Astral Dreadnought (Mordenkainen's tome of foes preview)

[Envyus]

Nathan Stewart shared the Astral Dreadnought.

https://i.imgur.com/43Hb6Gv.jpg

[Naanomi]

Only CR21? Boo...

[Envyus]

Only CR21? Boo...

They were a CR 17 in 3e, and an early epic enemy in 4e Being a level 23 brute.

[Kane0]

Nice. Was looking forward to this guy coming back.

[kardar233]

Too bad it’s CR 21; this used to be one if my favourite Shapechange forms in 3.5, with its offensive Antimagic Field and its counter to Astral Projection cheese.

[Naanomi]

I guess my nostalgic view from Planescape Monster Compendium 2 has them beefier than that, a tarrasque-comparable Monster

[Envyus]

Too bad it’s CR 21; this used to be one if my favourite Shapechange forms in 3.5, with its offensive Antimagic Field and its counter to Astral Projection cheese.
It's stronger then it was in 3.5

Edit: Oh yeah thats what you mean as you can't turn into it.


I guess my nostalgic view from Planescape Monster Compendium 2 has them beefier than that, a tarrasque-comparable Monster

It was comparable xp wise to to most upper tier fiends. It was way way weaker then the Tarrasque. (22,000 vs 107,000)

[MaxWilson]

Nathan Stewart shared the Astral Dreadnought.

https://i.imgur.com/43Hb6Gv.jpg

Wow. What an incredible mismatch between reputation and boring, sack-of-HP reality. That thing is weaksauce.

[Envyus]

Wow. What an incredible mismatch between reputation and boring, sack-of-HP reality. That thing is weaksauce.

Why is that it seems a perfectly decent and somewhat complex monster. In all previous editions it was little more then a brute there too.

[Naanomi]

It was comparable xp wise to to most upper tier fiends. It was way way weaker then the Tarrasque. (22,000 vs 107,000)
I fully admit nostalgiavision may be at play in my memory

[Unoriginal]

I've said it before and I've said it again: this is a great Astral Dreadnought artwork.

Other versions could be scary in a "oh dam this thing is huge way", but this one manages to put the "dread" back in "dreadnought".



Wow. What an incredible mismatch between reputation and boring, sack-of-HP reality. That thing is weaksauce.

Seriously, that "boring sack of HP" stuff is just getting ridiculous.

It has anti-magic, special imprisonment and mind-blasting powers, Legendary actions...

You're not even trying, MaxWilson.

[Envyus]

Seriously, that "boring sack of HP" stuff is just getting ridiculous.

It has anti-magic, special imprisonment and mind-blasting powers, Legendary actions...

You're not even trying, MaxWilson.

Hell going by the DMG guidelines. t's HP is slightly below average for the Tier it is in.

[Malifice]

HP seem a bit low for its CR.

[Envyus]

HP seem a bit low for its CR.

Someone did the Math for it already. It's more offence then defense.

Defensive CR: 20
Attack CR: 23

Total CR 21.5, rounded down to 21.

[Unoriginal]

HP seem a bit low for its CR.

It's at least partially compensated by the 20 in AC. It's a lot for such a beast.

[Envyus]

It's at least partially compensated by the 20 in AC. It's a lot for such a beast.

The Legendary Resistances as well.

There is also the fact that it's Antimagic Cone along with flight can make it hard to fight.

[ImproperJustice]

This thing lools like serious business to me.

Trying to envision the reaction of the poor individual poking around in the Astral plane that finds this guy.

[MaxWilson]

Why is that it seems a perfectly decent and somewhat complex monster. In all previous editions it was little more then a brute there too.

It's not a formidable monster. Lowish HP, decent but not exceptional movement (no legendary movement, no teleportation or blink or hiding options), no area attacks, good but not exceptional AC, good but not exceptional damage, short-ranged attacks, not immune to normal weapons. Any monster that can be killed by Mongol horse archers in moderate numbers does not deserve a terrifying reputation.

It's basically an oversized Great White Shark with an antimagic field. Terrifying if you're caught alone and unprepared, but not something professionals should worry about, especially in the Astral Plane which actually basically IS an infinite featureless plain. They're dangerous in the same way lions and crocodiles are dangerous to safari guides in Africa. Anyone who can get to the Astral plane unaided already knows how to kill one if needed, if the player (or NPC) isn't a fool. So if these things survive, it's only because (like lions and crocodiles) no one is interested in killing them all off.

They should have written its fluff accordingly.

[Malifice]

It's not a formidable monster. Lowish HP, decent but not exceptional movement (no legendary movement, no teleportation or blink or hiding options), no area attacks, good but not exceptional AC, good but not exceptional damage, short-ranged attacks, not immune to normal weapons. Any monster that can be killed by Mongol horse archers in moderate numbers does not deserve a terrifying reputation.

It's basically an oversized Great White Shark with an antimagic field. Terrifying if you're caught alone and unprepared, but not something professionals should worry about, especially in the Astral Plane which actually basically IS an infinite featureless plain. They're dangerous in the same way lions and crocodiles are dangerous to safari guides in Africa. Anyone who can get to the Astral plane unaided already knows how to kill one if needed, if the player (or NPC) isn't a fool. So if these things survive, it's only because (like lions and crocodiles) no one is interested in killing them all off.

They should have written its fluff accordingly.

What are those Mongol Horse archers doing on the Astral plane?

[Kane0]

Any monster that can be killed by Mongol horse archers in moderate numbers does not deserve a terrifying reputation.


So it's boring because it doesn't perfectly counter a well rounded group of professionals with means and a plan?

Edit:

What are those Mongol Horse archers doing on the Astral plane?
This was literally my first reaction too.

[Envyus]

It's not a formidable monster. Lowish HP, decent but not exceptional movement, no area attacks, good but not exceptional AC, good but not exceptional damage, short-ranged attacks, not immune to normal weapons. Any monster that can be killed by Mongol horse archers in moderate numbers does not deserve a terrifying reputation.

It's basically an oversized Great White Shark with an antimagic field. Terrifying if you're caught alone and unprepared, but not something professionals should worry about, especially in the Astral Plane which actually basically IS an infinite featureless plain. They're dangerous in the same way lions and crocodiles are dangerous to safari guides in Africa.

They should have written its fluff accordingly.

It's HP is not lowish it's slightly below average. It have 80 ft flight that is a great movement, one of it's legendary actions is an area attack that hits everything within 60 ft, 20 AC is high for most monsters, It deals more damage then a creature of it's CR is expected to, it's attacks have reaches of 20ft and 10ft those are good ranges, no it is not immune to normal weapons but it is resistant.

How are a army of mongol horse archers going to get to the Astral plane, if they could lets say there are 40 of them, using the basic stats for what they would be. Probably Warhorses with Guards or Bandits. The horse riders are riding on a dead god when suddenly this thing breaks out of the silvery expance around them and charges to attack. It uses it's action to dash and get nice and close to all of them. One of the guards shoots an arrow and misses, the Astral Dreadnought then uses it's legendary action to use physic projection which will kill or nearly kill all of the guards and their horses.

[Envyus]

It's basically an oversized Great White Shark with an antimagic field. Terrifying if you're caught alone and unprepared, but not something professionals should worry about, especially in the Astral Plane which actually basically IS an infinite featureless plain. They're dangerous in the same way lions and crocodiles are dangerous to safari guides in Africa. Anyone who can get to the Astral plane unaided already knows how to kill one if needed, if the player (or NPC) isn't a fool. So if these things survive, it's only because (like lions and crocodiles) no one is interested in killing them all off.

They should have written its fluff accordingly.

Anyone that can get to Astral Plane unaided is going to be crushed if one of them shows up. Pros should be afraid if these things show up, they will kill them, crush the astral ship and eat them. There is no easy way to kill them only high tier parties of around level 17 stand on even footing with them.

[MaxWilson]

So it's boring because it doesn't perfectly counter a well rounded group of professionals with means and a plan?

If it could even survive a vendetta by a one-dimensional group of low-level intelligent amateurs that would be SOMETHING.

The only thing this monster is designed to do is make an appearance, fight for a few seconds, and then die.

Not interesting. Just a short-lived sack of HP.

[Unoriginal]

no area attacks.

"Each creature within 60ft..."


Any monster that can be killed by Mongol horse archers in moderate numbers does not deserve a terrifying reputation.


Show us your calculation, then.

Where's your round-by-round explanation for how a moderate number of Mongol horse archers in the astral can kill it?



It's basically an oversized Great White Shark with an antimagic field. Terrifying if you're caught alone and unprepared, but not something professionals should worry about, especially in the Astral Plane which actually basically IS an infinite featureless plain. They're dangerous in the same way lions and crocodiles are dangerous to safari guides in Africa. Anyone who can get to the Astral plane unaided already knows how to kill one if needed, if the player (or NPC) isn't a fool. So if these things survive, it's only because (like lions and crocodiles) no one is interested in killing them all off.

They should have written its fluff accordingly.

Show us your evidences for that, then, if it's so easy.


If it could even survive a vendetta by a one-dimensional group of low-level intelligent amateurs that would be SOMETHING.

The only thing this monster is designed to do is make an appearance, fight for a few seconds, and then die.

Not interesting. Just a short-lived sack of HP.

Prove.

It.

[Naanomi]

Solo monsters struggle... which is why my favorite fight with one of these in 2e was when it appeared in the middle of a githyanki fight we thought we were winning

[Unoriginal]

Solo monsters struggle... which is why my favorite fight with one of these in 2e was when it appeared in the middle of a githyanki fight we thought we were winning

That thing can deal nearly 100 pts of damage per round, block magic, and with its Donjon Visit Legendary action it can exclude one of the PCs be unable to do anything for 1 or 2 rounds.

Yes, solo monsters struggles, but this one significantly less so.

[Regitnui]

Personally, I doubt I'll be able to get to use that for a good long while, but it looks terrifying.

[Scyrner]

I really like the art and the anti-magic cone is really cool, as is the demiplane. I love demiplanes, they're like plot hooks waiting to happen.

I do kinda wish it was a little bit smarter though. I find high level monsters a little non-compelling when they're not intelligent. It's wise enough that it's going to fight in a fairly interesting way, but the low Int means, at least to me, that I'll be hampered in how clever I make it.

Also, I hope the book actually gets more into the various planes, mechanically. The DMG (pg. 47) notes that a creature's walking speed in the Astral Plane is Int*3 ft, which explain's the Dreadnought's.... lumber.... That leads me to wonder, however...does the Astral Plane have a floor?

[Kane0]

If it could even survive a vendetta by a one-dimensional group of low-level intelligent amateurs that would be SOMETHING.

The only thing this monster is designed to do is make an appearance, fight for a few seconds, and then die.

Not interesting. Just a short-lived sack of HP.

...What? How? Like how would a half dozen level 6s trounce this thing, no problem?

[Naanomi]

I do kinda wish it was a little bit smarter though.
In its original appearance, it’s INT was 15-16 (exceptional)

[Envyus]

I really like the art and the anti-magic cone is really cool, as is the demiplane. I love demiplanes, they're like plot hooks waiting to happen.

I do kinda wish it was a little bit smarter though. I find high level monsters a little non-compelling when they're not intelligent. It's wise enough that it's going to fight in a fairly interesting way, but the low Int means, at least to me, that I'll be hampered in how clever I make it.

Also, I hope the book actually gets more into the various planes, mechanically. The DMG (pg. 47) notes that a creature's walking speed in the Astral Plane is Int*3 ft, which explain's the Dreadnought's.... lumber.... That leads me to wonder, however...does the Astral Plane have a floor?

No you just drift unless you have an astral ship or you have some solid ground like one of the drifting landmasses scattered throughout the plane. Gravity is whatever way you feel is down.

https://static3.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11120/111204187/5694367-4093470671-53231.jpg

[BLC1975]

Ha! My Lvl 1 and 2 party just had a blast killing a giant rat which jumped out from behind a few sacks, followed by rescuing the blacksmith from the lair of a giant wolf spider...the thing at the top of this thread is beyond their comprehension...it's awesome!!!

[JackPhoenix]

I guess my nostalgic view from Planescape Monster Compendium 2 has them beefier than that, a tarrasque-comparable Monster

Funny thing is, this Astral Dreadnought could solo Tarrasque without taking any damage, though it would take time.

[Naanomi]

The stomach demi-Plane is large enough to house decent size settlement... I kind of want to have the players kill one and suddenly a very confused and slightly inbred community of svirfneblin appear around the body

[Regitnui]

The stomach demi-Plane is large enough to house decent size settlement... I kind of want to have the players kill one and suddenly a very confused and slightly inbred community of svirfneblin appear around the body

Or drow. That would be a subversion of type.

[Unoriginal]

The stomach demi-Plane is large enough to house decent size settlement... I kind of want to have the players kill one and suddenly a very confused and slightly inbred community of svirfneblin appear around the body

They'd get digested, though.

[Beechgnome]

I think it is good and powerful enough.

But that demiplane is what really sells me on it: so many story hooks. Does the party need to get inside and get some ancient artfact without releasing whatever else is in there? Does another - worse - big bad emerge if they do kill it? Lots to work with beyond the terror of the fight itself.

[Deox]

But that demiplane is what really sells me on it: so many story hooks.

Agree with this completely. At least for me, this is not only an opportunity to introduce an iconic and memorable encounter, but then have an additional, memorable encounter after the fact.

While I am disappointed with the lack of intelligence (and some other, nit-picky things), I feel the overall opportunity to utilize such a creature and the number of possibilities is fantastic.

[PhoenixPhyre]

HP seem a bit low for its CR.

Remember to account for legendary resistances in the math. Raw HP is always lower than suggested for the DCR for legendary creatures because LR adds 30 HP/use at those levels when calculating DCR.

[Millstone85]

Also, I hope the book actually gets more into the various planes, mechanically. The DMG (pg. 47) notes that a creature's walking speed in the Astral Plane is Int*3 ft, which explain's the Dreadnought's.... lumber.... That leads me to wonder, however...does the Astral Plane have a floor?
No you just drift unless you have an astral ship or you have some solid ground like one of the drifting landmasses scattered throughout the plane. Gravity is whatever way you feel is down.I think I read somewhere that you can actually walk the Astral Plane. Like gravity is whatever way you feel is down, the floor is wherever you feel it should be.

Edit: Never mind, I checked the places where I thought I might have read this, and got nothing.


They'd get digested, though.That's what bothers me. Does this stone-cave-like demiplane even have digestive juice?

[strangebloke]

That's what bothers me. Does this stone-cave-like demiplane even have digestive juice?
Nope. You can live there until you starve to death. Kinda hard to see how it gets nourishment from the thing. I could see some ultra-paranoid wizard just camping out in his all-but-unreachable donjon. It would be a funny adventure to have a bunch of PCs try to hunt this guy down.

[Naanomi]

Nope. You can live there until you starve to death. Kinda hard to see how it gets nourishment from the thing. I could see some ultra-paranoid wizard just camping out in his all-but-unreachable donjon. It would be a funny adventure to have a bunch of PCs try to hunt this guy down.
It doesn’t get nourishment from things it swallows; it eats the Astral bodies of people using Astral projection... all that physical stuff it swallows is just extra junk. One wonders what happens if it ‘fills up’ the space... does it have a mechanic to vomit that stuff up Monstro style?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Nope. You can live there until you starve to death. Kinda hard to see how it gets nourishment from the thing. I could see some ultra-paranoid wizard just camping out in his all-but-unreachable donjon. It would be a funny adventure to have a bunch of PCs try to hunt this guy down.

Note that it swallows you if you're incapacitated or at 0 HP. So likely you'll just bleed out.

[Sigreid]

Nope. You can live there until you starve to death. Kinda hard to see how it gets nourishment from the thing. I could see some ultra-paranoid wizard just camping out in his all-but-unreachable donjon. It would be a funny adventure to have a bunch of PCs try to hunt this guy down.

If you can get one's loyalty it could be the ultimate RV.

[strangebloke]

It doesn’t get nourishment from things it swallows; it eats the Astral bodies of people using Astral projection... all that physical stuff it swallows is just extra junk. One wonders what happens if it ‘fills up’ the space... does it have a mechanic to vomit that stuff up Monstro style?
Haha, not according to the mechanics! but yeah, probably.

Note that it swallows you if you're incapacitated or at 0 HP. So likely you'll just bleed out.
True. But without going into details, there are ways of ensuring that you'll be up and walking on the next turn.

If you can get one's loyalty it could be the ultimate RV.
ROAD TRIP!

More like an awesome fortress. They literally can't get in unless they fight a CR21 monster or they blow a ninth level slot.

[JoeJ]

I do kinda wish it was a little bit smarter though. I find high level monsters a little non-compelling when they're not intelligent. It's wise enough that it's going to fight in a fairly interesting way, but the low Int means, at least to me, that I'll be hampered in how clever I make it.

It has a higher Intelligence than most animals. You could easily parse that as being very cunning in the use of its own abilities, although not so hot at figuring out things that don't directly concern it.

[Regitnui]

It has a higher Intelligence than most animals. You could easily parse that as being very cunning in the use of its own abilities, although not so hot at figuring out things that don't directly concern it.

It's smart enough to know it's own hunting grounds and what prey and "not worth it" are (does anything eat these?), but not much reasoning skills. After all, it's got great wisdom and charisma. It's just really bad at adapting to out of context problems or figuring out puzzles. If you hide in a porous chunk of stone when being chased by one of these, if it can't reach you, it'll probably give up rather than trying to reason out a way it can get to you.

[Unoriginal]

It's smart enough to know it's own hunting grounds and what prey and "not worth it" are (does anything eat these?), but not much reasoning skills. After all, it's got great wisdom and charisma. It's just really bad at adapting to out of context problems or figuring out puzzles. If you hide in a porous chunk of stone when being chased by one of these, if it can't reach you, it'll probably give up rather than trying to reason out a way it can get to you.

Or it could punch the stone until it breaks.

Also, there is only one Dreadnought, pretty sure.


It doesn’t get nourishment from things it swallows; it eats the Astral bodies of people using Astral projection... all that physical stuff it swallows is just extra junk. One wonders what happens if it ‘fills up’ the space... does it have a mechanic to vomit that stuff up Monstro style?

It has this capacity, yes. It's written in the statblock.

[Sigreid]

Or it could punch the stone until it breaks.

Also, there is only one Dreadnought, pretty sure.



It has this capacity, yes. It's written in the statblock.

The monster write up talks about them in the plural.

[Naanomi]

There is more than one, in Dead Gods you can piss off a whole bunch at once if I recall.

They don’t really have ‘territory’ beyond roaming the Infinite Astral Plane and being instinctively drawn to certain Astral phenomenon to find food (rupturing bags of holding with portable holes reliably draws their attention; as does messing with a Well of Worlds)

[Envyus]

Or it could punch the stone until it breaks.

Also, there is only one Dreadnought, pretty sure.



It has this capacity, yes. It's written in the statblock.
There are multiple Dreadnoughts. Back in 2e it was rumored that there was only one Dreadnought at a time, but there were multiple as they had been killed before.


If you can get one's loyalty it could be the ultimate RV.
Impossible it never communicates or can be reasoned with. Anyone that has tried is dead.

[Sigreid]

There are multiple Dreadnoughts. Back in 2e it was rumored that there was only one Dreadnought at a time, but there were multiple as they had been killed before.


Impossible it never communicates or can be reasoned with. Anyone that has tried is dead.

Never really thought a DM would allow that unless it was as a lark or the legendary feat of a vecna level npc.

[Envyus]

Never really thought a DM would allow that unless it was as a lark or the legendary feat of a vecna level npc.

It's also immune to pretty much all mental conditions s even magically controlling it does not work.

[strangebloke]

It's also immune to pretty much all mental conditions s even magically controlling it does not work.

You're underestimating the power of NPC magic. "I researched a super special Dominate-Astral-Dreadnought spell over the course of a year." is a perfectly valid thing to have an NPC archmage do.

Sidenote: I guess this is the logical conclusion of the "Big worm-thing that swallows people" line of monsters. Tyrranosaur -> Neothilid -> Purple Worm -> Astral Dreadnought.

[Sigreid]

It's also immune to pretty much all mental conditions s even magically controlling it does not work.

But can I train it using porkchops as a reward?

[Nettlekid]

So the Demiplane is technically not a part of the Astral Plane, huh? Because otherwise things wouldn't decompose within it, being timeless and all.

I feel like there's a RAI glitch regarding the Antimagic Cone and the Donjon Visit abilities. The Astral Dreadnaught is one of very few monsters that does have an explicit "facing" mechanic, where most D&D monsters are just kind of looking all directions at once. It has a single eye and is looking in the direction that its Antimagic Cone is facing. That means it cannot see any creature that is not within its cone, so it cannot magically transport anyone into its Donjon with Donjon Visit.

[mephnick]

It also automatically kills anyone on a critical hit when astral projecting.

[the_brazenburn]

But can I train it using porkchops as a reward?

Try pigs.

Like, giant dire boar.

I am also excited for the Astral Dreadnought, but the thing that excites me most is a single word: titan.

In the MM, and I believe Volo's as well, there have only been three titans total. The Tarrasque, Kraken, and Empyrean.

I had assumed they were sticking with a "holy trinity" sort of approach, and not going to give us any more near-divine entities. I've never been happier to be proven wrong.

I wonder if they'll be any other titans in the book. Anybody know whether the Leviathan was one?

[gloryblaze]

Try pigs.

Like, giant dire boar.

I am also excited for the Astral Dreadnought, but the thing that excites me most is a single word: titan.

In the MM, and I believe Volo's as well, there have only been three titans total. The Tarrasque, Kraken, and Empyrean.

I had assumed they were sticking with a "holy trinity" sort of approach, and not going to give us any more near-divine entities. I've never been happier to be proven wrong.

I wonder if they'll be any other titans in the book. Anybody know whether the Leviathan was one?

The Atropal from tomb of annihilation was already a fourth creature with the (Titan) tag

[the_brazenburn]

The Atropal from tomb of annihilation was already a fourth creature with the (Titan) tag

Oh.

I've never read ToA. That's embarrassing.

I'm still excited. Now I'll have to look up Atropal to add it to my Cthulhu-esque (or reskinned) list.

[Beechgnome]

I am a little disappointed to now learn upon rereading that the Demiplane spell only allows you to open a door to a Demiplane created by a spell.

So that's a hard no to my wizard's plan of hiding all my stuff in an Astral Dreadnaught. I know you can use Wish and Planeshift to get in and out, but with Demiplane you could make doors and invite guests... Who may or may not stay a while.

[Millstone85]

I wonder if they'll be any other titans in the book. Anybody know whether the Leviathan was one?I would be surprised if the leviathan was one. It is a sea serpent that is itself made of water. Clearly elemental stuff, and WotC's cue to properly reintroduce the primordials after a passing mention in planar ally (and maybe PotA, which I didn't read).

Also, astral dreadnoughts being titans makes me wonder...
Titans are the divine creations of deities. They might be birthed from the union of two deities, manufactured on a divine forge, born from the blood spilled by a god, or otherwise brought about through divine will or substance. What god could have created them? In 4e, they were what became of Tharizdun's angels. But by 5e lore, that would imply Tharizdun was once a good-aligned deity.


I am a little disappointed to now learn upon rereading that the Demiplane spell only allows you to open a door to a Demiplane created by a spell.Even if demiplane allowed you to reach other demiplanes than those created by the spell, you still couldn't use it to enter the dreadnought's demiplanar donjon. It says in the stat block that there are only three ways to enter: being swallowed, the Donjon Visit legendary action, and the wish spell.

Unless... I think that two spellcasters using demiplane at the same time can essentially create a 1 hour airlock between their locations, even on different planes. With a spellcaster inside the dreadnought and the other somewhere else, I wonder what would happen.

[Beechgnome]

Even if demiplane allowed you to reach other demiplanes than those created by the spell, you still couldn't use it to enter the dreadnought's demiplanar donjon. It says in the stat block that there are only three ways to enter: being swallowed, the Donjon Visit legendary action, and the wish spell.

Unless... I think that two spellcasters using demiplane at the same time can essentially create a 1 hour airlock between their locations, even on different planes. With a spellcaster inside the dreadnought and the other somewhere else, I wonder what would happen.

I am pretty sure Demiplane specifies that you can use another wizard's Demiplane, but only if you know the nature and contents of it, which is pretty vague and open to interpretation. I don't think the airlock works because I can only assume casting Demiplane inside a Dreadnaught would fail since it would allow you to exit the Donjon.

[Envyus]

Unless... I think that two spellcasters using demiplane at the same time can essentially create a 1 hour airlock between their locations, even on different planes. With a spellcaster inside the dreadnought and the other somewhere else, I wonder what would happen.

The Demiplane casters create are different ones not the same one.

[Millstone85]

The Demiplane casters create are different ones not the same one.
I am pretty sure Demiplane specifies that you can use another wizard's Demiplane, but only if you know the nature and contents of it, which is pretty vague and open to interpretation.I am assuming that they do manage to target the same demiplane, created by a previous casting.


I don't think the airlock works because I can only assume casting Demiplane inside a Dreadnaught would fail since it would allow you to exit the Donjon.It is counterintuitive, but while entering is difficult...
Any creature or object that the astral dreadnought swallows is transported to a demiplane that can be entered by no other means except a wish spell or this creature's Donjon Visit ability. exiting is actually pretty standard.
A creature can leave the demiplane only by using magic that enables planar travel, such as the plane shift spell.

[EvilAnagram]

Dang.

It has an off-turn AoE, a one-round off-turn banishment, an anti-magic cone, a better astral fly speed than a 20-int wizard, and an instakill effect that works in a specific, flavorful way. Oh, and it is a dungeon full of encounters by itself.

So just another bag of hit points then?

I might have to buy this book.

[clem]

Or drow. That would be a subversion of type.

Or Mongol horseback archers.

[Belier]

Stun immunity!

[Kane0]

Or Mongol horseback archers.

Oh snap, son!

[Envyus]

Dang.

It has an off-turn AoE, a one-round off-turn banishment, an anti-magic cone, a better astral fly speed than a 20-int wizard, and an instakill effect that works in a specific, flavorful way. Oh, and it is a dungeon full of encounters by itself.


20 int wizards don't have an Astral fly speed. They have an Astral Walkspeed.


Or Mongol horseback archers.

Looking at Horse stats the Mongol Horseback archers would be better off without the Horses. As the Horses would only have a speed of 5 ft in the Astral plane.

[Millstone85]

I hope they use the idea that the astral dreadnought might in fact be an astral projection, with its seemingly infinite tail being its silver cord.

[EvilAnagram]

20 int wizards don't have an Astral fly speed. They have an Astral Walkspeed.


I don't know about the Astral Plane in the Great Wheel, but in the Astral Sea there is no walking. You can only float through the infinite ether. If you can differentiate between a 60' float speed and a 60' fly speed, be my guest.

[Millstone85]

I don't know about the Astral Plane in the Great Wheel, but in the Astral Sea there is no walking. You can only float through the infinite ether. If you can differentiate between a 60' float speed and a 60' fly speed, be my guest.If this were the Astral Sea, I could quote the 4e MotP rules on subjective gravity.
On a plane that has subjective gravity, you can choose whether gravity affects you.
✦ You can stand on any surface equal to your space (1 square for most characters) or larger than your space.
✦ You gain the ability to fly at one-half your normal speed if not under the effect of gravity. You can hover, but you are a clumsy flier.
✦ A creature with the ability to fly can use its innate flying speed instead. It gains hover.There would indeed be walking, floating and flying in the Astral. It would also correspond to what Envyus described earlier.
No you just drift unless you have an astral ship or you have some solid ground like one of the drifting landmasses scattered throughout the plane. Gravity is whatever way you feel is down. But the more I think about this new 3*Int walking speed, the less sure I am about what they meant by it.

[bronzemountain]

I think this is a very interesting monster that has the unfortunate potential to force boring fights.

I agree with the community - there's a lot of interesting stuff going on here. Fun legendary actions, an inspiring swallow action (I love the 'whole civilization in the demiplane' thoughts), and the frightening potential for silver cord cutting.

But the massive bundle of condition immunities is the issue. I understand why they're there. Having this massive astral monstrosity get shield-bashed to the ground (?!?!?!) before being pulverized feels lame. But on the flip side, removing conditions effectively removes the bulk of 'interesting' party tactics, leaving them with 'bash it over and over again'.

What might be more interesting is condition-based triggers. ie. Anything only lasts one round, and when it breaks out, some interesting effect happens. If you prone the behemoth (what does that even look like?), it gets up in a shockwave of astral energy that dispels buffs, for instance.

The idea isn't to alter the power level dramatically, but rather to create more dynamism in the actual encounter. Might be an interesting thought for all monsters, in fact - replacing static tactic-crushing defenses with consequence-laden choices.

[Mith]

I think this is a very interesting monster that has the unfortunate potential to force boring fights.

I agree with the community - there's a lot of interesting stuff going on here. Fun legendary actions, an inspiring swallow action (I love the 'whole civilization in the demiplane' thoughts), and the frightening potential for silver cord cutting.

But the massive bundle of condition immunities is the issue. I understand why they're there. Having this massive astral monstrosity get shield-bashed to the ground (?!?!?!) before being pulverized feels lame. But on the flip side, removing conditions effectively removes the bulk of 'interesting' party tactics, leaving them with 'bash it over and over again'.

What might be more interesting is condition-based triggers. ie. Anything only lasts one round, and when it breaks out, some interesting effect happens. If you prone the behemoth (what does that even look like?), it gets up in a shockwave of astral energy that dispels buffs, for instance.

The idea isn't to alter the power level dramatically, but rather to create more dynamism in the actual encounter. Might be an interesting thought for all monsters, in fact - replacing static tactic-crushing defenses with consequence-laden choices.

For something labelled as a Titan, I like the idea of consequence based effects.

[Envyus]

If this were the Astral Sea, I could quote the 4e MotP rules on subjective gravity.There would indeed be walking, floating and flying in the Astral. It would also correspond to what Envyus described earlier. But the more I think about this new 3*Int walking speed, the less sure I am about what they meant by it.

The gravity only works really for the floating land masses and ships. If you don't have a surface to move on you just drift it seems. Here is a in universe quote for someone waking up in the Astral Plane.


Halisstra opened her eyes and found herself drifting in an endless silver sea. Soft gray clouds moved slowly in the distance, while strange dark streaks twisted violently through the sky, anchored in ends so distant she couldn’t perceive them, their middle parts revolving angrily like pieces of string rolled between a child’s fingertips. She glanced down, wondering what supported her, and saw nothing but more of the strange pearly sky beneath her feet and all around her.

She drew in a sudden breath, surprised by the sight, and felt her lungs fill with something sweeter and perhaps a little more solid than air, but instead of gagging or drowning on the stuff she seemed perfectly acclimated to it. An electric thrill raced through her limbs as she found herself mesmerized by the simple act of respiration.

[Unoriginal]

Dang.

It has an off-turn AoE, a one-round off-turn banishment, an anti-magic cone, a better astral fly speed than a 20-int wizard, and an instakill effect that works in a specific, flavorful way. Oh, and it is a dungeon full of encounters by itself.

So just another bag of hit points then?

You don't understand. This is a 5e monster, so it *must* be boring.

It MUST.

[Millstone85]

The gravity only works really for the floating land masses and ships. If you don't have a surface to move on you just drift it seems. Here is a in universe quote for someone waking up in the Astral Plane.By "just drift", do you mean that you are helpless, like you would be in outer space, or is it possible to mentally direct your movement? The quote ends before the character starts figuring that out.

[EvilAnagram]

By "just drift", do you mean that you are helpless, like you would be in outer space, or is it possible to mentally direct your movement? The quote ends before the character starts figuring that out.

You direct it. Your speed in the Astral is defined by your Intelligence, so your ability to comprehend that you get to direct your drift is directly related to your floating skills.

[Unoriginal]

You direct it. Your speed in the Astral is defined by your Intelligence, so your ability to comprehend that you get to direct your drift is directly related to your floating skills.

Oh yes, they float. We all float down there.

[Baptor]

I see a lot of people complaining this monster is "too simple" or whatever.

So I'm going to give you my 2cp and duck out, because I am sure a lot of people are going to disagree with me here. This opinion comes from 20 years of DMing various editions and keeping close tabs on the reactions of my players. Here's what I've observed.

1. Solo monsters get owned unless they are OP.
2. OP solo monsters steamroll the party.
3. Party members like steamrolling a solo, but hate being steamrolled.
4. Multiple monsters provide more balanced encounters.
5. Players tend to like multi-monster fights, even if they lose, because they feel like it was fair.
6. Players rarely notice "neat" abilities monsters have and don't really care.
7. Most "neat" abilities on a monster are never used due to them being situational or just forgotten about.

Thus in my games, I've reduced monsters down to the "sack of hp" that someone else decried earlier. However, I also assign what I call keywords that can make them interesting. For example, a monster with the keyword "poisonous" means that each time it hits you, you have to make a save or gain the poisoned condition. "Fear" means that a creature must make a saving throw each time it attacks or suffer disadvantage - once it saves it is immune to that creature's "fear."

As a DM, this makes the fights easier to create and run - and players like it because of the challenge. Maybe you hate this idea. Maybe your players would hate it. But I love it and so do my players, so YMMV and all of that.

SO - this ALL said - here's how I'd run this Dreadnought.
(if you're wondering where it's ability scores are, I'll give you a free tip about 5e D&D: monsters don't need ability scores if you understand the math, and actually players don't either)

The Astral Dreadnought
Gargantuan monstrosity
Hit points. 400
Armor Class. 20
Proficiency Bonus. +7
Saving Throws. Constitution +14, Strength +14, Others +7
Difficulty Class. 20*
Senses. Truesight 120ft.
Legendary Resistance. If the dreadnought fails a saving throw, it can sacrifice 30hp to succeed instead.
Donjon. Any creature reduced to 0hp by the dreadnought's attacks is imprisoned. If the dreadnought is killed all imprisoned creatures are freed.
Bonus Actions
Antimagic Eye. The dreadnought can cast dispel magic as a 9th level spell.
Banishment. One creature the dreadnought can see must make a Charisma saving throw or be banished to a harmless demiplane for one round.
Psychic Projection. (recharge 5-6) All enemies that can see the dreadnought take 14d6 (49 psychic) damage. A Wisdom saving throw reduces this damage by half.
Claw. +14 melee (29 slashing)
Actions
Multiattack.The dreadnought makes one bite and two claw attacks.
Bite. +14 melee (29 crushing)
Claw. +14 melee (29 slashing)

The statistics shown are in keeping with the rules from the Dungeon Master's Guide and I used this tool to ensure I kept it within the original CR of 21. *This DC is meant to be used for all abilities the monster has which call for a saving throw.

I guarantee most everyone here will think I'm insane and hate this. But I had a fun time making it and maybe someone else will like it too. I think it would be a fun encounter - though I am certain a party of 4 level 20's would obliterate this monster.

[MaxWilson]

It wouldn't take that much to make the Astral Dreadnought introduce interesting dramatic questions. A sort of minimalist effort would be to give it truesight (to defeat Skulker shenanigans) and enough stealth that worrying about an Astral Dreadnought suddenly popping up in your face is something you'd actually do on the Astral Plane. E.g. let it turn invisible 3/day and make it utterly silent. Now you can plausibly use it for questions like e.g. "can we pick the lock on the vault of this wrecked planejammer before an Astral Dreadnought shows up out of nowhere to eat our faces".

But using a monster in an interesting situation doesn't yet doesn't make the monster interesting in and of itself. So far it might as well be a generic monster with stats read off the Quick Monster CR tables in the DMG. To make them narratively interesting you'd want to introduce a couple of rumors or mysteries, like hinting they might be the larval stage of some other monster, or perhaps some engineered form of living vehicle (maybe by the Reigar), and that despite how sparse their population is (no one has ever seen more than one at a time) it also appears to be bottomless (no matter how many you kill, their frequency in an area does not diminish). Maybe add a table of what spills out of them when you kill them.


SO - this ALL said - here's how I'd run this Dreadnought.
(if you're wondering where it's ability scores are, I'll give you a free tip about 5e D&D: monsters don't need ability scores if you understand the math, and actually players don't either)

The Astral Dreadnought
Gargantuan monstrosity
Hit points. 400
Armor Class. 20
Proficiency Bonus. +6
Saving Throws. Constitution +12, Strength +12, Others +6
Difficulty Class. 16
Legendary Resistance. If the dreadnought fails a saving throw, it can sacrifice 30hp to succeed instead.
Donjon. Any creature reduced to 0hp by the dreadnought's attacks is imprisoned. If the dreadnought is killed all imprisoned creatures are freed.
Bonus Actions
Antimagic Eye. The dreadnought can cast dispel magic as a 9th level spell.
Banishment. One creature the dreadnought can see must make a Charisma saving throw or be banished to a harmless demiplane for one round.
Psychic Projection. (recharge 5-6) All enemies that can see the dreadnought take 14d6 (49 psychic) damage. A Wisdom saving throw reduces this damage by half.
Claw. +12 melee (29 slashing)
Actions
Multiattack.The dreadnought makes one bite and two claw attacks.
Bite. +12 melee (29 crushing)
Claw. +12 melee (29 slashing)

The statistics shown are in keeping with the rules from the Dungeon Master's Guide and I used this tool to ensure I kept it within the original CR of 21.

I guarantee most everyone here will think I'm insane and hate this. But I had a fun time making it and maybe someone else will like it too. I think it would be a fun encounter - though I am certain a party of 4 level 20's would obliterate this monster.

While it still has weaknesses, this is an improvement over the WotC version. I especially like the bits in bold. "All enemies that can see the dreadnought take 14d6 psychic damage (save for half)" is vastly superior to "all creatures within 60' take 2d10+4 (save for half)". I'd make it "all enemies the dreadnought can see" though so you can't just close your eyes. Either way though it's much better at justifying the creature's reputation as a terrifying force of nature.

[strangebloke]

It wouldn't take that much to make the Astral Dreadnought introduce interesting dramatic questions. A sort of minimalist effort would be to give it truesight (to defeat Skulker shenanigans) and enough stealth that worrying about an Astral Dreadnought suddenly popping up in your face is something you'd actually do on the Astral Plane. E.g. let it turn invisible 3/day and make it utterly silent. Now you can plausibly use it for questions like e.g. "can we pick the lock on the vault of this wrecked planejammer before an Astral Dreadnought shows up out of nowhere to eat our faces".

The astral plane isn't featureless. There are plenty of huge objects floating around.

Think of it like the huge worm thing from Star Wars episode 5. You're hiding from the gith fleet in mass of floating wreckage trying to squeeze out a short rest and then suddenly you find out why there's so much wreckage lying around. Or maybe this thing isn't a solo encounter because honestly those have always sucked and there's a wizard who's worked out a deal with the beast and casts invisibility on it so that it can sneak up on the party. Or maybe this thing covers itself in a bit of floating wreckage so that it looks like just another feature, and then when it gets close, GRAGH

Seriously, Max, with how often you pop into threads saying "Pff easy, could kill it with hirelings", and with how strenuously I find myself disagreeing with you, I wonder what motivates you? Do you just have a burning need to show yourself smarter than the game?

Monsters can't and should counter every strategy PCs could employ against them. That's bad design, and it's also easy design. Just make the thing immune to everything, capable of teleporting directly to the party at all times, and give it a bunch of health, AC, saves, legendary resistances, and at least one solid AOE ability. But that'd be a super lame monster. Players should be rewarded for having complicated, effective strategies.

[Baptor]

While it still has weaknesses, this is an improvement over the WotC version. I especially like the bits in bold. "All enemies that can see the dreadnought take 14d6 psychic damage (save for half)" is vastly superior to "all creatures within 60' take 2d10+4 (save for half)". I'd make it "all enemies the dreadnought can see" though so you can't just close your eyes. Either way though it's much better at justifying the creature's reputation as a terrifying force of nature.

You think it's an improvement? Thanks! :)

Yes I agree about the damage. My philosophy in monster design is best summed up in something I heard a coach tell her players, "If you're going to hit them, hit them!" I don't believe in giving monsters abilities that only do middling damage - even if it mechanically stacks up. Players are annoyed by 5 points of damage at level 20 - and we don't play D&D to be annoyed. Terrified? Sure. Challenged? Yes. But not annoyed.

Ah yes, I agree on your critique - I was thinking thematically and didn't think about PCs just averting their eyes. I will edit this and change it.

[JNAProductions]

DCR is JUST BARELY 20, and it's got enough saves and defensive abilities I feel safe bumping it up to DCR 21.

OCR is 18, but gains +1 for its attack bonus, so 19.

So its CR is a solid 20. No idea how you got 16 from that.

In addition, you forgot to list Save DCs for its abilities.

Edit: I should add, though, it's not a bad monster. I confess to preferring the actual one, since it's got more details, but yours works well too. So, sorry if this post comes across as a little harsh.

[Shining Wrath]

I think this would make for an interesting encounter for people traveling the astral plane if the thing could pop out from behind something floating around - a morkoth island, a githyanki city, something like that. In fact, an alliance between a morkoth and a dreadnought might make sense - dreadnought helps guard the island, morkoth can send minions outside the astral plane and bring back snacks for the dreadnought.

If you see it coming from a distance it's a classic "Don't let it close with you, stick and move" battle.

EDIT:

The Donjon is actually pretty interesting, because these things can happen:
1) PC "visits" the Donjon, and winds up next to something smart enough to realize that grappling the PC is the key to getting out (i.e., something that made its death saves after being swallowed). Ally, foe, or just interested in getting the heck out of the Donjon, it's interesting.
2) PC "visits" Donjon, and there's a magic item useful against the Dreadnought, possibly left there by someone who thought they could hunt the creature and failed - if they can grab it in time
3) Party kills Dreadnought, and an entire civilization is suddenly floating there on the astral plane; whoever was in charge of the Donjon may be upset that their domain has been destroyed. Kill Dreadnought, Mind Flayer arcanist attacks with surprise

[MaxWilson]

Seriously, Max, with how often you pop into threads saying "Pff easy, could kill it with hirelings", and with how strenuously I find myself disagreeing with you, I wonder what motivates you?

I'm on GITP to talk about things that interest me. I like it when people produce interesting ideas. I liked Baptor's changes to the Astral Dreadnought, and I really, really like what Courtney Campbell's done with vampires/trolls/elementals/hydras/doppelgangers/etc.

When I get bored I also sometimes give in to the temptation to comment on what makes boring content boring. It's a mistake in the same way that spending too much time on Facebook is a mistake. I already know that WotC is not going to produce anything as good as Courtney Campbell or Arnold K. does, so I probably shouldn't bother to even point that stuff out, and yet sometimes I waste time talking about it anyway.


Monsters can't and should counter every strategy PCs could employ against them. That's bad design, and it's also easy design. Just make the thing immune to everything, capable of teleporting directly to the party at all times, and give it a bunch of health, AC, saves, legendary resistances, and at least one solid AOE ability. But that'd be a super lame monster. Players should be rewarded for having complicated, effective strategies.

I agree that monsters shouldn't counter every strategy. But a monster should have either a good motivation for its actions (so the PCs can interact with it on the roleplaying level) or introduce some interesting mysteries and flavor (so its very existence is intriguing), and if a monster has a reputation as a terrifying force of nature it should be powerful enough against obvious strategies to justify that reputation.

[Baptor]

I really, really like what Courtney Campbell's done with vampires/trolls/elementals/hydras/doppelgangers/etc.

Whoa, can you point me in the direction of this person and their work? I did a quick search but didn't find anything of note. I am very interested!

[MaxWilson]

Whoa, can you point me in the direction of this person and their work? I did a quick search but didn't find anything of note. I am very interested!

Check out the Monster Ecology section listed on this page here: http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/p/index.html

For example:


Nomenclature: Pseudo-dragon, Wizard drake,

Description:

Things that are known:

They appear to be small dragons

They are known to have a poison sting

Rumors and other whispers in the dark:

Pseudo-dragons ally with wizards to create their starting hoard. The pact between the pseudodragon and the wizard grants 50% of all earnings to the dragon

Pseudodragons are simply manifestations of a casters superego. A caster realizes when his mind begins to slip and tries to save itself by physically manifesting. It rarely does any good, meaning the presence of a pseudo-dragon is a good sign that the wizard is about to go off the deep end.

If you welch on an agreement with a pseudodragon they will make your life miserable, allying with your greatest enemy and sharing all the darkest secrets

The common lore about 'pseudo-dragons' is completely incorrect, they are actually firedrakes. The 'sleep poison' is actually magma injected into the body, which is so painful that few can remain conscious throughout the process of injection.

They are psionic creatures, with powerful telepathy

Though popular, they are quite annoying as pets. They have a rabid Napoleon complex, they attack and posture any opponent, claim to have kidnapped anyone who fits the definition of damsel, they sit on piles of coins and refuse to budge until coaxed away. These annoyances insure only the most anti-social wizards keep pseudodragon as pets


Pseudodragons are actually fae creatures that are bright enough to realize that if they chimerically represent themselves as dragons, demi-humans and humans will be too stupid to realize how intelligent pseudodragons really are

They are actually cats, and just project the image of being like a dragon into the minds of those nearby

*snip lots more*


I love the ones in bold here.

I like to give players access to a bunch of rumors and make some of them turn out to be true.

One weird and unsettling thing you could do with Astral Dreadnoughts: it is rumored that some Astral Dreadnoughts will assume (or return to?) human form when slain.

=================================================


3) Party kills Dreadnought, and an entire civilization is suddenly floating there on the astral plane; whoever was in charge of the Donjon may be upset that their domain has been destroyed. Kill Dreadnought, Mind Flayer arcanist attacks with surprise

Does instantly attacking whatever just killed the Dreadnought really make sense for the Arcanist to do? Maybe if the PCs are all Githyanki/Githzerai, or if one of the PCs has badly offended the Arcanist during one of the Donjon Visits, but otherwise that's a very strange reaction IMO.

[Envyus]

I see a lot of people complaining this monster is "too simple" or whatever.

So I'm going to give you my 2cp and duck out, because I am sure a lot of people are going to disagree with me here. This opinion comes from 20 years of DMing various editions and keeping close tabs on the reactions of my players. Here's what I've observed.

The Astral Dreadnought.

Yeah I for sure don't like this as much as the official one.

[Envyus]

I'm on GITP to talk about things that interest me. I like it when people produce interesting ideas. I liked Baptor's changes to the Astral Dreadnought, and I really, really like what Courtney Campbell's done with vampires/trolls/elementals/hydras/doppelgangers/etc.

When I get bored I also sometimes give in to the temptation to comment on what makes boring content boring. It's a mistake in the same way that spending too much time on Facebook is a mistake. I already know that WotC is not going to produce anything as good as Courtney Campbell or Arnold K. does, so I probably shouldn't bother to even point that stuff out, and yet sometimes I waste time talking about it anyway.



I agree that monsters shouldn't counter every strategy. But a monster should have either a good motivation for its actions (so the PCs can interact with it on the roleplaying level) or introduce some interesting mysteries and flavor (so its very existence is intriguing), and if a monster has a reputation as a terrifying force of nature it should be powerful enough against obvious strategies to justify that reputation.

Yeah but none of the stuff you have been spouting has been accurate even. Baptor's Dreadnought is actually weaker then normal one. And you were pointed out to be wrong about pretty much everything you posted earlier and ignored any respose.

What kind of obvious strategies can defeat an Astral Dreadnought easily. Cause as we pointed out earlier your Mongol Horse Archers get their asses kicked.

[Baptor]

DCR is JUST BARELY 20, and it's got enough saves and defensive abilities I feel safe bumping it up to DCR 21.

OCR is 18, but gains +1 for its attack bonus, so 19.

So its CR is a solid 20. No idea how you got 16 from that.

In addition, you forgot to list Save DCs for its abilities.

Edit: I should add, though, it's not a bad monster. I confess to preferring the actual one, since it's got more details, but yours works well too. So, sorry if this post comes across as a little harsh.

First, thank you for the positive comment at the end. :) That alone takes out any harshness your comment may have had.

Second, I should apologize as there are a few things in my workup of the monster that include assumptions. That is things i do at my table you might not do at yours.

I didn't include DCs for the individual abilities because I use a single Difficult Class for all of a monster's abilities. So the DC 16 you see is meant to be used for anything that calls for a saving throw. I do this to simplify and save space.

The DC is too low. The DC for a creature of this CR should be 20. However, I lowered it on purpose. As a DM I prefer easier saving throws in my games. (see below) I will, for the sake of the community, raise it to 20.

I have found, in general, that DCs are simply too high in 5e. In fact, I find the entire concept of saving throws hopelessly broken in 5e.

A PC will, on average, have one or two decent saving throws. The rest are going to range from around -1 to +2. This is just a ballpark. Against a DC of 20, that is insanity. That's a 5-10% chance. You aren't going to make that.

Even against my DC of 16, you'd have only around a 25% give or take of success with any of your miscellaneous saves. There's no guarantee your best save will be +11 (+6 prof, +5 ability), but even if it is, that's just a 45% chance on your very best saving throw.

I've tinkered around with saves, trying to find a more balanced solution. IMHO, a character should have about a 50% chance to make any given saving throw unless its a real weakness, and a 80-90% chance of making his best saving throw.

Consider characters in AD&D and how good they were at saves once they got to higher levels. At high levels, the average roll required to save is around 5. That's a 75% chance to make the save. At low level they often saved between 14-17, which is still an average of about 25% chance. Loads better than the scant 5-10% chance under normal rules.

I have plans to actually return to AD&D saving throws, but I think my players would flip, even if it was in their favor.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah but none of the stuff you have been spouting has been accurate even. Baptor's Dreadnought is actually weaker then normal one. And you were pointed out to be wrong about pretty much everything you posted earlier and ignored any respose.

I'm working on my response in the form of a Monte Carlo sim to illustrate the problem, but it requires some time.

[Unoriginal]

I'm on GITP to talk about things that interest me.

I'm pretty sure you said you weren't interested in 5e anymore in another thread, though.




I agree that monsters shouldn't counter every strategy. But a monster should have either a good motivation for its actions (so the PCs can interact with it on the roleplaying level) or introduce some interesting mysteries and flavor (so its very existence is intriguing), and if a monster has a reputation as a terrifying force of nature it should be powerful enough against obvious strategies to justify that reputation.

And against which obvious strategies is the Dreadnought not powerful enough?

Also, not to insult Baptor's efforts or anything, but you've praised his version of the monster when it is straight up weaker than the 5e version, except for the 400 HPs.




The Astral Dreadnought
Gargantuan monstrosity
Hit points. 400


And your first complain about the Astral Dreadnought was that it was a "boring bag of HPs."

[Beechgnome]

I cast Calm Emotions on this thread.

Anyone have proficiency in Charisma saving throws?

[NecroDancer]

I enjoy the astral dreadnought. I kinda wish they kept the old DeTerlizzi artwork but overall this could be a very fun encounter.

I could easily see this creature as a monster that will show up unannounced to a fight already taking place (someone earlier in this thread had an example involving the githyanki).

[Unoriginal]

A PC will, on average, have one or two decent saving throws. The rest are going to range from around -1 to +2. This is just a ballpark. Against a DC of 20, that is insanity. That's a 5-10% chance. You aren't going to make that.

Even against my DC of 16, you'd have only around a 25% give or take of success with any of your miscellaneous saves. There's no guarantee your best save will be +11 (+6 prof, +5 ability), but even if it is, that's just a 45% chance on your very best saving throw.


That's the point, though?

Monsters are supposed to be able to hit the PCs at minimum 5% of the time. Saving throws are just the "this monster is less likely to hit X PC classes and more likely to hit Y classes, but there is no crits".

Also, aside from very powerful beings, the DC is really not that high.

[strangebloke]

I agree that monsters shouldn't counter every strategy. But a monster should have either a good motivation for its actions (so the PCs can interact with it on the roleplaying level) or introduce some interesting mysteries and flavor (so its very existence is intriguing)
See, all this I agree with, and the Astral Dreadnought is like 50/50 for me. On the one hand, it is a very argly bargly monster. It joins the honored ranks of 'big things that eat things' along with the T-Rex, Dire Shark, Owlbear, Neothilid, and purple worm. That said, it has a few cool plot hooks. There's the potential for a whole city hiding inside of the beast, living off of the carcasses of the creatures that the dreadnough eats. That's cool! Fricking awesome, actually. There's the potential that the donjon is the location of a dungeon, so the players either have to descend into the corpse of a dead god to fight this thing and win... or they have to be clever. Plenty of possibilities.

and if a monster has a reputation as a terrifying force of nature it should be powerful enough against obvious strategies to justify that reputation.

obvious
See, this is where I always take issue with you.

"Obvious."

Your earlier example was a pack of horse-archers riding through the Astral sea. Aside from the problems with such a plan, I would hazard to say that that isn't an "obvious" strategy. Like, on a purely logistic level, you had to acquire a small army, get them onto the astral plane and equip them. That's a lot of extra work, and the result may very well be for nothing unless you're going there to kill this specific monster.

Similarly, you talk about 'skulker shenanigans' which I'm guessing involves someone under greater invisibility repeatedly hiding, attacking, and moving. Once again, that involves a specific feat/spell/skill combo and only works for one person... hardly something I'd consider obvious.

Something that's "obvious" to kill is the tarrasque. Just fly away and you're golden. This guy is a lot harder to kill, particularly when he's in the astral sea.

[Unoriginal]

Similarly, you talk about 'skulker shenanigans' which I'm guessing involves someone under greater invisibility repeatedly hiding, attacking, and moving. Once again, that involves a specific feat/spell/skill combo and only works for one person... hardly something I'd consider obvious.

Using magical hiding against a creature with an anti-magic cone is certainly not obvious.

[MaxWilson]

I'm pretty sure you said you weren't interested in 5e anymore in another thread, though.

Not as a TTRPG, no. It isn't good at the things a TTRPG needs to be good at to fulfill its unique value proposition, like infinite resolution, sense of wonder, and boundless creativity. (Easy example: 5E doesn't gracefully support adventures involving giants the size of mountains, or adventures INSIDE of giants the size of mountains.) I've said repeatedly that I continue to be interested in 5E as a CRPG though, hence why I'm computerizing the Astral Dreadnought scenario. It's pretty close to what I've been doing already anyway--I just need to split off a section of code and do some quick-and-dirty hacks to cover things that I don't have a good implementation for yet.

The things that don't work well in 5E are the sorts of things that CRPGs don't tend to let you do anyway. The things that Astral Dreadnoughts are weak against are the kinds of things that CRPGs tend not to let you do. You see the correlation here?


And your first complain about the Astral Dreadnought was that it was a "boring bag of HPs."

LOL. Nice job on the intellectual dishonesty. Snipping the interesting parts of Baptor's stat block, like unlimited range and vastly increased damage on its psychic attack, and a new variant of Legendary Resistance, does not prevent the rest of us from knowing that they're there.

I noted that Baptor's variant still has weaknesses, and I explained in detail what I think it would take to make the Astral Dreadnought narratively interesting, but it's still stronger and more tactically interesting than the WotC version. You can't just kill it with the same old tactics you use to kill Fire Giants.

========================================


I could easily see this creature as a monster that will show up unannounced to a fight already taking place (someone earlier in this thread had an example involving the githyanki).

It would be interesting if they had some kind of ability to materialize at places of psychic stress and violence. E.g. a N% chance of an Astral Dreadnought materializing any time a creature of level N or CR N dies or has its silver cord severed on the Astral Plane.

========================================


See, all this I agree with, and the Astral Dreadnought is like 50/50 for me. On the one hand, it is a very argly bargly monster. It joins the honored ranks of 'big things that eat things' along with the T-Rex, Dire Shark, Owlbear, Neothilid, and purple worm. That said, it has a few cool plot hooks. There's the potential for a whole city hiding inside of the beast, living off of the carcasses of the creatures that the dreadnough eats. That's cool! Fricking awesome, actually. There's the potential that the donjon is the location of a dungeon, so the players either have to descend into the corpse of a dead god to fight this thing and win... or they have to be clever. Plenty of possibilities.

This is a cool idea, but I think it would work better if the Donjon remained after the creature's death, instead of disappearing. It's a missed opportunity.

========================================


See, this is where I always take issue with you.

"Obvious."

Your earlier example was a pack of horse-archers riding through the Astral sea. Aside from the problems with such a plan

I didn't say it was the Astral sea--my bad for forgetting that the Astral Dreadnought automatically dies anywhere except the Astral plane. So either you've got the fantasy equivalent of Mongol horse-archers, like gnolls riding on Perytons, or you just forget about the mobility angle and kill it on foot. (Which is actually flotation, in the Astral plane.) It doesn't make much difference--either way it's the primary method that humanoid tool users have for defending themselves against pretty much every monstrous threat in the D&D universe.


I would hazard to say that that isn't an "obvious" strategy. Like, on a purely logistic level, you had to acquire a small army, get them onto the astral plane and equip them. That's a lot of extra work, and the result may very well be for nothing unless you're going there to kill this specific monster.

It's the same strategy a human community will use against everything else too.


Similarly, you talk about 'skulker shenanigans' which I'm guessing involves someone under greater invisibility repeatedly hiding, attacking, and moving. Once again, that involves a specific feat/spell/skill combo and only works for one person... hardly something I'd consider obvious.

Skulker shenanigans don't require Greater Invisibility. I think they're pretty obvious but I don't want to divert attention to them now by elaborating. I just mentioned adding Truesight to the Astral Dreadnought because many high-level monsters, like dragons and Nycaloths and Pit Fiends, have vision good enough that Skulker tricks stop working on them. The Astral Dreadnought does not, and in that respect it more closely resembles low- or mid-level monsters than high-end monsters. I'll stop myself there so as not to provoke a tangent.

[Shining Wrath]

Check out the Monster Ecology section listed on this page here: http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/p/index.html

For example:



I love the ones in bold here.

I like to give players access to a bunch of rumors and make some of them turn out to be true.

One weird and unsettling thing you could do with Astral Dreadnoughts: it is rumored that some Astral Dreadnoughts will assume (or return to?) human form when slain.

=================================================



Does instantly attacking whatever just killed the Dreadnought really make sense for the Arcanist to do? Maybe if the PCs are all Githyanki/Githzerai, or if one of the PCs has badly offended the Arcanist during one of the Donjon Visits, but otherwise that's a very strange reaction IMO.

Assumption is that the Arcanist was the classic big fish in a small pond, ruler of all it surveyed, and now is surveying an astral plane that it rules essentially none of. Hence, profound anger. Remember Mind Flayers in general are arrogant and hostile creatures, so having a bunch of upstart cattle deprive it of its domain would likely result in conflict.

[MaxWilson]

Assumption is that the Arcanist was the classic big fish in a small pond, ruler of all it surveyed, and now is surveying an astral plane that it rules essentially none of. Hence, profound anger. Remember Mind Flayers in general are arrogant and hostile creatures, so having a bunch of upstart cattle deprive it of its domain would likely result in conflict.

I'm not sure I buy that kind of instant aggression as a reasonable response for a highly intelligent but physically-weak creature (CR 7) facing down creatures which is knows to have just slain a strong creature (CR 21). It would seem far more intelligent to collect some data first, at minimum finding out what kind of opposition it would be facing.

If you tweak the scenario slightly I think you could give it a good motive though. For example, an Arcanist with a handful of Intellect Devourer minions might view the aftermath of the Astral Dreadnought's death as a now-or-never opportunity to gain powerful hosts for his Intellect Devourers, while those who killed the Astral Dreadnought are still weakened from their battle with it.

[EvilAnagram]

I'm pretty sure you said you weren't interested in 5e anymore in another thread, though.

Funnily enough, I read his original comment to my wife, and she said, "Why does he post there when he clearly hates the game?"

Good question.

[strangebloke]

I didn't say it was the Astral sea--my bad for forgetting that the Astral Dreadnought automatically dies anywhere

It's an Astral Dreadnought, that lives in the astral sea, and has special tools for fighting astrally projected adventurers. I think it is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make that it's primary environment is the astral sea. This is like saying that Tarrasques don't do well in aquatic encounters.

Combat is broken when you have a number of participants greater than 20 or so, and besides that, if you add 50 level 1 raiders to your party composition you would expect them to steamroll a lot of crap.

[Unoriginal]

Not as a TTRPG, no. It isn't good at the things a TTRPG has its unique value proposition, like infinite resolution and creativity. I've said repeatedly that I continue to be interested in 5E as a CRPG though, hence why I'm computerizing the Astral Dreadnought scenario. It's pretty close to what I've been doing already anyway--I just need to split off a section of code and do some quick-and-dirty hacks.

That's ridiculous. YOU are the one who want to remove all the infinite resolution and creativity of the game by making it a computer RPG.

Your computerized scenario won't demonstrate anything we can work with. Because it's a computerized scenario, and not a TTRPG simulation.

It's like saying "see, those PCs can totally beat those Red Wizards of Thay, they did it in when I tested it in Baldur's Gate".



The things that don't work well in 5E are the sorts of things that CRPGs don't tend to let you do anyway. The things that Astral Dreadnoughts are weak against are the kinds of things that CRPGs tend not to let you do. You see the correlation here?

So you're saying that




LOL. Nice job on the intellectual dishonesty. Snipping the interesting parts of Baptor's stat block, like unlimited range and vastly increased damage on its psychic attack, and a new variant of Legendary Resistance, does not prevent the rest of us from knowing that they're there.

Yes, they're here. But that doesn't change the fact that Baptor's statblock is weaker than the 5e monster, with only the 400 HPs stopping it from being entirely outclassed. Nice job on the intellectual dishonesty pretending that those things you like are inherently more interesting.



but it's still stronger and more tactically interesting than the WotC version.

No it's not.




You can't just kill it with the same old tactics you use to kill Fire Giants.

Actually, you can. Use Invisibility to get close, then once you're close enough the Invisibility can't help you, stab it to death.

Same tactic you use against Fire Giants who have a pile of rocks to throw.


I didn't say it was the Astral sea--my bad for forgetting that the Astral Dreadnought automa




Skulker shenanigans don't require Greater Invisibility. I think they're pretty obvious but I don't want to divert attention to them now by elaborating. I just mentioned adding Truesight to the Astral Dreadnought because many high-level monsters, like dragons and Nycaloths and Pit Fiends, have vision good enough that Skulker tricks stop working on them. The Astral Dreadnought does not, and in that respect it more closely resembles low- or mid-level monsters than high-end monsters. I'll stop myself there so as not to provoke a tangent.

Oh, really?

Please enlighten us, which of the Skulker's shenanigans will be stopped by Truesight but not by the Anti-Magic Cone?

[MaxWilson]

It's an Astral Dreadnought, that lives in the astral sea, and has special tools for fighting astrally projected adventurers. I think it is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make that it's primary environment is the astral sea.

I have this weird feeling of deja vu, as if I just addressed this point, maybe in the very post you snipped everything except one sentence from.

[Millstone85]

It's an Astral Dreadnought, that lives in the astral sea, and has special tools for fighting astrally projected adventurers. I think it is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make that it's primary environment is the astral sea.It is more than its primary environment. According to this trait it has...
Astral Entity. The astral dreadnought can't leave the Astral Plane, nor can it be banished or otherwise transported out of the Astral Plane. you literally can't meet one anywhere else.

[MaxWilson]

That's ridiculous. YOU are the one who want to remove all the infinite resolution and creativity of the game by making it a computer RPG.

Sorry dude, all of that stuff is already gone from 5E already. DMs can put in a lot of work and invent house rules to restore them, and I spent a couple of years doing that, but eventually I realized I was fighting the system too much. Use 5E for what it's good at instead of trying to turn it into FATE or GURPS.


Your computerized scenario won't demonstrate anything we can work with. Because it's a computerized scenario, and not a TTRPG simulation.

It's like saying "see, those PCs can totally beat those Red Wizards of Thay, they did it in when I tested it in Baldur's Gate".

*raised eyebrows* What substantive differences do you see between a 5E encounter on a battlegrid and a 5E encounter on a computerized battlegrid? All of your actions, bonus actions, movement, etc. works exactly the same, and while I'm a big fan of TTRPG-oriented actions like having one PC try to decoy the Dreadnought away from the others with illusions long enough for another PC to start up a planejamming helm on the nearby wrecked ship and ram the creature from outside its antimagic cone--while I'm a big fan of that kind of player improvisation in a TTRPG (even when it doesn't work), discussion on this forum leads me to believe that that's not how most people actually play 5E. If it were, crummy little quantitative bonuses like the Barbarian capstone and the Dueling fighting style wouldn't impress anyone at all--you'd hear a lot less about Improved Critical and a lot more about how awesome Phantom Steed and Rope Trick are.


Please enlighten us, which of the Skulker's shenanigans will be stopped by Truesight but not by the Anti-Magic Cone?

You can't really be that ignorant, can you? Think about the interaction between Skulker and darkvision for a second.

[Baptor]

That's the point, though?

Monsters are supposed to be able to hit the PCs at minimum 5% of the time. Saving throws are just the "this monster is less likely to hit X PC classes and more likely to hit Y classes, but there is no crits".

Also, aside from very powerful beings, the DC is really not that high.

First, I think you mean monsters are supposed to only miss PCs 5% of the time, because if they only hit the PCs 5% of the time that would be a very easy game. :smallbiggrin:

Secondly, that's not true. Most monsters I see have around +6 - +8 to hit in the Monster Manual. Most PCs of mid-level will have an AC of around 17-20. That is roughly a 50% chance to hit most of the time. (Huh, didn't I say a saving throw chance of about 50% is pretty fair?)

In the example of our Astral Dreadnought, the official version has a +16 to hit. It's not unreasonable for a level 20 warrior character with magic items to have around a 22 AC in the normal game. That's a 25% miss chance, not 5%.

Thirdly, you're ignoring the huge disparity in saving throws. A Cleric with max Wisdom (not unusual) has a +11 Wisdom saving throw. A wizard will likely have a +7 (Wis 12, Proficient). A fighter will have a +1 if he's lucky (Wis 12, non-proficient). Assuming a DC 20 Wisdom save from everyone's favorite Dreadnought, that's a 45%, 35%, and 10% chance of success respectively. None of them, not even the maxed out cleric has the odds in their favor. That is unheard of in D&D. Even back in the swinging days of 3e you were expected to make almost every saving throw for your primary save. Rogues pretty much never lost a Reflex save.

If you compare saving throws to Armor Class, and you have, there is no comparison really. A wizard with mage armor has an AC of 14-15. A fighter in full plate has 18. A rogue in studded leather with good Dex has 17. A monster has only about a difference of 15-20% chance to hit any one of them. By contrast, the disparity in saving throws mentioned above ranges from 25-35%. That's a big gap between the haves and the have nots.

Finally, and most importantly, there's a big difference between "hitting" with a club for 10 points of crushing damage and "hitting" with a charm that allows you to control the target and have it kill its friends. Or "hitting" with a mind blast and rendering it immobilized for your brain extraction attack.

If all spells or save-effect abilities did was deal damage, I could get behind what you are saying, but save-effects are much MUCH more powerful. In some cases failing a single saving throw could mean your side losing the battle. Losing a battle as the result of a single roll that you have an overwhelming disadvantage on is insane.

Say what you will, but if I had the option of having my Armor Class stand in for all my saving throws, I would.

[Unoriginal]

Sorry dude, all of that stuff is already gone from 5E already. DMs can put in a lot of work and invent house rules to restore them, and I spent a couple of years doing that, but eventually I realized I was fighting the system too much. Use 5E for what it's good at instead of trying to turn it into FATE or GURPS.

You don't need a lot of work. Those things are already there, as I experience whenever my friends and I do a session.



*raised eyebrows* What substantive differences do you see between a 5E encounter on a battlegrid and a 5E encounter on a computerized battlegrid?

If you're just using the computer to have a battlegrid, you don't *require* the computer to have the battlegrid. You could have a physical one and there would be no difference.

If you're using the computer to create some kind of script defining how the combatants should do X in Y situation, then it's valueless for a TTRPG simulation.



All of your actions, bonus actions, movement, etc. works exactly the same, and while I'm a big fan of TTRPG-oriented actions like having one PC try to decoy the Dreadnought away from the others with illusions long enough for another PC to start up a planejamming helm on the nearby wrecked ship and ram the creature from outside its antimagic cone--while I'm a big fan of that kind of player improvisation in a TTRPG (even when it doesn't work), discussion on this forum leads me to believe that that's not how most people actually play 5E. If it were, crummy little quantitative bonuses like the Barbarian capstone and the Dueling fighting style wouldn't impress anyone at all--you'd hear a lot less about Improved Critical and a lot more about how awesome Phantom Steed and Rope Trick are.


Ah, yes, the old "martials can't do anything, it's the spells who hold all the power and cleverness and tactical thinking" mindset.

You can't use illusions as decoy from the Dreadnought, they dissipate anytime it looks in their direction at any relevant range. You don't need a planejamming helm to throw wrecked ships in the Astral




You can't really be that ignorant, can you? Think about the interaction between Skulker and darkvision for a second.

I thought about it, and I still don't see what you're trying to say.

You're aware the Dreadnought is in the Astral Plane, right? How are you putting it in a situation where Skulker can be taken advantage of, without magic?

[MaxWilson]

You don't need a lot of work. Those things are already there, as I experience whenever my friends and I do a session.

If you're just using the computer to have a battlegrid, you don't *require* the computer to have the battlegrid. You could have a physical one and there would be no difference.

Precisely. There's no difference between running 5E on a physical battlegrid or a computerized battlegrid. As long as you stick to battlegrid-type actions like pre-defined Actions and Bonus Actions, there's not much need for a DM either. I don't mind players getting to express themselves by exercising their predefined character abilities on hapless foes, Smiting and grappling and power attacking and whatnot, but I have only very limited patience for running that kind of fight before I ask myself, "Why am I even rolling these dice and deciding who the Chuul attacks? Why isn't a computer doing this for me?"


If you're using the computer to create some kind of script defining how the combatants should do X in Y situation, then it's valueless for a TTRPG simulation.

That is a false but not entirely meritless statement. It has some value, but it has more value if I actually let you take control of the Astral Dreadnought. If it still can't win the fight even with Unoriginal controlling it, then it's not going to be able to do so at the table either.

So a Monte Carlo sim has value, but an actual mini-CRPG has more value.


I thought about it, and I still don't see what you're trying to say.

You're aware the Dreadnought is in the Astral Plane, right? How are you putting it in a situation where Skulker can be taken advantage of, without magic?

Think about what is required to hide when you have Skulker. Is a creature in darkness visible, lightly obscured, or heavily obscured from a creature when it's within that creature's Darkvision range? How about when it's within the creature's Truesight range? What's the difference?

[Unoriginal]

First, I think you mean monsters are supposed to only miss PCs 5% of the time, because if they only hit the PCs 5% of the time that would be a very easy game. :smallbiggrin:

No, I meant that there is *at minimum* 5% chances for an enemy to hit you, with attacks. You might be a AC 22 hero, a kobold will still hit you with a 20 on the die.



Secondly, that's not true. Most monsters I see have around +6 - +8 to hit in the Monster Manual. Most PCs of mid-level will have an AC of around 17-20. That is roughly a 50% chance to hit most of the time. (Huh, didn't I say a saving throw chance of about 50% is pretty fair?)

Yes, and most of the saving throw have a DC 12-14, which is still around 40% for most characters, with no chance to crit.



In the example of our Astral Dreadnought, the official version has a +16 to hit. It's not unreasonable for a level 20 warrior character with magic items to have around a 22 AC in the normal game. That's a 25% miss chance, not 5%.

It's not unreasonable, true, but it's not the most common either, and again, Anti-Magic Cone. A large majority of the melee characters will have 17-20 (5% and 20% chances to miss respectively), and the non-melee likely significantly less.



Thirdly, you're ignoring the huge disparity in saving throws. A Cleric with max Wisdom (not unusual) has a +11 Wisdom saving throw. A wizard will likely have a +7 (Wis 12, Proficient). A fighter will have a +1 if he's lucky (Wis 12, non-proficient). Assuming a DC 20 Wisdom save from everyone's favorite Dreadnought, that's a 45%, 35%, and 10% chance of success respectively. None of them, not even the maxed out cleric has the odds in their favor. That is unheard of in D&D. Even back in the swinging days of 3e you were expected to make almost every saving throw for your primary save. Rogues pretty much never lost a Reflex save.

And that's quite the exceptional ability, isn't it?

It's meant to be that scary.



If you compare saving throws to Armor Class, and you have, there is no comparison really. A wizard with mage armor has an AC of 14-15. A fighter in full plate has 18. A rogue in studded leather with good Dex has 17. A monster has only about a difference of 15-20% chance to hit any one of them. By contrast, the disparity in saving throws mentioned above ranges from 25-35%. That's a big gap between the haves and the have nots.

Actually, the Dreadnought has between 90% and 95% chances to hit any one of them.



Finally, and most importantly, there's a big difference between "hitting" with a club for 10 points of crushing damage and "hitting" with a charm that allows you to control the target and have it kill its friends. Or "hitting" with a mind blast and rendering it immobilized for your brain extraction attack.

If all spells or save-effect abilities did was deal damage, I could get behind what you are saying, but save-effects are much MUCH more powerful. In some cases failing a single saving throw could mean your side losing the battle. Losing a battle as the result of a single roll that you have an overwhelming disadvantage on is insane.


5e has precious few "saves or die" effects. Most effects you need saving throw against let you re-roll at the end of each turn, or any time you're hurt. And there is very few effects that'd let you easily do things like control the target and have it kill its friend.

The Astral Dreadnought is one of the few creature I'm aware off that has that kind of "exclude on of the PCs from the turn, with very high DC" abilities. But again, it's meant to be scary (and to diminish the effect the action economy of a lot of PCs vs 1 monster has on the fight).

[MaxWilson]

No, I meant that there is *at minimum* 5% chances for an enemy to hit you, with attacks. You might be a AC 22 hero, a kobold will still hit you with a 20 on the die.

Or an 18, or a 19...



The Astral Dreadnought is one of the few creature I'm aware off that has that kind of "exclude on of the PCs from the turn, with very high DC" abilities. But again, it's meant to be scary (and to diminish the effect the action economy of a lot of PCs vs 1 monster has on the fight).

It doesn't exclude the PC from participating that round. It just forces the PC to ready their action instead of taking it immediately, which may have secondary effects on their concentration or ability to achieve optimal positioning before taking that action. But it's only a degradation in efficiency, not an exclusion.

[Baptor]

Ah, yes, the old "martials can't do anything, it's the spells who hold all the power and cleverness and tactical thinking" mindset.

I don't think he means that. When he mentions this part:


that that's not how most people actually play 5E. If it were, crummy little quantitative bonuses like the Barbarian capstone and the Dueling fighting style wouldn't impress anyone at all--you'd hear a lot less about Improved Critical and a lot more about how awesome Phantom Steed and Rope Trick are.

I think what he's trying to say is that if people were really "thinking outside the box" we'd see far fewer arguments about capstones, dueling style, DPS, and more about how to use those abilities that have little to do with combat directly.

For example, using Athletics to leap onto a dragon's back for a free chance at a critical strike! That's an example that doesn't involve magic.

I'm sure lots of people do play that way - but I get LOTS of backlash here when I propose anything outside RAW. I've lost count of the replies I've seen here saying things like:


You can't do that.


Not if you're playing 5e.


Wrong.

Oh my.

So while I don't totally agree with MW that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, I DO feel as if there is a bias here towards more grid-based tactical RPG than an immersive fantasy game. And really there's nothing wrong with that, D&D was born from a tactical game and in its earliest days was just a dungeon delve with miniatures. If you're still playing that way, you're playing D&D my friend.

I think most D&D DMs and Players would be much happier if they could figure out and admit the kind of game they want to run. I know DMs who run 5e very fast and loose with the rules and just ignore stuff all over the place in the name of fun and storytelling. I also know DMs who map out every encounter, lay out multiple mats and grids and we get down and dirty with the minis and the tactics. In the end, D&D is such a great game because it can be either, but you've got to decide which kind of D&D you gonna play.

[strangebloke]

Think about what is required to hide when you have Skulker. Is a creature in darkness visible, lightly obscured, or heavily obscured from a creature when it's within that creature's Darkvision range? How about when it's within the creature's Truesight range? What's the difference?

Not at all interested in the simulation question, so I'll just reply to this:

Skulker works well, yes, if you encounter the Dreadnought in an area where it's possible. Lumination comes from all directions, so natural darkness (nonmagical, because of antimagic cone) means that you're fighting in a unique type of environment, like an asteroid or a tunnel or a nebula or something.

I'm perfectly ok with an enemy being unable to attack a PC due to an interaction between the environment and a specialized feat they took.

Even then, that only helps the PC who has the skulker feat. Everyone else is exposed. So I still don't see how this trivializes anything.

[JackPhoenix]

Snip

Yes, people discussing rules of D&D actually talk about rules that are (or are supposed to be) common to everyone (i.e. what's actually written in the books), instead of "I shoot you!" "No you don't, I dodge your bullets!" style freeform that's specific to one gaming table if the person making the post doesn't mentions he's talking about his houserules nobody else knows.

What a surprise.

[smcmike]

You can't really be that ignorant, can you? Think about the interaction between Skulker and darkvision for a second.

Why don’t you try explaining what you mean, instead of rudely talking in circles?

Just a thought.



I think what he's trying to say is that if people were really "thinking outside the box" we'd see far fewer arguments about capstones, dueling style, DPS, and more about how to use those abilities that have little to do with combat directly.

For example, using Athletics to leap onto a dragon's back for a free chance at a critical strike! That's an example that doesn't involve magic..

The question is whether you are finding a bias in the game design or a bias in forum discussion topics. A lot of forum discussions are limited to mechanical interactions simply because they are replicable enough to provide a shared basis of discussion. You can only get so far explaining the cool thing your DM let you do, even though it is only loosely tied to the letter of the rules. That doesn’t necessarily mean that DMs aren’t letting players do cool things, or that those things aren’t authentically cool, just that there isn’t much to say to strangers on the internet about this interaction.

[Unoriginal]

Precisely. There's no difference between running 5E on a physical battlegrid or a computerized battlegrid. As long as you stick to battlegrid-type actions like pre-defined Actions and Bonus Actions, there's not much need for a DM either. I don't mind players getting to express themselves by exercising their predefined character abilities on hapless foes, Smiting and grappling and power attacking and whatnot, but I have only very limited patience for running that kind of fight before I ask myself, "Why am I even rolling these dice and deciding who the Chuul attacks? Why isn't a computer doing this for me?"

The battlegrid doesn't limit the actions you can take. It just makes you follow the numerical distances, ranges and lengths of the game more closely than with Theater of the Mind.

A DM with a Chuul has near-unlimited number of possible and creative actions, with the "near" being defined by the environment. Imagine a fight in a camp site near a river. Maybe the Chuul won't attack, preferring to bait the Barbarian closer to the water so it can grapple them and drown them next turn. Maybe it'll grab a tree trunk and throw it at the wizard. Maybe it'll flee in the water. Maybe it'll charge and try to push the ranger into the camp's fire. Or maybe it'll try to attack with its natural weapons.

Near endless possibilities, even with a battlegrid. You'll never have this if you want a computer program to do a randomizing of "X attacks Y. Again".




Think about what is required to hide when you have Skulker. Is a creature in darkness visible, lightly obscured, or heavily obscured from a creature when it's within that creature's Darkvision range? How about when it's within the creature's Truesight range? What's the difference?

...again, how are you going to get darkness in the Astral? Without using magic?





That is a false but not entirely meritless statement. It has some value, but it has more value if I actually let you take control of the Astral Dreadnought. If it still can't win the fight even with Unoriginal controlling it, then it's not going to be able to do so at the table either.

So a Monte Carlo sim has value, but an actual mini-CRPG has more value.

I'm confused, here. How would a mini-CRPG give me or anyone control over the monster?

THAT BEING SAID, if you want to have a battle of the Astral Dreadnought controlled by me vs a team of PCs controlled by you, with a third person to DM this, I would gladly accept. We can do that on the Play-by-Post section of the forum, if you wish.


Hell, if you want each PC to be controlled by a different player vs the Dreadnought controlled by me, I'll also gladly accept.




Skulker works well, yes, if you encounter the Dreadnought in an area where it's possible. Lumination comes from all directions, so natural darkness (nonmagical, because of antimagic cone) means that you're fighting in a unique type of environment, like an asteroid or a tunnel or a nebula or something.

All directions means all directions. An asteroid or a nebula won't do anything, it'd have to be a tunnel or a building with opening narrows enough the light can't reach all the way.

And then someone make a Gargantuan bruiser fight you there.

[Shining Wrath]

Sorry dude, all of that stuff is already gone from 5E already. DMs can put in a lot of work and invent house rules to restore them ... SNIP ....

I DM two 5e campaigns, including one from a WotC book. This statement is untrue.

[MaxWilson]

I think what he's trying to say is that if people were really "thinking outside the box" we'd see far fewer arguments about capstones, dueling style, DPS, and more about how to use those abilities that have little to do with combat directly.

For example, using Athletics to leap onto a dragon's back for a free chance at a critical strike! That's an example that doesn't involve magic.


Or attacking its wings to try to make it crash. Or trying to prevent a spellcaster from casting spells by sticking a sock in his mouth and grabbing both hands.

That's the gist, yes. I'm not saying fully exploiting boundless creativity wouldn't result in other differences as well, in and out of combat, but when you're playing outside the box, small numerical differences have a lesser impact on play compared to player choices (and player judgment/timing).


So while I don't totally agree with MW that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, I DO feel as if there is a bias here towards more grid-based tactical RPG than an immersive fantasy game. And really there's nothing wrong with that, D&D was born from a tactical game and in its earliest days was just a dungeon delve with miniatures. If you're still playing that way, you're playing D&D my friend.

I don't think I am suggesting throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I just got tired of trying to make 5E be a different kind of game, and then I tried running 5E as a hack-and-slash combat romp and rapidly realized that the DM was mostly superfluous and that I really wanted to offload most of the work onto a computer, especially because that enables new scenarios like stealth-on-stealth wars that are really hard to run fairly on a whiteboard or in TOTM. When I say I want to turn it into a CRPG I'm oversimplifying a little, because my intention is to allow human beings on both ends, as adventurers and as monster advocates, and to allow ad hoc modifications as appropriate (like the proposed Athletic attempt for auto-crit).

In any case, with an Astral Dreadnought vs. a bunch of archers there really isn't much complexity so it makes a good test-bed for the simple scenarios. No concentration, no ability score adjustments with variable durations, no poisons, no open-ended spell lists, just a bunch of attack rolls for physical damage and an AoE burst usable once per round.

[MaxWilson]

I'm confused, here. How would a mini-CRPG give me or anyone control over the monster?

THAT BEING SAID, if you want to have a battle of the Astral Dreadnought controlled by me vs a team of PCs controlled by you, with a third person to DM this, I would gladly accept. We can do that on the Play-by-Post section of the forum, if you wish.

Now imagine this where instead of play-by-post you're just controlling an Astral Dreadnought on a 3D grid. I won't be running the horsemen because they're pre-programmed. On your turn, you choose where to go and when to use your legendary actions, and hit OK. Then a bunch of archers shoot you and move around. Then you get another turn.

That's the idea anyway. If it happens at all it will happen before this thread dies, but not today.

[Unoriginal]

Or attacking its wings to try to make it crash. Or trying to prevent a spellcaster from casting spells by sticking a sock in his mouth and grabbing both hands.

Those things don't require hours of houseruling. You can do a ruling on the fly.



That's the gist, yes. I'm not saying fully exploiting boundless creativity wouldn't result in other differences as well, in and out of combat, but when you're playing outside the box, small numerical differences have a lesser impact on play compared to player choices (and player judgment/timing).

Yes, though player choices/judgement/timing are often about which small numerical differences to use and how/when.




I don't think I am suggesting throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I just got tired of trying to make 5E be a different kind of game, and then I tried running 5E as a hack-and-slash combat romp and rapidly realized that the DM was mostly superfluous and that I really wanted to offload most of the work onto a computer, especially because that enables new scenarios like stealth-on-stealth wars that are really hard to run fairly on a whiteboard or in TOTM. When I say I want to turn it into a CRPG I'm oversimplifying a little, because my intention is to allow human beings on both ends, as adventurers and as monster advocates, and to allow ad hoc modifications as appropriate (like the proposed Athletic attempt for auto-crit).

...you seem to think 5e is limited to what is written in the player classes or monsters's statblocks, and that anything outside of it is a) not 5e b) too much work to create.



In any case, with an Astral Dreadnought vs. a bunch of archers there really isn't much complexity so it makes a good test-bed for the simple scenarios. No concentration, no ability score adjustments with variable durations, no poisons, no open-ended spell lists, just a bunch of attack rolls for physical damage and an AoE burst usable once per round.

Again, if you want to test a bunch of archers controlled by you vs the Dreadnought controlled by me, I'd be more than happy to do it. Sincerely.

[MaxWilson]

Those things don't require hours of houseruling. You can do a ruling on the fly.

Lions aren't flies. They're felines.

So what?

I.e. you've lost track of what is being argued.


Again, if you want to test a bunch of archers controlled by you vs the Dreadnought controlled by me, I'd be more than happy to do it. Sincerely.

Great. That is why I haven't wasted a bunch of words talking about Mongol Horse Archers on this thread. Showing is better than telling; but there's nothing to show at the moment.

[Unoriginal]

Now imagine this where instead of play-by-post you're just controlling an Astral Dreadnought on a 3D grid. I won't be running the horsemen because they're pre-programmed. On your turn, you choose where to go and when to use your legendary actions, and hit OK. Then a bunch of archers shoot you and move around. Then you get another turn.

Sounds like a lot of work to achieve something that lacks the interesting parts of a video game and the interesting parts of a TTRPG, tbh. Especially when you could do better with Play-by-Post.




Great. That is why I haven't wasted a bunch of words talking about Mongol Horse Archers on this thread. Showing is better than telling; but there's nothing to show at the moment.

There could be something to show at the moment. Just start a thread on the PbP subforum along with your archers' stats, I'm sure someone there or in this thread right here will be willing to DM this battle.

[JNAProductions]

I’ll DM it.

[JoeJ]

I'd definitely use this, but not as something for the PCs to straight-up fight. I'm thinking this would be good in an adventure for levels 8-10. I'd let the party find out that some berk they need to contact is living inside an astral dreadnaught (which suggests that he's the type who doesn't like company).

See, the dark of meeting this cutter is that there's a wizard who created a magic item that extends the dreadnaught's Donjon Visit to a few minutes. No one's really sure why; it's possible he was thinking of hiding something in there. Anyway, this wizard's riding with the Cynosure, that big circus that travels the first layer of Pandemonium. So all the party has to do is travel to Pandemonium, find the Cynosure, talk to the wizard, assuming he hasn't gone barmy from the wind, and get the item. Then head to the Astral, find the dreadnaught, and get it to use it's Donjon Visit. After that it's simply a matter of getting what they need from the cutter who lives there before the effect wears off and puts them back out again. And hopefully they'll have figured some way to give Dreadie the laugh and get back to the cage. So pretty easy.

[Unoriginal]

I’ll DM it.

Would be great, thank.

[MaxWilson]

Sounds like a lot of work to achieve something that lacks the interesting parts of a video game and the interesting parts of a TTRPG, tbh. Especially when you could do better with Play-by-Post.

[shrug] Don't use it if you don't like it.

For myself, I don't consider keeping track of monster HP and rolling attacks/damage to be "the interesting part" of TTRPG play. And trying to hide information from players while keeping a log of that info to show them afterwards is a nightmare. Could be as simple as "did that Astral Dreadnought save against my Stunning Strike or use a legendary resistance or is it simply immune?" Could be more complicated too, like "where is that Rogue hiding now amid the rubble, after shooting me with an arrow last turn?" or "how close are enemy reinforcements?"

Information hiding without tool support can still be done (e.g. writing positions of hidden units on scraps of paper and basically playing Battleship) but it's a pain for both DM and players.


There could be something to show at the moment. Just start a thread on the PbP subforum along with your archers' stats, I'm sure someone there or in this thread right here will be willing to DM this battle.

A medium-sized unit of Mongol horse archers would probably be the Zuun (hundreds of men, according to Wikipedia). Call it a hundred and twenty gnolls (mongol equivalents) mounted on giant owls (horse equivalents). Strategy: shoot at long range until it closes the range, then envelop the creature in a globe and shoot it full of arrows.

With a DPR of 73.50 (17-20 to hit, for d8+1 damage), the creature will last about four rounds, plus some extra for whatever fraction of gnolls it can kill off. The gnolls can occupy a surface 150' in radius without taking disadvantage from long range, with the Astral Dreadnought at the center; the Astral Dreadnought can kill a negligble number of the gnolls with its regular attacks and can target something like 10% of the gnolls each round with its 60'-range psychic attack. (Actually my math says it targets about 1/25 of the gnolls with its 60' attack but I'm not fully confident in my BOTE nor do I think it's fair to assume perfect dispersion of the gnolls, especially since they have to transition from a wall formation to a envelopment as it approaches--this is one of the things that will be more clear on the 3D battlegrid than in an abstract argument.) There's no way the thing lasts long enough to kill all of the gnolls.

The above analysis is bad enough (and would hold even if the gnolls were unmounted), but when you add in the 12.68 DPR it will take from long-range fire every round as it closes from 600' to 150' (closing 40' per round for 11-12 rounds, for approximately 142 HP of damage), and the 73.50 DPR it will take every round while it is closing from 150' to 60' (at 40' per round, for one or two rounds), it's conceivable that the Astral Dreadnought may not manage to kill even a single gnoll or owl.

So for the sake of argument let's leave the giant owls out of it and just make the gnolls fight on foot. It won't make any difference to the outcome.


I’ll DM it.

Great. Let me know when you're done running the combat. If you prefer hobgoblins or goblins or human Guards instead of gnolls, or if you want a different scenario like a PC party, let me know.

[strangebloke]

Well, folks I think the two most vocal fighters just took their disagreement out to the metaphorical parking lot. Guess we wrap up the thread and call it a day?

Or we could stick around and bounce fun ideas for how to encounter the thing. To my mind, the thing's a big shark, so the primary ingredient in making an encounter fun is making sure that the party can't see it until the thing is all up in your grill, lobster-clawing you to death. The astral sea has nebulae, doesn't it?

[Unoriginal]

A medium-sized unit of Mongol horse archers would probably be the Zuun (hundreds of men, according to Wikipedia). Call it a hundred and twenty gnolls (mongol equivalents) mounted on giant owls (horse equivalents). Strategy: shoot at long range until it closes the range, then envelop the creature in a globe and shoot it full of arrows.

With a DPR of 73.50 (17-20 to hit, for d8+1 damage), the creature will last about four rounds, plus some extra for whatever fraction of gnolls it can kill off. The gnolls can occupy a surface 150' in radius without taking disadvantage from long range, with the Astral Dreadnought at the center; the Astral Dreadnought can kill a negligble number of the gnolls with its regular attacks and can target something like 10% of the gnolls each round with its 60'-range psychic attack. (Actually my math says it targets about 1/25 of the gnolls with its 60' attack but I'm not fully confident in my BOTE nor do I think it's fair to assume perfect dispersion of the gnolls, especially since they have to transition from a wall formation to a envelopment as it approaches--this is one of the things that will be more clear on the 3D battlegrid than in an abstract argument.) There's now way the thing lasts long enough to kill all of the gnolls.

The above analysis is bad enough (and would hold even if the gnolls were unmounted), but when you add in the 12.68 DPR it will take from long-range fire every round as it closes from 600' to 150' (closing 40' per round for 11-12 rounds, for approximately 142 HP of damage), and the 73.50 DPR it will take every round while it is closing from 150' to 60' (at 40' per round, for one or two rounds), it's conceivable that the Astral Dreadnought may not manage to kill even a single gnoll or owl.

So for the sake of argument let's leave the giant owls out of it and just make the gnolls fight on foot. It won't make any difference to the outcome.



Great. Let me know when you're done running the combat. If you prefer hobgoblins or goblins or human Guards instead of gnolls, or if you want a different scenario like a PC party, let me know.

Going straight for the HectoPeasant Rush? Fair enough, it's your choice.

So, just to be clear, it's going to be:


120 Gnolls (controlled by JNAProductions ?)

vs

1 Astral Dreadnought (Controlled by Unoriginal)

The two sides starting with 150ft in between them? Or more than that?

JNAProductions, if you're ready to do this now, I am.



Or we could stick around and bounce fun ideas for how to encounter the thing. To my mind, the thing's a big shark, so the primary ingredient in making an encounter fun is making sure that the party can't see it until the thing is all up in your grill, lobster-clawing you to death. The astral sea has nebulae, doesn't it?

There are at least debris fields, not sure about clouds or nebulae.


Though, what's dangerous/creepy about sharks in fiction is how they're presented as being drawn to where they smell blood, metaphorically speaking, and the paranoia that comes from it.

Doing too much in the Astral, be it casting spells, or being in the middle of a pirate raid, risk to attract *attention*.

[Naanomi]

... would it be surprising if 120 CR 1/2 creatures took out 1 CR 21 Creature, regardless of the nature of that solo creature? I’m not sure what that would prove...

[MaxWilson]

... would it be surprising if 120 CR 1/2 creatures took out 1 CR 21 Creature, regardless of the nature of that solo creature? I’m not sure what that would prove...

It depends on the nature of the CR 21 creature. That's my point: the Astral Dreadnought is a boring lump of attacks and damage rolls wrapped in HP, undeserving of its fearsome reputation.

Contrast with something like a lich or a spellcasting dragon. I'd take a spellcasting CR 17 Adult Red Dragon up against the gnolls any day and win; but the CR 21 Astral Dreadnought is going to die if it doesn't run away. (And its fluff implies that it doesn't run away.)

P.S. Note that the gnolls are worth only about 1/3 as much XP as the Astral Dreadnought is: 12,000 XP vs. 33,000 XP. Also the Astral Dreadnought has waaaaay more treasure: multiple orders of magnitude more.

[Beechgnome]

I'd definitely use this, but not as something for the PCs to straight-up fight. I'm thinking this would be good in an adventure for levels 8-10. I'd let the party find out that some berk they need to contact is living inside an astral dreadnaught (which suggests that he's the type who doesn't like company).

See, the dark of meeting this cutter is that there's a wizard who created a magic item that extends the dreadnaught's Donjon Visit to a few minutes. No one's really sure why; it's possible he was thinking of hiding something in there. Anyway, this wizard's riding with the Cynosure, that big circus that travels the first layer of Pandemonium. So all the party has to do is travel to Pandemonium, find the Cynosure, talk to the wizard, assuming he hasn't gone barmy from the wind, and get the item. Then head to the Astral, find the dreadnaught, and get it to use it's Donjon Visit. After that it's simply a matter of getting what they need from the cutter who lives there before the effect wears off and puts them back out again. And hopefully they'll have figured some way to give Dreadie the laugh and get back to the cage. So pretty easy.

God I love Planescape. thanks for this

[strangebloke]

It depends on the nature of the CR 21 creature. That's my point: the Astral Dreadnought is a boring lump of attacks and damage rolls wrapped in HP, undeserving of its fearsome reputation.

Contrast with something like a lich or a spellcasting dragon. I'd take a spellcasting CR 17 Adult Red Dragon up against the gnolls any day and win; but the CR 21 Astral Dreadnought is going to die.

P.S. Note that the gnolls are worth only 1/3 as much XP as the Astral Dreadnought is.

Speaking in terms of XP value, that's just a quirk of how encounters work. Effective CR puts them pretty darn close, and I think that's about fair. The Astral Dreadnought is weak to some strats, the gnolls are hilariously weak to others.

The Dreadnaught is a little inflexible. You can't use it just anywhere. It's designed as a big threat in the astral sea that you encounter in close quarters. So it's got to be in a nebulae or a tunnel or something, or it jump on you right after you planeshift.

[JNAProductions]

It depends on the nature of the CR 21 creature. That's my point: the Astral Dreadnought is a boring lump of attacks and damage rolls wrapped in HP, undeserving of its fearsome reputation.

Contrast with something like a lich or a spellcasting dragon. I'd take a spellcasting CR 17 Adult Red Dragon up against the gnolls any day and win; but the CR 21 Astral Dreadnought is going to die if it doesn't run away. (And its fluff implies that it doesn't run away.)

P.S. Note that the gnolls are worth only about 1/3 as much XP as the Astral Dreadnought is: 12,000 XP vs. 33,000 XP. Also the Astral Dreadnought has waaaaay more treasure: multiple orders of magnitude more.

You do realize the dragon would die even faster, right? The only thing it has going for it is Frightful Presence, but that has a 120' range-your proposed Gnolls shooting at 150' can safely ignore that. With AC 19 and 256 HP, they hit on 16s, for ((5.5*4+10)/20) 1.6 DPR per gnoll, or taking only 160 gnolls to kill it in one round.

Also, if you apply the multiplier the DMG talks about (handy, that book is) the ADJUSTED XP is 36,000. Slightly higher than the Astral Dreadnought.

In addition to that, you'd have to account for the giant owls as well, which are CR 1/4th each.

18,000 unadjusted XP, but it is 54,000 adjusted.

In other words, by the math, the Dreadnought SHOULD be losing.

Of course, with AC 20, 297 HP, and resistance to their damage, they deal only (((3*5.5+10)/20)/2) .6625 DPR per gnoll per turn, requiring a whopping 448 gnolls to one-round it.

Tell me again why the dragon is better?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Because it has spells. Spells! Not that by the rules an adult red can cast that great of spells, but...

[JNAProductions]

Because it has spells. Spells! Not that by the rules an adult red can cast that great of spells, but...

Right, so he's homebrewing. Gotcha. (Well, making custom monsters. Not sure if that technically counts as brewing, but close enough.)

Well, all DMs should do that, but it's important to note that CR should most DEFINITELY be adjusted by spells.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Right, so he's homebrewing. Gotcha. (Well, making custom monsters. Not sure if that technically counts as brewing, but close enough.)

Well, all DMs should do that, but it's important to note that CR should most DEFINITELY be adjusted by spells.

There is a spell casting variant for dragons, but it's weak. Sorcerer casting of level CR/3 IIRC.

[MaxWilson]

You do realize the dragon would die even faster, right? The only thing it has going for it is Frightful Presence, but that has a 120' range-your proposed Gnolls shooting at 150' can safely ignore that. With AC 19 and 256 HP, they hit on 16s, for ((5.5*4+10)/20) 1.6 DPR per gnoll, or taking only 160 gnolls to kill it in one round.

Spellcasting dragon.

Because the dragon can go to the Prime Material plane and not die instantly, it can do things like dive-bomb to close range rapidly. It can do so invisibly and at Stealth +6 to get a surprise round. Can use Darkness or Greater Invisibility and Shield or Blink to reduce the amount of damage it takes, and unmounted gnolls have a harder time dispersing because you can't fly on the Prime Material. The dragon is also faster thanks to legendary actions (200' per round instead of 160') and can use spells to boost mobility further, which lets it do things like drive tempo.


Also, if you apply the multiplier the DMG talks about (handy, that book is) the ADJUSTED XP is 36,000. Slightly higher than the Astral Dreadnought.

In addition to that, you'd have to account for the giant owls as well, which are CR 1/4th each.

So you're going to let me have the owls after all? Oh goodie, that will make this easy.


Of course, with AC 20, 297 HP, and resistance to their damage, they deal only (((3*5.5+10)/20)/2) .6625 DPR per gnoll per turn, requiring a whopping 448 gnolls to one-round it.

Tell me again why the dragon is better?

Tell me again why one-rounding is the victory criterion? We've gone from Astral Dreadnought as a terrifying beast that planar travelers dread to, apparently, Astral Dreadnought as something which is hard to kill in a single round.

If you want to run the dragon fight at some point we'll need a different DM, and I'll be playing the dragon.


Right, so he's homebrewing. Gotcha. (Well, making custom monsters. Not sure if that technically counts as brewing, but close enough.)

Well, all DMs should do that, but it's important to note that CR should most DEFINITELY be adjusted by spells.

Not according to the MM. Spellcasting dragons have the same CR as spell-less dragons. Go figure.


VARIANT: DRAGONS AS INNATE SPELLCASTERS

Dragons are innately magical creatures that can master a few spells as they age, using this variant.

A young or older dragon can innately cast a number of spells equal to its Charisma modifier. Each spell can be cast once per day, requiring no material components, and the spell's level can be no higher than 1/3 the dragon's CR (rounded down). The dragon's bonus to hit with spell attacks is equal to its proficiency bonus + its Charisma bonus. The dragon's spell save DC equals 8 + its proficiency bonus + its Charisma modifier.

[JNAProductions]

CR 17, so casts as a 6th level Sorcerer (I'm rounding up to be nice).

So that's... Um...

Fireball is thematic and will roast a small handful of Gnolls. Blink has a 50/50 chance of saving his butt for a turn, but costs an entire action to cast, so if that coin flip is bad... Gaseous Form will let him survive longer, but he can't do jack all.

Yeah, I don't see any 3rd level spells that will really save his bacon.

Edit: Ah, I missed that. Spell level of CR/3.

So level 5 spells.

That's still... Not gonna change the fact that 160 Gnolls can, reliably, one round the Dragon while they'd need three to kill the Nought.

So unless the dragon can somehow TRIPLE its ability to survive, it ain't winning against anything that can kill the Nought.

[Unoriginal]

In other words, by the math, the Dreadnought SHOULD be losing.


Maybe, maybe, but I'll do it anyway.

So, JNAProductions, will you do us the honor and start the PbP thread?

I think we had agreed on 120 gnolls vs 1 Astral Dreadnouhgt, but the rest is a bit unclear I'm afraid.

[MaxWilson]

CR 17, so casts as a 6th level Sorcerer (I'm rounding up to be nice).

So that's... Um...

Fireball is thematic and will roast a small handful of Gnolls. Blink has a 50/50 chance of saving his butt for a turn, but costs an entire action to cast, so if that coin flip is bad... Gaseous Form will let him survive longer, but he can't do jack all.

Yeah, I don't see any 3rd level spells that will really save his bacon.

6th level sorcerer? Darkness (with draconic blindsight built in), Expeditious Retreat, Shield, Misty Step, Haste, Blink, Invisibility, and metamagic? Sure, I'll take that over an Astral Dreadnought any day.


Maybe, maybe, but I'll do it anyway.

So, JNAProductions, will you do us the honor and start the PbP thread?

I think we had agreed on 120 gnolls vs 1 Astral Dreadnouhgt, but the rest is a bit unclear I'm afraid.

Be warned that doing 3D envelopment is going to be a pain and a half for JNAProductions. If I were in his shoes I'd be hoping that the Astral Dreadnought died at long range simply so I didn't have to remember and convey 121 3D positions.

[Naanomi]

Let’s cut out the middle man and have the dreadnaught fight the spellcasting dragon? At least then it wouldn’t be conveneiently fighting a foe that (unlike most adventuring parties) completely ignores the impressive antimagic capabilities it possesses?

[JNAProductions]

Should anyone wish to follow, please come here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?556191-Astral-Dreadnought-Test&p=22993320#post22993320).

[MaxWilson]

Let’s cut out the middle man and have the dreadnaught fight the spellcasting dragon?

Why? No one on this thread is making that argument.

In in-world terms, commanding a cavalry force with mundane weaponry into existence is something a ruler can reasonably be expected to do: Genghis Khan had hundreds of thousands of cavalrymen. Commanding an adult dragon into existence is likely to be a little bit harder.

[Unoriginal]

If I were in his shoes I'd be hoping that the Astral Dreadnought died at long range simply so I didn't have to remember and convey 121 3D positions.

Oh, I'm sure everyone in this thread has something they'd like to see die from a safe distance. For most, it's probably this conversation.

[Naanomi]

Why? So you can evaluate an argument that no one on this thread is making?
No, to point out that a monster fighting a non-magic horde, when that monster’s most impressive and tactically interesting ability is anti-magic, is perhaps not the best evaluation of how much of a ‘sack of HP’ it is in the first place?

[MaxWilson]

No, to point out that a monster fighting a non-magic horde, when that monster’s most impressive and tactically interesting ability is anti-magic, is perhaps not the best evaluation of how much of a ‘sack of HP’ it is in the first place?

Sorry, I realized after the fact that my tone was a bit snippy. I was editing my post when you posted this here.

Also, thinking about it some more: in a lot of ways your point is well-taken: it doesn't necessarily have to be a PC party, but when evaluating the Astral Dreadnought's reputation, it makes a lot of sense to model the opposition on actual planar travelers instead of a generic Prime Material yardstick. As I said to JNAProductions, if he wants to do a PC party instead, feel free to let me know.

[strangebloke]

Good grief this is so dumb. Specific tactics can make various things easier or harder, but fundamentally, the Astral Dreadnought is an animal. It's a terrifying animal, but it's fundamentally an alpha predator. It isn't meant to be some fricking mastermind monster. It has an environment that it's tactics are suited to and in that environment it is terrifying.

[Naanomi]

Also, thinking about it some more: in a lot of ways your point is well-taken: it doesn't necessarily have to be a PC party, but when evaluating the Astral Dreadnought's reputation, it makes a lot of sense to model the opposition on actual planar travelers instead of a generic Prime Material yardstick
Yeah, getting all those Gnolls into the (notoriously empty) Astral probably takes some pretty high level resources to begin with

[Unoriginal]

Sorry, I realized after the fact that my tone was a bit snippy. I was editing my post when you posted this here.

Also, thinking about it some more: in a lot of ways your point is well-taken: it doesn't necessarily have to be a PC party, but when evaluating the Astral Dreadnought's reputation, it makes a lot of sense to model the opposition on actual planar travelers instead of a generic Prime Material yardstick. As I said to JNAProductions, if he wants to do a PC party instead, feel free to let me know.

I think JNAProductions needs info on the Gnolls' starting positioning.

[MaxWilson]

Good grief this is so dumb. Specific tactics can make various things easier or harder, but fundamentally, the Astral Dreadnought is an animal. It's a terrifying animal, but it's fundamentally an alpha predator. It isn't meant to be some... mastermind monster. It has an environment that it's tactics are suited to and in that environment it is terrifying.

Yup. Tool users don't dread dumb animals for long. Either they get over it or they band together and kill the animals to remove the threat. Just ask the European wolves and the Great White Shark.

The fluff text of the Astral Dreadnought is not suited for the dumb animal that it is. I repeat that it should have been modeled more on the way African tour guides view lions and crocodiles: with wary respect perhaps but without dread. Something a professional plans for but does not FEAR.


I think JNAProductions needs info on the Gnolls' starting positioning.

Their tactical doctrine is to maintain sight lines and stay dispersed but within mutual tactical support range. If terrain requires a point, put a dozen or so gnolls on point (Wikipedia says Mongols operated in squads of about ten) with recon/threat identification as their prime responsibility. Let them roam a minute or so ahead of the main body, and remember that there's three dimensions when flying, not just two.

I assume JNAProductions can take it from there.

[Naanomi]

Yup. Tool users don't dread dumb animals for long. Either they get over it or they band together and kill the animals to remove the threat. Just ask the European wolves and the Great White Shark.

The fluff text of the Astral Dreadnought is not suited for the dumb animal that it is. I repeat that it should have been modeled more on the East African tour guides view lions and crocodiles: with wary respect perhaps but without dread. Something a professional plans for but does not FEAR.
Yeah they have fallen a long way since their 15-16 INT in their original appearance in that regard... of course, ‘low INT’ doesn’t mean the same thing in 5e that it meant in 2e... something can still be very clever and crafty with a low INT (the 4e version was pretty stupid but still spoke a language)

[Envyus]

There are at least debris fields, not sure about clouds or nebulae.


Though, what's dangerous/creepy about sharks in fiction is how they're presented as being drawn to where they smell blood, metaphorically speaking, and the paranoia that comes from it.

Doing too much in the Astral, be it casting spells, or being in the middle of a pirate raid, risk to attract *attention*.

There are clouds and storms in the Astral plane. Along with lots of obscuring stuff. I linked a picture of the Astral Plane earlier in the thread. Oh and lots of obscuring mists somthing the mists even being brought up in the Dreadnoughts fluff.

[Envyus]

Also after this test with the Gnolls and Owls. (Something pretty different from Mongols on horses.) I would like to test this against a planer fairly standard Planer traveler party at the minimum level they could get to the Astral plane under their own power. So level 13 when they can cast planeshift.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Wow. What an incredible mismatch between reputation and boring, sack-of-HP reality. That thing is weaksauce.
Watsonian response: Its reputation presumably depends more on how effective the sack-of-HP is to normal people (or normal planar travelers, which are probably still at least half a dozen levels lower than this critter's CR) than how interesting it is to fight at an appropriate level.
Doylist response: You're not right, but you're not quite wrong. The only thing I find interesting about it is its donjon, and that's not really utilized to the fullest. It's just a big cave that you get sent to if it incapacitates you or if it spends a legendary action to chuck you in (and you fail a save). Once you're there, you're essentially out of the fight; you have no way to affect the dreadnought, and it has nothing it can do to you. If most of the party is in the donjon, you might as well have the rest get swallowed and take a long rest.
Aside from that...mundane attacks, a little burst damage in exchange for all its legendary actions that round, and "you can't have fun" in a big cone. That's enough for some basic tactics, but since you'll be fighting it in literally the most featureless place in the multiverse, it has to pull more weight than most bosses (who can rely on level design and possibly minions for some of that tactical challenge).



What are those Mongol Horse archers doing on the Astral plane?
I assume that the Mongol horse archers are a thought-experiment device, intended to represent the ways even low-level PCs can attain mobility and range sufficient to out-maneuver monsters who weren't designed with kiting in mind. Of course, such mobility won't help against this creature (even if you can teach your horse to move in the Astral Plane, it probably can't outrun 80 feet per round), but the superior mobility options available to near-epic characters can probably manage it.



You don't understand. This is a 5e monster, so it *must* be boring.

It MUST.
As someone who's played most editions of D&D at least once, and who's played several other tabletop RPGs, I find that most monsters (whatever game, whatever edition) to be pretty boring on their own. You need good encounter design to make combat interesting.
The Astral Dreadnought has some features which make it more interesting than, say, a purple worm...but the purple worm can show up in a complicated cavern system or something, and would probably have a special lair designed to emphasize its special abilities if it was a boss monster.
Astral dreadnoughts don't have that luxury. They live alone, in the near-featureless Astral Plane. Maybe the PCs will have a chunk of astral rock to use as cover, but that's about it. The dreadnought almost has an interesting "lair substitute"...but without the DM rewriting the rules, it's only slightly more interesting than the Astral Plane. And if the DM needs to rewrite something to make it interesting, it's failed.
Which isn't to say that the astral dreadnought isn't an interesting monster. It's just not as interesting an encounter as it could (arguably, should) be.



I'd make it "all enemies the dreadnought can see" though so you can't just close your eyes.
I thought that was intentional. It gives the players extra agency; do they accept miss chances in exchange for immunity to one of the beast's more dangerous attacks?




I really like the art and the anti-magic cone is really cool, as is the demiplane. I love demiplanes, they're like plot hooks waiting to happen.
That's how I see the astral dreadnought. It's an okay "boss monster," but a potentially interesting plot hook.



They'd get digested, though.
Nothing in the stat block mentions anything like that.



Note that it swallows you if you're incapacitated or at 0 HP. So likely you'll just bleed out.
That's a likely outcome, if you're left alone. However, it can also send one creature per round to its donjon (if they fail their save). This creature doesn't take any damage. Between that and the chance of the creature stabilizing on its own, there's plenty of room for a few lucky creatures to end up in there.


Anyways. The idea of a creature with a demiplane inside of it is neat, but the astral dreadnought doesn't do anything with that idea. It's basically an antechamber where PCs go to bleed out or buff themselves before plane shifting out. Unless the next page has some great fluff, they're leaving the entire burden of thinking of something interesting to put in there on the DM's shoulders.
Which is a problem I have with a lot of arguments defending TRPGs when they are vague as all nine hells. Sure, flexibility is nice, but I'd have even more flexibility if I didn't use any book at all and made everything up myself. I buy TRPG books because I want to be able to use the rules, lore, etc in them. If I need to keep writing to make something they wrote interesting enough to use, then...it sure seems like the end product is lacking, doesn't it?




They don’t really have ‘territory’ beyond roaming the Infinite Astral Plane and being instinctively drawn to certain Astral phenomenon to find food (rupturing bags of holding with portable holes reliably draws their attention; as does messing with a Well of Worlds)
Which makes sense; the Astral Plane doesn't have much of anything to mark territory, nor any particular reason to mark it.



... would it be surprising if 120 CR 1/2 creatures took out 1 CR 21 Creature, regardless of the nature of that solo creature? I’m not sure what that would prove...
That depends on what the CR 21 creature is going to be.
Let's take two big-name superheroes: Batman and Superman. Batman is incredibly powerful, able to take down just about anyone with ease if you give him a warning and half an hour in the Batcave (and capable of defeating most of them with the gadgets he carries around with him). Superman is also incredibly powerful, able to take down just about anyone with ease if they don't exploit one of his weaknesses. But Batman can't really fight a mob of people at once (barring some special gadget or dumb luck), while Superman can.
Are CR 21 creatures supposed to be Batman, or Superman? The rules often say Batman, but the fluff often says Superman. After all, while large numbers of weak enemies with decent tactics can take down almost any monster, said monsters are often billed as personal threats to entire kingdoms, if not the entire world. And, as we should know,

[C]ommanding a cavalry force with mundane weaponry into existence is something a ruler can reasonably be expected to do: Genghis Khan had hundreds of thousands of cavalrymen.

[Baptor]

I thought that was intentional. It gives the players extra agency; do they accept miss chances in exchange for immunity to one of the beast's more dangerous attacks?

Oh it was! Do you think I should keep it that way? I thought it was cool. I'm gonna put it back in! Thanks!


I'd definitely use this. See, the dark of meeting this cutter is that there's a wizard who created a magic item that extends the dreadnaught's Donjon Visit to a few minutes...snip

JoeJ, you win this thread. I also read your signature - do you often win threads? Are you a threadwinner?


Oh, I'm sure everyone in this thread has something they'd like to see die from a safe distance. For most, it's probably this conversation.

I respect everyone in this discussion. That said, this was funny as heck. :smallbiggrin:

[Envyus]

Anyways. The idea of a creature with a demiplane inside of it is neat, but the astral dreadnought doesn't do anything with that idea. It's basically an antechamber where PCs go to bleed out or buff themselves before plane shifting out. Unless the next page has some great fluff, they're leaving the entire burden of thinking of something interesting to put in there on the DM's shoulders.
Which is a problem I have with a lot of arguments defending TRPGs when they are vague as all nine hells. Sure, flexibility is nice, but I'd have even more flexibility if I didn't use any book at all and made everything up myself. I buy TRPG books because I want to be able to use the rules, lore, etc in them. If I need to keep writing to make something they wrote interesting enough to use, then...it sure seems like the end product is lacking, doesn't it?


On Plane shifting out. One you need to be capable of Plane Shift, (When I imagine most planer travels got there using portals, and are thus trapped with no way out.) Two Plane Shift is not very good at specific locations. You can only reliably transport yourself to specific location if you know a sigil sequence for a Teleportation Circle on that plane. An example is given on the spell. If you plane shift Plane of fire naming the City of Brass as the destination. You can end up in the city, outside the city, or across the sea of fire with the city in sight miles away.

So if you tried to plane shift out back to the Astral plane with it's land marks being far and between. You could end up days, months, or years away from your companions.

[MaxWilson]

Oh it was! Do you think I should keep it that way? I thought it was cool. I'm gonna put it back in! Thanks!

Oh, okay, so I guess it represents the madness that comes from viewing its hideous form? In that case I'd remove the action cost. (Unless it's temporarily altering its appearance? What's actually going on when it uses this ability?)

In any case, giving enemies a way to opt out of the damage does make it significantly weaker, and probably puts the monster back on par with the WotC version or maybe even weaker. Slightly stronger saves, weaker against mobs.

[strangebloke]

Yup. Tool users don't dread dumb animals for long. Either they get over it or they band together and kill the animals to remove the threat. Just ask the European wolves and the Great White Shark.

The fluff text of the Astral Dreadnought is not suited for the dumb animal that it is. I repeat that it should have been modeled more on the way African tour guides view lions and crocodiles: with wary respect perhaps but without dread. Something a professional plans for but does not FEAR.


Heh.

Tool users fear the fudge out of dumb animals. If you're hiking in the woods and see a brown bear ten feet from yourself and don't crap yourself a little, that's a sign you're an idiot. Tool users don't fear things that they have prepared for and have tools to fight.

What are the tools with which we tool users can fight such a thing?

Hundreds of armed and trained expendable redshirts. Many of whom are going to die, regardless of how well you use them.

That's horrifying. I can't contemplate getting on the airplane and hearing over the PA system: "If you hear the claxon, stay calm. A giant space-wyrm is trying to eat our ship. Please, stay calm. 90% of us will make it out of this fine."

And that's if you're prepared. Lets be real, these things are rare. Most planar travellers are not going to be prepared for this shiz. It's a 1/1000 chance, so you don't dump thousands of gold into hedging that bet, but its always there in the back of your mind, that if one of these things shows up... you're screwed.

[Naanomi]

And that's if you're prepared. Lets be real, these things are rare. Most planar travellers are not going to be prepared for this shiz. It's a 1/1000 chance, so you don't dump thousands of gold into hedging that bet, but its always there in the back of your mind, that if one of these things shows up... you're screwed.
Well, and remember... these things historically go after people using ‘Astral projection’ with those vulnerable silver cords, who are likely even more isolated than someone on an ‘Astral ship’ of some kind

[JoeJ]

JoeJ, you win this thread. I also read your signature - do you often win threads? Are you a threadwinner?

Thank you. This is the third win that I can recall.


Astral dreadnoughts don't have that luxury. They live alone, in the near-featureless Astral Plane. Maybe the PCs will have a chunk of astral rock to use as cover, but that's about it.

I would expect the majority of astral encounters to take place around those chunks of rock because that's where the PCs are likely to be spending the most time. Quest goals are usually on one of those rocks, not just floating loose in the astral. And we all know that powerful monsters are attracted to adventure climaxes.

[Envyus]

Oh, okay, so I guess it represents the madness that comes from viewing its hideous form? In that case I'd remove the action cost. (Unless it's temporarily altering its appearance? What's actually going on when it uses this ability?)

In any case, giving enemies a way to opt out of the damage does make it significantly weaker, and probably puts the monster back on par with the WotC version or maybe even weaker. Slightly stronger saves, weaker against mobs.

It's already weaker anyway.

[Envyus]

Along with Astral Mists, clouds and Storms that obscure sight along with astral debris. The beasts fluff even states it hangs around in the Astral mists.

Also this picture which shows there is a quite a bit of stuff floating around.

https://static3.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11120/111204187/5694367-4093470671-53231.jpg

[Unoriginal]

Well guess I just look like an ****hole


Along with Astral Mists, clouds and Storms that obscure sight along with astral debris. The beasts fluff even states it hangs around in the Astral mists.

Also this picture which shows there is a quite a bit of stuff floating around.

https://static3.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11120/111204187/5694367-4093470671-53231.jpg

Doubt that picture is really accurate, at least for this edition. The light's supposed to come from a directions, for starter, no?

[Envyus]

Well guess I just look like an ****hole



Doubt that picture is really accurate, at least for this edition. The light's supposed to come from a directions, for starter, no?

Thats the picture in the DMG. Also that large amount of light is coming from a color pool. One of the portals to other planes. There is light everywhere but some is brighter then others.

Also why do you look like an *******?

[Baptor]

Oh, okay, so I guess it represents the madness that comes from viewing its hideous form? In that case I'd remove the action cost. (Unless it's temporarily altering its appearance? What's actually going on when it uses this ability?)

In any case, giving enemies a way to opt out of the damage does make it significantly weaker, and probably puts the monster back on par with the WotC version or maybe even weaker. Slightly stronger saves, weaker against mobs.

Yes thematically that is the point. Kind of like a gaze attack, but not really.

For me, I like it the way it is. As someone else pointed out, if you don't look at it you get disadvantage to hit it and you can't target it with spells that require line of sight - so there is a cost there.

If you want to change that bit, feel free. Another idea I had was to make it work the way you want, on anything the dreadnought can see - but players averting their eyes get advantage to the save. Or we can keep the "players have to look at it" but remove the saving throw - that would be nasty.


It's already weaker anyway.

I didn't really write him up to be stronger than the original. That wasn't the point of my exercise. He IS a CR 21, however, according to how the DMG measures it anyways.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Oh it was! Do you think I should keep it that way? I thought it was cool. I'm gonna put it back in! Thanks!
Yeah. And it is kinda cool; it makes the ability feel less like using a super-spell and more like being an eldritch abomination.


I respect everyone in this discussion.
That doesn't mean you need to respect the discussion itself. (Sort of like how I respect people who follow various ideologies while disrespecting the ideologies.)



On Plane shifting out. One you need to be capable of Plane Shift, (When I imagine most planer travels got there using portals, and are thus trapped with no way out.) Two Plane Shift is not very good at specific locations. You can only reliably transport yourself to specific location if you know a sigil sequence for a Teleportation Circle on that plane. An example is given on the spell. If you plane shift Plane of fire naming the City of Brass as the destination. You can end up in the city, outside the city, or across the sea of fire with the city in sight miles away.

So if you tried to plane shift out back to the Astral plane with it's land marks being far and between. You could end up days, months, or years away from your companions.
Oh, good point.
So, basically, once you're in you're out of the fight. You might be able to help your buddies who get eaten, but that's it. I'm not convinced that's better. More effective, sure, but more fun?



I would expect the majority of astral encounters to take place around those chunks of rock because that's where the PCs are likely to be spending the most time. Quest goals are usually on one of those rocks, not just floating loose in the astral. And we all know that powerful monsters are attracted to adventure climaxes.
1. If the adventure isn't revolving around the astral dreadnought itself, it's missing out on the most interesting part of the dreadnought.
2. Like I said, a single chunk of rock isn't really enough to create interesting tactical choices.



Along with Astral Mists, clouds and Storms that obscure sight along with astral debris. The beasts fluff even states it hangs around in the Astral mists.
Oh, wow, clouds. Clouds that make it harder to see things, neat. That That absolutely sounds like a way to introduce new interesting decisions, not just an extra complication. (tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SarcasmMode)
Which is the problem I have with all of the Dreadnought's special abilities, actually. Antimagic field? Stay out of it if you need magic, don't have the spellcasters close to each other. AoE damage centered on the beast? Stay far away. Get sent to the donjon? Hang out and see if your buddies show up.


Also this picture which shows there is a quite a bit of stuff floating around.
A bit better, but if the chunks are just chunks of rock (as they appear to be), there's still not a lot of tactical possibilities going on here. Unless maybe the PCs can move them around? Is that a thing?
(Although the question might be moot—grokking a 3D battlefield with movable chunks of terrain is a lot to ask of a gaming group in practice.)

[MaxWilson]

So, basically, once you're in you're out of the fight. You might be able to help your buddies who get eaten, but that's it. I'm not convinced that's better. More effective, sure, but more fun?

No, you get out automatically at the end of your next turn (assuming you're talking about Donjon visit and not getting eaten by a bite attack at 0 HP) so it really just forces you to Ready your next action instead of performing it immediately. This is too bad for anyone relying on Extra Attack or concentration spells, but it's not anything like being out of the fight.

[Naanomi]

Yeah. And it is kinda cool; it makes the ability feel less like using a super-spell and more like being an eldritch abomination.
Although do note it isn’t really an ‘Eldritch abomination’ in the classic sense... the Astral and it’s inhabitants are strange by Prime standards but still a natural part of the Cosmology, the Dreadnaught isn’t a Far Realms horror or other unnatural Aberration, just a very dangerous and unusual alpha-predator.

(I’m ignoring the 4e version, since it fell into the common 4eism where everything has to be tied to the Far Realm, Tharzidun, or Asmodeus)

[TheTeaMustFlow]

TIL that an individual creature that requires company-strength forces specifically equipped and prepared to deal with it to bring down with heavy casualties is not scary at all.

[PhoenixPhyre]

TIL that an individual creature that requires company-strength forces specifically equipped and prepared to deal with it to bring down with heavy casualties is not scary at all.

Agreed. Especially since crack forces don't grow on trees. Remember, just because there isn't a mechanical moral effect doesn't mean people are fearless.

[JoeJ]

1. If the adventure isn't revolving around the astral dreadnought itself, it's missing out on the most interesting part of the dreadnought.

It's either the goal or the final obstacle to achieving the goal. In the latter case, the goal is probably going to be on one of the floating objects that the dreadnaught is guarding.

In the former case, it has to be intelligently hunted, not just randomly encountered. Just wandering around until the goal of the adventure randomly attacks you is bad design regardless of what monster you use. The party will likely need a floating object to hide behind in order to get close. An astral dreadnaught is neither blind nor mindless; it's going to know what bows are. (And even if it didn't, it's not stupid enough to keep coming once it starts taking damage it can't return.) And it has a fly speed of 80.



2. Like I said, a single chunk of rock isn't really enough to create interesting tactical choices.


That single chunk of rock has topography. Often very rugged topography. It can very easily have inhabitants too. In many cases, it has a different environment than rest of the plane. The body of Orcus, for example, had gravity and monsters that would attack you while you were climbing the mountain of his stomach. A chunk of rock in the astral plane can offer as many interesting tactical choices as any battlefield anywhere.

[Envyus]

No, you get out automatically at the end of your next turn (assuming you're talking about Donjon visit and not getting eaten by a bite attack at 0 HP) so it really just forces you to Ready your next action instead of performing it immediately. This is too bad for anyone relying on Extra Attack or concentration spells, but it's not anything like being out of the fight.

If you ready an action you can't move and if your a spell caster there is a decent chance that the Dreadnought has you in the anti magic field. Readying is only super useful if you were preparing a normal ranged attack.

[MaxWilson]

If you ready an action you can't move and if your a spell caster there is a decent chance that the Dreadnought has you in the anti magic field. Readying is only super useful if you were preparing a normal ranged attack.

I wasn't going to say anything about this post because it's so obvious, but then I noticed the amusing fact that Antimagic Field does not prevent readied spells from taking effect, since you've already cast the spell back in the Donjon back when you readied your action. And that amuses me enough to point it out.


This area is divorced from the magical energy that suffuses the multiverse. Within the Sphere, Spells can't be cast, summoned creatures disappear, and even Magic Items become mundane. Until the spell ends, the Sphere moves with you, centered on you.

Targeted Effects: Spells and other magical effects, such as Magic Missile and Charm Person, that target a creature or an object in the Sphere have no effect on that target.

Areas of Magic: The area of another spell or magical effect, such as Fireball, can't extend into the Sphere. If the Sphere overlaps an area of magic, the part of the area that is covered by the Sphere is suppressed. For example, the flames created by a Wall of Fire are suppressed within the Sphere, creating a gap in the wall if the overlap is large enough.


When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration. If your concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect. For example, if you are concentrating on the web spell and ready magic missile, your web spell ends, and if you take damage before you release magic missile with your reaction, your concentration might be broken. [Emphasis added] (PBR, p. 72; PHB, p. 193)

A strict reading of the spell states that you could therefore ready a Synaptic Static spell inside the Donjon ("centered on the Astral Dreadnought, as soon as I get out of this Donjon") and "release the energy" of the spell even inside of an antimagic field.

In practice of course a reasonable DM is going to ignore that technicality and just say "Nothing happens--there is no magic here."

[TheTeaMustFlow]

I wasn't going to say anything about this post because it's so obvious, but then I noticed the amusing fact that Antimagic Field does not prevent readied spells from taking effect, since you've already cast the spell back in the Donjon back when you readied your action. And that amuses me enough to point it out.





A strict reading of the spell states that you could therefore ready a Synaptic Static spell inside the Donjon ("centered on the Astral Dreadnought, as soon as I get out of this Donjon") and "release the energy" of the spell even inside of an antimagic field.

In practice of course a reasonable DM is going to ignore that technicality and just say "Nothing happens--there is no magic here."

Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that that particular line of pedantry follows, you've missed several bits within the AM field description that scupper it.

"Any active spell or other magical effect on a creature or an object in the sphere is suppressed while the creature or object is in it". The held energy of a readied spell is clearly a magical effect on the caster, and is thus suppressed.

Edit: Additionally - "Spells and other magical effects, except those created by an artifact or a deity are suppressed in the sphere... While an effect is suppressed, it doesn't function". A readied spell is clearly a spell or other magical effect, and being released is its function.

[MaxWilson]

Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that that particular line of pedantry follows, you've missed several bits within the AM field description that scupper it.

"Any active spell or other magical effect on a creature or an object in the sphere is suppressed while the creature or object is in it". The held energy of a readied spell is clearly a magical effect on the caster, and is thus suppressed.

Edit: Additionally - "Spells and other magical effects, except those created by an artifact or a deity are suppressed in the sphere... While an effect is suppressed, it doesn't function". A readied spell is clearly a spell or other magical effect, and being released is its function.

From a stict reading/pedantry point of view, both these statements in bold are arguable, particularly the first one. A readied spell is not at all clearly a magical effect on the caster. RE: the second point, the full sentence is, "Spells and other magical effects, except those created by an artifact or a deity, are suppressed in the Sphere and can't protrude into it." It appears that this is simply restating what is said in more detail below about targeted effects and area effects: they don't function within the sphere. But the unreleased magical energy of the already-cast spell is a latent cause of effects in another location, not an effect in itself.

From a reasonable DM point of view, of course I agree. Strict technical readings are not good for the game. A reasonable DM would not let you cast a readied spell in an anti-magic field any more than a good DM would prevent a Necromancer from declaring that he's spending his action to ready a command for his skeletons to shoot anyone who starts casting a spell. (Strictly speaking, Ready an Action requires you to ready an action, not a bonus action, but it would be unreasonable for a DM to disallow in this case. If you want to call that an improvised Ready A Bonus Action action instead, whatever, but bottom line is that a good DM won't prevent you from declaring this action.)

[TheTeaMustFlow]

From a stict reading/pedantry point of view, both these statements in bold are arguable, particularly the first one. A readied spell is not at all clearly a magical effect on the caster.

Yes it is. They're the ones holding in the magical energy and concentrating on it. They're the thing and the only thing that is currently affected by it. What the hell else is it on, if not them?


RE: the second point, the full sentence is, "Spells and other magical effects, except those created by an artifact or a deity, are suppressed in the Sphere and can't protrude into it." It appears that this is simply restating what is said in more detail below about targeted effects and area effects: they don't function within the sphere.

No it's not. Syntactically, they're clearly separate statements. It's not talking about targeted or area effects, it's talking about magical effects in general. (It's possible that's not what it was intended to say, but your entire point is based on ignoring RAI in the first place.) It states that spells in the sphere are suppressed. It is a spell, in the sphere, therefore it is suppressed.


But the unreleased magical energy of the already-cast spell is a latent cause of effects in another location, not an effect in itself.

No, it is clearly an effect in and of itself, at the location where it exists. It is a thing that exists, and it's currently having an effect (being held and taking up the caster's concentration).

Also, it's a readied spell.


A reasonable DM would not let you cast a readied spell in an anti-magic field any more than a good DM would prevent a Necromancer from declaring that he's spending his action to ready a command for his skeletons to shoot anyone who starts casting a spell. (Strictly speaking, Ready an Action requires you to ready an action, not a bonus action, but it would be unreasonable for a DM to disallow in this case. If you want to call that an improvised Ready A Bonus Action action instead, whatever, but bottom line is that a good DM won't prevent you from declaring this action.)

Actually, I think you've once again misunderstood.

Skeletons under a Necromancer's control aren't like a (PHB) Ranger's Companion. They have their own turn, they don't act on their controller's. Taking the bonus action to command them doesn't cause them to instantly act, it determines what their action will be when they get their turn. So even if the DM did let you ready a command (not unreasonable, I agree), they wouldn't fire instantly, because they didn't ready an attack on their turn. You would instead take the bonus action on your turn to command them to shoot anyone who starts casting a spell, then they would take the Ready action on their turns to do so (and, if someone did cast, fire using their reaction, not yours).

And really, this makes perfect sense. You don't command your minions to shoot anyone who starts casting a spell in reaction to someone starting to cast a spell. It's a bit late by that point.

[MaxWilson]

*snipping dead horse*

Actually, I think you've once again misunderstood.

Nope. I'm as cognizant of the rules on turns as you are.


Skeletons under a Necromancer's control aren't like a (PHB) Ranger's Companion. They have their own turn, they don't act on their controller's. Taking the bonus action to command them doesn't cause them to instantly act, it determines what their action will be when they get their turn.

Granted. We agree on this stuff.


So even if the DM did let you ready a command (not unreasonable, I agree), they wouldn't fire instantly, because they didn't ready an attack on their turn. You would instead take the bonus action on your turn to command them to shoot anyone who starts casting a spell, then they would take the Ready action on their turns to do so (and, if someone did cast, fire using their reaction, not yours).

You've misunderstood slightly: in this scenario under discussion, you would spend your action Readying a bonus action, and then after the trigger occurs and you react, the skeletons would take the Attack action on their turn, not the Ready action. That means you can use more complex triggers than Int 6 skeletons can easily process. It also means their reactions remain free for other things like opportunity attacks and their actions remain free for things like attacking a different target or Dodging.

By RAW the Necromancer would have to wait until his next turn to issue orders, since you can't Ready a bonus action, which means any skeletons with turns between the (desired) trigger condition and the Necromancer's turn would miss out on their attacks against the desired target. But a reasonable DM wouldn't insist on RAW in this case.

[Unoriginal]

Any other DM willing to handle the Gnolls vs Dreadnought fight?

[Envyus]

I don't think JNA quit. They were just waiting on you.

[smcmike]

Any other DM willing to handle the Gnolls vs Dreadnought fight?


I don't think JNA quit. They were just waiting on you.

Pretty sure Max Wilson never expressed any interest in actually participating in the thread - he just presented a strategy and suggested that it was self-evident how it should work in practice.

[JNAProductions]

Also been in the hospital. Still am, actually.

[Envyus]

Also been in the hospital. Still am, actually.

Oh that sucks.

[MaxWilson]

Pretty sure Max Wilson never expressed any interest in actually participating in the thread - he just presented a strategy and suggested that it was self-evident how it should work in practice.

I am still working on the CRPG version. (Currently on a tangent working out the proper Van Laarhoven lenses. Half the reason I'm still following this thread is to remind myself why I need to finish the actual game-related pieces instead of just the infrastructure bits.)

It's cool that JNAProductions volunteered to run the strategy I outlined, but I'd rather spend my time on something repeatable that lets ANYONE play the Dreadnought without taking days and getting all the 3D math possibly wrong. The value of a computerized version lies in automating tedious tasks like e.g. HP tracking and movement computations.

Edit: haha, got it! Now my Van Laarhoven senses support lazy data entry, so I can e.g. only ask for your Wisdom save if it's actually relevant to something happening (like resisting a psychic attack). So they're internally stateful. But they still behave like stateless lenses in all other respects!

[strangebloke]

I found the idea of having a face-off to be comical.

this thing should die if it's out of its element, confronted with an equivalently CR-ed force that is designed to take it down and has perfect morale. This thing is a super huge dire shark. Spoiler alert, apex predators are **** outside of their element. A Roc in cave? A tarrasque underwater? A Kraken in the air? BORING.

This is a dead sexy monster that would be a lot of fun to run. Can anyone seriously look at this thing and tell me they wouldn't go *oh ***** when it came rushing them out of a tunnel in an ancient Githzerai temple they were exploring?

It's got weapons, tricks, nice defenses and a built-in plot hook. 8/10, would slay again.

[Baptor]

This thing is a super huge dire shark.

It sure is. A giant astral dire shark. At some point I realized that the key to designing monsters was to take a concept, a desired CR, apply the appropriate statistics, and season with 1-3 interesting abilities (like donjon).

Or, as MaxW suggested, you can easily reskin existing monsters if you don't like using the monster creation rules. Find the one that matches your concept - and give it a different name and description.

I find "new monster manuals" completely unappealing because I don't need more monsters from WotC because 1) I don't like they way they design and represent them and 2) I know how to make my own. However, WotC has been clever to include lots of lore in their new monster manuals so I end up buying them anyways. :smallbiggrin:

Someone said earlier - and I'm sorry I forget who - that no monster is really all that interesting - it's the encounters that are interesting. I realized a long time ago that the monsters (mechanically) can be cookie cutter and "bags of hit dice" as long as you make the encounter itself interesting. Players - at least mine - are rarely impressed by a monster's list of powers and more wowed by the way the actual battle plays out.

I guess that's part of the discussion here, whether or not such an interesting encounter could happen on the Astral Plane.

[MaxWilson]

It sure is. A giant astral dire shark....

...no monster is really all that interesting - it's the encounters that are interesting. I realized a long time ago that the monsters (mechanically) can be cookie cutter and "bags of hit dice" as long as you make the encounter itself interesting. Players - at least mine - are rarely impressed by a monster's list of powers and more wowed by the way the actual battle plays out.

I guess that's part of the discussion here, whether or not such an interesting encounter could happen on the Astral Plane.

Good points. And yeah, the controversy here is largely over fluff and flavor. I've said from the very beginning of this thread my main objection is the mismatch between flavor and reality. An purportedly unstoppable force roaming the spaceways and devouring everything it sees, which in reality is just a big dumb reef shark that hides in the crevices of astral rocks, needs to have its fluff adjusted. Big dumb reef sharks can still be used in fun ways, but false advertisement of its capabilities doesn't contribute anything useful.

My opinion of 5E lore isn't as high as yours but I absolutely agree that concept and lore, not combat stats, is the main thing that I want from other DMs, because it's harder to come up with good concepts than to make up reasonable stats. You can even make up stats on the fly if you really need to, but you can't command the creative muse to invent good concepts and lore that easily.

I guess this means I should rewrite the stats on the Astral Dreadnought. At minimum the donjon demiplane needs to persist past death, and it needs some random tables for the layout, population, and other contents of the demiplane.

[Envyus]

Nothing about it's fluff is inconsistent with the monster.

[strangebloke]

Nothing about it's fluff is inconsistent with the monster.

Agreed.

Max, the thing is terrifying. Full stop. Sure, it isn't smart. You can kill it if you have to and you're in the upper 0.01% of people with access to military resources and you go hunting for the thing.

But 99.99% of people have *nothing* to stop this thing. This guy shows up and decides to eat your ship and its crew of forty? It just does. You're projecting yourself across the astral sea and you bump into Mr. Ugly here? You're probably just dead.

Travelers have every reason to dread this thing.

And even for most of the people who *could* lol this thing, It is such a costly undertaking they'll never bother with it. Cheaper to alter the shipping routes and wait for the cursed thing to leave than to send hundreds of troops and a small fleet off on a mad hunt into the void.

[Unoriginal]

Also been in the hospital. Still am, actually.

Sorry. I didn't want to sound disrespectful, I just wanted to have this thing move quickly.

I hope you feel better soon.



I found the idea of having a face-off to be comical.

this thing should die if it's out of its element, confronted with an equivalently CR-ed force that is designed to take it down and has perfect morale.

Against 500 Githyanki on astral boats? Sure, I don't deny it. It's CR 21, after all, a lvl 20 group can take it down.

Against 120 Gnolls or other CR 1/4 mooks? Not a chance.

And I can prove it.



This is a dead sexy monster that would be a lot of fun to run. Can anyone seriously look at this thing and tell me they wouldn't go *oh ***** when it came rushing them out of a tunnel in an ancient Githzerai temple they were exploring?

It's got weapons, tricks, nice defenses and a built-in plot hook. 8/10, would slay again.

Oh, I totally agree. The Astral Dreadnought is awesome, no question, and they can make for great encounters.

I'm just pissed at the "boring bag of HPs" nonsense people keep insisting 5e monsters suffer from, and think that people are vastly underestimating the Dreadnought if they think you can just throw 100+ mooks at it and call it a day.

[War_lord]

I don't see why anyone is bothering engaging with MaxWilson. He has admitted to not liking D&D 5e, to being, quote, "done" with it. This nonsense about a "computer simulation" is plainly a form of concern trolling, and when actually invited to demonstrate his claims in a scientific setting he refused to engage. If you hate the game so much, stop posting. "X monster is a boring bag of hit points" is to 5e what "it's trying to be WoW" was to 4th. The person who originally coined the assertion probably had a sensible argument, but it has long since became the province of witless bashing.


I'm just pissed at the "boring bag of HPs" nonsense people keep insisting 5e monsters suffer from, and think that people are vastly underestimating the Dreadnought if they think you can just throw 100+ mooks at it and call it a day.

That is, of course leaving aside that monster vs monster area battles is something the system was never meant to do. Particularly when action economy comes into play.

[Lombra]

Hmmm... it looks like that monster from Doom...

*one google search later*

That's because the cacodemon's sprite was cropped from the astral dreadnaught picture on the cover of the manual of the planes.

[Asmotherion]

Wow. What an incredible mismatch between reputation and boring, sack-of-HP reality. That thing is weaksauce.
Nah, it's a good challenge.

Unlike a Beholder, it needs no tackticks of switching it's Antimagic Eye on and off to use eye rays, and has resistance to all 3 weapon types as long as they are non-magical. It has a good "RUN AWAY FROM THIS THING" flag on it.

I'd call it a more fit-for-melee Beholder with a full body instead of multiple eyes maybe?

I'd still think the Beholder is just as deadly, if played right.

PS: Yes, I do think it's most defining feature other than the lore appropriate "cutting the silver cord on a natural 20" (witch is a nice touch, but mostly there for show, and basically means "vorpal weapon claws"), is it's antimagic field eye cone, which is a total rip-off from the Beholder. Nothing wrong with that, just saying.

[JackPhoenix]

PS: Yes, I do think it's most defining feature other than the lore appropriate "cutting the silver cord on a natural 20" (witch is a nice touch, but mostly there for show, and basically means "vorpal weapon claws"), is it's antimagic field eye cone, which is a total rip-off from the Beholder. Nothing wrong with that, just saying.

Speaking of which, wouldn't antimagic interfere with the silver cord already?

[Unoriginal]

I don't see why anyone is bothering engaging with MaxWilson. He has admitted to not liking D&D 5e, to being, quote, "done" with it. This nonsense about a "computer simulation" is plainly a form of concern trolling, and when actually invited to demonstrate his claims in a scientific setting he refused to engage. If you hate the game so much, stop posting. "X monster is a boring bag of hit points" is to 5e what "it's trying to be WoW" was to 4th. The person who originally coined the assertion probably had a sensible argument, but it has long since became the province of witless bashing.

Mostly because I want to show how empty the claim is to those who could be convinced by the bs.




That is, of course leaving aside that monster vs monster area battles is something the system was never meant to do. Particularly when action economy comes into play.

Fair, but NPCs fighting NPCs is a thing that happens in 5e, even in the official modules.

Even so, I think it's worthwhile to prove the Dreadnought is not as fragile against large groups as people are saying.

[smcmike]

Even so, I think it's worthwhile to prove the Dreadnought is not as fragile against large groups as people are saying.

If you want to prove this, you really could just run the encounter entirely yourself - Max has provided the tactics he is planning on employing, so he isn’t relying on some trick beyond them.

[Unoriginal]

If you want to prove this, you really could just run the encounter entirely yourself - Max has provided the tactics he is planning on employing, so he isn’t relying on some trick beyond them.

But then people could argue I made the Gnolls not use the tactics the right way, or advantaged the Dreadnought in one way or another.

What is needed is that the Gnolls can't be accused of pulling their punches, and that requires someone other than me controlling them, and giving them full intent on destroying the Dreadnought.

Plus I'd rather not play with myself in public.

[strangebloke]

But then people could argue I made the Gnolls not use the tactics the right way, or advantaged the Dreadnought in one way or another.

This is the problem. Max always makes these appeals to 'obvious tactics' that 'everyone used IRL.' but then any demonstration of a counter is met with 'that's not exactly how I would do it'

Added to the fact that half of the time he doesn't appear to understand the rules...

[MaxWilson]

This is the problem. Max always makes these appeals to 'obvious tactics' that 'everyone used IRL.' but then any demonstration of a counter is met with 'that's not exactly how I would do it'

*snort*

(1) You're misquoting me. "Everyone used IRL" is a quote from which post exactly?

(2) If you stick to the tactical doctrine I outlined for the gnolls (hold the range open as long as possible, then envelop in 3D, aiming for a 150' radius sphere because that's short range for longbows), I won't have any cause for complaint. It's not like the gnolls are being asked to do anything sophisticated.

You and I both know the Astral Dreadnought is going to die barring outrageous shenanigans from the DM (like not actually englobing or creating a 150' diameter sphere instead of a 150' radius)--why not let Unoriginal discover that for himself?

Edit: okay, I'll add one more piece to the tactical doctrine: gnolls should not shoot themselves dry at long range. If the DM is giving gnolls only their MM 2d10 arrows instead of a full quiver of 20, a gnoll who rolls only 5 arrows should not use them all up at long range. Save at least a few shots for close range. If you insist on me giving a number I'll say 4.

I'll admit that I left myself open by not specifying that up front. I think most DMs do not strictly enforce MM ammunition limits on any kind of monster, and any reasonable war-hunting party would carry more than 2d10 arrows, so I think it was reasonable for me not to worry about that initially--but if that's the loophole Unoriginal is planning on exploiting, I am not unaware of it.

[smcmike]

This is the problem. Max always makes these appeals to 'obvious tactics' that 'everyone used IRL.' but then any demonstration of a counter is met with 'that's not exactly how I would do it'


I see what you mean.

[MaxWilson]

I see what you mean.

Et tu, Brute?

Is this really how you guys want to play this? Misquotes and unsupported smears?

So far the only "demonstration of a counter" in this thread is me demonstrating, two posts above, that ammunition limits are a hole in the tactical doctrine as outlined if the gnolls are dumb enough to shoot themselves dry, and modifying the doctrine accordingly. It's not even clear if Unoriginal was aware of that rule, and it's not something that comes up in practice in-game or would reasonably occur in-world, and it's certainly not something I had to have someone else demonstrate to me before responding to.

Beyond that you've got two camps of people, one saying, "Of course the Dreadnought is going to die in this scenario," and another saying, "Of course the Dreadnought is going to win," and yet somehow the one thing they seem to agree on is that MaxWilson is wrong. [eyeroll]

[PhoenixPhyre]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned (or nailed down):

Starting conditions.

The AD is an ambush predator. Saying that they're in an infinite white room, starting at long range is stacking the deck tremendously against the AD. Starting at knife-fighting range (the AD pops around the corner of a rock, etc) stacks the deck in the other direction.

Note that as INT 6 creatures, the gnolls only have an 18 ( 3xINT IIRC? ) movement speed. They also don't have longbows, so if you're giving them those you have to recalculate their CR (as that changes both AC and DPR). So englobement tactics are kind of right out. Even on owls (which move only 24 feet), you can't outrun a native to the plane (whose 60' movement works there just fine).


Not to mention that giving them giant owls doesn't fit with any known lore--chaotic evil quasi-demon creatures riding "guardians of their woodland realms"? Also, gnolls aren't exactly known for their competent, patient tactics, and with INT 6 they're not too much better than the AD itself. So this whole thing is horribly

[MaxWilson]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned (or nailed down):

Starting conditions.

The AD is an ambush predator.

On the astral plane, seriously?

Also, where in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes does it say that? Genuine question, because if that were its fluff, at least half of my dissatisfaction with it would be addressed. To me it seems to be presented as a hazard of the Astral Plane, kind of like the psychic wind, something that you can run into while travelling between color pools. If it's just something that can possibly happen to you when you get too close to a dense asteroid field floating in the astral plane, meh, serves you right.


Saying that they're in an infinite white room, starting at long range is stacking the deck tremendously against the AD. Starting at knife-fighting range (the AD pops around the corner of a rock, etc) stacks the deck in the other direction.

To a certain extent it makes sense to measure it in empty space first, for the sake of those like Unoriginal who believe it's deadly EVERYWHERE. Once it's established that it will lose in open space, you can scale back the conditions until you figure out what it might take to make it fearsomely dangerous, e.g. labyrinthine corridors.

Although as Naanomi pointed out previously, it also makes a lot of sense to measure it against an actual planar traveler party, since they're the ones who give it its reputation, and not against a generic Prime Material threat like a cavalry unit, which could only reasonably get into the astral via a color pool, and it's not clear from the DMG how stable those are or how feasible it would be for mundanes to use them for transportation.


Note that as INT 6 creatures, the gnolls only have an 18 ( 3xINT IIRC? ) movement speed. They also don't have longbows, so if you're giving them those you have to recalculate their CR (as that changes both AC and DPR). So englobement tactics are kind of right out. Even on owls (which move only 24 feet), you can't outrun a native to the plane (whose 60' movement works there just fine).

Gnolls do have longbows--MM page 162.

Your walking speed changes on the Astral Plane, but your flying speed doesn't. If it were otherwise, the Astral Dreadnought (Int 5) would be even slower than the gnolls (Int 6).



Not to mention that giving them giant owls doesn't fit with any known lore--chaotic evil quasi-demon creatures riding "guardians of their woodland realms"? Also, gnolls aren't exactly known for their competent, patient tactics, and with INT 6 they're not too much better than the AD itself. So this whole thing is horribly

No skin off my teeth. I've said before (post #128) that I'm open to other scenarios.


[*snip* discussion of why gnolls on giant owls are going to smoosh the Astral Dreadnought in this context]

So for the sake of argument let's leave the giant owls out of it and just make the gnolls fight on foot. It won't make any difference to the outcome.


I'll DM it.

Great. Let me know when you're done running the combat. If you prefer hobgoblins or goblins or human Guards instead of gnolls, or if you want a different scenario like a PC party, let me know.

[Beechgnome]

*snort*

(1) You're misquoting me. "Everyone used IRL" is a quote from which post exactly?

(2) If you stick to the tactical doctrine I outlined for the gnolls (hold the range open as long as possible, then envelop in 3D, aiming for a 150' radius sphere because that's short range for longbows), I won't have any cause for complaint. It's not like the gnolls are being asked to do anything sophisticated.

You and I both know the Astral Dreadnought is going to die barring outrageous shenanigans from the DM (like not actually englobing or creating a 150' diameter sphere instead of a 150' radius)--why not let Unoriginal discover that for himself?

Edit: okay, I'll add one more piece to the tactical doctrine: gnolls should not shoot themselves dry at long range. If the DM is giving gnolls only their MM 2d10 arrows instead of a full quiver of 20, a gnoll who rolls only 5 arrows should not use them all up at long range. Save at least a few shots for close range. If you insist on me giving a number I'll say 4.

I'll admit that I left myself open by not specifying that up front. I think most DMs do not strictly enforce MM ammunition limits on any kind of monster, and any reasonable war-hunting party would carry more than 2d10 arrows, so I think it was reasonable for me not to worry about that initially--but if that's the loophole Unoriginal is planning on exploiting, I am not unaware of it.

Maybe the weirdest thing about this thread is how much energy people have spent discussing the military tactics of gnolls when CR 1/2 hobgoblins are sitting right there in the MM going 'Hello? Gnolls. Tactics. Seriously?'

[MaxWilson]

Maybe the weirdest thing about this thread is how much energy people have spent discussing the military tactics of gnolls when CR 1/2 hobgoblins are sitting right there in the MM going 'Hello? Gnolls. Tactics. Seriously?'

Heh. I personally am open to a number of different scenarios.

Hobgoblin tactics for this scenario would take a little bit more time to describe since they want to arrange for Martial Advantage, and would be more vulnerable to the possibility of bad DMing if the DM (or whoever is running the hobgoblins in detail) wants to make them execute the tactics poorly. I couldn't just say "englobe the thing and shoot it to death."

[smcmike]

Et tu, Brute?

Is this really how you guys want to play this? Misquotes and unsupported smears?

Beyond that you've got two camps of people, one saying, "Of course the Dreadnought is going to die in this scenario," and another saying, "Of course the Dreadnought is going to win," and yet somehow the one thing they seem to agree on is that MaxWilson is wrong. [eyeroll]

I’m in the camp that doesn’t know whether the Dreadnought is going to win, and am curious to find out. That’s why I’ve encouraged Unoriginal to run it himself, and also why I’m encouraging you to engage fully by participating in the proposed scenario.

From my perspective, I’ve seen some misunderstanding of your arguments from the other side, but also some purposeful lack of clarity from your side - you seem to like to make arguments where gaps are filled in with some unstated common knowledge.

[Naanomi]

On the astral plane, seriously?

Also, where in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes does it say that?

Dreadnaught have historically been described as ‘coming out of nowhere’ and catching people off guard. I don’t see it as a classic ambush predator, but it’s movement speed (and ability to sense Astral travelers and phenomenon) do mean that they come upon travelers suddenly and with very little warning. This is likely redoubled by how unwary most Astral travelers are... the place is *empty*, running into threats of any kind is uncommon, I would guess many Astral travelers grow complacent in that timeless void
L

which could only reasonably get into the astral via a color pool, and it's not clear from the DMG how stable those are or how feasible it would be for mundanes to use them for transportation.
Color pools are one way, out of the Astral... not into it. Actual portals to the Astral are exceedingly rare (even by planar phenomenon standards); and quickly claimed by things like Githyanki trying to make new crèche sites.

Narratively the Astral Plane is supposed to be like the ocean... big, empty, with dangers lurking where you can’t see them. It is a transitive Plane, a way from getting from point A to point B. In most adventures it is utilized in you get a few Astral encounters before reaching the more plot relevant destination... the Dreadnaught isn’t an end boss, it is the kraken attacking your ship on the way, rising from the unseen depths (or zooming in from the billowing Astral clouds). There are exceptions, of course, just like their are pirate adventures on the sea.

[MaxWilson]

I’m in the camp that doesn’t know whether the Dreadnought is going to win, and am curious to find out. That’s why I’ve encouraged Unoriginal to run it himself, and also why I’m encouraging you to engage fully by participating in the proposed scenario.

I'm not going to participate in the Play By Post because past experience has led me to expect even simple fights to be incredibly tedious in Play By Post. Look how much trouble they've having on JNAProductions' thread just getting initial positioning set up. To do it efficiently they'll need a synchronous communication channel and a visual (vs. textual) medium with an easy (visual) way of showing game status at any given point in time.

I had originally planned on just shutting up about the Mongol Horse Archers until I was in a position to supply that synchronous, visual medium, but Unoriginal begged for some info up front, and JNAProductions volunteered to run the game, so here we are.


From my perspective, I’ve seen some misunderstanding of your arguments from the other side, but also some purposeful lack of clarity from your side - you seem to like to make arguments where gaps are filled in with some unstated common knowledge.

Partly this is because I do have a tendency to overestimate people. You saw (and objected to) how I responded to someone, I think it might have been Unoriginal, not understanding the value of adding Truesight to a monster that already has an antimagic cone. I normally am fine with people asking for clarification when they don't understand something (that's how we all learn, and you've probably seen me do it myself on more than one occasion), but someone who is simultaneously ignorant and arrogant turns me off. E.g. if instead of asking, "How is XYZ possible?" they immediately jump to "You can't do XYZ. You don't know the rules," I find myself less willing to go out of my way to educate them out of ignorance.

But partly it's also because I expect the gaps to be filled in with any reasonable action. E.g. if I say "Hold the range open," and you're mounted on flying owls with Flyby, I may not have told you exactly where to maneuver (straight back? to the sides?) and I don't really care. If you fly towards the dreadnought that's not reasonable. But I don't care if you're optimally efficient and whether you do things like fly towards the Dreadnought to get into short range (150') before flying back to hold the range open. Gnolls aren't intelligent and I'm not specifying sophisticated tactics for you. Just do something reasonable.

If I say, "Hold the range open, but don't shoot yourself dry at long range, and englobe the Dreadnought in a sphere about 150' in radius while shooting it; let me know when the results are ready" don't get upset because I haven't specified every little detail of what you need to do. Just do something reasonable. I think it's you in particular, smcmike, that keeps bringing up morale. If you think it's reasonable for the gnolls to break and run if they take 50% casualties, then make that happen. I don't expect them to take that many casualties anyway, and if you make them break and run after taking 10% casualties I will certainly point out that that's fairly unreasonable. Just use your head.

If you have specific gaps that you'd like filled in, we can talk about them. Either I will supply those details or, if they are tedious and time-consuming to supply, I will say, "That's why I'm building a computerized battlegrid. Wait a couple of days."

[MaxWilson]

Color pools are one way, out of the Astral... not into it.

You are correct. I misread "portal" as "color pool" on DMG 47. Several times in a row, actually, until I actually sat down and started typing out the quote for this post, and then I realized. :)

[Naanomi]

I’m not sure if it is part of 5e Cosmology, but historically the Astral Muffles sounds and the whole place has an eerie silence... primes tend to get used to hearing big things moving from quite a distance away, yet another reason the Dreadnaught may be ‘sneakier’ than one might think

[Unoriginal]

You know what? Fine, I'll run the fight myself.





Partly this is because I do have a tendency to overestimate people. You saw (and objected to) how I responded to someone, I think it might have been Unoriginal, not understanding the value of adding Truesight to a monster that already has an antimagic cone. I normally am fine with people asking for clarification when they don't understand something (that's how we all learn, and you've probably seen me do it myself on more than one occasion), but someone who is simultaneously ignorant and arrogant turns me off. E.g. if instead of asking, "How is XYZ possible?" they immediately jump to "You can't do XYZ. You don't know the rules,"[/B] I find myself less willing to go out of my way to educate them out of ignorance.




Skulker shenanigans don't require Greater Invisibility. I think they're pretty obvious but I don't want to divert attention to them now by elaborating. I just mentioned adding Truesight to the Astral Dreadnought because many high-level monsters, like dragons and Nycaloths and Pit Fiends, have vision good enough that Skulker tricks stop working on them. The Astral Dreadnought does not, and in that respect it more closely resembles low- or mid-level monsters than high-end monsters. I'll stop myself there so as not to provoke a tangent.



Oh, really?

Please enlighten us, which of the Skulker's shenanigans will be stopped by Truesight but not by the Anti-Magic Cone?




You can't really be that ignorant, can you? Think about the interaction between Skulker and darkvision for a second.

You certainly demonstrated your great pedagogic streak when "ignorant" people ask for clarifications.

[Naanomi]

From the 2e Planescape book on the Astral... “Range of sight on the Astral Plane is not very far, despite the fact that a body appears to be looking out into an endless void. Actual visual range is limited to about 200 yards. If something enters this range, it seems to fade into view out of nothingness. Likewise, sound only carries about 200 yards”

[MaxWilson]

When snarky people ask sarcastically for clarifications? The chain of posts post you quoted above illustrates perfectly what gets on my nerves and makes me less willing to spend time educating someone. It's not like you have a lot of credibility in my book as a reasonable person in the first place. We weren't even a full page into this thread before you started tossing insults.

And remember that despite your tone when you asked that question, I still made sure that you eventually figured out the answer. I didn't have to do that.


From the 2e Planescape book on the Astral... “Range of sight on the Astral Plane is not very far, despite the fact that a body appears to be looking out into an endless void. Actual visual range is limited to about 200 yards. If something enters this range, it seems to fade into view out of nothingness. Likewise, sound only carries about 200 yards”

Wow, that's awesome. Consider it stolen for 5E. It wouldn't help the Astral Dreadnought much tactically but it might help it achieve surprise at long range, and that helps the flavor and makes it more likely for enemies to make bad decisions.

[smcmike]

Partly this is because I do have a tendency to overestimate people. You saw (and objected to) how I responded to someone, I think it might have been Unoriginal, not understanding the value of adding Truesight to a monster that already has an antimagic cone. I normally am fine with people asking for clarification when they don't understand something (that's how we all learn, and you've probably seen me do it myself on more than one occasion), but someone who is simultaneously ignorant and arrogant turns me off. E.g. if instead of asking, "How is XYZ possible?" they immediately jump to "You can't do XYZ. You don't know the rules," I find myself less willing to go out of my way to educate them out of ignorance.

Right, you aren’t willing to put in the work to prove your arguments, despite being quite willing to argue at length. This is what I find annoying.



Just do something reasonable. I think it's you in particular, smcmike, that keeps bringing up morale.


I don’t think it was, since I consider your argument to fall purely in the realm of theory, rather than actual play, and don’t think morale is very important for theory fights. For what it’s worth, I strongly suspect that you are right about a globe of flying archers winning this fight. Kiting is a hard tactic to beat, especially by big dumb animals.

[Unoriginal]

I don’t think it was, since I consider your argument to fall purely in the realm of theory, rather than actual play, and don’t think morale is very important for theory fights. For what it’s worth, I strongly suspect that you are right about a globe of flying archers winning this fight. Kiting is a hard tactic to beat, especially by big dumb animals.

Maybe you could play the Gnolls, smcmike. It'd make it easier to turn this theory into practice than if I do it on my own, and that way we won't have bia-based issues.

EDIT: note it'll be 120 gnolls without owls, since MaxWilson claimed the owls weren't needed.

[MaxWilson]

Right, you aren’t willing to put in the work to prove your arguments, despite being quite willing to argue at length. This is what I find annoying.
I apologize for annoying you. I've admitted that my impatience with rude and foolish questions is a flaw. I'd probably do better to just ignore them entirely, but that sometimes results in them piling on like you see on the first few pages of this thread.

It's easier for me to be civil to you because you're usually a reasonable person.


I don’t think it was, since I consider your argument to fall purely in the realm of theory, rather than actual play, and don’t think morale is very important for theory fights. For what it’s worth, I strongly suspect that you are right about a globe of flying archers winning this fight. Kiting is a hard tactic to beat, especially by big dumb animals.

The dreadnought can actually beat the kiting tactic by Dashing and then using its legendary actions on its AoE psychic burst. Kiting isn't the key factor in this fight--it just reduces casualties by buying an extra round to fire at short range. Dispersal and ranged weaponry is the key.

[Naanomi]

What is the dispersal like? I imagine the gnolls all want to be within shooting distance if the Dreadnaught approaches their perimeter so they are equally spread in a 600ft sphere or so? So it is unlikely that more than one Gnoll is within AoE range anyways right?

[MaxWilson]

What is the dispersal like? I imagine the gnolls all want to be within shooting distance if the Dreadnaught approaches their perimeter so they are equally spread in a 600ft sphere or so? So it is unlikely that more than one Gnoll is within AoE range anyways right?

150' radius sphere, centered as best as possible on the Dreadnought.

My BOTE says that a 60' radius sphere covers about 1/25 of the surface area of a 150' radius sphere, and it takes two bursts to kill a gnoll. In practice dispersal won't be perfect and they won't start off in a globe formation either, but it still won't kill more than maybe 10% of the gnolls every two rounds, so they'll have plenty of time to get their (approximately) four rounds of close-range shooting in that are required to kill it.

[Naanomi]

How did they surround it? I would assume the Dreadnaught would be coming in from one side (it doesn’t change the math much). Would maybe make it easier for the animal-intelligence Dreadnaught to flee though

[Unoriginal]

The Psychic Projection isn't a 60ft radius sphere. The range of the ability is 60ft, but there is the 20ftx20ftx20ft space the Dreadnought occupies due to being Gargantuan. So in practice it's a 70ft radius sphere.

[MaxWilson]

How did they surround it? I would assume the Dreadnaught would be coming in from one side (it doesn’t change the math much)

Yes, you work your way around gradually. Initially you're more like a plane or hemisphere, which as I said is why it's likely to hit 10% instead of 4% (1/25). The way you're imagining it happening is undoubtedly correct.

[MaxWilson]

The Psychic Projection isn't a 60ft radius sphere. The range of the ability is 60ft, but there is the 20ftx20ftx20ft space the Dreadnought occupies due to being Gargantuan. So in practice it's a 80ft radius sphere.

Spell effects emanate from a point, but you're arguing here that creature-generated effects emanate from a volume.

If your rules interpretation were ruled by the DM to be correct it would be a 70' radius sphere.

[strangebloke]

*snort*

(1) You're misquoting me. "Everyone used IRL" is a quote from which post exactly?
Well, you started this discussion with Mongol horse archers. I was also referencing other discussions where you describe spacing as "standard modern military doctrine."

I mean, do you disagree with the larger point?

diameter[/I] sphere instead of a 150' radius)--why not let Unoriginal discover that for himself?

I think that if the gnolls englobe the dreadnought, then yeah, he's in trouble. However, let's do some math and see how many casualties the gnolls take.

Gnolls have a hit rate of 1/4 or 1/16 at long range. So each gnoll has a DPR of

floor[(5/4)/2]=0.625 at close range

floor[(5/16)/2]=0.156 at long range

(Crits bump this up, but the "round down" rule bumps it down. I'm ignoring both.)

So if dreadnought wins initiative, half the gnolls will be attacking at long range. Since the gnolls are essentially stationary, this will more or less continue to be the case.

So the DPR for the gnolls as a whole:
75*0.625 + 75*0.156 = 57.575. so he's got about six rounds.

The dreadnought hits a 60 foot radius sphere every round. This means he can hit a circular sector of about ~47 degrees. (2*invsin(60/150)=47) Based on some napkin calculations, that's about 6-7 gnolls.

If he hits a gnoll twice, that gnoll has something like a 99% chance of dying. Now the gnolls will fly away from him as they attempt to globe him again, which in the short run run will hurt his efficiency, but in the long run it helps him since it causes them to bunch up more. He'll also kill 1-2 every round with classes attacks, but that will cut into the ones he kills with AOE.I'm not going to do a turn by turn, but it's reasonable that he gets 5 gnolls a turn on average after the first turn. These gnolls are universally in the 'near' category, so he reduces the damage he's taking by 3.1 a turn. So by turn six he's taken:

57.6 + 54.5 + 51.4 + 48.3 + 45.2 + 42.1 + 39.0 = 338.1

he dies in round 7, having killed 35 gnolls.

So you're right. They win.

I find the whole premise ridiculous, however.

1) what are hundreds of anything doing floating out in the astral sea? If you're saying gith, then sure. A gith fleet can probably take this guy. They wouldn't want to waste so many resources on it, but they could.

2) how are they englobing something that is 4 times as fast as them, and can attack with an aoe while dashing via legendary action? How can they even force a confrontation? The dreadnought is a beast, but he's smarter than a dog.

3) Most armies get routed after taking 10% causalities. This hypothetical gnoll force takes over 20%.

4) if the dreadnought retreats any time after the first round, he can get out of close range in a single turn, reducing the damage taken by 60%. It takes him five turns to get out of long range, during which time he'll take ~115 damage. So he's perfectly capable of attacking the gnollsphere, retreating, resting attacking, rinsing, repeating.



Beyond that you've got two camps of people, one saying, "Of course the Dreadnought is going to die in this scenario," and another saying, "Of course the Dreadnought is going to win," and yet somehow the one thing they seem to agree on is that MaxWilson is wrong. [eyeroll]

It's not your math that's bad. It's the fact that you think your math means anything at all.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yes, you work your way around gradually. Initially you're more like a plane or hemisphere, which as I said is why it's likely to hit 10% instead of 4% (1/25). The way you're imagining it happening is undoubtedly correct.

If there are no owls, then the gnolls are moving 18 feet (36 if they dash). I don't see how they can englobe anyone, let alone something moving at 60 or 120 that only has to get within 60 feet.

Napkin math: the ones going to the other side have to move about 500 feet if they follow the sphere. That's 10+ rounds, dashing. And dashing means no damage. If they move on a straighter path, then the AD blasts them. Especially if they actually each take their own turn, or at least take staggered group turns (so he can do legendary actions 3x/round like he should).

[Naanomi]

One ‘advantage’ the gnolls have is they are too slow to route, once this fight begins they have little choice but to see it to the last man

[Waazraath]

One ‘advantage’ the gnolls have is they are too slow to route, once this fight begins they have little choice but to see it to the last man


Do they? They can scatter, maybe trip some of their friends along the way, so they get eaten instead. They are CE, aren't they?

[Unoriginal]

Spell effects emanate from a point, but you're arguing here that creature-generated effects emanate from a volume.

If your rules interpretation were ruled by the DM to be correct it would be a 70' radius sphere.

This effect precises it's 60ft from the Dreadnought. Seems logical it's 60ft in every directions, and that the Dreadnought's body is not "eating" some of the range.

[smcmike]

Since this thing is basically Jaws, it should act like Jaws - attack, take a few victims, leave. Repeat. It isn’t trying to win a fight, it’s trying to grab dinner.

[Unoriginal]

Well, you started this discussion with Mongol horse archers. I was also referencing other discussions where you describe spacing as "standard modern military doctrine."

I mean, do you disagree with the larger point?

I think that if the gnolls englobe the dreadnought, then yeah, he's in trouble. However, let's do some math and see how many casualties the gnolls take.

Gnolls have a hit rate of 1/4 or 1/16 at long range. So each gnoll has a DPR of

floor[(5/4)/2]=0.625 at close range

floor[(5/16)/2]=0.156 at long range

(Crits bump this up, but the "round down" rule bumps it down. I'm ignoring both.)

So if dreadnought wins initiative, half the gnolls will be attacking at long range. Since the gnolls are essentially stationary, this will more or less continue to be the case.

So the DPR for the gnolls as a whole:
75*0.625 + 75*0.156 = 57.575. so he's got about six rounds.

The dreadnought hits a 60 foot radius sphere every round. This means he can hit a circular sector of about ~47 degrees. (2*invsin(60/150)=47) Based on some napkin calculations, that's about 6-7 gnolls.

If he hits a gnoll twice, that gnoll has something like a 99% chance of dying. Now the gnolls will fly away from him as they attempt to globe him again, which in the short run run will hurt his efficiency, but in the long run it helps him since it causes them to bunch up more. He'll also kill 1-2 every round with classes attacks, but that will cut into the ones he kills with AOE.I'm not going to do a turn by turn, but it's reasonable that he gets 5 gnolls a turn on average after the first turn. These gnolls are universally in the 'near' category, so he reduces the damage he's taking by 3.1 a turn. So by turn six he's taken:

57.6 + 54.5 + 51.4 + 48.3 + 45.2 + 42.1 + 39.0 = 338.1

he dies in round 7, having killed 35 gnolls.

So you're right. They win.

You forgot that the Dreadnought can take the Dodge action and still use its Psychic Projection.

[Millstone85]

Spell effects emanate from a point, but you're arguing here that creature-generated effects emanate from a volume.
This effect precises it's 60ft from the Dreadnought. Seems logical it's 60ft in every directions, and that the Dreadnought's body is not "eating" some of the range.If the dreadnought's within-60-feet Psychic Projection was eaten like that, would that mean you have to be inside a balor's 15-by-15 space, near the center even, to be affected by its within-5-feet Fire Aura? What about an adult dragon's within-10-feet Wing Attack? Yeah, of course it emanates from a volume.

[Naanomi]

Let’s grossly oversimplify this... giving every math advantage to the Dreadnaught

Gnolls: all have disadvantage because of range, vision impairment, fear... dealing .12 average damage per attack. It will take 2,475 attacks to kill it. They had the foresight to bring unlimited arrows

Dreadnaught: between its Attack options, and slightly luckier than average rolling, kills 4 Gnolls a turn, using whatever is most convenient at the moment.

Everyone is too spread out or dies too fast for attacks of opportunity to matter

No one runs away no matter what

Gnolls lost initiative, four dying before acting at all
——-
Starting with one lucky surviving Gnoll getting that final death shot and working my way backwards... it would take 145 Gnolls 37 pyrrhic rounds to bring down the beast

[Justin Sane]

Just how exactly are the gnolls enveloping something that moves faster than they do?

[Naanomi]

Just how exactly are the gnolls enveloping something that moves faster than they do?
I thought the same thing, but at longbow ranges it hardly matters in any practical way except for if there is a retreat on either side

[MaxWilson]

Well, you started this discussion with Mongol horse archers. I was also referencing other discussions where you describe spacing as "standard modern military doctrine."

I mean, do you disagree with the larger point?

I think that if the gnolls englobe the dreadnought, then yeah, he's in trouble. However, let's do some math and see how many casualties the gnolls take.

You did the math, made some assumptions (some of which I question, like assuming that gnolls at long range will still be at long range after 7 rounds), and found that yep, the Dreadnought loses.

I'm willing to discuss the questions you mention (what's a unit of gnoll longbowmen doing in the astral? What kind of morale is realistic for D&D monsters that are routinely played as fighting to the death? Will 10% casualties actually break gnolls who outnumber their opponent 100 to 1? How does an Astral Dreadnought respond to taking damage--will it break off the attack?) but it will be easier when I can show, not tell, the effects of a given set of assumptions. As you can tell it's a LOT of work to discuss even simple questions in text, and there's inevitably That Guy who wants to haggle over minutiae that have already been settled. Just look at how people popped up asking the same question which Naanomi already asked and I answered, about how the englobement doctrine will play out in practice. (Look at Unoriginal, wanting to haggle over whether the psychic attack has a 60' radius or a 70' radius even though it doesn't change the results.)

If I can show a visual instead of just pointing to math, it seems more likely that we'll get to focus on the assumptions and not just dispute the math. Morale in particular, of both sides, is a really interesting question that doesn't get discussed often enough in D&D, aside from a few pages in the DMG and the house rules and/or praxis of certain DMs. I'm really interested in morale stats for monsters and adding rules that interact with morale--it's one of the glaring holes in 5E in my opinion and something that is very much worth stealing from AD&D stat blocks.

[Unoriginal]

I find it funny that people are calling the Dreadnought dumb when it's only one point of INT lower than the Gnolls.

Sure, it's an animal. Doesn't mean it's amazingly overshadowed by the Gnoll's brillance.

[Naanomi]

My guess is the Dreadnaught would flee pretty quick in this scenario. It eats Astrally Projected folk, not those physically present. While it is a more than a bit hostile in general, there is nothing present that an army of Gnolls has present that would keep it there past the initial aggression

[MaxWilson]

You forgot that the Dreadnought can take the Dodge action and still use its Psychic Projection.

Good point. I guess the owls aren't superfluous after all.

[strangebloke]

Since this thing is basically Jaws, it should act like Jaws - attack, take a few victims, leave. Repeat. It isn’t trying to win a fight, it’s trying to grab dinner.
Yes, I agree. But this whole example is stupid.

You forgot that the Dreadnought can take the Dodge action and still use its Psychic Projection.
Good point! That changes things!

...Redid the math, comes out to about 19 rounds but he still loses, killing roughly 2/3 of the gnolls. Of course then this becomes really silly, because how the gnolls (or whatever) haven't broken and fled at this point is beyond me.

some of which I question, like assuming that gnolls at long range will still be at long range after 7 rounds
They have a movement speed of 18 f/r, and they're not dashing. The gnolls have like 2000 sq. ft. apiece on the surface of this starting sphere. They aren't catching up to anyone very quickly, and in any case the amorphous distribution of the gnolls as they try to reform the globe is a serious calculation best left to computers.

And this is why arguing against you is a pain in the rear. You point out a 'flaw' that is small but nearly impossible to calculate.

Look at Unoriginal, wanting to haggle over whether the psychic attack has a 60' radius or a 70' radius even though it doesn't change the results.
*cough*

If I can show a visual instead of just pointing to math, it seems more likely that we'll get to focus on the assumptions and not just dispute the math.
It really won't. This whole scenario you've concocted is just stupid.

The dreadnought is faster. It has no lair. It doesn't have anything it wants to protect. If we're keeping with the shark motif, it probably never sleeps or stops moving. Your scenario centers on gnolls riding owls in space somehow getting the drop on this thing, whilst you simultaneously assert that it getting the drop on them is completely ridiculous.

Morale in particular, of both sides, is a really interesting question that doesn't get discussed often enough in D&D, aside from a few pages in the DMG and the house rules and/or praxis of certain DMs. I'm really interested in morale stats for monsters and adding rules that interact with morale--it's one of the glaring holes in 5E in my opinion and something that is very much worth stealing from AD&D stat blocks.
Yeah, I have no idea about the morale of owl-riding space gnolls, particularly as I have never met one.

Good point. I guess the owls aren't superfluous after all.
...Do you honestly think your example has anything to do with how the game was designed? Or that it has any relationship with the fluff? There's no part of this that isn't stupid.

Let me parse out your argument:
-> The AD (astral dreadnought) is, according to fluff, a feared apex predator that makes travelers tremble.
-> The AD can be killed by company-level action of well-equipped and disciplined soldiers, if they somehow get the drop on a creature they can't get the drop on.
-> This means that no one should be that afraid of the AD, and that the fluff is stupid.

For your education, I've included things that can be killed by a company of crack troops working together that would terrify me if I ever went up against one:
-> a tank
-> a stampeding herd of triceratops
-> several hundred rioters

This, combined with the fact that the thing is a giant fricking shark, (which people are irrationally afraid of anyway) that it comes out of nowhere, and and that it hunts people specifically 100% justifies its rep in my books.

[Temperjoke]

https://youtu.be/XtgZKwK6C3U

[MaxWilson]

FYI, I'm done tolerating rudeness. If you find that I'm not responding to your posts on this thread, see my .sig., and if you really want a response trying having someone else politely ask your question for you.

[strangebloke]

Apologies if you're referring to me, and if you are, you won't see it, but whatever. I get that you're interested in discussing this simulation-whatever thing. I'm just not sure what you think it proves? That the monster is weak? Boring? That it doesn't deserve to be feared?

[Kane0]

Just my opinion, but if the issue for you is high tier creatures being threatened by large numbers of low tier ones it might be more to do with Bounded Accuracy than Bag o' HP.

[DataNinja]

Not to really add anything to the current discussion at hand, but to those who don't like the sheer emptiness of the Dreadnought's demiplane, and the lack of adding anything really interesting to combat, perhaps take a leaf out of 4e's book?

In that, admittedly, it was a much smaller plane, and in the center was an "eye", that was able to unleash its gaze attack as a cone to those within - the plane was small enough that there was no way to run out of range, but you could still maneuver around if there were enough of you trapped inside so you weren't all hit. Attacking the eye was exactly the same as attacking the dreadnought (treated as the same defenses and whatnot, and had the same pool of HP, it was just immune to statuses), so, in practice what the demiplane did was two effects:

1. Split the party in order to prevent easy coordination of buffs or squishies hiding behind tanks, or whatnot, while still letting everyone contribute to the fight.
2. Effectively doubling its damaging output each round, since it could attack outside as a regular action, and then attack inside itself as a minor/bonus action.

[JoeJ]

So it looks like the way to succeed in this adventure is:

1) Recruit an army of gnolls.
2) Convince them not to eat you.
3) Recruit an army of giant owls.
4) Convince them to allow themselves to be ridden by gnolls.
5) Convince the gnolls not to eat the giant owls.
6) Train the gnolls to ride the giant owls.
7) Transport the gnolls and giant owls to the astral plane.
8) Form your army of owl riding gnolls into a big sphere.
9) Find an astral dreadnaught.
10) Lure the astral dreadnaught into the middle of the sphere.
11) Shoot enough arrows to kill the astral dreadnaught.
12) ???
13) Profit!

And some people are claiming that this isn't enough of a challenge to be interesting?

[Asmotherion]

Et tu, Brute?

Is this really how you guys want to play this? Misquotes and unsupported smears?

So far the only "demonstration of a counter" in this thread is me demonstrating, two posts above, that ammunition limits are a hole in the tactical doctrine as outlined if the gnolls are dumb enough to shoot themselves dry, and modifying the doctrine accordingly. It's not even clear if Unoriginal was aware of that rule, and it's not something that comes up in practice in-game or would reasonably occur in-world, and it's certainly not something I had to have someone else demonstrate to me before responding to.

Beyond that you've got two camps of people, one saying, "Of course the Dreadnought is going to die in this scenario," and another saying, "Of course the Dreadnought is going to win," and yet somehow the one thing they seem to agree on is that MaxWilson is wrong. [eyeroll]

I actually am of diferent opinion. If the Dreadnaught is used at it's actual CR21, the equivalent of a party of 4 Level 20 characters with an epic Boon, I believe it's a Balanced Boss Fight of Medium Dificulty, that could go both ways (accounting at least minimal amounts of optimisation, and strategic fighting.)

Lowering the Level of the Party, but adding Party members (no lower than 17-18 though) can keep it steady, perhaps with some casualties. Lowering the level, and keeping the party number steady instead, makes the encounter one step closer to deadly.

The main problem with DMing is, you need to make things interesting. If the party wins this, great, if they loose, stick with it, and if you want, use it into a hook point for story development. Know your monster, and know that, from the moment you have something that intense that is going to interact with the PCs, you make a consious choice of risking their lives. If all you want is the visual, show them the pretty picture, and homebrew something out of it (or remove some of it's abilities). Most DMs limit Monster abilities out of Fear to kill players, and this makes DnD far less interesting, because players don't learn, or enjoy D&D that much when they play "easy mode".

I think I do get your points. And I kinda agree with them. That said, I think you are going the wrong way in expressing and explaining them perhaps?

[JackPhoenix]

I actually am of diferent opinion. If the Dreadnaught is used at it's actual CR21, the equivalent of a party of 4 Level 20 characters with an epic Boon, I believe it's a Balanced Boss Fight of Medium Dificulty, that could go both ways (accounting at least minimal amounts of optimisation, and strategic fighting.)

Lowering the Level of the Party, but adding Party members (no lower than 17-18 though) can keep it steady, perhaps with some casualties. Lowering the level, and keeping the party number steady instead, makes the encounter one step closer to deadly.

Medium encounter with solo creature isn't "balanced boss fight", especially if the characters have epic boon... it's a speedbump. They should've spent some resources to make the fight go faster, or to heal afterwards, but there shouldn't be any danger of death. There's no "it could go both ways", it should be pretty one-sided... and not in the AD's favor.

At level 15-16, you could call it boss fight, at 17-18, it's barely better than at 20, especially if you add more characters. Even at level 15, adding fifth character make it barely deadly encounter.

[Unoriginal]

One Astral Dreadnought is about as strong as one of the Dukes of Hell. In personal combat, that is, because the Dukes of Hell have super-genius intellect and whole armies.

It's coherent with how lvl 16-20 adventurers are supposed to have the power level of multi-planar heroes.

[Baptor]

I wonder if this argument would be happening at all if the creature lacked a CR?

I personally feel like the CR system does little for me as a DM. Not to get all grongard (because I love 5e despite its flaws) but back in AD&D we didn't have CR, just exp values. DMs eyeballed a monster and took an educated guess at how well it would stack up - and those of us with a little experience - just a little - usually got it right. If we didn't - well that was part of the fun too and the party could always try to run away.

I think in this case if there was no CR each would be to his own. Folks like MaxW would believe it to be weak and would spruce up the encounter or add some kind of minions to the fight (maybe the battle, interrupted scene someone mentioned earlier). Folks like unoriginal might run it as-is because he thinks it works fine against high level parties.

Either way, I doubt this argument would be going on if that CR number didn't exist.

[Unoriginal]

I wonder if this argument would be happening at all if the creature lacked a CR?

I personally feel like the CR system does little for me as a DM. Not to get all grongard (because I love 5e despite its flaws) but back in AD&D we didn't have CR, just exp values. DMs eyeballed a monster and took an educated guess at how well it would stack up - and those of us with a little experience - just a little - usually got it right. If we didn't - well that was part of the fun too and the party could always try to run away.

I think in this case if there was no CR each would be to his own. Folks like MaxW would believe it to be weak and would spruce up the encounter or add some kind of minions to the fight (maybe the battle, interrupted scene someone mentioned earlier). Folks like unoriginal might run it as-is because he thinks it works fine against high level parties.

Either way, I doubt this argument would be going on if that CR number didn't exist.

It's not a question of CR, it's a question of lore vs stats, and of what the monster has to offer.

I've seen this argument over Pit Fiends, Giants, Ogres, even Dragons. CR is not a factor in itself.