Fighting the Elemental Princes (Princes of the Apocalypse)

[choryukami]

My group is currently playing through Princes of the Apocalypse. We just hit level 7 and I am DMing one session this week while our normal DM is out. So I was looking through, getting an idea of where the players could possibly go, and I stumbled upon the stat block of the Elemental Princes, and in Conclusion where it says, "With one prince down and the others sealed away..." I also noticed that to seal away 3/4 of the Princes, the weapons need to be destroyed (funny how it is all but one). SO... I set about making a strategy for killing at least a couple of the princes.

Party Setup:
- Bard (Lore): Best at charming and circumventing challenges, but also decent at healing (Aura of Vitality from Magic Secrets), DPS (dual wielding and Fireball from Magic secrets) and skills (Criminal background) [My character]
- Fighter/Barbarian (Dip for AC and Rage): Dual wielding Drow Fighter (Battlemaster) who uses Ironfang in his main hand, deals high damage, has high HP and AC, just like any good fighter.
- Wizard: Good at blasting, Conjuror type. What can I say? Wizards are good.
- Barbarian/Fighter: High Strength Barbarian (with a Belt of Frost Giant Strength now), dipped fighter for Action Surge and Second Wind. Deals good damage.

Sometimes Joins us:
- Monk: Elemental type, uses a quarterstaff with polearm mastery to get AOs and lots of attacks per round. Deals good damage.

At this point we've conquered the Temple of Howling Hatred, I hold Windvane (for now). The Fighter has Ironfang from a convention expedition and we're in the middle of the Temple of the Crushing Wave, in search of Gar Shatterkeel. Our plan for the remainder of prophets is to finish water, then fire to get Tinderstrike and kill the prophet. We will then go for earth and seal the portal using Ironfang (no sacrifice needed).

From there I plan on going after Imix, the fire elemental prince. I chose him because fire resistance is abundant, and since we have a wizard she can learn and prepare all new non-fire spells, and I can just retrain fireball into something more useful by then. Olhadra has a lot of AOE, and I feel like she could run circles around us in her home plane, even with water breathing. Yan-C-Bin has an instant kill ability Con Save DC 21 that I cannot figure out a non-cheesy way to avoid.

First of all, I want to wait to even try until at least level 13.


Imix
We will all by that time either have fire resist or invest in a potion of fire resistance.
I will most likely do a 1 level dip in cleric (life) for the extra healing (since none of my charms will work anyway).
I will have Aura of Vitality and will have Mass Cure Wounds by that time, as well as Tinderstrike to Dominate one of Imix's summoned guys (which I will set on another one of them) and probably will use more Magic Secrets to learn DPS abilities.

The Wizard will learn and prepare things like: (1st) Catapult (Bring Boulders), (2nd) Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm, (3rd) Lightning Bolt, (3rd) Erupting Earth (upcast), (4th) Vitriolic Sphere, (5th) Cone of Cold, (6th) Sunbeam, (6th) Disintegrate. She's a conjuror so she'll also have Animate Objects and Summon Elemental to cast. We will both most likely make use of Blink so we won't be in excessive danger.

The Barbarian, Fighter and Monk will all have fire resist (and two will have resist to physical as well) and if one of them gets low I can Polymorph them into a T-Rex or Giant Ape (another reason a potion of fire resist might be beneficial). I may also take Sorcerer levels and be able to Twin cast buffs and debuffs.

Finally, myself or the wizard will likely learn Plane Shift so we can get rid of his lair actions. Take him right to the Elemental Plane of Not-Fire.





Olhadra
I feel like the same kind of strategy will work with Olhadra if we don't fight her underwater and sub fire resist for acid resist. I will have to look at that more closely though. Nobody is overly concerned with Drown (legendary trident), we may just chuck it in the portal and call it good.

Yan-C-Bin
This is an interesting one. I racked my brain to try and figure out how to beat a suffocate on DC 21 Con Save, once per round. That is ridiculous. And honestly, I'm not too concerned with Windvane. We may also chuck it in the portal. But I came up with a few ideas because I just kinda want to beat this guy. None of the spells or items I can find help with this one legendary action he has.
1. Get a way to consistently make DC 21 Con saves. Having an ancients paladin or any paladin might help this.. having amulets of health I guess.
2. Get a high level wizard to true polymorph us into air genasi. This one is waaaaay too cheesy for me. Also, I enjoy being human.
3. Find a way to immerse the entire combat in water and have water breathing on everyone. This idea actually has merit. He cannot steal air from your lungs if there is no air in your lungs. When I was running through the Imix fight and I mentioned Plane Shift, this idea blossomed. How about Plane Shifting Yan-C-Bin to either the elemental plane of water, or to any plane with an ocean? This might work.

Ogremoch
As mentioned before, this is an out. All you have to do is hit the portal with Ironfang and the portal closes and we get to keep Ironfang.

Anyway, opinions?

[choryukami]

Wow that fell off the bottom real fast.

[choryukami]

Nobody wants to weigh in on this? Guess my strategy is awesome.

[j_spencer93]

Personally I like your ideas, actually gave me a few to use myself when we get to that point.

[danweasel]

Plane Shift targets either up to 8 willing creatures, or 1 unwilling creature, and you won't be able to cast it more than once per day until level 20, neatly eviscerating the otherwise interesting ideas about gaining battlefield superiority.

Although even if you *were* level 20 (or had two casters capable of casting the spell), legendary resistance would kick in and any of the Princes could just shrug off the hostile Plane Shift spell. And even if they didn't, it specifies that they are sent to a random place on that plane, so good luck finding them with the follow up friendly casting...

Some of the other notions are fine ideas from a crunchy standpoint, but how do you plan to justify your character's knowledge of flagrant amounts of knowledge about exactly how the portals, weapons, and specific powers of each Prince work?

[choryukami]

Scrolls for more spell casts I would say. I'm going to get the factions to chip in on this. Scroll of Plane Shift for us (we'll have somebody really cast it on Imix for higher DC. Also, cutting words is beautiful), Teleport within the plane if needed.

As for the information, a combination of Intimidation and the Suggestion spell (one of the best spells ever) on the remaining prophets. And Identify.

I've dealt with Legendary Resistance before. Just keep throwing lowish level spells until they don't resist anymore, then use one of the winners. That's what I did with Aerisi, waited and used Bestow Curse and she kept failing and losing actions.

[danweasel]

On second thought, assuming you can manage to fire off a Plane Shift on one of the princes to some very nastily unhealthy plane for them, why not just call it a day and seal up the associated portal?

[choryukami]

Good point. Take Yan-C-Bin and Imix to Olhadra's realm, hop back to the material plane and close the portal on all of them.

[choryukami]

Well, Gar Shatterkeel is down. Level 8 now. Had a friendly paladin/warlock (6/2 vengeance and fiend) join us who uses sentinel and shield master to generally ruin all the cultists' days.

[Envyus]

Well, Gar Shatterkeel is down. Level 8 now. Had a friendly paladin/warlock (6/2 vengeance and fiend) join us who uses sentinel and shield master to generally ruin all the cultists' days.

Wait that makes No Sense if you have already Beaten Aerisi. Gar would have gone deeper in to the Temple.

Anyway you need to destory all 4 weapons, to close the protals. Doing so while a Elemental Prince is on the plane will banish them back as well. Destroying them on the Material Plane does the same thing anyway.


Good point. Take Yan-C-Bin and Imix to Olhadra's realm, hop back to the material plane and close the portal on all of them.

Well It's Yan-C-Bin or Imix. Anyway this is a terrible terrible plan. For one you don't get to hop back to the Material Plane you just banish One unwilling touched target to another plane. Two they have advantage on their saves and they have high saves so they are unlikely to fail. Even if they fail they have Legendary Resistance so they can pass anyway.

[choryukami]

Never said where we killed Gar.

[ImSAMazing]

Strategy is awesome, its all I have to say :D

[PoeticDwarf]

One thing, a monk with polearm master can't make more attacks than a normal monk. Because polearm master and martial arts fist costs bonus action. :smallconfused:

[choryukami]

PM was for the OAs.

Also, we defeated Vanifer then pulled back outside. We've also refurbished Rivergard Keep into a roadside inn a while ago and are runninv it as a business. We just took care of the devastation orb attacks and Dark Dealings in Yartar, and are currently in the Halls of the Hunting Axe.

Level 11 now, with plans to finish the eye and go below soon. The plan may bear fruit.

[choryukami]

Fane of the Eye Update: Mix of level 12 and 11. We have a ranger/rogue now who deals ridiculous damage with longbow assassinate. No monk, no paladin. We're pretty done with the Fane, about to go down to the Black Geode.

[EvilAnagram]

My DM gave us way to many magic items. We banished the Olhadra to the plane of fire the first turn using a candle and some beads. Then we killed everything in a single round.

That said, your strategies look sound, but it seems a bit like cheating to use your time as DM to plan for these battles.

[Ahbraxaz]

My DM gave us way to many magic items. We banished the Olhadra to the plane of fire the first turn using a candle and some beads. Then we killed everything in a single round.

That said, your strategies look sound, but it seems a bit like cheating to use your time as DM to plan for these battles.

It is a type of cheating, the infamous "metagaming", at the end is up to every individual DM to allow such a thing or not, but being a ROLE-playing game, I personally believe it takes away an important part of what the game is about.

Don't get me wrong, his tactics are nice, but unless his character/party, actually has the in-game intel (somehow) for everything each of the bosses can do, then I would see no possible reason for those characters to use such tactics.

[SirGraystone]

It is a type of cheating, the infamous "metagaming", at the end is up to every individual DM to allow such a thing or not, but being a ROLE-playing game, I personally believe it takes away an important part of what the game is about.

Don't get me wrong, his tactics are nice, but unless his character/party, actually has the in-game intel (somehow) for everything each of the bosses can do, then I would see no possible reason for those characters to use such tactics.

I agree, but a clever DM would change the encouter to confuse sneaky players who have read the campaign book.