PDA

View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Boss Character - The Minstrel King



Catullus64
2021-09-06, 01:43 PM
Hopeful of the royal reward for his capture, the players have ventured against the hidden forest stronghold of the Minstrel King, the most infamous bandit lord of the Stonewood. Once they have evaded the cunning traps which surround his fortress, withstood the deceptions of his fairy servants, and made their way to his hall, they must contend with the murderous songster himself.

The Minstrel King

Medium Humanoid, Chaotic Evil

AC: 16 (Elven Chain)

HP: 55 (10d8+10)

Speed: 40 feet

STR 13 DEX 18 CON 12 INT 14 WIS 15 CHA 18

Skills: Deception +10, Performance +10, Perception +5, Stealth +7, Acrobatics +7

Senses: Passive Perception 15, Truesight 10 feet.

Saving Throws: Dexterity +7, Wisdom +5, Intelligence +5, Charisma +7

Damage Resistances: Psychic

Condition Immunities: Charmed

Actions:

Multiattack: The Minstrel King makes two attacks with his magic rapier, Brightnettle, and uses one of his Master Verses.

Turn of the Tongue: The Minstrel King uses two of his Master Verses.

Brightnettle: Melee Weapon Attack, +7 to hit, reach 5 feet, one creature. Hit: 1d8+4 piercing damage. Once per turn, as part of an attack with this weapon, the Minstrel King may cast Minor Illusion (Save DC 15).

Master Verses: Each master verse targets one creature within 30 feet that can hear the Minstrel King, including the Minstrel King himself; a creature does not need to understand the Minstrel King to be affected. The Minstrel King cannot recite the same verse more than once per turn.


The Doom of Gaumr Great-Hand: The creature must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or be Frightened until the end of the Minstrel King's next turn. While Frightened, the creature subtracts 1d4 from all saving throws it makes.
Lady Winter's Fingers: The Minstrel king makes a melee spell attack against the creature using his Charisma (+7 to hit). On a hit, the creature takes 1d10 cold damage and cannot take reactions until the start of its next turn.
The Satyr's Pavane: The creature must make a DC 15 Charisma saving throw or be charmed by the Minstrel King until the end of its next turn. While charmed, the Minstrel King controls the creature's movement, and the creature must move before doing anything else on its turn.
Brave Alnic Slew Five Hundreds: The creature may immediately use its reaction to make a weapon attack.
Drink, O Drink, Life's Merry Drops: The creature regains 2d8+4 Hit Points.
Mist on the Pearl-Fields: The creature must make a DC 15 Intelligence saving throw. On a failure the Minstrel King is considered to be under the effects of the Mirror Image spell against only that creature's attacks. This effect lasts until the Minstrel King targets another creature with this verse, or until the affected creature destroys all of the Mirror Images. While the Minstrel King has any Mirror Images remaining against a creature, he cannot target that creature with this verse.


As a note of interest, this guy will be the final encounter of a one/two-shot game using my Secret HP variant rule, which you can see outlined and discussed here: (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?636046-My-Terrible-Experiment). But I welcome critique of him as a monster with or without those rules taken into account.

The party fighting him will be four 6th-Level characters, no word yet on classes.

I'm thinking that he'll be fought alongside his Dryad (CR 1) consort, and half a dozen of his Bandits (souped up versions of CR 1/8 MM Bandits: an extra Hit Die for a total of 16 HP, 14 DEX rather than 12, and armed with Shields). The fight will (presumably) take place in his hall, with pillars, a central burning hearth, long tables, and high rafters.

JNAProductions
2021-09-06, 02:07 PM
He’s really weedy. Like… let’s say the PCs open with a 3rd-level Fireball and then the Fighter shoots him.

That’s 14 or so damage from the spell, leaving him with just over 40 HP.
Then, four attacks (Action Surge) for 1d8+4 damage each. Toss a few maneuvers in there, and that can hit the rest of his HP pretty easily.

Catullus64
2021-09-06, 04:45 PM
He’s really weedy. Like… let’s say the PCs open with a 3rd-level Fireball and then the Fighter shoots him.

That’s 14 or so damage from the spell, leaving him with just over 40 HP.
Then, four attacks (Action Surge) for 1d8+4 damage each. Toss a few maneuvers in there, and that can hit the rest of his HP pretty easily.

This is true. Part of that, I hope, will be addressed by the fact that players probably won't have all of their resources after dealing with the Minstrel King's outer defenses. Some of that damage is why he has a bunch of his bandits form a shield wall around him.

The other part, since I know you've been paying attention to the Secret HP thread, is that players might be a little more cautious about fighting offensively, at least the melee characters (At least one player has confirmed going melee).

But, all that said, you're still generally correct, and I might give him an extra 10 or 20 HP.

Twelvetrees
2021-09-06, 11:14 PM
*Mathing out Challenges*

The bandits are now solidly challenge 1/4 with your changes and The Minstrel King sits somewhere around challenge 4. I'm a little less worried about his low hit points than JNAProductions because his Master Verse of Drink can give him the equivalent of regeneration 13.

My opinion is that this will probably push an average party to their limit. Between The Minstrel King, the Dryad, and six bandits, the action economy is stacked against your party. Each bandit does about 5 damage, The Minstrel King does around 17, and the dryad can do 8. Even if they whiff half the time, someone goes down in the second round if they focus fire.

If they don't focus fire and spread their attacks extremely evenly, the character who has The Minstrel King's ire probably goes down in the third round.

Given your Secret HP variant rule and that it will probably result in more defensive play, that gives The Minstrel King more time to heal back to full. The longer this fight goes, the more dangerous it becomes if he's still on his feet.



I'm interested to see how this plays out.

Sorinth
2021-09-08, 10:14 PM
I would personally lean hard into the Nature vibe.

So have the stronghold itself should be built out of living trees, and roots. Goggle 'Root Bridge' for some inspiration on how structures can be built from living plants. This would give the whole stronghold a very unique aesthetic, and the pillars in the great hall would be trees that the Dryad can use to Tree Stride. So the Dryad would be harder to lock down allowing her time to try to Fey Charm to work it's way through the party.

With this more naturey vibe I would make some of the verses also more plant/nature based. Being able to summon say 1d4 twig blight or one Needle Blight would be good. Being able to cast Entangle, Ensnaring Strike, or Spike Growth would fit the theme but you'd want to be a bit careful. Entangle is already a Dryad spell so steps on her toes a bit, Spike Growth would be quite deadly combined with the Stayr verse, so Ensnaring Strike is probably the better fit but I would probably set a lower DC then the standard DC 15.

I'd probably drop the mirror image and one cold damage one just to keep the list a little smaller. For the use a reaction to make an attack it would be interesting to have it so that the PCs attack each other. So perhaps if the target is charmed the Minstrel King chooses the target. That gives it some strong synergy with the Stayr verse and Fey Charm to get a little inter party fighting.

Tactically there's a lot of movement control/restrictions, and places for cover so if they don't put enough early pressure on the Minstrel King then they can get into some serious problems as he can summon while the Dryad charms making the fight harder the longer it goes on. So I think it's a good idea to keep the HP reasonable and not give in to the HP bloat that is common in 5e.

I would be very tempted to have the Dryad fake being a damsel in distress if she lands her charm. Her asking a charmed PC to rescue her and take her to safety while the PCs friends deal with the Minsitrel King fits well with the charm description and is effective at taking a PC out of the fight. Have her lead the player through the stronghold into a room which she tricks the PC into entering and locking it behind them essentially imprisoning the PC. Then the Dryad can return to the fight and try to charm someone else since she no longer cares about maintaining the charm on a now imprisoned PC (Should take a few turns to escape and return to the battle).