Atamathon, The Ancient Golem

[JNAProductions]

Atamathon, The Ancient Golem
Gargantuan Construct, Neutral

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Armor Class 26 (Impervious Construction)
Hit Points 1,230 (60d20+600)
Speed 60'

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Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma
30 (+10)	14 (+2)	30 (+10)	10 (0)	14 (+2)	10 (0)

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Saving Throws Intelligence +9, Wisdom +11, Charisma +9
Skills Athletics +28, Perception +20
Damage Resistances Acid, Cold, Fire, Force, Radiant, Thunder
Damage Immunities Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from weapons that are neither magical nor adamantine, Poison
Condition Immunities Charmed, Deafened, Frightened, Petrified, Poisoned
Senses Truesight 10', Tremorsense 120', Passive Perception 30
Languages Old Common
Challenge Real High

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Reflective Damage Threshold 15
If an attack would do less than 15 points of damage to Atamathon, it instead deals no damage to Atamathon and full damage to the attacker.

Immutable Form
Atamathon's form cannot be altered or replicated while it is live.

Magical Attacks
All Atamathon's attacks are magical.

Towering
Atamathon ignores difficult terrain, unless it is truly massive enough to affect him.

Mythical Resilience
Should Atamathon fail a save, it can sacrifice HP to improve its roll. Each point of improvement costs 3 HP per spell level. (So, for instance, if targeted by Hold Monster at 5th level, if Atamathon failed by 3 points, it could spend 45 HP to pass instead.)

Actions

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Slam Melee Weapon Attack:
+19 to-hit, reach 30', one target. Hit: 4d12+10 bludgeoning damage.

Sweep Melee Weapon Attack:
All targets in a 30' cone, Dexterity save DC 27. Failed Save: 2d12+10 bludgeoning damage.

Irresistible Sun Recharge 4-6
Atamathon gains the mass and power of a vast sun, pulling all and damaging them intensely. Any creature within 120' must make a DC 17 Strength save, or be pulled 30' closer to Atamathon. If they are within 60', make the save with disadvantage.
Then, any target within 120' must make a Constitution save, taking 10d10 damage on a failed save, and half on a success. This damage is treated as being bludgeoning, radiant, and fire. The save is made with disadvantage if they are within 60', and the damage increases to 15d10 if they are within 30'.

Extra Attack V
Atamathon makes six attacks, divided between Slams and Sweeps.

Bonus Actions

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Arcane Pull
All creatures within 60' must make a DC 17 Strength save or be pulled 30' closer and take 4d6 bludgeoning damage.

Giant Leap
Atamathon leaps 120'.

Reactions

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Eye Beam
When targeted for an attack from within 300', Atamathon may use its reaction to fire eye beams at the attacker. The attack has +11 to-hit and deals 5d8 cold, fire, or lightning damage, Atamathon's choice.

No Sell
Atamathon gains advantage on a save. Should he pass this save, he completely ignores all ill effects that might normally occur on a passed save.

Legendary Actions

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Atamathon can take five legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. Atamathon regains spent legendary actions at the start of their turn.

Giant Leap. Atamathon uses Giant Leap
Regain Reaction (Costs 2 Actions). Atamathon regains its reaction.
Attack (Costs 3 Actions). Atamathon makes a Slam or Sweep attack.

Spoiler: Notes

Show

I feel it's a little bland. Anyone got advice to spice it up?

[Nifft]

Having 3 damage types for an attack is perfectly kosher for 4e, but I haven't seen that in 5e.

Irresistible Sun is usable every other turn on average. That seems out of whack. Have it be a thing that happens ONCE when the golem falls below half max HP, and have the effect last for 1 minute. I'd suggest reducing the damage significantly, and thus making the forced movement be the important thing. Define when the forced movement occurs each turn (suggestion: right before Athom's action).

Giant Leap as a bonus action with no recharge? That's silly. Make it an action with a recharge (6), and have it deal damage in an area where he lands.

Don't put Giant Leap as a Legendary action.

Reflective shield thingy could just reflect the first 15 points of damage no matter what. That effectively gives DR 15/-- plus automatic retaliation. Specify whether this reflection occurs before or after resistance, since it resists a lot of stuff.

Mythic Resilience is weird, and breaks the normal strategy for Legendary resistance. I suggest just using Legendary.

I feel like Sweep x6 is too much. I'd suggest making Sweep a Legendary Action (costs 3), and making Eyebeam a regular attack which can be intermixed with Slams.


Other golemic effect ideas:
- Knockback
- Daze / Stun with Giant Leap, or knock prone
- Stomp to knock prone in an area, or to generate difficult terrain in a small radius
- Eyebeams as attack actions which each recharge (5-6) separately
- Siege Weapon - deals more damage to structures or whatever
- Obnoxious Redhead - if you beat Athomathon, your next battle is with a sultry half-celestial redhead sorceress who sets everything on fire, has nine extra lives, and is sleeping with the game's designer

[Tvtyrant]

Irresistable Sun seems like a Lair Action to me.

I don't know much about TE4 (I looked the monster up) but it seems like having some lair actions built around terrain effects would be good. Like a giant pit opening up so it can knock someone into it and then put its foot on top of them, locking them out for a turn. Throwing someone several hundred feet away, dragging people into quicksand, that kind of stuff.

[Eurus]

Give him a nasty Molten Skin effect, maybe? Dimension door would also be handy, makes it much harder to lock him down. That being said...

Making Atamathon interesting as a boss for a party of 3-5 players is different than making him interesting as a boss for a single person. One thing that I like to do is figure out what each party role can contribute here. Atamathon, as you have him written up, seems like he's baaaaasically a DPS race. His ability to ignore any effects that aren't just damage means that some PCs might have a hard time figuring out what to do!

Spoiler: One potential idea

Show

First, make him recharge/use Immortal Sun if and only if he starts his turn without at least one enemy adjacent to him. This allows for the possibility of someone trying to "tank" him away from the squishier PCs, when it would otherwise be pretty much impossible due to his sheer mobility. It makes the encounter somewhat less threatening, but more tactical.

Second: The eye beams are a nifty aesthetic, but as written they're pretty bland. They're mostly just extra attacks he can spam that do much less damage than his melee, and I don't see much of a point in making them a reaction response to an attack against him? One thing that might be interesting is to make them respond to something more specific, like when someone tries to cast a spell in his line of sight. Have it do damage and force a saving throw to avoid losing the spell?

Third: Because of this thing's list of immunities, some PCs might end up not really being able to hurt it directly. Adding in secondary objectives is a great way to address this. Maybe the PCs can set up an avalanche of debris and junk onto Atamathon to hurt it, or sabotage its power source, or climb up its body Shadow of the Colossus style and pry out its laser eyes- weird stuff like that is half the fun of tabletop, right?

[JNAProductions]

Yeah, I'm probably gonna do a whole rewrite soon. My first pass was just too bland.

Thanks for all the advice, folks!