Wrestling a Celestial: Monster recommendations?

[GreyBlack]

Good morning, Playground!

So some events happened, and I'm being asked to do a one shot adventure as a sort of time-travel adventure. It's a long story, but the basic up shot is that after my character in a recent campaign died, the other PC's are all super motivated to find a way to bring him back to life. They have a method of time travel, and now they're on their way to the past to undo the future.

The DM and I were discussing the plot and I offered to run a quick one shot on this, and I have some ideas on what to do. One thing I'm really tempted to do, though, is do a "David wrestles the angel" type deal.

In order to complete their quest and fix the timeline, the PC's will have to fight an angel sent to preserve the sacred timeline and prevent changes.

So, in order to do this, I'm looking for some good Celestials for PC's to fight. The PC's are currently level 9, so for a boss monster, I'm thinking of having them run up against something CR 12-14, and preferably large.

Any recommendations?

[J-H]

How many PCs, and how strong are they? A 9th level party vs CR 12-14 isn't a super-deadly fight, so it sounds like this is supposed to be a speedbump combat. Otherwise, I'd say Solar.

Either way, you could use a solar. To adapt it, I'd:
-Reduce the severity of Blinding Gaze
-Remove Slaying on the longbow unless the party has good healing
-Look at the radiant damage output and maybe lower it.

[strangebloke]

Well, first off, it was Jacob who wrestled the angel, not David :smalltongue:

Second thing I'll say is that most celestials that have been printed are bland comabatants, possibly because the assumption is that you won't normally be fighting them. Something like a Ki-Rin simply won't be very engaging to fight, at least imo, because its going to be racing around constantly and whacking people with its hooves, and not a whole lot more.

My take? Send a Gynosphinx, aided by a legion of lesser celestial creatures. Sphinxes aren't celestials, but they're close and you can refluff some things if you like. The nice thing here though is that they work really well with the flavor of being a timeline guardian because of all their teleportation effects (teleport, banishment, etc.) and time manipulation effects (reducing a party member's age by 1d20 years, forcing everyone to reroll initiative)


Just be sure to give him friends so he doesn't get swarmed. :smallwink:

[Fredaintdead]

If you're not intending for them to have a fight of a slightly smaller size beforehand, I'd be inclined to put them up against something a little tougher. A Planetar isn't TOO far outside of the range you've listed (At CR 16, it's a bit under Deadlyx2 for a group of 4 Lv9s).

I'd suggest something along the lines of the following:
(Total Daily XP Budget: 23000, which is about 6K short of the recommended daily budget for 4 level 9 PCs)
1. (8000 XP) To even get to the boss, you're going to have to fight his minions (either to prove your worth, or just because they're committed to the mission too), 2 Coualts and a Unicorn. Refluff them as whatever you like, but tactics wise I'd have the Couatls drop a Bless on their side and focus on hitting casters with their Constrict attack, flying up and then dropping them. The Unicorn meanwhile is the ground threat. Open up with its Entangle spell, then charge in, using legendary actions to either squeeze in extra attacks post-charge, or to ablate damage (either pro-actively with Shimmer Shield, or reactively with Heal Self). Bonus stuff to make things more interesting: The Unicorn is a zealot and will fight to the death, but the Couatls are a bonded pair, if one of them is killed, or if both of them are below 30hp, they attempt to flee (either with their own flight speeds, or by using Change Shape to turn into something stealthier and using their actions to Hide).

2. (15000 XP) Once they're past the minion-squad, it's time for the angel. I'd recommend either getting to him in the middle of whatever they're trying to stop him doing, OR, if the Unicorn is down and the Couatls are trying to flee, have him execute the Couatls for their lack of commitment to the mission.

I'd also consider some lair actions for our angel-boss. Even if it doesn't need them, you can always choose not to use them:
1. Alabaster Gaze: One creature in the room who the Planetar can see must make a Wisdom/Charisma (your choice but pick one and stick to it. DC 15 feels about right) saving throw. A failed saving throw means that half of any damage that creature deals to the Planetar is dealt to them instead. This lasts until the next lair action, or until the target is blinded, whichever comes first (so you can get rid of it with some clever play).

2. Divine Speed. The Planetar moves with preternatural swiftness, teleporting up to 60ft to a space it can see.

3. Ius Tempus. The Planetar becomes charged with the temporal energy of the "one true timeline". Until the next lair action, it may as a reaction decide that one d20 roll made in that time is a 10 on the die. (So, it could make an attacker with +8 to hit get an 18, or with its +12 to hit automatically get a 22).

Now, the most exciting fights have a little bit of a change part-way through, but I'd say in this case, we just change tactics in response to danger. While above 100hp, the Planetar tries to 1v1 skilled melee combatants (using Blade Barrier to separate them, while air-dropping past the spinning blades with ease). Between 50-100 it plays with its range of mobility more, using invisibility and its fly speed to get out of dangerous situations, and either throw a Healing Touch on itself, or drop a Flame Strike on clustered backliners (If you can get 2+ targets in the 10ft radius). At below 50 hit points, it goes full berserk, diving in on whoever's nearest, swinging away (or using remaining Flame Strikes/Blade Barriers as punishment) and screaming about mere mortals being unable to comprehend the power of true divinity (have some fun with it if you're inclined towards hammy acting at all).

Extra little tactics bits:
1. If you've got flyers in your party, make them a target. A Planetar is smart enough to know how much of an advantage uncontested aerial superiority is.
2. If there's nasty persistent area control spells on the ground (I'm thinking Cloudkills and Bigby's Hands), or just effective buffs, the Planetar taking a turn for Dispel Magic is both effective tactically, AND you secretly do your PCs a favour by spending a turn NOT taking 43 damage Greatsword swings at them.
3. Our "Blade Barrier to isolate for a duel" tactic also has a nice added benefit of providing the Planetar with +5 AC from ranged attacks from outside the blade barrier, which is an excellent defensive buff (putting its AC at a suitably demigodlike 24).

[KorvinStarmast]

In order to complete their quest and fix the timeline, the PC's will have to fight an angel sent to preserve the sacred timeline and prevent changes. Have them each wrestle a different celestial.

Have one, for example, try to wrestle a couatl. Another can wrestle a Ki Rin. Have another wrestle a Unicorn. Have another wrestle a Deva.
And so on.

[Naanomi]

Traditionally Maruts are protectors of the timeline, not celestials

[GreyBlack]

Thank you all so much for your replies!


How many PCs, and how strong are they? A 9th level party vs CR 12-14 isn't a super-deadly fight, so it sounds like this is supposed to be a speedbump combat. Otherwise, I'd say Solar.

Either way, you could use a solar. To adapt it, I'd:
-Reduce the severity of Blinding Gaze
-Remove Slaying on the longbow unless the party has good healing
-Look at the radiant damage output and maybe lower it.

Agreed that a CR 12-14 isn't super deadly. I think there will be a combat just ahead of it, and I might include a couple of minions so that they have to contend with those.


Well, first off, it was Jacob who wrestled the angel, not David :smalltongue:

Second thing I'll say is that most celestials that have been printed are bland comabatants, possibly because the assumption is that you won't normally be fighting them. Something like a Ki-Rin simply won't be very engaging to fight, at least imo, because its going to be racing around constantly and whacking people with its hooves, and not a whole lot more.

My take? Send a Gynosphinx, aided by a legion of lesser celestial creatures. Sphinxes aren't celestials, but they're close and you can refluff some things if you like. The nice thing here though is that they work really well with the flavor of being a timeline guardian because of all their teleportation effects (teleport, banishment, etc.) and time manipulation effects (reducing a party member's age by 1d20 years, forcing everyone to reroll initiative)


Just be sure to give him friends so he doesn't get swarmed. :smallwink:

Oh, sure. Smallest part of my piece. :smalltongue:

In all seriousness, that's very true. I've played with just reskinning a fiend or something, but we'll see.


If you're not intending for them to have a fight of a slightly smaller size beforehand, I'd be inclined to put them up against something a little tougher. A Planetar isn't TOO far outside of the range you've listed (At CR 16, it's a bit under Deadlyx2 for a group of 4 Lv9s).

I'd suggest something along the lines of the following:
(Total Daily XP Budget: 23000, which is about 6K short of the recommended daily budget for 4 level 9 PCs)
1. (8000 XP) To even get to the boss, you're going to have to fight his minions (either to prove your worth, or just because they're committed to the mission too), 2 Coualts and a Unicorn. Refluff them as whatever you like, but tactics wise I'd have the Couatls drop a Bless on their side and focus on hitting casters with their Constrict attack, flying up and then dropping them. The Unicorn meanwhile is the ground threat. Open up with its Entangle spell, then charge in, using legendary actions to either squeeze in extra attacks post-charge, or to ablate damage (either pro-actively with Shimmer Shield, or reactively with Heal Self). Bonus stuff to make things more interesting: The Unicorn is a zealot and will fight to the death, but the Couatls are a bonded pair, if one of them is killed, or if both of them are below 30hp, they attempt to flee (either with their own flight speeds, or by using Change Shape to turn into something stealthier and using their actions to Hide).

2. (15000 XP) Once they're past the minion-squad, it's time for the angel. I'd recommend either getting to him in the middle of whatever they're trying to stop him doing, OR, if the Unicorn is down and the Couatls are trying to flee, have him execute the Couatls for their lack of commitment to the mission.

I'd also consider some lair actions for our angel-boss. Even if it doesn't need them, you can always choose not to use them:
1. Alabaster Gaze: One creature in the room who the Planetar can see must make a Wisdom/Charisma (your choice but pick one and stick to it. DC 15 feels about right) saving throw. A failed saving throw means that half of any damage that creature deals to the Planetar is dealt to them instead. This lasts until the next lair action, or until the target is blinded, whichever comes first (so you can get rid of it with some clever play).

2. Divine Speed. The Planetar moves with preternatural swiftness, teleporting up to 60ft to a space it can see.

3. Ius Tempus. The Planetar becomes charged with the temporal energy of the "one true timeline". Until the next lair action, it may as a reaction decide that one d20 roll made in that time is a 10 on the die. (So, it could make an attacker with +8 to hit get an 18, or with its +12 to hit automatically get a 22).

Now, the most exciting fights have a little bit of a change part-way through, but I'd say in this case, we just change tactics in response to danger. While above 100hp, the Planetar tries to 1v1 skilled melee combatants (using Blade Barrier to separate them, while air-dropping past the spinning blades with ease). Between 50-100 it plays with its range of mobility more, using invisibility and its fly speed to get out of dangerous situations, and either throw a Healing Touch on itself, or drop a Flame Strike on clustered backliners (If you can get 2+ targets in the 10ft radius). At below 50 hit points, it goes full berserk, diving in on whoever's nearest, swinging away (or using remaining Flame Strikes/Blade Barriers as punishment) and screaming about mere mortals being unable to comprehend the power of true divinity (have some fun with it if you're inclined towards hammy acting at all).

Extra little tactics bits:
1. If you've got flyers in your party, make them a target. A Planetar is smart enough to know how much of an advantage uncontested aerial superiority is.
2. If there's nasty persistent area control spells on the ground (I'm thinking Cloudkills and Bigby's Hands), or just effective buffs, the Planetar taking a turn for Dispel Magic is both effective tactically, AND you secretly do your PCs a favour by spending a turn NOT taking 43 damage Greatsword swings at them.
3. Our "Blade Barrier to isolate for a duel" tactic also has a nice added benefit of providing the Planetar with +5 AC from ranged attacks from outside the blade barrier, which is an excellent defensive buff (putting its AC at a suitably demigodlike 24).

I super like this entire deal, except that the campaign doesn't tend to be super combat heavy, so dropping something with tactics like this might be a bit outside the group's domain. That said, I'm definitely putting some bits of this to use.


Have them each wrestle a different celestial.

Have one, for example, try to wrestle a couatl. Another can wrestle a Ki Rin. Have another wrestle a Unicorn. Have another wrestle a Deva.
And so on.

So, the only reason I'm using the "Wrestle" thing is because the character they're trying to bring back is a renowned wrestler; he pretty frequently frustrated the DM with his wrestling abilities, so making it a play on "Wrestling an angel" is a fun literary reference and provides some rather evocative imagery as described in the spoiler below.

I do agree that I should probably have at least a couple minions in the fight just to prevent the PC's from walking all over the baddies.


Traditionally Maruts are protectors of the timeline, not celestials

Traditionally, but this is homebrew.

Basically, there's an underlying theme in the campaign of how society and bureaucracy forces people to make bad decisions in order to survive. Using a celestial/angel to embody "Law" or "Society at large" is probably more evocative than just using a big metal dude, although there could possibly be something in there about the "mechanisms" of bureaucracy force people to make bad choices and hurt others.

[Fredaintdead]

I super like this entire deal, except that the campaign doesn't tend to be super combat heavy, so dropping something with tactics like this might be a bit outside the group's domain. That said, I'm definitely putting some bits of this to use.

No worries, happy to have given at least a bit of inspiration. I do admit to shamelessly stealing a little from The Monsters Know What They're Doing (though more in spirit than exact wording, as the article for angels does focus primarily on the unique elements within the Solar Angel statblock).

[Naanomi]

Basically, there's an underlying theme in the campaign of how society and bureaucracy forces people to make bad decisions in order to survive. Using a celestial/angel to embody "Law" or "Society at large" is probably more evocative than just using a big metal dude, although there could possibly be something in there about the "mechanisms" of bureaucracy force people to make bad choices and hurt others.
I mean... Angels and Celestials embody Good, not Law; but homebrew so

[Unoriginal]

Good morning, Playground!

So some events happened, and I'm being asked to do a one shot adventure as a sort of time-travel adventure. It's a long story, but the basic up shot is that after my character in a recent campaign died, the other PC's are all super motivated to find a way to bring him back to life. They have a method of time travel, and now they're on their way to the past to undo the future.

The DM and I were discussing the plot and I offered to run a quick one shot on this, and I have some ideas on what to do. One thing I'm really tempted to do, though, is do a "David wrestles the angel" type deal.

In order to complete their quest and fix the timeline, the PC's will have to fight an angel sent to preserve the sacred timeline and prevent changes.

So, in order to do this, I'm looking for some good Celestials for PC's to fight. The PC's are currently level 9, so for a boss monster, I'm thinking of having them run up against something CR 12-14, and preferably large.

Any recommendations?

I'd go with an Empyrean, but with those caveats:

1) It's an actual wrestling match. No weapon, spells or magic abilities that affect others allowed. You defeat the opponents by either KOing them, making them give up, pinning them (as in, grappling them while they're on the ground) for 1 full round (aka, you pin them in your turn, they have to be pinned at the end of your next turn), or if they're outside the "ring" for 3 rounds. You win when all the opponents are defeated (in this case, the Empyrean is the only opponent for the PCs, while they have to defeat each PC).


The Empyrean will follow those rules because he's the Face of the bout, the PCs can cheat if they wish/dare (there is no consequences if they do, but if they try is another matter).

2) The Empyrean challenges and fight the PCs while transformed to be Large-sized (or Medium, if you prefer).

3) Throwing your opponent to another plane is not a victory for the one who does it. The Empyrean can also come back into the "ring" at will if they've been thrown into another plane.

4) The Empyrean is *not* pulling punches, aside from following the rules. They want the PCs to show what they're made of, and if they have what it takes to continue their quest, but if the PCs don't have what it takes then they'll lose.

[GreyBlack]

I'd go with an Empyrean, but with those caveats:

1) It's an actual wrestling match. No weapon, spells or magic abilities that affect others allowed. You defeat the opponents by either KOing them, making them give up, pinning them (as in, grappling them while they're on the ground) for 1 full round (aka, you pin them in your turn, they have to be pinned at the end of your next turn), or if they're outside the "ring" for 3 rounds. You win when all the opponents are defeated (in this case, the Empyrean is the only opponent for the PCs, while they have to defeat each PC).


The Empyrean will follow those rules because he's the Face of the bout, the PCs can cheat if they wish/dare (there is no consequences if they do, but if they try is another matter).

2) The Empyrean challenges and fight the PCs while transformed to be Large-sized (or Medium, if you prefer).

3) Throwing your opponent to another plane is not a victory for the one who does it. The Empyrean can also come back into the "ring" at will if they've been thrown into another plane.

4) The Empyrean is *not* pulling punches, aside from following the rules. They want the PCs to show what they're made of, and if they have what it takes to continue their quest, but if the PCs don't have what it takes then they'll lose.

D&D needs more "Heel/Face Wrestling" bouts, not gonna lie.

"CAN YOU SMEEEELLLLLL WHAT THE EARTH ELEMENTAL IS COOKING?!?"