Dragonlance Lord Soth’s stats and CR

[GMforPowergamers]

To take things in another direction, I think Soth's Word of Death ability is mechanically what Power Word Kill would be if the devs wrote it today.

maybe a rewrite we will see in 1D&D

 

[VanDragon]

Gonna find out this weekend what a party of six 7th level characters with access to firearms can do against him

 

[overgeeked]

Gonna find out this weekend what a party of six 7th level characters with access to firearms can do against him

Are you running him RAW or are you adjusting for the extra PCs?

 

[Distracted DM]

If it's just Soth and everything is RAW, I have to imagine that such a party could take him out if they're decently built characters and have access to healing magic. There's just no way the poor guy can keep up with the whack-a-mole and shenanigans six PCs can create.
His Forsaken Brand's ability to stop healing is good, but he's either spreading his attacks so characters can't heal, or he's focusing and it's only working on one at a time.

But maybe I'm wrong- the guy is CR19 and legendary. A few bad rolls or bad planning and the party could get rolled quickly. But man, AC18 and just over 200hp? I guess I'd have expected more. Also where are his other spells/abilities? Wall of Ice, Fireball etc?

Oh right- it also depends on what books you allow. If anyone has Tasha's Mind Whip, it's game over for Soth.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Per usual, he has chump HP. Decent damage output at least. He's likely a one round chump against a high level party

I continue unshaken in my belief that 5E's CR's were playtested against a party of 5 naked 8 Str/Dex champions dual wielding turkey drumsticks.

 

[ECMO3]

We fought him in SODQ and beat him easily. I think we hit him with Ottos Irresistable Dance and then put in a silence spell. He was pretty helpless after that and we pulverized him from outside his reach. This was not a particularly hard fight at all IMO.

In terms of the most over the top thing I ever did, is we had an 8th level party of 5 that beat Orcus. The story was supposed to be that we came up on him and there was a portal to the abyss and when we closed it he was supposed to be sucked back. So it was only supposed to be survive 2 or 3 rounds until the portal closed.

However, we were doing so well the DM decided to fight it out to the end. It was the end of the campaign so these characters were not going anywhere else. We did use healing word a lot to keep bringing the Barbarian back into the fight, but we won in the end.

 

[p_johnston]

Yeah Looking at the stat block its not great for any 4 man party. At levels 9/10 (even assuming they somehow get at him with full resources)

1)he can legendary a 6th level Banishment. Thats almost gauranteed to take out at least half the party unless countered.

2) he has a firball that will take almost anyone at those levels from full health to 0 hp instantly on a fail.

3)he has a single target pick someone to die ability that even on a save will probably still kill any injured target.

Its possible a party could nova hard enough to take him out but he has 2 abilities that can take out an almost full group by themselves, one of which he can use on a legendary.

 

[ECMO3]

Yeah Looking at the stat block its not great for any 4 man party. At levels 9/10 (even assuming they somehow get at him with full resources)

1)he can legendary a 6th level Banishment. Thats almost gauranteed to take out at least half the party unless countered.

2) he has a firball that will take almost anyone at those levels from full health to 0 hp instantly on a fail.

3)he has a single target pick someone to die ability that even on a save will probably still kill any injured target.

Its possible a party could nova hard enough to take him out but he has 2 abilities that can take out an almost full group by themselves, one of which he can use on a legendary.

I don't think you are correct and you are not considering the abilities 9th level characters bring to the table, especially things like Death Ward and Contingency.

Banishment will get 1 or 0 more often than it will get 2 or 3, considering saving throw proficiency, Paladin Aura, Invisibility, Lucky, Bardic Inspiration, Indomitable, Counterspell and a host of other abilities common among PCs at 9th level and it is also concentration and Soth only has a +5 Con save, so Banished PCs have a fair chance of being back in the fight before their turn even comes.

Again with the fire, it probably won't down PCs with d10 hit dice even on a failed save and a lot of the d8 characters will survive a failed save too. Your Rogues and Monks are usually going to take no damage at all, Wizards, Rangers and Sorcs are going to half the fire damage with Absorb Elements, and anyone who is actually downed gets back up with a mass healing word.

The word of death is potent, but it is once a day. On a fail a PC probably dies if they do not have Death Ward or resistance to necrotic.

If you catch the party when low on hps or after some other fights that exhausted their resources or if Soth has some mooks to support him, it would be a different story, but overall I think 1v4 would be a fairly easy for a 9th level party with all its resources.