D 5E Insights on a Warrior Antagonist creation using the books

[UngeheuerLich]

If you go the fighter class route, consider just duplicating feats and subclass abilities. Also don't hesitate to make him level 20 equivalent. Give him resilent on a st. Give hime either battlemaster dies or champion extras (regeneration).
Give him toughness and maybe even a little magic armor or weapons. It is nicer to use the loot against your PCs before you gove it to them.

 

[CapnZapp]

Two words:

Barbarian Rage.

(Give damage resistance to your "archfighter")

 

[Minigiant]

Heh - compare these stats to the CR 10 monsters in the MM, though. Hit points I think are higher than most! Damage looks comparable to me taking into account the unusually high attack bonus.

If you don't want to give an NPC 300 hit points then giving Resistance works much the same, eg use the Bear Totem Rage resistance. I can't see any reason not to give NPCs lots of hp though.
When I stat the God-Emperor Hatulin Seiheitt I plan to give him 50 hit dice with
commensurate hp.

There's no rule or indication in 5e that NPCs are limited to 20 hit dice.
Only classed characters are limited - and they could have hp boosted by Toughness Feat, an
Epic Boon, etc.

Going over 20 HD is a big deal in D&D to many fans. You strain the idea of the humaniod being "mortal" and "human".

You don't need to hit go to 40 HD to make archmages in the past.

Stoneskin requires Concentration BTW and definitely is not 'always on'.
Also ineffective vs magic weapons.

Well I did say the archmage misses the mark. It only gets there if you squint, can't do math, and rate time stop as high.

 

[Eejit]

HIT POINTS

At CR 12, the archmage has a measly 99 HP due to its 18 HD and CON 12. This is pathetic compared to the expect 236-250 HP. However it always has mind blank and stoneskin on. Even if you multiply its HP by both multipliers, you don't scape 200 HP.

The "weaponmaster" would have 117 HP at its current state. Even if you simply steal Second Wind from the fighter, it's only 1d10+18 HP extra HP. There is still about 100 HP to make up. Plenty of ways to do it.

• Give it magic armor the grants the same resistances and immunties that the archmage gets from mind blank and stoneskin.
• Give it 100 more HP from an item
• Give it ~ 15 more Hit Die.
• Give it about ~100 temporary HP
• Grant it ~20 THP when it hits with a weapon attack (personal favorite)

Another suggestion:
Give the weaponmaster a tweaked version of "Heavy Armor Master" for a flat damage reduction per hit.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I was using the DMG guidelines.

You need 25 HD and CON 20 to get the HP on a medium humanoid.

The archmages "cheats" by having 3 defense spells on when the fight starts. And it still doesn't make it.

There is nothing wrong with using a higher die type for hit dice instead of just piling on more. A human fighter or barbarian are medium humanoids yet their hit dice are d10 and d12. There is a fair bit of wiggle room within each CR for adjusting offensive and defensive capability, while staying within certain parameters. Perhaps your warrior is the deity of punishment tolerance. Give him higher HP than are normally possible but lower his defenses below the suggested level to compensate.

Remember that the CR benchmarks are just suggested guidelines. Play around and you can make all kinds of interesting things.

 

[S'mon]

Going over 20 HD is a big deal in D&D to many fans. You strain the idea of the humaniod being "mortal" and "human".

You don't need to hit go to 40 HD to make archmages in the past.

I think the issue here is that you want 3e style monster & NPC building, but the 5e system
really is closer to 4e. In 4e it would be quite normal to make an NPC (eg) a 25th level Elite with commensurate hit points. The 5e monster size-based hit dice are pretty vestigial, they don't really
determine anything.

BUT if you want you can always create an NPC using the PC rules. The Barbarian PC Hakeem IMC at
20th level will have 285 hit points, with Rage Resistance that's over 570 damage to put him
down. If you think that goes beyond 'mortal' and 'human' then I don't think you've fully grokked how 5e hit point escalation works yet.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Off hand I would make a pc like creature that had all the features of a 20th level champion fighter then add some battle master fighter..say 5d12 but only 3 or 4 manuviers... Give him or her 3-4 magic items and 25d12hd then make sure to add a few extra things like magic resstanve

 

[Minigiant]

I think the issue here is that you want 3e style monster & NPC building, but the 5e system
really is closer to 4e. In 4e it would be quite normal to make an NPC (eg) a 25th level Elite with commensurate hit points. The 5e monster size-based hit dice are pretty vestigial, they don't really
determine anything.

BUT if you want you can always create an NPC using the PC rules. The Barbarian PC Hakeem IMC at
20th level will have 285 hit points, with Rage Resistance that's over 570 damage to put him
down. If you think that goes beyond 'mortal' and 'human' then I don't think you've fully grokked how 5e hit point escalation works yet.

I think you are inferring too much on my insights. I don't have a preference. I'm just delving into the inner workings of the system. That's what I do here on ENWorld.

My point is that because of bounded accuracy, NPC damage and hitpoints grows fast with CR. This is fine with giants, angels, dragons, demon, and devils as those are usually large monsters with large weapons. No one would blink at a 250 HP giant who deals 40 damage a swing.

But a 250 HP human who does 40 damage a swing? A human who punches like a storm giant and can take more damage than one. And an unoptimized human at that (regular NPCs are not even "elites" stat and build wise, they just advanced)? And some settings have tons of "archmage-equivalent heroes and villains existing at one time in them. You could easier make a setting with an organization with a dozen archmages within.

It's easy to handwave it with magic. And that doesn't really work.

However to get it working with a nonspellcaster weapon user, you have to jump through a lot of hoops. bend many expectations, and stack on a lot of traits to hit the guidelines at past CR 10.

 

[Minigiant]

Off hand I would make a pc like creature that had all the features of a 20th level champion fighter then add some battle master fighter..say 5d12 but only 3 or 4 manuviers... Give him or her 3-4 magic items and 25d12hd then make sure to add a few extra things like magic resstanve

Those magic items better dissolve in the sun.

Every arch-warrior is a walking treasure chest if you do that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One trope of D&D and Fantasy altogether is that the major villain which must be fought is often a spellcaster.

Or a gigantic dragon or demon or avatar of an evil god or some-such, yes.

Very often, that final villain is the only spell-caster of meaningful power presented in the story.

So I wondered how the "arch-warrior" or "weaponmaster" equal in threat of an archmage would be in 5th edition.

Doesn't seem practical. One thing that makes casters viable antagonists is not just how much power they have in combat, but the way they're abilities let the DM hand-wave and set-up all sorts of things - magically-empowered toadies, magical traps, hideouts in other dimensions, existential threats to whole realms, and so forth. An "arch-warrior" is just one tough guy. He doesn't facilitate anything, he can't wipe out a kingdom. He can win duels, bully some people, maybe turn the tide of a conventional battle. That's about it. He just doesn't rate a party of adventurers.

Creating a nonmagical, weapons-based humanoid equal to the game's assumption for an archmage is possible. The biggest obstacle is HP. 5th edition humaniods are squishy. The second but much easier obstacle is damage.

hps can be pretty arbitrary. Single target damage is the one thing 5e allows that a warrior-type can be really good at, so that's a given. Presenting a credible threat to a whole party would require reaching well beyond the existing mechanics/concepts. At minimum, you'd want options like 3.5 WWA.

Your thooughs on my insights?

D&D turns the steroetypical knight or barbarian hero vs evil wizard or monster dynamic on it's head by making most PC options casting or at least magic-using (and having some moderately monsterous races). It only seems reasonable to swap the other side of the equation around and have a warrior as the ultimate antagonist. Usually such a character, a black knight or orc warlord or something, would only be a test along the heroes way or a lackey or lieutenant of the big bad. Upgrading it to the major, climactic challenge would be difficult. Not just because D&D gives martial concepts very little credit when it comes to anything other than DPR, but because the stereotypical arsenal of the genre 'evil wizard' &c is already in the hands of the many spellcasting PCs.