Just watched the anime soul eater, the BBEG in that show was a sort of god of madness and fear. When the main heroine learns to be brave in the face of danger that is when she defeats him. It sort of diminishes his power by meeting someone who is brave against his attacks. So I was thinking of comparing that fight to the Critical Role fight with Vecna. What if Vecna had a weakness like that, instead of fighting him head on and trying to survive a long gulling fight they learn bravery and stand up to him.
My BBEG is similar as he is a lich, he is afraid of everything, he is insane and violent. I was thinking he would have an aura effect which makes people within it frighten, and when someone learns to truly stand up to him without any fear is when his power is diminished. They could still fight him head on but it's harder. What do you think, could this work?
That certainly could be interesting, though I'm not sure how I would run that.
Edit: If you want to have it closely mirror the show you could have it so that if the during the fight everyone is down except a one party member is down and they still attack the BBEG then he freaks out and is severely weakened or outright killed/defeated by that attack.
Alternatively you could have the party find out about the BBEGs weakness and have to go on a quest to confront and overcome their fears before they face him.
Or you could do both with the fight against the BBEG being the final thing they need to do to conquer their fears.
That is a fascinating concept. Let's see where this goes.
Okay, so a lich is a supremely badass bbeg. It would certainly make sense for a lich to have a Fear Aura in his bag of tricks. If you run it like a regular fear effect, then the mechanic is a simple Wisdom saving throw. The save could be required of anyone within a certain radius of the lich, or anyone who looks him in the eye (thus causing disadvantage on attacks with averted eyes, like fighting a medusa). Or the save could be required of anyone damaged by the lich. I think this is an interesting angle, because what do we fear more than our own mortality? Taking damage from a lich is a true Memento Mori moment.
So, any player who fails the Wisdom save suffers the frightened condition. And maybe they get to repeat the save at the end of each of their turns. And maybe once they succeed they're immune to the lich's fear aura. But that's too simple. It's too easy. Something's missing!
What do we REALLY fear? Death??? Sure. But there's always Revivify. Failure??? Maybe, but sometimes a pyrrhic victory is the path to glory.
I contend that fear is not an external effect. It's an internal reaction, a defense mechanism. Fear is not something that the lich instills in us. Fear is something that we instill in ourselves as a sort of primal protective mechanism. Fear is just like pain. When you touch a hot stove, your fingers don't feel the pain. They're not capable. Your fingers simply relay information to your brain. It's your BRAIN that feels the pain! The pain comes not from the stove, but from within. It's a warning of either impending or existing damage. It's our mortal instinct protecting itself. Fear operates the same way.
It's not the lich that we truly fear. It's not even our own mortality that we truly fear the most. Every martyr has proven that! What we truly fear the most is the realization that we may fail, that we may be insufficient to the task at hand. Not that we might die, but that we might die in vain. We fear ourselves, since fear itself is our own mind placing limitations upon us, protecting us like a security blanket. But the problem with blankets is that they can keep you warm or they can smother and suffocate you.
Here's what I would propose:
The lich has a power similar to the Banishment spell. The lich targets one character as an attack action and forces that person to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a fail, that character either vanishes from the field of battle or simply drops prone and unconscious. Either way, their mind has been transported to a demi-plane. where they must face THEMSELVES in combat! If they beat themselves in this combat, they return (or awaken) and the battle continues. If they lose the challenge, they die (and if they were physically banished, there's no body to resurrect).
But! BUT!!! If the player gets to that demi-plane, sees an avatar of themself about to attack them, and chooses to simply.... let it happen... if they accept their own mortality and just let their avatar strike them down... THEN they return (or awaken) AND it's the lich that has taken damage, not them! It's the classic Ben Kenobi move!
Well, it's a rough sketch. Still some wrinkles to be ironed out.
Have fun with it. Good luck.
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Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Seems like a simple way could be to force the players to make a save against that frighten effect whenever they are in his aura. If they succeed, the lich loses X amount of hit points. Then you describe it however theatrically you like, like the life is sucked out of him as you save, weakening him visibly. You could also make it that if the players fail their save, the lich is healed Y amount of hit points, as he feeds on their fear.
Similarly, instead of hit points, you could give players who succeed advantage on their attacks and saves that round/disadvantage of they fail. Or flip it and impose the condition on the lich.
I am starting a really long campaign idea and I came to the threads to read up on Vecna and let me tell you this idea is absolutely perfect and I will definitely be adding this into my campaign... I might have them fight a small BBEG and this is the way to defeat him to foreshadow to my players this is the way to fight Vecna... with the power of bravery.
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“Games give you a chance to excel, and if you're playing in good company you don't even mind if you lose because you had the enjoyment of the company during the course of the game.” ― Gary Gygax
Good luck on the new campaign! I hope all goes well. If you ever need any help along the way, we Denizens of the Forums are always here to help.
I vaguely remember writing that last reply a few months ago. You see, I have a sleep disorder and I often browse the DND Forums into the wee hours. I remember feeling my last comment made perfect sense in my head, but I worried it wasn't translating through the keyboard very well. I'm glad someone was able to make some little sense of it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
I am glad to see people are taking inspiration from this post. I fleshed out the lich a bit more. A lot of the adventures are focused around followers, and artifacts from the lich. This will foreshadow the lich and make him a sort of ever presences villain in all the games.
Just watched the anime soul eater, the BBEG in that show was a sort of god of madness and fear. When the main heroine learns to be brave in the face of danger that is when she defeats him. It sort of diminishes his power by meeting someone who is brave against his attacks. So I was thinking of comparing that fight to the Critical Role fight with Vecna. What if Vecna had a weakness like that, instead of fighting him head on and trying to survive a long gulling fight they learn bravery and stand up to him.
My BBEG is similar as he is a lich, he is afraid of everything, he is insane and violent. I was thinking he would have an aura effect which makes people within it frighten, and when someone learns to truly stand up to him without any fear is when his power is diminished. They could still fight him head on but it's harder. What do you think, could this work?
That certainly could be interesting, though I'm not sure how I would run that.
Edit: If you want to have it closely mirror the show you could have it so that if the during the fight everyone is down except a one party member is down and they still attack the BBEG then he freaks out and is severely weakened or outright killed/defeated by that attack.
Alternatively you could have the party find out about the BBEGs weakness and have to go on a quest to confront and overcome their fears before they face him.
Or you could do both with the fight against the BBEG being the final thing they need to do to conquer their fears.
That is a fascinating concept. Let's see where this goes.
Okay, so a lich is a supremely badass bbeg. It would certainly make sense for a lich to have a Fear Aura in his bag of tricks. If you run it like a regular fear effect, then the mechanic is a simple Wisdom saving throw. The save could be required of anyone within a certain radius of the lich, or anyone who looks him in the eye (thus causing disadvantage on attacks with averted eyes, like fighting a medusa). Or the save could be required of anyone damaged by the lich. I think this is an interesting angle, because what do we fear more than our own mortality? Taking damage from a lich is a true Memento Mori moment.
So, any player who fails the Wisdom save suffers the frightened condition. And maybe they get to repeat the save at the end of each of their turns. And maybe once they succeed they're immune to the lich's fear aura. But that's too simple. It's too easy. Something's missing!
What do we REALLY fear? Death??? Sure. But there's always Revivify. Failure??? Maybe, but sometimes a pyrrhic victory is the path to glory.
I contend that fear is not an external effect. It's an internal reaction, a defense mechanism. Fear is not something that the lich instills in us. Fear is something that we instill in ourselves as a sort of primal protective mechanism. Fear is just like pain. When you touch a hot stove, your fingers don't feel the pain. They're not capable. Your fingers simply relay information to your brain. It's your BRAIN that feels the pain! The pain comes not from the stove, but from within. It's a warning of either impending or existing damage. It's our mortal instinct protecting itself. Fear operates the same way.
It's not the lich that we truly fear. It's not even our own mortality that we truly fear the most. Every martyr has proven that! What we truly fear the most is the realization that we may fail, that we may be insufficient to the task at hand. Not that we might die, but that we might die in vain. We fear ourselves, since fear itself is our own mind placing limitations upon us, protecting us like a security blanket. But the problem with blankets is that they can keep you warm or they can smother and suffocate you.
Here's what I would propose:
The lich has a power similar to the Banishment spell. The lich targets one character as an attack action and forces that person to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a fail, that character either vanishes from the field of battle or simply drops prone and unconscious. Either way, their mind has been transported to a demi-plane. where they must face THEMSELVES in combat! If they beat themselves in this combat, they return (or awaken) and the battle continues. If they lose the challenge, they die (and if they were physically banished, there's no body to resurrect).
But! BUT!!! If the player gets to that demi-plane, sees an avatar of themself about to attack them, and chooses to simply.... let it happen... if they accept their own mortality and just let their avatar strike them down... THEN they return (or awaken) AND it's the lich that has taken damage, not them! It's the classic Ben Kenobi move!
Well, it's a rough sketch. Still some wrinkles to be ironed out.
Have fun with it. Good luck.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
Seems like a simple way could be to force the players to make a save against that frighten effect whenever they are in his aura. If they succeed, the lich loses X amount of hit points. Then you describe it however theatrically you like, like the life is sucked out of him as you save, weakening him visibly. You could also make it that if the players fail their save, the lich is healed Y amount of hit points, as he feeds on their fear.
Similarly, instead of hit points, you could give players who succeed advantage on their attacks and saves that round/disadvantage of they fail. Or flip it and impose the condition on the lich.
I am starting a really long campaign idea and I came to the threads to read up on Vecna and let me tell you this idea is absolutely perfect and I will definitely be adding this into my campaign... I might have them fight a small BBEG and this is the way to defeat him to foreshadow to my players this is the way to fight Vecna... with the power of bravery.
“Games give you a chance to excel, and if you're playing in good company you don't even mind if you lose because you had the enjoyment of the company during the course of the game.” ― Gary Gygax
Good luck on the new campaign! I hope all goes well. If you ever need any help along the way, we Denizens of the Forums are always here to help.
I vaguely remember writing that last reply a few months ago. You see, I have a sleep disorder and I often browse the DND Forums into the wee hours. I remember feeling my last comment made perfect sense in my head, but I worried it wasn't translating through the keyboard very well. I'm glad someone was able to make some little sense of it.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
I am glad to see people are taking inspiration from this post. I fleshed out the lich a bit more. A lot of the adventures are focused around followers, and artifacts from the lich. This will foreshadow the lich and make him a sort of ever presences villain in all the games.
You ever seen the movie It?
First one was good, the second one had good scares but was dumb plot wise.