Can a 13th level pc beat zariel

[kazaryu]

As the title suggests. Lets talk about how a 13th level pc might beat (in a 1 v 1) Zariel.

Just to make things clear, for this disussion the only limit i will place is that you can have no more than 13 levels in a character class. And you cant do some ridiculousness like having just all of the tomes of ability score increase. Get creative. What would you need? Do you need some set up rounds? How do you fight her? Things like that.

For reference, zariel is a slightly supped up solar. She does fire damage instead of radiant. And she has an attack that poisons (with riders on the poison of deaf/blindness conditions). Oh, and she has a regen thats only cancelled by radiant damage. There are a few more smallish differences. Ill try to get more thorough when i get home from work.

[col_impact]

As the title suggests. Lets talk about how a 13th level pc might beat (in a 1 v 1) Zariel.

Just to make things clear, for this disussion the only limit i will place is that you can have no more than 13 levels in a character class. And you cant do some ridiculousness like having just all of the tomes of ability score increase. Get creative. What would you need? Do you need some set up rounds? How do you fight her? Things like that.

For reference, zariel is a slightly supped up solar. She does fire damage instead of radiant. And she has an attack that poisons (with riders on the poison of deaf/blindness conditions). Oh, and she has a regen thats only cancelled by radiant damage. There are a few more smallish differences. Ill try to get more thorough when i get home from work.

This is AL season 9 ruleset and AL FAQ.

So I get 7 non-attunement and 3 attunement items, no legendary, right?

Gold allotment per AL strict guidelines.

[JNAProductions]

This is AL season 9 ruleset and AL FAQ.

So I get 7 non-attunement and 3 attunement items, no legendary, right?

Gold allotment per AL strict guidelines.

If that's what you need.

[col_impact]

Cool. Lets see what ideas people come up with. 《Brings popcorn》

[D&D_Fan]

Almost certainly not. A 20th level character can 1v1 a CR9-10 with reasonable difficulty. a 13th level PC instigating a
battle against a CR 21+ Monster is tantamount to suicide. Unless your player has help from a powerful NPC or Monster, Not even powerful magic items can help. If you need the battle to happen for plot reasons, let them acquire something to weaken Zariel significantly, like how in the Dragon Adventure you need to collect a bunch of Magic items that weaken Tiamat during the battle to a reasonable threat. This is probably too much of a stretch even for that. I would recommend the fight is intercepted by an enemy of Zariel's, such as demon lord, or rival grater devil, or even another angel.

Also in 5e Zariel is not a variant solar but is a CR 26 Devil stats here (https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=zariel).

[JNAProductions]

Almost certainly not. A 20th level character can 1v1 a CR9-10 with reasonable difficulty. a 13th level PC instigating a
battle against a CR 21+ Monster is tantamount to suicide. Unless your player has help from a powerful NPC or Monster, Not even powerful magic items can help. If you need the battle to happen for plot reasons, let them acquire something to weaken Zariel significantly, like how in the Dragon Adventure you need to collect a bunch of Magic items that weaken Tiamat during the battle to a reasonable threat. This is probably too much of a stretch even for that. I would recommend the fight is intercepted by an enemy of Zariel's, such as demon lord, or rival grater devil, or even another angel.

Also in 5e Zariel is not a variant solar but is a CR 26 Devil stats here (https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=zariel).

Yes, but col_impact claims to have a 13th level, AL Legal build that does it.

They've refused to give any details about it, so the claim is incredibly suspect, but here we are.

[MaxWilson]

Just to make things clear, for this disussion the only limit i will place is that you can have no more than 13 levels in a character class. And you cant do some ridiculousness like having just all of the tomes of ability score increase. Get creative. What would you need? Do you need some set up rounds? How do you fight her? Things like that.

I'd have to do the math, but my first instinct is to suggest a Nuclear Wizard (Hexblade 1/Fighter 2/Evoker 10), riding a Hasted Phantom Steed (200' x 3 movement per round from double-dashing) and pumping out Magic Missiles from a bunch of Wands of Magic Missile. Zariel is fast but she's not that fast, even with legendary actions.

A potential issue is if terrain is such that she can just fly away, but otherwise each wand does 9 * 13.5 = 121.5 damage to her per action. You need five actions to kill her, which means you need to survive for four rounds. Seems like it ought to be doable, if not easy.

[kazaryu]

Also in 5e Zariel is not a variant solar but is a CR 26 Devil stats here (https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=zariel).

Thanks for the statblock. But i was specifically referring to her mechanics. Which are more similar to a solar than they are to anything else (because shes a fallen angel) either way yeah the statblick is nice



A potential issue is if terrain is such that she can just fly away, but otherwise each wand does 9 * 13.5 = 121.5 damage to her per action. You need five actions to kill her, which means you need to survive for four rounds. Seems like it ought to be doable, if not easy.

Another slight issue is that you actually need radiant damage to finish her off, otherwise at the start of her turn is she gets back up at 20hp.

[MaxWilson]

Another slight issue is that you actually need radiant damage to finish her off, otherwise at the start of her turn is she gets back up at 20hp.

Yes, Radiant damage (Sickening Radiance) or Chill Touch. Also I forgot to account for her extra HP in my original time estimate.

With that in mind, it might be easier to do as a straight Evoker 13, so you have a Simulacrum to cast the Chill Touch with you. Your wands do 76.5 damage each, so you need about nine wands (four and a half rounds) to kill her, but then you or your Simulacrum can Chill Touch her to finish her off, without having to worry about making her fail a Sickening Radiance save.

[Greywander]

So you're going to need radiant damage to stop the regeneration, and she has advantage on saves vs. spells. This points toward something that uses attack rolls. So I'm going to say at least 11 levels in paladin for Improved Divine Smite. Extra Attack gives us two chances to hit, and we only need to hit once to stop the regeneration.

If you can get around her fire and necrotic damage she doesn't look too tough. Efreeti Chain or the Ring of Fire Elemental Command gives you fire immunity, though they're both legendary items (in case legendaries aren't allowed). I can't think of a way to get necrotic immunity off the top of my head, but aasimar gets resistance. If you beef up your CON save (vs. Finger of Death) and AC (vs. Horrid Touch), necrotic damage can also be partially mitigated. Thankfully, Finger of Death is only 3/day, so if we can survive that we only need to worry about stacking AC.

She has a +16 to attack rolls, so ideally we want to hit a 36 AC. Chainmail is only AC 16, so we might rather take the Ring over the Efreeti Chain so we can get plate +3 instead. With a shield +3 and the Defense fighting style, we're sitting at 27 AC, still 9 points short of where we want to be. Shield of Faith brings us up to 29, and the Defensive Duelist gets us up to 34, albeit only against one attack (she only gets two attacks, though). Grab a Cloak of Displacement/Invisibility and now she has disadvantage on her attack rolls (yeah, I was surprised a devil lord doesn't have true sight). We could add a Potion of Speed for more AC, but it only lasts 1 minute. Combine with Lucky and you might just survive long enough to wear her down.

Make sure to grab a Periapt of Proof Against Poison, too. That Horrid Touch is pretty nasty.

[Fable Wright]

I've theorycrafted this before, and the answer is "probably not, but maaaaybe assuming perfect setup and a very lenient DM."

Setup:

Shepherd Druid 13 with Ritual Caster: Cleric. For the sake of simplicity, we'll say Vhuman with RCC as his bonus feat and two ASIs in Wis.

The pitch: You need to set up Forbiddance and Druid's Grove before forcing Zariel into the Forbiddance'd area with a permissive Reverse Gravity, and grappling her there. Zariel is extremely difficult to defeat for several reasons:

1. Teleportation at-will off-turn as a legendary action.
2. She can kite with the best of them at a 150ft fly speed and a gaze attack that deals damage to ground-based foes.
3. Magic resistance, regeneration, and Legendary Resistance.

Forbiddance is needed to shut down 1. Grapple is needed to shut down 2. And Druid Grove is needed to shut down visibility-based spells without eating concentration (ie being a single point of failure for the entire routine).

At 13th level, you can have a stable of 10 Planar Bound Annis Hags. So that's the main method of grappling + damage dealing, along with the one-sided visibility of Druid's Grove.

The execution:

You and your 10 Annis Hags chill in your Druid Grove + Forbiddance combo, waiting for Zariel to fly overhead. When she is, Reverse Gravity. With a permissive DM, you'll note that Zariel can't hold onto anything, so she will fall up; and if you drop concentration immediately, she will immediately fall to the ground, prone, with no save. (You're spending a 7th level slot for a no-save prone; you might sell it to the GM like that.)

Each of your 10 Annis Hags will hug Zariel and crush her to death under the weight of their bodies while you, the Druid, Unicorn Totem your heart out to keep your Hags from being killed before Zariel is. Zariel physically can't break out of two hugs in the same turn, so as long as you can maintain that, she's locked in place, taking Radiant damage from the Forbiddance, is at disadvantage on all attacks, can't fly away, and is taking automatic hug damage per turn. Supplement with summons as the hags get absolutely destroyed by her attacks.

The problem:

Why would Zariel ever be flying over your Forbiddance + Grove within a single move of all your Annis Hags when it's a clearly-defined killing field? Also, the 10-day setup is sketch unless your DM will let you cast Grove from within the area of Meld Within Stone and Zariel doesn't, you know, murder you while you're inside the rock. As a highly intelligent devil with aeons of practice over you probably would.

[LudicSavant]

I came here to say something similar to what Max already said.

For guaranteed radiant damage, you could throw on one of those stupid GGtR backgrounds and get Boros Legionnaire (which will do radiant damage even if she makes a save, thanks to Potent Cantrip).

Wall of Light and Dawn will also allow you to deal some unavoidable Radiant damage (unlike Sickening, they do half damage on a save).

[MaxWilson]

I can't think of a way to get necrotic immunity off the top of my head, but aasimar gets resistance.

Necrotic immunity: if you're a wizard, you could Magic Jar into the body of a Shadar Kai Gloomweaver or Soul Monger.


Wall of Light and Dawn will also allow you to deal some unavoidable Radiant damage (unlike Sickening, they do half damage on a save).

Good call, Dawn is definitely better here than Chill Touch or Sickening Radiance. You'll lose Haste when you do but since it's a finishing move it shouldn't matter--unless Zariel turns out to have been only faking being at zero HP. : )

[Greywander]

Necrotic immunity: if you're a wizard, you could Magic Jar into the body of a Shadar Kai Gloomweaver or Soul Monger.
Good find. This means at least 11 levels in wizard for 6th level spells. I wonder if there's something we could Magic Jar into to get both fire and necrotic immunity?

Seems like if you can get around the fire and necrotic damage, and stop Zariel from fleeing (or just moving out of range to regenerate), she's pretty straightforward. She needs to see to teleport, so something as simple as Fog Cloud or an Eversmoking Bottle could shut that down, but she still has a 150 foot fly speed. We could try grappling her, though she has a +8 to grapple checks (maybe use Hex to debuff her STR checks?).

Edit: I also just noticed that Horrid Touch allows you to repeat the saving throw at the end of each of your turns, but doesn't require a save in the first place? What are you even supposed to roll then?

Might not be AL legal, but if you combined an Eversmoking Bottle with the half-dragon template, you'd get blindsight and therefore have advantage on your attacks while she has disadvantage. There's still the matter of keeping her in the smoke.

[Fable Wright]

I'd have to do the math, but my first instinct is to suggest a Nuclear Wizard (Hexblade 1/Fighter 2/Evoker 10), riding a Hasted Phantom Steed (200' x 3 movement per round from double-dashing) and pumping out Magic Missiles from a bunch of Wands of Magic Missile. Zariel is fast but she's not that fast, even with legendary actions.

A potential issue is if terrain is such that she can just fly away, but otherwise each wand does 9 * 13.5 = 121.5 damage to her per action. You need five actions to kill her, which means you need to survive for four rounds. Seems like it ought to be doable, if not easy.

Problems:

1. The horse is very easily killed by Zariel. It uses warhorse stats. It's going poof.
2. The horse has no vertical movement. Zariel can poke it for one damage, regenerate and wait for the spell to dissipate from the air, and then gank the wizard.


Yes, Radiant damage (Sickening Radiance) or Chill Touch. Also I forgot to account for her extra HP in my original time estimate.

With that in mind, it might be easier to do as a straight Evoker 13, so you have a Simulacrum to cast the Chill Touch with you. Your wands do 76.5 damage each, so you need about nine wands (four and a half rounds) to kill her, but then you or your Simulacrum can Chill Touch her to finish her off, without having to worry about making her fail a Sickening Radiance save.

How are you locking Zariel down with Evoker 13? Forcecage isn't holding her teleport.


Good find. This means at least 11 levels in wizard for 6th level spells. I wonder if there's something we could Magic Jar into to get both fire and necrotic immunity?

Seems like if you can get around the fire and necrotic damage, and stop Zariel from fleeing (or just moving out of range to regenerate), she's pretty straightforward. She needs to see to teleport, so something as simple as Fog Cloud or an Eversmoking Bottle could shut that down, but she still has a 150 foot fly speed. We could try grappling her, though she has a +8 to grapple checks.

This is why I went with summons; they can auto-grapple on hit, bypassing the +8 to grapple, and Zariel can still only break through one of them per turn.

[r2d2go]

I'm not super familiar with AL, but assuming https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=zariel (this) is accurate I think you can probably do it with some items.

Almost all of their damage is fire. As a Life cleric with Investiture of Flame, you can be immune to fire for a super long time with no concentration. Now they can only do about: 6d10 and 7d8+30 three times, and 8d10 every third turn. Even if you fail every save, that's only 283 damage across six turns, which is easily survivable with your healing, and then they're hitting you for 40ish a turn.

Lastly you probably want at least 2 levels of Paladin so that you can Compelled Duel at them, otherwise they can just run away and heal.

I'm not gonna do the calculations on damage since the build from there depends a lot on items, but you can probably do it with some combination of Spirit Guardians for consistent Radiant damage and hitting them with all of your spell slots (either blasting or Smiting).

That said, this assumes they ever get close-ish to you. If they go into the fight super cautiously and never even let you close to them, I think it's pretty much impossible barring immense cheese.

[Greywander]

Alternatively, maybe we could create an enclosed space where she can't physically leave without getting past you, say, using Wall of Stone. Hide inside and lure her in. Grapple her, move her into the structure, then uncork the Eversmoking Bottle and place it behind you. Then it doesn't matter if she breaks the grapple, she can't leave without defeating us.

Repelling Blast could be another option for pushing her into an enclosed structure.

Something like Wall of Force could also be used to trap her in an enclosed space, but it's concentration so you better grab Resilient (CON) and Warcaster.

[LudicSavant]

How are you locking Zariel down with Evoker 13? Forcecage isn't holding her teleport. He isn't using Forcecage on her...

[Dork_Forge]

Alternatively, maybe we could create an enclosed space where she can't physically leave without getting past you, say, using Wall of Stone. Hide inside and lure her in. Grapple her, move her into the structure, then uncork the Eversmoking Bottle and place it behind you. Then it doesn't matter if she breaks the grapple, she can't leave without defeating us.

Repelling Blast could be another option for pushing her into an enclosed structure.

Something like Wall of Force could also be used to trap her in an enclosed space, but it's concentration so you better grab Resilient (CON) and Warcaster.

I feel like this will be a battle of attrition and locking yourself in an enclosed space with a creature with significantly more health and damage output than you is a fairly bad idea.

[stoutstien]

As the title suggests. Lets talk about how a 13th level pc might beat (in a 1 v 1) Zariel.

Just to make things clear, for this disussion the only limit i will place is that you can have no more than 13 levels in a character class. And you cant do some ridiculousness like having just all of the tomes of ability score increase. Get creative. What would you need? Do you need some set up rounds? How do you fight her? Things like that.

For reference, zariel is a slightly supped up solar. She does fire damage instead of radiant. And she has an attack that poisons (with riders on the poison of deaf/blindness conditions). Oh, and she has a regen thats only cancelled by radiant damage. There are a few more smallish differences. Ill try to get more thorough when i get home from work.

I'd make a deal with Bel.

[MaxWilson]

On reflection, I think the best way around the flying thing is to have a flying mount of your own. Instead of a Hasted Phantom Steed, a Mage Armored, Longstrider'ed and Hasted Air Elemental (via Magic Circle + Conjure Elemental + Planar Binding VI). 600' of flying movement is much superior to ground-based movement, and also avoids the problem of "what if she gets within javelin range or combustion range?"

You could of course also just whistle up a whole flock of Air Elementals and command them to engage her in direct combat, but that violates the spirit of the "1:1" challenge, and besides she could just Teleport away at high speed unless you blind her first.

Count me as one of those who is disappointed Zariel doesn't have Truesight.

[Greywander]

You know, I just thought of the stupidest way to do this.

Create a simulacrum. Get an Eversmoking bottle.

When she flies up, cast Wall of Force (sphere) to trap her inside, have your simulcacrum uncork the bottle and place it right outside the wall.

Have your simulacrum cast Wall of Light inside the Wall of Force.

Chill outside the walls and wait for her to die.

Not sure if this will deal enough damage to kill her before the two walls expire, but it's a good place to start.

[kazaryu]

So you're going to need radiant damage to stop the regeneration, and she has advantage on saves vs. spells. This points toward something that uses attack rolls. So I'm going to say at least 11 levels in paladin for Improved Divine Smite. Extra Attack gives us two chances to hit, and we only need to hit once to stop the regeneration.

If you can get around her fire and necrotic damage she doesn't look too tough. Efreeti Chain or the Ring of Fire Elemental Command gives you fire immunity, though they're both legendary items (in case legendaries aren't allowed). I can't think of a way to get necrotic immunity off the top of my head, but aasimar gets resistance. If you beef up your CON save (vs. Finger of Death) and AC (vs. Horrid Touch), necrotic damage can also be partially mitigated. Thankfully, Finger of Death is only 3/day, so if we can survive that we only need to worry about stacking AC.

She has a +16 to attack rolls, so ideally we want to hit a 36 AC. Chainmail is only AC 16, so we might rather take the Ring over the Efreeti Chain so we can get plate +3 instead. With a shield +3 and the Defense fighting style, we're sitting at 27 AC, still 9 points short of where we want to be. Shield of Faith brings us up to 29, and the Defensive Duelist gets us up to 34, albeit only against one attack (she only gets two attacks, though). Grab a Cloak of Displacement/Invisibility and now she has disadvantage on her attack rolls (yeah, I was surprised a devil lord doesn't have true sight). We could add a Potion of Speed for more AC, but it only lasts 1 minute. Combine with Lucky and you might just survive long enough to wear her down.

Make sure to grab a Periapt of Proof Against Poison, too. That Horrid Touch is pretty nasty.

Biggest problem youre gonna have as a paladin is theres nothing forcing her to stay in melee range so that you can hit her

(For everyone ill reply with thiughts eventually but im at work so im focusing in things that sre easy/quick to type)

[Fable Wright]

Alternatively, maybe we could create an enclosed space where she can't physically leave without getting past you, say, using Wall of Stone. Hide inside and lure her in. Grapple her, move her into the structure, then uncork the Eversmoking Bottle and place it behind you. Then it doesn't matter if she breaks the grapple, she can't leave without defeating us.

Repelling Blast could be another option for pushing her into an enclosed structure.

Something like Wall of Force could also be used to trap her in an enclosed space, but it's concentration so you better grab Resilient (CON) and Warcaster.

Wall of Force doesn't block LOS, so she can teleport out.

Wall of Stone has 90HP per inch of thickness, so it takes four longsword strikes to break the wall, teleport + fly out at 6" thick.


He isn't using Forcecage on her...

Aight, so then how is he keeping Zariel in convenient shooting duck range when she'd prefer to teleport/fly out and regen those lost HP?

[Greywander]

Wall of Force doesn't block LOS, so she can teleport out.

Wall of Stone has 90HP per inch of thickness, so it takes four longsword strikes to break the wall, teleport + fly out at 6" thick.
Good point on the Wall of Stone having finite HP. The Eversmoking Bottle is probably the easiest way to block LOS without using concentration (which you would need for Wall of Force). The smoke doesn't need to be inside the wall, it only needs to cover it so she can't see a spot outside the wall to teleport to.

Edit:

Biggest problem youre gonna have as a paladin is theres nothing forcing her to stay in melee range so that you can hit her

(For everyone ill reply with thiughts eventually but im at work so im focusing in things that sre easy/quick to type)
Maybe you could get Wall of Force via a Ring of Spell Storing? This is definitely a weakness I didn't initially consider.

[col_impact]

Good find. This means at least 11 levels in wizard for 6th level spells. I wonder if there's something we could Magic Jar into to get both fire and necrotic immunity?

Seems like if you can get around the fire and necrotic damage, and stop Zariel from fleeing (or just moving out of range to regenerate), she's pretty straightforward. She needs to see to teleport, so something as simple as Fog Cloud or an Eversmoking Bottle could shut that down, but she still has a 150 foot fly speed. We could try grappling her, though she has a +8 to grapple checks (maybe use Hex to debuff her STR checks?).

Edit: I also just noticed that Horrid Touch allows you to repeat the saving throw at the end of each of your turns, but doesn't require a save in the first place? What are you even supposed to roll then?

Might not be AL legal, but if you combined an Eversmoking Bottle with the half-dragon template, you'd get blindsight and therefore have advantage on your attacks while she has disadvantage. There's still the matter of keeping her in the smoke.

Hrmm . . . Blindsight Dagger Of <Said in Yoda voice>

[kazaryu]

Can someone do the calculation for wall of light damage?

[Fable Wright]

Good point on the Wall of Stone having finite HP. The Eversmoking Bottle is probably the easiest way to block LOS without using concentration (which you would need for Wall of Force). The smoke doesn't need to be inside the wall, it only needs to cover it so she can't see a spot outside the wall to teleport to.

Oh, that would do it then.

Diviner 13: Ready an action to cast Wall of Force on Zariel's position once she's in the area of Sickening Radiance.
Diviner Simulacrum: Ready an action to cast Sickening Radiance when Zariel is covered by Eversmoking bottle.
Planar Bound Air Elemental: Delivers eversmoking bottle to Zariel's location, stays out of Wall of Force.

No turn breaks for Legendary Actions to teleport out, fatal combo with no escape. Add immunity to Fire to deal with Fireball/Wall of Flame counterattack, and Portent is used to no-sell the Concentration save on Blade Barrier on the one attack Zariel gets while the Wizards are within range. Then they D-Door it out of 180ft of Zariel's position and they're home free.

Mission accomplished everyone.

[MaxWilson]

Aight, so then how is he keeping Zariel in convenient shooting duck range when she'd prefer to teleport/fly out and regen those lost HP?

Did you miss the part where the wizard has a steed with 600' movement?

[Galithar]

I'm going with a Sorcadin.

Magic Items:
Belt of Giant Strength (23 Str, Very Rare. Don't remember the kind of giant this would be +6 modifier and I don't need any ASI to STR)
Staff of Striking
Armor +2
Shield +3

ASI:
Warcaster - Concentration saves are at +7 (+3 Con and Prof from 1st level Sorcerer) with advantage.
PAM - Bonus action attack each turn and a reaction

Stats:
Str: 13 (23)
Dex: 14
Con: 16
Int: 8
Wis: 10
Cha: 14

Scourge Aasimar race gives +2 Cha +1 Con (Accounted for above)

AC: 16+2 (half-plate) + 5 (+3 Shield)
TOTAL: 23 with Shield 28. Will still get hit a lot, but we have other ways to mitigate damage. This is to try to avoid the Horrid Touch attack.


First thing to do is cast Investiture of Flame with our 6th level slot. We are now immune to the bulk of Zariel's attacks. Second, we are resistant to the necrotic damage of Horrid Touch.

We want to fight outside of Zariel's lair to avoid the fear effect the lair action can cause.

We are now subject to 4d8+16 damage a round or 4d10+2d8+8 per round. Everything else we are immune to. 4d10 is going to average 22. 2d8+8 will average 17. We have 96 health, and we'll be taking 34 or 39 damage a round that we need to try to mitigate long enough to kill Zariel. Let's figure out how long that will be.

580 hit points is a lot to burn through.

We can deal 1d6+6d8+11 damage in one attack. We can do this 5 times using all our 4th and 5th level slots. Then we have 3 with +5d8 from smites 3 with +4d8 and 4 at +3d8. We'll save the last 4 for shield though.

(These numbers are slightly off because I changed the weapon the build was using, but they are close enough)
Round 1 damage will average 115
Round 2 damage will average 110
Round 3 damage will average 97
Round 4 damage will average 70
Round 5+ damage will average 34

115+110+97+70= 392
200/34= 6 more rounds to average killing Zariel.

The Sorcadin would have to survive 10 rounds of combat against a Devil Lord to kill Zariel. And that's assuming everything hits.

We'd need to cut Zariel's damage down to 9 per round. Even with immunity to the majority of the damage and resistance to most of the rest we probably can't do that.

The build just doesn't hit hard enough to outpace the incoming damage. With more investment in defense we might be able to out pace it by reducing Zariel's hit chance. It's relatively difficult to out do a +16 to hit though.


Built something that didn't work to begin with and then relied on Radiant damage on top... Zariel has resistance to Radiant...

[kazaryu]

Oh, that would do it then.

Diviner 13: Ready an action to cast Wall of Force on Zariel's position once she's in the area of Sickening Radiance.
Diviner Simulacrum: Ready an action to cast Sickening Radiance when Zariel is covered by Eversmoking bottle.
Planar Bound Air Elemental: Delivers eversmoking bottle to Zariel's location, stays out of Wall of Force.

No turn breaks for Legendary Actions to teleport out, fatal combo with no escape. Add immunity to Fire to deal with Fireball/Wall of Flame counterattack, and Portent is used to no-sell the Concentration save on Blade Barrier on the one attack Zariel gets while the Wizards are within range. Then they D-Door it out of 180ft of Zariel's position and they're home free.

Mission accomplished everyone.

She actually does have turn breaks. 2 of them, occurring on the turns that you take your readied actions. What is she doing for those 2 turns?

[Galithar]

Can someone do the calculation for wall of light damage?

Wall of Light would deal an average of 1080 damage with all fails on it's full duration.

Zariel has resistance so cut that to 540. And Zariel survives it.

With a DC 17 (+4 prof and +5 stat) Zariel succeeds on the save 65% of the time.

This would give a total average of 364 damage in Zariel is caught in Wall of Light the full 10 minutes.

Sickening Radiance would also fail to kill Zariel in one casting dealing an average of 440 over it's full duration.

[Dork_Forge]

Wall of Light would deal an average of 1080 damage with all fails on it's full duration.

Zariel has resistance so cut that to 540. And Zariel survives it.

With a DC 17 (+4 prof and +5 stat) Zariel succeeds on the save 65% of the time.

This would give a total average of 364 damage in Zariel is caught in Wall of Light the full 10 minutes.

Does this account for her Legendary Resistances?

[D&D_Fan]

I'd make a deal with Bel.

This what I'm talking about. Ask a demon lord or archdevil looking for Zariel's position as ruler of Avernus, and ask them for powerful boons. You could be shapechanged into a Pit Fiend, or Molydeus, or gain the help of a group of powerful demons or devils. Even angles who want to kill/redeem Zariel... Or you could bring many parties to one spot and let them finish each other off:
Zariel v Solar v Bel v Gaurgoth v Kostchtchie v Yeenoghu v Bahpomet, and see who wins. Keep in mind each side will have hundreds if not thousands of minions, and will be a major event in the blood war. You just need a few telepathy items, and Semi Broken Charisma.

[Galithar]

Does this account for her Legendary Resistances?

No, but that's only 3 extra saves and would have negligible impact when looking at causing 100 saves.

But I also did my math wrong. I only accounted for 6 of the 10 minute duration. Actual damage would be.

Wall of Light: ~606

Sickening Radiance: ~740

[MaxWilson]

Wall of Light would deal an average of 1080 damage with all fails on it's full duration.

Zariel has resistance so cut that to 540. And Zariel survives it.

With a DC 17 (+4 prof and +5 stat) Zariel succeeds on the save 65% of the time.

This would give a total average of 364 damage in Zariel is caught in Wall of Light the full 10 minutes.

Sickening Radiance would also fail to kill Zariel in one casting dealing an average of 440 over it's full duration.

You can toss in a Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound or five if you need extra damage.

[Galithar]

You can toss in a Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound or five if you need extra damage.

I also calculated damage wrong. On average rolls both spells do actually deal enough damage. I posted again with updated numbers.

[BarneyBent]

She actually does have turn breaks. 2 of them, occurring on the turns that you take your readied actions. What is she doing for those 2 turns?

All readied actions take place on the same turn, unless I'm reading something wrong.

A bigger issue is that you can't ready something indefinitely, only for a maximum of 6 seconds (before the start of your next turn). Which isn't insurmountable but requires a) very careful setup and b) initiative rolls to go your way, depending on how the DM handles such things.

[kazaryu]

All readied actions take place on the same turn, unless I'm reading something wrong.

A bigger issue is that you can't ready something indefinitely, only for a maximum of 6 seconds (before the start of your next turn). Which isn't insurmountable but requires a) very careful setup and b) initiative rolls to go your way, depending on how the DM handles such things.

No. You misunderstand. The action that was readied all take place simultaneously. However you still take the 'ready' action on your turn. And since you have 2 readied actions, you have 2 turns for zariel to react even given optimal initiative. Which as you pointed out is another hang up. This isnt as 'guaranteed' as advertised.

Which is fine. No plan is likely to be foolproof. Im just here to play devils advocate....literally

[kazaryu]

This what I'm talking about. Ask a demon lord or archdevil looking for Zariel's position as ruler of Avernus, and ask them for powerful boons. You could be shapechanged into a Pit Fiend, or Molydeus, or gain the help of a group of powerful demons or devils. Even angles who want to kill/redeem Zariel... Or you could bring many parties to one spot and let them finish each other off:
Zariel v Solar v Bel v Gaurgoth v Kostchtchie v Yeenoghu v Bahpomet, and see who wins. Keep in mind each side will have hundreds if not thousands of minions, and will be a major event in the blood war. You just need a few telepathy items, and Semi Broken Charisma.

1v1, bringing in extra people like that violates the intent.

[Greywander]

Wall of Light would deal an average of 1080 damage with all fails on it's full duration.

Zariel has resistance so cut that to 540. And Zariel survives it.

With a DC 17 (+4 prof and +5 stat) Zariel succeeds on the save 65% of the time.

This would give a total average of 364 damage in Zariel is caught in Wall of Light the full 10 minutes.

Sickening Radiance would also fail to kill Zariel in one casting dealing an average of 440 over it's full duration.
Wall of Light deals 4d8 radiant damage to anyone who ends their turn inside the wall. No save.

That's an average of 18 damage per turn, cut to 9 due to resistance. Wall of Light lasts for up to 10 minutes. There are 10 rounds per minute, so she takes damage 100 times. That's 900 damage average with no save.

Wall of Force also lasts for 10 minutes, and doesn't give a save when you trap a creature inside.

[Dork_Forge]

Wall of Light deals 4d8 radiant damage to anyone who ends their turn inside the wall. No save.

That's an average of 18 damage per turn, cut to 9 due to resistance. Wall of Light lasts for up to 10 minutes. There are 10 rounds per minute, so she takes damage 100 times. That's 900 damage average with no save.

Wall of Force also lasts for 10 minutes, and doesn't give a save when you trap a creature inside.

So you'd need to trap her in a Wall of Force first and then... spear the WoF with a Wall of Light? What's to stop her just teleporting out or casting through the wall? Or using Immolating Gaze at the end of the turn you cast the WoF to force a save immediately?

[Greywander]

So you'd need to trap her in a Wall of Force first and then... spear the WoF with a Wall of Light? What's to stop her just teleporting out casting through the wall? Or using Immolating Gaze at the end of the turn you cast the WoF to force a save immediately?
The Eversmoking Bottle placed outside the Wall of Force blocks LOS. Both her teleportation and gaze require her to see her target to work.

There is a question of logistics here, though. Perhaps the best way to handle it is to somehow cast Wall of Force and uncork the Eversmoking Bottle all on the same turn, so she can't use her legendary actions. Maybe you could uncork the bottle and stow it in a container, then you just use your Object Interaction to retrieve the bottle, instantly causing the smoke to spread out in a 60 foot radius. Anyway, once you have both the Wall of Force and the Eversmoking Bottle in play, she can't escape, so you can safely end your turn and let your simulacrum cast Wall of Light.

Someone also mentioned readying an action to uncork the bottle. Have your simulacrum ready an action to uncork the bottle when you cast Wall of Force. It should still be your turn, so no Legendary Actions.

[Galithar]

Wall of Light deals 4d8 radiant damage to anyone who ends their turn inside the wall. No save.

That's an average of 18 damage per turn, cut to 9 due to resistance. Wall of Light lasts for up to 10 minutes. There are 10 rounds per minute, so she takes damage 100 times. That's 900 damage average with no save.

Wall of Force also lasts for 10 minutes, and doesn't give a save when you trap a creature inside.

Ahh you're right. The save only happens when the wall first appears. My bad. Either way the damage is enough to kill Zariel though saves or not.

[BarneyBent]

No. You misunderstand. The action that was readied all take place simultaneously. However you still take the 'ready' action on your turn. And since you have 2 readied actions, you have 2 turns for zariel to react even given optimal initiative. Which as you pointed out is another hang up. This isnt as 'guaranteed' as advertised.

Which is fine. No plan is likely to be foolproof. Im just here to play devils advocate....literally

Gotcha. I think the intent is that in the gap between readying the action and releasing the action, Zariel remains unaware of any threat and therefore takes no legendary action.

Exactly how that plays out mechanically will depend a bit on how the DM handles initiative.

I personally would require them to all be very effectively stealthed at a minimum.

[MaxWilson]

Someone also mentioned readying an action to uncork the bottle. Have your simulacrum ready an action to uncork the bottle when you cast Wall of Force. It should still be your turn, so no Legendary Actions.

Could even have your familiar do it instead of wasting a simulacrum action.

[Greywander]

Ahh you're right. The save only happens when the wall first appears. My bad. Either way the damage is enough to kill Zariel though saves or not.
Also, if you're an evoker, you add your INT mod to the damage of the spell, so it actually deals 4d8+5 damage, or average 23, cut to 11.5, for 1150 average damage. What's more, even if you somehow roll all 1s for all the damage rolls, you're still dealing 9 damage cut to 4, for 400 total damage. Not quite enough to kill her, but also extremely unlikely. And you have enough spell slots to recast Wall of Force/Light as soon as they drop, though she's likely to fly/teleport away in between. If she's smart, she'll ready an action to move out of the smoke the moment the Wall of Force drops, so even if you drop concentration and recast on the same turn, she'd still be able to escape.

Would a Fireball be able to pass through the Wall of Force? It doesn't seem to require LOS, so it could be a potential danger if you don't have fire immunity. The spell description seems to indicate that it does require line of effect.

Edit:

Could even have your familiar do it instead of wasting a simulacrum action.
YMMV on if your DM lets a wizard familiar do this. Maybe if you get the flying monkey, who actually has hands.

Your familiar could also get incinerated by a Fireball as Zariel flies up.
And actually it might be necessary to get fire immunity anyway, just to force Zariel to get close enough for you to spring your trap. Fireball has a 150 foot range, which is outside the range of Wall of Force.

[Sigreid]

The easiest possibility would be a 13th level cleric succeeding in Divine Intervention with a DM that has the deity pull out all the stops.

[sithlordnergal]

I would say yes, there is, but you need a very, very specific build for it, and very specific items that you have to do very specific adventures to get. Note that none of the items can be Legendary, and must be gained by level 13. This is AL though, so this is do-able. I would go with:

Race: Human Variant

Classes: Vengeance Paladin 5 / Lore Bard 7 / Divine Soul Sorcerer 1


+3 Shield, this is obtainable through trade since last season everyone could get a +3 shield for free

+2 Plate Armor, this is found in a Tier 3 Module and is Very Rare

Staff of Power, obtainable in a Tier 3 Module

Cloak of Protection

Charisma Tome, available in a T3 module,

Periapt of Proof against Poison



*Note that all of these are able to be obtained by this level. That said, you'll need a DM's help to obtain them. You can net all of these with a single run of Tomb of Horrors, as it gives out three unspecified potions. But you can find Flying and Speed potions in other modules as well

- Potion of Speed

- Potion of Flying

- Potion of Invulnerability



- Longstrider

- Greater Invisibility

- Dimension Door



Strength: 15

Dex: 8

Con: 14

Int: 8

Wis: 12

Cha: 20




V/H Feat: Sentinel

ASI 1: Cha +2

ASI 2: War Caster



- Shillelagh, gained from Lore Bard 6

- Firebolt

- Sacred Flame

- Guiding Bolt

- Longstrider

- Shield

- Shield of Faith

- Counterspell, gained from Lore Bard 6

- Greater Invisibility


---How it all comes together---

First thing's first, you cannot, under any circumstances, fight Zariel in the open. You need her in an enclosed space of some sort, like a building or dungeon. At most, the largest room you can face her can be 160ft across. Otherwise this build does not work. And honestly, no build would work out in the open except some sort of Sharpshooter Longbow build that makes use of Greater Invisibility, Sneak Attack, and either Chill Touch or Guiding Bolt.

The goal here is to just outlast Zariel. Yes she can heal, but she has no way of dealing with Greater Invisibility. Yes, she has a +16 to hit, but thanks to your items, the potions, and Defense Fighting Style your base AC should be 29, and you can boost it to 34 with Shield. Zariel will need to roll either a 13 or an 18 to hit you, while having Disadvantage to the strike. Even if she does hit you, the Potion of Invulnerability gives you resistance to all damage. She also can't target you with Immolating Gaze, and you'll have advantage to hit her.

The next issue is her Teleportation. I thought about using an Eversmoking Bottle to stop her from teleporting, but then you lose your advantage from being Invisible. You're better off using the Potion of Speed and Longstrider to out speed her Teleport distance. You'll have a base speed of 80 thanks to that spell and potion combo, and you can dash as your extra action. If you really, really have to you can also use a scroll of Dimension Door to catch up and smack her with the extra action.

When you do catch up to her, the goal is to do chip damage for most of the encounter. Save your big hits for when she is low on HP. This is going to be a huge battle of attrition, and you need to save your spell slots as much as possible for Shield and Smites for the very end. As long as you do more than 20 damage in a round, you're good to go.

Make sure you stock up on Greater Invisibility scrolls, snag at least 3 Potions of Invulnerability and Potions of Speed. Thankfully those items are relatively easy to stock up on. A Scroll of Greater Invisibility costs 500gp, Potions of Speed are pretty common, and you can get three Potions of Invulnerability from Tomb of Horrors, and potentially other sources.

I will admit, this would not be an easy fight. If you lose concentration you're in danger, if you're not in an enclosed space that limits movement options, you lose. But this build could, technically, do it.

[kazaryu]

I would say yes, there is, but you need a very, very specific build for it, and very specific items that you have to do very specific adventures to get. Note that none of the items can be Legendary, and must be gained by level 13. This is AL though, so this is do-able. I would go with:



Ill take a look at the rest later, but just so youre aware, this is not inherently AL. You can use AL, but dont need to. So long as you contextualize rules interpreations youre using

[Dork_Forge]

snipped for length

So unless you successfully hide from her, do you have a way of stopping her from spamming you with Fireballs to whittle down hp and force conc saves? A High AC is good, but she has a fair few spells that rely on saves that don't actually need to see you.

[sithlordnergal]

Ill take a look at the rest later, but just so youre aware, this is not inherently AL. You can use AL, but dont need to. So long as you contextualize rules interpreations youre using

I went ahead and used AL rules mostly because you can be guaranteed to find certain items, potions, and scrolls by level 13 that are needed to defeat Zariel with this build. I can't guarantee that I'd have +2 Plate, a +3 Shield, a Staff of Power, and multiple 4th level scrolls in a homebrew game by level 13, but I have had a character that had, or could easily obtain, all of those items by that level in AL. I also can't be certain a homebrew DM would allow a Paladin/Bard/Sorcerer either.

[sithlordnergal]

So unless you successfully hide from her, do you have a way of stopping her from spamming you with Fireballs to whittle down hp and force conc saves? A High AC is good, but she has a fair few spells that rely on saves that don't actually need to see you.

Sadly you don't really have that many options for Fireball outside of just resisting the damage, or moving to places where she might not target you. Thankfully you resist the damage, and fireball only does an average of 28. So you'll be taking an average of 14 on a failed save, and 7 on a successful save. Thanks to War Caster you'll have advantage on the save. Thankfully scrolls of Greater Invisibility only cost 500gp, and if you save absolutely everything and make sure to get the max gold before every level up, you'll have at least 6,320gp. Even if you only spend 3000gp on the scrolls, you have 6 of those.

You can also mitigate some of the damage with healing scrolls, and other scrolls that you find from modules and such, as well as potions. That said, you're actually better off taking Fireball damage then you are trying to tank attacks. She can attack twice, and if she hits you that's gonna be an average of 53 damage if she's wielding her sword in one hand, 55 damage if she's using two hands, or 44 damage if she hits you with her touch attack. Yes that all gets cut in half, but its still 26, 27, and 22 damage respectively. Even if she managed to roll nothing but 6 for her fireball, that's still only 24 damage for you.

EDIT: Also, luckily for you, the only three spells she has that don't require her to see you that can damage you are Fireball, Fire Wall, and Blade Barrier. Fireball is the most dangerous of the bunch, as Wall of fire requires it to be touching the ground, and Blade Barrier cannot be used to make a sphere around herself. It specifically states "A straight wall up to 100ft long" or "A ringed wall". Finally, it is her action to cast Fireball, so that means she can't hit you with anything else. So if you lose concentration due to a fireball, you can pull out another scroll, cast Greater Invisibility, then fly off to an unknown point within 160ft. Unless your DM is metagaming, there is a large chance Zariel will miss you with her next fireball.

[Fable Wright]

Did you miss the part where the wizard has a steed with 600' movement?

No, I did not. Did you miss the part where the horse cannot fly in this edition? I'm not seeing a way for the Wizard to do jack if Zariel is 150ft in the air, while she can do a 120' teleport chase followed by 150' of movement and a 120' javelin toss on a horse she only misses on a nat 1. That's enough to close half your movement, meaning she can effectively retaliate through the kite.


She actually does have turn breaks. 2 of them, occurring on the turns that you take your readied actions. What is she doing for those 2 turns?

She cannot instantly kill the Simulacrum or the main mage courtesy of Fire immunity (via magic item; discussed upthread) and Magic Jar for Necrotic immunity (see upthread, again)

So as long as she ever moves within 120' of the air elemental (the maximum effective range for her spells and javelins, which... you know, she may wish to use) the combo can go off.

[MaxWilson]

No, I did not. Did you miss the part where the horse cannot fly in this edition?

If I had missed it then would I have explicitly mentioned flying in the original post?

[kazaryu]

So as long as she ever moves within 120' of the air elemental.
This is not true. Becuase of thebway readied spells work, once you start firing off the combo. If she moves *out* of range as you set the combo up (which she can do, because the setup gives her 2 legendary actions) the entire combo gets wasted.

Its only if she *remains* within ~120-150 feet while the entire combo gets setup that itd work

[BarneyBent]

This is not true. Becuase of thebway readied spells work, once you start firing off the combo. If she moves *out* of range as you set the combo up (which she can do, because the setup gives her 2 legendary actions) the entire combo gets wasted.

Its only if she *remains* within ~120-150 feet while the entire combo gets setup that itd work

The issue is, Zariel won't do that unless she has a reason to believe there's a threat. And nothing in the combo suggests she would.

Of course, she might notice the character and minions in that six seconds but if they all chug a potion of greater invisibility and take other precautions as appropriate they can PROBABLY manage it, but it's a little fact specific.

[Greywander]

Speaking of Invisibility, it's only a 2nd level spell. You can have your simulacrum upcast it to 3rd level to include both of you, then sneak up on Zariel and hit her with Wall of Force and the Eversmoking Bottle at the same time, before she even knows you're there. She only has a passive Perception of, uh, 26, so maybe that's not so great after all. Boots of Elvenkind are only uncommon and don't require attunement. While wearing the boots, your steps make no sounds, so if you're also invisible it's debatable if you'd even need to roll for Stealth (though things like breathing and the rustling of clothing might still give you away).

This does sort of beg the question of what the circumstances are under which we're encountering Zariel. Does she just happen to be flying by when she sees us? Or do we have to break into her lair and engage her there? Is there something we could do that would draw her out? How would we get her away from her armies?

The answer to the thread title seems to be, "yes," but it would obviously depend a lot on the circumstances of the encounter. In a white room battle, yes, a 13th level PC could beat Zariel. In actual play? There's a lot of questions that need to be answered about the circumstances surrounding the encounter.

[Eldariel]

The biggest issue with her is closing in the distance. She has the Solar ability of TPing around and decent ranged options. If you get around that, she isn't really much of a threat. It's worth noting however that she's able to fly around Invisibly at all times in addition to her pesky teleportation Legendary Action, and a reasonable set of resistances. Again, as stated multiple times in this thread, the best counter to her teleportation is that it requires line of sight; if your familiar got a Ring of Spell Storing with Fog Cloud, that might do it, but the trick is again getting her to come close enough in the first place. Perhaps overlay the trap mentioned above with a Ring of Spell Storing on familiar with Dimension Door in it? Then the familiar goes on to cast Dimension Door and TP you into casting range when everyone else's readied actions go off.

[BarneyBent]

How about this:

Level 13 Wizard who knows Simulacrum and also has a scroll of Simulacrum. Uses scroll to create Simulacrum of themself that still has a 7th level spell slot.

Simulacrum 1 casts the spell Simulacrum on Wizard. Simulacrum 2 does the same. Etc etc, standard Simulacrum-chain til you have an arbitrarily large army of half-HP wizards with all but their 7th level spell slots storm and/or relentlessly pursue Zariel.

Specific tactics TBD and situation-specific, but an arbitrarily large army that can consistently replenish itself will, in the end, prevail. Even if it means Zariel gets so fed up and driven to the point of insanity by these pesky semi-wizard clones that she reconsiders the evil ways that led her to this point and becomes a Celestial once more.

[terodil]

I'm kinda disappointed nobody brought up the flirt^H^H^H^H^Hdiplomancer.

Why beat them if you can befriend/seduce/ally with/'marry' them. Muahaha. Devils are more fun than halo-wearers anyway. (*Can* devils even marry, theoretically?)

SCNR

[Eldariel]

How about this:

Level 13 Wizard who knows Simulacrum and also has a scroll of Simulacrum. Uses scroll to create Simulacrum of themself that still has a 7th level spell slot.

Simulacrum 1 casts the spell Simulacrum on Wizard. Simulacrum 2 does the same. Etc etc, standard Simulacrum-chain til you have an arbitrarily large army of half-HP wizards with all but their 7th level spell slots storm and/or relentlessly pursue Zariel.

Specific tactics TBD and situation-specific, but an arbitrarily large army that can consistently replenish itself will, in the end, prevail. Even if it means Zariel gets so fed up and driven to the point of insanity by these pesky semi-wizard clones that she reconsiders the evil ways that led her to this point and becomes a Celestial once more.

Rarely have I seen driving somebody insane suggested as a means of redemption...

[MaxWilson]

This is not true. Becuase of thebway readied spells work, once you start firing off the combo. If she moves *out* of range as you set the combo up (which she can do, because the setup gives her 2 legendary actions) the entire combo gets wasted.

Its only if she *remains* within ~120-150 feet while the entire combo gets setup that itd work

Or you could set up via Glyph of Warding: Fog Cloud and Glyph of Warding: Wall of Force, and a half dozen Mordenkainen's Faithful Hounds. Then you *pretend* to be kiting her with Magic Missiles, Dimension Door, Phantom Steed, etc., but it's not enough to overcome her huge stack of HP + Regen before she can catch you--but really you're falling back on the Glyph of Warding trap. When she tries to melee you, the trap goes off.

Not foolproof but not a bad plan, if you can avoid her javelins long enough. Fire immunity would help a lot. (Also, she has limited javelins, IIRC 2-5 per MM guidelines.)

P.S. Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, upcast to level 6 or so, would also be ideal. Gives you more room to maneuver within.

Threads like these are why it *matters* that wizards only get to pick a few spells from the wizard list. The odds of a given wizard having already picked Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum when he was 7th or 8th level are IMO basically nil--so the spell has to be custom-researched or found during adventuring. Unlike druids and clerics, individual wizards have access to only a tiny fraction of all wizard spells and sometimes that's very sad. :)

[SpawnOfMorbo]

If r/dndmemes has taught me anything..
I just need a Bard, expertise in persuasion, and cajones to hit on Zariel and I win.

[kazaryu]

No, but that's only 3 extra saves and would have negligible impact when looking at causing 100 saves.

But I also did my math wrong. I only accounted for 6 of the 10 minute duration. Actual damage would be.

Wall of Light: ~606

Sickening Radiance: ~740

sickening radiance would actually deal (on average) 273. you didn't consider her magic resistance which gives her a 79% chance to hit a dc19 (prof bonus is actually +5 at lvl 13 and i said wth give it a tome of int for the full +11 since, ultimately it won't make much difference). on top of that sickening radiance damage is 0 on a successful save. (im also assuming evoker wizard, obviously damage goes down drastically if you're not an evoker. this definitely makes sickening radiance non-viable for this.

reading the exact way the empowered evocation ability is phrased, 'Beginning at 10th level, you can add your Intelligence modifier to one damage roll of any wizard [B]evocation spell[/b} you cast.' taking that as strict RaW you can actually only add your int mod once, even for DoT spells. Not saying that that is how we should judge any of this. just pointing it out because. huh. interesting.



Race: Human Variant

Classes: Vengeance Paladin 5 / Lore Bard 7 / Divine Soul Sorcerer 1


i like it. stack AC, give her disadvantage via greater invis. try to chip her out. a few issues. (not putting these out there to say no! just providing options that i see.)
-wall of fire/fireball don't really care if you're invis and she can cast them at-will. firing an arrow at her reveals your location so she can just use readied actions to pummel you. (point being you probably want some way to resist fire)
-she can just turn invis as well. and hers lasts longer than yours. so you porbably wanna get some way to counter that as well (see invisibility spell is a good place to start, although obviously its range is limited.

overall though i'd say this is a really solid starting point for trying fighter her straight up.



The issue is, Zariel won't do that unless she has a reason to believe there's a threat. And nothing in the combo suggests she would.

Of course, she might notice the character and minions in that six seconds but if they all chug a potion of greater invisibility and take other precautions as appropriate they can PROBABLY manage it, but it's a little fact specific.


for sure, if you attempt to sneak up on her. although...that would require what? at a minimum 3 successful stealth checks vs a dc21. not great odds even with max dex and prof. which you're unlikely to have. (in fact the air elemental doesnt even have prof)

the more poignant point i have is that the person that originally posted this idea did so in such a way that presumed there was no counterplay, at all. no failure point. their exact words were

'No turn breaks for Legendary Actions to teleport out, fatal combo with no escape.'
so im going through and pointing them out. the focus of hte discussion should be on how *likely* you are to fail given those failure points


Shepherd Druid 13 with Ritual Caster: Cleric. For the sake of simplicity, we'll say Vhuman with RCC as his bonus feat and two ASIs in Wis.

a very leniant DM! lol. i do like the idea though, well thought out. obviously has several failure points, as you acknowledged, although the biggest one im interested in is the fact that she can just self cast wall of fire to burn away the annis hags, and then fly out. it would take several turns but i don't think they can take out her HP fast enough. and they almost certainly can't deal enough damage all at once to force a concentration save that zariel can't automatically pass. (outside of a crit). and even then she casts wall of fire at will so...

but yes, this would make for a fun attempt.


Diviner 13: Ready an action to cast Wall of Force on Zariel's position once she's in the area of Sickening Radiance.
Diviner Simulacrum: Ready an action to cast Sickening Radiance when Zariel is covered by Eversmoking bottle.
Planar Bound Air Elemental: Delivers eversmoking bottle to Zariel's location, stays out of Wall of Force.


-diviner: readies an action to cast a spell. end turn
-zariel: sees diviner prepare to cast a spell, but not cast it (because thats how readied spells work). the obvious conclusion is that they're preparing for a combo strike, and so uses legendary action to teleport 12' directly away so she can assess the situation
-diviner 2: also readies to cast a spell
-zariel: now noticing that they must be doing something in tandem with the air elemental, (process of elimination) and so teleports back even further to be well out of the elementals range, much less the range of all the spells.
-both spell slots are wasted, and now zariel knows.

im not saying that this is guaranteed to happen, but its a very reasonable conclusion given that zariel has a 26 int and a 27 wisdom (with perception proficiency). as such its definitely a failure point. i mean..i noticed this weakness almost immediately while at work, and im what...at most a 16 int with exactly 0 actual battle experience?

but thats also just one failure point: there's also initiative order. in order to pull this off you *need* to have a specific initiative order (well. specifically you need both diviners to have their turns immediately before the air elemental *at somepoint* in a round. the actual initiative numbers don't matter. point being that if zariel gets a turn in the middle there, there's even more of a failure point. and since both spells need to fire before the smoke is dispersed.

another possibility is that zariel just....banishes the air elemental. (dispel evil and good). why fight it when she can instead back off, cast dispel evil and good. then on the following turn, over the course of that full turn, just...get rid of it altogether. it can't pass the save and she only misses the attack roll on a 1

its a solid combo, for sure. and it'd work some of the time. but its by no means as cut and dried as you pretend.



Or you could set up via Glyph of Warding: Fog Cloud and Glyph of Warding: Wall of Force, and a half dozen Mordenkainen's Faithful Hounds. Then you *pretend* to be kiting her with Magic Missiles, Dimension Door, Phantom Steed, etc., but it's not enough to overcome her huge stack of HP + Regen before she can catch you--but really you're falling back on the Glyph of Warding trap. When she tries to melee you, the trap goes off.

i like it. similar to the druid grove plan. to make it more effective though, i think you'd probably wanna have the trap itself actually be not inside the private sanctum. the private sanctum is too obvious a trap. but if you can get her to chase you and she ends up above the actual trap, you could earthbind her and use a portent to force a failure. obivous problem here is that its a one-off. if you force a failure and she then uses a legendary resistance. she now knows your plan, and won't get fooled by it.



Specific tactics TBD and situation-specific, but an arbitrarily large army that can consistently replenish itself will, in the end, prevail. Even if it means Zariel gets so fed up and driven to the point of insanity by these pesky semi-wizard clones that she reconsiders the evil ways that led her to this point and becomes a Celestial once more.

while i do enjoy the idea of driving her back to sanity using overflow, this would, i think, fall under the same idea as 'just giving yourself all the ability score tomes so you have a 22 in all ability scores'.



I just need a Bard, expertise in persuasion, and cajones to hit on Zariel and I win.

lol, idk if you can take that heat xD

[SpawnOfMorbo]

lol, idk if you can take that heat xD

Tiefling Bard?

Won't be the worst burning sensation this Bard has had to deal with!

[sithlordnergal]

i like it. stack AC, give her disadvantage via greater invis. try to chip her out. a few issues. (not putting these out there to say no! just providing options that i see.)
-wall of fire/fireball don't really care if you're invis and she can cast them at-will. firing an arrow at her reveals your location so she can just use readied actions to pummel you. (point being you probably want some way to resist fire)
-she can just turn invis as well. and hers lasts longer than yours. so you porbably wanna get some way to counter that as well (see invisibility spell is a good place to start, although obviously its range is limited.

overall though i'd say this is a really solid starting point for trying fighter her straight up.


Actually, I already took Wall of Fire, Blade Barrier, and Fireball into account. If you look under potions, you'll see the build uses Potions of Invulnerability and Potions of Flying.

Potion of Invulnerability grants you resistance to all damage, letting you mitigate the damage from fireball enough that you can fix yourself.

Potion of Flying nullifies Wall of Fire, because Wall of Fire requires the caster to "...create a wall of fire on a solid surface within range." You can't put a Wall of Fire in the air. Blade Barrier has a similar weakness, as it can only be used to make a straight line or a ring. Meaning you can fly under it.

Also, don't forget that you do have a Staff of Power. Its not called the Staff of Power for nothing. If you want, you can give up the disadvantage Greater Invisibility grants you, and instead go for almost full on spell Immunity from Globe of Invulnerability. Zariel only has Finger of Death and Blade Barrier for her spells above 5th level, and she can only cast them a limited number of times.. As long as you took counterspell as a Lore Bard, you're in a pretty good position to counterspell them both.

That said, she can turn Invisible herself. Thankfully, you have a spell as a Bard to counteract that. I didn't think about it until you mentioned it, but See Invisibility is a 2nd level Bard spell, isn't a concentration spell, lasts an hour, and lets you see anyone within your normal line of sight. Nullifying her Invisibility at will spell.

Edit: Finally, I forgot about the readied action. If you can get her to ready her actions to attack you, then you are in the best position possible. Readying an action takes your action, it requires you to use your reaction, and you can only do one thing. If she tries to cast a spell, then you can wait and she loses it. Sure she has unlimited fireballs, but she has a limited number of her powerful spells. If she readies an attack, then she only makes a single attack against you.

[kazaryu]

Potion of Flying nullifies Wall of Fire, because Wall of Fire requires the caster to "...create a wall of fire on a solid surface within range." You can't put a Wall of Fire in the air. Blade Barrier has a similar weakness, as it can only be used to make a straight line or a ring. Meaning you can fly under it.


sure, depending on how open the 'enclosed' area is. fair enough.



Also, don't forget that you do have a Staff of Power. Its not called the Staff of Power for nothing. If you want, you can give up the disadvantage Greater Invisibility grants you, and instead go for almost full on spell Immunity from Globe of Invulnerability. Zariel only has Finger of Death and Blade Barrier for her spells above 5th level, and she can only cast them a limited number of times.. As long as you took counterspell as a Lore Bard, you're in a pretty good position to counterspell them both.


nono, i think you definitely want that greater invis. if you're visible she can lock you down and **** you even harder. (immolating gaze for extra damage, not much but still). remember at your best you have 1/4 her HP, so you need to deal ~4x her damage per turn. and the easiest way to do that is to reduce her dpr. letting her hit you with the immolating gaze means you need an extra ~22dpr (a little more actually, but you get the point). which is a lot considering she already has resistance to your smite. actually, i think the big problem you end up running into is that you run outta spell slots for smiting/shielding. hmmmmm. could be rough. but still, greater invis definitely i think is better.



That said, she can turn Invisible herself. Thankfully, you have a spell as a Bard to counteract that. I didn't think about it until you mentioned it, but See Invisibility is a 2nd level Bard spell, isn't a concentration spell, lasts an hour, and lets you see anyone within your normal line of sight. Nullifying her Invisibility at will spell.


yeh, just gotta precast it. every turn once the combat itself starts matters. remember, the way hiding work in 5e, technically she always know where you are unless you specifically take the hide action. even if you're invis. but thats fine since you're mostly trying to melee her anyway, but if you spend a turn casting this then thats a turn you're not attacking.



Edit: Finally, I forgot about the readied action. If you can get her to ready her actions to attack you, then you are in the best position possible. Readying an action takes your action, it requires you to use your reaction, and you can only do one thing. If she tries to cast a spell, then you can wait and she loses it. Sure she has unlimited fireballs, but she has a limited number of her powerful spells. If she readies an attack, then she only makes a single attack against you.

yup, as you said, war of attrition. biggest problem i think you'll run into is that you may run outta spell slots before she falls. also she still outspeeds you, even with haste (her total movement per round is 270 because of legendary actions.) and even if you do something like earthbind to remove her fly speed, she still has 170 movement/round which still outpaces you (but only just). hmmm, you may be able to make use of a steed, alongside earthbind? probably too squishy, but its an unexplored avenue that may bear fruit. earthbind is a str save, so you have a decent shot of landing it (although maintaing your concentration....thats different.

[Hael]

Get a bag of holding and a portable hole. Throw one in the other near her and if she's within 10 feet she's banished to the astral plane (no save). Depending on how your DM rules, she may or may not be allowed a legendary teleport action, in which case you need to lock her down with one of the aforementioned methods.

[kazaryu]

Get a bag of holding and a portable hole. Throw one in the other near her and if she's within 10 feet she's banished to the astral plane (no save). Depending on how your DM rules, she may or may not be allowed a legendary teleport action, in which case you need to lock her down with one of the aforementioned methods.

Oh no.

Shes now on the astral plane...how ever will she survive and get back to hell....


Seriously though, thats isnt 'killing her' lol

[Zuras]

Count me as one of those who is disappointed Zariel doesn't have Truesight.

Hey, if she were seeing clearly she wouldn’t have taken Asmideus’ job offer.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Hey, if she were seeing clearly she wouldn’t have taken Asmideus’ job offer.

Also gone would be the dark clouds that had her blind.

[TheUser]

I'll take the one shot approach since Zariel isn't immune to the surprised condition.

Wood Elf Illusionist Wizard 13
Only magic items necessary are a broom of flying and two cloaks of elvenkind.

Our simulacrum is just a copy of us which comes up later.

We use pass without trace from wood elf magic combined with 18 dex and proficiency for +19 to stealth.

Wouldn't you know it, Zariel has a passive perception of 26 but since the cloak of elven kind grants disadvantage on Wisdom(perception) her passive perception to spot us drops to 21 and we succeed on our stealth check 199/200 scenarios because the cloak also grants advantage. EDIT. So we fly right above her between 200-300ft


Before engaging in combat we have used the creation spell to create a perfectly spherical exceptionally dense potato that our simulacrum drops onto Zariel with a free object interaction or makes an attack roll with advantage (because hidden) using Tavern Brawler and the potato as an improvised weapon (+9 to hit with elven accuracy advantage hits roughly 73% of the time). If we Magic Jar a Diviner (VGM p213) for both ourselves and the simulacrum we can get that number to 90% as we now have 5 different d20 chances to succeed.

With a readied action we use malleable illusions to transform the potato into a 5x5x5ft Granite cube that is lined with silver (to bypass damage resistance).

Because we surprised Zariel, even if we go second she does not have access to any actions until we end our turn (then Legendary actions can kick in). Luckily the silver lined Granite cube lands before our turn ends and the simulacrum acts on our turn collectively.

Because the silver lined granite cube lands before our turn ends Zariel cannot teleport out of the way and as such is subject to, at minimum, 281,762 Newtons of force. Edit: We can get over 500k if we pitch the sucker

If we lowball this on an improvised damage table it bottoms out at 200d6 damage (for instance falling debris from a collapsing tunnel is falling at most 10ft and deals 4d10 damage, if we multiplied that by 30x the distance we would get 120d10 and that's random debris).

Zariel only has 580 hp and we just dealt 700 to her. We would deal over 600 damage in 99% of dice rolled scenarios.

Does that work for you?

[stoutstien]

I don't I think it's possible without somehow increasing your own action economy be it by summoning or simulacrum.
I think a protector aasmar nuke wizard or even just a straight evoker could probably pull it off.
Precast fire shield, crown of stars, and longstrider. Add the necessary simulacrum.

[LudicSavant]

Because the silver lined granite cube lands before our turn ends Zariel cannot teleport out of the way and as such is subject to, at minimum, 281,762 Newtons of force.

If we lowball this on an improvised damage table it bottoms out at 200d6 damage (for instance falling debris from a collapsing tunnel is falling at most 10ft and deals 4d10 damage, if we multiplied that by 30x the distance we would get 120d10 and that's random debris).

Is that lowballing, though? What we can see from the damage table is that it's not a linear progression. It goes from a bookshelf tipping over, to a tunnel collapsing on you, to a flying castle crashing into you to being crushed in the jaws of a moon-sized monster. What I think we can take from that is that 30x the force isn't 30x the damage.

[Dualswinger]

Okay. Let's take a stab at this.

Tabaxi race
Moon Druid 9 - Feats: Lucky
Rogue 2
Fighter 2

Grab yourself a potion of haste, potion of growth and boots of speed, activate all pre battle as well as the Longstrider spell (or turn one if caught unawares).

Action 1: Cast Spike Growth
Bonus: Become Giant Elk
Action Surge: Grapple Zariel. Your Rogue took Expertise: Athletics so you'll be at +14 vs Zariel's +8. Use Luck points to win if necessary.
Haste Action (and remaining standard movement) - Dash moving Zariel through the Spike Growth while you keep to the outside. It'll be on average 1280 points of damage. (Breakdown under the spoilers)


Giant Elk base speed - 60ft
Longstrider - +10ft
Mobile Feat - +10ft
Tabaxi Dash - Double
Haste potion - Double
Boots of Speed - Double
Grapple condition - does not affect us since we are 2 size categories larger than our target

Total speed - 640ft
Damage Average per 5ft movement - 5

Two sets of movement through Spike Growth - 1280 points of magical piercing damage (which Zariel cannot resist)


There are ways to improve this, luck stone for one, but that's the basic chassis of the build idea.

[MaxWilson]

Is that lowballing, though? What we can see from the damage table is that it's not a linear progression. It goes from a bookshelf tipping over, to a tunnel collapsing on you, to a flying castle crashing into you to being crushed in the jaws of a moon-sized monster. What I think we can take from that is that 30x the force isn't 30x the damage.

Absolutely. I think we knew this already from the fact that Enlarge (8x the kinetic energy) only increases damage dealt by +1d4, which is typically something on the order of +15%.

Falling damage is the exception, sort of: for a given creature, +100% kinetic energy from falling twice as far results in +100% damage (up to terminal velocity). But then, +700% kinetic energy from being Enlarged again does not result in +700% damage. It's almost as if HP damage in 5E were independent of the actual mass of the object doing the attacking. (We see something similar in how Ice Storm does not do extra damage to larger creatures despite hitting them with more hail stones.)

[Sudsboy]

Okay. Let's take a stab at this.

Tabaxi race
Moon Druid 9 - Feats: Lucky
Rogue 2
Fighter 2

Grab yourself a potion of haste, potion of growth and boots of speed, activate all pre battle as well as the Longstrider spell (or turn one if caught unawares).

Action 1: Cast Spike Growth
Bonus: Become Giant Elk
Action Surge: Grapple Zariel. Your Rogue took Expertise: Athletics so you'll be at +14 vs Zariel's +8. Use Luck points to win if necessary.
Haste Action (and remaining standard movement) - Dash moving Zariel through the Spike Growth while you keep to the outside. It'll be on average 1280 points of damage. (Breakdown under the spoilers)


Giant Elk base speed - 60ft
Longstrider - +10ft
Mobile Feat - +10ft
Tabaxi Dash - Double
Haste potion - Double
Boots of Speed - Double
Grapple condition - does not affect us since we are 2 size categories larger than our target

Total speed - 640ft
Damage Average per 5ft movement - 5

Two sets of movement through Spike Growth - 1280 points of magical piercing damage (which Zariel cannot resist)


There are ways to improve this, luck stone for one, but that's the basic chassis of the build idea.

This is hilarious and awesome. The whole thread has been a lot of fun to read.

[MaxWilson]

Okay. Let's take a stab at this.

Tabaxi race
Moon Druid 9 - Feats: Lucky
Rogue 2
Fighter 2

Grab yourself a potion of haste, potion of growth and boots of speed, activate all pre battle as well as the Longstrider spell (or turn one if caught unawares).

Action 1: Cast Spike Growth
Bonus: Become Giant Elk
Action Surge: Grapple Zariel. Your Rogue took Expertise: Athletics so you'll be at +14 vs Zariel's +8. Use Luck points to win if necessary.
Haste Action (and remaining standard movement) - Dash moving Zariel through the Spike Growth while you keep to the outside. It'll be on average 1280 points of damage. (Breakdown under the spoilers)


Giant Elk base speed - 60ft
Longstrider - +10ft
Mobile Feat - +10ft
Tabaxi Dash - Double
Haste potion - Double
Boots of Speed - Double
Grapple condition - does not affect us since we are 2 size categories larger than our target

Total speed - 640ft
Damage Average per 5ft movement - 5

Two sets of movement through Spike Growth - 1280 points of magical piercing damage (which Zariel cannot resist)

There are ways to improve this, luck stone for one, but that's the basic chassis of the build idea.

Grappling requires a free hand. Where is a Giant Elk getting a free hand from?

[Dualswinger]

Grappling requires a free hand. Where is a Giant Elk getting a free hand from?

A fair comment, but I've never met a dm that hasn't allowed me to bite grapple and pull things along in exchange for giving up any attacks. If they don't allow it, then you could pick Giant Eagle for a slight reduction in damage, but flight!

[TheUser]

Is that lowballing, though? What we can see from the damage table is that it's not a linear progression. It goes from a bookshelf tipping over, to a tunnel collapsing on you, to a flying castle crashing into you to being crushed in the jaws of a moon-sized monster. What I think we can take from that is that 30x the force isn't 30x the damage.

Sounds like an assertion to me.

Also falling debris from a collapsing tunnel rarely ways 21,000 lbs.

So yeah, I lowballed it by more than a factor of 10.

Lets talk about those other values: A flying fortress crashing into you and landing on top of you are two different things. I have no idea how fast a flying fortress flies or how much it weighs (and whether or not I am sandwiched against something, unlike the granite - zariel - and the ground).

I can always dig through Rise of Tiamat to try and find out but again without being sandwhiched against something this damage is hard to extrapolate anything from.

As a simple comparison; getting crashed into by a moving car sucks and will seriously injure you. Having it land on top of you from a 200ft fall is death. Even it implies a crash landing the flying fortress isn't in free fall and there is no supposition that it is pancaking you the way this granite cube is.

And I have no idea what the crushing force of the jaws of a moon sized beast is...I can't imagine it's moving fast or even what the hardness/spacing of its teeth are. If it has spaces between it's teeth then that is now a detractor to its damage.

A falling book shelf dealing 1d10 weighs roughly 60-100lbs and is falling 5ft.

What is debris from a collapsing tunnel? 400lbs of rock? Hard to say really. That's 4d10. But it's also not a flat cube, it's multiple stones impacting you.

A 5ftx5ftx10ft stone slab in tomb of anihilation deals 10d10 damage but it's never in free fall it's coming downward from a controlled mechanism (taking 6 seconds to descend 10ft). Granite is relatively dense mind you.

So after all is said and done, what I can tell you is that the sheer weight of a stone twice this size deals 10d10 to something resting under it.

If we cut that in half (down to 5d10) but then amp up the fact that it's moving at almost 100 miles per hour....

If you really want tack on some extra speed for actually pitching the potato (instead of initial velocity of 0 it's 30mph) and move yourself up to 400ft up we just amped up the speed to over 113 mph.

EDIT: If we converted the old value into Bookcases of damage I think it becomes...
1636d10.
EDIT 2: Over 1100d10 in debris damage
EDIT 3: typo 800d10 for at rest stone slabs

200d6 looks like it aligns with the values of a non-linear model of improvised damage

[LudicSavant]

Sounds like an assertion to me. Uhm, obviously? As is your assertion that it's linear. We can test both assertions by looking at corroborating evidence, such as the very table you referenced.

Ironically, you just did a test that demonstrates that a linear extrapolation doesn't really work (with your edit).



Also falling debris from a collapsing tunnel rarely ways 21,000 lbs.

So yeah, I lowballed it by more than a factor of 10.

Only if you assert that the progression is linear, and choose only the example of the collapsing tunnel as your scaling point (to the exclusion of other references in the system).


EDIT: If we converted the old value into Bookcases of damage I think it becomes...
1636d10.

The thing is, this statement provides evidence against your position that a linear extrapolation is lowballing, since you get wildly higher numbers when extrapolating from examples in lower weight classes. If flying heavy things were so absurdly deadly, Giants tossing boulders would be able to do a lot more damage.


EDIT: If we converted the old value into Bookcases of damage I think it becomes...
1636d10.
EDIT 2: Over 1100d10 in debris damage
EDIT 3: 200d10 for at rest stone slabs

We can see that this isn't necessarily an accurate derivation because the examples fail to convert into each other (e.g. get the damage for a collapsing tunnel or giant boulders in "bookcases of damage"). So what evidence leads you to believe that you can just linearly scale off of "bookcases of damage" or "collapsing tunnels of damage"?

(Edited to account for your edit)

[Damon_Tor]

Properly equipped with an arbitrary number of Arrows of Fiend Slaying, a +3 Longbow, Bracers of Archery and a potion of Haste, an Assassin 3/Battlemaster 6/Gloomstalker 3/War Cleric 1 could get her into double digit hitpoints on round 1 using Divine Guidance, Sharpshooter and Elven Accuracy with a chance to end her entirely if his damage rolls are lucky, and from far enough away she wouldn't be able to retaliate, then end her on turn 2. She has no special senses besides darkvision, so the Gloomstalker is invisible to her if he sticks to the shadows. Based on her movement speed and including her teleport ability, you'd want to engage from about ~300 feet away. That's the sweet spot where she won't be able to get to you in that first round to put you down but she also can't get outside your weapon's range and escape.

Round 1 will be 8 attacks: 3 from the attack action, 3 from action surge, 1 from haste and 1 from War Cleric. They all auto-crit assuming we win stealth and initiative (so bringing along magic items which boost these rolls is a good idea too, though we should be very adept at both) Each one does 2d8+12d10(though she'll save for half damage on 2/3 of these and likely use Legendary Saves on the others)+2d4 radiant(she resists this, but it shuts down her regen, so its necessary)+4 for dex and +10 for SS +3 for the weapon and +2 for the bracers. One of the attacks also does 4d6 sneak attack and 4 of them also deal 2d8 for maneuvers.

Cutting the resisted/reduced dice in half right there in the math we're looking at 8(2(4.5)+6(5.5)+(2.5))+2(3.5)+4(2(4.5))+8(4+10+3+2 )= 551 damage. That leaves her with 29 on average results, so she's in real bad shape for turn 2, where you'll be making 4 attacks, no auto-crit this time, but still more than enough to finish her off. If she fails more saves vs the arrows than expected, or if you just have real good luck with your damage rolls, she might not even make it to turn 2.

[Damon_Tor]

A fair comment, but I've never met a dm that hasn't allowed me to bite grapple and pull things along in exchange for giving up any attacks. If they don't allow it, then you could pick Giant Eagle for a slight reduction in damage, but flight!

I allow grappling for non-handed entities if and when it makes sense. A wolf can crapple with its jaws: it's jaws are meant to do that. An elk cannot. I would allow the eagle to grapple.

[Keravath]

This is AL season 9 ruleset and AL FAQ.

So I get 7 non-attunement and 3 attunement items, no legendary, right?

Gold allotment per AL strict guidelines.

No. At tier 3 (level 13) you have 6 permanent magic items allowed. Up to 3 attunement. The numbers you quote are for tier 4 - level 17-20. The no legendary is correct though. Gold is 80gp/level tier 1 (1-4 320gp total), 240 gp /level in tier 2 (5-10 1440 gp total), 1600gp/level in tier 3 (11-12-13 4800gp total) for a total of 6560gp. However, in AL you can't purchase magic items except for one merchant if you play Ghosts of Salt Marsh and that is limited to Table F and G up to rare. Otherwise, you also need to specify the AL content to play to obtain any items suggested.

[MaxWilson]

Another potential option is for a Divine 13 and their Simulacrum to wait for a day of very low Portents (all 1s and 2s) and then cast Mirror Image and Teleport on top of her, followed by Polymorph x 4 (Portent) to change her into a mouse. Then Teleport to the ocean, put the mouse in a lead-lined box, and drop it in the ocean. She will eventually suffocate as a mouse or drown, and since she still won't be able to breathe, she can't regain HP and will remain at 0 HP and be dead.

It would take about 27 years for all of the Portents to line up just right though, and if Zariel happens not to be alone in a place where you can locate her on that day, it's all wasted. Even then you can still get unlucky on your Mirror Image rolls (or the DM might just let her close her eyes, accept the disadvantage, and ignore the Mirror Images).

Therefore I mention this option only for completeness, because it's technically not impossible. Hardly reliable though.

[Fable Wright]

a very leniant DM! lol. i do like the idea though, well thought out. obviously has several failure points, as you acknowledged, although the biggest one im interested in is the fact that she can just self cast wall of fire to burn away the annis hags, and then fly out. it would take several turns but i don't think they can take out her HP fast enough. and they almost certainly can't deal enough damage all at once to force a concentration save that zariel can't automatically pass. (outside of a crit). and even then she casts wall of fire at will so...

but yes, this would make for a fun attempt.

Ehhhh. Wall of Fire does what, 5d8 damage? So an average of 22.5 per round to all the hags. The hags have 95 HP because Shepherd, and casting a Healing Word every turn plus having the Hags in the aura means 20 HP/turn (13 from Unicorn Totem, 7 from Guardian Spirit). Wall of Fire + Fireballs every turn is a wee bit more threatening? But not much. Couple that with an automatic 36 damage per turn per hag for Crushing Hug, at an average of 5 hugs (because remember, they have advantage from the one-sided visibility of Druid Grove) means 180 damage per turn and five DC 18 concentration saves per turn. Three to four turns to kill with just weight of numbers, and Zariel can't Fireball + Wall of Fire the hags to death THAT quick.

[patchyman]

Unless your DM is metagaming, there is a large chance Zariel will miss you with her next fireball.

Unless I’m missing something, with a Dex of 8, Zariel isn’t missing you with her fireballs.

[Boci]

Unless I’m missing something, with a Dex of 8, Zariel isn’t missing you with her fireballs.

The previous sentance included "cast Greater Invisibility, then fly off to an unknown point within 160ft." Since Zariel apparantly doesn't have true sight, she shouldn't be able to pinpoint an invisible, mobile target with fireball.

[Fable Wright]

The previous sentance included "cast Greater Invisibility, then fly off to an unknown point within 160ft."

Did you make a Stealth check with a bonus action? If not, you are not 'hidden' and Zariel knows exactly where you are.

[Boci]

Did you make a Stealth check with a bonus action? If not, you are not 'hidden' and Zariel knows exactly where you are.

Many DMs don't run invisibility that way, but fair point, those are the rules.

[kazaryu]

Okay. Let's take a stab at this.

Tabaxi race
Moon Druid 9 - Feats: Lucky

Grapple condition - does not affect us since we are 2 size categories larger than our target

another interesting idea. Although a few things.
-Zariel is large, so a giant elk doesnt have her beat by 2 size categories. Youd also need a potion of enlarge, since youre going after potions, may as well grab potion of emhance str too so you can get adv on grapple checks
-elks cant grapple by raw (yeah i kmow thats been mentioned) im just pointing it out because ot is a failure point.



Two sets of movement through Spike Growth - 1280 points of magical piercing damage (which Zariel cannot resist) would need a slightly permissive dm for this, but overall.not to difficult to convince methinks.

Overa i like it, it does have a couple of failure points, specifically how close youd have to lure zariel to the spike growth, when youre the agressor. But thats fine. Still definitely viable so long as you can pass rolls. And being a mood druid youre not immediately at a loss if you fail a couple of skill checks, so thats nice. Although, obviously, running away will be sticky.

[MaxWilson]

would need a slightly permissive dm for this, but overall.not to difficult to convince methinks.


You also need to convince the DM to make Zariel's movement track your own, even though physics says it should. (If anything, centrifugal force from high-speed movement should fling her further out than you, not keep her further in.)

I'm a pretty permissive DM in most ways but for me, you can't drag someone though Spike Growth without going through the spikes yourself, unless you can fly above them.

[sithlordnergal]

Did you make a Stealth check with a bonus action? If not, you are not 'hidden' and Zariel knows exactly where you are.

who needs a bonus action to hide? You have concentrationless Haste from the Potion of Speed. If you really, really need to, you can use the extra action grants by that to move, attack, then hide. Provided you cast Longstrider and See Invisibility on yourself, both hour long, concentrationless spells, before the fight you'll have a fly speed of 80ft. That's a pretty decent distance to help avoid being spotted by Zariel.

[kazaryu]

I'll take the one shot approach since Zariel isn't immune to the surprised condition.

Wood Elf Illusionist Wizard 13
Only magic items necessary are a broom of flying and two cloaks of elvenkind.

Our simulacrum is just a copy of us which comes up later.

We use pass without trace from wood elf magic combined with 18 dex and proficiency for +19 to stealth.

Wouldn't you know it, Zariel has a passive perception of 26 but since the cloak of elven kind grants disadvantage on Wisdom(perception) her passive perception to spot us drops to 21 and we succeed on our stealth check 199/200 scenarios because the cloak also grants advantage.


Before engaging in combat we have used the creation spell to create a perfectly spherical exceptionally dense potato that our simulacrum drops onto Zariel with a free object interaction or makes an attack roll with advantage (because hidden) using Tavern Brawler and the potato as an improvised weapon (+9 to hit with elven accuracy advantage hits roughly 73% of the time). If we Magic Jar a Diviner (VGM p213) for both ourselves and the simulacrum we can get that number to 90% as we now have 5 different d20 chances to succeed.

With a readied action we use malleable illusions to transform the potato into a 5x5x5ft Granite cube that is lined with silver (to bypass damage resistance).

Because we surprised Zariel, even if we go second she does not have access to any actions until we end our turn (then Legendary actions can kick in). Luckily the silver lined Granite cube lands before our turn ends and the simulacrum acts on our turn collectively.

Because the silver lined granite cube lands before our turn ends Zariel cannot teleport out of the way and as such is subject to, at minimum, 281,762 Newtons of force. Edit: We can get over 500k if we pitch the sucker

If we lowball this on an improvised damage table it bottoms out at 200d6 damage (for instance falling debris from a collapsing tunnel is falling at most 10ft and deals 4d10 damage, if we multiplied that by 30x the distance we would get 120d10 and that's random debris).

Zariel only has 580 hp and we just dealt 700 to her. We would deal over 600 damage in 99% of dice rolled scenarios.

Does that work for you?

I may be missing it, but from how high up are you calculating this?

[Benny89]

The biggest thing that She has is teleportation. If we can prevent that a standard Forecage-> Sickening Radiance kills her as any other big boss in game.

Forbiddence is one that could do it, though it would require luring her into prepared combat zone. Forbiddence prevents any sort of Teleportation.

So in theory if we were Lore Bard, we pick Forbiddence and Sickening Radiance as our Magic Secters and Simulacrum. But that's level 14.

Cast Forbiddence on zone, lure Zariel in, Your Drop Forcecage, Sim drops Sickening Radiance - wait. It's 100 rounds for CON saves + 3 legendary actions. Fail 6 and she is dead. If Sickening Radiance is ending, cast another one.

13 is not really that hard to beat her 1v1, but dealing with Her teleportation and flying is another thing. Sorcadin could drop her in 1v1 no problem, but chasing her down without Greater Steed is something else. Pure Paladin won't have enough slots.

The other would be EA Vengeance Paladin crit fishing for Smites to maximalize damage but I am afraid withoug Shield spells he wouldn't be able to stand long enough.

1 Hexblade/12 Evoker probably would be able to kill her but survivng is another thing.

[TheUser]

I may be missing it, but from how high up are you calculating this?

Weird, it was supposed to be 200-300ft. I must've deleted it by accident somewhere

[MaxWilson]

The biggest thing that She has is teleportation. If we can prevent that a standard Forecage-> Sickening Radiance kills her as any other big boss in game.

Forbiddence is one that could do it, though it would require luring her into prepared combat zone. Forbiddence prevents any sort of Teleportation.

So in theory if we were Lore Bard, we pick Forbiddence and Sickening Radiance as our Magic Secters and Simulacrum. But that's level 14.

Cast Forbiddence on zone, lure Zariel in, Your Drop Forcecage, Sim drops Sickening Radiance - wait. It's 100 rounds for CON saves + 3 legendary actions. Fail 6 and she is dead. If Sickening Radiance is ending, cast another one.

13 is not really that hard to beat her 1v1, but dealing with Her teleportation and flying is another thing. Sorcadin could drop her in 1v1 no problem, but chasing her down without Greater Steed is something else. Pure Paladin won't have enough slots.

The other would be EA Vengeance Paladin crit fishing for Smites to maximalize damage but I am afraid withoug Shield spells he wouldn't be able to stand long enough.

1 Hexblade/12 Evoker probably would be able to kill her but survivng is another thing.

The spell you are looking for is Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, a.k.a. Lord Morrolan's Teleport Block. Better than Forbiddance both in covering a much larger volume (especially when upcast), and also in preventing teleportation or planar travel OUT as well as in. Can block vision as well but it's probably best in this scenario to choose the invisible version.

[kazaryu]

The biggest thing that She has is teleportation. If we can prevent that a standard Forecage-> Sickening Radiance kills her as any other big boss in game.

Its like you didnt even verify that this is true...




So in theory if we were Lore Bard, we pick Forbiddence and Sickening Radiance as our Magic Secters and Simulacrum. But that's level 14.

Cast Forbiddence on zone, lure Zariel in, Your Drop Forcecage, Sim drops Sickening Radiance - wait. It's 100 rounds for CON saves + 3 legendary actions. Fail 6 and she is dead. If Sickening Radiance is ending, cast another one.

Since you clearly didnt look into this seriously, im just gonna recomend you take a look at her statblock to see why this isnt true..even a little bit.


Sorcadin could drop her in 1v1 no problem, but chasing her down without Greater Steed is something else. Pure Paladin won't have enough slots.

The other would be EA Vengeance Paladin crit fishing for Smites to maximalize damage but I am afraid withoug Shield spells he wouldn't be able to stand long enough.

1 Hexblade/12 Evoker probably would be able to kill her but survivng is another thing.

So when you say 'can beat her' in all kf thee. Im assuming you mean 'deals radiant damage and therefore can safely ignore her regen.
And not 'is capable of actually fightung her in a 1v1 if she fights intelligently'. Yes?

Please be more specific, id be curious to know how a sorcadin can 'beat her in a 1v1 no problem'

[Benny89]

Its like you didnt even verify that this is true...




Since you clearly didnt look into this seriously, im just gonna recomend you take a look at her statblock to see why this isnt true..even a little bit.



So when you say 'can beat her' in all kf thee. Im assuming you mean 'deals radiant damage and therefore can safely ignore her regen.
And not 'is capable of actually fightung her in a 1v1 if she fights intelligently'. Yes?

Please be more specific, id be curious to know how a sorcadin can 'beat her in a 1v1 no problem'

Ah, correct, didn't notice she is immune to exhaustion. My bad.

With Sorcadin I meant that he can deal enough damage, but I said that it doesn't solve her mobility problem.

For now I probably know how to beat her 1v1 with Hexblade/Lore Bard but that would require level 16 character sadly. Level 13 is little too limiting, especially for Bards because that 1 level below Magic Secrets.

But my point still stands that if you can prevent her from teleportation- you can Forcecage her and just take your time dealing enough damage. Javelin is still a problem but less than her full arsenal. I would still try to build it around Forcecage.

So Nucler Wizard 1 Hexblade/12 Evocker could cast Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, a.k.a. Lord Morrolan's Teleport Block. If you can them lure her there - it's GG. After that you only need to land forcecage and then spam your Magic Missle + Curse + Empowered evocation Magic Missiles till she is dead.

Once teleportation is down - Forcecage is imo the answer.

[kazaryu]

Ah, correct, didn't notice she is immune to exhaustion. My bad.

With Sorcadin I meant that he can deal enough damage, but I said that it doesn't solve her mobility problem.

For now I probably know how to beat her 1v1 with Hexblade/Lore Bard but that would require level 16 character sadly. Level 13 is little too limiting, especially for Bards because that 1 level below Magic Secrets.

But my point still stands that if you can prevent her from teleportation- you can Forcecage her and just take your time dealing enough damage. Javelin is still a problem but less than her full arsenal. I would still try to build it around Forcecage.

So Nucler Wizard 1 Hexblade/12 Evocker could cast Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, a.k.a. Lord Morrolan's Teleport Block. If you can them lure her there - it's GG. After that you only need to land forcecage and then spam your Magic Missle + Curse + Empowered evocation Magic Missiles till she is dead.

Once teleportation is down - Forcecage is imo the answer.

But then yoh need a way to deal with her at will fireballs, wall of fire and immolating gaze. And her finger of death...as a 13th level squishy

[Benny89]

But then yoh need a way to deal with her at will fireballs, wall of fire and immolating gaze. And her finger of death...as a 13th level squishy

Nah, that's easy. Her Javelin is max 120 feet, her gaze is 120 feet range, her spells are 120 feet range at max.

Forcecage keeps her in place. What we need to do is to move to 120 feet range, cast magic missles and then get back to 130 + feet distance and we are out of reach. Rinse Repeat every turn. You can also have Greater Invisibility on you since her Gaze requires to see you and she doesn't have blindsight or true seeing.

Forcecage is 100 feet range so we cast it from max and then move away to 130 speed. We can also have Haste on ourselfs and after cast move away 60 feet + bonus action to make sure we are our of reach.

Then it's just Magic Missle spam every turn from max distance. GG.

Once Forcecage lands and no teleportation - it's GG for her.

[JNAProductions]

So, Ready Action Fireball at the source of the Magic Missiles doesn't work because... Reasons?

[MaxWilson]

But then yoh need a way to deal with her at will fireballs, wall of fire and immolating gaze. And her finger of death...as a 13th level squishy

Not necessarily. The goal of the exercise is to kill Zariel, not to survive. Hypothetically speaking, if you Forcecage Zariel inside a teleport block with a Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound and say a Glyph of Sickening Radiance, she might not die until several minutes after you're already dead, but you'd still have accomplished the mission.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

My favorite part of white room discussions is the idea that the enemy doesn't get their own white room.

[Benny89]

So, Ready Action Fireball at the source of the Magic Missiles doesn't work because... Reasons?

Counterspell.

"A monster with the innate ability to cast Spells has the Innate Spellcasting Special trait. Unless noted otherwise, an innate spell of 1st level or higher is always cast at its lowest possible level and can't be cast at a higher level"

Her Fireball is just 3rd level spell.

And "Globe of Invulnerability"

No spell below level 5th can hit you.

You can yawn on her fireballs.

[JNAProductions]

Counterspell.

"A monster with the innate ability to cast Spells has the Innate Spellcasting Special trait. Unless noted otherwise, an innate spell of 1st level or higher is always cast at its lowest possible level and can't be cast at a higher level"

Her Fireball is just 3rd level spell.

60' range on Counterspell.

[Benny89]

60' range on Counterspell.

"Globe of Invulnerability"

No spell below level 5th can hit you.

You can yawn at her fireballs.

[MaxWilson]

"Globe of Invulnerability"

No spell below level 5th can hit you.

You can yawn at her fireballs.

All right. What about readied javelins?

[stoutstien]

All right. What about readied javelins?
Contingency catapult?

[stoutstien]

All right. What about readied javelins?
Contingency catapult?
Nevermind wrong targeting parameters. Mirror image should work right

[JNAProductions]

Contingency catapult?
Nevermind wrong targeting parameters. Mirror image should work right

But if you're Invisible, Mirror Image wouldn't do anything. She'd be attacking at disadvantage, sure... But those javelins hurt.

Plus she can then use her Gaze on you.

[Benny89]

All right. What about readied javelins?

Well, now it depends how much equipment we can have etc. including magic equipment. For example with Half-Plate +1 and Shield + 2 we would look at 22 AC + Shield = 27 AC. She attacks with disadvantge because Javelin is 30/120 and she doesn't have Sharpshooter or anything else.

Once we drop her to 0, we need to finish her with Sickening Radiance or Dawn. But denending on magic items we can have- I say we have really good chacne.

We negate teleportation, we have free magic damage with Wands/Upcasted magic missles, we negate her spells. Javelin is our only concern really. I say it's good situation.

[JNAProductions]

Also, why can you hit her with Magic Missile when she has Invisibility at-will? She can just go ghost and wait it out.

[Makorel]

I'm disappointed that the cap is 13th level because I'm fairly certain a 14th level Zealot Barbarian has a good shot at this. 14th level is when the Zealot gets their "You cannot die from death" ability and actually comes with canned radiant damage so it has all the necessary parts to take damage and land the killing blow. The only thing is that Zariel is fast. Like probably the fastest creature on 5e and I don't think the Zealot can properly stop her from running if she gets too bloodied.

[Benny89]

But if you're Invisible, Mirror Image wouldn't do anything. She'd be attacking at disadvantage, sure... But those javelins hurt.

Plus she can then use her Gaze on you.

Either she does ready action Gaze or Ready action javelin, not both. Mirror Image works on Javelins, same as Blur. Those two gives us a lot + Shield on reaction. We should have at level 13 min of 21 AC base. Mirrior Image, Blur + Shield + she attacks with Javelin with disadvantage is enough.

Globe on Inv. protects from spells. True seeing prevents invisibility.


Nuking commence.

[Benny89]

Also, why can you hit her with Magic Missile when she has Invisibility at-will? She can just go ghost and wait it out.

True Seeing - no concnetration, 1 hour duration.

She sits in a cage like dog, we have time to cast some spells before we start to pommel her with Magic Missles.

[JNAProductions]

True Seeing - no concnetration, 1 hour duration.

Fair. Mind making a tally of all cast spells, just to keep it all straight?

[stoutstien]

True Seeing - no concnetration, 1 hour duration.

She sits in a cage like dog, we have time to cast some spells before we start to pommel her with Magic Missles.

No real reason to use true sight when you can use see invisibility.

[kazaryu]

Wall of fire around the forcecage. Its opaque. And she can cast it at-will. If you spend your spell slots counter spelling youre not gonna have enough for mm

[Benny89]

Ah, one mistake on my part. We would need to be 13/1 to have Forcecage. So we would need to be level 13 evoker which would definitely take longer than this and highly depend on how many Wands of Magic Missiles we have.

Forcecage + Teleportation block is requirement here so if there is no Forcecage, there is no win here. Rest is just brainstorming.


But I agree that level 13 is stupid. Level 14 should be at least to give Bards chance too because of their magic secrets. 13 seems like really strange number.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I'm disappointed that the cap is 13th level because I'm fairly certain a 14th level Zealot Barbarian has a good shot at this. 14th level is when the Zealot gets their "You cannot die from death" ability and actually comes with canned radiant damage so it has all the necessary parts to take damage and land the killing blow. The only thing is that Zariel is fast. Like probably the fastest creature on 5e and I don't think the Zealot can properly stop her from running if she gets too bloodied.

You don't have to kill an enemy to win an encounter, forcing her to flee could work too.

The title says "beat" after all :smallbiggrin:

But, Barbarian is like cowbell, you always want moar.

[Fable Wright]

My favorite part of white room discussions is the idea that the enemy doesn't get their own white room.

How so? Pretty much every build so far has had to acknowledge the nearly-unsurpassable mobility that Zariel has as a factor they can't get around. Zariel is taking all comers in the home-turf arena.


who needs a bonus action to hide? You have concentrationless Haste from the Potion of Speed. If you really, really need to, you can use the extra action grants by that to move, attack, then hide. Provided you cast Longstrider and See Invisibility on yourself, both hour long, concentrationless spells, before the fight you'll have a fly speed of 80ft. That's a pretty decent distance to help avoid being spotted by Zariel.

Fair 'nuff. It's only a passive perception of 26, too, on an 8 dex build. Hiding is doable.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

How so? Pretty much every build so far has had to acknowledge the nearly-unsurpassable mobility that Zariel has as a factor they can't get around. Zariel is taking all comers in the home-turf arena.



Fair 'nuff. It's only a passive perception of 26, too, on an 8 dex build. Hiding is doable.

Tactics.

Most of these say "yeah she has X" but they treat her like she will allow a fair fight will happen at all.

[stoutstien]

Tactics.

Most of these say "yeah she has X" but they treat her like she will allow a fair fight will happen at all.

She is a arch devil. Write up a contract for a fair duel. Have it proof read by asmodeus himself.

[kazaryu]

She is a arch devil. Write up a contract for a fair duel. Have it proof read by asmodeus himself.

2 probable outcomes of this.

1. The definition of a 'fair' duel as defined by the contract doesnt allow for your strategy

2. You insist on clauses that would allow your cheese, and as a result tip your hand. Thus making that cheese obsolete

[Dork_Forge]

Ah, one mistake on my part. We would need to be 13/1 to have Forcecage. So we would need to be level 13 evoker which would definitely take longer than this and highly depend on how many Wands of Magic Missiles we have.

Forcecage + Teleportation block is requirement here so if there is no Forcecage, there is no win here. Rest is just brainstorming.


But I agree that level 13 is stupid. Level 14 should be at least to give Bards chance too because of their magic secrets. 13 seems like really strange number.

It's at level 13 because a certain using kept making the claim to have achieved this solo kill in an AL setting in various threads regardless of its relevance to the thread topic.

[stoutstien]

2 probable outcomes of this.

1. The definition of a 'fair' duel as defined by the contract doesnt allow for your strategy

2. You insist on clauses that would allow your cheese, and as a result tip your hand. Thus making that cheese obsolete

true but a lot of cheese would be necessary if she wasn't allowed to just run away.

I know there's all white room Craft but this is the only way I can see a scenario where she would square off against a single opponent without backup.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I'm going to make a fiend pact warlock who is in love/lust with Zariel and part of their deal is that he gets to go on one date with her every so often.

Maybe Zariel accidentally saved him when he was younger and is stupid enough to think she did it on purpose? Idk...

But given her fluff, she seems like the type that needs to take a break once in a while and honoring a deal is right up her ally (edit: especially when it benefits her in the long run).


Speaking of fluff...

Actually, to beat Zariel, you just need to get Bel to sneak attack her to regain his position...

Expertise Deception and Persuasion and maximum charisma might do the trick, that's a +15 on your rolls. Convincing Bel to do the deed shouldn't be impossible.

I know you said 1v1 but I feel like tricking an enemy to defeat your enemy, is totally within the wording of 1v1 (since you won't be fighting) but not the spirit... If you gonna fight a devil, gotta think like a devil.


Edit

You need a character that can go to the first layer of hell (technically you could just off yourself, I guess), sneak very well, and get an audience with Bel. Convince Bel to attack Zariel.

Bel was moved from his position due to not being able to handle the workload, not specifically due to his strength.

Lore Bard, Rogue, Warlock, Druid are the first ones that come to mind.

[Eldariel]

Ah, one mistake on my part. We would need to be 13/1 to have Forcecage. So we would need to be level 13 evoker which would definitely take longer than this and highly depend on how many Wands of Magic Missiles we have.

Forcecage + Teleportation block is requirement here so if there is no Forcecage, there is no win here. Rest is just brainstorming.


But I agree that level 13 is stupid. Level 14 should be at least to give Bards chance too because of their magic secrets. 13 seems like really strange number.

Level 13 is when characters get 7th level spells, so the number makes perfect sense. That makes it the earliest point where you can reasonably expect to defeat archdevils via sheer strength. Not all classes are created equal, but that's more a flaw with the classes than anything else. On these levels, a whole level is quite a bit of stuff.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Level 13 is when characters get 7th level spells, so the number makes perfect sense. That makes it the earliest point where you can reasonably expect to defeat archdevils via sheer strength. Not all classes are created equal, but that's more a flaw with the classes than anything else. On these levels, a whole level is quite a bit of stuff.

I think you mean "totally arbitrary" when you typed "makes perfect sense".

Don't worry, happens a lot when people are talking about D&D.

[Eldariel]

I think you mean "totally arbitrary" when you typed "makes perfect sense".

Don't worry, happens a lot when people are talking about D&D.

The number is totally arbitrary in the sense that any other number could be given, but far as the abilities you can gain by a given level in the system goes, it's relatively believably the lower limit of when Zariel becomes beatable (barring some more extreme item abuse; items can of course replicate much of what high level casting does). The access to Simulacrum dramatically increases your options, as the extra spell (and Concentration) "you" get to cast is a massive power boost. Same with even reaching the adversary; Plane Shift is a 7th level spell as is Teleport, so level 13 marks the point where you can take the fight to her.

Overall, level 13 enables much of what makes this setup work...for a Wizard. Other classes probably need more levels (ultimately Wizard always has the best tools). But if we're looking for the earliest point where you can take the strategic initiative and have a reasonable shot at shutting her down as any character (provided you've got her scouted well enough to know what to prepare with - that's doable with divinations at an earlier point though), it's most likely level 13. I can't see reasonable ways for single characters to defeat her at an earlier level, but I can see a level 13 character winning as posted in this thread.

[MaxWilson]

Overall, level 13 enables much of what makes this setup work...for a Wizard. Other classes probably need more levels (ultimately Wizard always has the best tools). But if we're looking for the earliest point where you can take the strategic initiative and have a reasonable shot at shutting her down as any character (provided you've got her scouted well enough to know what to prepare with - that's doable with divinations at an earlier point though), it's most likely level 13. I can't see reasonable ways for single characters to defeat her at an earlier level, but I can see a level 13 character winning as posted in this thread.

Really, you can't? I've seen a surprising number of ways in this thread for a character to defeat her as early as level 9, under ideal circumstances. Simplest one being:

(1) Glyph of Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum to shut down teleport, plus
(2) Glyph of Wall of Force to shut down flight, plus
(3) Glyph of Sickening Radiance to shut down regen, plus
(4) Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound x 3 to do lots of damage.

All of that is achievable by level 9. You still have to bait the trap somehow, but it's surprisingly doable, and Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum is IMO the key ingredient.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

All of that is achievable by level 9. You still have to bait the trap somehow, but it's surprisingly doable, and Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum is IMO the key ingredient.

I vote the Warlock date night.

[ThePolarBear]

Really, you can't? I've seen a surprising number of ways in this thread for a character to defeat her as early as level 9, under ideal circumstances. Simplest one being:

(1) Glyph of Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum to shut down teleport, plus
(2) Glyph of Wall of Force to shut down flight, plus
(3) Glyph of Sickening Radiance to shut down regen, plus
(4) Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound x 3 to do lots of damage.

All of that is achievable by level 9. You still have to bait the trap somehow, but it's surprisingly doable, and Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum is IMO the key ingredient.

Considering enough money and prep time, level 6 (edit even level 5, potentially) is what i can imagine being the lowest. But... yeah, Glyph of Warding cheese is not really my cup of tea or (what i beilieve being) the intent behind the "challenge" at all.

[kazaryu]

{scrubbed}


I'm going to make a fiend pact warlock who is in love/lust with Zariel and part of their deal is that he gets to go on one date with her every so often.

Maybe Zariel accidentally saved him when he was younger and is stupid enough to think she did it on purpose? Idk...

But given her fluff, she seems like the type that needs to take a break once in a while and honoring a deal is right up her ally (edit: especially when it benefits her in the long run).


Speaking of fluff...

Actually, to beat Zariel, you just need to get Bel to sneak attack her to regain his position...

Expertise Deception and Persuasion and maximum charisma might do the trick, that's a +15 on your rolls. Convincing Bel to do the deed shouldn't be impossible.

I know you said 1v1 but I feel like tricking an enemy to defeat your enemy, is totally within the wording of 1v1 (since you won't be fighting) but not the spirit... If you gonna fight a devil, gotta think like a devil.


considering this plan hinges on you character providing a distraction, it absolutely doesnt fall under a 1v1. even mroe specifically, even it did. the wording said the *character* would be defeating her in a 1v1. it wasn't 'how might zariel lose a 1v1'. trying to bring in someone that is ostensibly her equal is well outside both the letter, and the spirit of the challenge.

[Really, you can't? I've seen a surprising number of ways in this thread for a character to defeat her as early as level 9, under ideal circumstances. Simplest one being:

(1) Glyph of Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum to shut down teleport, plus
(2) Glyph of Wall of Force to shut down flight, plus
(3) Glyph of Sickening Radiance to shut down regen, plus
(4) Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound x 3 to do lots of damage.

All of that is achievable by level 9. You still have to bait the trap somehow, but it's surprisingly doable, and Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum is IMO the key ingredient.[/quote]

issues:
1. wall of force is a 5th level spell, at lvl 9 you can only cast 1 5th level spell. obviously this is fairly easy to get around, but as written this plan doesn't work.
2. she has a 91% chance of passing you 16 spell save DC at that level, and therefore take no damage from the sickening radiance.
3. the hounds have a +8 to hit, and zariel has nothing else to do with her action, so she may as well dodge. meaning they only have a 16% chance to hit. which means on average you're going to get ~1 hit every 2 turns for 9 damage.
4. so even if you manage to get literally all of that off, you're doing less damage than her automatic, at-will healing. (and if you get a mildly permissive DM, that allows for the hound damage to pierce her damage resistance, its still only 18 damage every other turn. so in those 2 turns she heals for 40 (unless one of them happens to be the same turn she manged to take sickening radiance damage last turn) all you've successfully done is annoyed an archedevil, while also giving her plenty to work with in terms of tracking you down.
conclusion: even if you do manage to bait her into this, it doesn't come close to killing her as written. perhaps if you adjusted certain parameters, who knows.


true but a lot of cheese would be necessary if she wasn't allowed to just run away.

I know there's all white room Craft but this is the only way I can see a scenario where she would square off against a single opponent without backup.


well thats the idea though. we're exploring under what circumstances a lvl 13 character could, on their own take zariel down. i don't think anyone is expecting to create something that could take her in a straight 1v1 as part of a random encounter. although that would, obviously, be the ideal. But thats why i ask people to contextualize the encounter.


Ah, one mistake on my part. We would need to be 13/1 to have Forcecage. So we would need to be level 13 evoker which would definitely take longer than this and highly depend on how many Wands of Magic Missiles we have.

Forcecage + Teleportation block is requirement here so if there is no Forcecage, there is no win here. Rest is just brainstorming.

not necessarily forcecage. wall of force can also be substituted, with obvious downsides


Either she does ready action Gaze or Ready action javelin, not both. Mirror Image works on Javelins, same as Blur. Those two gives us a lot + Shield on reaction. We should have at level 13 min of 21 AC base. Mirrior Image, Blur + Shield + she attacks with Javelin with disadvantage is enough.
and finger of death? of her 3 attempts, you *might* pass the save once. are you gonna be ok tanking 14d8+60 damage as a 13th level wizard? or are you gonna try to counter spell them? tbf on average you might succeed on 1. in which case you still take the second which means you now make a DC 30 concentration check to maintain concentration on whatever you're concentrating on. which you're not gonna pass. (i mean, with a 20con and proficiency you *could* pass it. but you're not gonna pass it consistently. which means either you lose haste immediately, and are thus trapped there within her range for an entire round. or you lose globe of invulnerability...which means she can start ****ing you with fireball/immolating gaze again.

and before you ask how she got you close enough to cast finger of death. easy. she rings her forcecage with it so you *have* to approach in order to see her and therefor target her. well it either does that or it forces you to swap concentration to fly....so she can start pummeling you with fireballs again.



You can also have Greater Invisibility on you since her Gaze requires to see you and she doesn't have blindsight or true seeing.

Forcecage is 100 feet range so we cast it from max and then move away to 130 speed. We can also have Haste on ourselfs and after cast move away 60 feet + bonus action to make sure we are our of reach.

you cannot, in fact, have both greater invis, and haste. both concetration, unless your simulacrum casts one and you cast the other. in which case you're still vulnerable to a readied action fireball.


Before engaging in combat we have used the creation spell to create a perfectly spherical exceptionally dense potato that our simulacrum drops onto Zariel with a free object interaction or makes an attack roll with advantage (because hidden) using Tavern Brawler and the potato as an improvised weapon (+9 to hit with elven accuracy advantage hits roughly 73% of the time). If we Magic Jar a Diviner (VGM p213) for both ourselves and the simulacrum we can get that number to 90% as we now have 5 different d20 chances to succeed.

right, so biggest problem is
improvised weapons have a long range of 60feet. so you'll be throwing from well outside that range. (which mechanically you cant do). so at best (with the most permissive dm you're likely to find) you drop it and she gets a dex save. still not terrible as she only has a +7 to those. but she still has something like a 50+% chance to dodge (at least she would imo, its really not hard to dodge something falling from that high and she has a 26 passive perception, so chances are she'd see it coming). even and due to the range, even if a dm *did* let you make an attack roll, they're probably gonna give you disadvantage due to the distance, which cancels out your hidden advantage.

another slightly smaller problem is that you'd need either to be invisible, or have something to hide behind in order to take the hide action at all. after all you're literally in plain view of a person that has a +16 to perception. sure she has disadvantage, but the point is that you can't take the hide action if you're in plain view.

smallest problem as its not core to your build is the diviner, alot of DM's probably wouldn't allow that simply because the wizard 'monsters' are all just that...wizards expressed as a monster statblock, with a few slight alterations so they make more sense in the context. not saying a DM is wrong if they allow it, but it'd probably take some convincing. that being said if they do allow it, it is nice that you can use this to give zariel super disadvantage on the save (if the DM chooses to even have her roll a save).



Giant Elk base speed - 60ft
Longstrider - +10ft
Mobile Feat - +10ft
Tabaxi Dash - Double
Haste potion - Double
Boots of Speed - Double
Grapple condition - does not affect us since we are 2 size categories larger than our target

Total speed - 640ft
Damage Average per 5ft movement - 5

trouble with your math is that you're assuming that zariel is moving the same distance that you are. when she isn't. she actually has a significantly smaller circle than you (and therefore at a lower speed. and since you'd need to make yourself even larger to actually move at full speed while grappled, the difference in radius is even smaller. and thats *if* you can get your Dm to let you grapple as an elk. and move while grappled in that way (i.e trying to run sideways as an elk).

another problem is the tabaxi speed. now this is gonna vary from DM to DM, but there is a strong argument that the elk isn't physically capable of performing that. i.e.



You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so.


again, not saying a DM is wrong for allowing it, but not every DM will allow it.



Ehhhh. Wall of Fire does what, 5d8 damage? So an average of 22.5 per round to all the hags. The hags have 95 HP because Shepherd, and casting a Healing Word every turn plus having the Hags in the aura means 20 HP/turn (13 from Unicorn Totem, 7 from Guardian Spirit). Wall of Fire + Fireballs every turn is a wee bit more threatening? But not much. Couple that with an automatic 36 damage per turn per hag for Crushing Hug, at an average of 5 hugs (because remember, they have advantage from the one-sided visibility of Druid Grove) means 180 damage per turn and five DC 18 concentration saves per turn. Three to four turns to kill with just weight of numbers, and Zariel can't Fireball + Wall of Fire the hags to death THAT quick.

hmmmm, yeah, thats a fair point. even with her attacks+immolating gaze (you can't argue that she can't see whats grappling her, unless you're invisible, which your hags are not). she can only take 1.5 down per round on average. granted with some nice resets on her horrid touch she could blind some of them. she might barely be able to escape, but it'd be super tight for her, and she'd need to be lucky. so yeah, *if* you can set this situation up then i think you've got an excellent chance. there are a couple of difficulties i forsee.

1. the annis hags. Hags are notoriously capricious at the best of times. but now you're taking 10 of them, and trying to get them to act as canon fodder to kill an archdevil. which i think definitely qualifies as making them hostile toward you. it would probably require more than a couple of skill checks just to get your orders to the annis hags exactly right to keep them from betraying you, and since they're the linch pin to your plan they *need* to not betray you.
you order them to 'grapple her and crush her'. now depending on how you phrase it, there is nothing preventing them from trying to interfere with the other hags grapples (and indeed, as capricious as they are its entirely possible the entire group of hags conspires to grapple zariel as best *they* can, while also interfering with other hags ability to grapple, thus reducing the number of people grappling. obviously just an example.
2. planar binding: now, based on a strict reading of the spell itself, it doesn't replace teh 'conjure fey spell'. in fact, that spell is still in effect. just with an extended duration. obviously the intent is you don't need to concentrate on it. however it could cause interference. point im trying to get at is that its possible that a DM won't let you have 10 annis hags (also at lvl 13, if the DM will let you get multiple annis hags, you can actually planar binding out to 30 days so you could theoretically have like, 20-25 of them easily. but yeah, just having those hags requires a slightly permissive DM.

3. obviously all of the issues that you acknowledged already
-would reverse gravity actually work like that on a flying creature? (personally i'd say no, at least not without a save but thats just me. that being said.... if you can burn her legendary resistances first...earthbind.)
-how do you get zariel, alone, anywhere close to your druid grove

but yeah, seriously this one is alot of fun if you manage to pull it all off.



Properly equipped with an arbitrary number of Arrows of Fiend Slaying, a +3 Longbow, Bracers of Archery and a potion of Haste, an Assassin 3/Battlemaster 6/Gloomstalker 3/War Cleric 1 could get her into double digit hitpoints on round 1 using Divine Guidance, Sharpshooter and Elven Accuracy with a chance to end her entirely if his damage rolls are lucky, and from far enough away she wouldn't be able to retaliate, then end her on turn 2. She has no special senses besides darkvision, so the Gloomstalker is invisible to her if he sticks to the shadows. Based on her movement speed and including her teleport ability, you'd want to engage from about ~300 feet away. That's the sweet spot where she won't be able to get to you in that first round to put you down but she also can't get outside your weapon's range and escape.

Round 1 will be 8 attacks: 3 from the attack action, 3 from action surge, 1 from haste and 1 from War Cleric. They all auto-crit assuming we win stealth and initiative (so bringing along magic items which boost these rolls is a good idea too, though we should be very adept at both) Each one does 2d8+12d10(though she'll save for half damage on 2/3 of these and likely use Legendary Saves on the others)+2d4 radiant(she resists this, but it shuts down her regen, so its necessary)+4 for dex and +10 for SS +3 for the weapon and +2 for the bracers. One of the attacks also does 4d6 sneak attack and 4 of them also deal 2d8 for maneuvers.

Cutting the resisted/reduced dice in half right there in the math we're looking at 8(2(4.5)+6(5.5)+(2.5))+2(3.5)+4(2(4.5))+8(4+10+3+2 )= 551 damage. That leaves her with 29 on average results, so she's in real bad shape for turn 2, where you'll be making 4 attacks, no auto-crit this time, but still more than enough to finish her off. If she fails more saves vs the arrows than expected, or if you just have real good luck with your damage rolls, she might not even make it to turn 2.


ok, so first off, *if* you use sharpshooter, you have a +10 to hit an AC 21 (+10 (norm)+2 (archery) +3(magic bow) -5 (sharpshooter). so at (super) advantage, you'd hit with only 87% of these. so only 7 (6.96 technically but..w/e) land.
second: the arrows of slaying: similar to poisoned weapons, the damage isn't a direct rider. its a result of a con save. *some* dm's may double it on a crit. but definitely not all. there was actualyl a discussion about this on this very website before the server crashed.
3rd: she has advatange and a +9 on the DC17 save. so she has an 87%chance to succeed. which means she's only taking full damage from...1 of the 7 arrows that hit. (and she might as well hit that 1 with a legendary resistance because why not..) a far more accurate estimate (per arrow) would be
9+4+3+16.5+2.5+10+2 which, when multiplied over the 7 arrows, is 329 damage before the other riders.
so now you have 4d6 sneak attack, 8d8 maneuver, so an extra...50 damage bringing your average total for first turn damage up to 379 leaving her at 201 HP.
if you have a permissive DM that lets you double the arrow of slaying damage its an extra 115 damage leaving her at 86 hp. thats extremely respectable for first turn. although realistically, there's no way in either scenario you kill her on the first turn. i mean its possible, but the odds are extremely slim of getting that extra 86 damage.

so, for the rest i'll break into 2 scenarios based on dming doubling the slaying arrow damage on a crit.
-the first scenario: you win initiative, DM doubles slaying arrow damage.
under these circumstances the only way she survives is if there is something that she can TP behind that gives her full cover, and maintains that full cover throughout your entire next turn. or at least forces you to burn your action with a dash in order to break her cover. if she can do that, then chances are good that she can escape. outside of that, there's no reasonable way you can't deal that last 86 damage and finish her off (in fact, just basic weapon damage would do it. if you have more slaying arrows, it'd probably be better to just not use sharp shooter so that you for sure hit and get the (42) 12d6 slaying arrow damage rather than risking missing again

-teh second scenario: you win initiative, DM doesnt double slaying arrow damage.
once again, you get a second turn for free however this time your average damage is ~ 202. which *just* kills her. nice! so even without doubling the slayer arrow damage you have ~a 50% chance of killing her (your average damage is almost exactly equal to her HP. so half the time you'll do more damage, half the time, less). thats very good for you. chances are, if she survives she's retreating. to heal up. although she may stick around and watch you until she's fully healed. then come back and smash you. but thats only if she actually manages to survive that onslaught.

biggest challenge here i think is actually getting that surprise, and catching her alone in an area where you can get 300 feet of open terrain coupled with an area of complete darkness for you to be invisible in. (remember, the invis thing only works in complete darkness. even dim light would give you away) and i doubt that there are many such areas....well anywhere. so yeah..thats a lot of contingencies. but either way, awesome idea.



Another potential option is for a Divine 13 and their Simulacrum to wait for a day of very low Portents (all 1s and 2s) and then cast Mirror Image and Teleport on top of her, followed by Polymorph x 4 (Portent) to change her into a mouse. Then Teleport to the ocean, put the mouse in a lead-lined box, and drop it in the ocean. She will eventually suffocate as a mouse or drown, and since she still won't be able to breathe, she can't regain HP and will remain at 0 HP and be dead.


a few issues with this.
1. the actual polymorph: are you trying to actually fight her for 2 rounds...as a lvl 13 wizard? one or the other of you is gonna get ****ed. she wouldn't waste time attacking you, she'd drop finger of death on you (yeah yeah i know, you'd try to counter spell with a 40% rate). but then she'd just...teleport away. and absolutely **** on you from afar for your hubris. (hell, she might not even bother wasting a limited resource. she might just teleport away and rain fireballs on you for the fun of it.)
2. teleport-incredibly imprecise. obviously since this is all about patience, you'd bascially need to wait until she's in an area that you have an 'associated object' of.
3. the death: when the mouse dies zariel reverts. now, im not sure why you say lead-lined specifically. as if thats meant to mean anything. however, this all comes down to how your DM rules growing in an enclosed space. it also depends on the dimensions of hte box. if this is a small box, there's no way the latch is strong enough to hold zariels strength, if its a larger box, she's now just...under water...at full HP (the full hp was already there, she's not 'regaining' HP). so now (at worst) she's trapped...in a box, with 9 rounds to escape. whelp, i guess she just banishes herself home. takes 2 rounds, ez-pz.
4. teleport (again) 'This spell instantly transports you and up to eight willing creatures of your choice'. even if you do manage to polymorph her, she ain't willing, for sure.

[Damon_Tor]

ok, so first off, *if* you use sharpshooter, you have a +10 to hit an AC 21 (+10 (norm)+2 (archery) +3(magic bow) -5 (sharpshooter). so at (super) advantage, you'd hit with only 87% of these. so only 7 (6.96 technically but..w/e) land.

Don't forget the War Cleric's Channel Divinity: the one shot that would otherwise statistically miss has +10 to hit. And on the outlier round where we have more attacks than one miss we can always go ahead and use the Battlemaster's Precision Attack: we'd lose just the 2d8 from that superiority dice, not a whole attack's worth of damage.


second: the arrows of slaying: similar to poisoned weapons, the damage isn't a direct rider. its a result of a con save. *some* dm's may double it on a crit. but definitely not all. there was actualyl a discussion about this on this very website before the server crashed.

The difference is, the damage from Arrows of Slaying are explicitly "extra damage", while poison is not:


If a creature belonging to the type, race, or group associated with an arrow of slaying takes damage from the arrow, the creature must make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw, taking an extra 6d10 piercing damage on a failed save, or half as much extra damage on a successful one.

A creature hit by the Poisoned weapon or Ammunition must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or take 1d4 poison damage.

The poison is its own source of damage that just happens to occur when an attack hits. But extra damage cannot exist on its own: extra damage is always added to another source of damage, in this case the "damage from the arrow" that was mentioned. The fact that a save is allowed for the target to save for half is certainly unusual for extra damage on an attack, but nothing in the rules implies that this means it would be treated any differently than any other source of extra damage for the purposes of a critical strike.

I couldn't find a Crawford opinion on the matter, but for what it's worth Mearls agrees with me. (https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/964014514319405057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5E tweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E964014514319405057&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sageadvice.eu%2F2018%2F0 3%2F13%2Fdo-arrows-of-slaying-double-their-dice-on-a-crit%2F)


3rd: she has advatange and a +9 on the DC17 save. so she has an 87%chance to succeed. which means she's only taking full damage from...1 of the 7 arrows that hit. (and she might as well hit that 1 with a legendary resistance because why not..) a far more accurate estimate (per arrow) would be
9+4+3+16.5+2.5+10+2 which, when multiplied over the 7 arrows, is 329 damage before the other riders.

I already accounted for her succeeding on her save against all the arrows when I calculated the damage, treating them as 3d10 before the crit.


so, for the rest i'll break into 2 scenarios based on dming doubling the slaying arrow damage on a crit.
-the first scenario: you win initiative, DM doubles slaying arrow damage.
under these circumstances the only way she survives is if there is something that she can TP behind that gives her full cover, and maintains that full cover throughout your entire next turn. or at least forces you to burn your action with a dash in order to break her cover. if she can do that, then chances are good that she can escape. outside of that, there's no reasonable way you can't deal that last 86 damage and finish her off (in fact, just basic weapon damage would do it. if you have more slaying arrows, it'd probably be better to just not use sharp shooter so that you for sure hit and get the (42) 12d6 slaying arrow damage rather than risking missing again

I generally agree, though I maintain the damage I had calculated is more correct for the reasons I outlined above.

Making sure the archer is mobile enough to move to where she is no longer under total cover is important here. The haste potion certainly helps with that, but it's probably a good idea to pre-buff with Longstrider as well just to be safe, maybe invest in some mobility items: a Cape of the Mountebank would be good here: the archer would still be able to make two attacks via Haste and the War Cleric special ability even after using his regular action to cast Dimension Door. That 500 foot teleport combined with the footspeed we would have with Haste and Longstrider would easily close any distance she could put between us.


-teh second scenario: you win initiative, DM doesnt double slaying arrow damage.
once again, you get a second turn for free however this time your average damage is ~ 202. which *just* kills her. nice! so even without doubling the slayer arrow damage you have ~a 50% chance of killing her (your average damage is almost exactly equal to her HP. so half the time you'll do more damage, half the time, less). thats very good for you. chances are, if she survives she's retreating. to heal up. although she may stick around and watch you until she's fully healed. then come back and smash you. but thats only if she actually manages to survive that onslaught.

On her "healing up" remember we're using Divine Favor to deal radiant damage for precisely this reason.


biggest challenge here i think is actually getting that surprise, and catching her alone in an area where you can get 300 feet of open terrain coupled with an area of complete darkness for you to be invisible in. (remember, the invis thing only works in complete darkness. even dim light would give you away) and i doubt that there are many such areas....well anywhere. so yeah..thats a lot of contingencies. but either way, awesome idea.

I think "catching her alone" has to be a gimme: that's the scenario, that's what the whole thread is about. For the same reasons it's silly that she's alone, it's silly for any of our level 13 PCs to be trying to kill her alone as well.

Wood Elves can make stealth checks while in partial concealment, so unless the area we're in is really freaking barren there should be something to use for stealth purposes (and weren't we just talking about her diving behind total cover a minute ago?). But if we want to be sure, we can just add an Invisibility Potion to our increasingly expensive shopping list.

It's not a perfect, sure-fire plan by any means, but of all the plans here on this thread, I think it comes the closest. And it does so as a mostly-martial, which is neat.

[kazaryu]

The difference is, the damage from Arrows of Slaying are explicitly "extra damage", while poison is not:

you don't need to convince me. i consider either interpretation to be valid. which is why i calculated for both.





I already accounted for her succeeding on her save against all the arrows when I calculated the damage, treating them as 3d10 before the crit.

yup that was more included fro flow reasons, not as a correction on you.



I generally agree, though I maintain the damage I had calculated is more correct for the reasons I outlined above.

fair.



Making sure the archer is mobile enough to move to where she is no longer under total cover is important here. The haste potion certainly helps with that, but it's probably a good idea to pre-buff with Longstrider as well just to be safe, maybe invest in some mobility items: a Cape of the Mountebank would be good here: the archer would still be able to make two attacks via Haste and the War Cleric special ability even after using his regular action to cast Dimension Door. That 500 foot teleport combined with the footspeed we would have with Haste and Longstrider would easily close any distance she could put between us.

eh. i mean you may be able to you may not. this was more included for completeness sake. obviously you wanna try to pick a place with as few options as possible. the problem is if she teleports into full cover, you won't know exactly where because...well she'll be in full cover.



On her "healing up" remember we're using Divine Favor to deal radiant damage for precisely this reason.

only stops it for 1 round. the point of healing up is that she'd have multiple rounds (as in if she manages to get outta range



Wood Elves can make stealth checks while in partial concealment, so unless the area we're in is really freaking barren there should be something to use for stealth purposes (and weren't we just talking about her diving behind total cover a minute ago?). But if we want to be sure, we can just add an Invisibility Potion to our increasingly expensive shopping list.

oh absolutely. my point was that the invis you get from going gloomstalker only works if there's no light at all.


It's not a perfect, sure-fire plan by any means, but of all the plans here on this thread, I think it comes the closest. And it does so as a mostly-martial, which is neat.
oh no absolutely. i wasn't kidding when i said i liked it. don't take my criticisms as invalidation of the build as a whole. im just here to be devil's advocate. a few things i recently thought of.

1. i wonder if an oathbow would be worth it. guaranteed advantage, but unfortunately a -3 to hit. on the other hand, its also what 21 damage per hit on a crit, so you still get a damage profit if you instead don't use the shaprshooter feat. (you def still want the feat because of cover and range.)
2. on the downside, one other issue is vision. if you're in an area of perfect darkness (and thus are invisible) then how are you seeing her 300 feet away? your darkvision only goes out 90 feet. would probably need to be enviromental is suppose, so just toss it on the pile xD.

overall though i do like this build


also:


improves our chance of hitting by 2 as well, so if there was still a concern with all 8 attacks hitting I think we can probably get past that now.


well, you're still missing that 8th attack more often than you're hitting it (you're landing on aver 7.39 attacks). however if we just assume you use precision attack for that, then def you get well into that threshold.

[Damon_Tor]

So a significant adjustment in tactics/loadout for my archer, and I think with this we've solved it:

Rather than a +3 Longbow, get an Oathbow instead (they are both Very Rare, so this doesn't change the cost of the loadout). Skip Sharpshooter and replace with Alert (because losing initiative foils this whole thing up as badly as losing at stealth).

We gain +2 on the attack rolls (-3 from the weapon change, +5 for getting rid of Sharpshooter) and Oathbow adds 3d6 damage to the damage, which is 6d6 for us when we autocrit. The result is +8 to the average damage of each attack (-10 from losing Sharpshooter, -3 for the weapon change, +21 for the dice added by Oathbow). The Oathbow itself handles the parts of Sharpshooter that allow for ignoring cover and firing at long range without penalty.

So that's an extra 64 damage on round 1, and we've improved our chance to hit by 2 as well, so if there was still a concern with all 8 attacks hitting I think we can probably get past that now.

[Damon_Tor]

1. i wonder if an oathbow would be worth it. guaranteed advantage, but unfortunately a -3 to hit. on the other hand, its also what 21 damage per hit on a crit, so you still get a damage profit if you instead don't use the shaprshooter feat. (you def still want the feat because of cover and range.)

Rather than a +3 Longbow, get an Oathbow instead

Posted on the same minute no less.

[kazaryu]

So a significant adjustment in tactics/loadout for my archer, and I think with this we've solved it:

Rather than a +3 Longbow, get an Oathbow instead (they are both Very Rare, so this doesn't change the cost of the loadout). Skip Sharpshooter and replace with Alert (because losing initiative foils this whole thing up as badly as losing at stealth).


well, i mean you do still get 8 very powerful attacks off at advantage. you'll do what...2/3 the damage? hmmm, actually less now since you have alot less flat damage so losing the crits hurts more. but still. i think its still doable. just much more tenuous lol.

but yeah, i agree with exchanging SS for alert

[Damon_Tor]

So my final loadout is:

1 Oathbow (Very Rare) with the Guardian minor property
10 Arrows of Fiend Slaying (Very Rare, but consumable, so half price IIRC)
1 Potion of Speed (Very Rare, Consumable)
1 Potion of Invisibility (Very Rare, Consumable)
1 Cape of the Mountebank (Rare)
1 Boots of Elvenkind (Uncommon)
1 Cloak of Elvenkind (Uncommon)
1 Stone of Good Luck (Uncommon)
EDIT: 1 Sentinel Shield (Uncommon) The shield doesn't have to be donned to give advantage on initiative, just held. We can drop it when combat starts.

Expensive certainly, but I avoided any legendary items and still managed to give myself a fighting chance. I'll keep the teleportation item and the two extra Slaying Arrows even though I'm pretty sure she's dead on turn 1, still a good idea on the off chance I have to run her down and finish her off.

[Keravath]

Just a quick comment ... since this is intended to be AL specific you need to also make sure the equipment is available. As an example, as far as I can tell, there are no Arrows of Slaying (Devils, Fiends etc) in any AL module including Descent into Avernus so the scenarios using that item couldn't happen in AL. (The only ones that appear to be available are Dragon and Tiefling (and the latter is a sling bullet)).

There is an Oathbow in CCC-OCC-01 Red War: Housekeeping but it doesn't have the guardian minor property.

My mistake. The original context was a level 13 AL character defeating Zariel 1:1. I think the OP mentioned it in the thread but you're right, his question is not AL specific.

[Damon_Tor]

this is intended to be AL specific

Wait what?

[Keravath]

Wait what?

My mistake. The original context was a level 13 AL character defeating Zariel 1:1. I think the OP mentioned it in the thread but you're right, his question is not AL specific.

[Eldariel]

Really, you can't? I've seen a surprising number of ways in this thread for a character to defeat her as early as level 9, under ideal circumstances. Simplest one being:

(1) Glyph of Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum to shut down teleport, plus
(2) Glyph of Wall of Force to shut down flight, plus
(3) Glyph of Sickening Radiance to shut down regen, plus
(4) Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound x 3 to do lots of damage.

All of that is achievable by level 9. You still have to bait the trap somehow, but it's surprisingly doable, and Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum is IMO the key ingredient.

Well, I was specifically thinking of "taking the fight to her"-angle, where having the ability to deploy all the effects at will and the ability to planehop and teleport is highlighted. Far as that trap goes, Sickening Radiance feels a bit unreliable but if you sub in Wall of Light, I agree (it does auto-Radiant damage without rolls so no regen and it does sufficient amounts of damage to ensure her death). However, getting the actions to perform all of this offensively makes for a far more feasible plan. Of course, luring her into a trap can work, but I'd say it's a far more specialised a scenario that requires huge information advantage over a creature with incredible mentals and perceptive abilities. Divinations are a plausible means of acquiring said advantage but still, it feels like the risk of her not falling for it is a bit high, and if that goes pearshaped, there's no real plan B.

I suppose I'd rather say level 13 feels more able to take on her from parity, while level 9 relies on a gambit. Of course, both can go wrong but level 13 can at least TP/PS away, which she has no easy ways to counteract. Overall, I'd say a level 13 Wizard is equal to or more powerful than Zariel while level 9 Wizard can take on her with proper prep and level 5 Wizard maybe if everything goes exactly as planned.

[Benny89]

Really, you can't? I've seen a surprising number of ways in this thread for a character to defeat her as early as level 9, under ideal circumstances. Simplest one being:

(1) Glyph of Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum to shut down teleport, plus
(2) Glyph of Wall of Force to shut down flight, plus
(3) Glyph of Sickening Radiance to shut down regen, plus
(4) Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound x 3 to do lots of damage.

All of that is achievable by level 9. You still have to bait the trap somehow, but it's surprisingly doable, and Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum is IMO the key ingredient.

Yup, i forgot about Wall of Force to substitute Forcecage.

Generally well equipped and prepared Wizard can defeat her. So my vote still goes for Wizard, best imo 1 Hexblade/12 Evocation one.

[Keravath]

How about Eversmoking bottle, forcecage and wall of light?

Option 1:
Level 13 Evoker wizard.

"EMPOWERED EVOCATION
Beginning at 10th level, you can add your Intelligence modifier to the damage roll of any wizard evocation spell you cast. The damage bonus applies to one damage roll of a spell, not multiple rolls." Extra damage only on first round.

"Overchannel: Starting at 14th level, you can increase the power of your simpler spells. When you cast a wizard spell of 5th level or lower that deals damage, you can deal maximum damage with that spell." This does not state only on one damage roll by the spell or only on the first round. I also couldn't find any errata on it.

"FORCECAGE
7th-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 100 feet
Components: V. S, M (ruby dust worth 1,500 gp)
Duration: 1 hour
An immobile, invisible, cube-shaped prison composed of magical force springs into existence around an area you choose within range. The prison can be a cage or a solid box, as you choose. A prison in the shape of a cage can be up to 20 feet on a side and is made from 1/2-inch diameter bars spaced 1/2 inch apart. A prison in the shape of a box can be up to 10 feet on a side, creating a solid barrier that prevents any matter from passing through it and blocking any spells cast into or out from the area. When you cast the spell, any creature that is completely inside the cage's area is trapped.
A creature inside the cage can't leave it by nonmagical means. If the creature tries to use teleportation or interplanar travel to leave the cage, it must first make a Charisma saving throw."

"EVERSMOKING BOTTLE
Wondrous item, uncommon
Smoke leaks from the lead-stoppered mouth of this brass bottle, which weighs 1 pound. When you use an action to remove the stopper, a cloud of thick smoke pours out in a 60-foot radius from the bottle. The cloud's area is heavily obscured. (it expands to 120' radius at 10'/round but starts at 60')

"WALL OF LIGHT
5th-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S, M (a hand mirror)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
A shimmering wall of bright light appears at a point you choose within range. The wall appears in any orientation you choose: horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. It can be free floating, or it can rest on a solid surface. The wall can be up to 60 feet long, 10 feet high, and 5 feet thick. The wall blocks line of sight, but creatures and objects can pass through it. It emits bright light out to 120 feet and dim light for an additional 120 feet. When the wall appears, each creature in its area must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 4d8 radiant damage, and it is blinded for 1 minute. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage and isn’t blinded. A blinded creature can make a Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its
turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. A creature that ends its turn in the wall’s area takes 4d8 radiant damage. Until the spell ends, you can use an action to launch a beam of radiance from the wall at one creature you can see within 60 feet of it. Make a ranged spell attack. On a hit, the target takes 4d8 radiant damage. Whether you hit or miss, reduce the length of the wall by 10 feet. If the walls length drops to 0 feet, the spell ends.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 5th."


Forcecage doesn't need concentration and lasts 1 hour. It can be cast on an area within range and doesn't require sight. It can be "up to 20'" on a side but in this case would be sized to just hold Zariel and no more.

Eversmoking bottle prevents vision and shuts down teleportation. Any other visual obstruction would do ... you could start with fog cloud and replace with the bottle for example.

Wall of Light is an evocation spell. Appears at any point in range and can be up to 5' thick. Zariel is size large which is 10'x10' so the cage has to be size to just contain her so that if she alters self to size medium she still can't move out of the wall. The wall would occupy the middle 5' of the 10'x10' space leaving ~2.5' on either side and thus affect all the entire area.

RAW, I don't see why an evoker can't overchannel this to do max damage. Overchanneled the spell does an automatic 32 radiant damage every round with no save if the creature can't move away. RAW, if a spell affects the square a creature is in then the creature is affected. However, it would be a DM call if a medium sized creature could occupy less space to avoid being considered in the wall. There would only be 2.5' on each side of the wall. You could also put the wall horizontally through the force cage making it even more difficult to avoid since the forcecage probably can't be climbed and Zariel probably can't fly in a 10'x10' prison. Make the space at the bottom too small just to lie down.

Forcecage is 100' range, Wall of Light 120' so most of this can be done from outside the range of Zariel's attacks. In addition, you could dimension door away on the second round.

Zariel is resistant to radiant damage but it does shut down her regeneration.

Wall of light is 10 minutes and overchanneled would do 3200 radiant damage in that time (1600 with resistance). Even without overchannel the average damage of 4d8 is 18/round ... 9/round with resistance and after 10 minutes that is still 900 radiant damage while Zariel only has 580 hit points.

---

The timing of forcecage and either eversmoking bottle or fog cloud could be solved with the use of a simulacrum and a readied action to either open the bottle or cast fog cloud when forcecage is cast. The fog cloud could be replaced by the eversmoking bottle once Zariel is in the forcecage.

All of this does assume that Zariel comes within combat range. If she stays out of the range of spells then it won't work but most encounters start within 60'.

The biggest challenge is initiative. If Zariel goes first the plan may fall apart though the player and simulacrum could start the encounter invisible (greater invisibility) which mitigates a number of Zariels attacks and as long as both survive one round it should be over.

High AC, resistance to fire damage, alert, warcaster and resilient con would all improve the odds of the plan working. However, if you manage to cage her, she seems unlikely to survive.

---

Alternatively, depending on the DM, if they were lenient and gave a surprise round, then it should be easy.

----

Another way to get a fog cloud would be a Glyph of Warding with a 3rd level Fog cloud (60' radius) when that triggers cast forcecage.

[kazaryu]

How about Eversmoking bottle, forcecage and wall of light?

Option 1:
Level 13 Evoker wizard.

"EMPOWERED EVOCATION
Beginning at 10th level, you can add your Intelligence modifier to the damage roll of any wizard evocation spell you cast. The damage bonus applies to one damage roll of a spell, not multiple rolls." Extra damage only on first round.

"Overchannel: Starting at 14th level, you can increase the power of your simpler spells. When you cast a wizard spell of 5th level or lower that deals damage, you can deal maximum damage with that spell." This does not state only on one damage roll by the spell or only on the first round. I also couldn't find any errata on it.


overchannel is a lvl 14 feature. but its fine you don't need overchannel.



"FORCECAGE
7th-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 100 feet
Components: V. S, M (ruby dust worth 1,500 gp)
Duration: 1 hour
An immobile, invisible, cube-shaped prison composed of magical force springs into existence around an area you choose within range. The prison can be a cage or a solid box, as you choose. A prison in the shape of a cage can be up to 20 feet on a side and is made from 1/2-inch diameter bars spaced 1/2 inch apart. A prison in the shape of a box can be up to 10 feet on a side, creating a solid barrier that prevents any matter from passing through it and blocking any spells cast into or out from the area. When you cast the spell, any creature that is completely inside the cage's area is trapped.
A creature inside the cage can't leave it by nonmagical means. If the creature tries to use teleportation or interplanar travel to leave the cage, it must first make a Charisma saving throw."

"EVERSMOKING BOTTLE
Wondrous item, uncommon
Smoke leaks from the lead-stoppered mouth of this brass bottle, which weighs 1 pound. When you use an action to remove the stopper, a cloud of thick smoke pours out in a 60-foot radius from the bottle. The cloud's area is heavily obscured. (it expands to 120' radius at 10'/round but starts at 60')

"WALL OF LIGHT
5th-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S, M (a hand mirror)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
A shimmering wall of bright light appears at a point you choose within range. The wall appears in any orientation you choose: horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. It can be free floating, or it can rest on a solid surface. The wall can be up to 60 feet long, 10 feet high, and 5 feet thick. The wall blocks line of sight, but creatures and objects can pass through it. It emits bright light out to 120 feet and dim light for an additional 120 feet. When the wall appears, each creature in its area must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 4d8 radiant damage, and it is blinded for 1 minute. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage and isn’t blinded. A blinded creature can make a Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its
turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. A creature that ends its turn in the wall’s area takes 4d8 radiant damage. Until the spell ends, you can use an action to launch a beam of radiance from the wall at one creature you can see within 60 feet of it. Make a ranged spell attack. On a hit, the target takes 4d8 radiant damage. Whether you hit or miss, reduce the length of the wall by 10 feet. If the walls length drops to 0 feet, the spell ends.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 5th."


Forcecage doesn't need concentration and lasts 1 hour. It can be cast on an area within range and doesn't require sight. It can be "up to 20'" on a side but in this case would be sized to just hold Zariel and no more.

Eversmoking bottle prevents vision and shuts down teleportation. Any other visual obstruction would do ... you could start with fog cloud and replace with the bottle for example.

Wall of Light is an evocation spell. Appears at any point in range and can be up to 5' thick. Zariel is size large which is 10'x10' so the cage has to be size to just contain her so that if she alters self to size medium she still can't move out of the wall. The wall would occupy the middle 5' of the 10'x10' space leaving ~2.5' on either side and thus affect all the entire area.


---

The timing of forcecage and either eversmoking bottle or fog cloud could be solved with the use of a simulacrum and a readied action to either open the bottle or cast fog cloud when forcecage is cast. The fog cloud could be replaced by the eversmoking bottle once Zariel is in the forcecage.

All of this does assume that Zariel comes within combat range. If she stays out of the range of spells then it won't work but most encounters start within 60'.

The biggest challenge is initiative. If Zariel goes first the plan may fall apart though the player and simulacrum could start the encounter invisible (greater invisibility) which mitigates a number of Zariels attacks and as long as both survive one round it should be over.


actually the biggest challenge is how zariel reacts to your readying an action to cast a spell. you're in combat at this point, which means she gets a legendary action after you ready an action.. the way i see it she does 1 of two things.

1. she teleports on top of one of you, then hate ****s the bejeesus out of them. (not actually the most tactically intelligent option. but a theoretical possibility)
2. she teleports directly away in order to assess your plan. and doing so absolutely ****s your plan.

now, personally im of the opinion that she's more likely to do number 2 than number 1. although this certainly has a much better chance of puling it off than trying to use a 3rd add (a bound elemental) that someone previously suggested. you'd just need to succeed on some kind of a skill check to obfuscate your intentions.

[kazaryu]

RAW, I don't see why an evoker can't overchannel this to do max damage. Overchanneled the spell does an automatic 32 radiant damage every round with no save if the creature can't move away. RAW, if a spell affects the square a creature is in then the creature is affected. However, it would be a DM call if a medium sized creature could occupy less space to avoid being considered in the wall. There would only be 2.5' on each side of the wall. You could also put the wall horizontally through the force cage making it even more difficult to avoid since the forcecage probably can't be climbed and Zariel probably can't fly in a 10'x10' prison. Make the space at the bottom too small just to lie down.



oh wow, i'd actually glossed over this in my first read through.
so first, a forcecage used like this can absolutely be climbed. there's a half inch gap between the bars, and zariel has a 27 str. plenty enough to hold herself above the wall for an extended period of time.
second, a medium creature can squeeze into an area half their size. and considering you're cheesing the rules to get a larger effective size for your wall of light (i.e. straddling the wall of light between 2 squares in order to take up both) its only fair that the DM can cheese the rules and let zariel squeeze up against the bars to stay out of the wall of light.

thank you for pointing that out to me. ^.^

[MaxWilson]

issues:
1. wall of force is a 5th level spell, at lvl 9 you can only cast 1 5th level spell. obviously this is fairly easy to get around, but as written this plan doesn't work.
2. she has a 91% chance of passing you 16 spell save DC at that level, and therefore take no damage from the sickening radiance.
3. the hounds have a +8 to hit, and zariel has nothing else to do with her action, so she may as well dodge. meaning they only have a 16% chance to hit. which means on average you're going to get ~1 hit every 2 turns for 9 damage.
4. so even if you manage to get literally all of that off, you're doing less damage than her automatic, at-will healing. (and if you get a mildly permissive DM, that allows for the hound damage to pierce her damage resistance, its still only 18 damage every other turn. so in those 2 turns she heals for 40 (unless one of them happens to be the same turn she manged to take sickening radiance damage last turn) all you've successfully done is annoyed an archedevil, while also giving her plenty to work with in terms of tracking you down.
conclusion: even if you do manage to bait her into this, it doesn't come close to killing her as written. perhaps if you adjusted certain parameters, who knows.

Nitpick: I think you mean DC 17, not 16.

Excellent points. I run spell points so sometimes forget to account for how spell slots affect even pre-planned Glyphs. And I totally forgot about the Dodge action. You're right, that plan as written would just result in a vendetta with an angry archfiend. (From a story perspective about a mid-level wizard's hubris, I like that outcome even more! But it doesn't fulfill the challenge.)

The fix is obvious but boring: "there is no such thing as overkill." More hounds, more Sickening Radiance. Blech. Not elegant.

A more elegant fix would be to cancel out Dodging by imposing disadvantage with a Fog Cloud glyph. Without disadvantage, +9 to attack for 4d8 (I'm assuming magic damage because it's a spell) is 8 damage per hound per round. Add a fourth hound just in case, but even 3 is too much for her to regenerate (4 net damage per round, 400 over the spell's lifetime), and then Sickening Radiance hits her 12% of the time and finishes her off (effective 30 HP per failure from direct damage plus shutting down regen, 12 failures over the life of the spell, 360 effective damage). On average will kill her even with only three hounds, but four is safer. Make sure the Wall of Force is small enough that she must always be within 5' of all the hounds.

Edit: actually, Fog Cloud is not needed. The hound is already invisible.

[Boci]

So, for the stats posted for Zariel, ot includes this:

Horrid Touch (Recharge 5-6). Melee Weapon Attack: +16 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 44 (8d10) necrotic damage, and the target is poisoned for 1 minute. While poisoned in this way, the target is also blinded and deafened. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Repeat the save? What save? Is this a known bug? Is there an erata? Likely not a big issue for this thread since post people aren't getting into melee with her, but still.

[kazaryu]

Nitpick: I think you mean DC 17, not 16.
ehhhhh.....sure why not. makes sense.



Excellent points. I run spell points so sometimes forget to account for how spell slots affect even pre-planned Glyphs. And I totally forgot about the Dodge action. You're right, that plan as written would just result in a vendetta with an angry archfiend. (From a story perspective about a mid-level wizard's hubris, I like that outcome even more! But it doesn't fulfill the challenge.)


that sounds like an epic character motivation for a campaign thats starting at lvl 9 lol. 'i need to get stronger before zariels minions track me down!



A more elegant fix would be to cancel out Dodging by imposing disadvantage with a Fog Cloud glyph. Without disadvantage, +9 to attack for 4d8 (I'm assuming magic damage because it's a spell) is 8 damage per hound per round. Add a fourth hound just in case, but even 3 is too much for her to regenerate (4 net damage per round, 400 over the spell's lifetime), and then Sickening Radiance hits her 12% of the time and finishes her off (effective 30 HP per failure from direct damage plus shutting down regen, 12 failures over the life of the spell, 360 effective damage). On average will kill her even with only three hounds, but four is safer. Make sure the Wall of Force is small enough that she must always be within 5' of all the hounds.

i think you mean imposing advantage. but either way....

she has an AC of 21, which means you have a 40% hit chance, which is a total average (per round) damage of 21.6. (16d8 damage per hound per 10 rounds means 72 damage per 10 rounds, or 7.2 damage per hound per round. ) so on rounds she doesn't fail the con save she's taking a net damage of 1.6 damage (160 over the life of wall of force). sickening radiance deals 13.5 (she is resistant to radiant damage) so 160 ish? over the course of the fight. so thats 320. then on the turns that she fails sickening radiance, she takes and extra 20 damage from the hounds) for 240 total. bringing this combos average total up to 560 damage. which is 20 shy of what you need before wall of force ends. (and thats on average. obviously you cna get more if, by luck hounds happen to hit more frequently when she fails the con save. on the other hand, just passing 1 extra con save reduces this damage by 20. so all told its slightly weighted in her favor. actually, fairly heavily weighted in her favor as even if you're rolling higher than average, chances are it still comes down to the last round of sickening radiances/wall of forces duration. so you *need* that last round to be a failed con save. otherwise both spells ends...she stands up, and is now free. and you've only got a what...12% chance of that occuring?

although now that we're talking about it, the hound is invisible and therefore has advantage naturally. so with the dodging, we're still in the same boat as this exactly. (i will argue that its a little BS that the hounds get guaranteed advantage AND your spell to-hit. but then the spell doesn't assume that a creature can't leave the area so...either way (with/without the fog cloud) the situation is ultimately the same. dogs rolling a flat roll.

[kazaryu]

So, for the stats posted for Zariel, ot includes this:

Horrid Touch (Recharge 5-6). Melee Weapon Attack: +16 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 44 (8d10) necrotic damage, and the target is poisoned for 1 minute. While poisoned in this way, the target is also blinded and deafened. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Repeat the save? What save? Is this a known bug? Is there an erata? Likely not a big issue for this thread since post people aren't getting into melee with her, but still.

well, it *is* a big issue. basically the failstate tends to be 'if zariel manages to directly engage you in melee, chances are you lose'.

that being said idk if there is an eratta or anything. but i'd assume its meant to be something like
'poisoned for 1 minute. while poisoned the creature is blinded and deafened. at the end of each of its turns the creature may make a constitution save (dc26) to end teh effect on itself'

[Boci]

well, it *is* a big issue. basically the failstate tends to be 'if zariel manages to directly engage you in melee, chances are you lose'.

that being said idk if there is an eratta or anything. but i'd assume its meant to be something like
'poisoned for 1 minute. while poisoned the creature is blinded and deafened. at the end of each of its turns the creature may make a constitution save (dc26) to end teh effect on itself'

Yeah the 3 possible rulings are:

1. No save, your useless for 1 minute unless you can overcome blindness.

2. No initial save, but you can save at DC 26 at the end of your turn.

3. An initial save (possibly also havling the necrotic damage), and you may repeat the save at the end of your turns.

1 is very hard and almost certainly not rules as intended, but 2 and 3 seems equally viable in terms of what the writers meant to have.

[MaxWilson]

i think you mean imposing advantage. but either way....

she has an AC of 21, which means you have a 40% hit chance, which is a total average (per round) damage of 21.6. (16d8 damage per hound per 10 rounds means 72 damage per 10 rounds, or 7.2 damage per hound per round. ) so on rounds she doesn't fail the con save she's taking a net damage of 1.6 damage (160 over the life of wall of force). sickening radiance deals 13.5 (she is resistant to radiant damage) so 160 ish? over the course of the fight. so thats 320. then on the turns that she fails sickening radiance, she takes and extra 20 damage from the hounds) for 240 total. bringing this combos average total up to 560 damage. which is 20 shy of what you need before wall of force ends. (and thats on average. obviously you cna get more if, by luck hounds happen to hit more frequently when she fails the con save. on the other hand, just passing 1 extra con save reduces this damage by 20. so all told its slightly weighted in her favor. actually, fairly heavily weighted in her favor as even if you're rolling higher than average, chances are it still comes down to the last round of sickening radiances/wall of forces duration. so you *need* that last round to be a failed con save. otherwise both spells ends...she stands up, and is now free. and you've only got a what...12% chance of that occuring?

although now that we're talking about it, the hound is invisible and therefore has advantage naturally. so with the dodging, we're still in the same boat as this exactly. (i will argue that its a little BS that the hounds get guaranteed advantage AND your spell to-hit. but then the spell doesn't assume that a creature can't leave the area so...either way (with/without the fog cloud) the situation is ultimately the same. dogs rolling a flat roll.

Your DPR math is slightly off. At +9 to hit vs. AC 21, it's a 45% hit chance, which makes all the difference. You're also neglecting crits. Add those back in and it's 9 damage per hound per round, net damage 7 per round from 3 hounds after regen.

Also, as you noticed yourself, it turns out Fog Cloud isn't needed because the Hounds are already invisible, which cancels out Dodge. Sadly, no epic vendetta backstory happens because the original plan turns out to succeed after all. 700 net damage from 3 hounds plus 372 net from Sickening Radiance = dead Zariel. You're right though that a 9th level wizard with vanilla spell slots can't cast Glyph of Wall of Force until 10th level, but that's not a mistake the wizard wouldn't discover until already in combat. He would have to cast Wall of Force personally instead or wait until 10th level.

Edit: amusingly, the hound only bites creatures that are "hostile" to you, so by strict RAW Zariel's best chance of survival is for her to get in touch with her feelings and stop resenting you.

[Benny89]

oh wow, i'd actually glossed over this in my first read through.
so first, a forcecage used like this can absolutely be climbed. there's a half inch gap between the bars, and zariel has a 27 str. plenty enough to hold herself above the wall for an extended period of time.
second, a medium creature can squeeze into an area half their size. and considering you're cheesing the rules to get a larger effective size for your wall of light (i.e. straddling the wall of light between 2 squares in order to take up both) its only fair that the DM can cheese the rules and let zariel squeeze up against the bars to stay out of the wall of light.

thank you for pointing that out to me. ^.^

Bar version of forcecage is only if you wanted to trap gargantual creature. Normal Forcecage is enough which is just box, so nothing to climb on.

And no cheesing the rules.

Besides I think we already achieved build that can defeat her. It's 1 Hexblade/12 Evoker doing:

(1) Glyph of Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum to shut down teleport, plus
(2) Glyph of Wall of Force to shut down flight, plus
(3) Glyph of Sickening Radiance/Overchanneled Sickening Radiance
(4) Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound x 3 to do lots of damage or Just spam Curse + Empowered Evocation Magic Missles from your Wands.

We use Glove in Inv to protect ourselfs from her spells and See Invisibility to protect from her invisibility.

We use Blur + Mirror Image + she has disadvantage on her Javelin and simply spam Magic Missle from our Wands till she is 0 HP at which point sickening radiance finishes her off.

Of course we can start argue "ow, but she would never come to prepared zone bla bla" but point was if the build can beat her. This one can beat her, that's it. What happens from roleplay pespective can't be measured on forum as it's DM and players thing.

[kazaryu]

Your math is wrong. At +9 to hit vs. AC 21, it's a 45% hit chance, which makes all the difference. You're also neglecting crits. Add those back in and it's 9 damage per hound per round, net damage 7 per round after regen.

Also it turns out Fog Cloud isn't needed because the Hounds are already invisible, which cancels out Dodge. Sadly, no epic vendetta backstory happens because the original plan turns out to succeed after all.

you are correct, it is 45...but that still only gets you a net damage of 5.56 per round (yes that includes crits). when stretched out over the hundred rounds, thats still alot of damage. especially if you dd in sickening radiance failures.

so now you just have to hope that she fails her sickening radiance on a turn that she manages to get dropped to 0. which is actually not really a vain hope. since she'd basically need to jsut not get hit by the hounds at all on the turns that she fails sickening radiance. and that only has what....a 1/8 chance of happening? (well, i guess she could eat 1 attack, but the damage rolls that turn would need to be low). so yeah, if you could lure her in that'd probably work.

OH WAIT!!! legendary resistances. seeing the trap she's in, she'd 100% save them for the very end.(or more specifically, since they're a meta tool more than a narrative one, the DM would) that gives her on average what...36-48 rounds of (effectively) total immunity to sickening radiance.


also, where is the PC while these rounds are going on?

[kazaryu]

Bar version of forcecage is only if you wanted to trap gargantual creature. Normal Forcecage is enough which is just box, so nothing to climb on.

mhmmmhmmm, and box form of forcecage blocks spell effects, which includes wall of light. you *need* cage form in order to actually get the wall of light spell down.



Besides I think we already achieved build that can defeat her. It's 1 Hexblade/12 Evoker doing:

(1) Glyph of Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum to shut down teleport, plus
(2) Glyph of Wall of Force to shut down flight, plus
(3) Glyph of Sickening Radiance/Overchanneled Sickening Radiance
(4) Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound x 3 to do lots of damage or Just spam Curse + Empowered Evocation Magic Missles from your Wands.
so tell me.....how are you casting MM at her through the wall of force?



We use Glove in Inv to protect ourselfs from her spells and See Invisibility to protect from her invisibility.
thats cute...and when she tosses a DC 26 finger of death at you?



We use Blur + Mirror Image + she has disadvantage on her Javelin and simply spam Magic Missle from our Wands till she is 0 HP at which point sickening radiance finishes her off.

right...so instead of tossing javelins at you (somehow) through a wall of force, she drops saves based spells on you. and you.....?

[MaxWilson]

you are correct, it is 45...but that still only gets you a net damage of 5.56 per round (yes that includes crits). when stretched out over the hundred rounds, thats still alot of damage. especially if you dd in sickening radiance failures.

so now you just have to hope that she fails her sickening radiance on a turn that she manages to get dropped to 0. which is actually not really a vain hope. since she'd basically need to jsut not get hit by the hounds at all on the turns that she fails sickening radiance. and that only has what....a 1/8 chance of happening? (well, i guess she could eat 1 attack, but the damage rolls that turn would need to be low). so yeah, if you could lure her in that'd probably work.

OH WAIT!!! legendary resistances. seeing the trap she's in, she'd 100% save them for the very end.(or more specifically, since they're a meta tool more than a narrative one, the DM would) that gives her on average what...36-48 rounds of (effectively) total immunity to sickening radiance.


also, where is the PC while these rounds are going on?

How do you get 5.56? 9 times in 20 she'll get hit for 4d8, and 1 of those will be a crit for another 4d8, total of 40d8, so she'll take on average 2d8 per turn from one hound. 9 DPR not 5.56. (9 * 3 hounds - 20 regen = 7 net DPR.) Where are we differing?

Legendary Resistances aren't likely to be an issue because she doesn't have enough. She'll be at zero HP around 50-60 rounds into the spell, and legendary resistances each add 8 rounds to her survival. They will help, but not enough to make her survival more likely than not. I haven't done the exact math.

I would presume the PC is cautiously watching from a distance, since direct participation was probably needed to lure her into chasing him down through the appropriate doorway/wherever the trap was set up.

[Dork_Forge]

How do you get 5.56? 9 times in 20 she'll get hit for 4d8, and 1 of those will be a crit, so she'll take on average 2d8 per turn. 9 DPR not 5.56. (9 * 3 hounds - 20 regen = 7 net DPR.) Where are we differing?

Legendary Resistances aren't likely to be an issue because she doesn't have enough. She'll be at zero HP around 50-60 rounds into the spell, and legendary resistances each add 8 rounds to her survival. They will help, but not enough to make her survival more likely than not. I haven't done the exact math.

I would presume the PC is cautiously watching from a distance, since direct participation was probably needed to lure her into chasing him down through the appropriate doorway/wherever the trap was set up.

Maybe they're factoring in resistance? The spell does state it's just piercing damage so it might be a DM toss up whether or not the hound's attacks are full or half damage.

[Benny89]

mhmmmhmmm, and box form of forcecage blocks spell effects, which includes wall of light. you *need* cage form in order to actually get the wall of light spell down.

so tell me.....how are you casting MM at her through the wall of force?

thats cute...and when she tosses a DC 26 finger of death at you?


right...so instead of tossing javelins at you (somehow) through a wall of force, she drops saves based spells on you. and you.....?

Sickening Radiance is "Dim, greenish light spreads within a 30-foot-radius sphere". Shpere goes up, down and on sides.

Forcecage "A prison in the shape of a cage can be up to 20 feet on a side and is made from 1/2-inch diameter bars spaced 1/2 inch apart."

So sickening Radiance is 10 feet taller than Forcecage, she can hang there for all I care. It's still affecting her.

Ah, finger of death. No problem. We simply change Globe on Inv. to Greater Invisibility. She can't target us with those. She can hit us with Fireball (28 damage) or Wall of Fire or Javelin (very hard with Blur, Mirron Image disadvantage and we can also add Blink on top, why not). We can tank one fireball no problem, get back, heal ourselfs with healing potions since we have access to some magic items, we can just take some potions and scrolls. She won't regen in that time because Sickenig Radiance and we take hour time (we have 1 hour) to kill her with Magic Missles.

Also, you asked for a build that can build her. This can beat her. You can nit-pick every situation you want, but this builds has very high chances of beating her.


How do you get 5.56? 9 times in 20 she'll get hit for 4d8, and 1 of those will be a crit for another 4d8, total of 40d8, so she'll take on average 2d8 per turn from one hound. 9 DPR not 5.56. (9 * 3 hounds - 20 regen = 7 net DPR.) Where are we differing?

Legendary Resistances aren't likely to be an issue because she doesn't have enough. She'll be at zero HP around 50-60 rounds into the spell, and legendary resistances each add 8 rounds to her survival. They will help, but not enough to make her survival more likely than not. I haven't done the exact math.

I would presume the PC is cautiously watching from a distance, since direct participation was probably needed to lure her into chasing him down through the appropriate doorway/wherever the trap was set up.

Max is correct here too. 1 hour of forcecage is 600 turns. She could get 1 dmg per turn and still die just form Sickening Radiance (which fills whole Forcecage) and we are just chilling in the back.

Done. There is your build. Wizard.

[MaxWilson]

Maybe they're factoring in resistance? The spell does state it's just piercing damage so it might be a DM toss up whether or not the hound's attacks are full or half damage.

It's hard for me to believe a DM would rule that attacks from Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound would run afoul of Zariel's resistance to "nonmagical attacks that aren't silvered", and anyway wouldn't that reduce damage by MORE than 50%, not less?

[JNAProductions]

Sickening Radiance is "Dim, greenish light spreads within a 30-foot-radius sphere". Shpere goes up, down and on sides.

Forcecage "A prison in the shape of a cage can be up to 20 feet on a side and is made from 1/2-inch diameter bars spaced 1/2 inch apart."

So sickening Radiance is 10 feet taller than Forcecage, she can hang there for all I care. It's still affecting her.

Ah, finger of death. No problem. We simply change Globe on Inv. to Greater Invisibility. She can't target us with those. She can hit us with Fireball (28 damage) or Wall of Fire or Javelin (very hard with Blur, Mirron Image disadvantage and we can also add Blink on top, why not). We can tank one fireball no problem, get back, heal ourselfs with healing potions since we have access to some magic items, we can just take some potions and scrolls. She won't regen in that time because Sickenig Radiance and we take hour time (we have 1 hour) to kill her with Magic Missles.

Also, you asked for a build that can build her. This can beat her. You can nit-pick every situation you want, but this builds has very high chances of beating her.

Mirror Image does not work if you're Invisible.

[Benny89]

Mirror Image does not work if you're Invisible.

Swap it for blink then,

[Boci]

It's hard for me to believe a DM would rule that attacks from Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound would run afoul of Zariel's resistance to "nonmagical attacks that aren't silvered",

Jeremy agrees with you: https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/08/30/magic-resistance-against-physical-damage/

"Regardless of damage type, the direct damage of a spell is magical."

[Benny89]

It's hard for me to believe a DM would rule that attacks from Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound would run afoul of Zariel's resistance to "nonmagical attacks that aren't silvered", and anyway wouldn't that reduce damage by MORE than 50%, not less?

Exactly.

Stop nit-picking OP. We already proved you that in well-prepared zone, the old boss killer combo still works. If she gets in non-teleportation zone it's game over.

[kazaryu]

How do you get 5.56? 9 times in 20 she'll get hit for 4d8, and 1 of those will be a crit, so she'll take on average 2d8 per turn. 9 DPR not 5.56. Where are we differing?

idk, i added them all up. in the 100 rounds each dawg hits 45 times. so thats a total of 135 hits. 1/20 of those is a crit so thats 7 crits. since theres no flat damage just add an extra 7 hits (since crit=2hits). for 142 total hits. x4=568d8 damage total=2556 damage total. which is 25.56 damage per round. counteracted by 20 healing per round. leaves a profit of 5.56 damage per round.

but im running the math...the way you did...and im not seeing how we're getting different numbers. clearly one of us is missing something...

ok my method. each dog hits 45 times. 3 dogs, so a total of 135 hits. 5% of that is ~7 (technically 6. something, but close enough). so a total of 142 hits. each hit is 4d8 which comes out to 568d8. each d8 averages out to 4.5. 568 x 4.5 is 2556. so that should be total damage dealth, by all 3 hounds. over 100 rounds. divide that by 100 to get 25.56 damage per round.

oh, ah-ha!. i got it. 5% of *attacks* are crits. not 5% of hits. its literally like twice that numer (1/9) of them are crits. thats where i buggered myself. ok. so yeah, 7 dpr. ugh...its too bad the sickening radiance thing has such a weird %...makes the math messy. alright for ease of math we're saying 1/8 rounds she fails vs sickening radiance. so we'll do 8 round cycles. 7 rounds she takes 7 damage per. then on the 8th round takes 13.5 from sickening radiance and 27 from hounds. so 89.5 damage per cycle. so yeah, 6 cycles puts her at ~43 hp. which is a little under halfway thorugh (on average). so she needs to start using legendary resistances on the 7th cycle. which gets her up to the 10th cycle. so....80 rounds.

now of course this number is deceptively swingy, because it depends highly on how much damage she actually ends up taking on the few rounds where she fails the save vs sickening radiance. but definitely on average it'd kill her.

but you didn't answer the question of what the PC is doing during this time.

[Dork_Forge]

It's hard for me to believe a DM would rule that attacks from Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound would run afoul of Zariel's resistance to "nonmagical attacks that aren't silvered", and anyway wouldn't that reduce damage by MORE than 50%, not less?

I personally would rule that it's magical, but I've also never seen her wording of resistance before it's normally worded on weapon attacks. The only reason to remove the word weapon would be to include spells and since the damage is coming from something made from a spell, not a direct attack from a casting itself, I can see a DM ruling that it's regular piercing damage. After all 5e has reinforced the "if it's meant to be x then it will say it's x" mentality and iirc we have no RAW stating that all damage caused by spells is inherently magical.

Again, I would rule it wouldn't be resisted, but I can see the case for why it would be and after all this thread is stretching the limits of cheese. In regards to the numbers, these kind of damage calcs that include hit probability are currently above me, so I make no pretense in accounting for actual number variations, I just saw you had an issue with damage in a certain direction and attempted to pose food for though to help with that.





Jeremy agrees with you: https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/08/30/magic-resistance-against-physical-damage/

"Regardless of damage type, the direct damage of a spell is magical."

Just FYI that doesn't actually show a tweet from Jeremy for me.

[JNAProductions]

1/20 ATTACKS are crits, not 1/20 HITS.

That's your error.

[kazaryu]

Sickening Radiance is "Dim, greenish light spreads within a 30-foot-radius sphere". Shpere goes up, down and on sides.

Forcecage "A prison in the shape of a cage can be up to 20 feet on a side and is made from 1/2-inch diameter bars spaced 1/2 inch apart."

So sickening Radiance is 10 feet taller than Forcecage, she can hang there for all I care. It's still affecting her.

ahhh, so now its a forcecage? which you can't cast as a lvl 12 wizard.
as for the other plan. there was a reason they didn't use sickening radiance, and istead used wall of light. that reason being sickening radiance doesn't do consistent radiant damage. and as a result can't outpace her healing.




Ah, finger of death. No problem. We simply change Globe on Inv. to Greater Invisibility. She can't target us with those. She can hit us with Fireball (28 damage) or Wall of Fire or Javelin (very hard with Blur, Mirron Image disadvantage and we can also add Blink on top, why not). We can tank one fireball no problem, get back, heal ourselfs with healing potions since we have access to some magic items, we can just take some potions and scrolls. She won't regen in that time because Sickening Radiance and we take hour time (we have 1 hour) to kill her with Magic Missles.


ok, so instead of trying to hit you with finger of death, she surrounds her cage with a wall of fire. thus preventing you from targetting her with MM (also greater invis has a 1 minute duration. you don't have 1 hour to kill her.







Max is correct here too. 1 hour of forcecage is 600 turns. She could get 1 dmg per turn and still die just form Sickening Radiance (which fills whole Forcecage) and we are just chilling in the back.
sickening radiance by itself can't kill her. its damage doesn't outpace her regen. and it doesn't deal damage on every turn. you *need* something on top of it.



Exactly.

Stop nit-picking OP


you seem to be having a very different discussion from most of us....like, you seem to have a very 'me vs you' attitude (not unlike the person that inspired this thread actually). i recommend you chill out and just enjoy the exploration like the rest of us are.

[MaxWilson]

but you didn't answer the question of what the PC is doing during this time.

I added it to post #160 in an edit, apparently after you'd already loaded the page:


I would presume the PC is cautiously watching from a distance, since direct participation was probably needed to lure her into chasing him down through the appropriate doorway/wherever the trap was set up.

Maybe it would be smarter to run away, but it might also leave you forever wondering what happened. Also, since we're talking about an actual PC here and not theorycraft, staying "onscreen" might be necessary to prevent the DM from handwaving the results, depending on the DM.

[Boci]

Just FYI that doesn't actually show a tweet from Jeremy for me.

It takes a moment or two to load, but it should/ Here's twitter link though:
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/630915981016064000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5E tweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E630915981016064000&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sageadvice.eu%2F2015%2F0 8%2F30%2Fmagic-resistance-against-physical-damage%2F

[Dork_Forge]

It takes a moment or two to load, but it should/ Here's twitter link though:
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/630915981016064000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5E tweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E630915981016064000&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sageadvice.eu%2F2015%2F0 8%2F30%2Fmagic-resistance-against-physical-damage%2F

That worked thanks! BUT that muddies the waters, he specifically says that the DIRECT damage of a spell is magical regardless of type. So Ice Knife magical but hound very possibly now not...

[kazaryu]

I added it to post #160 in an edit, apparently after you'd already loaded the page:



Maybe it would be smarter to run away, but it might also leave you forever wondering what happened. Also, since we're talking about an actual PC here and not theorycraft, staying "onscreen" might be necessary to prevent the DM from handwaving the results, depending on the DM.

well, here's the reason i bring it up. he *has* to stay within 100feet, or the faithful hounds go away.
so teh question is, is he staying in LoS. and the problem.

if yes, then she can attack him (not well mind you, but she still has options fortunately he's not holding cocnentration on anything for this). if no, then he can't ever really be sure she died rather than just escaping lol. so there's your character motivation. maybe an archdevil is after him....maybe they're not. he didn't stay to watch, too risky. but he can't think of a way she might have escaped....on the other hand archdevils are tricky...

you now have a paranoid wizard always looking over their shoulder waiting for the trap.

[MaxWilson]

I personally would rule that it's magical, but I've also never seen her wording of resistance before it's normally worded on weapon attacks. The only reason to remove the word weapon would be to include spells and since the damage is coming from something made from a spell, not a direct attack from a casting itself, I can see a DM ruling that it's regular piercing damage. After all 5e has reinforced the "if it's meant to be x then it will say it's x" mentality and iirc we have no RAW stating that all damage caused by spells is inherently magical.

Again, I would rule it wouldn't be resisted, but I can see the case for why it would be and after all this thread is stretching the limits of cheese. In regards to the numbers, these kind of damage calcs that include hit probability are currently above me, so I make no pretense in accounting for actual number variations, I just saw you had an issue with damage in a certain direction and attempted to pose food for though to help with that.

FWIW, the wording is commonplace (e.g. Gricks have resistance to nonmagical attacks). Making it "nonmagical weapon attacks" leaves open the question of whether you take half or full damage from fists, wolf bites, etc.

I don't think this thread is focused on cheese at all. People have been pretty reasonable IMO in sticking to stuff that is both RAW and RAI. I haven't seen anyone suggest e.g. 999 Glyphs of Warding stacked on top of each other, that would never happen in a real game.

I'd say this thread is relatively firmly focused on Combat As War, where a mid-level wizard can indeed make an enemy out of a CR 26 Archfiend and have some hope of doing something about it--the biggest risk is not "will this next d20 roll fail or succeed" but "will she take the bait and chase me through the archway?" and "will she have any bodyguards who can cast Dispel Magic or will her high-speed chase leave her essentially on her own?" That's solid Combat As War stuff there, whereas "will this next d20 roll fail or succeed?" is Combat As Sport.

For reference, the seminal thread on CAW, especially posts #1, #5, and #9: https://www.enworld.org/threads/very-long-combat-as-sport-vs-combat-as-war-a-key-difference-in-d-d-play-styles.317715/

[Boci]

That worked thanks! BUT that muddies the waters, he specifically says that the DIRECT damage of a spell is magical regardless of type. So Ice Knife magical but hound very possibly now not...

Possible. I read that as bludgeoning damage from collapsed building, or fire damage from using fireball to burn down a house not being magical, I'd rule the damage from the hound is still direct, but yeah, that's not clear cut.

[MaxWilson]

well, here's the reason i bring it up. he *has* to stay within 100feet, or the faithful hounds go away.
so teh question is, is he staying in LoS. and the problem.

if yes, then she can attack him (not well mind you, but she still has options fortunately he's not holding cocnentration on anything for this). if no, then he can't ever really be sure she died rather than just escaping lol. so there's your character motivation. maybe an archdevil is after him....maybe they're not. he didn't stay to watch, too risky. but he can't think of a way she might have escaped....on the other hand archdevils are tricky...

you now have a paranoid wizard always looking over their shoulder waiting for the trap.

How can she attack him through the Wall of Force? (Remark: I wouldn't let a Wall of Light go through a Wall of Force either, even though other posters would. Nor would I let Zariel's immolation attack go through it, because it's total cover. If the DM lets attacks and spells go through it, presumably the wizard would know that in advance and would have to e.g. cast Invisibility.)

And yes, that paranoia thing is exactly why I expect the wizard to hang around and watch.


Possible. I read that as bludgeoning damage from collapsed building, or fire damage from using fireball to burn down a house not being magical, I'd rule the damage from the hound is still direct, but yeah, that's not clear cut.

My first thought was that he was trying to exclude damage from animated skeletons, Tiny Servants, conjured wolves, etc.

[Dork_Forge]

FWIW, the wording is commonplace (e.g. Gricks have resistance to nonmagical attacks). Making it "nonmagical weapon attacks" leaves open the question of whether you take half or full damage from fists, wolf bites, etc.

I don't think this thread is focused on cheese at all. People have been pretty reasonable IMO in sticking to stuff that is both RAW and RAI. I haven't seen anyone suggest e.g. 999 Glyphs of Warding stacked on top of each other, that would never happen in a real game.

I'd say this thread is relatively firmly focused on Combat As War, where a mid-level wizard can indeed make an enemy out of a CR 26 Archfiend and have some hope of doing something about it--the biggest risk is not "will this next d20 roll fail or succeed" but "will she take the bait and chase me through the archway?" and "will she have any bodyguards who can cast Dispel Magic or will her high-speed chase leave her essentially on her own?" That's solid Combat As War stuff there, whereas "will this next d20 roll fail or succeed?" is Combat As Sport.

For reference, the seminal thread on CAW, especially posts #1, #5, and #9: https://www.enworld.org/threads/very-long-combat-as-sport-vs-combat-as-war-a-key-difference-in-d-d-play-styles.317715/

My understanding was that things in 5e that use an attack role are either a weapon attack or a spell attack, so fists and wolf bites are weapon attacks and that's the same reason why a Paladin can Smite with a punch/Moon Druid multiclass can Smite with a bite or whatever. So just by dropping the word weapon (as long as the omittance was intentional) directly implies that some damage from spells can be nonmagical. The tweet the Boci linked to also had JC saying that regardless of type, damage caused directly by spells is magical. I'd interpret that as damage caused by a save or attack at the time of you casting in general, where as Faithful Hound does neither, it create a magical puppy that can then attack.

The more I actually type about this the more I think that it WOULD be resisted even if it does seems a bit silly since it's a magical construct making the attacks.

In regards to cheese, I understand combat as war, but anything like this that involves Glyphs is cheesey. Are you using bag of holding to transport them? Is the assumption that you're somehow luring the ruler of a layer of hell into a location that you've been able to set up over a decent period of time apparently without interuption?

[kazaryu]

How can she attack him through the Wall of Force? (Remark: I wouldn't let a Wall of Light go through a Wall of Force either, even though other posters would. Nor would I let Zariel's immolation attack go through it, because it's total cover. If the DM lets attacks and spells go through it, presumably the wizard would know that in advance and would have to e.g. cast Invisibility.)

And yes, that paranoia thing is exactly why I expect the wizard to hang around and watch.



My first thought was that he was trying to exclude damage from animated skeletons, Tiny Servants, conjured wolves, etc.

both wall of fire and blade barrier. blade barrier by itself would be like 18d10 (99) damage over 3 rounds (if he's within the sanctum). from there she's limited to at-will wall of fires (but since your dude is only lvl 9 for this (obviously he could be 13, but the scenario was constructed as a lvl9) the blade barriers alone could kill him. and much much faster than the hounds kill her.

and tbf, if her teleport can go through a wall of force (thus necessitating the private sanctum) , then immolating gaze can. but she doesn't need to see you to hit you with bladebarrier/wall of fire.

[MaxWilson]

In regards to cheese, I understand combat as war, but anything like this that involves Glyphs is cheesey. Are you using bag of holding to transport them? Is the assumption that you're somehow luring the ruler of a layer of hell into a location that you've been able to set up over a decent period of time apparently without interuption?

My assumption, in my head, was that if Zariel is in play she's somewhere accessible, maybe terrorizing a town or something, or maybe the focus of some evil cult or something that's trying to summon her. You'd prep the Glyphs beforehand and cast the Hounds on the day of. Then when she shows up you make some kind of a spoiler attack pretending to want to escape (e.g. maybe have a "spy" try to steal something important to the cultists, and bring it to you at a rendezvous in a certain cave?). When she shows up you pretend to panic, lunch a Magic Missile or two at her, and run into the cave and try to Hide. She has to go through the doorway physically (can't Teleport through because she can't see through the cave walls) and that's where the trap is waiting.

No Bag of Holding cheese necessary, just a high level of risk and lots of roleplaying. Remember the goal isn't to find an infallible plan to beat Zariel under any circumstance, it's to explore circumstances under which beating her at or before level 13 is not impossible.

[kazaryu]

No Bag of Holding cheese necessary, just a high level of risk and lots of roleplaying. Remember the goal isn't to find an infallible plan to beat Zariel under any circumstance, it's to explore circumstances under which beating her at or before level 13 is not impossible.

this. allll of this. (i mean, initially this thread was started because someone was derailing a different thread. but even then, i specifically phrased the OP to invite exactly this exploration, because its far more fun).


My assumption, in my head, was that if Zariel is in play she's somewhere accessible, maybe terrorizing a town or something, or maybe the focus of some evil cult or something that's trying to summon her. You'd prep the Glyphs beforehand and cast the Hounds on the day of. Then when she shows up you make some kind of a spoiler attack pretending to want to escape (e.g. maybe have a "spy" try to steal something important to the cultists, and bring it to you at a rendezvous in a certain cave?). When she shows up you pretend to panic, lunch a Magic Missile or two at her, and run into the cave and try to Hide. She has to go through the doorway physically (can't Teleport through because she can't see through the cave walls) and that's where the trap is waiting.

nah, thats a wussy strat. you need to set the glyphs up in the summoning chamber, right under the cultists noses like a *real* adventurer.

[MaxWilson]

nah, thats a wussy strat. you need to set the glyphs up in the summoning chamber, right under the cultists noses like a *real* adventurer.

I know you're joking but that doesn't work--barking Hounds give the game away too early, and maybe the cultists don't summon her at all.

Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum can screen out sound but the cultists would be within the sanctum I think in order to do the summoning, and anyway they'd still bite cultists and give away the trap that way.

Edit: unless you can infiltrate the cultists and convince them that the barking + biting hounds are actually Zariel's harbingers?

[Dork_Forge]

My assumption, in my head, was that if Zariel is in play she's somewhere accessible, maybe terrorizing a town or something, or maybe the focus of some evil cult or something that's trying to summon her. You'd prep the Glyphs beforehand and cast the Hounds on the day of. Then when she shows up you make some kind of a spoiler attack pretending to want to escape (e.g. maybe have a "spy" try to steal something important to the cultists, and bring it to you at a rendezvous in a certain cave?). When she shows up you pretend to panic, lunch a Magic Missile or two at her, and run into the cave and try to Hide. She has to go through the doorway physically (can't Teleport through because she can't see through the cave walls) and that's where the trap is waiting.

No Bag of Holding cheese necessary, just a high level of risk and lots of roleplaying. Remember the goal isn't to find an infallible plan to beat Zariel under any circumstance, it's to explore circumstances under which beating her at or before level 13 is not impossible.

Ahh that makes more sense, I was going on the assumption of either a white room arena or going to hell. Assuming that she actually leaves Avernus for some reason that seems reasonable.

[kazaryu]

I know you're joking but that doesn't work--barking Hounds give the game away too early, and maybe the cultists don't summon her at all.

Edit: unless you can infiltrate the cultists and convince them that the barking + biting hounds are actually Zariel's harbingers?

:shrug: im jsut saying. those are all just details that need to be ironed out.

i mean, for one, if you can infiltrate the cultists, you can convinve to just let you cast the faitful hounds. you know, to guard in case someone sneaks in. then tell them all the password so they can enter without the barking. then you just need to sneak the glyphs into place. and make zariel hostile immediately after shes summoned. super easy. nothing can go wrong.

[kazaryu]

as a side note, im a little dissapointed...i thought the staff of the magi's retributive strike did more than 200 damage :(

[MaxWilson]

as a side note, im a little dissapointed...i thought the staff of the magi's retributive strike did more than 200 damage :(

200 damage goes a lot further in AD&D where that item originated. 20th fighters in AD&D only have about 83 HP, plus 9 HP per point of Con above 14. Ancient Dragons typically have about 100 HP. 200 damage is *massive*.


Ahh that makes more sense, I was going on the assumption of either a white room arena or going to hell. Assuming that she actually leaves Avernus for some reason that seems reasonable.

The tough part really comes before the trap: how does the PC find out her capabilities? Lots of fiends can cast Dispel Magic and/or have Truesight, and either one would cause this trap to fail. How does the PC know the truth: that Zariel has neither? Intelligence gathering would be an huge part of this adventure/campaign arc.

[kazaryu]

The tough part really comes before the trap: how does the PC find out her capabilities? Lots of fiends can cast Dispel Magic and/or have Truesight, and either one would cause this trap to fail. How does the PC know the truth: that Zariel has neither? Intelligence gathering would be an huge part of this adventure/campaign arc.

gonna be honest. there's only about a 10% chance that if i ever ran zariel that she'd actually not have truesight. i *might* add a few spells that make sense. but im almost guaranteed to give her truesight. and possibly even divine awareness. but the fact that she, as a fallen angel, doesn't have it. when balors and pit fiends do is just a travesty.

[MaxWilson]

gonna be honest. there's only about a 10% chance that if i ever ran zariel that she'd actually not have truesight. i *might* add a few spells that make sense. but im almost guaranteed to give her truesight. and possibly even divine awareness. but the fact that she, as a fallen angel, doesn't have it. when balors and pit fiends do is just a travesty.

Yeah, me too. I give all my ancient dragons levels in Dragon Sorcerer (and most adults and young adults too), and I'd definitely beef up all the archfiends too in anything but a pure hack-and-slash CRPG. I'm actually happier with Zariel than most because her legendary Teleport is quite powerful, but still, why does a CR 4 Babau have at-will Dispel Magic and Zariel doesn't?

I'd massively beef up the base Solar as well, with e.g. 20th level spellcasting off the combined cleric + celestial warlock spell lists, at-will Cure Wounds like a Radiant Idol, some form of immortality. I don't necessarily need a Solar that's tougher in a fight, but I need one that has more versatility and is more magically impressive, better suited to taking a role in a campaign.


But of course what I *actually* do is normally just the opposite: there are no Solars, Planetars, etc. All of the extraplanar factions are bad news, one way or another, and when you die your soul goes who-knows-where. There may be a heaven but it's not reachable via Plane Shift, although there are places that *claim* to be such a heaven.

Secretly my Tanar'ri and Baatezu are the products of magical bioengineering, basically ancient munchkins/murderhobos gone wild with the combat enhancements. There used to be a lot more of them but now 99% are perma-dead and the Blood War is potentially close to resolution.

If I did include a Solar/Planetar faction in-game it would be with the deliberate goal of making them morally ambiguous. E.g. benevolent but also overprotective of their charges, like Jack Brennan the Protector. Sure it's great to have someone powerful looking out for you, but what if they're not so protective of your nonhuman friends, and see those friends as an unacceptable, potential, threat to you? Conflict!

[kazaryu]

I'd massively beef up the base Solar as well, with e.g. 20th level spellcasting off the combined cleric + celestial warlock spell lists, at-will Cure Wounds like a Radiant Idol, some form of immortality. I don't necessarily need a Solar that's tougher in a fight, but I need one that has more versatility and is more magically impressive, better suited to taking a role in a campaign.


Eh. I mea. The only change that id make for sure to a solar is making their statblovk.narratively congruent.

Like, youre telling me they can kust..make their sword an animated sword...but dont then have a sidearm to fall back on? Get outta here with that. Give 'em a shield and a longsword. Now they can fight in melee as a sword and board. Or do the boring theyre supposed to do and send out their flying longsword before backimg up for longbow attacks. Either way the fact that they have to give up their multiattack in order to use thenflying longsword is annoying

[MaxWilson]

Eh. I mea. The only change that id make for sure to a solar is making their statblovk.narratively congruent.

Like, youre telling me they can kust..make their sword an animated sword...but dont then have a sidearm to fall back on? Get outta here with that. Give 'em a shield and a longsword. Now they can fight in melee as a sword and board. Or do the boring theyre supposed to do and send out their flying longsword before backimg up for longbow attacks. Either way the fact that they have to give up their multiattack in order to use thenflying longsword is annoying

Having no longbow Multiattack option or sidearm is annoying, yes, but I'm far more annoyed by things like them not having access to the same spells that they are able to grant to warlocks. 5E Solars can't even cast Plane Shift, really? [eyeroll]

Also, Healing Touch should be a Legendary Action option, and they should be immune to nonmagical weapons. For comparison, the AD&D Solar has the highest-possible grade of weapons immunity: immunity to weapons under +5. 5E Solar only has resistance to nonmagical weapons--there's no way I'm not beefing that up.

[Keravath]

oh wow, i'd actually glossed over this in my first read through.
so first, a forcecage used like this can absolutely be climbed. there's a half inch gap between the bars, and zariel has a 27 str. plenty enough to hold herself above the wall for an extended period of time.
second, a medium creature can squeeze into an area half their size. and considering you're cheesing the rules to get a larger effective size for your wall of light (i.e. straddling the wall of light between 2 squares in order to take up both) its only fair that the DM can cheese the rules and let zariel squeeze up against the bars to stay out of the wall of light.

thank you for pointing that out to me. ^.^

If you are using a simulacrum anyway then both of you could cast wall of light which would completely fill the volume of the forcecage ... using an everysmoking bottle for obscurement.

It's still doable I guess but the hard part is trapping her. However, IF your DM was unaware of the spells you had and had not thought about it then they are likely to play Zariel as over confident and aggressive. "What can a level 13 character possibly do that could harm ME?" Zariel is a devil lord ... an archduke ... CR23. Over confidence against weak opponents is likely a part of her nature unless she has seen others try to do this previously.

So the order would probably be ... try to engage Zariel from a distance so that she spends most of her turn moving into range. Simulacrum casts fog cloud 100' radius using a 6th level slot on Zariel (which shuts down her teleport). Character casts forcecage on Zariel (or vice versa). Next round character sets up eversmoking bottle within 60' of Zariel - at which point the fog cloud isn't needed. Both character and simulacrum withdraw to 120'. Both cast Wall of light - one filling one half of the forcecage and the other covering the other half so that the entire volume is filled with the wall. They both then dimension door away and wait for her to die.

[Sigreid]

If you are using a simulacrum anyway then both of you could cast wall of light which would completely fill the volume of the forcecage ... using an everysmoking bottle for obscurement.

It's still doable I guess but the hard part is trapping her. However, IF your DM was unaware of the spells you had and had not thought about it then they are likely to play Zariel as over confident and aggressive. "What can a level 13 character possibly do that could harm ME?" Zariel is a devil lord ... an archduke ... CR23. Over confidence against weak opponents is likely a part of her nature unless she has seen others try to do this previously.

So the order would probably be ... try to engage Zariel from a distance so that she spends most of her turn moving into range. Simulacrum casts fog cloud 100' radius using a 6th level slot on Zariel (which shuts down her teleport). Character casts forcecage on Zariel (or vice versa). Next round character sets up eversmoking bottle within 60' of Zariel - at which point the fog cloud isn't needed. Both character and simulacrum withdraw to 120'. Both cast Wall of light - one filling one half of the forcecage and the other covering the other half so that the entire volume is filled with the wall. They both then dimension door away and wait for her to die.

Ok, if you ignore that she's a battle hardened warrior with literally millennia of experience fighting a cunning super genius led army of super tough psychopaths.

[MaxWilson]

If you are using a simulacrum anyway then both of you could cast wall of light which would completely fill the volume of the forcecage ... using an everysmoking bottle for obscurement.

Or just both cast Dawn, which is save-for-half instead of save-for-none and fills the whole volume of the forcecage, and doesn't require you to get within her javelin range. (You cast it 60' away and then move it onto her with your bonus action.)

[Keravath]

Or just both cast Dawn, which is save-for-half instead of save-for-none and fills the whole volume of the forcecage, and doesn't require you to get within her javelin range. (You cast it 60' away and then move it onto her with your bonus action.)

Wall of Light has no save after the first round. If you are in it you automatically take 4d8 radiant with no save.

Dawn is a much bigger area though and does 4d10 save for 1/2. It only lasts 1 minute.

Average damage would be 22. Con save for 1/2 is 11 damage. DC would typically be 18 with 20 int at level 13. Her con save is +9 so she should save 1/2 the time resulting in a average of 16.5 damage typically. This is halved due to her resistance to radiant to 8.25 x 10 rounds is 82.5 damage. She has 580 hit points so Dawn would need to be cast consecutively 8 times (7 isn't quite enough). However, a level 13 caster and their simulacrum, after using a 7th level slot for forcecage only have 7 slots of 5th level or higher. Dawn doesn't benefit from upcasting.

So the two Wall of Light spells which last 10 minutes each (and can be upcast, and do automatic no save damage) are still probably the better option. Wall of Light also has a 120' range.

[MaxWilson]

Wall of Light has no save after the first round. If you are in it you automatically take 4d8 radiant with no save.

Dawn is a much bigger area though and does 4d10 save for 1/2. It only lasts 1 minute.

Average damage would be 22. Con save for 1/2 is 11 damage. DC would typically be 18 with 20 int at level 13. Her con save is +9 so she should save 1/2 the time resulting in a average of 16.5 damage typically. This is halved due to her resistance to radiant to 8.25 x 10 rounds is 82.5 damage. She has 580 hit points so Dawn would need to be cast consecutively 8 times (7 isn't quite enough). However, a level 13 caster and their simulacrum, after using a 7th level slot for forcecage only have 7 slots of 5th level or higher. Dawn doesn't benefit from upcasting.

So the two Wall of Light spells which last 10 minutes each (and can be upcast, and do automatic no save damage) are still probably the better option. Wall of Light also has a 120' range.

Good call, you're right--two Walls of Light is clearly better than two Dawns even if she can avoid intersecting one of the walls. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote that. Thanks for correcting my obvious blunder.

[Keravath]

Ok, if you ignore that she's a battle hardened warrior with literally millennia of experience fighting a cunning super genius led army of super tough psychopaths.

I agree. The problem is really that she is vulnerable to such a simple combination of spells/situations.

Consider that both demons and devils likely have wizards as servants/thralls/employees/followers. Zariel can NEVER allow a couple of wizards to get within 100' feet of her or one will obscure her vision (fog cloud, eversmoking bottle, illusion (or permanent illusion), wish, blindness ... lots more ways) and the other will forcecage her ... and the rest is history. The only way she can ever enter ANY battle is to have an overwhelming number of minions who can dispel magic and frequently come to her rescue.

Honestly, with a vulnerability like this Zariel should have died millennia ago (lore or not). This is ONE option that is actually available to a single level 13 character and only requires 2 spell slots, a simulacrum, and an eversmoking bottle (or even a dense fog or anything else that causes the terrain to be heavily obscured).

If Zariel is aware of this weakness then she will have to act like an incredibly cowardly fiendish archduke. She can't let any mages within 100', can't ever enter a heavily obscured area if there is a remote possibility of a mage being around somewhere. She also can't even see them if they are invisible. All anyone needs to do to avoid being attacked by her is upcast a fog cloud since she can never safely enter that area.

In addition, as characters progress in levels there are a many more ways that could be used to defeat Zariel. Different combinations of spells. Even a party of 13th level characters with the correct spells and a bit of luck could defeat Zariel using these weaknesses. What is even more of an issue is that the same techniques could be used on almost ANY of the major demons and devils. Some of the creatures have truesight which would make it more difficult for creatures to invisibly sneak up on them. However, any of them that can teleport all require the ability to see where they are going.

ANY of the demon or devil lords can be trapped in a forcecage with no save. The forcecage can be heavily obscured any number of ways preventing them from teleporting out and then two characters casting Wall of Light will finish off ANY of the demons or devils within 10 minutes. Most aren't resistant to radiant damage and in all cases radiant damage shuts down their regeneration.

Most of them also do NOT have movement as one of their legendary actions. If movement was a legendary action it gets much more difficult to trap them but for most teleporting is the only legendary action that can be used to change the position of the creature.

Given this, mortals should have wiped out all of the demon and devil lords ages ago. A 17th level wizard - timestop - move into position, open eversmoking bottle, cast forcecage, move to 120', cast wall of light ... friend or simulacrum also casts wall of light, dimension door to safe distance and wait 10 minutes. This would work on almost ANY of these creatures. RAW, I think all of this works fine.

Lore wise, since they aren't all dead, then they either have so many minions with them all the time that they are NEVER alone that a party would never be able to encounter a devil or demon lord in such a vulnerable situation where the tactic could work. Alternatively, the monster stat blocks are incomplete and they have an ability that would allow them to escape such a trap (i.e. WotC introduced such great demon/devil killing spells like Wall of Light and Dawn that they did not consider how easy these spells would make it to kill these creatures if you could hold them in one place ... which now requires a change to the monster stat blocks to prevent this from working ... or these devil/demon lords won't last long).

P.S. A level 15 character 13 wizard/2 fighter can trap her in a single round. Fog cloud, action surge, forcecage. After that, 2 wall of light spells from any sources (other characters, simulacrum etc) will finish her off. Most tier 3 parties can manage this and unless she has an overwhelming number of minions who just happen to be able to get rid of the obscuration, she won't survive.


P.P.S. Zariel is a genius, millennia old devil, she should know all her weaknesses. However, this is D&D and I can guarantee that unless the DM running Zariel has read this thread the odds are actually fairly good that the DM will walk into the trap. The DM won't often realize the extreme risk represented by heavily obscured terrain in this case. Consider a party rolling initiative. There are a couple of wizards (who are aware of the tactics they want to use and the DM is not), a cleric, a paladin and a fighter. Often DMs would use Zariel as a solo boss mob since she has a CR rating of 23, lots of damaging abilities and legendary actions. Once the fog cloud is up the DM is very likely to have Zariel run in to attack one of the party members. Another character opens up the eversmoking bottle (the DM wonders why they bother but sure go ahead) and then the other wizard casts force cage. Now it is too late, the next round the wizards drop two wall of light on Zariel in the forcecage and less than 10 minutes later the encounter is over and Zariel is dead (and likely all the PCs survived). That's honestly how I think it would play out at least 7 times out of 10 if the DM is not aware of the vulnerability.

[Mith]

I agree. The problem is really that she is vulnerable to such a simple combination of spells/situations.

Consider that both demons and devils likely have wizards as servants/thralls/employees/followers. Zariel can NEVER allow a couple of wizards to get within 100' feet of her or one will obscure her vision (fog cloud, eversmoking bottle, illusion (or permanent illusion), wish, blindness ... lots more ways) and the other will forcecage her ... and the rest is history. The only way she can ever enter ANY battle is to have an overwhelming number of minions who can dispel magic and frequently come to her rescue.

Honestly, with a vulnerability like this Zariel should have died millennia ago (lore or not). This is ONE option that is actually available to a single level 13 character and only requires 2 spell slots, a simulacrum, and an eversmoking bottle (or even a dense fog or anything else that causes the terrain to be heavily obscured).

If Zariel is aware of this weakness then she will have to act like an incredibly cowardly fiendish archduke. She can't let any mages within 100', can't ever enter a heavily obscured area if there is a remote possibility of a mage being around somewhere. She also can't even see them if they are invisible. All anyone needs to do to avoid being attacked by her is upcast a fog cloud since she can never safely enter that area.

In addition, as characters progress in levels there are a many more ways that could be used to defeat Zariel. Different combinations of spells. Even a party of 13th level characters with the correct spells and a bit of luck could defeat Zariel using these weaknesses. What is even more of an issue is that the same techniques could be used on almost ANY of the major demons and devils. Some of the creatures have truesight which would make it more difficult for creatures to invisibly sneak up on them. However, any of them that can teleport all require the ability to see where they are going.

ANY of the demon or devil lords can be trapped in a forcecage with no save. The forcecage can be heavily obscured any number of ways preventing them from teleporting out and then two characters casting Wall of Light will finish off ANY of the demons or devils within 10 minutes. Most aren't resistant to radiant damage and in all cases radiant damage shuts down their regeneration.

Most of them also do NOT have movement as one of their legendary actions. If movement was a legendary action it gets much more difficult to trap them but for most teleporting is the only legendary action that can be used to change the position of the creature.

Given this, mortals should have wiped out all of the demon and devil lords ages ago. A 17th level wizard - timestop - move into position, open eversmoking bottle, cast forcecage, move to 120', cast wall of light ... friend or simulacrum also casts wall of light, dimension door to safe distance and wait 10 minutes. This would work on almost ANY of these creatures. RAW, I think all of this works fine.

Lore wise, since they aren't all dead, then they either have so many minions with them all the time that they are NEVER alone that a party would never be able to encounter a devil or demon lord in such a vulnerable situation where the tactic could work. Alternatively, the monster stat blocks are incomplete and they have an ability that would allow them to escape such a trap (i.e. WotC introduced such great demon/devil killing spells like Wall of Light and Dawn that they did not consider how easy these spells would make it to kill these creatures if you could hold them in one place ... which now requires a change to the monster stat blocks to prevent this from working ... or these devil/demon lords won't last long).

P.S. A level 15 character 13 wizard/2 fighter can trap her in a single round. Fog cloud, action surge, forcecage. After that, 2 wall of light spells from any sources (other characters, simulacrum etc) will finish her off. Most tier 3 parties can manage this and unless she has an overwhelming number of minions who just happen to be able to get rid of the obscuration, she won't survive.


P.P.S. Zariel is a genius, millennia old devil, she should know all her weaknesses. However, this is D&D and I can guarantee that unless the DM running Zariel has read this thread the odds are actually fairly good that the DM will walk into the trap. The DM won't often realize the extreme risk represented by heavily obscured terrain in this case. Consider a party rolling initiative. There are a couple of wizards (who are aware of the tactics they want to use and the DM is not), a cleric, a paladin and a fighter. Often DMs would use Zariel as a solo boss mob since she has a CR rating of 23, lots of damaging abilities and legendary actions. Once the fog cloud is up the DM is very likely to have Zariel run in to attack one of the party members. Another character opens up the eversmoking bottle (the DM wonders why they bother but sure go ahead) and then the other wizard casts force cage. Now it is too late, the next round the wizards drop two wall of light on Zariel in the forcecage and less than 10 minutes later the encounter is over and Zariel is dead (and likely all the PCs survived). That's honestly how I think it would play out at least 7 times out of 10 if the DM is not aware of the vulnerability.

This does change the statblock majorly, but what comes to my mind reading this thread:

1) If in Avernus, Zariel as archduke of the plane can just will the terrain to change within certain parameters (ex. 9th level Wall of Stone) as a reflection of the plane being an extension of her will. To deal with Magical containment, I would like the idea that all high level supernatural creatures can attack arcane barriers (shatter a Wall of Force with a single blow), even make that a Legendary Action. Something that functions like Dispel Magic, but functions like a martial character would.

Plus, I don't know why she doesn't have True Sight.

Perhaps this adds too much to Zariel, but I am trying to think of someone who would survive a rather low tier threat at the level they operate at.

[MaxWilson]

P.P.S. Zariel is a genius, millennia old devil, she should know all her weaknesses. However, this is D&D and I can guarantee that unless the DM running Zariel has read this thread the odds are actually fairly good that the DM will walk into the trap. The DM won't often realize the extreme risk represented by heavily obscured terrain in this case. Consider a party rolling initiative. There are a couple of wizards (who are aware of the tactics they want to use and the DM is not), a cleric, a paladin and a fighter. Often DMs would use Zariel as a solo boss mob since she has a CR rating of 23, lots of damaging abilities and legendary actions. Once the fog cloud is up the DM is very likely to have Zariel run in to attack one of the party members. Another character opens up the eversmoking bottle (the DM wonders why they bother but sure go ahead) and then the other wizard casts force cage. Now it is too late, the next round the wizards drop two wall of light on Zariel in the forcecage and less than 10 minutes later the encounter is over and Zariel is dead (and likely all the PCs survived). That's honestly how I think it would play out at least 7 times out of 10 if the DM is not aware of the vulnerability.

I would bet that in most cases the DM just has her teleport out, deliberately or accidentally ignoring the "to a space she can see" limitation. It's not exactly intuitive that Fog Cloud should block teleportation.

[Eldariel]

Having no longbow Multiattack option or sidearm is annoying, yes, but I'm far more annoyed by things like them not having access to the same spells that they are able to grant to warlocks. 5E Solars can't even cast Plane Shift, really? [eyeroll]

Also, Healing Touch should be a Legendary Action option, and they should be immune to nonmagical weapons. For comparison, the AD&D Solar has the highest-possible grade of weapons immunity: immunity to weapons under +5. 5E Solar only has resistance to nonmagical weapons--there's no way I'm not beefing that up.

Solars are at least semi-decent with the Legendary Teleport. Pit Fiends and Balors are the true travesty (let alone the lesser devils). Back in the olden days Pit Fiends at least had a solid 20ish SLAs for intrigue, all-day misdirection, varied combat prowess, etc. Now they can't even teleport (and how the teleport has fallen; used to be Teleport without Error at will so anywhere at any point without LoS or such making Dimensional Lock necessary). Now, lesser devils are even dumber: they can't even cast spells. Some of them throw fire as their ranged attacks. Most are pure melee beasts with no social skills and no magic. For creatures supposedly signing contracts, slowly beguiling mortals, having plans within plans, master lawyers, selling forbidden powe, they're just...god, wtf. And Balors and Pit Fiends and Solars all lack Legendary Resistance. The greatest non-specific beings in the heavens and hells. Clearly these guys are not Warlock patrons of any kind.

And yeah, having only "magic/non-magic" in this game without even 3e-level "epic/non-epic" level of granularity makes DR kinda silly. And the fact that every attack penetrates DR requiring immunity to truly matter. Speaking of which, DR always halving damage is kind of a bummer in this sense too. Narratively the creatures being immune to mundane weapons (or resistant enough that your average soldiers can't meaningfully hurt the dragon/demon/whatever) actually makes it much more logical that even states defer to the PCs (and other individuals of vast power) frequently enough to keep adventurers employed. And in a game designed for small bands of adventurers changing the world, that's precisely what you want.


Also, one tool we do have available that hasn't been considered yet is Contingency. Contingency Dimension Door or whatever to close the distance can save one action in this situation. Of course, I prefer saving my Contingency for defensive use if possible but in this case it may be worth exploring whether you can conserve some resources that way. In this edition it's restrictive enough that you can't Fog Cloud your location since it doesn't target you but I'm wondering if an equivalent exists.

[TheUser]

Sacred flame ignoring cover allows for an Evocation Wizard to pick up magic initiate and if they glyph of warding a mordekainen's sanctum and get off a dome shaped wall of force the fights is over.

Both you and your simulacrum guaranteed deal 6 total radiant damage per round (after resistance) and you have 100 rounds to blast away at her.

[MaxWilson]

Solars are at least semi-decent with the Legendary Teleport. Pit Fiends and Balors are the true travesty (let alone the lesser devils). Back in the olden days Pit Fiends at least had a solid 20ish SLAs for intrigue, all-day misdirection, varied combat prowess, etc. Now they can't even teleport (and how the teleport has fallen; used to be Teleport without Error at will so anywhere at any point without LoS or such making Dimensional Lock necessary). Now, lesser devils are even dumber: they can't even cast spells. Some of them throw fire as their ranged attacks. Most are pure melee beasts with no social skills and no magic. For creatures supposedly signing contracts, slowly beguiling mortals, having plans within plans, master lawyers, selling forbidden powe, they're just...god, wtf. And Balors and Pit Fiends and Solars all lack Legendary Resistance. The greatest non-specific beings in the heavens and hells. Clearly these guys are not Warlock patrons of any kind.

Oh, I agree that Pit Fiends and Abishai are sorely lacking in their old at-will spells like Teleport Without Error, Advanced Illusion, Animate Dead, etc., plus regeneration. I think the Solar is a bigger tragedy because they used to be far, far tougher than Pit Fiends or pretty much anything else in the game except e.g. Greater Titans (which don't even have stats and are not subject to aggression from non-divine beings) and Stellar Dragons (which are literally millions of feet long at the high end). But maybe we can agree that all of these are tragic nerfs and ought to be reversed. : )

I don't know what an SLA is but I assume it's a 3E thing. Oh, wait, I just got it--you mean "spell-like ability." Dimension Lock still sounds like a 3E thing though.


And yeah, having only "magic/non-magic" in this game without even 3e-level "epic/non-epic" level of granularity makes DR kinda silly. And the fact that every attack penetrates DR requiring immunity to truly matter. Speaking of which, DR always halving damage is kind of a bummer in this sense too. Narratively the creatures being immune to mundane weapons (or resistant enough that your average soldiers can't meaningfully hurt the dragon/demon/whatever) actually makes it much more logical that even states defer to the PCs (and other individuals of vast power) frequently enough to keep adventurers employed. And in a game designed for small bands of adventurers changing the world, that's precisely what you want.

Agreed, agreed. Also the fact that in 5E, arrows shot from magical bows count as magical attacks for purposes of damaging weapon-immune creatures--you don't even have to close to melee range! And don't get me started on 5E golems and how vulnerable they are to magic of every description.

[kazaryu]

Sacred flame ignoring cover allows for an Evocation Wizard to pick up magic initiate and if they glyph of warding a mordekainen's sanctum and get off a dome shaped wall of force the fights is over.

Both you and your simulacrum guaranteed deal 6 total radiant damage per round (after resistance) and you have 100 rounds to blast away at her.

Nah, youd need what...50 rounds to kill her doing that? She'll smack you around with her wall spells/immolating gaze long before that

[kazaryu]

Oh, I agree that Pit Fiends and Abishai are sorely lacking in their old at-will spells like Teleport Without Error, Advanced Illusion, Animate Dead, etc., plus regeneration. I think the Solar is a bigger tragedy because they used to be far, far tougher than Pit Fiends or pretty much anything else in the game except e.g. Greater Titans (which don't even have stats and are not subject to aggression from non-divine beings) and Stellar Dragons (which are literally millions of feet long at the high end). But maybe we can agree that all of these are tragic nerfs and ought to be reversed. : )


I mean, tbf solars are still an extremely difficult fight if played intelligently. The problem.is theyre also *super* boring if played like that.

In fact, in some ways solars are a tougher fight than zariel (in particular the fact that they actually have truesight, so things like greater invis dont actually help all that much)

[Eldariel]

Oh, I agree that Pit Fiends and Abishai are sorely lacking in their old at-will spells like Teleport Without Error, Advanced Illusion, Animate Dead, etc., plus regeneration. I think the Solar is a bigger tragedy because they used to be far, far tougher than Pit Fiends or pretty much anything else in the game except e.g. Greater Titans (which don't even have stats and are not subject to aggression from non-divine beings) and Stellar Dragons (which are literally millions of feet long at the high end). But maybe we can agree that all of these are tragic nerfs and ought to be reversed. : )

I don't know what an SLA is but I assume it's a 3E thing. Oh, wait, I just got it--you mean "spell-like ability." Dimension Lock still sounds like a 3E thing though.

Dimensional Lock was a spell in 3e: an 8th level spell that basically Dimensional Anchored a small area without save (20' radius emanation I recall). Was good for the 3e Forcecage trap. Of course, since everything worth trapping could also Dispel, that wasn't all that. My lingo was heavily 3eified with over a decade of playing that edition (still do, incidentally).

But yeah, I agree, Solars were and have always been the ultimate Outsider (outside things that rarely get statted). Incidentally, I kinda like what 4e did with angels in that it made them divine messengers for all kinds of deities; thus no heavenly host alone but angels of all persuasion. Of course, that works less well for producing things like the Erinyes in general, and something like Zariel specifically, since there's nothing special in fallen angels if evil angels exist by default. So perhaps I don't like it but still, it was a nice attempt at introducing variety to what all the Outsiders present.


Agreed, agreed. Also the fact that in 5E, arrows shot from magical bows count as magical attacks for purposes of damaging weapon-immune creatures--you don't even have to close to melee range! And don't get me started on 5E golems and how vulnerable they are to magic of every description.

Agreed. Oh man, 5e Golems, that's just sad. I can't even begin to imagine why they'd have to lose their magic immunity - that was the one thing Golems had going on for them (convenient for their owner-Mage to AOE in their location with impunity and heal/whatever their thingy while at it)! You'd think if your Wizard wanted to construct some muscle they'd do so in a way that synergises with their own ability set. In general, this ties into the bigger problem, which is that 5e Magic Resistance is kinda stupid: all spells that use attack rolls just ignore it and it applies equally to a level 1 and level 9 spell. And let's not get started on Legendary Resistance.

And yeah, the bow thingy also: magic arrows were also special back in the day. And rare. Things like Bard's black arrow from the Hobbit just don't work if your generic bows already turn mundane arrows into rainbows.

[kazaryu]

And yeah, the bow thingy also: magic arrows were also special back in the day. And rare. Things like Bard's black arrow from the Hobbit just don't work if your generic bows already turn mundane arrows into rainbows.

i mean....



Ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an enhancement bonus of +1 or higher is treated as a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Similarly, ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an alignment gains the alignment of that projectile weapon (in addition to any alignment it may already have).


now, granted thats 3.5 not 3e, so its possible that it changed going from 3e to 3.5....

but even with that, the 'black' arrow was obviously not just a +1 arrow (or even a +3 arrow). it didn't *just* overcome smaugs damage immunity. it allowed Bard to hit, with pinpoint accuracy, a single missing scale on the chest of a flying creature, at a long distance away. again, the black arrow is obviously more than just 'magical for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction'. which you can absolutely do in 5e.its enchantment would probably be something like 'this arrow provides a +3 to hit/damage. additionally, when you fire this arrow, you may designate a target. you have advantage on your next attack roll against this target, ignore cover and range penalties to hit. and if the arrow hits that target [insert either like, extra damage, or possibly just an instant kill after a save? some kind of effect to match what happens int he story]. you cannot do this again until the following dawn [or whatever time scale you want].

[MaxWilson]

Agreed. Oh man, 5e Golems, that's just sad. I can't even begin to imagine why they'd have to lose their magic immunity - that was the one thing Golems had going on for them (convenient for their owner-Mage to AOE in their location with impunity and heal/whatever their thingy while at it)! You'd think if your Wizard wanted to construct some muscle they'd do so in a way that synergises with their own ability set. In general, this ties into the bigger problem, which is that 5e Magic Resistance is kinda stupid: all spells that use attack rolls just ignore it and it applies equally to a level 1 and level 9 spell. And let's not get started on Legendary Resistance.

Yes, absolutely. I don't even use 5E Legendary Resistance or 5E Magic Resistance--I replace them both with something closer to AD&D Magic Resistance, which simultaneously makes spells like Hold Monster useful instead of pointless against them while also making spells like Maze, Telekinesis, and Wall of Force (not to mention Planar Binding => bunch of minions like Invisible Stalkers or Air Elementals) no longer overpowered against them. Putting all the monster's eggs in the saving throw basket is not good gameplay, especially when it's fairly arbitrary which spells even rely on saving throws vs. attack rolls vs. ability checks.


And yeah, the bow thingy also: magic arrows were also special back in the day. And rare. Things like Bard's black arrow from the Hobbit just don't work if your generic bows already turn mundane arrows into rainbows.

And golem-killing is too easy if you can just keep your distance and fill the golem full of arrows. Or lightning bolts from Call Lightning. Or cantrips.

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


Nah, youd need what...50 rounds to kill her doing that? She'll smack you around with her wall spells/immolating gaze long before that

Besides, Sacred Flame doesn't ignore total cover. It only ignores the saving throw bonus given by partial cover.

[Damon_Tor]

I think the biggest problem with the "lead her to a trap" scenarios is the fact that the DM basically has to go along with it and run the NPC like an idiot for the sake of making your plan work.

She's got mental scores, both Int and Wis, well beyond Super-Human levels. The idea that you can get her to run into the exact correct 20*20 space for your trap to go off is a huge stretch. With Int like hers, and millennia of experience holding on to power among some of the most devious beings in existence, chances are pretty good she has given consideration to the possibility of being led into a trap. She presumably knows what Glyphs of Warding are, and what a Force Cage is, and probably knows that spells like Private Sanctum can be used to foil teleportation. She sees you trying to get her into a 20*20 chokepoint chances are good she knows exactly what you're trying to do. She could spot the Glyphs with a few tries at an investigation check, taking her maybe 18 seconds seconds with her +8 check against your 18-21 spell DC. At that point she can just go another way, disarm the glyph by moving it 10 feet, or at-will teleport right past your trap.

[MaxWilson]

I think the biggest problem with the "lead her to a trap" scenarios is the fact that the DM basically has to go along with it and run the NPC like an idiot for the sake of making your plan work.

She's got mental scores, both Int and Wis, well beyond Super-Human levels. The idea that you can get her to run into the exact correct 20*20 space for your trap to go off is a huge stretch. With Int like hers, and millennia of experience holding on to power among some of the most devious beings in existence, chances are pretty good she has given consideration to the possibility of being led into a trap. She presumably knows what Glyphs of Warding are, and what a Force Cage is, and probably knows that spells like Private Sanctum can be used to foil teleportation. She sees you trying to get her into a 20*20 chokepoint chances are good she knows exactly what you're trying to do. She could spot the Glyphs with a few tries at an investigation check, taking her maybe 18 seconds seconds with her +8 check against your 18-21 spell DC. At that point she can just go another way, disarm the glyph by moving it 10 feet, or at-will teleport right past your trap.

She can't necessarily move the glyph or teleport past it--it depends on the geometry of the cave or building it's in, but a twisty tunnel or even a simple door would prevent it. She has to teleport to the door in order to open the door, can't teleport through it.

On the one hand though, you're not wrong about your main point: the OP's scenario of a 1v1 is already pretty unrealistic, and expecting Zariel to actually fight you in that 1:1 instead of grabbing at least a couple of bodyguards is unrealistic for a creature steeped in thousands of years of paranoia, bureaucratic infighting, and actual murderous fighting against powerful demons. Why would she even do that?

On the other hand, a lot of D&D becomes less fun if enemies act realistically paranoid about risking their lives. Nobody wants to play a game where a typical session goes:

(1) PCs encounter six orcs, kill four with a fireball and Divine Smite, two more scatter and PCs bring one down while the other one escapes.

(2) PCs encounter six more orcs, who immediately flee. PCs kill two of them while fleeing.

(3) PCs encounter an abandoned position formerly held by orcs. Defuse a tripwire left behind.

(4) PCs encounter a pair of orc sentries who flee immediately.

(5) PCs get hammered flat by thirty orcs, four Orogs, and a hill giant.

Even if you're the kind of person who enjoys part #5 (I do! even when I lose horribly) you're probably still not the kind of person who enjoys playing through encounters 1-3 first. It's boring. Move #5 up to #2 or #3.

In practice I suspect a lot of Zariels at a lot of tables are played with maximum arrogance, not played with maximum paranoia. So if someone says "I killed Zariel at level 13" I'm not necessarily going to conclude that they're lying unless and until I hear the story of how it was done.

[kazaryu]

Oh no....max i just realized. The minimum size of trap youd need to pull of the hounds thing is 3x3...and becuase zariel can become a medium creature at will, theres no way to arrange the dogs to keep all there (or technically even 1) in range...since the dogs need to be summoned before she shrinks

[MaxWilson]

Oh no....max i just realized. The minimum size of trap youd need to pull of the hounds thing is 3x3...and becuase zariel can become a medium creature at will, theres no way to arrange the dogs to keep all there (or technically even 1) in range...since the dogs need to be summoned before she shrinks

What if you just make the doorway/tunnel medium-sized in the first place?

Edit: obviously you keep shooting Magic Missiles or whatever you can do to give her a sense of urgency. Maybe even Polymorph into a small monkey and make the doorway Small-sized instead, as if you don't realize she can become Medium and then squeeze into a Small space. (Yes, I know technically by RAW Small and Medium are the same but that's dumb.) You want her to feel that she'll be missing an opportunity if she fails to give chase.

Edit2: technically the hounds don't even say they occupy *their* space either (nor even what size category that space would be) so potentially you could just make the Wall of Force 10' across, exactly Zariel's size, and stack the hounds on her space, which means she can't get away by shrinking, but that is also dumb and I won't rely on dumb cheese.

Edit3: if you're willing to overkill with additional hounds you can also set up 9 hounds around perimeter where Zariel will be, which if I'm doing my math right leaves her always within range of at least 4 of them. If you had 10 hounds in a cube it would be five, but Wall of Force isn't a cube, it's a sphere. You'd need to Glyph the additional hounds or use magic items or else go back to 13th level and have your Simulacrum cast half of them, instead of doing it at 10th level.

[kazaryu]

What if you just make the doorway/tunnel medium-sized in the first place?

Edit: obviously you keep shooting Magic Missiles or whatever you can do to give her a sense of urgency. Maybe even Polymorph into a small monkey and make the doorway Small-sized instead, as if you don't realize she can become Medium and then squeeze into a Small space. (Yes, I know technically by RAW Small and Medium are the same but that's dumb.) You want her to feel that she'll be missing an opportunity if she fails to give chase.

Edit2: technically the hounds don't even say they occupy *their* space either so you could just make the Wall of Force 10' across, exactly Zariel's size, and stack the hounds on her space, but that is also dumb and I won't rely on dumb cheese.

Right, but in such a small corridor you can only get 2 hounds in range at a time, and shes not gonna stay medium any longer than she needs to, she wants her concentration open.

[MaxWilson]

Right, but in such a small corridor you can only get 2 hounds in range at a time, and shes not gonna stay medium any longer than she needs to, she wants her concentration open.

Why only two? I make it three. Excuse my crude ASCII art: the trap is sprung at a tunnel crossing. S is the spherical Wall of Force, 15' in diameter. The glyph is set to go off centered on the middle hound, shunting Zariel to the inside of the sphere and leaving her trapped in there with them. Z is the positions she can legally occupy, both of which are within range of all three hounds.T is empty tunnel space showing the crossing.



T
T
S
SHS
TTSZHZSTTTT
SHS
S
T
T
T

Edit: grrrr, GITP messed up my ASCII spacing. Hopefully you get the idea anyway.

[JackPhoenix]

Why only two? I make it three. Excuse my crude ASCII art: the trap is sprung at a tunnel crossing. S is the spherical Wall of Force, 15' in diameter. The glyph is set to go off centered on the middle hound, shunting Zariel to the inside of the sphere and leaving her trapped in there with them. Z is the positions she can legally occupy, both of which are within range of all three hounds.T is empty tunnel space showing the crossing.

Problem is that the hounds will helpfully inform Zariel there's a trap the moment she steps within 30' of them.

Also, it would have to be room rather than a tunnel crossing, as the corners would prevent the WoF from being created.

[MaxWilson]

Problem is that the hounds will helpfully inform Zariel there's a trap the moment she steps within 30' of them.

Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum can be set up to block sound but not be visible.


Also, it would have to be room rather than a tunnel crossing, as the corners would prevent the WoF from being created.

Since when? If the ground is intended to block Wall of Force creation, why doesn't the spell say so, and what's the point of the spherical option?

[kazaryu]

Why only two? I make it three. Excuse my crude ASCII art: the trap is sprung at a tunnel crossing. S is the spherical Wall of Force, 15' in diameter. The glyph is set to go off centered on the middle hound, shunting Zariel to the inside of the sphere and leaving her trapped in there with them. Z is the positions she can legally occupy, both of which are within range of all three hounds.T is empty tunnel space showing the crossing.



T
T
S
SHS
TTSZHZSTTTT
SHS
S
T
T
T

Edit: grrrr, GITP messed up my ASCII spacing. Hopefully you get the idea anyway.

Sure, but that wof isnt spherical, its oblong. If it were sperical theres nothing stopping her from stepping up or down, out of range of the 3rd dog (obviously ignoring that the dm would beed to let you summon a wof that overlaps with walls)

Theres also what i.mentioned, that as soon as she entered an area like that that was large enough to fit her theres no reason she wouldnt immediately grow to full size. Which would likely occurs before the trap is triggered

[MaxWilson]

Sure, but that wof isnt spherical, its oblong. If it were sperical theres nothing stopping her from stepping up or down, out of range of the 3rd dog (obviously ignoring that the dm would beed to let you summon a wof that overlaps with walls)

Theres also what i.mentioned, that as soon as she entered an area like that that was large enough to fit her theres no reason she wouldnt immediately grow to full size. Which would likely occurs before the trap is triggered

Apparently my ASCII art isn't clear, which maybe isn't surprising. There is no 10' x 10' space in the area, just two 3' - 5' tunnels crossing each other. The crossing is not big enough for her to grow to full size anywhere, and there are only two places for her to stand (one of them on the other side of the middle dog, so she'd have to Overrun the dog to get there via DMG rules). The 15' sphere is centered on the middle dog so there is literally nowhere she can stand or fly that's 10' away from any dog.

Also, if you did want to avoid her growing to full size but you wanted a big area, you'd just find a spot where the tunnel widens then quickly narrows again, because who wants to release Alter Self just to recast it again six seconds later? but I'm not relying on that.

[kazaryu]

Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum can be set up to block sound but not be visible

And then suddenly she stops being able to hear your movement? Thus, once again alerting her that something is extra fishy


Problem is that the hounds will helpfully inform Zariel there's a trap the moment she steps within 30' of them.
.

Everything is bound to glyphs of warding. The hounds dont exist until thebwhole trap fires

[kazaryu]

Apparently my ASCII art isn't clear, which maybe isn't surprising. There is no 10' x 10' space in the area, just two 3' - 5' tunnels crossing each other. The crossing is not big enough for her to grow to full size anywhere, and there are only two places for her to stand (one of them on the other side of the middle dog, so she'd have to Overrun the dog to get there via DMG rules). The 15' sphere is centered on the middle dog so there is literally nowhere she can stand or fly that's 10' away from any dog.



Ok, that makes more sense. But now she has *at least* 1/2 cover possibly even 3/4 cover from the dogs.

1/2 cover brings you down to a total of 120 hits (that already includes the crits)

And 3/4 cover isnt even worth recalculating, because it reduces hit rate to being....basically the same as with 2 dogs (slightly less)

[Damon_Tor]

You could be a moon druid, turn into an Earth elemantal, grapple her, then earthglide her into a handy rock formation. No LOS, no teleportation. Leave her butt sticking out so you can set a bronze teakettle on it then cast Heat Metal. Eeeeeeeeee... Oh dear, my tea!

[kazaryu]

You could be a moon druid, turn into an Earth elemantal, grapple her, then earthglide her into a handy rock formation. No LOS, no teleportation. Leave her butt sticking out so you can set a bronze teakettle on it then cast Heat Metal. Eeeeeeeeee... Oh dear, my tea!

Lol, i understand that your joking, so im not gonna bother explaining all the various reasons that wouldnt work

[MaxWilson]

Ok, that makes more sense. But now she has *at least* 1/2 cover possibly even 3/4 cover from the dogs.

1/2 cover brings you down to a total of 120 hits (that already includes the crits)

And 3/4 cover isnt even worth recalculating, because it reduces hit rate to being....basically the same as with 2 dogs (slightly less)

Round the corners with Mold Earth in advance? It doesn't change the basic geometry so doesn't change the diagram, but you should definitely be able to get it down to less than half cover without making an area large enough for her to grow to full size.

If youv want to be a real jerk you make the sphere only 11' across. I'm not sure exactly what happens in that case--like the partial cover thing it's definitely a matter of how much headache, math, and ad hoc game design your DM is willing to put up with, or if he's willing to just accept the simplification and get on with the game.

Note to JackPhoenix: unlike kazaryu I'm not assuming the hounds have to come from Glyphs. I'm a cheapskate so I'd rather keep the glyphs to a minimum. That's why the silence effect of Private Sanctum is important.

[kazaryu]

Round the corners with Mold Earth in advance? It doesn't change the basic geometry so doesn't change the diagram, but you should definitely be able to get it down to less than half cover without making an area large enough for her to grow to full size.
maybe? definitely getting into individual DM territory here (as you alluded to). but IMO its not unreasonable to require that you shave down a significant chunk just to not have 3/4 cover. in order to get rid of half cover imo your need to remove about half that square. but the problem isn't so much giving her space to grow (although with that much removed she'd have that space. she'd be squeezed in tight, but she'd have the space.) the issue you have is that she can squeeze into a square that is that large, putting her out of range of one of the dogs. its a catch 22. (plz note, these are things that i've actually seen consistently done in real games.).


If youv want to be a real jerk you make the sphere only 11' across. I'm not sure exactly what happens in that case--like the partial cover thing it's definitely a matter of how much headache, math, and ad hoc game design your DM is willing to put up with, or if he's willing to just accept the simplification and get on with the game.


issue with that is that the simplification is 'you only have 3 legal spaces. which means 1 zariel and 2 dogs' although in that case at least you could arrange it so she doesn't have cover from either dog.



Note to JackPhoenix: unlike kazaryu I'm not assuming the hounds have to come from Glyphs. I'm a cheapskate so I'd rather keep the glyphs to a minimum. That's why the silence effect of Private Sanctum is important.

reason i assumed they were all glyphs is that IMO having teh PC suddenly go completely silent as they run would be just as suspicous as having the dogs barking as she approached.


if you're willing to overkill with additional hounds you can also set up 9 hounds around perimeter where Zariel will be, which if I'm doing my math right leaves her always within range of at least 4 of them. If you had 10 hounds in a cube it would be five, but Wall of Force isn't a cube, it's a sphere. You'd need to Glyph the additional hounds or use magic items or else go back to 13th level and have your Simulacrum cast half of them, instead of doing it at 10th level.


would need to be glyphed, at least the ones that are at the area she came in from. otherwise she'd be attacked as she approached and stop before entering the circle. im also not sure where you get the number 9 from. its either 5 (in a 3x3) or 10 (in a 4x4), and you'd need the 4x4 so that you can keep 5 of them in range. any fewer and she has a hole she can slip into to only have 2. fortunbately a 4x4 is the biggest you can get with wall of force too so thats nice.

now you just to solve need the problem of staying in LoS (or more specifically staying with her in Los, and therefore where she can smack you with her walls)



Also, if you did want to avoid her growing to full size but you wanted a big area, you'd just find a spot where the tunnel widens then quickly narrows again, because who wants to release Alter Self just to recast it again six seconds later? but I'm not relying on that.

this imo is the more realistic approach. i agree that if we assume its just a straight shot (roughly) and the tunnel just happens to widen she'd probably not release concentration. but if there are multiple paths she still would.

[JackPhoenix]

Since when? If the ground is intended to block Wall of Force creation, why doesn't the spell say so, and what's the point of the spherical option?

Yeah, my bad, only the panel version seems to require being continuous.

[kazaryu]

Yeah, my bad, only the panel version seems to require being continuous.

I mean, i dont think thats true. Personally i dont think a speherical wof would summon under those conditions. I think the reason it doesnt specify is becuase a spherical dome is already assumed to be connected with itself.

However, considering the other things ive mentiined i dont really think theres any need to worry about that particular. And id imagine that its not an uncommon ruling by dms to allow such a thing, nor do inconsider it particulalry unreasonable to allow

[MaxWilson]

issue with that is that the simplification is 'you only have 3 legal spaces. which means 1 zariel and 2 dogs' although in that case at least you could arrange it so she doesn't have cover from either dog.

Zariel is in a legal space, a dog is in a legal space, and two more dogs are in say 60% of a legal space. What happens? Do the dogs move? Hence why I think this is kind of a jerk move on the player's behalf, but it's kind of jerky for a DM to suddenly start caring about partial cover in melee range too. (For the record, even an unrounded corner doesn't look like 3/4 cover to me. At the very most it's exactly 50%. Shave off a tiny fraction and it's not even half cover--not that corners are perfectly squared 90 degree angles in the first place.)



reason i assumed they were all glyphs is that IMO having teh PC suddenly go completely silent as they run would be just as suspicous as having the dogs barking as she approached.

So she gives up the chase because the PC has an apparent Zone of Silence prepared (or is just really stealthy)? It could happen but it doesn't seem like the only possible reaction. She's not stupid--she's going to be aware of the possibility of traps anyway, and showing off a trap that she's prepared to sneer at ("anti-spellcasting zone of silence to prevent Fireballs? Puh-lease! I'm gonna rip this little weasel apart no matter how many other rodents he tries to hide behind") is not necessarily more suspicious than showing off a "perfectly ordinary empty corridor with nothing in it."

This kind of misdirection works on players too BTW (sometimes) and is great fun when it does work. Remember the weak traps in the Head of Vecna (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/298372/head-vecna)?



would need to be glyphed, at least the ones that are at the area she came in from. otherwise she'd be attacked as she approached and stop before entering the circle. im also not sure where you get the number 9 from. its either 5 (in a 3x3) or 10 (in a 4x4), and you'd need the 4x4 so that you can keep 5 of them in range. any fewer and she has a hole she can slip into to only have 2. fortunbately a 4x4 is the biggest you can get with wall of force too so thats nice.

IIRC 9 was from a BOTE taking a 15' diameter sphere, about 45' in circumference, and dividing by 5' for each hound around the perimeter.

[kazaryu]

sorry, for getting back so late. been a weird week.


Zariel is in a legal space, a dog is in a legal space, and two more dogs are in say 60% of a legal space. What happens? Do the dogs move? Hence why I think this is kind of a jerk move on the player's behalf, but it's kind of jerky for a DM to suddenly start caring about partial cover in melee range too. (For the record, even an unrounded corner doesn't look like 3/4 cover to me. At the very most it's exactly 50%. Shave off a tiny fraction and it's not even half cover--not that corners are perfectly squared 90 degree angles in the first place.)

eh, i mean i do care about cover, generally. whenever it logically applies. its not really a jerk move to consider this to be cover. there's also no implication that the hypothetical DM hasn't cared about such things in teh past.
as for the 11 foot diameter, i'd just (and the simplest thing) to do, would be to set up the tiles in such a way that the walls align with the edges of the 'squares'. since teh squares themselves are just arbitrary anyway.

and then sure. i mean cover is largely up to the DM. personally i would run it as i indicated. particularly because you've got a narrow enough corridor for her to need to shrink down. so its like, 3 feet across. which means teh space you're tyrapping her in is 3x5. mathematically you're going to be cuttin off ~1/4 of the square with the corner.
[quote]
So she gives up the chase because the PC has an apparent Zone of Silence prepared (or is just really stealthy)? It could happen but it doesn't seem like the only possible reaction. She's not stupid--she's going to be aware of the possibility of traps anyway, and showing off a trap that she's prepared to sneer at ("anti-spellcasting zone of silence to prevent Fireballs? Puh-lease! I'm gonna rip this little weasel apart no matter how many other rodents he tries to hide behind") is not necessarily more suspicious than showing off a "perfectly ordinary empty corridor with nothing in it."


not neccisarily give up. i don't believe i ever specifically endorsed that view. however, suddenly going silent, and suddenly having dogs barking both imply a large degree of forthought. and as such are equally suspicous. exactly how suspicous they are would be based on DM. me, personally, would probably not even have zariel chase you into cramped corriodors like that. too obviously a trap. but now thats looping back into 'how do we bait her' which we're just kinda hjandwaving forthe purpose of the excercise.






IIRC 9 was from a BOTE taking a 15' diameter sphere, about 45' in circumference, and dividing by 5' for each hound around the perimeter.
eh, fair enough. either way making the sphere bigger actually gives you the effect you want. without needing to get weird in tight tunnels.

[MaxWilson]

eh, i mean i do care about cover, generally. whenever it logically applies. its not really a jerk move to consider this to be cover. there's also no implication that the hypothetical DM hasn't cared about such things in teh past.

Okay. If the hypothetical DM has cared about cover in melee all along then you definitely want to shove the corners down to 45% cover, or whatever you know from experience will make the issue moot.


as for the 11 foot diameter, i'd just (and the simplest thing) to do, would be to set up the tiles in such a way that the walls align with the edges of the 'squares'. since teh squares themselves are just arbitrary anyway.

That's one reason I said it would be kind of a jerk move to use a 11' sphere in order to make the tiles not align. But yeah, if the DM just shrugged and said, "It aligns with the squares anyway", a player couldn't do much about it.


and then sure. i mean cover is largely up to the DM. personally i would run it as i indicated. particularly because you've got a narrow enough corridor for her to need to shrink down. so its like, 3 feet across. which means teh space you're tyrapping her in is 3x5. mathematically you're going to be cuttin off ~1/4 of the square with the corner.

The original idea I had was a corridor small enough that she has to squeeze to get through--ideally you want her thinking she's out-thought you by shrinking to Medium size and squeezing into a Small space in the first place. We started discussing the Medium-sized (say 6' high by 2.5' wide) corridors anyway and that's all right, but I just want it on the record that you don't actually have to make them that big.

Anyway, you don't have to cut off 1/4 of the square to reduce it to half cover. By DMG 251's method, you choose one corner of the attacker's square and draw lines to all four corners of the defender's square. If one or two lines are blocked, it gets half cover. (I believe 3 = 3/4 cover and 4 of course is total cover.) I would interpret this to mean that even without shaving corners, Zariel has no cover, but even if the DM decides to count the line between the two nearest corners as blocked, you need to shave the wall or corners slightly, you just need to widen it an inch or so. (Hopefully that's clear without an ASCII diagram, if not then reviewing DMG 251 will probably be more helpful than another ASCII diagram from me.)


not neccisarily give up. i don't believe i ever specifically endorsed that view. however, suddenly going silent, and suddenly having dogs barking both imply a large degree of forthought. and as such are equally suspicous. exactly how suspicous they are would be based on DM. me, personally, would probably not even have zariel chase you into cramped corriodors like that. too obviously a trap. but now thats looping back into 'how do we bait her' which we're just kinda hjandwaving forthe purpose of the excercise.

Yep. Too hard to theorycraft outside of actual play.

In order to avoid even unconscious metagaming however, as DM I would probably either ask someone else besides me the DM to roleplay Zariel in this scenario***, or allow the player to write down some details of their preparations where I can't see them. I need to preserve the possibility of both honest surprise/mistakes on Zariel's part, and honestly and fairly seeing through the trap and avoiding it.

*** Subject to constraints the DM imposes such as "you'd lose major face from letting a mortal steal your stuff without repercussions, so don't entirely give up the chase unless you detect a credible threat from a demon lord or someone else on par with one".

[kazaryu]

Okay. If the hypothetical DM has cared about cover in melee all along then you definitely want to shove the corners down to 45% cover, or whatever you know from experience will make the issue moot.



That's one reason I said it would be kind of a jerk move to use a 11' sphere in order to make the tiles not align. But yeah, if the DM just shrugged and said, "It aligns with the squares anyway", a player couldn't do much about it.



The original idea I had was a corridor small enough that she has to squeeze to get through--ideally you want her thinking she's out-thought you by shrinking to Medium size and squeezing into a Small space in the first place. We started discussing the Medium-sized (say 6' high by 2.5' wide) corridors anyway and that's all right, but I just want it on the record that you don't actually have to make them that big.

Anyway, you don't have to cut off 1/4 of the square to reduce it to half cover. By DMG 251's method, you choose one corner of the attacker's square and draw lines to all four corners of the defender's square. If one or two lines are blocked, it gets half cover. (I believe 3 = 3/4 cover and 4 of course is total cover.) I would interpret this to mean that even without shaving corners, Zariel has no cover, but even if the DM decides to count the line between the two nearest corners as blocked, you need to shave the wall or corners slightly, you just need to widen it an inch or so. (Hopefully that's clear without an ASCII diagram, if not then reviewing DMG 251 will probably be more helpful than another ASCII diagram from me.)

i mean, using the phb guidlines 'a creature has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body'. and as the phb rule makes far, far more sense than what you cited, im still fairly comfortable with my ruling. but of course, thats gonna change dm to dm.



Yep. Too hard to theorycraft outside of actual play.

In order to avoid even unconscious metagaming however, as DM I would probably either ask someone else besides me the DM to roleplay Zariel in this scenario***, or allow the player to write down some details of their preparations where I can't see them. I need to preserve the possibility of both honest surprise/mistakes on Zariel's part, and honestly and fairly seeing through the trap and avoiding it.

*** Subject to constraints the DM imposes such as "you'd lose major face from letting a mortal steal your stuff without repercussions, so don't entirely give up the chase unless you detect a credible threat from a demon lord or someone else on par with one".

couple of problems with that approach.
1. you'd need to involve an extra person entirely. which, if you had one on hand, would likely already be involved on one side or the other. so you don't really avoid unconcious bias.
2. i am not intelligence 26. i mean, the narrative idea is that the smartest human alive (ro dead) is at most int 20-22. i also don't have hundreds of thousands (or millions? idk forgotten realms timescale) of years of experience in combat, tactics, traps. or anything like that. so relying on *my own* ability to avoid teh trap (based on details provided by the playrs) will inevitably lead to me feeling disappointed with how inintelligent my bbeg's are.

conclusion being, i won't give up my job as the dm just for the sake of percieved fairness. there isn't a single person alive that can 100% accurately play zariel in this scenario, because noone alive *is* zariel. as the DM im the closest we come.

on a more general note, I'd also frown on my players trying to keep details of a trap secret from me. why? well for one, they don't know what the bbeg is doing. they don't know if he's scryingon them, ig he has a spy amongst them, or..ya know, just anything like that. the second reason is for exactly this scenario, the players would naturally keep details away from me (as the DM) that zariel might pick up on. In the same way that its unfair to the players to catch them in some kind of trap that their characters should have noticed, its just as bad if the players try to do it to the DM(and absolutely smacks of DM vs PC mentality.

[Skylivedk]

I would probably get more than one person involved in doubt Zariel's turn. The experience and intelligence are impossible to simulate by a single person (and probably by several as well), but adding both time and a hive mind to those controlling Zariel ought to help

[MaxWilson]

i mean, using the phb guidlines 'a creature has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body'. and as the phb rule makes far, far more sense than what you cited, im still fairly comfortable with my ruling. but of course, thats gonna change dm to dm.

By the PHB rule, the corner square blocks exactly half of the body (it cuts right through the midpoint between the two squares), so reducing it by even an inch or so means she doesn't have half cover. Shouldn't an issue in practice.


couple of problems with that approach.
1. you'd need to involve an extra person entirely. which, if you had one on hand, would likely already be involved on one side or the other. so you don't really avoid unconcious bias.

I've never felt like avoiding unconscious bias is more important than giving players at the table interesting things to do. Better a slightly under- or over-played monster than a playing sitting around doing nothing while another player does cool stuff.


2. i am not intelligence 26. i mean, the narrative idea is that the smartest human alive (ro dead) is at most int 20-22. i also don't have hundreds of thousands (or millions? idk forgotten realms timescale) of years of experience in combat, tactics, traps. or anything like that. so relying on *my own* ability to avoid teh trap (based on details provided by the playrs) will inevitably lead to me feeling disappointed with how inintelligent my bbeg's are.

Well, YMMV. I don't have any real desire to play bad guys like inhumanly hyperintelligent Pak Protectors, because that leads to players losing in unfun ways. ("In the middle of the night your camp is overrun by a battalion of Yugoloths. Your every move has been perfectly anticipated. Every spell you try to cast is cancelled by dozens of readied Dispel Magics. You all die. The End.") I'm perfectly happy to come up with reasons for bad guys not to anticipate the PCs' every move, whether that is misplaced paranoia about the wrong (off-screen) things, or arrogance due to thousands of years of dealing with mortals, or whatever else. I don't like outplaying the players if I can possibly avoid it, especially given the information advantages I have as a DM (it feels unfair).

If I am going to outplay a player, it has to be done in a way that leaves no doubt in the players' minds that it was done fairly, which is why I would prefer to either outsource Zariel's roleplaying or let a player have some hidden information. If Zariel is going to sniff out a trap it's got to be obvious to the player that it wasn't just me-the-DM abusing my access to privileged information, and the best way to do that is for whoever's running Zariel not to have privileged information. Even then I would need to add some constraints to prevent her from doing the intelligent-but-unfun things like prudently ignoring in-person provocations, retaining the strategic initiative, and just hiring some Yugoloth mercenaries later to pay it back with interest.

There's no reason "monster advocate/runner", "adventure creator", and "rules referee" all have to be the same person, even though we traditionally put all of that on the DM. (Sometimes we even put "game host" and "snack provider" on the DM as well.)


conclusion being, i won't give up my job as the dm just for the sake of percieved fairness. there isn't a single person alive that can 100% accurately play zariel in this scenario, because noone alive *is* zariel. as the DM im the closest we come.

Well, if Zariel is going to do the most intelligent thing I can think of then the thread is pointless. She'll never do a 1v1 where she can possibly lose. She'll always have company, at minimum several beefy magic-capable bodyguards, just like a smart Mafia don would. (And she will have spent thousands of years studying magic so she'll be a 20th level spellcaster herself, instead of having the stats from Mordy's ToF.)

[kazaryu]

By the PHB rule, the corner square blocks exactly half of the body (it cuts right through the midpoint between the two squares), so reducing it by even an inch or so means she doesn't have half cover. Shouldn't an issue in practice.


With the halls being ~3 feet across? Your spaces are 3x5, and in this scenario arranged perendicualr to each other. Youre assuming theyre perfect squares.



I've never felt like avoiding unconscious bias is more important than giving players at the table interesting things to do. Better a slightly under- or over-played monster than a playing sitting around doing nothing while another player does cool stuff.

If your goal is to avoid unconcious bias, them giving the job to someone biased toward her failure is just as silly as doing it yourself.


Well, YMMV. I don't have any real desire to play bad guys like inhumanly hyperintelligent Pak Protectors, because that leads to players losing in unfun ways. ("In the middle of the night your camp is overrun by a battalion of Yugoloths. Your every move has been perfectly anticipated. Every spell you try to cast is cancelled by dozens of readied Dispel Magics. You all die. The End.") I'm perfectly happy to come up with reasons for bad guys not to anticipate the PCs' every move, whether that is misplaced paranoia about the wrong (off-screen) things, or arrogance due to thousands of years of dealing with mortals, or whatever else. I don't like outplaying the players if I can possibly avoid it, especially given the information advantages I have as a DM (it feels unfair).


You missed the point. We are literally talking about a hyperintelligent person here. Im not talking about perfectly anticipating every single move and just 'gotcha' ing them. Im simply pointing out that if youre looking for realism, using yourself as a standard of whats reasonable is untenable. By definition it camt be realistic.

Its not about 'outplaying' the players. In fzct, id argue that your proposal of blinding yourself to player plans is far closer to thebplayers 'outplaying' the dm. As opposed to 'outplaying' zariel.


If I am going to outplay a player, it has to be done in a way that leaves no doubt in the players' minds that it was done fairly, which is why I would prefer to either outsource Zariel's roleplaying or let a player have some hidden information. If Zariel is going to sniff out a trap it's got to be obvious to the player that it wasn't just me-the-DM abusing my access to privileged information, and the best way to do that is for whoever's running Zariel not to have privileged information. Even then I would need to add some constraints to prevent her from doing the intelligent-but-unfun things like prudently ignoring in-person provocations, retaining the strategic initiative, and just hiring some Yugoloth mercenaries later to pay it back with interest.

Again with the extreme examples. We've already agreed that this is mostly up to the dm anyway, you do you. Im mot saying zariel has to have a perfect mmowledge of the game rules. All im suggesting is that playing zariel as though shes as dumb as we are and lacks in game knowledge that would/should be obvious to her for the sake of 'realism' isnt going to end in a result that feels realistic. Not for me anyway. Now, im all for fun winning over realism, but that also includes my own fun. Abd a severe loss of verisimillitude harms my fun. So if the party discussed the possibility of this trap, and i didnt think itd work, id straight up tell them ahead of.time. so they dont waste their time with it. But if my.party decided itd be cute to try to 'trick' me using my own lack of in world existence. Then theyd instead just end up disappointed. Granted this is also like, session 0 type stuff.


There's no reason "monster advocate/runner", "adventure creator", and "rules referee" all have to be the same person, even though we traditionally put all of that on the DM. (Sometimes we even put "game host" and "snack provider" on the DM as well.)

But again, if your goal is to remove bias from zariels actions, then giving control of her to the players isnt gonna do that.



Well, if Zariel is going to do the most intelligent thing I can think of then the thread is pointless. She'll never do a 1v1 where she can possibly lose. She'll always have company, at minimum several beefy magic-capable bodyguards, just like a smart Mafia don would. (And she will have spent thousands of years studying magic so she'll be a 20th level spellcaster herself, instead of having the stats from Mordy's ToF.)

Another tangent....noone said 'the most intelligent thing you can think of' Her stats in mtof dont even give her the highest ppssible intelligence. But theres a large swathe of intelligence between where i am, and where zariel is. And i need to take that into consideration.

[MaxWilson]

If your goal is to avoid unconcious bias, them giving the job to someone biased toward her failure is just as silly as doing it yourself.

Repeating the point: avoiding unconscious (motivational) bias is your goal, not mine. My goal is players getting to have fun in a universe that still feels real. I am perfectly content to impose constraints on Zariel if necessary. To the extent that I want to avoid anything for her, it's not motivational bias, it's informational bias and the appearance of bias. If you the player have told me the DM that there's a Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum up, and I have Zariel notice that you're not making sounds and refuse to enter the area, that looks suspiciously like the DM abusing privileged information. It doesn't even feel like facing a hyperintelligent enemy, it just feels like the DM cheating.

If you the player instead tell me the DM that you're suddenly running very, very quietly and that even inhumanly good hearing can no longer hear you, and I say in Zariel's voice, "[laughter] Very sly, little mouse, but this isn't the first time I've spotted a teleportation trap. I'll be seeing you around," and then I apparently leave...

Well, then I've managed to pull off faking a hyperintellligent enemy, while still leaving some dramatic tension about what's going to happen next. You may claim that having the DM use privileged information gives more realistically hyper-intellligent responses, but I don't agree--having Zariel pursue a 1v1 is already unrealistic! It is utterly predictable that going off on your own, in a D&D universe, can get you into trouble.

Edit: what makes you think I don't have at least as much motivational bias to keep the PCs alive as the players do, anyway? At least with a player playing Zariel there's a possibility of personal rivalries and grudges against other players (yes, it happens) as well as the desire to make the most of the opportunity to play with Zariel's cool powers. A DM killing a PC tries to act all evil like we really enjoy it, but really we feel bad, like we're killing someone's puppy. I've seen players go soft on other players when playing monsters, but I think I've seen myself do the same thing.


You missed the point. We are literally talking about a hyperintelligent person here. Im not talking about perfectly anticipating every single move and just 'gotcha' ing them. Im simply pointing out that if youre looking for realism, using yourself as a standard of whats reasonable is untenable. By definition it camt be realistic.

I don't think I did miss the point, I just pointed out the flaws in your counterargument--if you try to play hyperintelligence "realistically" it will be unfun. In order for this scenario to exist at all you need to be creating factors which make her behave non-hyperintelligently, and you might as well create those factors in a way which improve the experience for your players.


Its not about 'outplaying' the players. In fzct, id argue that your proposal of blinding yourself to player plans is far closer to thebplayers 'outplaying' the dm. As opposed to 'outplaying' zariel.

What's the difference between "outplaying Zariel" and "outplaying the DM playing Zariel", and why would I want to avoid letting the latter be a possibility?


Again with the extreme examples. We've already agreed that this is mostly up to the dm anyway, you do you. Im mot saying zariel has to have a perfect mmowledge of the game rules. All im suggesting is that playing zariel as though shes as dumb as we are and lacks in game knowledge that would/should be obvious to her for the sake of 'realism' isnt going to end in a result that feels realistic.

Then you can't have a 1v1 fight with Zariel any more than you can have a 1v1 fight with [using fictional character here for the sake of forum rules] Emperor Palpatine. He's just not interested in that.


Another tangent....noone said 'the most intelligent thing you can think of' Her stats in mtof dont even give her the highest ppssible intelligence. But theres a large swathe of intelligence between where i am, and where zariel is. And i need to take that into consideration.

I think you're missing your own point here. If she's too intelligent for you to emulate, why does it matter if her stats imply that even higher degrees of intelligence are possible? You're already arguing that the most intelligent thing you can think of is insufficiently intelligent because she's waaaay smarter than you are. It follows that doing anything less than the most intelligent thing you can think of is exacerbating the disparity between what she should do and what she does do.

Anyway, "don't split the party" should be obvious even to a moderately-intelligent human let alone a hyperintelligent supernatural entity. (A hyperintelligent entity will understand the full context as well, which is more like "make it a habit to remain within mutual support range of those whom you rely on to protect you against unexpected threats, which when you're fighting a Blood War are potentially anywhere and everywhere.") And "learn Dispel Magic" should also be obvious and within her capabilities.

[JackPhoenix]

Another tangent....noone said 'the most intelligent thing you can think of' Her stats in mtof dont even give her the highest ppssible intelligence. But theres a large swathe of intelligence between where i am, and where zariel is. And i need to take that into consideration.

Speaking of which: There are only 4 published creatures with higher Int score than Zariel: 3 of them are from Eberron (Dyrrn the Corruptor, Lady Vo.... I mean, Illmarrow, and Sul Khatesh), one is from Ravnica (Niv-Mizzet), and only one other creature has same Int as her: Fraz-Urb'luu. Zariel has higher Wis than all of them (and Cha too, but that's not that important).

[MaxWilson]

Speaking of which: There are only 4 published creatures with higher Int score than Zariel: 3 of them are from Eberron (Dyrrn the Corruptor, Lady Vo.... I mean, Illmarrow, and Sul Khatesh), one is from Ravnica (Niv-Mizzet), and only one other creature has same Int as her: Fraz-Urb'luu. Zariel has higher Wis than all of them (and Cha too, but that's not that important).

Tiamat has Int 26 too.

[JackPhoenix]

Tiamat has Int 26 too.

Seems I've had adventure NPCs excluded from my search, Acererak has 27. Zariel still leads in Wis, with only Trostani from Ravnica having more at 30.

[Eldariel]

Seems I've had adventure NPCs excluded from my search, Acererak has 27. Zariel still leads in Wis, with only Trostani from Ravnica having more at 30.

Out of curiousity, what manner of a database do you have to this end? I've been thinking of building an Excel of all monster statistics but that would of course be highly redundant if something to that effect already exists.

[kazaryu]

Repeating the point: avoiding unconscious (motivational) bias is your goal, not mine.

In order to avoid even unconscious metagaming however, as DM I would probably either ask someone else besides me the DM to roleplay Zariel in this scenario***,
your words, not mine, im simply replying to that.


My goal is players getting to have fun in a universe that still feels real. I am perfectly content to impose constraints on Zariel if necessary. To the extent that I want to avoid anything for her, it's not motivational bias, it's informational bias and the appearance of bias. If you the player have told me the DM that there's a Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum up, and I have Zariel notice that you're not making sounds and refuse to enter the area, that looks suspiciously like the DM abusing privileged information. It doesn't even feel like facing a hyperintelligent enemy, it just feels like the DM cheating.

If you the player instead tell me the DM that you're suddenly running very, very quietly and that even inhumanly good hearing can no longer hear you, and I say in Zariel's voice, "[laughter] Very sly, little mouse, but this isn't the first time I've spotted a teleportation trap. I'll be seeing you around," and then I apparently leave...

sure, but only if *you as the DM* realize that 'complete silence' implies 'they must have a private sanctum up'. and there are a plethora of reasons you might not think of that.mordenkainans private sanctum wasn't a spell anywhere close to my radar until you literally mentioned it in this thread. i mean, i've read it, but tis not something i'd have ever thought about. *because i haven't emmorized the book*. meanwhbile someone in zariels position, would have plenty of reasons to think of it. However, that being said, i also never said your footsteps going silent *would* give the game away. i said that it would be just as likely to give the game away as the dogs barking. both of them are suspicious changes, for sure. but even the dogs barking wouldn't neccisarily mean that you had a trap. there are plenty of other reasons you might have set up the dogs.

furthermore, if you're not comfortable enough with the group, to think that they trust your judgement as the DM, then letting them set this up in the first place was a mistake. because one way or another, someone (either you or the playrs) is going to end up in a situation where you have to worry about the prospect of metagaming.


Well, then I've managed to pull off faking a hyperintellligent enemy, while still leaving some dramatic tension about what's going to happen next. You may claim that having the DM use privileged information gives more realistically hyper-intellligent responses, but I don't agree--having Zariel pursue a 1v1 is already unrealistic! It is utterly predictable that going off on your own, in a D&D universe, can get you into trouble.

sure, you may realize what is happening. you may not, i've already discussed that. But if you don't realize what is happening, *particularly due to a gap in your own knowledge* then its going to feel just as bad as a player that misses what should have been an obvious clue, due to them not actually seeing it.



Edit: what makes you think I don't have at least as much motivational bias to keep the PCs alive as the players do, anyway? At least with a player playing Zariel there's a possibility of personal rivalries and grudges against other players (yes, it happens) as well as the desire to make the most of the opportunity to play with Zariel's cool powers. A DM killing a PC tries to act all evil like we really enjoy it, but really we feel bad, like we're killing someone's puppy. I've seen players go soft on other players when playing monsters, but I think I've seen myself do the same thing.

i mean...spotting the trap doesn't mean you have to kill the PC then and there. and Player grudges is just another reason why letting the Players's control zariel in this situation would be (imo)a poor choice. As we already discussed, Maybe the PCsurvives, and now has to look over there shoulder waiting for retribution. Zariel is old as dirt, she can afford to wait. Why not wait until the PC is even more powerful so that when she claims its soul, it will be that much better a servant?.



I don't think I did miss the point, I just pointed out the flaws in your counterargument--if you try to play hyperintelligence "realistically" it will be unfun. In order for this scenario to exist at all you need to be creating factors which make her behave non-hyperintelligently, and you might as well create those factors in a way which improve the experience for your players.

you didn't point out flaws in logic, you exaggerated what i was suggesting. nothing that i said implied, nor did i ever explicitly state, anything approaching 'she counterattacks in X way, you can't fight back because she's just too smart bruh'. i simply suggested that, being smarter than you and i, using our own specific intelligences, memories, and (extremely incomplete) perceptions as a gauge for how she might reasonably react, is untenable. and doomed to feel lame. It makes far more sense for you the DM to know everything (at least everything regarding this situation) so that you can accurately describe how things react.

in the same way, i don't expect a wizard player to recognize a spell effect. I let them roll, and then *tell* them what a spell effect is if they succeed. Thats the whole point of the dice system. acknowledging that your character knows/sees things that you yourself dont and cant. here, actually i'll give an analogy. Trying to limit what you know, and only depend on what players choose to tell *you*, is tantamount to narrating 'this cahracter starts waving his arounds in cocentric circles'. giving a pause. and then saying 'well, you get hit by mental prison, make an int save. nope sorry you can't counterspell, you didn't recognize the spell casting'.



What's the difference between "outplaying Zariel" and "outplaying the DM playing Zariel", and why would I want to avoid letting the latter be a possibility?

nope. don't misquote me. i said outplaying the DM. which is done by forcing them to rely on their own very very flawed perception of what is going on instead of a broader knowledge that the character in question would posses (see my above example.)



I think you're missing your own point here. If she's too intelligent for you to emulate, why does it matter if her stats imply that even higher degrees of intelligence are possible? You're already arguing that the most intelligent thing you can think of is insufficiently intelligent because she's waaaay smarter than you are. It follows that doing anything less than the most intelligent thing you can think of is exacerbating the disparity between what she should do and what she does do.

please don't try to tell me what my point is. i promise i have a far better grasp on what i mean. that being said, i disagree (big surprise there lmao). The difference between an int 20 person and an int 10 person isn't (imo) *what* they're capable of thinking of. its *how quickly* they can process information and reach a sound conclusion. given days to think about it, any sapient person would eventually figure out what the trap was (or at least could have been). so long as they had the requisite knowledge of particular aspects of magic. The question is how quickly would zariel realize why possible scenarios she's in. and *even if its not fast enough to avoid the trap* its still a heckuva lot faster than i would. even moreso given my much more limited ability to see whats going on. im not the one in this situation. so why should it rely on my nerves, imagination, reaction time, and the limited information my players are giving me? why aren't players required to immediately declare tehir actions during a combat? for the same reason. the players aren't the characters.



Anyway, "don't split the party" should be obvious even to a moderately-intelligent human let alone a hyperintelligent supernatural entity. (A hyperintelligent entity will understand the full context as well, which is more like "make it a habit to remain within mutual support range of those whom you rely on to protect you against unexpected threats, which when you're fighting a Blood War are potentially anywhere and everywhere.") And "learn Dispel Magic" should also be obvious and within her capabilities.

and that is the point of skill rolls. in order to pull this off in a practical manner they'd need to succeed on skill rolls. thats literally the point of them. Im not trying to come at this from an angle that only forces losses. im pointing out where reasonable weaknesses lie. focusing on the plan itself, rather than the setup. liek in this case:
for setup: you need to lure her to be alone. that was basically implied in the OP. its assumed that it'll work.
the plan itself however: bait her into X position. (or exposition, because come on, what big bad doesn't need a speech before they get axed) then trap and yada yada yada.

this offshoot of conversation comes from someone mentioning that hte hounds might give the trap away, and me pointing out that complete, perfect silence, would be just as suspicous as barking hounds. if you want to talk about the intent of this challenge we should discuss how suspicous those things actually are. rather than getting lost in the weeds discussing DMing styles.

[Damon_Tor]

So a significant adjustment in tactics/loadout for my archer, and I think with this we've solved it:

Rather than a +3 Longbow, get an Oathbow instead (they are both Very Rare, so this doesn't change the cost of the loadout). Skip Sharpshooter and replace with Alert (because losing initiative foils this whole thing up as badly as losing at stealth).

We gain +2 on the attack rolls (-3 from the weapon change, +5 for getting rid of Sharpshooter) and Oathbow adds 3d6 damage to the damage, which is 6d6 for us when we autocrit. The result is +8 to the average damage of each attack (-10 from losing Sharpshooter, -3 for the weapon change, +21 for the dice added by Oathbow). The Oathbow itself handles the parts of Sharpshooter that allow for ignoring cover and firing at long range without penalty.

So that's an extra 64 damage on round 1, and we've improved our chance to hit by 2 as well, so if there was still a concern with all 8 attacks hitting I think we can probably get past that now.

So with the new UA (https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/UA2020_PsionicOptions.pdf), if it were to became law, I would add the Wild Talent feat to the build somewhere. As a half feat I've got some flexibility on where to put it without impacting my Dex/Wis progression, while allowing me to add 1d10 (+5.5 on average) to my initiative AND +1d10 to stealth (with a 1/10 chance that the second roll is 1d8 rather than 1d10: I'm not 100% sure off the top of my head whether initiative or surprise gets handled first). At also gets me the ability to reroll a "1" result on a damage die someplace in my first round (and with all the dice I'm throwing, one will almost certainly be a 1) with a 1d10 (or possibly a 1d8 or very unlikely a 1d6), for a net damage boost of around +4.5 (but that's a side effect, I'm doing it for the initiative/stealth upgrade, not the smidge of damage)

EDIT: I just realized I forgot about Gloomstalker's extra 1d8 damage on his extra attacks, which translates into +4d8 damage with our build (it occurs twice via Action Surge and is doubled by the auto-crit) for another +18 damage to the total.