Limited Magic Immunity. The rakshasa can't be affected or detected by spells of 6th level or lower unless it wishes to be. It has advantage on saving throws against all other spells and magical effects.
Innate Spellcasting. The rakshasa's innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 18, +10 to hit with spell attacks). The rakshasa can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
At will: detect thoughts, disguise self, mage hand, minor illusion
3/day each: charm person, detect magic, invisibility, major image, suggestion
1/day each: dominate person, fly, plane shift, true seeing
Multiattack. The rakshasa makes two claw attacks.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) slashing damage, and the target is cursed if it is a creature. The magical curse takes effect whenever the target takes a short or long rest, filling the target's thoughts with horrible images and dreams. The cursed target gains no benefit from finishing a short or long rest. The curse lasts until it is lifted by a remove curse spell or similar magic.
It can planeshift one member of the party straight to any plane it wants. Instant RIP.
If you mean advantage on magic, then yea
You like my clothes? Oh wow! Even though I'm an evil fiendish lord with my own plans to rule I'm going to abandon all of that to be your side kick.
Yeah....no. Social skills are not dominate spells, raksasha are not servants, and that's not incense.
That is generous. It is lawful evil that should be worth at best killing them last haha
thats just not how the RAW rules are, if you cast a spell with a higher level slot, the spell assumes the slots level, https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/spellcasting#CastingaSpellataHigherLevel
read the spell, theres a melee spell attack + save to banish the creature to another plane
I'm just now realising that any warlock that isn't a bladelock is DOA against that thing.
If I were to target an object held by a Rakshasa with a spell like Telekinesis or Heat Metal, would they still work, since I'm not targeting the creature?
So there's an interesting interaction I've been thinking about and I'd wanna hear what you guys think if a Rakshasa is killed by an upcasted disintegrate and is turned to ash does his body get destroyed the same way it was already going to due to him being a fiend or does he not come back? The way I've seen it described is that as soon as the rakshasa drops to 0hp he is then transported back to hell to reform so that may take precedence over disintegrate because he doesn't technically die from the spell, he just gets sent back. Essentially, I wanna know if a devil can reform themselves from being disintegrated or if a third party would have to intervene to save them.
Would the lightning feature of a Javelin of Lightning affect a Rakshasa? I know magic spells of 6th level and lower don't affect it, but what about magic weapon abilities?
*Laughs in Summonlock*
Their ability to manipulate a party out of combat is EXTREMELY potent. It could be anyone, anywhere, at any time. Someone that gets scratched dies in 6 days if they can't afford a remove curse spell. It can fly, making everyone but archers with magical bows essentially useless at low levels.
It has to be a 6th level spell, also out speeds the average player, +7 to hit means that for your typical 16 AC player they only need to roll a 9 to hit, it has a spell save of 18 and hit bonus of +10, and the hp is nothing to sneeze at either. In short you will TPK a party of 4 under level 7. It also lives in urban environments so it's a bit more complicated to kill them when your in a city. It doens't do much damage sure but you add in a succubus or any other fiend ally with disguise self and you have a really hard fight.
It is my understanding that anything worn or carried by the creature is considered part of the creature, so his spell immunity would carry over to his equipment. Notice even in the Telekinesis spell the wording "If the object isn't being worn or carried". Also consider that no items on a creature are subject to damage from area effect spells unless the creature dies, which seems to imply that they are protected by him.
One reason the Cr system is kind of broken is it assumes that players might never receive magic items and therefore a creature that cannot be damaged by non magical attacks get inflated Cr
you can always upcast a spell. you just might not get any extra benefits.
unless counterspell is cast at 7th or higher, it can't affect the rakshasa
Between limited magic immunity and immunity to ALL nonmagical attacks, this means a lower or mid level party's only option is their frontliners with magic weapons, and the Rakshasa will undoubtedly attempt to Dominate whoever is either most susceptible or would swing the fight with one turn, like a Wizard or Sorcerer. While you are correct that a party of four Level 6 Monks would certainly be a significant threat to a Rakshasa if it hasn't had a chance to prepare for the battle, that's sort of like saying a party of four Level 6 Paladins are a significant threat to a Vampire during the day; yes, you are technically correct, but if you find yourself in this scenario, then from the perspective of the Vamp or the Rakshasa, something has gone terribly wrong and they are not being used effectively.
A Rakshasa should always go to considerable lengths to isolate one or several party members with social tactics before launching an attack, and it's not as if Domination is its only threatening spell. Charm Person and Suggestion can both be used to send one party member on a hike several minutes or an hour before combat begins, meaning they'd never return in time for the battle; Major Image can be used to distract party members and draw attention away from the Rakshasa; and it has Invisibility, Plane Shift, and Fly to escape if the fight starts turning against it. Please note that while, technically, the Rakshasa COULD target a party member with Plane Shift, you are essentially threatening to kill a PC off the fate of a single die roll, regardless of what has happened to lead up to this point, and a Rakshasa would never give up its greatest escape tool just to send one person packing unless its victory was otherwise completely assured.
CR works with a party of 4 in mind. Assuming half of the party are casters this eliminates half of the party entirely until level 13 so doubling the CR makes sense. It is a pretty weak CR 13 though.
Thank you. I was gonna have to say this if I didn't see someone clear it up definitively. But as you say, DM's rule is law in your own games folks. I wouldn't want to be a spellcaster again if that was the way spells worked. Wind up with tons of mostly useless spells...