Tactical Challenge #4

[Valmark]

The party thief is in possession of the locket. They know it is important, but nothing else. (as per Keravath's post, we've got it but don't know how to use it - yes I have scars from this encounter)

The paladin is the first in line in a 5' wide passage/stairs 30' from the landing and animated armor (landing/armor are at the top, party at the bottom). The barbarian/BM is behind the paladin so it takes 10' of movement to move through his space, then 20', ending up 10' short of the Armor. To reach the armor on the first round would require action dash, then action surge to attack/shove, assuming BA used to rage, leaving 2 attempts, if shove succeeds, then they can open the door and move into the room. Armor has 17 ST, no Ath prof so raging Barb w/ Ath has hi prob to succeed, but will trigger an OpAtt as he steps to/through door. Then on Armor's turn step back into blocking position and attack.

Your party does not know that the Armor has any vulnerabilities or immunities. You can only learn by trying and observing.

The BBEG legendary action to blow a kiss has a 30' range. The KISS is a spell attack but it does not list if it includes verbal components. We will assume somatic only. Reminder 3 of the party are at DISADV to all saves. BBEG will cast Evard's and Cloud Kill on first two rounds (passing conc to witches) unless someone forces something different.

According to Keravath's post they were suggested how- but alright.

How does the barbarian provoke opportunity attacks? Dash, AS shove next to the door, walk up to it then free action to open it. There is no room for the armor to step in front of the door and the barbarian never leaves its threat range.

Uh, weird that they don't, all animated items have the same vulnerability. Guess I'll avoid Dispel Magic.

The point with the Kiss under Silence is that the boss can't control the PCs (or anybody else)- she can order them around. And she can't do that because no orders can be heard in there.

Your Party: All Lvl 9

Bugbear, Bear Totem Barbarian 4 / BM Fighter 5, PAM, shield, half plate, Cloak of Protection, +1 Staff, Dueling FS, 18 ST, 14 DX, 16 CO, 8 IN, 12 WI, 8 CH, AC 19, 86 hp, Precision Att, Menacing Att, Riposte.

V Human OotA Paladin, Shield Master, plate, shield, +1 Long Sword, Defensive FS, 18 St, 10 DX, 14 CO, 8 IN, 12 WI, 16 CH, AC 21, hp 72

Goblin Thief, SS, +1 Studded Leather, +1 Short Bow, 12 ST, 18 DX, 16 CO, 8 IN, 12 WI, 8 CH, AC 17, hp 71

V Human Life Cleric, War Caster, Res Con, Chain Mail, +1 Shield, Mace, 14 ST, 12 DX, 16 CO, 8 IN, 16 WI, 10 CH, AC 18, hp 71

Half Elf Celestial Warlock, Pact of Tome, War Caster, +1 Studded Leather, Staff, 10 ST, 12 DX, 16 CO, 8 IN, 12 WI, 18 CH, AC 14, hp 71

Stout Halfling Moon Druid, War Caster, shield, scale mail, staff, 10 ST, 12 DX, 16 CO, 8 IN, 18 WI, CH 10, AC 17, 71 hp

Casting in Armour
“Because of the mental focus and precise gestures required for spellcasting, you must be proficient with the armour you are wearing to cast a spell. You are otherwise too distracted and physically hampered by your armour for spellcasting.“

Sorcerer twin spell telekinesis Beyond 30ft from the witch, target the armor and the witch, it’s a skill check either have a high chance of failing And legendary resistance will not work on skill checks. Don the witch in armor since she is not proficient in plate armor to disable her spellcasting and the armors mobility. Proceed to club everyone else to death in the room to death with the rest of the gang.

That or 4 arcana clerics casting spirit guardians, taking the dodge action, and spamming counter spell would probably work as well. Does this have to be a specific party build I only really read the main post?

We do have a party composition.

[vexedart]

After rereading this it’s a bit rough with your party and hard to know what spells were prepared, you could always cheese them by scouting via an invisible familiar, (hopefully the lock has that at least In their ritual tome) then smoking the room out and killing them via smoke inhalation, as none are immune to needing to breathe from what I’ve read, besides the animated plate. The rest of the room description doesn’t give any details, windows, other escapes besides the one door in the NE that I’m guessing is the same stairwell you have to go through to reach them. This at least forces them to confront you or suffocate, and then use the stairwell which is likely difficult terrain making reinforcing it hell if/when they decide to attack you. Putting you at a bigger advantage if you can flip the set up in your favor. If she ends up teleporting through the door via misty step, your Druid can wall of stone her reinforcements off by bringing a pebble as a spell component, and the rest beat the witch down When she’s isolated. I recommend the barbarian brings a net with a blanket stitched around it, to blind her while they’re grappled, and restrain her, High level casters with half the immunities/resistances the game offers can be tricky, but this is a possible set up without metagaming, just need to be better prepared and scout ahead, even if the familiar gets ganked. Also, fireball should destroy all her candles quite easily for a back up plan, including any other unequipped object under 33 health in the room. You can also use the party blankets to funnel the smoke in, or pyrotechnics if you can prepare it. Start a fire and feed it whatever you want. Conjure fey in case the warlock missed the familiar bit. Pixies are good scouts and can polymorph the party into whatever helps best.

“A creature can hold its breath for a number of minutes equal to 1 + its Constitution modifier (minimum of 30 seconds). When a creature runs out of breath or is choking, it can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round).“

Hope this helps. When fighting strong casters, taking away breath, sight, or restraining them, helps limit what spells they can cast. Remember, they forfeit their breath after casting a verbal spell, and begin choking.

[Nhorianscum]

I'm pretty sure the druid+cleric can just drop wall of stone+silence on the BBEG to just lock it in a box and from there the fight is pretty elementary.

You just pick off the mooks while the cleric chucks a Guardian of faith or two on the BBEG and then ready-action-spam her to dead by dropping the wall.

5th level dispel magic should straight one shot the armor but that's sorta gamey. Good thing barbs can just shove the room.

Witches and thugs are sorta sad and non-threatening here without the BBEG. A blast spell or two can just wipe the room.

Even with resistance and legendary actions ready action spam at the end of her turn+a full turn order of just wailing on her should drop her without any sort of suspense.

[Dork_Forge]

After rereading this it’s a bit rough with your party and hard to know what spells were prepared, you could always cheese them by scouting via an invisible familiar, (hopefully the lock has that at least In their ritual tome) then smoking the room out and killing them via smoke inhalation, as none are immune to needing to breathe from what I’ve read, besides the animated plate. The rest of the room description doesn’t give any details, windows, other escapes besides the one door in the NE that I’m guessing is the same stairwell you have to go through to reach them. This at least forces them to confront you or suffocate, and then use the stairwell which is likely difficult terrain making reinforcing it hell if/when they decide to attack you. Putting you at a bigger advantage if you can flip the set up in your favor. If she ends up teleporting through the door via misty step, your Druid can wall of stone her reinforcements off by bringing a pebble as a spell component, and the rest beat the witch down When she’s isolated. I recommend the barbarian brings a net with a blanket stitched around it, to blind her while they’re grappled, and restrain her, High level casters with half the immunities/resistances the game offers can be tricky, but this is a possible set up without metagaming, just need to be better prepared and scout ahead, even if the familiar gets ganked. Also, fireball should destroy all her candles quite easily for a back up plan, including any other unequipped object under 33 health in the room. You can also use the party blankets to funnel the smoke in, or pyrotechnics if you can prepare it. Start a fire and feed it whatever you want. Conjure fey in case the warlock missed the familiar bit. Pixies are good scouts and can polymorph the party into whatever helps best.

“A creature can hold its breath for a number of minutes equal to 1 + its Constitution modifier (minimum of 30 seconds). When a creature runs out of breath or is choking, it can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round).“

Hope this helps. When fighting strong casters, taking away breath, sight, or restraining them, helps limit what spells they can cast. Remember, they forfeit their breath after casting a verbal spell, and begin choking.

The party is unaware, but unless losing verbal stops the ritual (there's no indication of that) then this isn't going to work fast enough within the 10 rounds before the BBEG becomes a god. Then there's the issue of it not shutting down her kiss and hosing the party if they move into the room (and maybe out of it, I imagine smoke thick enough to cause this would also block visibility), then theirs the DM dependent quesiton of how many rounds would it take for smoke to get bad enough to cause choking in a room of that size?

[MaxWilson]

The party is unaware, but unless losing verbal stops the ritual (there's no indication of that) then this isn't going to work fast enough within the 10 rounds before the BBEG becomes a god. Then there's the issue of it not shutting down her kiss and hosing the party if they move into the room (and maybe out of it, I imagine smoke thick enough to cause this would also block visibility), then theirs the DM dependent quesiton of how many rounds would it take for smoke to get bad enough to cause choking in a room of that size?

Boy, wouldn't it be convenient if there were a monk in this party instead of a paladin, so you could stop the ritual by stunning her?

[Dork_Forge]

Boy, wouldn't it be convenient if there were a monk in this party instead of a paladin, so you could stop the ritual by stunning her?

Wait did we stop hating Monks already? Which direction is my pitchfork meant to point now?!

[da newt]

We were fairly new and far from optimal in anyway. For example, our druid cast conjure animals exactly once the whole campaign, I'd never seen calm emotions used, etc.

So, how would a clever party succeed where we failed (it wasn't even close - we got curb stomped)?

Silence, dispel magic, calm emotions, conjure animals, etc all good ideas. How do you get Vrocks? Is a wall of stone effective against a caster w/ disintegrate? If the BBEG blows a kiss at the druid concentrating on animals do they all go away or just get new instructions to protect the BBEG?

As an aside - in your games does the DM tell you are facing animated armor, or describe a foe as wearing full plate, helm, visor and wielding a great sword? Do you encounter 9' tall humanoids w/ oily green skin and long clawed hands or a Troll?

[Nhorianscum]

We were fairly new and far from optimal in anyway. For example, our druid cast conjure animals exactly once the whole campaign, I'd never seen calm emotions used, etc.

So, how would a clever party succeed where we failed (it wasn't even close - we got curb stomped)?

Silence, dispel magic, calm emotions, conjure animals, etc all good ideas. How do you get Vrocks? Is a wall of stone effective against a caster w/ disintegrate? If the BBEG blows a kiss at the druid concentrating on animals do they all go away or just get new instructions to protect the BBEG?

As an aside - in your games does the DM tell you are facing animated armor, or describe a foe as wearing full plate, helm, visor and wielding a great sword? Do you encounter 9' tall humanoids w/ oily green skin and long clawed hands or a Troll?

In a zone of silence? No.

(The trick is to segment the interior of the box so you can both deny the save and restrict her to the zone of silence. This also layers the box so that even casting disintigrate is only enough to break one wall)

Outside of silence?

Disintegrate "can" blast one wall, if she does, w/e stone can be layered into multiple walls and pockets and is large enough to just cover the entire room with a lockbox maze of your own design.

One blast = 1 wall vs many, many, many, walls. It's non-magical so RIP dispel magic.

Her candle casting just moves the source, it does not remove her requirements for the spell and we can just lock up the candles as well.

It's actually really hard to break wall of stone.

[MaxWilson]

Silence, dispel magic, calm emotions, conjure animals, etc all good ideas. How do you get Vrocks?

Summon Greater Demon is a 4th level Warlock spell, upcastable to 5th level. It lets you pick a demon of your choice (e.g. Barlgura) of CR no greater than N+1, where N is the spell level. So with 5th level slots you can summon a CR 6 Vrock or a CR 6 Chasme or any of the lesser demons (Dybbuks are interesting). Maybe a Chasme would actually be a better choice here than the Vrock, I'm not sure, but that's how you get them.

(I chose Vrock over Chasme because of the stunning and weapon resistance, but Chasmes have a better action economy and do loads more damage but some of it is necrotic.)

Is a wall of stone effective against a caster w/ disintegrate? If the BBEG blows a kiss at the druid concentrating on animals do they all go away or just get new instructions to protect the BBEG?

This is why you want to send the summons into the room but not the PCs--the caster is vulnerable to control or disruption. DM and/or player would have to rule on what happens to the animals if the PC is in love with the BBEG, but it's better to just not have that problem because the PC is behind total cover (not in the room).

As an aside - in your games does the DM tell you are facing animated armor, or describe a foe as wearing full plate, helm, visor and wielding a great sword? Do you encounter 9' tall humanoids w/ oily green skin and long clawed hands or a Troll?

My favorite way to do these things is to establish a precedent with the players: when they meet a new type of monster, I describe it, and then THEY have to come up with a name for it and a way of recognizing it. I write that name down in my notes and then use it going forward for any monster that matches that description. If they meet an 8' tall stony creature with a big club and call it a "troll", well then now "there's a troll attacking you", and now you can summon "trolls" (Earth Elementals) with a 5th level spell. If you tell me that the vaguely humanoid thing with glistening skin and eyes/hands vaguely like those of an unborn child, except with tentacles for a mouth, is a Squidward... well, that Squidward is now blasting you all with psionic power and trying to suck Bob's brains out.

Here's a thread on the topic: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...-of-play-PEACH

Core motivation: to make gameplay more player-centric and more fun for the players. From the thread: This new procedure would have no impact at all on player agency and their ability to create outcomes, but I believe it would have an effect on the experience of play. Instead of players passively waiting for the DM to finish a probably-irrelevant description of exactly what a Star Spawn Grue looks like so they can roll initiative and start killing things, now you've got an active listening cycle where the DMs and players have a conversation where they come to a mutual agreement about what this horrific new aberration [Star Spawn Grues] actually looks like, in both of their imaginations, well enough so that the DM knows (or at least thinks he knows) what the players see in their heads. And if they are careless and just assume that any hunched, shadowy form is definitely a Space Orc [Star Spawn Grue] they have no one to blame but themselves when the tactical implications bite them in the form of a six-armed [Star Spawn Mangler]!

[da newt]

So Cleric casts Silence first while prohibiting counter spell reaction, then something to keep the BBEG from legendary action out of the area, Druid casts Wall of Stone second (must be cast from outside of Silence AoE but where you can see the area you want to wall), then mop up the minions while the BBEG continues her ritual behind the stone wall, then drop the wall and resume fight w/ just the BBEG?

All the while ensuring none of your party are Kissed (on her team) because Cleric can't Calm Emotions and Silence at the same time...


Crap - I didn't check Xanthars Spells ...

[Nhorianscum]

So Cleric casts Silence first while prohibiting counter spell reaction, then something to keep the BBEG from legendary action out of the area, Druid casts Wall of Stone second (must be cast from outside of Silence AoE but where you can see the area you want to wall), then mop up the minions while the BBEG continues her ritual behind the stone wall, then drop the wall and resume fight w/ just the BBEG?

All the while ensuring none of your party are Kissed (on her team) because Cleric can't Calm Emotions and Silence at the same time...


Crap - I didn't check Xanthars Spells ...

Nah, just hold action silence for the end of her move as wall goes up from outside counterspell range.

If a party member gets kissed... how? It has 30 ft of range. No worries.

Edit: on second though we have enough wall to just lock up everything and go straight to the BBEG. Drop, and blick her.

[Valmark]

We were fairly new and far from optimal in anyway. For example, our druid cast conjure animals exactly once the whole campaign, I'd never seen calm emotions used, etc.

So, how would a clever party succeed where we failed (it wasn't even close - we got curb stomped)?

Silence, dispel magic, calm emotions, conjure animals, etc all good ideas. How do you get Vrocks? Is a wall of stone effective against a caster w/ disintegrate? If the BBEG blows a kiss at the druid concentrating on animals do they all go away or just get new instructions to protect the BBEG?

As an aside - in your games does the DM tell you are facing animated armor, or describe a foe as wearing full plate, helm, visor and wielding a great sword? Do you encounter 9' tall humanoids w/ oily green skin and long clawed hands or a Troll?

I have to ask, how does your DM run Conjure Animals? Many DMs run it in many different ways, could be that their way makes the spell not worth it.

With Silence the Kiss doesn't do much- can't be ordered around. The BBEG can be beaten without killing them while still disrupting the ritual, which should appease the protection part.

On the troll you are kinda right- in the groups I am in most of the time we use pictures, so that problem would be there only if we don't know what we are looking at. But regarding the AA... If that's what your DM told you, they lied. An animated armor doesn't look like somebody wearing an armor nor like a golem in case that was a problem, unless they are disguised somehow. The empty space between the helm and the chest piece should be a dead give away.

So Cleric casts Silence first while prohibiting counter spell reaction, then something to keep the BBEG from legendary action out of the area, Druid casts Wall of Stone second (must be cast from outside of Silence AoE but where you can see the area you want to wall), then mop up the minions while the BBEG continues her ritual behind the stone wall, then drop the wall and resume fight w/ just the BBEG?

All the while ensuring none of your party are Kissed (on her team) because Cleric can't Calm Emotions and Silence at the same time...

Crap - I didn't check Xanthars Spells ...

Note that the BBEG cannot get out as long as someone is in front of the door, regardless of what legendary actions they use.

[da newt]

Max - Vrock stun is a save, BBEG has legendary resistance, the Vrock has ADV and +4 for Wiz saves, but a successful KISS and now you have Vrock to fight too ... high risk / high reward.

Nhorianscum: Counterspell is 60' range, the room is 20X40. If we ignore that, walk me through the specifics of your plan turn by turn including movement and legendary actions - I just can't picture it. And your starting assumptions are that the Armor has been destroyed, the door is open, and the BBEG hasn't acted yet (cast Evard's or Cloud Kill)?

Val, if the AoE of Silence is the whole room, it makes it very hard for any PC's to get into a position on the landing where they have line of sight to cast and are outside the silence, and the silence caster probably doesn't want to be the one blocking the door or they are a target ...

"The charmed target regards BBEG as his or her true love to be heeded and protected, through violence against others if need be." - charmed PC's don't need to be directed to take action, depending on how you interpret this ...

Show me how it works - I'm rooting for ya.

[MaxWilson]

Max - Vrock stun is a save, BBEG has legendary resistance, the Vrock has ADV and +4 for Wiz saves, but a successful KISS and now you have Vrock to fight too ... high risk / high reward.

Vrock stun is mostly for the sake of the Thugs and Witches, not the BBEG. Animals will follow up by attacking stunned targets with advantage while PCs take turns approaching the doorway and spewing AoEs/Eldritch Blasts/etc. into the room. It's not clear to me whether Kiss makes you have to fight the Vrock or not (how does a Vrock treat a target it's in love with? and emotions don't override the magic of Summon Greater Demon anyway unless/until the Vrock breaks free), and even if it does the Vrock has already spent its best attack (Stun) so who cares... it's not like any PCs are taking damage from it anyway, just conjured meatshields (wolves/snakes/monkeys/whatever). Not high risk. It's a cheap, low-risk opener to clear the board of Thugs/Witches/etc. and maybe hurt the BBEG too, depending.

Try rolling it, you'll see.

[Nhorianscum]

Max - Vrock stun is a save, BBEG has legendary resistance, the Vrock has ADV and +4 for Wiz saves, but a successful KISS and now you have Vrock to fight too ... high risk / high reward.

Nhorianscum: Counterspell is 60' range, the room is 20X40. If we ignore that, walk me through the specifics of your plan turn by turn including movement and legendary actions - I just can't picture it. And your starting assumptions are that the Armor has been destroyed, the door is open, and the BBEG hasn't acted yet (cast Evard's or Cloud Kill)?

Val, if the AoE of Silence is the whole room, it makes it very hard for any PC's to get into a position on the landing where they have line of sight to cast and are outside the silence, and the silence caster probably doesn't want to be the one blocking the door or they are a target ...

"The charmed target regards BBEG as his or her true love to be heeded and protected, through violence against others if need be." - charmed PC's don't need to be directed to take action, depending on how you interpret this ...

Show me how it works - I'm rooting for ya.

Edit: Disclaimer: look at wall of stone, now back at me, now back at the room. It really does not matter what we do, we can scribble around like a kid with crayons and still get our ideal result. BBEG in a super tiny silent room full of allies with no LOS out and the druid crammed into the only exit as an elephantine plug. I'm goin sideways because it's hilarious to me personally and I will never not sideways stone wall, but it's impossible to mess this up.

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

Oh God it's a 20×40 room. That changes everything.

Barb shoves armor and thug.

Druid winds up and...

Wall of stone 3 ft off the ground. Full room, horizontal with a ramp and passage at the doorway. Buttressing under the wall forms a reverse spiral forcing all enemies to move prone for a full round minimum to exit, one at a time. (Shrink room to silence+GoF size as well and make sure candles are blocked.)

Select all but BBEG under. (This is a bit tricky, we're redefining enemy spaces by the squeeze rule here so that the wall does not end inside their space after forced movement)

Proceed to gang BBEG as cleric simultaneously silences the entire room sans a 5ft corner for itself, and another for the lock. The rest of the party fills the remaining space and just meat locks BBEG.

Warlock can counterspell if needed to set this up.

Druid wildshapes into something big that doesn't care about poison or just has a brick of HP and bodyblocks the corridor with the squeeze rule as a meat plug. It can just tank cloudkill and a prone mook if it needs to with slot healing.

Party has the BBEG trapped, isolated, and are free to just wail on her in peace. She can kiss one or two of them but that's not going to stop the pain train and they're all pala aura'd, this is now a tiny room with no movement allowed. The cleric is just casting GoF 3x here. That's 180 no-save damage. She dead. (Or if your table rules that it cannot stack because GoF is weird, SW and GoF.)

[da newt]

If a summoner/conjurer is kissed, now the summons/conjures become enemies of the party. If a summoned demon is kissed, it becomes an enemy of the party (and if they are not controlled, they stick around for 1d6 turns, so you can't just drop the spell, right?) If the KISS just created the charm condition, no big deal, but it conveys so much more.

"The charmed target regards BBEG as his or her true love to be heeded and protected, through violence against others if need be." - charmed PC's don't need to be directed to take action, depending on how you interpret this ... (and my DM took 'to be protected through violence' as the KISSED must attack whoever threatens the BBEG)


How do you prohibit counter spell from denying a wall of stone? Silence doesn't stop it, you can't be out of range, and you can't cast it someplace you can't see - so you could cast from the landing, but only wall where you have LOS.

It's so hard to get around the action economy of the powerful legendary actions and resistances, and the KISS results in your parties numbers decreasing while the BBEG's grow.

If the door is open, Evards and Cloud Kill spill out making your day even more crappy.

[Unoriginal]

Question: did/do the DM rules that every spellcasters with Counterspell can automatically identify any spell being cast?

[Gignere]

Yeah the party will need to bait the counterspell. So if the cleric silence gets counterspell, warlock need to cast some kind of vision blocking or the Druid need to following the cleric. Of course this depends on the exact initiative order. Once vision is blocked Kiss won’t be nearly as effective as the BBEG has to attack with disadvantage. But we don’t have the full spell lists for the lock or Druid. Presumably the warlock would have at least darkness if not shadow of moils.

Some sort of conjuring is probably the best bet for the Druid, if the darkness was successfully cast maybe cast giant insect, as a few of those has blindsight.

Man this party composition is tough on this fight I’m not use to not having counterspell from someone on the party’s side.

[Valmark]

If a summoner/conjurer is kissed, now the summons/conjures become enemies of the party. If a summoned demon is kissed, it becomes an enemy of the party (and if they are not controlled, they stick around for 1d6 turns, so you can't just drop the spell, right?) If the KISS just created the charm condition, no big deal, but it conveys so much more.

"The charmed target regards BBEG as his or her true love to be heeded and protected, through violence against others if need be." - charmed PC's don't need to be directed to take action, depending on how you interpret this ... (and my DM took 'to be protected through violence' as the KISSED must attack whoever threatens the BBEG)


How do you prohibit counter spell from denying a wall of stone? Silence doesn't stop it, you can't be out of range, and you can't cast it someplace you can't see - so you could cast from the landing, but only wall where you have LOS.

It's so hard to get around the action economy of the powerful legendary actions and resistances, and the KISS results in your parties numbers decreasing while the BBEG's grow.

If the door is open, Evards and Cloud Kill spill out making your day even more crappy.

I guess it's up to the DM. If I'm under no compel to obey the BBEG (since they can't say anything) I can easily think that the ritual must be stopped for everybody's good. All it takes is for the BBEG to be downed with a non-lethal attack.

Counterspell can be Counterspelled.

Evard and Cloud Kill can be stopped by Silence. Or have the summons wail on it to disrupt Concentration anyway- demons are compelled to Attack the nearest target when uncontrolled anyway. When controlled they are... Well, controlled.

I'm assuming no melee has gotten within melee yet when saying this.

[da newt]

Casters recognize spells they know, otherwise they gamble with spell slot used ... so in this case BBEG would not recognize Stone Wall for example, but does have many spell slots.

[Valmark]

Yeah the party will need to bait the counterspell. So if the cleric silence gets counterspell, warlock need to cast some kind of vision blocking or the Druid need to following the cleric. Of course this depends on the exact initiative order. Once vision is blocked Kiss won’t be nearly as effective as the BBEG has to attack with disadvantage. But we don’t have the full spell lists for the lock or Druid. Presumably the warlock would have at least darkness if not shadow of moils.

Some sort of conjuring is probably the best bet for the Druid, if the darkness was successfully cast maybe cast giant insect, as a few of those has blindsight.

Man this party composition is tough on this fight I’m not use to not having counterspell from someone on the party’s side.

Warlock have Counterspell!

[Nhorianscum]

If a summoner/conjurer is kissed, now the summons/conjures become enemies of the party. If a summoned demon is kissed, it becomes an enemy of the party (and if they are not controlled, they stick around for 1d6 turns, so you can't just drop the spell, right?) If the KISS just created the charm condition, no big deal, but it conveys so much more.

"The charmed target regards BBEG as his or her true love to be heeded and protected, through violence against others if need be." - charmed PC's don't need to be directed to take action, depending on how you interpret this ... (and my DM took 'to be protected through violence' as the KISSED must attack whoever threatens the BBEG)


How do you prohibit counter spell from denying a wall of stone? Silence doesn't stop it, you can't be out of range, and you can't cast it someplace you can't see - so you could cast from the landing, but only wall where you have LOS.

It's so hard to get around the action economy of the powerful legendary actions and resistances, and the KISS results in your parties numbers decreasing while the BBEG's grow.

If the door is open, Evards and Cloud Kill spill out making your day even more crappy.

Just have the lock counterspell the counterspell and evards. Then she's in a silent meat box and we don't care.

Once plan "just kill her" is in effect she can kiss away. It's not going to save her from the 100ish DPR she's facing anywhere near fast enough to matter.

[MaxWilson]

If a summoner/conjurer is kissed, now the summons/conjures become enemies of the party. If a summoned demon is kissed, it becomes an enemy of the party (and if they are not controlled, they stick around for 1d6 turns, so you can't just drop the spell, right?) If the KISS just created the charm condition, no big deal, but it conveys so much more.

Note: summoned demons are already enemies to the party, as omnicidal maniacs. They are however compelled to obey the summoner at least briefly.

You utter foul words, summoning one demon from the chaos of the Abyss. You choose the demon’s type, which must be one of challenge rating 5 or lower, such as a shadow demon or a barlgura. The demon appears in an unoccupied space you can see within range, and the demon disappears when it drops to 0 hit points or when the spell ends.

Roll initiative for the demon, which has its own turns. When you summon it and on each of your turns thereafter, you can issue a verbal command to it (requiring no action on your part), telling it what it must do on its next turn. If you issue no command, it spends its turn attacking any creature within reach that has attacked it.

At the end of each of the demon’s turns, it makes a Charisma saving throw. The demon has disadvantage on this saving throw if you say its true name. On a failed save, the demon continues to obey you. On a successful save, your control of the demon ends for the rest of the duration, and the demon spends its turns pursuing and attacking the nearest non-demons to the best of its ability. If you stop concentrating on the spell before it reaches its full duration, an uncontrolled demon doesn’t disappear for 1d6 rounds if it still has hit points.

As part of casting the spell, you can form a circle on the ground with the blood used as a material component. The circle is large enough to encompass your space. While the spell lasts, the summoned demon can’t cross the circle or harm it, and it can’t target anyone within it. Using the material component in this manner consumes it when the spell ends.

However, it's not a big deal IMO even if you lose control of the demon after it gets Kissed, and it falls in love and starts helping the BBEG. It's just highly amusing, because ewwww. Either way the Vrock has already spent its big attack (AoE stun) and helped kill off the thugs/witches, as well as buying time for more AoEs and ranged attacks. The sixteen conjured giant poisonous snakes/wolves/whatever actually 4x to 8x more damage than the Vrock does, but the chances of them all falling in love with the BBEG are zero. There's just not enough time for her to Kiss them all, and meanwhile the Thugs and Witches are possibly Stunned and definitely being murdered.

Yeah the party will need to bait the counterspell. So if the cleric silence gets counterspell, warlock need to cast some kind of vision blocking or the Druid need to following the cleric. Of course this depends on the exact initiative order. Once vision is blocked Kiss won’t be nearly as effective as the BBEG has to attack with disadvantage. But we don’t have the full spell lists for the lock or Druid. Presumably the warlock would have at least darkness if not shadow of moils.

Some sort of conjuring is probably the best bet for the Druid, if the darkness was successfully cast maybe cast giant insect, as a few of those has blindsight.

Man this party composition is tough on this fight I’m not use to not having counterspell from someone on the party’s side.

Why would the cleric get Counterspelled? All that is required is a place with total cover from which to cast spells (which they have, outside the room), and free concentration (which they have, because Silence is going to eat that concentration anyway but it hasn't taken effect yet) and a reaction they're not going to need for something else (which they have because clerics have no good reaction spells).

Event sequence: Cleric Readies a Silence spell to go off as soon as they can see the whole interior of the room, which involves casting the spell. Then walks through the doorway, quite keeping concentration on the held spell. Spell goes off (but was cast previously, so cannot be Counterspelled).

[Valmark]

Also not being a Sheperd the animals probably die from a Kiss.

There again a Druid Sheperd could probably destroy the BBEG in two rounds, given that their animals would bypass the resistances- in that case Calm Emotions would be a no brainer to keep the Druid concentrated.

[MaxWilson]

Also not being a Sheperd the animals probably die from a Kiss.

There again a Druid Sheperd could probably destroy the BBEG in two rounds, given that their animals would bypass the resistances- in that case Calm Emotions would be a no brainer to keep the Druid concentrated.

Or just keep the druid out of sight at the foot of the stairs.

[Gignere]

Note: summoned demons are already enemies to the party, as omnicidal maniacs. They are however compelled to obey the summoner at least briefly.

You utter foul words, summoning one demon from the chaos of the Abyss. You choose the demon’s type, which must be one of challenge rating 5 or lower, such as a shadow demon or a barlgura. The demon appears in an unoccupied space you can see within range, and the demon disappears when it drops to 0 hit points or when the spell ends.

Roll initiative for the demon, which has its own turns. When you summon it and on each of your turns thereafter, you can issue a verbal command to it (requiring no action on your part), telling it what it must do on its next turn. If you issue no command, it spends its turn attacking any creature within reach that has attacked it.

At the end of each of the demon’s turns, it makes a Charisma saving throw. The demon has disadvantage on this saving throw if you say its true name. On a failed save, the demon continues to obey you. On a successful save, your control of the demon ends for the rest of the duration, and the demon spends its turns pursuing and attacking the nearest non-demons to the best of its ability. If you stop concentrating on the spell before it reaches its full duration, an uncontrolled demon doesn’t disappear for 1d6 rounds if it still has hit points.

As part of casting the spell, you can form a circle on the ground with the blood used as a material component. The circle is large enough to encompass your space. While the spell lasts, the summoned demon can’t cross the circle or harm it, and it can’t target anyone within it. Using the material component in this manner consumes it when the spell ends.

However, it's not a big deal IMO even if you lose control of the demon after it gets Kissed, and it falls in love and starts helping the BBEG. It's just highly amusing, because ewwww. Either way the Vrock has already spent its big attack (AoE stun) and helped kill off the thugs/witches, as well as buying time for more AoEs and ranged attacks. The sixteen conjured giant poisonous snakes/wolves/whatever actually 4x to 8x more damage than the Vrock does, but the chances of them all falling in love with the BBEG are zero. There's just not enough time for her to Kiss them all, and meanwhile the Thugs and Witches are possibly Stunned and definitely being murdered.



Why would the cleric get Counterspelled? All that is required is a place with total cover from which to cast spells (which they have, outside the room), and free concentration (which they have, because Silence is going to eat that concentration anyway but it hasn't taken effect yet) and a reaction they're not going to need for something else (which they have because clerics have no good reaction spells).

Event sequence: Cleric Readies a Silence spell to go off as soon as they can see the whole interior of the room, which involves casting the spell. Then walks through the doorway, quite keeping concentration on the held spell. Spell goes off (but was cast previously, so cannot be Counterspelled).

Not sure if casting out of sight and holding is a legitimate counter to CS. It might vary between table and personally I would rule CS would still work against a held spell. Unless RAW is unequivocal.

[MaxWilson]

Not sure if casting out of sight and holding is a legitimate counter to CS. It might vary between table and personally I would rule CS would still work against a held spell. Unless RAW is unequivocal.

RAW is unequivocal: releasing a readied spell is not casting.

"When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration. If your concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect. For example, if you are concentrating on the web spell and ready magic missile, your web spell ends, and if you take damage before you release magic missile with your reaction, your concentration might be broken."

Counterspell only works if you see someone casting.

It's totally fine of course if the DM (@da newt) decides that's dumb and changes things to work differently, as long as the players know. I certainly have changed things when I DM. Can we get a ruling here @da newt?

[da newt]

The lvl 9 party casters have a single 5th level spell slot. The BBEG has 2 5th, 1 6th, and 1 7th. The BBEG can counter with near impunity if they choose to.

I don't know the RAW for counter spell vs ready action cast, I'll have to research it, but let's assume if you ready an action to cast a spell in an unseen location (so it can't be countered), then reaction cast it after your turn, do you have to cast behind cover, then move into position, end your turn, wait for trigger, then reaction finish casting? Wouldn't this leave you exposed for at least one turn? Or are you suggesting that the reaction/trigger happens on your turn when you move? (I guess if your trigger is when the door opens, if you are standing in the right place for LOS behind a closed door, it would work.)

Counter has no verbal requirement. Even with SILENCE in effect, Stone Wall could be countered (unless it is also precast out of sight).

A successful SILENCE and keeping concentration is a game changer, but will suck up the Cleric's Conc and prohibit them from Calming Emotions etc. A successful Stone Wall is great for a temp isolation of the BBEG so you can mop up the minions, but the ritual continues and the clock keeps ticking.

[da newt]

How do we best get into a position to deal with the BBEG and others in the ritual room?

Do all the party members use their first turn to ready move actions after the PC in front of them moves?
If the Warloc knows dispel magic works he should definitely cast it.

Or do you have a better plan for dealing with the Armor?



So let's assume round 1 is complete, the armor is dispelled and occupying one corner of the 10x10 landing at the top of the stairs. The door is shut. Now what? 3 PCs can stand on the landing, the others are stacked up on the stairs. Who opens the door, when. Where does everyone stand. Who acts, who readies, who moves etc.

[Valmark]

The lvl 9 party casters have a single 5th level spell slot. The BBEG has 2 5th, 1 6th, and 1 7th. The BBEG can counter with near impunity if they choose to.

I don't know the RAW for counter spell vs ready action cast, I'll have to research it, but let's assume if you ready an action to cast a spell in an unseen location (so it can't be countered), then reaction cast it after your turn, do you have to cast behind cover, then move into position, end your turn, wait for trigger, then reaction finish casting? Wouldn't this leave you exposed for at least one turn?

Counter has no verbal requirement. Even with SILENCE in effect, Stone Wall could be countered (unless it is also precast out of sight).

A successful SILENCE and keeping concentration is a game changer, but will suck up the Cleric's Conc and prohibit them from Calming Emotions etc. A successful Stone Wall is great for a temp isolation of the BBEG so you can mop up the minions, but the ritual continues and the clock keeps ticking.

Remember that the warlock has 2 5th level slots, not one. To Counter the party's 5th level spells the boss would need to consume their strongest spell slots, I'd call that a win for the party (nevermind that they get only one reaction each turn, so they can't Counterspell everything).

The trigger could very well be "when the next creature moves" (as in, moves their body, not movement movement. Lifting a finger is enough).

I thought somebody said to use the Wall Of Stone to remove the minions from the fight instead of the opposite?