D&D 5E Quests from the Infinite Staircase TOC and Zargon.

Brandes Stoddard shared the table of contents from Quests from the Infinite Staircase, along with the stats for the elder evil Zargon the Returner, over on BlueSky. Quests from the Infinite Staircase comes out on July 16th, and is an adventure anthology for character levels 1-13.

 

[Stalker0]

I

What's your opinion on Goodman Zargon for comparison? Or the composite from this post

ill have to do look deep but my initial review of the Goodman one….SIGNIFICANTLY better.

1) it’s only CR 13 yet does much much much more damage overall.

2) the regen is a much bigger deal. Not only is it stronger (and again for just a cr 13), but the criteria to remove it is harder. A party that is uninformed about Zargon might not even know what to do, and if they do it takes a characters action to remove the horn (and required a very difficult opposed strength check). So at worst you spend a turn doing nothing, at best it still took out the action of likely the strongest character in the party for one round…which is still a big win.

There is no comparison, Goodman is far scarier for its CR than the OG version

 

[dave2008]

I

ill have to do look deep but my initial review of the Goodman one….SIGNIFICANTLY better.

1) it’s only CR 13 yet does much much much more damage overall.

2) the regen is a much bigger deal. Not only is it stronger (and again for just a cr 13), but the criteria to remove it is harder. A party that is uninformed about Zargon might not even know what to do, and if they do it takes a characters action to remove the horn (and required a very difficult opposed strength check). So at worst you spend a turn doing nothing, at best it still took out the action of likely the strongest character in the party for one round…which is still a big win.

There is no comparison, Goodman is far scarier for its CR than the OG version

Except of course I just ran the numbers and it should be CR 20.5! So, not so impressive at the correct CR?!

 

[mamba]

Except of course I just ran the numbers and it should be CR 20.5! So, not so impressive at the correct CR?!

lol, it’s almost as if monsters of a certain CR should hit a certain level of damage…

 

[MonsterEnvy]

But they will probably do fire and/or cold damage anyway as part of their regular attacks.

And if players notice something is regenerating fire is the very first thing they are going to try.

Yeah but the example is three fighters, who don’t have easy access to fire damage.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Even non-optimised fighters will have oil flasks, or they would be defeated by a CR5 troll.

Well non optimized fighters generally have party members that cover their weak points instead of three of the same thing.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Irrelevant for the point I was making which was he is weak for CR 17...though probably on par with other monsters of that CR, very few official monsters ever seem to pack a punch.

I already stated he might be a fun challenge for a low to mid party.

To me a CR 17 threat should be a Solo challenge for a party of 7-8th level or so and maybe he is that (just about) in which case I am doing the designers a disservice.

He’s not weak for a CR 17. Level 20 characters decked out in magic gear could probably be able to beat him.

Though maybe not as well as one would think due to his ability to turn off all of their magic gear.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah but the example is three fighters, who don’t have easy access to fire damage.

Which means they couldn’t defeat a troll. so their inability to defeat Zargon is meaningless. It has nothing to do with what monster they are fighting, or the strength of the characters, and everything to do with them not being properly equipped.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Which means they couldn’t defeat a troll. so their inability to defeat Zargon is meaningless. It has nothing to do with what monster they are fighting, or the strength of the characters, and everything to do with them not being properly equipped.

The thing is, we aren't talking about trolls, we're specifically talking about Zargon, and only Zargon. A "non-optimized" group of fighters might conceivably not have fire damage. Whether or not they've encountered trolls before is flatly immaterial to the specified situation at hand.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The thing is, we aren't talking about trolls, we're specifically talking about Zargon, and only Zargon. A "non-optimized" group of fighters might conceivably not have fire damage. Whether or not they've encountered trolls before is flatly immaterial to the specified situation at hand.

And Zargon is irrelevant. They will fail against anything that requires fire damage to suppress regeneration. A CR 1/4 mutant rat with regeneration would slaughter them. The problem isn't Zargon, the problem is the party.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

And Zargon is irrelevant. They will fail against anything that requires fire damage to suppress regeneration. A CR 1/4 mutant rat with regeneration would slaughter them. The problem isn't Zargon, the problem is the party.

Indeed. I was not trying to make a big argument. Just pointing out that despite the claim that 3 Unoptimized Fighters could kill Zargon in a few rounds, I was just saying that technically they can't kill him.

Even with a proper party, Zargon is a bit of odd enemy to fight. Temporarily turning off his regen requires using damage that he resists. So you have to spend turns dealing small damage to him to turn it off. He also resists Non Magic Weapons and unlike most other high level enemies this is relevant to him, as he can create Anti Magic on targets he gores with his horn, meaning the wizard might not be able to cast or the magic items will be rendered mundane. He's perfectly beatable at the third tier as he should be as a CR 17. But the whole Returner thing makes actually dealing with him for good very hard.