I have some players that have expressed some high interest in a homebrew campaign that features a Dullahan but the problem is after pouring over his stat sheet, he's a hell of an opponent and can hit like a mac truck (especially on a critical hit). Any recommendations for character levelling to take on this encounter for a posse of 3-5 players? Thanks all!
According to 5e SRD the Dullahan is a CR 11 Creature. Without deep diving into whether the CR is calculated correctly, Sly Flourish has a quick way to tell if an encounter will be deadly for your party. Granted, this is an estimation technique, but it does work. Using that, I would put the cutoff of a deadly encounter for 4 PCs at 5th, maybe 6th level.
That being said, with the cursory glance that I took over the stat block, the CR looks fairly accurate. It's hard to accurately assess how spells and saving throw DCs will affect a party that I'm not familiar with. You are the better judge here, as you know your party and players, and how they might confront a challenge like this. I would suggest that you run it through a couple of mock battles by yourself to test it prior to use. Some unintended consequences could arise.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
According to 5e SRD the Dullahan is a CR 11 Creature. Without deep diving into whether the CR is calculated correctly, Sly Flourish has a quick way to tell if an encounter will be deadly for your party. Granted, this is an estimation technique, but it does work. Using that, I would put the cutoff of a deadly encounter for 4 PCs at 5th, maybe 6th level.
That being said, with the cursory glance that I took over the stat block, the CR looks fairly accurate. It's hard to accurately assess how spells and saving throw DCs will affect a party that I'm not familiar with. You are the better judge here, as you know your party and players, and how they might confront a challenge like this. I would suggest that you run it through a couple of mock battles by yourself to test it prior to use. Some unintended consequences could arise.
Despite the name of the website, that is not actually the SRD, or even official material.
The official dullahan is quite the menace. Pair it with some wight minions and it’s Mythic phase after some encounters earlier in the day for the final encounter after the players track it down once they are about level 11.
Before then, however, have it show up, hunting a specific type of people who look kind of like it’s old head. Say, elves with brown hair, or some other thing. Spread rumors about it, and eventually have an encounter where it meets the players on a hunt, retreating either after taking some amount of damage, or after killing the NPC it was after.
Make sure to play up the unstoppable nature of it, with even renowned gladiators or knights of old wars in fear of its head-hunting might.
This creature can instakill on a crit unless someone makes a DC 15 Con save, which is terrifying enough.
Running this through the CR checker in the DMG gives it an Offensive CR of 12, rising to potentially 16 once it gets Mythic's (If the Death Heads hit all their attacks, which with that +3 attack modifier is very unlikely). And the Defensive CR equates to... 14? Even without legendary resistances its defensive CR would be 11. Well we all know WOTC have their own method for determining CR anyway.
So let's break it down. Because of legendary actions, each round the Dullahan will either make: 4 battle axe attacks dealing 20 damage each (80), 2 battle axe attacks dealing 20 damage each (40) plus making everyone nearby make a wisdom saving throw or be frightened or 2 battle attacks dealing 20 damage and 47 damage each (67). Once it gets mythic actions you may also be dealing with 3-6 death head attacks a round, of which only the petrifying head will be the only real pain to deal with unless you use flanking rules.
It's big weakness is probably it's low saving throws (aside from Con), it only has 2 legendary resistances and it only has a +0 to int and +2 to wis saving throws, meaning Hold Person once the legendary resistances have gone will be very powerful. Alternatively if it's riding a Nightmare, you could kill the horse and just use fly to stay out of reach of its battleaxe. If you stay 30ft above it, it can't even use any of its legendary or mythic actions against you.
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Hi fellow DMs,
I have some players that have expressed some high interest in a homebrew campaign that features a Dullahan but the problem is after pouring over his stat sheet, he's a hell of an opponent and can hit like a mac truck (especially on a critical hit). Any recommendations for character levelling to take on this encounter for a posse of 3-5 players? Thanks all!
Quick note, your link doesn't seem to be working.
According to 5e SRD the Dullahan is a CR 11 Creature. Without deep diving into whether the CR is calculated correctly, Sly Flourish has a quick way to tell if an encounter will be deadly for your party. Granted, this is an estimation technique, but it does work. Using that, I would put the cutoff of a deadly encounter for 4 PCs at 5th, maybe 6th level.
That being said, with the cursory glance that I took over the stat block, the CR looks fairly accurate. It's hard to accurately assess how spells and saving throw DCs will affect a party that I'm not familiar with. You are the better judge here, as you know your party and players, and how they might confront a challenge like this. I would suggest that you run it through a couple of mock battles by yourself to test it prior to use. Some unintended consequences could arise.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Despite the name of the website, that is not actually the SRD, or even official material.
The official dullahan is quite the menace. Pair it with some wight minions and it’s Mythic phase after some encounters earlier in the day for the final encounter after the players track it down once they are about level 11.
Before then, however, have it show up, hunting a specific type of people who look kind of like it’s old head. Say, elves with brown hair, or some other thing. Spread rumors about it, and eventually have an encounter where it meets the players on a hunt, retreating either after taking some amount of damage, or after killing the NPC it was after.
Make sure to play up the unstoppable nature of it, with even renowned gladiators or knights of old wars in fear of its head-hunting might.
This creature can instakill on a crit unless someone makes a DC 15 Con save, which is terrifying enough.
Running this through the CR checker in the DMG gives it an Offensive CR of 12, rising to potentially 16 once it gets Mythic's (If the Death Heads hit all their attacks, which with that +3 attack modifier is very unlikely). And the Defensive CR equates to... 14? Even without legendary resistances its defensive CR would be 11. Well we all know WOTC have their own method for determining CR anyway.
So let's break it down. Because of legendary actions, each round the Dullahan will either make: 4 battle axe attacks dealing 20 damage each (80), 2 battle axe attacks dealing 20 damage each (40) plus making everyone nearby make a wisdom saving throw or be frightened or 2 battle attacks dealing 20 damage and 47 damage each (67). Once it gets mythic actions you may also be dealing with 3-6 death head attacks a round, of which only the petrifying head will be the only real pain to deal with unless you use flanking rules.
It's big weakness is probably it's low saving throws (aside from Con), it only has 2 legendary resistances and it only has a +0 to int and +2 to wis saving throws, meaning Hold Person once the legendary resistances have gone will be very powerful. Alternatively if it's riding a Nightmare, you could kill the horse and just use fly to stay out of reach of its battleaxe. If you stay 30ft above it, it can't even use any of its legendary or mythic actions against you.