ORCUS! EXCLUSIVE! ESCAPIST!

The Escapist has an awesome preview of Orcus himself! And by preview, I mean the stats -- along with some background features for Out of the Abyss. He's a CR 26 monster, wielding his famous wand. Also interesting his the quote from Chris Perkins, who clarified that the PCs would not fight him directly, but that "Fortunately, Out of the Abyss gives characters the chance to amass a small army and also turn the demon lords against one another, thus weakening them. There are also a couple other ways to banish the demon lords back to the Abyss, which is the party's ultimate goal."

For more, click on either of the images below! For tons more Out of the Abyss coverage, click here! It comes out September 15th (or the 4th in preferred stores - that's next Friday!)

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[jadrax]

If you are loading the players down with Magic Items and/or Feats, it probably makes sense to do the same with Orcus or any other significant NPC.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If you include his lair actions, forget about it. Guy can cast power word kill for free every other round on initiative 20. Yes, a save is allowed at DC 23, but that will be tough for a good amount of characters. Oh and then he can also use his wand to cast it 3 times as the spell, which I believe grants no save.

That effectively reduces each PC's HP total by 100...as soon as they drop below that threshold, he can kill them with a word. That's ridiculously potent.

So all the undead you have to wade through to get to him is a huge part of the encounter. They will take their toll, leaving the PCs incredibly vulnerable to his other abilities.

All the criticisms that he is too weak seem to rely on him simply standing there while the PCs take turns hitting him. If that's how the encounter is designed or of that's how it is run...then that's just poor encounter design or poor DMing. And I don't expect that the encounter will be designed so poorly.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

and his boosting necrotic damage (now if only he could cast inflict wounds or blight...)

He can cast Blight for Free from his Wand. Or the More powerful Finger of Death and Circle of Death for a charge.

If you include his lair actions, forget about it. Guy can cast power word kill for free every other round on initiative 20. Yes, a save is allowed at DC 23, but that will be tough for a good amount of characters. Oh and then he can also use his wand to cast it 3 times as the spell, which I believe grants no save.

Even Worse is the fact that Orcus does not even need to be near you to use this power. If you are in his massive fortress city of tombs, then he knows you are in it. He can hit you with it no matter were you are in the city.

Getting to Orcus is near impossible. If you did the party would be very much weakened. And here is how Orcus can crush a powerful party in two rounds.

Use his Legendary action before his turn to cover as much of the party as he can in Creeping Death. On his Turn Blast as much of the party as he can with Circle of Death. Start using Power Word Kill from his lair action and wand on the characters that were brought below 100. Because several would have for sure.

 

[soulcatcher78]

If you make it through the madness (DC 23) surrounding Orcus you have to deal with his decorator. Piles of bodies (whole, skeletal, in between) of all sorts in the chamber and lining the walls on the way there to make it feel a bit more homey. Who's controlling access to the chamber? It's not like you're going to be invited into the throne room or able to take a rest of any sort once you're inside his area of control.

For those of you who have played through Q1 and thought Lolth was a pushover based on stats you forget that these things have eons of being prepared for worse than whatever the PCs might bring on their best day. Summoned creatures, servitors, a little misdirection (was that really the throne room where we all went nova and burned our best abilities?), and the ever present buzzing of flies and stench of death...sounds like a fine time for a TPK.

One thought on issues with teleportation would be the crazy Underdark problems with teleporting (not sure if this will be a thing in 5E but it cut off a powerful escape route for characters in previous editions). I might have missed it in the stat block but does Orcus have a Gate option (other than summoning 500HP of undead) for back up?

 

[steeldragons]

I would assume there will be some note somewhere in the document saying the demonlords have all of the abilities of lesser demons in addition to their own powers.

As for teleporting wonkiness of the Underdark, saving Orcus' time stop for a quick getaway seems prudent [seemingly disappearing/teleporting from the PC's perspective]. But I am sure there are many high damage shenanigans that it could be used for as well.

 

[Sacrosanct]

For those of you who have played through Q1 and thought Lolth was a pushover based on stats you forget that these things have eons of being prepared for worse than whatever the PCs might bring on their best day.

No freaking kidding. I can only imagine the reaction if these people saw a preview of Lloth's stats before GDQ modules came out.

"66 HP?! That's like only one attack, at the very least she'd go down in one round easily!"

Of course, anyone who's actually played those modules know that's just a silly way to look at things.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

If you include his lair actions, forget about it. Guy can cast power word kill for free every other round on initiative 20. Yes, a save is allowed at DC 23, but that will be tough for a good amount of characters. Oh and then he can also use his wand to cast it 3 times as the spell, which I believe grants no save.

That effectively reduces each PC's HP total by 100...as soon as they drop below that threshold, he can kill them with a word. That's ridiculously potent.

So all the undead you have to wade through to get to him is a huge part of the encounter. They will take their toll, leaving the PCs incredibly vulnerable to his other abilities.

Y'all are forgetting the awesomeness of Death Ward and Etherealness. Etherealness to bypass all the wolves and vampires, Death Ward to make him spend multiple PWKs to get a kill.

I want to see Orcus's horde of undead die to a horde of raging pachyderms, thanks to Speak With Animals, Animal Shapes, and a favor from the local animal shelter. That is way more epic than boring old DPR. DPR guy can finish off Orcus once his minions are dead.

 

[charcoalninja]

I'll be the first to admit when I misspeak and so I'll admit it now. I read far too quickly when I took stock of his offensive capabilities. He has a lot of punch, and his offensive routines are quite impressive. Dropping a Necrotic vulnerability as a legendary action in response to the rogue/fast guy that easily beats him on initiative followed up by Blight or another heavy source of Necrotic damage on his turn IS plenty nice, and it gives him a great bonus when he acts as general to his legions.

So I was wrong when I said that his offense was weak. However those HP...

People can't honestly tell me that they can't fathom at least 1 round when the party is able to all attack the big guy, at some point in the fight. And if a party of 4 attack him outright, he's very likely to snuff it. 405hp is far too low for someone like Orcus. Yes you surround him with badass undead. Yes you make it crazy hard to finally get to him. Yes the party will fight tooth and nail for every inch against this guy. But when they finally DO get him in their sights, the last thing you want after all that is for him to die to a lucky crit from the second PC to attack him.

At CR 26 I don't see why giving him at least another 250hp would be a problem. He just needs enough mojo to be able to endure a few rounds under PC fire, and right now I don't think he can.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'll be the first to admit when I misspeak and so I'll admit it now. I read far too quickly when I took stock of his offensive capabilities. He has a lot of punch, and his offensive routines are quite impressive. Dropping a Necrotic vulnerability as a legendary action in response to the rogue/fast guy that easily beats him on initiative followed up by Blight or another heavy source of Necrotic damage on his turn IS plenty nice, and it gives him a great bonus when he acts as general to his legions.

So I was wrong when I said that his offense was weak.

Admitting a mistake on the internet? I'll give you props for that

However those HP...

People can't honestly tell me that they can't fathom at least 1 round when the party is able to all attack the big guy, at some point in the fight. And if a party of 4 attack him outright, he's very likely to snuff it. 405hp is far too low for someone like Orcus. Yes you surround him with badass undead. Yes you make it crazy hard to finally get to him. Yes the party will fight tooth and nail for every inch against this guy. But when they finally DO get him in their sights, the last thing you want after all that is for him to die to a lucky crit from the second PC to attack him.

At CR 26 I don't see why giving him at least another 250hp would be a problem. He just needs enough mojo to be able to endure a few rounds under PC fire, and right now I don't think he can.

I still disagree. I find it extremely implausible that Orcus would be fought without an escort of really powerful undead with him. All those undead and Orcus have to do is get PCs below 100 hp and *pop* *pop* *pop*. They all die. Without saves. By the time the party can get to him, it might only be just one PC who can attack him. And one PC can't do 450hp of damage in a round. A monster doesn't have to have a lot of hp when it's near impossible to attack him. You gotta figure half the party might be incapacitated right off the bat between his undead minions' special powers (elder mummy, lich, etc) that require tough saves every round.

Ultimately, I guess we'll find out tomorrow when I read the encounter

 

[steeldragons]

First round's gonna look like this:

View attachment 70097

Paladin's about to get slammed in the floor. Barbarian that charged is already down [under the left hoof]. Cleric's skewered dead. Fighter and halfling [rogue, presumably] are moments from being overrun/cut down...the Elf mage and dwarf miiiight have a chance, a very very slim chance, of getting out alive.

BWAHAHAHA! <cue lightning and thunder>