Necromancer, using Finger of Death to create an arbitrarily large horde, and transporting them with Demiplane.
No matter how strong an opponent is 1000 cold bodies are still going to get 50 critical hits per round, which means it'll only take 3 rounds to slay a 1,000 HP creature unless they are immune to physical damage.
A thousand cold bodies can't all attack one Medium creature per round. You get eight swings per round with a bunch of zombies, which nets a crit roughly once every other round on average. And in the meantime, the demigod with full access to the wizard and cleric spell lists and, presumably, the ability to use certain divine powers will be trashing your horde of undead and/or possibly dropping Meteors on you. And most of your undead.
Even assuming the demigod is Gargantuan and a much larger number of creatures can fit in around it to swing, nothing in the game is so big that all one thousand zombies can attack at once. Even if you assume a Combat Shuffle of zombies moving in and out of range, eventually you run into a limit of how much shuffle you can accomplish within twenty feet, i.e. a single zombie's limit on its ability to move in and swipe.
Whatever way you look at it, doing the Endless Sea of Undead thing isn't a strategy, it's an exercise in watching a Dynasty Warriors game in (D&D) real life, right before the demigod walks up to you and uses whatever arbitrary spell it likes to make you into either lawn furniture or meat confetti.
Frankly? Assuming a demigod has a 30 in its casting stat, the save DC for its abilities is 8+10+7, or 25. Provided it uses a normal level 20 proficiency bonus. Even assuming corresponding level 20 godslayers with a full +5 modifier in their saves, characters are basically going to auto-fail any save they don't have proficiency in and they only make their proficient saves about half the time. The demigod automatically goes first; if it's fighting a 'slayer' without any magic, a'la the Zealot barbarian, it either casts Invulnerability if it's feeling remotely threatened and just ignores the barbarian period, or it casts True Polymorph and turns the 'slayer' into a commemorative spoon. If it faces anything with magic, it can try for True Polymorph anyways and bank on the very reasonable chance the target fails the save, or it can go for Feeblemind - using its reaction to Counterspell any Counterspell attempts because demigods don't care about your mortal logic. A Feebleminded mage is no longer a problem.
Theoretically a Moon druid could still fight while Feebleminded, simply using its animal/elemental forms instinctively (a.k.a. the Keyleth method), at which point the demigod can go for a permanent disable with either True Polymorph or Flesh to Stone, among other things.
Frankly? I don't see a way for one single character to take down an entity with a thousand hit points, full access to the wizard and cleric spell lists, literal god-tier defenses (sort of), and the ability to ignore Initiative and just go first. Giving a 20th-level wizard the ability to launch any alpha-strike spell of its choice 100% of the time makes this a nonfight. The only thing that might allow the fight to so much as go to round 2 would be to hit the demigod with Silence or an Antimagic Field from stealth and turn off its spellcasting, then try to grapple it in said magic and force it to fight with what I can only presume are its 'mere' Ancient Dragon-level martial combat stats. That'd require at least two slayers - a purpose-built, Olympian-level grappler and a very powerful spellcaster, both also extremely proficient in Stealth. You'd probably want at least two grapplers, both dogpiling on the demigod at the same time for when one inevitably gets punched out, or for when the demigod easily breaks one grapple. It still only gets one action a turn; two grapplers putting everything they have into keeping it grappled might be able to keep it still.
If the spell is SIlence, a demigod most likely knows full well what its somatic-only spells are and will be using them to eliminate the grapplers. A quick search shows that Psychic Scream is, amusingly enough, somatic-only. A demigod pinned in a Silence field by multiple large men in wrestling tights can trigger Psychic Scream, almost guaranteeing all grapplers (and probably the Silence caster) end up Stunned and thus breaking their grapples and their Silence, and also taking a huge whack of psychic damage. Demigod then proceeds to clean up the mess and go back to its afternoon tea.
If the spell is Antimagic Field? Then, and only then, does your team of antimage-plus-MMA-guys stand the remotest chance, and I'd still call that very dicey. Demigod only needs to get one single turn a single step outside the antimagic field for your entire game to go tits-skyward, and that's real easy to do with 30s in most of their stats.
But hey! At least the demigod has stats! A god - a proper god - doesn't have stats, whatever people say about "level 20 characters are literally fighting gods!" Nah. A proper god simply looks at you, frowns a bit, and you die. The demigod has to at least pretend to follow the rules.
A thousand cold bodies can't all attack one Medium creature per round. You get eight swings per round with a bunch of zombies, which nets a crit roughly once every other round on average. And in the meantime, the demigod with full access to the wizard and cleric spell lists and, presumably, the ability to use certain divine powers will be trashing your horde of undead and/or possibly dropping Meteors on you. And most of your undead.
Even assuming the demigod is Gargantuan and a much larger number of creatures can fit in around it to swing, nothing in the game is so big that all one thousand zombies can attack at once. Even if you assume a Combat Shuffle of zombies moving in and out of range, eventually you run into a limit of how much shuffle you can accomplish within twenty feet, i.e. a single zombie's limit on its ability to move in and swipe.
Whatever way you look at it, doing the Endless Sea of Undead thing isn't a strategy, it's an exercise in watching a Dynasty Warriors game in (D&D) real life, right before the demigod walks up to you and uses whatever arbitrary spell it likes to make you into either lawn furniture or meat confetti.
Frankly? Assuming a demigod has a 30 in its casting stat, the save DC for its abilities is 8+10+7, or 25. Provided it uses a normal level 20 proficiency bonus. Even assuming corresponding level 20 godslayers with a full +5 modifier in their saves, characters are basically going to auto-fail any save they don't have proficiency in and they only make their proficient saves about half the time. The demigod automatically goes first; if it's fighting a 'slayer' without any magic, a'la the Zealot barbarian, it either casts Invulnerability if it's feeling remotely threatened and just ignores the barbarian period, or it casts True Polymorph and turns the 'slayer' into a commemorative spoon. If it faces anything with magic, it can try for True Polymorph anyways and bank on the very reasonable chance the target fails the save, or it can go for Feeblemind - using its reaction to Counterspell any Counterspell attempts because demigods don't care about your mortal logic. A Feebleminded mage is no longer a problem.
Theoretically a Moon druid could still fight while Feebleminded, simply using its animal/elemental forms instinctively (a.k.a. the Keyleth method), at which point the demigod can go for a permanent disable with either True Polymorph or Flesh to Stone, among other things.
Frankly? I don't see a way for one single character to take down an entity with a thousand hit points, full access to the wizard and cleric spell lists, literal god-tier defenses (sort of), and the ability to ignore Initiative and just go first. Giving a 20th-level wizard the ability to launch any alpha-strike spell of its choice 100% of the time makes this a nonfight. The only thing that might allow the fight to so much as go to round 2 would be to hit the demigod with Silence or an Antimagic Field from stealth and turn off its spellcasting, then try to grapple it in said magic and force it to fight with what I can only presume are its 'mere' Ancient Dragon-level martial combat stats. That'd require at least two slayers - a purpose-built, Olympian-level grappler and a very powerful spellcaster, both also extremely proficient in Stealth. You'd probably want at least two grapplers, both dogpiling on the demigod at the same time for when one inevitably gets punched out, or for when the demigod easily breaks one grapple. It still only gets one action a turn; two grapplers putting everything they have into keeping it grappled might be able to keep it still.
If the spell is SIlence, a demigod most likely knows full well what its somatic-only spells are and will be using them to eliminate the grapplers. A quick search shows that Psychic Scream is, amusingly enough, somatic-only. A demigod pinned in a Silence field by multiple large men in wrestling tights can trigger Psychic Scream, almost guaranteeing all grapplers (and probably the Silence caster) end up Stunned and thus breaking their grapples and their Silence, and also taking a huge whack of psychic damage. Demigod then proceeds to clean up the mess and go back to its afternoon tea.
If the spell is Antimagic Field? Then, and only then, does your team of antimage-plus-MMA-guys stand the remotest chance, and I'd still call that very dicey. Demigod only needs to get one single turn a single step outside the antimagic field for your entire game to go tits-skyward, and that's real easy to do with 30s in most of their stats.
But hey! At least the demigod has stats! A god - a proper god - doesn't have stats, whatever people say about "level 20 characters are literally fighting gods!" Nah. A proper god simply looks at you, frowns a bit, and you die. The demigod has to at least pretend to follow the rules.
I think he means it knows all wizard/cleric spells. It still only has one spell slot. Get lucky and have it cast meteor swarm, then use loaded dice to cut off it's head.
Sure. Except Meteor Swarm would be a stupid use of that ninth-level slot against anything but the Army of Darkness plan.
Against the Zealot with a vorpal sword? There's a double dozen wizard disables the demigod can cast that ends the fight before the Zealot even gets a turn. Even if we assume the critter can't just say "I Wish for you to begone", the Zealot would need to be able to make a DC 25 Wisdom save against True Polymorph or lose outright before it gets one single attack. Even if we give the Zealot 20 Wisdom and Resilient: Wis (which is not realistic for most barbarians, but we'll assume this one knew it would need the Wisdom and trained its whole life for it), that's a +12 to the save. The Zealot needs a 13 or better to avoid automatic loss, and it only gets one save reroll per long rest.
Even if True Polymorph doesn't work, the demigod can then Dominate the Zealot and make it walk off a cliff into a lake of fire. Or if Wisdom saves aren't working, Plane Shift and *****slap the Zealot to Pandemonium or whatever else sounds fun. The same Zealot cannot have both Resilient Wis and Resilient Cha, and unless it has a +5 ability mod it automatically fails nonproficient saves. Even with a +5, it only succeeds on a nat 20.
Vorpal sword spam isn't the answer. At best, you get three tries, assuming you have two vorpal swords to engage in two-weapon fighting with. Elsewise your best bet is an elven Samurai with Elven Accuracy, and then desperately hope the critter gives you one, single turn to fish for that decapitation with. Because after that turn, the demigod WILL kill or disable you if it somehow hasn't already.
EDIT: stupid phone posting.
Finger of Death cannot create skellingbros. Only zomboids. And I cannot imagine many DMs would allow you to claim you've trained your horde of mindless flesh-gnawing corpses in the tactcs of English longbowmen.
There is zero need for training. Any creature with limbs and intelligence can point and shoot, they just won't have proficiency.
Zombies have an intelligence of 6 [3], which is actually quite substantial [far from mindless]. They only need to get lucky, the strategy doesn't care about skill.
If any character expects to solo a demi-God, the DM is going to have to allow some kind of epic level shenanigans and Necromancer hordes are quintessential D&D villain territory.
Heh. Suppose that's the point I'm trying to make - neither player nor character should even remotely be expecting to be able to breeze-mode, EZPZ this sort of thing. This sort of thing is what entire campaigns are built around, long quests to discover the demigod's weaknesses and build up allies and resources for the final conflict. Just wandering into the demigod's home and yelling "SUP BOI, I"M HEER FER YER MAJJIKS!" should be an invitation to getting your shit plastered.
Zomboid longbow legion? Demigod casts Invulnerability, Counterspells the necromancer's Counterspell, and has ten minutes to leisurely turn the necromancer into salsa. If and ONLY if the necromancer has Invulnerability as well, there's an actual contest. That contest is "who can Dispell the other's Invulnerability first?". Given each round turns into "I cast Dispell", "I cast Counterspell", "I Counterspell the Counterspell", it ends up being "who lands the needed spellcasting check to Dispel a ninth-level spell first"? The demigod, having a +10 to its casting checks rather than a +5, has a serious edge in that contest. If the demigod wins and Dispells the necromancer's Invulnerability first, the demigod then erases the necromancer from existence and the zomboids go into mindless gnawing mode.
If the necromancer wins? A'ight - if the DM has permitted a thousand attack rolls a turn, the demigod is in trouble. But I maintain that this is a DM who is not doing their job properly, and even without Meteor Swarm, the demigod can eliminate hundreds of zombies in a single turn with any number of huge-AoE high-level spells. Not to mention any form of imposing disadvantage on attacks against itself cuts that number of crits from 50 to nearly nil, as now you're requiring a zombie to roll a nat 20 twice in a row to work. A simple Blur spell can almost entirely eliminate threat from longbow zombies while the demigod makes the necromancer into its own personal slipper warmer, and that's if the demigod avoids Invulnerability just for shits. It may take a few crits per turn from exceedingly lucky zombies, but that won't be enough to stop it from making the necromancer unexist long before zomboids become an issue.
Heh. Suppose that's the point I'm trying to make - neither player nor character should even remotely be expecting to be able to breeze-mode, EZPZ this sort of thing. This sort of thing is what entire campaigns are built around, long quests to discover the demigod's weaknesses and build up allies and resources for the final conflict. Just wandering into the demigod's home and yelling "SUP BOI, I"M HEER FER YER MAJJIKS!" should be an invitation to getting your shit plastered.
Zomboid longbow legion? Demigod casts Invulnerability, Counterspells the necromancer's Counterspell, and has ten minutes to leisurely turn the necromancer into salsa. If and ONLY if the necromancer has Invulnerability as well, there's an actual contest. That contest is "who can Dispell the other's Invulnerability first?". Given each round turns into "I cast Dispell", "I cast Counterspell", "I Counterspell the Counterspell", it ends up being "who lands the needed spellcasting check to Dispel a ninth-level spell first"? The demigod, having a +10 to its casting checks rather than a +5, has a serious edge in that contest. If the demigod wins and Dispells the necromancer's Invulnerability first, the demigod then erases the necromancer from existence and the zomboids go into mindless gnawing mode.
If the necromancer wins? A'ight - if the DM has permitted a thousand attack rolls a turn, the demigod is in trouble. But I maintain that this is a DM who is not doing their job properly, and even without Meteor Swarm, the demigod can eliminate hundreds of zombies in a single turn with any number of huge-AoE high-level spells. Not to mention any form of imposing disadvantage on attacks against itself cuts that number of crits from 50 to nearly nil, as now you're requiring a zombie to roll a nat 20 twice in a row to work. A simple Blur spell can almost entirely eliminate threat from longbow zombies while the demigod makes the necromancer into its own personal slipper warmer, and that's if the demigod avoids Invulnerability just for shits. It may take a few crits per turn from exceedingly lucky zombies, but that won't be enough to stop it from making the necromancer unexist long before zomboids become an issue.
Who said the necromancer was nearby? Anyway, I don't really believe that defeating a demigod is possible if they are this powerful.
Is there an actual "Demi-God" Statblock, or are we just making things up as we go along?
We can still force concentration checks, even with Invulnerability. Meteor Swarm, even with the 1 mile(!!) range, requires line of sight. Zombie archers would ideally be encircling the demi-god at the max 150ft range, or further once at disadvantage, which would cause them to be pretty spaced out. An AOE would only hit a few at a time.
Disadvantage versus Advantage is messy, so that's going to largely depend on the DM.
With time to plan, which a Necromancer would have during the 3 years of accumulating zombies, a player could create pretty ideal circumstances.
The more likely thing is that the Demi-God would simply say "Nah Bro", and Plane Shift away to kill you at its convenience.
Is there an actual "Demi-God" Statblock, or are we just making things up as we go along?
We can still force concentration checks, even with Invulnerability. Meteor Swarm, even with the 1 mile(!!) range, requires line of sight. Zombie archers would ideally be encircling the demi-god at the max 150ft range, or further once at disadvantage, which would cause them to be pretty spaced out. An AOE would only hit a few at a time.
With time to plan, which a Necromancer would have during the 3 years of accumulating zombies, a demi-god with weaknesses could probably be studied.
The more likely thing is that the Demi-God would simply say "Nah Bro", and Plane Shift away to kill you at its convenience.
Is there an actual "Demi-God" Statblock, or are we just making things up as we go along?
We can still force concentration checks, even with Invulnerability. Meteor Swarm, even with the 1 mile(!!) range, requires line of sight. Zombie archers would ideally be encircling the demi-god at the max 150ft range, or further once at disadvantage, which would cause them to be pretty spaced out. An AOE would only hit a few at a time.
With time to plan, which a Necromancer would have during the 3 years of accumulating zombies, a demi-god with weaknesses could probably be studied.
The more likely thing is that the Demi-God would simply say "Nah Bro", and Plane Shift away to kill you at its convenience.
Make it up as we go along, despite the fact that a god, Tiamat, has a stat block far weaker than that. I just finished a OotA campaign where Demogorgon was almost this tough, though, and we killed him without any deaths.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Is there an actual "Demi-God" Statblock, or are we just making things up as we go along?
We can still force concentration checks, even with Invulnerability. Meteor Swarm, even with the 1 mile(!!) range, requires line of sight. Zombie archers would ideally be encircling the demi-god at the max 150ft range, or further once at disadvantage, which would cause them to be pretty spaced out. An AOE would only hit a few at a time.
With time to plan, which a Necromancer would have during the 3 years of accumulating zombies, a demi-god with weaknesses could probably be studied.
The more likely thing is that the Demi-God would simply say "Nah Bro", and Plane Shift away to kill you at its convenience.
Is there an actual "Demi-God" Statblock, or are we just making things up as we go along?
We can still force concentration checks, even with Invulnerability. Meteor Swarm, even with the 1 mile(!!) range, requires line of sight. Zombie archers would ideally be encircling the demi-god at the max 150ft range, or further once at disadvantage, which would cause them to be pretty spaced out. An AOE would only hit a few at a time.
With time to plan, which a Necromancer would have during the 3 years of accumulating zombies, a demi-god with weaknesses could probably be studied.
The more likely thing is that the Demi-God would simply say "Nah Bro", and Plane Shift away to kill you at its convenience.
Make it up as we go along, despite the fact that a god, Tiamat, has a stat block far weaker than that. I just finished a OotA campaign where Demogorgon was almost this tough, though, and we killed him without any deaths.
That's because you were using min-maxed characters.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Is there an actual "Demi-God" Statblock, or are we just making things up as we go along?
We can still force concentration checks, even with Invulnerability. Meteor Swarm, even with the 1 mile(!!) range, requires line of sight. Zombie archers would ideally be encircling the demi-god at the max 150ft range, or further once at disadvantage, which would cause them to be pretty spaced out. An AOE would only hit a few at a time.
With time to plan, which a Necromancer would have during the 3 years of accumulating zombies, a demi-god with weaknesses could probably be studied.
The more likely thing is that the Demi-God would simply say "Nah Bro", and Plane Shift away to kill you at its convenience.
Is there an actual "Demi-God" Statblock, or are we just making things up as we go along?
We can still force concentration checks, even with Invulnerability. Meteor Swarm, even with the 1 mile(!!) range, requires line of sight. Zombie archers would ideally be encircling the demi-god at the max 150ft range, or further once at disadvantage, which would cause them to be pretty spaced out. An AOE would only hit a few at a time.
With time to plan, which a Necromancer would have during the 3 years of accumulating zombies, a demi-god with weaknesses could probably be studied.
The more likely thing is that the Demi-God would simply say "Nah Bro", and Plane Shift away to kill you at its convenience.
Make it up as we go along, despite the fact that a god, Tiamat, has a stat block far weaker than that. I just finished a OotA campaign where Demogorgon was almost this tough, though, and we killed him without any deaths.
That's because you were using min-maxed characters.
No. The ranger had a mind blade that did 3d6 damage and the rogue jumped on Demogorgon for 35 points from falling.
Demigods still have one head. Zealot barb with vorpal sword.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Necromancer, using Finger of Death to create an arbitrarily large horde, and transporting them with Demiplane.
No matter how strong an opponent is 1000 cold bodies are still going to get 50 critical hits per round, which means it'll only take 3 rounds to slay a 1,000 HP creature unless they are immune to physical damage.
A thousand cold bodies can't all attack one Medium creature per round. You get eight swings per round with a bunch of zombies, which nets a crit roughly once every other round on average. And in the meantime, the demigod with full access to the wizard and cleric spell lists and, presumably, the ability to use certain divine powers will be trashing your horde of undead and/or possibly dropping Meteors on you. And most of your undead.
Even assuming the demigod is Gargantuan and a much larger number of creatures can fit in around it to swing, nothing in the game is so big that all one thousand zombies can attack at once. Even if you assume a Combat Shuffle of zombies moving in and out of range, eventually you run into a limit of how much shuffle you can accomplish within twenty feet, i.e. a single zombie's limit on its ability to move in and swipe.
Whatever way you look at it, doing the Endless Sea of Undead thing isn't a strategy, it's an exercise in watching a Dynasty Warriors game in (D&D) real life, right before the demigod walks up to you and uses whatever arbitrary spell it likes to make you into either lawn furniture or meat confetti.
Frankly? Assuming a demigod has a 30 in its casting stat, the save DC for its abilities is 8+10+7, or 25. Provided it uses a normal level 20 proficiency bonus. Even assuming corresponding level 20 godslayers with a full +5 modifier in their saves, characters are basically going to auto-fail any save they don't have proficiency in and they only make their proficient saves about half the time. The demigod automatically goes first; if it's fighting a 'slayer' without any magic, a'la the Zealot barbarian, it either casts Invulnerability if it's feeling remotely threatened and just ignores the barbarian period, or it casts True Polymorph and turns the 'slayer' into a commemorative spoon. If it faces anything with magic, it can try for True Polymorph anyways and bank on the very reasonable chance the target fails the save, or it can go for Feeblemind - using its reaction to Counterspell any Counterspell attempts because demigods don't care about your mortal logic. A Feebleminded mage is no longer a problem.
Theoretically a Moon druid could still fight while Feebleminded, simply using its animal/elemental forms instinctively (a.k.a. the Keyleth method), at which point the demigod can go for a permanent disable with either True Polymorph or Flesh to Stone, among other things.
Frankly? I don't see a way for one single character to take down an entity with a thousand hit points, full access to the wizard and cleric spell lists, literal god-tier defenses (sort of), and the ability to ignore Initiative and just go first. Giving a 20th-level wizard the ability to launch any alpha-strike spell of its choice 100% of the time makes this a nonfight. The only thing that might allow the fight to so much as go to round 2 would be to hit the demigod with Silence or an Antimagic Field from stealth and turn off its spellcasting, then try to grapple it in said magic and force it to fight with what I can only presume are its 'mere' Ancient Dragon-level martial combat stats. That'd require at least two slayers - a purpose-built, Olympian-level grappler and a very powerful spellcaster, both also extremely proficient in Stealth. You'd probably want at least two grapplers, both dogpiling on the demigod at the same time for when one inevitably gets punched out, or for when the demigod easily breaks one grapple. It still only gets one action a turn; two grapplers putting everything they have into keeping it grappled might be able to keep it still.
If the spell is SIlence, a demigod most likely knows full well what its somatic-only spells are and will be using them to eliminate the grapplers. A quick search shows that Psychic Scream is, amusingly enough, somatic-only. A demigod pinned in a Silence field by multiple large men in wrestling tights can trigger Psychic Scream, almost guaranteeing all grapplers (and probably the Silence caster) end up Stunned and thus breaking their grapples and their Silence, and also taking a huge whack of psychic damage. Demigod then proceeds to clean up the mess and go back to its afternoon tea.
If the spell is Antimagic Field? Then, and only then, does your team of antimage-plus-MMA-guys stand the remotest chance, and I'd still call that very dicey. Demigod only needs to get one single turn a single step outside the antimagic field for your entire game to go tits-skyward, and that's real easy to do with 30s in most of their stats.
But hey! At least the demigod has stats! A god - a proper god - doesn't have stats, whatever people say about "level 20 characters are literally fighting gods!" Nah. A proper god simply looks at you, frowns a bit, and you die. The demigod has to at least pretend to follow the rules.
Please do not contact or message me.
I think he means it knows all wizard/cleric spells. It still only has one spell slot. Get lucky and have it cast meteor swarm, then use loaded dice to cut off it's head.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
@Yurei - I'm happy to introduce you to "Longbows"! A truly game changing innovation!
It's true that I was thinking Skeletons, rather than zombies, but even without proficiency, the zombies are still perfectly effective en masse.
Toss in a support spell or two, and their effectiveness dramatically increases.
Whether or not the demi-God has 20th level abilities, Action Economy is king.
Sure. Except Meteor Swarm would be a stupid use of that ninth-level slot against anything but the Army of Darkness plan.
Against the Zealot with a vorpal sword? There's a double dozen wizard disables the demigod can cast that ends the fight before the Zealot even gets a turn. Even if we assume the critter can't just say "I Wish for you to begone", the Zealot would need to be able to make a DC 25 Wisdom save against True Polymorph or lose outright before it gets one single attack. Even if we give the Zealot 20 Wisdom and Resilient: Wis (which is not realistic for most barbarians, but we'll assume this one knew it would need the Wisdom and trained its whole life for it), that's a +12 to the save. The Zealot needs a 13 or better to avoid automatic loss, and it only gets one save reroll per long rest.
Even if True Polymorph doesn't work, the demigod can then Dominate the Zealot and make it walk off a cliff into a lake of fire. Or if Wisdom saves aren't working, Plane Shift and *****slap the Zealot to Pandemonium or whatever else sounds fun. The same Zealot cannot have both Resilient Wis and Resilient Cha, and unless it has a +5 ability mod it automatically fails nonproficient saves. Even with a +5, it only succeeds on a nat 20.
Vorpal sword spam isn't the answer. At best, you get three tries, assuming you have two vorpal swords to engage in two-weapon fighting with. Elsewise your best bet is an elven Samurai with Elven Accuracy, and then desperately hope the critter gives you one, single turn to fish for that decapitation with. Because after that turn, the demigod WILL kill or disable you if it somehow hasn't already.
EDIT: stupid phone posting.
Finger of Death cannot create skellingbros. Only zomboids. And I cannot imagine many DMs would allow you to claim you've trained your horde of mindless flesh-gnawing corpses in the tactcs of English longbowmen.
Please do not contact or message me.
There is zero need for training. Any creature with limbs and intelligence can point and shoot, they just won't have proficiency.
Zombies have an intelligence of
6[3], which isactually quite substantial[far from mindless]. They only need to get lucky, the strategy doesn't care about skill.If any character expects to solo a demi-God, the DM is going to have to allow some kind of epic level shenanigans and Necromancer hordes are quintessential D&D villain territory.
Zombies with vorpal swords.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Or 14th level necromancer and nightwalker army.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Heh. Suppose that's the point I'm trying to make - neither player nor character should even remotely be expecting to be able to breeze-mode, EZPZ this sort of thing. This sort of thing is what entire campaigns are built around, long quests to discover the demigod's weaknesses and build up allies and resources for the final conflict. Just wandering into the demigod's home and yelling "SUP BOI, I"M HEER FER YER MAJJIKS!" should be an invitation to getting your shit plastered.
Zomboid longbow legion? Demigod casts Invulnerability, Counterspells the necromancer's Counterspell, and has ten minutes to leisurely turn the necromancer into salsa. If and ONLY if the necromancer has Invulnerability as well, there's an actual contest. That contest is "who can Dispell the other's Invulnerability first?". Given each round turns into "I cast Dispell", "I cast Counterspell", "I Counterspell the Counterspell", it ends up being "who lands the needed spellcasting check to Dispel a ninth-level spell first"? The demigod, having a +10 to its casting checks rather than a +5, has a serious edge in that contest. If the demigod wins and Dispells the necromancer's Invulnerability first, the demigod then erases the necromancer from existence and the zomboids go into mindless gnawing mode.
If the necromancer wins? A'ight - if the DM has permitted a thousand attack rolls a turn, the demigod is in trouble. But I maintain that this is a DM who is not doing their job properly, and even without Meteor Swarm, the demigod can eliminate hundreds of zombies in a single turn with any number of huge-AoE high-level spells. Not to mention any form of imposing disadvantage on attacks against itself cuts that number of crits from 50 to nearly nil, as now you're requiring a zombie to roll a nat 20 twice in a row to work. A simple Blur spell can almost entirely eliminate threat from longbow zombies while the demigod makes the necromancer into its own personal slipper warmer, and that's if the demigod avoids Invulnerability just for shits. It may take a few crits per turn from exceedingly lucky zombies, but that won't be enough to stop it from making the necromancer unexist long before zomboids become an issue.
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Who said the necromancer was nearby? Anyway, I don't really believe that defeating a demigod is possible if they are this powerful.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Is there an actual "Demi-God" Statblock, or are we just making things up as we go along?
We can still force concentration checks, even with Invulnerability.
Meteor Swarm, even with the 1 mile(!!) range, requires line of sight.
Zombie archers would ideally be encircling the demi-god at the max 150ft range, or further once at disadvantage, which would cause them to be pretty spaced out. An AOE would only hit a few at a time.
Disadvantage versus Advantage is messy, so that's going to largely depend on the DM.
With time to plan, which a Necromancer would have during the 3 years of accumulating zombies, a player could create pretty ideal circumstances.
The more likely thing is that the Demi-God would simply say "Nah Bro", and Plane Shift away to kill you at its convenience.
Make it up as we go along, despite the fact that a god, Tiamat, has a stat block far weaker than that. I just finished a OotA campaign where Demogorgon was almost this tough, though, and we killed him without any deaths.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Technically, demigods should have empyrean stats.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
That's because you were using min-maxed characters.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
No. The ranger had a mind blade that did 3d6 damage and the rogue jumped on Demogorgon for 35 points from falling.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
A more reasonable Demigod, still not likely to be tanked by just anyone, but it's *possible*
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/844782-klethrithya-the-fair
Cult of Sedge
Rangers are the best, and have always been the best
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Warrior Bovine