D&D 5E (OPTIMIZATION) THE NAMELESS KING ! THE WIZARD's NIGHTMARE! LAST BOSS

[FrogReaver]

A couple of comments on your build.

1. I think the Eldritch Spear range should be 600' not 1200'. You are using Eldritch Spear to increase the spell range to 300' and then doubling it twice. As a DM, I would not let you double the range twice. There are lots of examples in the rules of this type of limitation. Getting an extra attack twice does not give you three attacks. Get damage resistance twice does not give you damage immunity. This is minor as Eldritch Blast is a weak attack at this level. A bigger issue is that it is a ray attack so it gives away your general location. I want you to use Eldritch Blast as it gives me roughly your location.

2. You list multiple spells after contingency. You can only have one contingency at a time. I am assuming that they are all options for your one use of the spell.

Opposing Character

A fun build to use against this character would be a 17 level dragon sorcerer/ 1st level thief. Take expertise in athletics and perception. Build the sorcerer as a grappler character. Sorcerers built properly make good grapplers.

Tactic is simple. With the right feats, the grappler's passive perception is around 30.

If the Nameless King is flying ...Once you identify roughly where the character is, you sprout dragon wings, teleport 100 feet directly above where you think the character is located, cast Antimagic field on yourself and fly down to the character using your wings. If you pass within 10 feet of the character then the character looses all of his spells and all of his magic items stop working. Grapple the character and drop to the ground with him. The entire time you are falling, stab away with a short sword. You will both end up as a pile of goo. Have your party pick up as many pieces as they can find of the grappler and take then a cleric for resurrection. Use Disintegrate to destroy all of the pieces of the Nameless King.

If the Nameless King is on the ground ... teleport near him and cast antimagic field. Grapple him. Once he is grappled, knock him prone and hold him there. Attack him with a short sword when he prone. You have advantage since he is prone so you can add your back-stab damage to the attack. Have the rest of the party join you in attacking the party.

The Simulacrum can shoot at you but once you grapple the other character there is a good chance he is going to hit the Nameless King and the King is fully vulnerable to the poison. Assuming there is an antidote to the Purple Worm poison, the grappler would take it before the battle. If you are flying, you would be dropping much faster than the simulacrum can fly so you would be out of range in a 2 or 3 turns.

Interesting character. There isn't much that he can do to antiMagic field except run away and wait for the timer to expire. A boring tactic for sure. But should be very effective against a grappler that wants to use anti-magic field without a lot of extra movement.

1. FYI it is 1200' range you are dealing with. That is what doubling something and then doubling it again does for you. Unless explicitly stated somewhere that the doublings don't stack of course

2. Not my build. I've been mostly ignoring contingency as it's more of an added layer of defense than anything that's going to massively change tactics against this villain.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's from SCAG.




What about that large army of his? If I can see them, then I know he's around, can stay hidden while buffing up. Otherwise, I was preparing for the smaller challenge of "a caster at 1200' away who pelts you with Eldritch Blast." And in that smaller challenge, he wasn't invisible.

My proposed challenge has 2 buffs that are kept up religiously. Invisibility (not greater invisiblity) and see invisibility. Both 1 hour long durations. Both can be used with subtle spell nearly indefinitely. That's how he gets the drop on you, but of course invisibility goes away after that.

My reasononing on the absence of undead is below. If he had undead then you could justify prebuffing when you spotted the undead.

But if we go with the invisible + sanctuary + et al., without the army, and ignore sorc point requirements, then I'd agree with you. But even with that, as a rogue, I can use my bonus action to stay hidden after he surprises me with the first shot. His passive perception is crap, so it's really easy to stay hidden for a few rounds until I'm buffed up and can charge him.

I like this tactic! One small caveat though, since he gets to pick the location of the fight because he gets the drop on you I think we can agree that no immediate cover would be a consideration. Maybe cover enough to hide from a flying villain above you 60-100ft away or something. Which I guess with your super move speed doesn't really change things. So yes you can run into cover the turn after he attacks and hide to buff yourself up.

Fair enough. Still, as above. If he's attacking first, I can hide until I'm buffed up.

I totally agree. As long as you are doing the hiding after his initial attack.

It's just to keep him near me. Don't want him trying to fly away.

Lol okay.

Let's count this as a given.

Let's do so then.

Remember, sanctuary drops as soon as he attacks me. So if he gets the surprise round and attacks me, then he can no longer benefit from sanctuary.

Sanctuary was never on until he cast it. Sanctuary can be cast as a bonus action. So the turn would go. Attack you with Eldritch Blast. Cast Sanctuary on himself afterwards. I suppose he could actually do that most every turn in a combat but I was saving it as an emergency tactic. I'm not missing something that makes that tactic unviable am I?

All in all, I feel you have a solid counter. My only issues are that I feel I should have buffs pre battle, as I can see his army or his Simulacrum or his flying sphere of darkness. Alternatively, since he has contingency up, we still have the issues with sorc points and the 10 day limit if he has high cost buffs always active. But if I can't have buffs up pre battle, and he absolutely does, and he gets surprise and initiative, then I feel like taking a round or two to hide should give me plenty of buffs. The only thing that would stop him is teleporting (which he's against due to the chance of failure, per the OP).

1. I was thinking simulacrum would be invisible with him (using a level 3 slot so invisibility can be cast on both). Though it does use 2 more sorcery points an hour this way. I didn't think that was an unreasonable expenditure do you? If the simulacrum isn't invisible then you would get to prebuff easily by spotting it.

2. If he casted Darkness it would be as a prebuff at the start of combat to conserve sorcery points. This would mean he didn't attack you. Once he did so you could hide immediately after and then prebuff yourself. (The darkness version may be a harder fight though?

3. I don't consider undead either as the severe sorcery point limitations when it comes to maintaining things like contingency. I'd rather have a villain that can regain his high level slots and maintain stronger buff spells than one that can have an army of undead. I just don't see how you can have enough sorcery points for reasonable uptime and have an army of undead, keep any all the time buffs active (even the relatively cheap ones I'm using) and take a long rest at least once every 10 days.

4. Keep in mind he has buffs up because he can maintain them throughout the day due to his ability to accumulate a good supply before adventuring. Not a near limitless supply though unless we are giving up access to 6-9th level slots. It still should be enough to maintain invisiblity and see invisibility all the time though. And he still should have enough resources left over for any combat encounters that ensue.

If you were maintaining your buffs your whole waking day or at least a reasonable enough subset of it then you could keep them prebuffed. (You may can with long strider?).

Anyways I think it's fair that an invisible creature gets the drop on you and gets a surprise round for it. I also think it's fair that Nameless King is prebuffed and you are not because he is expending resources he could do something else with in order to maintain those buffs all day so that he can justify having them up at the start of any fight.

(Also, for your response to the other build, I'm going to email my friend and see his response. It may be a while before I post it.)

Awesome!

 

[Tespri]

1. Maybe I'm missing the rule where the Druid can cast spells subtly while in animal form. I know they can cast while in animal form but declaring that the casting is subtle gives many additional benefits and I cannot find the rule for that at the moment. Basically you will be able to get the drop on Nameless King (causing a surprise round) but you will not be able to go unnoticed otherwise.

2. Nameless One does not keep sanctuary all the time buffed. He will sometimes cast it in battle though. He also will sometimes prebuff it before he initiates a fight when he gets the drop on his enemy.

3. Your passive perception will overcome his stealth.

4. Feeblemind is a very dangerous spell for him.

5. Yes simulacrum can be dispelled. Though having dispel magic doesn't give you the ability to discern before the cast whether it's the Simulcarum or Nameless King himself.

6. While the original poster called for an army of undead he forgot the limitations trying to periodically use higher level spell slots cause on sorcerery point generation. It's likely Nameless King can't keep up enough undead to matter while keeping higher level spells prepared and there are obvious disadvantages to having undead (giving away your presence). Personally I believe it's better for the build if undead are altogether dropped from the build.

Here's how I see this fight going.

1. You get the drop on Nameless King and Simulcarum. You are unsure which is which. Your best chance at winning the fight is figuring out which is which. Assuming you are successful then you want to cast feeblemind at Nameless King. This is where the battle begins (because you can cast it in beast form but there's no rule that it does so subtely and even if it did I think the normal rule is that targeting an oppontent with a spell or attack normally ends stealth or in this case would end your "harmless animal" ruse.

2. Roll Initiative. You get a surprise round but Nameless King has more dex and thus a better chance of going first. In this scenario he wins initiative.

3. In the surprise round you cast feeblemind at nameless king. He counterspells it.

4. He starts attacking you, you wildshape into something with some hp and good fly speed and start attacking him. Everytime you are knocked out of wildshape you change back.

5. Basically even if the fight turns hard you win because you are a flying bag of hp that can always find him. Good job. You defeated Nameless King with a single level 20 Druid. Basically he stands no chance against you. Though he can probably escape death very easily by wishing to teleport away before he dies.

1. Page 68. The Capstone continues to that page. Druids have the best capstone in the game. Surprise round is enough to kill him with feeblemind. Nameless King's mental stats are too weak.

2. Ok, but just as I stated, it doesn't matter since saving throw for wisdom is very high for the druid.

5. It actually does, since simulacrum get's dispelled. Also equipment is a give a way. Simulacrum will not get same equipment as nameless king. You can only create illusion of it. Which you can find out through investigation check. Or better... Simply be patience and watch both of them in action. Doesn't matter though, since druid can spam dispell until simulacrum is gone.

6. I agree. Skeletons at said level are extremely weak and doesn't even possess threat to high level character.

Fight.
1. This assumes that he is aware that there even was a spell. Even still, he needs to roll perception check to find out animal that is hiding. Subtle cast allows stealth casting. He may be aware that he is under attack, but attacker is still unseen to him. Finding a cockroach in any landscape is hard enough, add there the fact that he needs to have a good reason to even suspect that a small bug is casting a spell on him. Think this from perspective of a player when GM keeps information hidden from you. How many times when you play, you would actually suspect that a house cat is trying to kill you with a spells? Phantasmal force is good example, how it can mess players head when GM subtle casts it. I have seen situations where players actually start fighting against illusion because they honestly think it's real.

2. Depending on form I pick, the nameless king can have less initiative, especially if picking up alert feat. There are still lot of attribute points left over from the example of I stated.

3. You can't use reaction during surprise round, neither can you counter spell subtle spell. Since you're not aware of spell being cast.

4. Could just turn into dragon as well... Or a demon. Shapechange you know...

5. Assuming that he didn't use wish to create simulacrum. However with feeblemind his clone isn't even issue. Since after he dies, he will lose all that ridiculous equipment. Which means... He can be located through magical means now. Not to mention the demons he is suppose to have. They most likely have no desire to serve a mortal, and would eagerly tip away his hiding place or simply interpret his orders wrongly. They simply need to follow the orders exactly how they are told, but unless told to them... nothing prevents them from giving help to the challenger.

Edit: Also forgot to state that casting spell is not attack action. Hence your location is not revealed, unless something in spell itself reveals it. Hostile spell is not same as attack action. page 195. This is the very reason why subtle casting is extremely strong feature.

 

[paulclarksaintjohn]

Hadn't thought about the movement. The character is at 18th level. I could pick up 2 levels of monk to get 10 extra feet of movement.

The basic tactic is to use Teleport to get above the target and use your wings to stay airborne while you cast anitmagic field. If the target sees you, then he gets one round of attack which is bad. It is easy enough for the rest of the party to arrange a distraction. People generally do not look up and spells like See invisibility do not improve your vision area, just what you can see. The 26+ passive perception is used to locate the character whether he is hidden or invisibile. You do not need to know the exact location of the character, just know where the character is within 10 feet since the antimagic shell reaches 10 feet.

If the target is flying, you grapple the character and fall with him. If he is more than 500 feet in the air, roughly, then the fall will kill both characters. If you are part of a party, then your party members get you resurrected. If the target is less than 500 feet up, you both crash into the ground. If you do not loose concentration, then you attempt to grapple and follow the tactics in the next paragraph. If you loose concentration, then if you have initiative, then you cast antimagic spell again. If the nameless king has initiative, you will have to undergo one level of attack. Whether you keep fighting depends on the results of the attack.

If the character is on the ground, you drop down on him, and grapple him. If the grapple is successful, you knock him prone the next turn and start attacking him with your short sword. The target is prone so he/she attacks at disadvantage and you attack with advantage. The rules for standing up require movement but if you are grappled, your movement is 0 so the target can't standup. At this point it is just a long drawn out melee. If you cast antimagic field withy extend spell, then you will get 16 or so rounds to attack averaging 11 damage per attack (3.5 average weapon damage + 4 strength bonus + 3.5 sneak attack since you have advantage) when you hit. A quick end to the combat can occur if you drop the antimagic field and cast a big damage spell like Meteor Swarm on the location. A second option is to use your wish spell to cast antimagic field a second time and keep hacking away.

For the simulacrum, the rest of the party deals with him. I have no idea how a antimagic field interacts with something like Oath bow. I would argue that it just acts like a regular bow since its magic cannot reach inside the antimagic field.

 

[Ian Pinsker]

Apologies if someone has already brought this up, but wouldn't Fey Ancestry qualify the NK to be located via Commune with Nature? Using Contact Other Plane (in ritual form - you're asking a powerful outsider or deity where the NK is, not targetting it, so avoids the amulet) over a day, it shouldn't be difficult to reduce the possible locations of the NK to a 3 mile radius (every casting reduces the total volume of space you're concerned with by 1/2 per question for 5 questions, ergo 1/32nd the volume. Working backwards, since you need 3 miles or less for Commune with Nature to tell you the "location of powerful [...] fey" (which is nature itself telling you about the character not targeting the character and therefore bypassing the Amulet of Proof vs. D/L), if you start from a planetary scale (specifically, 3,221,225,472 sq miles or less - earth is 193 million in comparison) you can discern a 3 mile radius in which the NK is likely to be using 6 castings - less than a day of ritual casting. From there, locating the NK is likely trivial. The tragedy of the NK is how locked in his spell usage is. Also even if we grant that Dispel Magic is "harmful" then the caster can still target one of the active spell effects on the NK (as sanctuary only protects from effects targetting the creature) and end them with dispel magic.

Seems to me this build is easier to dismantle than y'all have been making it out to be.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Apologies if someone has already brought this up, but wouldn't Fey Ancestry qualify the NK to be located via Commune with Nature? Using Contact Other Plane (in ritual form - you're asking a powerful outsider or deity where the NK is, not targetting it, so avoids the amulet) over a day, it shouldn't be difficult to reduce the possible locations of the NK to a 3 mile radius (every casting reduces the total volume of space you're concerned with by 1/2 per question for 5 questions, ergo 1/32nd the volume. Working backwards, since you need 3 miles or less for Commune with Nature to tell you the "location of powerful [...] fey" (which is nature itself telling you about the character not targeting the character and therefore bypassing the Amulet of Proof vs. D/L), if you start from a planetary scale (specifically, 3,221,225,472 sq miles or less - earth is 193 million in comparison) you can discern a 3 mile radius in which the NK is likely to be using 6 castings - less than a day of ritual casting. From there, locating the NK is likely trivial. The tragedy of the NK is how locked in his spell usage is. Also even if we grant that Dispel Magic is "harmful" then the caster can still target one of the active spell effects on the NK (as sanctuary only protects from effects targetting the creature) and end them with dispel magic.

Seems to me this build is easier to dismantle than y'all have been making it out to be.

I don't agree that using divination magic works so long as you can claim to be asking something else with it. The amulet makes the wearer "hidden from divination magic." The simple test is, "are you using divination magic? " if ther answer ous, "yes," then it doesn't matter who you can claim to be asking, it doesn't work.

Now, if you actually meet Nature and ask directly....

 

[Ian Pinsker1]

I don't agree that using divination magic works so long as you can claim to be asking something else with it. The amulet makes the wearer "hidden from divination magic." The simple test is, "are you using divination magic? " if ther answer ous, "yes," then it doesn't matter who you can claim to be asking, it doesn't work.

Now, if you actually meet Nature and ask directly....

"While wearing this amulet, you are hidden from divination magic. You _can't be targeted_ by such magic or _perceived through magical scrying sensors_."

I have indicated the rules text (as opposed to the fluff text) of the item in question - contact order plane and commune with nature do neither of those two things.

"You briefly become one with nature and gain knowledge of the surrounding territory." - this is knowledge, not perception.

"You mentally contact a demigod, the spirit of a long-dead sage, or some other mysterious entity from another plane." The divination magic connects you up to a higher power for an intraplanar cell phone call, and we can /should reasonably assume that nothing in the above description of that magic item prevents the ordinary perception of the NK by either Nature or a higher power/Demigod. Otherwise, the amulet would similarly prevent communication about the NK between characters using telepathic bond, which I'm sure you're not asserting.

 

[Ovinomancer]

"While wearing this amulet, you are hidden from divination magic. You _can't be targeted_ by such magic or _perceived through magical scrying sensors_."

I have indicated the rules text (as opposed to the fluff text) of the item in question - contact order plane and commune with nature do neither of those two things.

"You briefly become one with nature and gain knowledge of the surrounding territory." - this is knowledge, not perception.

"You mentally contact a demigod, the spirit of a long-dead sage, or some other mysterious entity from another plane." The divination magic connects you up to a higher power for an intraplanar cell phone call, and we can /should reasonably assume that nothing in the above description of that magic item prevents the ordinary perception of the NK by either Nature or a higher power/Demigod. Otherwise, the amulet would similarly prevent communication about the NK between characters using telepathic bond, which I'm sure you're not asserting.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know those lines were called out as the rules while the other lines are called out as fluff. Can you provide the reference for this callout?

Snarky rhetorical questions aside, ALL of the description is rules text, not just the bits that you want. "[H]idden from divination spells' is rules, the other lines provide additional impact, but do not supersede this. Therefore, in no case can you use a divination spell to locate, detect, or view the wearer of the amulet, for they are hidden from all of those. I don't need to reference the texts of the divination spells to see how they operation because, as divination spells, the wearer of the amulet is hidden from them.

You can houserule this however you want -- and I do houserule how some divination interacts, such as with see invisible (mostly because I feel that's piercing an illusion spell rather than locating the wearer and if the wearer was naturally invisible, that wouldn't work). But the rules for the amulet prevent any spell of the divination school from finding, in any way, the wearer of the amulet.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

Just read the entire thread. Glad someone finally mentioned this NPC's low mental stats. He seems to operate very intelligently for someone lacking in both intelligence and common sense.

 

[Zene]

Hey OP, are you still around? If so, could you repost your latest Sorcerer King build (the one that just got removed on GitP)? I was halfway through reading it when the thread got removed. Or if you’d prefer to send by message that works too.