Category: Voivode’s Hotlist

The Colossus of Akros from Mythic Odyssey of Theros is the latest addition to the Hotlist. I’ve only had the chance to run this gargantuan construct a few times in the Coliseum, but it has never disappointed.

The Colossus is great on it’s own. It has ranged and melee attacks, both of with a +16 attack bonus. It has a recharging attack that can hit 3 targets and sets them on a fire when the save is failed. It’s 21 AC give it a chance of occasionally not being hit at higher levels. Last but not least, when it dies it showers a 30 foot area around it with flaming-bludgeoning damage.

Colossus of Akros and Friends

But wait, there’s more! When it takes fire damage, it regains hit points. Fire is a relatively common damage type, but even so, you’re players are probably only going to make the mistake of healing it once. After that, the fun is over, unless you stack the deck in your favor a little bit.

Throw that colossus in an encounter with something that does bottomless fire damage. What if the colossus has a flock of red dragon wyrmling that roost on it? They’d be pretty pissed when you disturbed their home, I’d imagine, and do everything they could to stay out of your range while healing the colossus with their loving exhalations. Another option would be a pit fiend or a death slaad that lives in the area. Both have the fireball spell at-will. They could heal the colossus while also hitting the PCs with the splash damage.

Wanna know what other monsters are on my Hotlist? Or, maybe instead of the deadliest you want monsters that provide interesting challenges in and out of combat? Check out my Blocklist.

The Aeorian Reverser made it’s first appearance earlier this season in the Coliseum. As a DM this monster was a blast to run. It has the strength to take a bit of a beating, it can dish out damage in melee combat, and that a Reversal ability? Chef’s kiss!

Preventing healing is already nasty business, but turning it into damage, that’s just brutal! It denies the party’s frontline the support they desperately need to protect the group. The damage turns the best efforts of their allies into a new threat. It both frustrates support and turns it into a threat.

What about when a player goes down though? We go from hurting instead of helping to automatically failed death saves. For me, that makes them ideal for the Coliseum, as the players all know a swift death is on the table. I’d be really hesitant to employ these heavily in a less combat-focused game though. Extra failed death saves dramatically reduce the chances of a player recovering. That said, the drama that a character on the edge of death creates in combat is great, if that’s your game’s speed.

Wanna know what other monsters are on my Hotlist? Or, maybe instead of the deadliest you want monsters that provide interesting challenges in and out of combat? Check out my Blocklist.

I know, I know. I’m not really going to make that title work ever, but I’m sticking with it. I just used a Setessan Hoplite from Mythic Odyssey of Theros for the first time this week and they were a blast in combat. I had the players on their heels for most of the match, dropped a few of them to zero, and was able to make tactical maneuvers around the battlefield.

Mythic Odyssey of Theros is based upon the similarly named expansion to Magic: The Gathering, Theros Beyond Death. There is no card with a matching name in the set, so I pulled an image for one that I thought was probably a close match. Mythic Odyssey of Theros has this to say:

The Setessan Hoplite in D&D swings well above it’s weight as a CR 4. I have to wonder if the CR was miscalculated. The stat block lists their average damage as 6 for the scimitar and 7 for the longbow. This seems to ignore the addition 3d6 of poison damage that both attacks do. So, that’s more like 17 and 18 damage respectively. I’m not going to look into it much more closely than that in order to maintain plausible deniability

Setessan Hoplite: Final Thoughts

What I will say is that these NPCs are great team players. They offer great damage both in melee and ranged combat. Their Pack Tactics ability gives them advantage when allies are in close quarters. Additionally, with two attacks and relatively high AC, there’s not a lot of soft spots her. I’m thinking of modeling a higher level named NPC based on their format as well. More to come on that, maybe on the Voivode.net blog.

Wanna know what other monsters are on my Hotlist? Or, maybe instead of the deadliest you want monsters that provide interesting challenges in and out of combat? Check out my Blocklist.

Regarding Demogorgon, in mid-December I boldly tweeted:

True story, though: I was wrong. I still don’t get how to run Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons, the Sibilant Beast, and Master of the Spiraling Depths (MtF, p.144). The crux of my problem is this: nobody wants to look at him, and if they don’t, his most potent weapon is useless. On top of that, the rest of his weapons aren’t all that good either.

According to encounter creation rules, Demogorgon is a beyond deadly encounter for 4 level 20 characters . In my experience, this fiend performs way below expectation, and possibly the least threatening of the Demon Lords. Here’s where the problem lies:

As Willy Wonka would say, “It’s all there, black and white, clear as crystal!” The PCs can just look away. The fiend gets to use the gaze twice as a legendary action (only twice! on a CR 26 monster! yeesh!). For one glorious combat I misread the rule and though I could ignore the part about looking away, and just confuse and stun players at will. Yeah…but nope.

You might say, “But, Voivode, when they look away they have disadvantage on attacks, and grant advantage when attacked!” I’d agree that’s true, but how many level 20 PCs don’t have some relatively easy way to invoke advantage and making it a wash? Very few. It’s AC is 22, which is pretty good, but still relatively beatable. The +17 attack mod helps too, but combined with a decent-but-not-great 406 HP, it’s all just not enough. By comparison, a tarrasque at CR 25 has more HP, more resistances, a higher AC, and 3 (count ’em 3) legendary action that the PC can’t just choose to ignore.

Honestly, this naughty boy would go on my Blocklist if he weren’t so much drama. The best I can recommend when you’re building an encounter is to make sure it happens in his lair. He might as well have few extra trick (and they are only tricks) from his lair actions and that way, when he gets his ass kicked, he can sleep it off in his own bed.

Wanna know what other monsters are on my Hotlist? Or, maybe instead of the deadliest monsters that provide interesting challenges outside of combat? Check out my Blocklist.