Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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All of that damage is based on if the Paladin waltz's in the Demilich's lair fresh right? Even walking into the Lair deals automatic damage to non-Evil beings. Before you get to this boss, the Paladin and others presumably already spent spell slots defending against his guardians. Not to mention don't Demiliches either win or tie for initiatives? I don't want to assume anything, especially since people have said something have changed, including the Demilich's hit points.
They can take lair actions on initiative 20, losing ties. But you are right about the damage being done to non-evil beings and I think the Life Drain every turn could be pretty potent.
Life Drain. The demilich targets up to three creatures that it can see within 10 feet of it. Each target must succeed on a DC 19 Constitution saving throw or take 21 (6d6) necrotic damage, and the demilich regains hit points equal to the total damage dealt to all targets.
Jeremy Crawford has said that this will be addressed in MMM, CR is being kept and creatures will retain the same CR, but, it is accepted that some creatures need buffing up to make them match the current CR rating. I am very interested in seeing these changes, currently I either have to significantly increase the number of hit points, or the AC or add in extra abilities or features for some of my boss fights.
There's actually one spell that pretty much is game set match against a Demilich that's burned its Legendary Resistances or more or less assured to burn one:
Earthbind from a caster with maxed casting stat, something they SHOULD have when fighting one.
Earthbind is a strength save, and any caster with 20 in their main casting stat will probably have a spell save DC above 15. A Demilich LITERALLY cannot make the saving throw with -5 to its strength save and it has no immunity to Earthbind's effects. It HAS to use a Legendary Resistance in order to not get caught. If it DOES get caught, it's physically incapable of breaking out of it. The Lich's speed drops to zero and it falls to the ground, effectively rendering it helpless as the party sits outside its reach and opens fire.
And thing is, a mage's concentration on a spell is not effected by Anti-Magic Field which both confirmed by Jeremy Crawfordand by necessity of the spell itself: it's a concentration spell and thus if it DID work that way, you'd lose concentration on Anti-Magic Field and thus not be able to actually use it. So it doesn't counter Earthbind unless the caster was within ten feet of the Demilich, and why the heck would they do that? Best strategy would probably be to spread out as far as possible and stay out of reach of the Demilich.
Watery Sphere would be even better, as it restrains the target (Demilich isn't immune to Restrain) and let's you actually move it, making it easier for the party to hammer away at it. Earthbind just has the advantage of working no matter where the Demilich is and it's a low level spell you can spam. If you had both, swapping from Earthbind to Watery Sphere would be the best play.
...This does raise a question though: is the Demilich immune to its own Anti-Magic Field? If it's close enough to the ground or they have natural flight, would the person targetted by Anti-Magic Field be able to rush up and hit the Demilich with its own Anti-Magic Field? Given it can only do ANYTHING via magic, would that render it helpless?
That is the key bit. Earthbind is a terrible spell and how would the party KNOW they are going to fight one?
Three wands of magic missiles would work better.
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"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
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This seems to be an entire 4-page thread dedicated to: If you play this INT20 monster unintelligently ...... like, if my skull-self was resting on a bejewelled pedestal and I let you walk right up to it and batter me down.
I mean, if I were a demilich, I'd have a nice traproom (as in, a room with nice big bronze doors that slam shut and lock when I feel like it) with a couple or more nice, solid golems I'd made in my days as a lich, some undead, maybe a good dozen or so annoying traps (poison gas, summon swarm, maybe some whirling blades for that traditional touch) that don't affect me, and a number of interconnected holes in the ceiling, where I could zoom out, do my stuff, and zoom back in cover and out of reach.
And then you could ready actions to try and get me, and my traps and golems would wear you down - and when you turn your attention back to those, I'm right back, doing my thing.
Alternatively: If you wanna get at me, well then you have to come into this crawlspace, where I have unrestricted movement ...... but you're on your hands and knees, crawling.
I propose an arena. Not that I'd want to run the Demilich, I'm not invested enough - and also, I'm crap - but sometimes the best solution is to just fight it out. In simulated combat to the death.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Sometimes a DM would give them a chance to prepare in advanced or one of the lair actions or effects of a Demilich might tip them off they're going into the lair of one, prompting them to fall back and prepare.
Watery Sphere is a more likely spell for someone to just have on them and while it can only remain ten feet about the ground, there's nothing saying it has to be CAST within ten feet of the ground. It'd just safely descend to ten feet, o you could just cast it around the Demilich in the air. The reason Earthbind is better for this specific situation, however, is that you can spam it whereas Watery Sphere isn't so easy to, so it Earthbind is easier to burn Legendary Resists with. If you've already burned those Legendary Resists or have push effects to keep throwing it into the Sphere, however, it's better, as the restrained condition is much better.
If you could somehow ground it, Entangle is also a good option.
Funny, none of the campaigns I am in has a paladin in it. However, I see now that we were playing wrong and we must immediately stop and add a paladin. Everyone who plays without one, stop. No campaign shall be allowed to continue without a paladin, we all know it, it has been said.
I'm fairly new to DnD, ran into my first Demi lich tonight with 3 others and it was pretty much determined to be my first TPK from the initiative roll.
It surprised us and rolled highest on initiative, put 3/4 of us to sleep from the howl, (Dice Rolls allied it regened every turn).
Successful attempts to wake each other were quickly undon
We only ever had one person awake and alive to react but could do little other than try and save.
Fun tho
Yeah, stuns can make a fight allot harder and less predictable. I've had similar encounters with much lower cr monsters like su-monster.
Ok, I'm not going to read three more pages of comments, but I want to put in my opinion. I actually fought a demilich, and I, and the rest of the party, almost died. This was the only time my party has had to retreat other than a fight against a young dragon at level four. It got a surprise round and howled, dropping most of us to 0 hp instantly. Those who succeeded were frightened, stopping them from getting closer and giving them disadvantage on attack rolls. This is a thirty feet in all directions save or suck ability, which even gives a nasty debuff if you succeed. (The second time, we silenced it, but lost concentration later in the fight and got some of us knocked down) It could fly, so we were stuck using ranged attacks, which had to be magical in order to even deal half damage and needed to hit a 20 AC creature. It has pretty powerful saves, legendary resistances, and evasion but for all save types. The demilich spammed energy drain and cloud of dust lair actions, dealing "damage" and giving us disadvantage on attack rolls if we failed. It used its life drain to hurt us while healing itself. Sure, maybe if they were lucky, a nova damager could take it down, but this thing is a very powerful boss that wrecked my party with its powerful howl ability, which can take down the whole party if they fail the saves.
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What level were you and what was your party composition?
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This was dead in thay. I believe that this was level 11. I don't quite remember the party composition, as our players go in and out frequently (except for me), but we had an asendent dragon monk and two sorcerers, as well as me, a gloomstalker ranger, way of shadows monk (That was how we got silence), and scout rogue (It's a complacated build, but it keeps pace with single class characters and utterly dominates in darkness). We definitely haven't had a paladin in while.
Pronouns: he/him/his.
My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
The best use for demliches is... Orcus can use the wand of orcus to summon 500 hp worth of undead, and unlike a PC who somehow gets ahold if it, he has no limitations on what sort of undead he can create. So... six demiliches anyone?
Seems like you needed something with more healing power to counter it knocking you down combined with it staying at range.
Honestly, that's a pretty mobile party and if you hadn't gotten mostly dropped to 0 HP instantly, you'd probably have been able to kite it or at least spread outto limit what it can do.
Seems like bad luck more than anything.
I'll just throw this out there. If you easily killed a lich, you didn't kill the lich.
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I have read this entire thread. I think Demiliches are balanced in the way they aren’t. They look weak at first, but they can destroy entire parties in a few rounds, and vice versa. This is the main problem I have with higher level parties, and is why I like running short adventures. At high level everything/everybody does an absurd amount of damage.
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Demiliches are kinda one of those enemies that are really scary if the party runs Leeroy Jenkins into it, they're going to probably have a rough time or die, but if they are able to coordinate and come with a plan (spreading up to prevent it from catching a good amount of the party at once with Howl or life drain, use stuff like Aura of Life to counter Energy Drain, put up Death Ward, ect.), they can deal with it.
And honestly, if the party was able to win because they out thought the monster, that's something I think should be rewarded.