what level to fight a nightwalker at?

[Foxhound438]

We all know that the CR system is anywhere from wildly misleading to totally bunk, so no table of encounter building or anything like that will really help.

I want to do a 1 shot pitting a party of 4 or so against a nightwalker (MToF 216), a level 14 or 15 necromancer wizard (who will probably not actually participate in the fight beyond nopeing cheese strats and making fun of the PC's), and somewhere between 6 and 10 Bodak's (VGtM 127). It won't be a one fight day, I plan to have 2-4 lead-in encounters against other strong-ish enemies, and with a nightwalker on the loose of course there's a soft clock- deal with it before it wipes out an entire town. It would be clear that there's time for a short rest or two, but not for a long rest.

I don't want to just wreck the party like there was never a chance even though it'll be a one off, but I don't want it to be easy either- having a couple of people die would be great, even, though as we all know it's really a knife's edge between one person dying and everyone else following.

So all that said, what level do you think the party should be? magic item availability is also something to consider, I personally like things to be low magic and without things that just make your numbers more, so assume that you won't have much more than +1 weapons and one or two utility items.

[JackPhoenix]

Just Nightwalker and 6 Bodaks is about double deadly encounter for 4 level 20 characters, and about 1/4 of such group's daily xp budget.

[PhoenixPhyre]

A nightwalker as the last fight of an appropriate adventuring day says you need to be quite high level. Adding in 6-10 bodak makes this a very high level fight.

Assume 4 people.

They're outnumbered around 2:1 at best. They've burned some resources. Now they're making DC 21 CON saves every round vs the nightwalker (taking 4d6 on a fail) and 30-50 damage (no save) from the bodaks' auras). Oh, and they're insta-dead at 0 HP with no res other than wish.

I don't think this is doable before level 20, and even then it's likely a TPK.

[Ganymede]

I would rather gouge my eyes out than fight six bodaks at once, which I would need to do anyways to even stand a chance of beating them.

[Unoriginal]

We all know that the CR system is anywhere from wildly misleading to totally bunk

No, we don't.



I want to do a 1 shot pitting a party of 4 or so against a nightwalker (MToF 216), a level 14 or 15 necromancer wizard (who will probably not actually participate in the fight beyond nopeing cheese strats and making fun of the PC's), and somewhere between 6 and 10 Bodak's (VGtM 127). It won't be a one fight day, I plan to have 2-4 lead-in encounters against other strong-ish enemies, and with a nightwalker on the loose of course there's a soft clock- deal with it before it wipes out an entire town. It would be clear that there's time for a short rest or two, but not for a long rest.

I don't want to just wreck the party like there was never a chance even though it'll be a one off, but I don't want it to be easy either- having a couple of people die would be great, even, though as we all know it's really a knife's edge between one person dying and everyone else following.

So all that said, what level do you think the party should be? magic item availability is also something to consider, I personally like things to be low magic and without things that just make your numbers more, so assume that you won't have much more than +1 weapons and one or two utility items.

They're probably going to die if they're below lvl 14 even if was the only encounter and they were trying to flee.

I'd advise lvl 17 minimum.


Are you trying to get people to say "lol a necromancer can just take control of the Nightwalker, CRs are bs."?

[JackPhoenix]

Are you trying to get people to say "lol a necromancer can just take control of the Nightwalker, CRs are bs."?

The necromancer is on the Nightwalker's team, opposed to the PCs and increasing the encounter difficulty even further, though through "nopeing cheese strats", whatever is that supposed to mean, instead of direct damage, according to what the OP wrote.

[Unoriginal]

The necromancer is on the Nightwalker's team, opposed to the PCs and increasing the encounter difficulty even further, though through "nopeing cheese strats", whatever is that supposed to mean, instead of direct damage, according to what the OP wrote.

So? Does that prevent one of the PCs from being a necromancer too?

[PhoenixPhyre]

The necromancer is on the Nightwalker's team, opposed to the PCs and increasing the encounter difficulty even further, though through "nopeing cheese strats", whatever is that supposed to mean, instead of direct damage, according to what the OP wrote.

Also, the necromancer would just die quick to the bodaks, since they're not immune to the no-save damage. 30-50 damage per turn + the nightwalker's aura eats a whole huge chunk of HP every turn. And no way a level 14 is going to consistently make the DC 21(!) CON save for the nightwalker.

[WilliamHuggins]

WotC's encounter calculation has a tendency to overvalue the number of enemies, especially when there is a big CR discrepancy between monsters (single lich is ok, a lich and a CR 1/8 critter is omg impossible, of course I am exaggerating), your Bodaks are still too much even when I use Gobelure's encounter calculation rules from enworld Calculations (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?367697-Encounter-difficulty-how-to-fix-it), it still gives a score of 137 vs 4 level 20 PCs (Deadly is considered ~100, I usually consider 90 to 110 as fine encounters to be deadly ones, you can push it to 120+ range but I would not advise it if you dont want them at full resources), if your party is at least moderately optimized with a good class setup and they go to the fight with about over 90 percent of their resources, they could probably pull it off with good tactics and mediocre dice rolls, this is of course assuming they are fresh level 20s and you hand out magic items as much as XgtE recommends.

Looking at it, I would reduce 6 Bodaks into maybe 6 x CR4 undead or 8 x CR3 undead, you could keep them separeted in groups of two to reduce the effectiveness of AoE.

[JackPhoenix]

Also, the necromancer would just die quick to the bodaks, since they're not immune to the no-save damage. 30-50 damage per turn + the nightwalker's aura eats a whole huge chunk of HP every turn. And no way a level 14 is going to consistently make the DC 21(!) CON save for the nightwalker.

It's not just the nightwalker, it's the bodaks too... DC 8 may be autosuccess for characters with Con proficiency, but with 6 or more of them there's a good chance a non-proficient characterwill fail. And that's worse than just the damage you get on DC 13.

[MaxWilson]

We all know that the CR system is anywhere from wildly misleading to totally bunk, so no table of encounter building or anything like that will really help.

I want to do a 1 shot pitting a party of 4 or so against a nightwalker (MToF 216), a level 14 or 15 necromancer wizard (who will probably not actually participate in the fight beyond nopeing cheese strats and making fun of the PC's), and somewhere between 6 and 10 Bodak's (VGtM 127). It won't be a one fight day, I plan to have 2-4 lead-in encounters against other strong-ish enemies, and with a nightwalker on the loose of course there's a soft clock- deal with it before it wipes out an entire town. It would be clear that there's time for a short rest or two, but not for a long rest.

I don't want to just wreck the party like there was never a chance even though it'll be a one off, but I don't want it to be easy either- having a couple of people die would be great, even, though as we all know it's really a knife's edge between one person dying and everyone else following.

So all that said, what level do you think the party should be? magic item availability is also something to consider, I personally like things to be low magic and without things that just make your numbers more, so assume that you won't have much more than +1 weapons and one or two utility items.

Sounds like a level 9-12 adventure, depending on how much the players like a challenge. Would be quite difficult at 9 but doable, especially if players have access to an NPC sage who knows their characteristics. Knowledge is power. E.g. heavy obscurement + AoE + some archery efficiently solves a dozen or so Bodaks: most of their abilities require them to see the target at close range. Sunlight is good too if you've got it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It's not just the nightwalker, it's the bodaks too... DC 8 may be autosuccess for characters with Con proficiency, but with 6 or more of them there's a good chance a non-proficient characterwill fail. And that's worse than just the damage you get on DC 13.

There's also the no-save 5 necrotic damage per bodak for ending your turn within 30 feet of them. That was what I was counting there.

Oh, and running this encounter would suck--that many saves for every turn? It'd slow to an absolute crawl. Oh, and be a guaranteed failure unless it's an auto-success.

[Unoriginal]

Sounds like a level 9-12 adventure, depending on how much the players like a challenge. Would be quite difficult at 9 but doable, especially if players are already familiar with Bodaks and Nightwalkers.

Four lvl 9 vs 10 CR 6 monsters and one CR 20? Really?

The Nightwalker alone can easily deal 72 damages per turn.

[MaxWilson]

Four lvl 9 vs 10 CR 6 monsters and one CR 20? Really?

The Nightwalker alone can easily deal 72 damages per turn.

Yep, really, if you want it to be challenging and have dramatic tension. Curbstomping monsters is not my idea of a fun way to spend an evening.

[sithlordnergal]

So, it really depends on a few things:

1- How will the Necromancer be stopping cheesy strats? Do you mean they'll be there to counterspell things like Polymorphing the Nightwalker into a fish or using Plane Shift to banish it? What even counts as a cheesy strat?

2- What is the party made of? This could be a very difficult challenge for a high level party, depending on their builds. It could be incredibly difficult for your standard Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard party. But I could see it being essentially a cakewalk for a party made up of 2 Soradins, a Hexadin, and a Life Cleric. And to be honest, it would make sense for a party of Paladins and a Cleric to be sent in to deal with this since there are so many undead here.

3- What are party tactics like? Are they co-ordinated? Do they support each other?

4- What kind of magic items does the party have? They'll need some magic items in order to deal with this, but those magic items can make a huge difference.

All in all, I'd say this is a tier 3 to a tier 4 adventure, with levels ranging from 14 to 20 depending on the party build.

[Lord Vukodlak]

There's also the no-save 5 necrotic damage per bodak for ending your turn within 30 feet of them. That was what I was counting there.
Nope


"Combining Game Effects (p. 252) (https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/DMG_Errata.pdf). This is a new subsection at the end of the “Combat” section: “Different game features can affect a target at the same time. But when two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one of them—the most potent one—apply while the duration's of the effects overlap. For example, if a target is ignited by a fire elemental’s Fire Form trait, the ongoing fire damage doesn’t increase if the burning target is subjected to that trait again. Game features include spells, class features, feats, racial traits, monster abilities, and magic items. See the related rule in the ‘Combining Magical Effects’ section of chapter 10 in the Player’s Handbook.”
Link to the relevant errata provided

So the aura's don't stack, and hell the Nightwalker's Annihilation Aura would supersede the Bodak's. That significant reduces the threat level.

[Foxhound438]

just something for everyone to note, the bodak's auras won't stack, since I'm going to rule that it works the same way as spells of the same name. I chose the bodak over a cr3 whatever because it would be essentially boring for everyone involved if the adds were attacking at a +4 and missing every time, as they tend to do with higher level parties. Doing fewer of them than my initial intuition is probably fine though.

As for the necromancer doing things, it's basically to the extent that a necromancer can if he thought it would make things too easy- disintegrating walls of force, undoing banishments or hold monsters, hitting the fish that it gets polymorphed into; basically removing the "i win button" options to make sure the boss fight isn't anticlimactic. As for him getting killed by the nightwalker, he doesn't have to be near it, really. As much as I secretly want it to be his megazord armor.


No, we don't.

I guess it's news to you. I don't think many people that I've played with trust the CR assignments given by WotC.

[Unoriginal]

Yep, really, if you want it to be challenging and have dramatic tension. Curbstomping monsters is not my idea of a fun way to spend an evening.

Is 1 PC getting killed every 2 turns your idea of a fun way to spend an evening?



As for the necromancer doing things, it's basically to the extent that a necromancer can if he thought it would make things too easy- disintegrating walls of force, undoing banishments or hold monsters, hitting the fish that it gets polymorphed into; basically removing the "i win button" options to make sure the boss fight isn't anticlimactic.

And how often is the necromancer going to do that?



I guess it's news to you. I don't think many people that I've played with trust the CR assignments given by WotC.

Many thanks for your condescension, it's just what I needed. Great conversation, too.


It's not because I disagree with you that it's "news to me"

[lunaticfringe]

Nope

Link to the relevant errata provided

So the aura's don't stack, and hell the Nightwalker's Annihilation Aura would supersede the Bodak's. That significant reduces the threat level.

Nightmares have an Annihilating Aura, Bodaks have an Aura of Annihilation. That's not the same name.

[Foxhound438]

And how often is the necromancer going to do that?


however often he needs to for the encounter to stay hard. It's not like he's going to have plot armor, either, so it's entirely possible that he can just get killed and the boss be banished anyways.



Many thanks for your condescension, it's just what I needed. Great conversation, too.


It's not because I disagree with you that it's "news to me"
it's just like, an opinion, man

[MaxWilson]

just something for everyone to note, the bodak's auras won't stack, since I'm going to rule that it works the same way as spells of the same name. I chose the bodak over a cr3 whatever because it would be essentially boring for everyone involved if the adds were attacking at a +4 and missing every time, as they tend to do with higher level parties. Doing fewer of them than my initial intuition is probably fine though.

As for the necromancer doing things, it's basically to the extent that a necromancer can if he thought it would make things too easy- disintegrating walls of force, undoing banishments or hold monsters, hitting the fish that it gets polymorphed into; basically removing the "i win button" options to make sure the boss fight isn't anticlimactic. As for him getting killed by the nightwalker, he doesn't have to be near it, really. As much as I secretly want it to be his megazord armor.

I guess it's news to you. I don't think many people that I've played with trust the CR assignments given by WotC.

What's your tolerance for risk/difficulty here? Do you want a 99% chance the PCs will win even if they just bring a bunch of bog-standard Champions and start rolling attacks? Do you want a 50% chance of success with straightforward, unsophisticated tactics, but a 99% chance of success if they play smart and exploit enemy weaknesses? Something else?

In other words, if the players wind up TPKing in this one-shot, are you going to shrug and say, "I had a good time, and I think they did too," or are you going to take it as some kind of failure on your part?

This strongly affects the appropriate difficulty level. My "level 9-12" answer is predicted on the assumption that the group likes a bit of a challenge--at level 12, there's still a good chance (I dunno, 30%?) that they would lose the fight if they play stupidly. Conversely, I believe that level 9 is eminently doable even if the players don't optimize to the Nth degree: e.g. the party wizard may have a level in Cleric for the heavy armor proficiency, but he doesn't have to be a Necromancer investing all of his spell slots including from Arcane Recovering in turning all the dead peasants in the village (slain by the Bodaks) into a horde of zombies, nor does the party archer have to kite the Bodaks and Nightwalker to death from on top of a Phantom Steed that they have no hope of catching up to. You can have a reasonably idiomatic fight in a medieval peasant village, and the 9th level PCs can fight the Nightwalker to try to distract it and then kill it before it kills any more peasants, and they can win that fight (or die trying). It's doable and hard enough to be interesting.

When I hear people talking about running this fight with 20th level PCs it makes me want to stab my own eyes out. At that level the Nightwalker isn't a threat--it's a speedbump, especially for characters in a one-shot.

[MaxWilson]

Is 1 PC getting killed every 2 turns your idea of a fun way to spend an evening?

Clearly we have divergent beliefs about the importance of player skill vs. character skill.

My idea of a fun way to spend an evening is players taking actions to avoid being killed*. If a PC wading blindly into melee on autopilot can still win the fight while the player pays zero attention, that isn't fun.

Or suffering whatever negative consequence is part of the dramatic question in the conflict. In a violent conflict like the one with the Nightwalker the stakes are life and death. Other conflicts might be more dramatic and involve emotional rather than physical stakes.

So, a Nightwalker which threatens rapid-but-not-instant death to any PC who is brave (?) enough to get close to it sounds like fun, yes.

[Unoriginal]

however often he needs to for the encounter to stay hard. It's not like he's going to have plot armor, either, so it's entirely possible that he can just get killed and the boss be banished anyways.

So he has unlimited "anything you try and I don't like is countered" powers until the moment he's killed?

Honestly at this point you should call him the Spellbinder or Spellbreaker or something like that and tell the PCs he's known for his incredible dispelling capacities.

Would make its inclusion a story element of the one-shot rather than a DM-fiat-dispenser-machine, be less frustrating overall, and give the players a chance to understand the guy is more than your typical necro-caster.

[MaxWilson]

So he has unlimited "anything you try and I don't like is countered" powers until the moment he's killed?

Honestly at this point you should call him the Spellbinder or Spellbreaker or something like that and tell the PCs he's known for his incredible dispelling capacities.

You're missing the point. From what the OP says, the Necromancer is basically Snidely Whiplash. He's going to stand there twiddling his mustache and gloating about how beautiful his Nightwalker is, instead of proactively making the PCs miserable casting Forcecage/Fireball/etc. But he won't have any powers that a normal 15th level Necromancer wouldn't have. He's being deliberately underplayed.

[supergoji18]

They should fight it at level 1, with nothing but a rusty spoon and a trout.

If they lose, you get a good laugh. If they win, you get a story for the ages.

[Foxhound438]

What's your tolerance for risk/difficulty here? Do you want a 99% chance the PCs will win even if they just bring a bunch of bog-standard Champions and start rolling attacks? Do you want a 50% chance of success with straightforward, unsophisticated tactics, but a 99% chance of success if they play smart and exploit enemy weaknesses? Something else?


the people who I play with are pretty tactically savvy, and I want it to be a challenge for them to live through it. I don't want to put a percentage on it. Remember also that the necromancer will interfere with clear easy winning strategies (within the abilities of a 14th level wizard) because he's a jerk who wants to see the party get thrashed; though not necessarily to death.

[Foxhound438]

They should fight it at level 1, with nothing but a rusty spoon and a trout.

If they lose, you get a good laugh. If they win, you get a story for the ages.

finally someone confirms the answer that my bias wanted to hear

[sithlordnergal]

When I hear people talking about running this fight with 20th level PCs it makes me want to stab my own eyes out. At that level the Nightwalker isn't a threat--it's a speedbump, especially for characters in a one-shot.

Ehh, provided there are encounters running up to this one, and it isn't one of those 5 minute adventure days...it could be a challenge for a level 20 party IF the party is not optimized for this battle. Of course, they'd have to be actively making themselves as unoptimized as possible, but still. I have seen a party that curb stomped a CR 22 Demon Lord at an APL 10. I've also seen a party of 5 PCs with four level 4's and a level 3 nearly get TPKed by a pair of Gibbering Mouthers, and a Wizard that only cast Grease and Sleep for the entire encounter when they essentially had a long rest before the battle.

The party that wiped out the Demon? They could probably take this at an APL 10. I'd still boost them to tier 3, probably level 13 or 14 for them, because it gives them even more fun things to play with. And it allows me to add in more encounters before this big final fight that could challenge them in different ways

The party that was nearly TPK'd by a pair of Gibbering Mouthers...I'd put them at level 19 to 20, and STILL question if they could beat this fight because of how poor their teamwork and tactics were... o-o;;;

[MaxWilson]

the people who I play with are pretty tactically savvy, and I want it to be a challenge for them to live through it. I don't want to put a percentage on it. Remember also that the necromancer will interfere with clear easy winning strategies (within the abilities of a 14th level wizard) because he's a jerk who wants to see the party get thrashed; though not necessarily to death.

Percentages above are intended to be aspirational, not empirical. You get the gist.

I don't see the Necromancer as a big deal, since as you say they can always just kill him too. It seems to me he's just there to cover some of the obvious weaknesses of unintelligent monsters, e.g. if Bodaks and Nightwalker were alone, it would be almost trivial to just throw down a Fog Cloud and then kill them all from within the heavy obscurement (focusing fire on the Nightwalker first), but it would feel silly for a single first-level spell to be such a gamechanger, so the Necromancer would Counterspell or Dispel the Fog Cloud. It's not that they can't kill the Necromancer, but at least that makes the conflict a two-step solution (kill the Necromancer, THEN neutralize the Bodak abilities) which is more interesting than a one-step solution. Also the Bodaks will get in some good licks first.

Am I reading your intentions for him correctly?

[Foxhound438]

Percentages above are intended to be aspirational, not empirical. You get the gist.
then I'd say like 70% with okay tactics- favorable but a long ways from guaranteed anyways


Am I reading your intentions for him correctly?

pretty much. Obviously a level 7 cleric could solo a nightwalker in one turn with a banishment (and with a very high success rate against that no save proficiency and low mental stats), but as a "boss monster" I want it to at least get to try to do damage to people. Of course I'm going to be keeping track of his spells (with some slots probably gone before the party arrives to cover things like teleporting into town and snarky sendings at the party), and there won't be any mcguffining of extra stuff onto him to get around things that he shouldn't be able to- if the party finds a tactic he can't do anything about, so be it.

[iTreeby]

They should fight it at level 1, with nothing but a rusty spoon and a trout.


Spoon of Rusting and a Vorpal Trout? That's hardly fair for the monsters

[Mith]

Spoon of Rusting and a Vorpal Trout? That's hardly fair for the monsters

Give them a Pike and a can opener instead.

[MaxWilson]

then I'd say like 70% with okay tactics- favorable but a long ways from guaranteed anyways

Okay, then don't go 9. You're probably looking at something in Tier 3: tell the players to make characters of levels 11-16. Frankly, there's not all that much difference between level 11 and level 16 if you're not a spellcaster. (But in 5E almost everybody is a spellcaster...)


pretty much. Obviously a level 7 cleric could solo a nightwalker in one turn with a banishment (and with a very high success rate against that no save proficiency and low mental stats), but as a "boss monster" I want it to at least get to try to do damage to people. Of course I'm going to be keeping track of his spells (with some slots probably gone before the party arrives to cover things like teleporting into town and snarky sendings at the party), and there won't be any mcguffining of extra stuff onto him to get around things that he shouldn't be able to- if the party finds a tactic he can't do anything about, so be it.

Oh wow, you're right--I thought the Nightwalker had legendary resistance but it does not. No wonder you need to include the gloaty Necromancer.

[Foxhound438]

Oh wow, you're right--I thought the Nightwalker had legendary resistance but it does not. No wonder you need to include the gloaty Necromancer.

yep. Pit fiends are largely comparable in terms of damage and share the luxurious number of "20" next to CR without legendary saves, but have nuts stats across the board and advantage on most saves they'll see, and pit fiends are pretty low on the totem pole of CR20's themselves IMO.