4e: how to kill Orcus

[fireinthedust]

So I'm looking at the items and spells, and they don't seem to do more than 20 damage without a critical hit (which is only on a 20, unless I can find an Improved Crit feat or power).

Orcus has 1500+ hit points.

So how do high level PCs take him on? It'd be, what, a long battle by necessity? Or is he simply the biggest monster on the block for DMs to show off?

Keep in mind Orcus likely has a pile of liches following him around, and maybe some vampire lords and their minions.

I'm guessing have the PCs pick their biggest 30th level abilities, use the demigod epic destiny for unlimited encounter powers, buff with leaders and manage the field with the wizard, and then blast with items until they land a crit; then hope they get lucky with that a few times before Orcus' initiative.

Any better suggestions?

[NecroRebel]

First off, there are feats to improve critical threat range to 19-20 in the epic tier.

Second, at level 30 everyone can and will have attack powers that deal 5 times their weapon damage, if not more, and can and will be using these powers every round.

Third, all 3 of the Striker classes have abilities that add damage to one attack per round. Warlocks and Rangers get +3d6 damage at level 30 if they have something cursed or quarried; Rouges get +5d6 if they have combat advantage.

Fourth, people's main attributes will be in the mid-to-high twenties by level 30.

Fifth, by level 30 you will have +5 or better weapons.

Between all of these facts, you should easily be able to manage at least 50 damage per hit. Just bash away with encounter and daily powers, have the party Cleric or Warlord use their minor-action heal powers if someone gets hit by the Touch of Death, and he'll go down. It won't be fast, mind you, but then again Orcus himself, alone and unaided, is supposed to be an even challenge for a team of level 33 characters. The "suggested" encounter including Orcus is supposed to give a team of 5 level 30 characters a very hard time, meaning they'll probably have about a 50/50 chance that they'll win. This is in line with the actual challenge of that particular encounter group.

He's strong, but not as strong as you'd think if you've not actually played a high-level group.

[Ned the undead]

Someone on Enworld came up with a way for a Rouge to one shot Orcus.

[Frosty]

Someone on Enworld came up with a way for a Rouge to one shot Orcus.

It has been errata'ed since you can no longer have more than 5 hits I believe.

[Tengu_temp]

It has been errata'ed since you can no longer have more than 5 hits I believe.

That's correct. Blade Cascade can hit 5 times at most now. That reduces the amount of brokenness in 4e by approximately 60%.

[fireinthedust]

Link?


NecroRebel: (nice name for this topic, btw)

Any strategies for high-level wizards fighting the bbeg? I'm guessing radiant energy spells are big, and whatever else can be done with, say, direct damaging spells and magic implements.

[NecroRebel]

Wizards aren't exactly the best class for dealing with a single large enemy; they're geared more toward harming many smaller foes. If your team fights Orcus with other enemies alongside him, go for them while trying to throw various status effects at him as you can. Stunning and Dazing are the major ones you want to look for, as they're the most crippling; actions are precious commodities and those two conditions take them away.

You're going to need as high an Intelligence stat as you can get. 22 is the absolute minimum, and even that is almost cripplingly low. 28, being as high as you can get at the moment (18+2 from race+8 from levels), is very beneficial. You'll also want a high + on your Orb (and you will want the Orb ability; take a second Implement in paragon tier if you didn't take Orb at level 1), as Wizards get relatively few to-hit bonuses. 28 Int and a +6 Orb still is only a +30 to hit at level 30.

Get your Wisdom as high as you can as a secondary stat, and burn your Orb of Imposition ability as soon as you get a save-ends Stunning effect on Orcus. It can also be beneficial to get a high+ Wand, the Wand of Accuracy implement effect with the aforementioned paragon-tier feat, and a high tertiary Dexterity to make sure you can land that save-ends Stun in the first place. Once you've burned the ability, switch back off to your Orb and hit that saving throw reduction. If I remember correctly, technically you can wield both implements at the same time, though you can't get both's abilities.

Again, as a Wizard you'll be running crowd control and shutdowns. That's your role as a Controller. Indeed, your best spells (the aforementioned Stunning and Dazing ones) deal relatively low damage compared to your peers' equal-level abilities because those conditions are so rediculously powerful. Keep your role in mind, and you should do quite well.



Edit: The "way to 1-shot Orcus" that I've heard of isn't a build so much as it is (ab)using one power. Simply max out your Ranger's to-hit and reduce Orcus's armor class as much as possible, then have the Ranger in question close to melee and use Blade Cascade. Originally, as long as the Ranger didn't miss he could keep attacking again and again until your opponent is dead. If you got 28 Strength, 2 +6 swords you're proficient in, a tactical warlord with 20 Intelligence hitting with, say, Warlord's Favor (ally gets 1+int power bonus to attack), Combat Advantage, and a fighter hitting with one of the -AC powers, and you can get +41 to hit against Orcus's 46 AC. Not entirely likely that you'd hit enough times to deal 1500 damage at 2W+Str per strike, but not entirely impossible either.

Of course, now Blade Cascade has been errata'ed so that it ends after a miss or 5 hits, so no more thousand-damage rounds.

I'm assuming this was the one they were referring to. I've not heard any others that deal that much damage in one shot.

[Arbitrarity]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D1052235

That's how.

[The New Bruceski]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D1052235

That's how.

A 404 kills him?

[Arbitrarity]

Well, if orcus is not found, he loses. One second, I'll have to find the actual URL here... http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1052235 ?

Internal gleemax reference is killing me here...

[RTGoodman]

A 404 kills him?

Here's the fixed link.

I didn't read the whole thread, but it seems like there's some problem with it that I can't put my finger on. (Maybe something to do with the limit of immediate reactions/interrupts per round or something, if any of the abilities used are either of those.) I may look back at it tomorrow to see. I do know that it's another trick based off of Divine Recovery, which'll probably be errata'd at some point anyway (since I believe it's at the center of most of the "broken" 4E combos I've seen so far).

[Arbitrarity]

Problems are around 3/4.

First:
Free actions, as per their description, can be limited by the DM. I.e. not infinite.

Second:
Roll an infinite number of dice please.

Third:
You can't use elven accuracy to reroll a reroll from elven accuracy, because of either prioritization of action, or because your recovery of elven accuracy is "too late" to let you use it on your second roll.
Or, because it requires that you use the "second roll" which prohibits rerolls, as those would be third, fourth, etc. rolls. Also, for that, "use" means to resolve the attack. Same arguments with pray for more.

Fourth:
Divine miracle is a stupid ability anyways.

[Gnomish Lab]

A 404 kills him?

404s can kill just about anyone.

[tyckspoon]

-4 objections-

1: The line immediately before that says that the default condition is that you can take as many free actions as you want. Unlimited free actions and limited free actions are equally RAW. The CharOp boards will tend to favor the first situation, because they have traditionally attempted to identify things that function without calling a DM intervention and unlimited free actions are the situation if there is no DM action. Yes, it is probable that the 'average sensible DM' will apply limited free actions to short-circuit an infinite loop such as this- that's why the CharOp boards also categorize their work into theoretical optimization, which are mostly identifying extreme conditions to test the system and not intended for use at the table, and practical optimizations, which *are* built for real play. This was being proposed as a theoretical trick.. basically admitting that yes, a DM will probably stop it. Which one could do regardless of the RAW regarding free actions, if they desired.

2. It's just arbitrarily large- the player must choose to continue the loop at each step, so he can stop whenever a satisfying damage total is reached. (And if you're going to use rolling the dice as your means of stopping the routine, you really should have just said no or declared there were too many free actions from the start.) Unlike truly infinite self-propagating loops with no termination condition, like the d2 Crusader.. the universe won't crash while it attempts to count up and apply infinite damage.

3. I don't think this is an open-and-shut rules interpretation, but it does seem to be the most significant point of contention. It appears to reduce the trick to the player's ability to debate the construction of the powers and the designer's intent with the DM, and that's never a good thing for an optimization project.

4. Nuh-uh.

[Arbitrarity]

Yeah, I don't like most of the objections anyways. 4 is silly, 1 is fiat, doesn't affect legality, 2 actually does take too long (seriously, you keep rerolling. 20 attack rolls, a few hundred damage rolls, at the very least, more, depending on how vorpal works).

3, is open to interpretation. At least one way, you can read the rules so it works, which makes it sorta defendable.

Oh, and 5: Encounter powers means encounter attack powers, not racials or utility (this is silly as well).

[nagora]

So I'm looking at the items and spells, and they don't seem to do more than 20 damage without a critical hit (which is only on a 20, unless I can find an Improved Crit feat or power).

Orcus has 1500+ hit points.

So how do high level PCs take him on? It'd be, what, a long battle by necessity? Or is he simply the biggest monster on the block for DMs to show off?

Keep in mind Orcus likely has a pile of liches following him around, and maybe some vampire lords and their minions.

I'm guessing have the PCs pick their biggest 30th level abilities, use the demigod epic destiny for unlimited encounter powers, buff with leaders and manage the field with the wizard, and then blast with items until they land a crit; then hope they get lucky with that a few times before Orcus' initiative.

Any better suggestions?

I think you'd be better off going the old "summon, imprison" route. There's a reason there's all those old stories about demons being trapped in items and places: it's just much easier than killing them.

[hamlet]

I think you'd be better off going the old "summon, imprison" route. There's a reason there's all those old stories about demons being trapped in items and places: it's just much easier than killing them.

That point of view was much easier to have when they didn't stat the gods.

That was one of the single biggest mistakes that AD&D 1e ever made in terms of book content and one of those things that 2e fixed marvelously.*

*essentially, they said that the gods and demon lords etc. were a thousand times farther above you as you were above a single celled organism and unless you had a bit of applied phlebotenum, you had no chance.

[Kurald Galain]

*essentially, they said that the gods and demon lords etc. were a thousand times farther above you as you were above a single celled organism and unless you had a bit of applied phlebotenum, you had no chance.

Yep. I prefer this way of statting things like Incarnae, Oracles, and similar ubers, myself. White Wolf's stats for Caine are two words: "you lose". That's the whole point. Chaosium's stats for Ctulhu are "each round, 1d3 player characters die. Some things man was Not Meant To Fight.

[nagora]

That point of view was much easier to have when they didn't stat the gods.

That was one of the single biggest mistakes that AD&D 1e ever made in terms of book content and one of those things that 2e fixed marvelously.*

It was a mistake in OD&D which AD&D inherited and expanded on, really.

However:

*essentially, they said that the gods and demon lords etc. were a thousand times farther above you as you were above a single celled organism and unless you had a bit of applied phlebotenum, you had no chance.

This is taking it too far, at least as regards the demon princes. IMC, I give any being that rules an entire plane Greater God status and powers while on that plane; if they rule a portion of a plane then they get Lesser God powers. Pit Fiend Dukes of Hell get Demi-God powers. What powers they get on another plane (if any) depends on their worship on that plane.

This makes Demon Princes and Arch-Devils effectively invulnerable on their home turf but at least possible for a high-level party to defeat on the PMP, but again the best option is probably to imprison the demon/devil on the PMP rather than simply destroying its material form.

Actual "god gods" are simply acts of Will on their home planes; if they don't want you to do something then you can't do it, no save, no arguments.

[wodan46]

Demigods with Thunderclap and Divine Regeneration will easily kill Orcus.

[Leon]

404s can kill just about anyone.

.404s, the NEW .303

[Yakk]

You must use the result of the second roll.

Rerolling 50 million times does nothing, because Pray for More says you must use the results of the 2nd roll.

The same text is used with Elven Accuracy.

...

However, you can deal decent damage from many powers. Fighting a level 33 solo monster, hopefully you have a boat-load of daily powers left.

Many high level daily powers do 6 or 7 times weapon dice, plus extra modifiers.

And remember, Orcus is designed to be beat on by 5 level 30 (well, 33 -- but those don't exist) players at once.

[Thray]

Alright, so to give some examples of how to do massive damage:

-Bloodmages can do upwards of 400 damage in a single round with elemental maw if your DM allows teleporting upwards, and still over 200 damage without teleporting upwards cheese.

-A stormwarden with 26 dex at that level deals 32 damage each round at minimum even if he misses all his attacks. This, along with buffs from a warlord/cleric means that power attacking generally increases such a character's overall damage, so blade cascade can still deal 10d8 (weapon) + 40 (strength) + 30 (weapon enhancement) + 30 (power attack). If you've spent an action point, you get an additional +40 or so from tactical assault. Follow-up blow doubles that. And of course, having spent the action point (which you certainly will at some point in this encounter) you get another standard action. Thus you're dealing (20d8 + 140) x 2 damage in one round.

-In the above example, even just the at-will power twin strike deals 4d8 + 80 damage (thanks to follow-up blow).

There are similar examples of massive damage for each class, but the point is that at high levels, each character can do massive amounts of damage each round. Granted, you will probably need a round or two of buffing to pull the above off, but if you have 5 characters dealing an average of 100 damage a round each, that's just 3 rounds to kill Orcus. Fighters and Wizards also have the ability to stun or otherwise incapacitate enemies (for example, Destructive Salutation *guarantees* a stun). So it's completely possible for a 30-th level party to kill Orcus.

Hope this helps.

[hamlet]

However:

This is taking it too far, at least as regards the demon princes. IMC, I give any being that rules an entire plane Greater God status and powers while on that plane; if they rule a portion of a plane then they get Lesser God powers. Pit Fiend Dukes of Hell get Demi-God powers. What powers they get on another plane (if any) depends on their worship on that plane.

This makes Demon Princes and Arch-Devils effectively invulnerable on their home turf but at least possible for a high-level party to defeat on the PMP, but again the best option is probably to imprison the demon/devil on the PMP rather than simply destroying its material form.

Actual "god gods" are simply acts of Will on their home planes; if they don't want you to do something then you can't do it, no save, no arguments.

I agree with you to a certain extent. On its home turf, a greater being like, say, Orcus or Asmodius is effectively invulnerable and omnipotent and that outside that home turf, they are somewhat more vulnerable.

However, even that limited vulnerability is far FAR beyond the capabilities of all but the most powerful mortals with decades of planning.

Of course, no such being would be stupid enough to port its entire existance out of its home and onto the prime. They will always leave behind something (in AD&D and OD&D it was the talisman) under especial heavy lock and key, that ensures that there's an "escape clause."

Killing something on the level of Orcus or Demogorgon is not merely the object of an entire PC's life's work, but the life's work of a hundred PC's over a dozen generations, the culmination of which might be a particularly ballsy move to filch the talisman while the lord is away and find a way to destroy it while somebody else on the Prime draws the attention and wrath of the intended target.

Even then, it's likely that Orcus would have dozens or even hundreds of contingencies in place that would account for this kind of thing and attempting and failing at this task by not dealing with them would only serve to tick him off and target your entire species for anihilation.

As a GM, I prefer to have the players wet themselves before they consider going up against beings like this.

[Dausuul]

That point of view was much easier to have when they didn't stat the gods.

That was one of the single biggest mistakes that AD&D 1e ever made in terms of book content and one of those things that 2e fixed marvelously.*

*essentially, they said that the gods and demon lords etc. were a thousand times farther above you as you were above a single celled organism and unless you had a bit of applied phlebotenum, you had no chance.

I don't consider this a mistake. It's pretty simple, really. There are two ways you can go with gods. You can make them a higher order of being that is simply not subject to defeat by mortals (invincible gods); or you can make them really bad-ass beings that can still be challenged by mortals of sufficient power (vulnerable gods).

In any given campaign, you could go either way. But if you're designing a ruleset and deciding which style to incorporate, and your player base includes a sizeable portion of people favoring each style, you should go with the "vulnerable gods" style as the default.

One side or the other is going to have to house-rule. House-ruling an "invincible gods" system to a "vulnerable gods" system takes a fair bit of work (you have to stat out the gods and figure out the implications if they're slain). On the other hand, house-ruling "vulnerable gods" to "invincible gods" is as simple as saying, "Gods in this campaign are invincible."

[Yakk]

Also note that a level 30 PC is on the verge of becoming a god themselves, if they are taking the Demigod epic destiny.

Having 5 beings on the verge of becoming Gods (or at similar power levels) slay a being who is the corrupted remnants of a primodeal doesn't seem too silly.

[archmage45]

Also note that a level 30 PC is on the verge of becoming a god themselves, if they are taking the Demigod epic destiny.

Having 5 beings on the verge of becoming Gods (or at similar power levels) slay a being who is the corrupted remnants of a primodeal doesn't seem too silly.

Silly? No, I don't think so either.

On the other hand it shouldn't be easy!

[hamlet]

Also note that a level 30 PC is on the verge of becoming a god themselves, if they are taking the Demigod epic destiny.

Having 5 beings on the verge of becoming Gods (or at similar power levels) slay a being who is the corrupted remnants of a primodeal doesn't seem too silly.

On the other hand, those of us who don't go along with the new 4th edition modus operandi still look look at a 20th level character (and all you got was 20 levels!) as a particularly big ameoba.

[Tadanori Oyama]

On the other hand, those of us who don't go along with the new 4th edition modus operandi still look look at a 20th level character (and all you got was 20 levels!) as a particularly big ameoba.

Since this is about the Fourth Edition Orcus that's not exactly relivent, of course.

I think having everything have stats is fun. Of course it just encourages players to find it and kill it since they know how many hit points it has.

I plan to throw both my groups against Orcus (or a likely powered being) by the end of their character's power span. Makes a fitting end to their adventures.

[Arbitrarity]

Rerolling 50 million times does nothing, because Pray for More says you must use the results of the 2nd roll.

The same text is used with Elven Accuracy.

That's extremely debateable. You're interpreting it literally/imperatively. Or, you assume that any given roll beyond the second is a third, fourth, fifth roll, etc, which is about the same thing.
However, this can also be interpreted literally to mean the second roll ever made, the second roll in any context. If you assume it means the reroll granted by the power, i.e. each use of the power assumes an initial roll and allows a "second roll", then it is inherently given context, and so we don't have stuff like "My second roll as a gamer, ever, was a natural 20!" "But your attack does 6[w]+str...."
Or: "The second roll ever made was a 2. You fail."

Or how about: "The first time I used the power, it granted me my second roll. I must forevermore use that natural 20."

These are clearly ludicrous, and can all be accomplished by reading the statement literally, as an imperative. The "second roll" is very poorly defined indeed.