I want to challenge my high-tier group - advice about monster roster appreciated

[HoboKnight]

Hey guys,

with my very dedicated and very engaged group, we arrived into a high-tier game and I have a hard time assessing how to set up a really hard encounter for them. It's basically a challenge for the Avengers. :)

The team: 4x lvl 15 paladin, 1x highly optimized ranged lvl 15 Fighter(dual crossbow)
What does this mean:

hp 100+
Average AC 22
All around good saves
several attacks per round with +10(or more) to-hit + divine smite damage
auras: paladins can't be feared, auras give them temp hp, auras also enable them to further divide damage taken from spell(which they mostly save, Dex Save being their only not-optimal save)
constant use of Fly spell
riding(flying) around on summons
one guy has access to magical Darkness
Haste is regularly cast at the beginning of battle


Just a short example on how the last battle went: 2 archmages were messing up a town and 1(!) paladin got Fly cast on him, flew near, rolled ok Stealth, sneaked to both casters, has cast Magical Darkness, while archamges were Surprised, he attacked 1st archmage, was rather lucky with his attacks vs. Mirror image archmages had active, paladin had dealt a s*itton of damage. Archmages fled from zone and teleported away, not being suicidal. ONE. paladin.

Disclaimer: All my players are super-fair and super meticulous. None of them is cheating, even Magical Darkness dude dragged this from some obscure, yet officially published 5e option.

Encounter:
I want to make an encounter that drops at least one guy. I already have a story for an encounter:
Somewhere within the land, there is a leyline of undeath, meaning necromancy gets supper buffed there, but this is a plot device, not something, that would enable me as a DM to spawn 20 trillion zombies. Hundreds of years ago, the god of death, Kelemvor, did not like this fact and had his followers build a temple upon the leyline in order to suppress the undeath power. Recently, a lich discovered the existence of mentioned leyline and had realized he can restore 5 demiliches in his possession with a goal of restoring them back to liches(returning them mental faculties). In order for him to achieve this, he must travel to the leyline, empty the temple and deactivate beacons in it. Then he must travel to a nearby sunken temple in a nearby swamp and sacrifice a bunch of people to fully harness the power of the now unfettered leyline and recreate his 5 demiliches into liches.

The moment beacons are deactivated, this does not go well with Kelemvor, so he "pinged" one of his paladins(one in the mentioned group) to go and check out the situation with the temple. Group can reactivate the beacons which will draw the attention of nearby lich and his entourage.

Now, lich is, for my group, a negligible threat. AC 17, 135 hp, with my group, this goes down in a single round. Yes, lich has a phylactery and will reemerge, but for this battle, I want to make it REALLY hard in order to make it memorable.

Also, I'd like to make it make sense. I was thinking of further lich allies, but:

dracoliches are super-smart and have their own agendas
death tyrants are goddamn insane and thus awful monster party members
shadow dragons are also not a likely allies because they are dragons and have their own goals and wishes



Conditions:
no homebrew

I'm thinking like this: Lich EXPECTS a very powerful party to appear. He counts on this every day of his undead existence. He is prepared. Has safeguards(which ones?), entourage(how many, what?), perhaps magical items(which ones?). He is aware he is playing a high-tier game where 200 zombies will absolutely not cut it(while adding, per RAW lich can not even control 200 zombies. Shadow dragon and Death tyrant, however, can spawn an infinite amount of underlings (Negative Energy Cone and Shadow Breath). Lich does not know the interior of the sunken swamp temple, but he can teleport out after he is there.

So, I know it is a tall order, but … as close to RAW as possible, without homebrew and ****-Dm decisions… how can you guys help a DM trying not-to-TPK-but-almost-TPK my Avengers?

Thanks :)

[stoutstien]

Generally once you get into higher tiers of play you can't really threaten the party with HP drain and expect it to hold much tension unlike the lower levels. Easiest solution is have alterative win conditions besides the race to zero.

Also dispel magic is the DMs fireball. This party especially would be greatly hampered by it without it actually being a true threat of killing anyone off.

[Mastikator]

Baphomet and his 4 balor buddies.

[tokek]

Evil hallow spell on the temple keeping all their summons out (they are probably celestials). It’s evil so fiends and undead are fine.

Monsters with blindsight. Fill the space with blinding smoke. That should cut down on the crit smites.

But more than anything: waves of minions before the lich ever shows up. High level paladins can nova hard but if they are in the habit of doing that they will struggle with waves of attackers. Drain their spell slots first then you can begin to make them sweat.

[Amnestic]

Four Oathbreaker paladins and one four-armed dual longbow fighter.

[J-H]

Are all of their saves really good? I would be surprised if any of them had better than 2+chamod to INT saves. Synaptic Static, Mind Blast, Psychic Lance, Intellect devourers, etc. are all in order.

Take a look at Prismatic Wall/Sphere. The paladins can probably make it through, but they will take damage. Meanwhile, allied creatures can dip in and out of it without fear to make ranged attacks, cast spells, etc.

The Invulnerability spell renders the target immune to hp damage for Concentration up to 10 minutes. As far as I know, the only way to break it is either Dispel, or forcing Concentration checks by doing something like grappling someone and then throwing them around.

[Unoriginal]

The Lich could ask Moloch for help.

Moloch + a few Eidolons (and their stone idols) + the Lich + the Lich's regular minions will be challenging for that group of PCs.

[da newt]

They are likely all wearing heavy armor and using cool weapons - sounds like a great chance for some underwater combat. DISADV to swim in heavy armor, DISADV to attack w/ most weapons, hard to cast spells while holding your breath, etc (dispell water breathing). A partially submerged temple ruin in a swamp - sounds perfect.

Long 5' wide passageways - the bane of every adventuring party (especially those w/ mounts).

Isolate one PC and ruin them.

Heat Metal

the Maze spell (no save)

[Eldariel]

A Lich has a lot of ways to be more than just a Lich. There's absolutely no reason for something as powerful as a Lich to limit themselves to the spells in their statblock. Let's dig through a Wizard's spellbook. First of all, even simple Rope Trick or Blink or such would be a formidable obstacle for such a group to land hits through; Contingency also allows for near certain protection against one character at least (or more with something like Resilient Sphere). Anything that forces the PCs to ready attacks denies them the option of full attacking and thus most of their damage, and it's most likely the Pallies need to get up close to do most of their damage, and probably none of them can do cross-planar damage. He's also likely very happy to Dispel any Hastes used by the PCs too.

On this level, the Lich has no reason not to have a powerful Simulacrum too. Perhaps that of even a divine creature or something immeasurably powerful; a Simulacrum of himself potentially combined with True Polymorph (for an extra health bar) would be more than fine of course (this would net you a ton of spell slots to do with as you please and then the husk can be True Polymorphed into for instance a Dragon), but e.g. a Marut or a Solar or even someone specific like Orcus (perhaps he's left enough of his essence here for the Lich to craft a Simulacrum thereof) could be quite cool.

Then we have obvious spells like Animate Dead, Create Undead, etc. While it's likely that skeletons will be hardly a challenge, a sufficient number of them can roll some 20s and murder some downed PCs (the Lich can then animate them to prevent resurrection when he comes out on top); at the very least they'll take up space and force the PCs to fight through them to get to the Lich. And then the real minions through Planar Binding; Summon Greater Demon, Conjure Elemental and Infernal Calling are all great spells meaning the Lich can easily bind fairly potent outsiders to their command. E.g. a couple of Glabrezus could Power Word: Stun some of the PCs while attacking the others to restrain them. Add some Air Elementals on any terrain where flight is the go-to movement option (ground pulses with negative energy dealing damage to living that tread on it for instance - could combine this with Mirage Arcana). Fire Elementals can be annoying too, lighting all PCs on fire as they move through them. Black Abishai could abuse Darkness for the party (Lich, Glabrezus, etc. have Truesight so they simply don't care)

And Lich with its Lair Actions can have hundreds of skeletons plus basically whatever else up without consuming longterm spell slots (Liches literally regenerate level 8- slots in their lair on a 1/round rate and they can Teleport to and fro to recharge easily enough; this also has the repercussion that Liches can teleport and plane shift around quite freely). Similarly, Lich can have any number of Concentration buffs in Glyphs of Concentration with fairly little downtime prep and any number of Symbol-spells down; while the party saves are no doubt good, it's unlikely they can make a vast number of DC20s without a hitch at least.

Lich also has had enough time to get all the value worth having from its ability to Wish; Find Greater Steed, free Simulacrum (don't go multiples though, that never ends well), even the resistance to all damage, etc. is fine if you want to go down that road. And Wish is a great combat starter; use Druid Grove or Guards and Wards (depending on the terrain) to deny the PCs vision while giving allies perfect vision and some advantages, and he's likely to be fine. Mirage Arcana could further cement this down; trap the PCs in illusory pits of lava with adamantine ceilings and see if any get out before they are burnt alive by the illusion. Lich can of course have a precast Mirage Arcana available if he's had at least 10 minutes; that can't trap people but the other uses of the spell are obvious (create fake terrain, mask hazards, create fake hazards, create hideouts that don't actually hide you, etc.).


In other words, it's not hard to build an encounter where just a Lich and his abilities should more than challenge the PCs. The hard part is not going through that 17 AC and 135 HP (though if you have it cast False Life on level 8, it could at least have 40+ extra THP, and it has no reason not to maintain that basically forever if it's teleporting around doing stuff) - Shield lets it push AC to 22 at least, so 22 AC and 175 HP but still, that's quite squishy (though with resistance to all damage that'd be somewhat more formidable 370ish HP). The hard part should be getting to hit the Lich in the first place with all its minions, wards, illusions (one I didn't touch on is Major Image, which it can have permanently available on this level and it can again block vision one-sidedly, create extra combatants the PCs will waste their actions on, etc.), etc. in place. It doesn't take long for a Lich to prepare any given area in this manner so such stuff could just liberally be spammed everywhere; lets the PCs kinda expect what's coming but it won't be any easier to take when push comes to shove.

As for the Lich's own offense, Crown of Stars + typical damage spells is fine though he's probably interested in first trying to Forcecage and Maze some PCs away from the fight so that he and his minions can focus the rest down.

[Amnestic]

Just a note: Simulacrum can only target Beasts/Humanoids, which a lich decidedly isn't. While they can circumvent this via something like True Polymorph, it does seem somewhat against the spirit of lichdom (and likely the aesthetic sought) to do so. As such, if they did have a Sim running around, it should probably be of someone who's not them.

[Oramac]

Loads of great ideas in here already, so I'll just throw out a few other things that came to mind.

1) Paladin auras do NOT stack. If they're all different subclasses, those auras will affect them all, but Aura of Protection is just whichever bonus is highest; not the sum of all bonuses.

2) Give the lich several Death Knight followers. They all have compelled duel. If even one player fails the save against that, it will help spread out the pressure. I'd target the fighter, personally.

3) Use the terrain to your advantage as well. Fly is mostly useless in a low-ceiling room. Narrow, winding corridors full of traps can knock the party down a bit before they even get to the lich.

4) Heat Metal. Seriously. If they're all wearing heavy armor, cast heat metal on their armor. It's not a ton of damage, but there's no save and the only way to stop it is to spend a bunch of time taking the armor off (or break concentration).

5) Magic items. The lich has been around how long? Surely he's got a trove of items, and will absolutely use them. I'd recommend a Robe of the Archmagi, Book of Vile Darkness, and an Ioun Stone of Mastery, all of which can buff the lich's save DC, AC, and such. Keep in mind, the lich's base proficiency bonus is +7.

[Eldariel]

Just a note: Simulacrum can only target Beasts/Humanoids, which a lich decidedly isn't. While they can circumvent this via something like True Polymorph, it does seem somewhat against the spirit of lichdom (and likely the aesthetic sought) to do so. As such, if they did have a Sim running around, it should probably be of someone who's not them.

More fun anyways to have a proper "Dragon" for the Lich in addition to the Lich himself. Perhaps even a literal (humanoid sim TPd into) Dragon/Dracolich to ride just as a cool mount with lots of HP and some decent abilities.


4) Heat Metal. Seriously. If they're all wearing heavy armor, cast heat metal on their armor. It's not a ton of damage, but there's no save and the only way to stop it is to spend a bunch of time taking the armor off (or break concentration).

I will point out that this is on Magma Mephit spell list, which can in turn be summoned en masse by Conjure Minor Elementals from e.g. a high level Wizard... :smallwink:

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

They don't have Rope Trick or Tiny Hut. Test their endurance, put them in a dungeon crawl that constantly chips away at them with super-low CR enemies. Tucker's Kobolds, if you don't know what that is just google it.

Put a Vampire Spellcaster's lair in there, it uses mist form to enter and leave through a densely collapsed tunnel that's completely inaccessible any other way, and contains no breathable air. If they beat up the vampire it goes into mist form and escapes to its lair in a roundabout way. One hour in its lair gives it 1 hp, at which point its regeneration kicks in and it's back in the fight shortly after. Swap out some of its spells, I would include Wall of Force to split them up.

The kobolds have deep warrens that they can access by squeezing through very small tunnels. The same type of tunnels are throughout the dungeon which they use to access the rooms without falling into their own traps. There are rooms with pitch covering the floor that they'll set alight, automatically dealing fire damage every round. They'll throw bales of oil-soaked hay covered in tar onto them from above, which explode and stick to anyone nearby when set alight. The dungeon has deep chasms through it with logs spanning the distance, which the kobolds have a release that allows those logs to spin. At the bottom is a very rough chasm with sharp stalagmites, chest-deep murky water, something in the water (skeletons?) that will four at a time try to grapple, shove prone, and pin them down with advantage due to the help action. It's impossible to even take a short rest here, the enemies are relentless. There's literally an unlimited number of enemies in this dungeon, all completely worthless for farming, their home completely unreachable. If they do get into the warrens, there's a powerful dragon or something that they worship guarding it.

[Dungeon-noob]

There have been some good ideas mentioned allready, but i wanted to point out a couple of ideas that i haven't seen yet and that i think are important.

Firstly, be aware of what this party is good at and what it isn't good at. And then remember to not bother challenging them on their strengths. They'll demolish just about anything you throw at them that does.

Palladins have great close range damage output, solid saves, and high AC. What they don't have, is battlefield control, utility (like vision options), AoE damage, long range damage, or antimagic.

Remember that their paladin aura DOESN'T apply to skill checks. Grapples might work quite well here, especially ones that don't require an attack. Creatures like Ropers (requires attack, but it gets a bunch, and it's grapple has decent DC and gives disadv on STR checks), Chokers (extremely low CR lets you spam them), Giant constrictors (also cheap CR spam), Mimics (triggers automatically, disadv on escape), Rug of smothering and similar (damage transfer will dissuade them from helping each other that way, also spammable distractions) all are much more effective at shutting or slowing them down.

Set up the terrain to their disadvantage. The plant growth and spike growth spells are great lower level options, and the wall spells exist for good reason. A cave in might not do a lot of damage, but pins them down, might separate them, and slows their progress. Spider webs are made for pinning things down, and armor hinders rather then helps. Underwater is not their forte.

Traps, traps and traps. Combining with the above point, they have about 0 trapfinding or disabling in this party. Even if they make the saves, dropped portcullis, save-for-halves, greasetraps, flooding rooms (with acid? poison?), and other such ideas will chip away at them good, or let you set up less favorable conditions for upcoming fights.

Kite the ever living carp out of them. Fliers as fast as them with ranged attacks aren't really something they can hurt. If a Roc flies by, grapples the ranger, and flies away, i wish them good luck getting that ranger back un-incapacitated. Quicklings with bows, and or the equivalent of some of the consumables that other editions had (might want to check some homebrew for something reasonable) are also not something they have good answers too.

Break their equipment. Rust monsters and Black puddings exist for a reason. Use them. Black puddings in particular are harsh, since slashing damage makes them worse, and i suspect at least several of them like their longswords or greatswords. (If you want to be REALLY mean, look at the Regenerating Black Puddings from OotA)

Target their mounts. Those things come from lower level spell slots, there's no way they're that tough. AoE spells can catch quite a few, and even a save for half still ends up hurting a lot with the right spell. Especially bad for them if they're using said mounts to stay airborne right now. Even if they direct it to their own HP pools, congrats, they gave you a shortcut straight to those.

Bury them in numbers. They have no AoE options, and sheer volume means some hits and effects will go through. Swarms (resistance against BPS, unaffected by some terrains), Mephits (death bursts, fliers, made for mass deployment), Larger creatures (block space and LoS, can grapple gud) are all very usefull in combination with some of the other options mentioned here. If you can create a setup where the horde doesn't have a definite end (you can at these levels), they will either attempt to bypass them or be buried.

Illusions. They have not much in the way to see through them, and untill they interact with them they have no clue. It screws up their battle plans and makes them leave openings. Say you set up a "spawning portal" mcguffin thingie that they have to deal with to end the horde. Just have it be covered by an illusion, and place a false portal deep in the enemy controlled part of the map. They make a mad dash for the "objective", it's false, oops, you overcommitted.

Escorts. This is a bunch of paladins, threatening hostages, innocents being around and under attack, similar situations can all be orchestrated to force them to spend their sharply limited resources on things other then brutalizing your monsters.

Just some ideas of the top of my head here. Hope it helps you come up with some fun challenges.

[JackPhoenix]

The fighter relies on a specific weapon? It would be a shame if he was disarmed....

[JonBeowulf]

They are likely all wearing heavy armor and using cool weapons - sounds like a great chance for some underwater combat. DISADV to swim in heavy armor, DISADV to attack w/ most weapons, hard to cast spells while holding your breath, etc (dispell water breathing). A partially submerged temple ruin in a swamp - sounds perfect.

Long 5' wide passageways - the bane of every adventuring party (especially those w/ mounts).

Isolate one PC and ruin them.

Heat Metal

the Maze spell (no save)
You are a mean, mean person. :smallwink:

I like this a lot. Probably more than I should.

[Unoriginal]

So the Lich can fly high in the air, baiting the Paladins at 300+ft above them. When one gets within 100ft of the Lich, just have the Lich Dispel Magic on them, resulting in the Paladin's fall.

200ft of fall damage average to 70 damages, which is quite a lot.


But also, don't forget that the Lich has Power Word Kill. A Lich could Magic Missile all the Paladins while their minions rune interference, and once a PC is injured enough and close enough the Lich can just kill them.

No save, no shenanigans, just instant death.

*That* gotta make the PCs reconsider their approach, I would bet.

[J-H]

18th level wizards (which a Lich might be) get a couple of signature spells that they can cast all day long. Magic Missile isn't a terrible choice. Shield isn't bad either.

[Unoriginal]

18th level wizards (which a Lich might be) get a couple of signature spells that they can cast all day long. Magic Missile isn't a terrible choice. Shield isn't bad either.

That would technically be homebrewing, though, which OP does not want.

[Sorinth]

I would think that the Lich would reshape the temple with the beacon to give whatever undead minions they leave behind as guardians the best tactical advantage while also filling it with traps. So they could use Stone Shape to carve out small tunnels allowing Flameskulls to use hit and run tactics. Create sealed off passageways for incorporeal undead to end their turns in a protected area. Create pit traps that are then hidden via Major Image (At 6th level so it's permanent) or to hide certain rooms filled with undead who will then be able attack from behind. Honestly even hiding or sealing off whatever room they need to reach the beacon could cause the party some issues in finding and restoring it. And obviously a number of Glyphs of Warding which not only trigger a big spell but also signal the undead guardians to attack.

I think the key for a memorable encounter is to soften up the party with traps/minions and then have the Lich just walk in with a couple defensive spells active and just start hammering with the biggest spells. Blink can be really powerful here as it's not concentration and can be precast by the Lich before they engage the party, same with Mirror Image. Every time the Lich takes their turn it should feel like they are about to see another PC go down. Now presumably the Lich would first Scry and then decide to teleport in which gives the party some breathing room to recover a bit but not enough to SR. But the key is to get the party down enough in HP so that the Lich's spells feel like they could drop a PC on a failed save and/or lucky damage roll. Because spells like Power Word: Kill, Finger of Death, Disintegrate have that extra threat level when a player isn't near full health.

For softening them up it doesn't even need to be big tough monsters. 6 Flameskulls are supposed to be an easy encounter, but if they have good cover then they can unload a lot of hurt. Similarly 4 Ogre Zombies should be trivial, but if they are physically blocking the only exit to a room that has just been filled with Cloudkill from a Glyph of Warding and they are grappling instead of attacking then it's no longer all that trivial and makes going through that big sack of HP much more memorable because of the need to push the pace and get out of the area. Depending how deadly you want you can even use things like Snare, or a second Glyph to cast something like Wall of Force or Arcane Lock instead of using minions.

Also keep in mind the Lich doesn't necessarily have to control any undead they create in that temple. Anything they create probably stays in the temple anyways and so they would end up attacking whoever enters the temple which serves the Lich's purposes just as well as controlled undead told to guard the temple.

[Unoriginal]

Also keep in mind the Lich doesn't necessarily have to control any undead they create in that temple. Anything they create probably stays in the temple anyways and so they would end up attacking whoever enters the temple which serves the Lich's purposes just as well as controlled undead told to guard the temple.

Yeah, while undead are violently omnicidal if left to their own devices, it doesn't affect other undead.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

An underground lair with little to no ventilation may not have any breathable air, not an issue for a lich or any other undead. That goes doubly so if the lich would have spent years or even decades working and researching in that lair, with candles lit that would have burned away all the oxygen, leaving nothing but carbon dioxide. If they don't each have a necklace of adaptation, or happened to make an air genasi or something with a similar trait, they'll risk suffocation just from walking in. Maybe it's not so bad by the entrance, but as they get deeper into the lair it's increasingly harder to breathe.

Maybe represent it with increasingly harder/frequent con saves to avoid taking a level of exhaustion. Once they hit three they'll have disadvantage on pretty much everything. Should make them easy to grapple and shove.

[Envyus]

Some decently powerful Undead minions prior are a good idea. Firegaunt, Frostmourn, Devourer, Skull Lords. Just a few extra hard hitters can help.

If you want the Lich to be more durable you can also maximize his HP. A Lich actually has 18d8+54 HP 135 is just an average of that. So you could roll for a higher amount or just give him the max that he could roll 198.

[Sorinth]

If you want the Lich to be more durable you can also maximize his HP. A Lich actually has 18d8+54 HP 135 is just an average of that. So you could roll for a higher amount or just give him the max that he could roll 198.

Since the Lich can cast a cantrip as a Legendary Action it's one of the few times something like Blade Ward might be useful. And if they drink a Potion of Resistance it could cover the Radiant damage from smites. It leads to more effective HPs then just maximizing HP, but since there are work arounds the players are rewarded for figuring out what's happening and playing clever. And of course you could do both. I mentioned it before but Blink would also be very good spell to pre-cast, if we are changing the spell list, otherwise Invisibility so that they can hit at the most opportune moment might be good.

In theory the Lich has time to scry the players as they deal with whatever guardians they left behind so should get a decent idea of their capabilities and then prepare themselves accordingly. So what would a Lich have at their disposal to buff themselves or what minions do they bring with them when they teleport back?

[da newt]

Maybe the BBEG has planned for facing a squad of Paladins and has created golems that are powered by radiant energy - if the other golems can be powered by acid, lightning, fire, etc, why not a radiant based type? This is homebrew-y though.



** A cult of evil minions (CR 4 Deathlocks or more boring CR 3 Priests) to DISPEL the fly / haste would be handy - If the flying mount is hasted and the haste is dispelled (or it enters an anti-magic zone), then the mount's speed = 0 and no actions for one turn so it can't fly = fall damage and prone. Some nice things about DISPEL is there is no save so Pali auras have no bearing, it's 120' range, there is no requirement to see the target - you just choose one creature, object or magical effect and ANY spell of 3rd level or below ends and ability check to DISPEL higher level spells. I believe RAW if you choose the target creature one DISPEL covers ALL spells currently active on them. (random thought - why isn't DISPEL spelled w/ 2 LL's especially when you are using it to undo 'spells' not 'spels'?)


A note on HEAT METAL - while the no save for repeating damage is nice, the real kicker is the DISADV rider on all attacks and ability checks.

Every high level wiz caster ought to start every encounter w/ greater invisibility precast.

Lean into the "magic collectors" paragraph of the LICH MM entry. Feel free to kit your BBEG out w/ wands/scrolls/rods/etc.

Beholder and their kin - antimagic eye is always a fun toy to play w/.

Fallen angels - not really worried about your smites.

Empyrean - simple tank that hits hard (4 attacks per round w/ +17 to hit for 31 dam each and a con 15 save vs stunned until the end of the empyrean's next turn)

[Amnestic]

why isn't DISPEL spelled w/ 2 LL's especially when you are using it to undo 'spells' not 'spels'?)

Dispel's (original) etymology isn't actually related to spells at all.

Though there is a Yugioh card that takes it to its logical conclusion - called "De-Spell".

[Easy e]

A mirror match enemy party, only they are level 20. :smallsmile:

[sithlordnergal]

Level 15? Alright, lets see:


--Star Spawn Mangle--

- 4 of them
- Give them all Greater Invisibility
- Have all of them target a single player. That'll be 24 attacks, at Advantage, and each one deals 1d8+2d6+4


--Star Spawn Larva Mage--

- 1 of them
- Keep them at a distance
- Give them Blink


--Elder Brain Dragon--

- 1 of them
- Make sure they never land.


------------------

or

1 Marut

1 Balor

1 Adult Red Dragon

1 Molydeus or 2 Nalfeshnee

Have the encounter take place in Pandemonium. All ranged attacks should have disadvantage due to the strong winds, which deals with the Fighter. Start with just the Marut, and make heavy use of its Fly speed. You should never land or be in any real danger of Extra Attack. Also, don't worry about Attacks of Opportunity, the Marut's attacks shove creatures without a save to stop it, so you should never be in range of one unless they gang up. I'd open the fight Blazing Edict, simply because its a 60ft cube that deals 45 Radiant Damage and Stuns you for one round, with a DC 20 Wisdom save.

Now, they will cast Fly. But that won't matter. Because Maruts auto-hit whatever they attack, and deal a flat 60 damage. Target whoever casts Fly, and see if they can succeed on two DC 30 Concentration Checks in a row.

A few rounds in, if the Marut seems to be struggling, have a "random" group of Demons show up. This is Pandemonium, there are Demons around. I'll be honest, I'm kind of stealing this from a T4 Adventure, but have a Balor fly in riding a Dragon, flanked by either two Nalfehnee or a single Molydeus. They are Demons, Demons don't like Paladins, pile on the weakest looking Paladin.