Hey all! So I'm creating a one-shot for my friends and I after I was inspired by this one song. To make a long story short, I was running through a hypothetical encounter where they fight the BBEG, and, welp, it didn't last a round. And that was with minions. So now I have to figure out how to rebalance the whole encounter, and I was wondering if there was any advice beyond just "give it more health." For reference, I'm using a Rakshasa stat block but nerfed it's magic immunity for level 7 characters (in other words, only spells level 4 and up affect it). Nothing else was changed since this was the first test run, but it still straight-up died before it even got a turn.
Quick thoughts I'm considering are: Start with it invisible, start with it already using the fly spell (I have one character who can fly and others with ranged attacks, so it wouldn't be too difficult to fight him), just give it more health, raise the AC.
I would give it lair actions, if I'm understanding what you wanting this is your big boss meaning combat should be hard. try giving it a few lair actions and maybe some magic gear that tends to tip the scales also remember that it's about fun so fudging rolls to keep the fun alive for your party. I hope this helps.
Lair actions would most likely help a lot and understanding how your players will fight can help you plan small parts of strategy to help it survive longer but not undermine your players.
The Rakshasa isn't a suitable final enemy for 7th level characters. It has an unnaturally high CR because of its magical immunity. It basically has 2 attacks for weak damage and its only other combat spells are Charm based. You need to completely change its stat block to make it pose even a medium challenge. Even with minions, it won't do much given that its total damage capability is 28 damage per turn meaning that it's easily outpaced by 2 characters. Monsters in 5e have far too few hit points in general - I'd suggest giving it a minimum of 200.
A party of 4 x level 7 characters on a full rest will be able to take on a creature of CR13 or so. A level 8 party of 4 will easily take on a CR15 dragon.
I've made you a version of what I think might work:
So, couple of things. Firstly, I think you missed the part where I mentioned I nerfed the magic immunity so it could be affected by lower-level spells. That was actually the first thing I changed. Second, I didn't mention this and probably should have, but I've organized the one-shot so that by this point in the game the party will already be more susceptible to its enchantment spells. My biggest issue is that it really comes down to initiative right now. As it stands, I just need it to have a turn, but if the party rolls high enough they can kill it before it has a chance to act. A few good hits from the fighter and paladin followed by an upcast fireball kills this thing in one round. On the contrary, when it has the ability to go first, my testing has shown it to be more of a fair fight. Also I should have been more clear on this, but when I said I'm using the Rakshasa stat block, I literally meant I just took the stats and abilities. The final boss is not actually a rakshasa, it's not even a fiend. It's just that the abilities already had a lot of what I needed all I had to do was nerf the magic immunity so it could be hit by spells.
So, couple of things. Firstly, I think you missed the part where I mentioned I nerfed the magic immunity so it could be affected by lower-level spells. That was actually the first thing I changed. Second, I didn't mention this and probably should have, but I've organized the one-shot so that by this point in the game the party will already be more susceptible to its enchantment spells. My biggest issue is that it really comes down to initiative right now. As it stands, I just need it to have a turn, but if the party rolls high enough they can kill it before it has a chance to act. A few good hits from the fighter and paladin followed by an upcast fireball kills this thing in one round. On the contrary, when it has the ability to go first, my testing has shown it to be more of a fair fight. Also I should have been more clear on this, but when I said I'm using the Rakshasa stat block, I literally meant I just took the stats and abilities. The final boss is not actually a rakshasa, it's not even a fiend. It's just that the abilities already had a lot of what I needed all I had to do was nerf the magic immunity so it could be hit by spells.
I actually reduced the magical immunity further, making it immune to only spells of level 2 or lower.
Once you remove the Rakshasa's Limited Magical Immunity, its CR is probably more like 6 or 7, so your party should be killing it in one or two turns regardless of what it does. With standard stats, its only real shot is to cast Dominate Person to marginally even up the fight, but even then - that's its turn done, and a successful Wisdom save, or a failed concentration check mean it will have done nothing in its turn. Even if it succeeds in Dominating one of them, then it will likely take at least 3-4 hits from the rest of the party, almost guaranteeing that it loses concentration. It can only Dominate once per day, so that's that and then you've got a weak monster with a maximum damage output of 28 (without crits) per turn. I can't really see how it going first makes much of a difference to anything, given how weak it is in combat - it's designed as a deceiver and manipulator, rather than a combatant.
The reason for the Rakshasa's CR13 is based on an assumption that 2 out of 4 party members will be spellcasters, and can effectively do nothing to it unless they are at least 13th level, along with its immunity to attacks that aren't made with magic weapons. This makes it impossible to kill for a low level party, but if your frontline have magical weapons (let alone piercing weapons) then it's mostly weaker than a CR5 Hill Giant.
There is no way of getting around the fact that a Rakshasa without magical immunity dies to a level 7 party in 2 turns tops. The only way to prolong the battle is to give it a bunch of minions of CR 4 or 5 so that the PCs can't just ignore them.
Hey all! So I'm creating a one-shot for my friends and I after I was inspired by this one song. To make a long story short, I was running through a hypothetical encounter where they fight the BBEG, and, welp, it didn't last a round. And that was with minions. So now I have to figure out how to rebalance the whole encounter, and I was wondering if there was any advice beyond just "give it more health." For reference, I'm using a Rakshasa stat block but nerfed it's magic immunity for level 7 characters (in other words, only spells level 4 and up affect it). Nothing else was changed since this was the first test run, but it still straight-up died before it even got a turn.
Quick thoughts I'm considering are: Start with it invisible, start with it already using the fly spell (I have one character who can fly and others with ranged attacks, so it wouldn't be too difficult to fight him), just give it more health, raise the AC.
Thanks for any tips in advance!
I would give it lair actions, if I'm understanding what you wanting this is your big boss meaning combat should be hard. try giving it a few lair actions and maybe some magic gear that tends to tip the scales also remember that it's about fun so fudging rolls to keep the fun alive for your party. I hope this helps.
That is a good idea. Any suggestions of stuff I can use as a baseline for what they should look like mechanically?
I would look for a big bag guy like stuahd or any others I also believe the dmg has some basic lair actions.
Cool! Thanks a ton!
Lair actions would most likely help a lot and understanding how your players will fight can help you plan small parts of strategy to help it survive longer but not undermine your players.
The Rakshasa isn't a suitable final enemy for 7th level characters. It has an unnaturally high CR because of its magical immunity. It basically has 2 attacks for weak damage and its only other combat spells are Charm based. You need to completely change its stat block to make it pose even a medium challenge. Even with minions, it won't do much given that its total damage capability is 28 damage per turn meaning that it's easily outpaced by 2 characters. Monsters in 5e have far too few hit points in general - I'd suggest giving it a minimum of 200.
A party of 4 x level 7 characters on a full rest will be able to take on a creature of CR13 or so. A level 8 party of 4 will easily take on a CR15 dragon.
I've made you a version of what I think might work:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/1802305-endgame-rakshasa
Mainly I have:
So, couple of things. Firstly, I think you missed the part where I mentioned I nerfed the magic immunity so it could be affected by lower-level spells. That was actually the first thing I changed. Second, I didn't mention this and probably should have, but I've organized the one-shot so that by this point in the game the party will already be more susceptible to its enchantment spells. My biggest issue is that it really comes down to initiative right now. As it stands, I just need it to have a turn, but if the party rolls high enough they can kill it before it has a chance to act. A few good hits from the fighter and paladin followed by an upcast fireball kills this thing in one round. On the contrary, when it has the ability to go first, my testing has shown it to be more of a fair fight. Also I should have been more clear on this, but when I said I'm using the Rakshasa stat block, I literally meant I just took the stats and abilities. The final boss is not actually a rakshasa, it's not even a fiend. It's just that the abilities already had a lot of what I needed all I had to do was nerf the magic immunity so it could be hit by spells.
I actually reduced the magical immunity further, making it immune to only spells of level 2 or lower.
Once you remove the Rakshasa's Limited Magical Immunity, its CR is probably more like 6 or 7, so your party should be killing it in one or two turns regardless of what it does. With standard stats, its only real shot is to cast Dominate Person to marginally even up the fight, but even then - that's its turn done, and a successful Wisdom save, or a failed concentration check mean it will have done nothing in its turn. Even if it succeeds in Dominating one of them, then it will likely take at least 3-4 hits from the rest of the party, almost guaranteeing that it loses concentration. It can only Dominate once per day, so that's that and then you've got a weak monster with a maximum damage output of 28 (without crits) per turn. I can't really see how it going first makes much of a difference to anything, given how weak it is in combat - it's designed as a deceiver and manipulator, rather than a combatant.
The reason for the Rakshasa's CR13 is based on an assumption that 2 out of 4 party members will be spellcasters, and can effectively do nothing to it unless they are at least 13th level, along with its immunity to attacks that aren't made with magic weapons. This makes it impossible to kill for a low level party, but if your frontline have magical weapons (let alone piercing weapons) then it's mostly weaker than a CR5 Hill Giant.
There is no way of getting around the fact that a Rakshasa without magical immunity dies to a level 7 party in 2 turns tops. The only way to prolong the battle is to give it a bunch of minions of CR 4 or 5 so that the PCs can't just ignore them.