Hold on. For the first time i must say, i think Jeremy Crawford is incorrect about what the rules say. He may have meant it differently, but then he should have written it differently. If the monk's unarmed strikes are magical, why does the feature not say that? It says it *counts as* magical for that purpose. To me that means it's not actually magic, just counts as magical in that situation. There is a distinct wording there. Why not write: "Starting from 6th level your unarmed strikes are magical." If that's what you mean?
I second this. To me ki manipulation is about manipulating innate energies, not unlike a dragon using breath attacks. Thus if a dragon isn't affected, then ki shouldn't be either. You are not casting an arcane spell...in most cases.
I absolutely love the aesthetic of this solution. It feels so cinematic, the only way to defeat her was for 5 of the most powerful wizards ever to combine all their strength and imprison her forever, knowing it was the best they could do, since killing her once and for all was beyond their power.
@@TreantmonksTemple hey boss, for the grappler couldn't you go with rune knight or the new barbarian subclass introduced in mordakaniums monsters of the multiverse? They can make you bigger. Perhaps for rune knight it might not work seeing as it MAY state you replicate the effects of enlarge reduce. But last I knew it is stackable with enlarge reduce so it probably does not.
Cool to see the Chronurgist Squad made it in! Your imprisonment solution is definitely better than my wish -> planar binding trick. The visual of a cabal of mysterious time-mages appearing on an unfamiliar world to deal with an epic-level threat to existence is super sick.
Simulacrum is just busted. Still surprised it is a 7th lvl spell and not a 9th. 7th spells overall are just gamebreaking(Forcecage etc). Partly why i ended the campaign at basically 12 (They got lvl 13 just before the final encounter with BBG).
The soul knive is discribed as a magical blade, you read over that. The main thing about the wish way is not winning initiative, it is the character knowing about the ability before it is too late.
@@RandomToon1 he did the same thing for Ki-Empowered Strikes. I have no clue how "count as magical" is not describing them as magical. Purpose is irrelevant, they're described as magical
@@jeepersmcgee3466 If other ki abilities work, I'd rule that Ki-Empowered Strikes do as well. You empower the strikes in a way that makes them powerful enough to bypass resistances to 'regular' attacks, but it's fueled by Ki, not magic.
Arcana cleric at level 20 uses automatic success on divine intervention to cast wish to make party immune to arcane cataclysm. Wish is a domain spell in that instance.
@@TreantmonksTemple according to arcane mastery “At 17th level, you choose four spells from the wizard spell list, one from each of the following levels: 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th. You add them to your list of domain spells. Like your other domain spells, they are always prepared and count as cleric spells for you”
On the question of artifacts . . . I wouldn't count on a 20th level party having them, but I WOULD count on any party, including level one, having them if an encounter with Sul Khatesh was planned. Otherwise this falls into the same murky badness that includes any other way the Game master purposefully counters the parties abilities and makes the game something you don't want to play. The easiest way for a GM to limit what the party can do via the anti magic field, while still making it possible to win or run is to provide specific artifacts throughout the campaign that open up those options.
Precisely. Also, I like this as a Divine Intervention against Sul Khatesh. Your god hands each member of the party an artifact that lasts an hour (a collection of weapons from Odin's personal arsenal perhaps).
@@EdoGreco from a world building perspective at least in forgotten realms, you could argue that a **monk's** training and their ki is an awareness of and ability to manipulate the weave as it connects to and through their body.
@@EdoGreco afaik, in forgotten realms magic is a manipulation of the invisible Weave of magic that permeates and sustains the world. But your DM could just as easily say it comes from within the spirit and life energy of the race your monk belongs to, and therefore is not affected just like a dragon's breath.
This is literally how the strongest entity in the naruto series got defeated. Still cringe internally thinking about it, but in d&d it would be very funny haha
Great video. +1. Personally, I'm more of a fan of turning a monster of this power level into an inanimate object via True Polymorph, then placing said object into a container via Leomund's Secret Chest, only to "accidentally" end the spell early so that the contents are irretrievably lost on the ethereal plane. Another idea I had on this: Using any 20th level Cleric (Arcana Domain preferably), use Divine Intervention to create/teleport all persons involved (the party and Sul Khatesh) to a demiplane that no one can die in (for any reason), and that no one can leave until an agreement can be reached betwren Sul Khatesh and the deity who imprisoned them. "Dormammu... I've come to bargain..."
At 17:27 the Psychic Blades features states "This MAGIC blade bla bla bla..." so I think that wouldn't work either. I mean sure they don't use the word "magical", so by a strict reading of the guidelines one could argue that's not the same thing, but I would say it is indeed magical
Without her antimagic ability, she's tough but not so special. Her Arcane Cataclysm is once per day, and only lasts an hour. A far simpler approach would seem to be to bait her into using it at the wrong time. Two teams of adventurers would be ideal, so that the team that initiates would have the sole responsibility of triggering the Cataclysm and then fleeing. The second team would be equipped to actually do battle.
The simplest solution is best. She still has a teleport and gate, but high level adventurers have plenty of tools to deal with those spells (or hunt her down like a dog and kill her after).
@@spartaneternal8423 if you wanted to make that argument, in d&d, you'd be referencing WIS instead of INT. They are ABILITY SCORES, and the abilities supported by INT have nothing to do with intuiting intentions. Insight, a WIS ability, gets a lot closer to your mark. But, separate from misunderstanding the game mechanics, your suggestion also treats the players like NPCs. That's a failure of concept at about the same level as creating a DM PC. The one thing the players have is agency, and taking that away means the DM is just telling a story rather than participating in a game.
@@ChristnThms I disagree entirely, predicting a trap can easily be found out by a high enough intelligence score, this isn't like finding a trap, this is the simple understanding that to beat her without her anti magic field is far easier, hence parties using bait against her is very logical. Now she might need her Wisdom to actually know when a fight is a bait and when not but her Wisdom is also very impressive so she could possibly figure that out aswell. The fact remains, her intelligence means she's more than smart enough to realize what strategies parties would use against her and act accordingly, if a simple bait works it'd be beyond stupid, she could easily escape, she isn't some run of the mill average monster that players need to have agency against. She's not even meant to be a real enemy, she's almost like a force of nature, she's imprisoned for that very reason, beating her without knowing her abilities either through meta gaming or an entire campaign worth of planning is simply impossible.
29:10 You should be able to use your reaction before your turn, and you regain it at the start of your turn, so if the wizards are coordinating they should still have most of their reactions left. (E.g wizard A casts true polymorph and wizard B uses their reaction for convergent future right before their own turn)
Great video but a few points. She doens't need to cast foresight, she has magic resistance for advantage on those saves already. Also, why not turn her into an object, put the object in a Leomund's Secret Chest, let the spell end while the chest is on the ethereal plane, and it is "irretreviably lost" which is arguably better than imprisonment. Also, physiology is pronounced fizz-iology.
The key to beating Sul Khatesh is actually quite simple: be a Strength Fighter or Barbarian, grapple her, *make her hit herself with her own magic staff,* win!
Fun solution! Imprisonment isn’t strictly necessary, though; true polymorph is the only 9th level spell you need. The “Creature into object” mode can turn Sul Khatesh into a grain of sand. Put that sand grain into a Leomund’s Secret Chest, and end the spell while the chest is on the ethereal plane. According the the Secret Chest spell, the contents of the chest are now irretrievably lost. No imprisonment needed!
I believe it means the chest cannot be returned from the ethereal plane by that spell. The box can still be found by hard working experts. There are plenty of magical ways to locate it. I would not trust that method.
@@SystemLordNemo the text of Leomund’s Secret Chest specifies that the chest’s contents are irretrievably lost on the ethereal plane. If the contents cannot be retrieved, that’s about as good as you can get. That being said, in my DMing, Leomund was a sneaky one and the contents are lost to a specific room in the Etherial plane that Leomund controls, because he knows how to profit off of his spell, collecting goodies off of dead wizards. Any DM can obviously undo an imprisonment, a secret chest, or even a true polymorph. Any player’s plan can be stopped, including Treantmonk’s 5 Chronurgy Wizards scheme. But without DM fiat, an irretrievably lost chest is irretrievably lost. It’s at least as good as Imprisonment, because that spell requires an end condition.
@@mikebieser4175 "irretrievably lost" is countered by "I cast Wish", so there are actually ways to get it back, even as a player (albeit with the chance of never casting wish again).
@@insertphrasehere15 If we’re wishing for whatever we want, Imprisonment doesn’t work, either. “I wish to possess the material component of Sul Khatesh’s Imprisonment spell” would let you bypass Imprisonment, after you Dispel Magic/cast Imprisonment again with it. Wish also doesn’t really work like that. It has 6 effects that are guaranteed to work, and it might do something else if the DM decides to allow it. “That fails to Wish” isn’t a good test, because everything fails to Wish if the DM wants the wish to happen.
Despite what Crawford says in a tweet, I'm not convinced a monk's Ki-Empowered Strikes should not work in an antimagic field. The rule specifically reads "counts as magical" not "is" or "becomes magical". And when you run it through the questions from Sage Advice it seems even more obvious it's not a "magic" feature. Is there another rule I'm missing somewhere?
Love the breakdown from an analytical perspective but also being sure to Reiterate and recognize that there are multiple ways to deal with this based on dm's opinions. Great cover 👌
Fun fact: Sul Khatesh is one of the only monsters in the game that can change her creature type, and most notably to humanoid, with the change shape ability. This means she can become a valid target of the spell Magic Jar meaning it is quite possible for a player to gain all of the features she has like arcane cataclysm, innate spellcasting, and that juicy change shape ability. This is also problematic as this would also give the player the CR of 28 allowing them to True Polymorph into almost any creature in the game.
@@thecharmer5981 Getting "magic jar"-ed has to be one of the worst fates available in DnD, along with getting Pokémon-ed into an iron flask or enslaved by an aboleth. Getting turned to a minor devil is also bad, but at least you have a decent chance of a quick, (somewhat) painless permanent death.
I don't think you would gain the abilities of Sul-khatesh. The description of magic jar says that you keep their game statistics except for their wisdom, intelligence, and charisma, but not their "class abilities."
since the 5th wizard just needs to be able to counterspell, we could sub them for a divination wizard who uses their ability to give sul khatesh a low roll for their initiative.
Ascended Dragon Monks can get around the immunity by using alternative damage types via drawing upon draconic essence, meaning no Anti-Magic suppression.
radiant soul monks does as well, its radiant sun bolt says that "you can hurl searing bolts of magical radiance" so in theory an antimagic field would only suppress the "radiance" of the bolts and not the bolts themselves but the real gem is its lvl 11 feature searing sunburst which doesnt violate anything on the list and it is 150 feet too and no limit to how much you can use it in its base form, a radiant soul monk is the perfect counter to Sul Khatest bcoz you can blast her while keeping yourself out of range to ALL her abilities
@@stefanjrgensen6842 that's like saying you block only the METAL in a bullet, not the bullet itself.... if they are Holts of magical radiance then the bolts are made of magical radiance. If magical radiance is blocked, than a bolt made of magical radiance would be blocked.
I mean if we are going to allow twilight cleric then lets just have a party of 20th level wizards use simulacrum (or maybe even just one) over and over until you have thousands. I don't care how strong the enemy is it won't survive being dogged by 1000s of 20th level wizards who can scry and teleport after her until she has wasted her ultimate attack and all legendary resistances. Then you can imprison her somehow or just kill her. Even if she comes back the outcome will be the same (baring DM having enough and wasting you for abusing the simulacrum loop hole lol).
When you mentioned her Change shape ability I saw on the screen what she retains. Legendary resistances, but NOT Legendary actions. If she changes shape she can't use her magic concentration drain or arcane cataclysm. Also: Soulknife's psychic blades say its a magical blade.
After using Imprisonnement yeet The component into your demiplane and fill it with glyphs of wardings then you cast SEQUESTER on it. Its very important because other overlords might know this weakness of their and look for the Component Instead of Sul Katesh herself. Ending the Spell. During the casting of the spell, in any of its versions, you can specify a condition that will cause the spell to end and release the target. The condition can be as specific or as elaborate as you choose, but the GM must agree that the condition is reasonable and has a likelihood of coming to pass. The conditions can be based on a creature's name, identity, or deity but otherwise must be based on observable actions or qualities and not based on intangibles such as level, class, or hit points. A dispel magic spell can end the spell only if it is cast as a 9th-level spell, **targeting either the prison or the special component used to create it** Sequester: By means of this spell, a willing creature **or an object** can be hidden away, safe from detection for the duration. When you cast the spell and touch the target, **it becomes invisible and can't be targeted by divination spells or perceived through scrying sensors created by divination spells**. If the target is a creature, it falls into a state of suspended animation. Time ceases to flow for it, and it doesn't grow older. You can set a condition for the spell to end early. The condition can be anything you choose, but it must occur or be visible within 1 mile of the target. Examples include "after 1,000 years" or "when the tarrasque awakens." This spell also ends if the target takes any damage. Set the ending condition of "When Entropy cease to exist" or "When the Blood War Ends" and you have pretty much all time until the end of times. Don't forget to cast all of those sanctum and warding spells in order to prevent anything from accessing the component! So that if she ever escapes she is stuck in a 30ft room with all kind of spells that prevent her from teleporting away while the various Hallow or Guards and wards and glyphs just hammer her with debilitationg effects such as feeblemind in order to lock her up inside until the team of wizards can arrive in an emergency.
One thing about the grapple idea: If she shape changes into a giant, she will lose her damage immunities since there are no giants who are immune to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage, allowing the players to damage her because her HP stays the same in each form. Still not the best idea but I felt like pointing this out. Edit: Correction, there is one giant who would work being the spirit troll from mordenkainen who is large but also immune against being grappled.
It seems to me that it would be simpler to add a level 2 divination wizard to the party than to have all five chronurgists sink so much into high initiatives.
In Eberron Lore, Sul Khatesh is kept imprisoned under the floating towers of Arcanix by the power of the silver flame and several tons of stone. I’m calling it now: under all that stone, Sul Khatesh is polymorphed into a rabbit.
@@TreantmonksTemple True Polymorph has a material component and subtle spell only lets you ignore verbal and somatic components. It is stated in Xanathar's Guide to Everything that: "To be perceptible, the casting of a spell must involve a verbal, somatic, or material component. The form of a material component doesn't matter for the purposes of perception, whether it's an object specified in the spell's description, a component pouch, or a spellcasting focus." This means that even with only a material component, casting a spell is still perceptible. At the very least it would be reasonable for a DM to rule it that way. This means that subtle spell would not be enough to hide the casting of True Polymorph.
@@masterfreeman117 splitting hairs, but nothing says the material used has to be used visibly. Ex: just stand behind another party member while you're doing it.
@@stranger6822 Definitely splitting hairs. Your suggestion, to hide the material component, is the same as allowing to hide V and S components without Subtle Spell - you've gone full circle.
I was interested in calculating the odds that ALL 5 wizards would best Sul Khatesh in initiative given the different conditions you specified. I simulated 1 million initiative rolls for each condition. The odds are: 1. Wizards have +7 P=0.292 2. Gifted Wizards have +7 and +1d8 P=0.516 3. Alert Gifted Wizards have +12 and +1d8 P=0.756 4. Dipped Alert Gifted Wizards have advantage +12 +1d8 P=0.891 In this scenario Sul Khatesh will best at least one of the wizards roughly 1 out of 10 times. However, Sul Khatesh can cast foresight once per day. Assuming Sul Khatesh saw the party coming and could prepare; foresight would grant advantage on initiative. The odds against a prepared Sul Khatesh are: 1. Wizards have +7 P=0.106 2. Gifted Wizards have +7 and +1d8 P=0.299 3. Alert Gifted Wizards have +12 and +1d8 P=0.596 4. Dipped Alert Gifted Wizards have advantage +12 +1d8 P=0.810 Not as much of a sure thing as you may have initially thought! You are running into a multiple comparison problem: Even if each wizard is really good at winning initiative, the odds that ALL 5 will win initiative is lower than you might think.
Can't we cheese this by having the party be Aarakocra, Owlin, or Fairies, and fly up 40 ft above the anti magic field? Or never be on the ground to be hit in the first place.
Just to be that guy - On the map you shown I think arcane cataclysm would be less spread out solely through her sight line being impaired. Over all though great video and you’re right she is the most challenging monster
You could probably pull the same thing off with divination wizards. Portent is a heck of a thing. With five wizards and three portents each, You can decide her initiative, your initiative, and predetermine her saving throws
Divination wizards are already immune to her cataclysm before they engage. It's called divination, you know where the enemy is and you fight on your terms. They don't need to win initiative.
I think an Armorer Artificer should be able to use their special armor weapons against Sul Khatesh, I don't think it states that the armor itself and its functions are magical, only using the armor is a conduit to cast artificer spells is magical. The only other minor thing is the Guardian Armor's level 15 reaction being magical. Still, I don't think that the Armorer would get there in terms of DPR with no magic infusions anyway.
Consume magic does have a limit of a 120 ft range, so in a decently open space a caster could fog cloud and run off with something like a phantom steed, still you need a lot of things to go right, both caster and martial must win initiative (easier w the many initiative buffs most parties can have access to) and sul katesh must be reachable by the martial, wich if they are a barbarian or have a mount is likely but after you pull this off the fight gets pretty easy, just make the fog coud caster never end turn withing 120 ft and the rest of the pary hits sul'katesh, aybe then follow that up witha soul cage? Idk if sul katesh can reform with no soul, or else knock her out non lethally then burn legendary resistances, then true polymorph or imprison directly
You could do a similar thing with Divination Wizards. You would need favorable portent rolls, but you could set her initiative to a low value, then cause her to fail her saving throws with portent. It’s usable per turn not round, so you just need to have the portent rolls spread out, and doesn’t take a reaction, so counterspell wars are on the table.
You only need 1 good or 1 bad portent, just win initiative and wish. You win, the spell list on sul khatesh is pretty weak tbh. There's a big problem with including per day spells as well instead of spell slots for monsters. They can't upcast. Even worse is divination wizards.. essentially know this if they're going against some allmighty bad. Time to learn to use all the other divination spells to learn about your annoying upcoming foe.
Maybe not a problem you have to deal with for a while, but the special component is vulnerable to a 9th Level Dispel Magic, and this feels like a Quest That Evil Adventurers Will Embark Upon And Hunt It Down. So, I had a random thought... while Sul Khatesh is physically caged as a hare, a wizard casts Imprisonment: Minimus Containment to store Sul Khatesh into a necklace pendant. Then, a sacrificial Wizard, Bob, wears the necklace and casts Imprisonment: Hedged Prison on themselves using a piece of jade they are also wearing as a necklace, perhaps a jade tower. Once in the demiplane, Bob casts Imprisonment: Slumber on themselves using herbs in their component pouch. All special components have all been successfully pocketed away to the same warded plane, with Sul Khatesh True Polymorphed and trapped in a stone as well, and the only being with access to the components in a permanent slumber. And being resistant to Divination, even Divine intervention won't release them. If the party doubts Bob's commitment to the plan: Option 1: make sure Bob is a (vulnerable) wizard, who doesn't know the Imprisonment spell yet. The other wizards teach Bob the spell under controlled conditions, but in 10-minute intervals. After each interval, they modify memory so that Bob misremembers that Imprisonment:Slumber is a spell has a loophole that will allow him to escape through to the astral plane whilst asleep. Option 2: Instead of slumber, Bob removes the special components from his person in the demiplane, damages himself and at when close to death, casts Disintegrate on himself. After a predetermined amount of time, a Cleric or Druid casts True Resurrection to bring them back specifically by speaking their name.
I would go for object instead of creature for the True Polymorph. A hare can possibly find a means to exhaust itself to death, Imprisonment makes no mention of not needing to rest. While RAW, only travelling for more than 8 hours without resting could cause exhaustion (and therefore only the Hedged Prison option would be a risk), I think it's reasonable to assume that struggling against restraints for that length of time may incur the same penalties. As Imprisonment requires a creature as a target, polymorph her into a collar for a mundane hare, and poison the hare just before Hedged Prisoning it so it has no means of accidentally damaging the collar. Or you can go flashy with it and True Polymorph her into an arrow for when something absolutely has to die.
The description of arcane cataclysm says the spheres will "plummet to the ground at three different points she can see within 1 mile of her" which specifies that it has to be on the ground. That power will be absolutely useless in a place (like the astral sea) where there's literally no "ground", with some helps from stuff like a spelljammer, a level 20 party focusing on ranged attacks will have a decent chance defeating her.
They had it in D&D 3rd edition, too. I have absolutely no idea what possessed them to get rid of it. Having the ability to explicitly differentiate between magical and non-magical effects (as well as purely psionic effects, if the DM wants opacity between psionics and magic) saves a lot of headaches and dumb "well nothing explicitly *says* that this ability to shoot bolts of lightning is magical" arguments.
As far as I know, or can remember, a weapon counting as magical only matter in three circumstances, going through resistances, detect magic, and being dispelled. Seriously, I can't think of anything else. Ignoring detection because obviously, that means that half Ki Strikes description is meaningless if you fallow the fishman's advice here.
9:00 what can i say jeremy is simply wrong here! the wording is absolutly clear here, if not you are just bad at grammer. "count as" is not the same as "is" if it were you would just write "is magical".
This is a valid way to stop her, though if your party is 5 chronurgy wizards with a twilight dip, your game is dead (although I have to say, it's a very cool visual, and probably how she was originally trapped in the first place)
It would need to be a prison smaller than 10 feet too. Imagine pulling this off, then Sul Khatesh is back in a round because the hare managed to climb higher than 10 feet using its teeth on the bars and kill itself with falling damage.
For Pschic Blades it specifically says: "The magic blade is a simple melee weapon with the finesse and thrown properties." That is in the description you posted in this video, however you skipped that word when you went over the description. Because of that one word, I'd say Psychic Blades is most definitely affected by an anti magic field. 17:31 in the video.
A bit late to the party, but the 9th level spell "Prismatic Wall" is unaffected by antimagic fields, and I am not seeing it mentioned elsewhere in the comments or the video. Could a single wizard or Arcana domain cleric win initiative and cast Prismatic Wall near (but not on top of) Sul Khatesh? It would presumably persist through Arcane Cataclysm (and Consume Magic since it is not a concentration spell), and then allied Athletics-specced characters could attempt to Shove her into it, forcing her to save against all of its 7 devastating effects.
Want consistent magic ruling over features and magic? Please get the “extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like” (ex, su, ,sp) back for 5.5. In that way we can avoid reading through erratas and mister Crawford’s Twitter to inform an interaction that took seconds in 3.5. Why did Wizards reinvent the wheel?!
After that Jeremy Crawford ruling you read off, it'd be fun to hear your top 10 Jeremy Crawford rulings most DMs would think he got wrong. I usually don't have a problem with his rulings, but Monks having magic strikes is goofy. Makes me wonder what other crazy rulings most people think he got wrong that I just haven't heard of. I guess I'm okay with rulings like Lifeberries where it's a niche buff, but nerfs like this definitely feel wrong.
Quick question -- are those walls, or chasms, on your map? Assuming she drops the arcane cataclysm on her square, then the area of the effect continues in straight lines from that point of origin until it hits total cover. So if those are walls, all the PCs have to do is drag her around the corner. If they're not walls, consider my point moot :) One other thing. If she uses Change Shape to get Huge, she loses her Immunity to Non-Magic Weapon ability (unless her new form has it too). So there's that. But the thing about soul knives -- it refers to "magic blade" so .. some DM's might nix that one.
I disagree a bit about your assessment of Divine Intervention. While it is up to the DM, if you ask "Oh lord, protect us from the antimagic bullshit" you are going to get a solution to the antimagic field. This is really the only thing that works from inside the antimagic field, aside from artifacts. The real issue I have here is that "the effect of any cleric spell or cleric domain spell would be appropriate" does not include any ways to remove the antimagic field, unless you consider Dispel Magic cast by a deity to work on Arcane Cataclysm (depends on whether you consider the "immune to Dispel Magic" clause of Antimagic Field to be overridden by the "deity" clause). If no, then this locks you out of any good options to remove the Arcane Cataclysm (Like the effect of Wish that you mentioned). I'd say that the actual solution is a single Arcana Domain Cleric. An arcana domain cleric can have Wish as a domain spell, so with Divine Intervention the clause "the effect of any cleric spell or cleric domain spell would be appropriate" now includes the wording in Wish of "immunity to a single spell or magical effect for up to 8 hours". the "solution" of a party of 5 Chronurgy Wizards is more than a little ridiculous, and unlikely to ever work in regular play (though I would point out that a party of Divination Wizards could do something similar). Some bad rolls on initiative and you simply lose. This also absolutely requires you to get the drop on her. If you don't... well, I guess whichever wizard is first in initiative casts Wish and hopes not to roll a 1 on the d3.
Dude I genuinely believe Crawford has a personal vendetta against monks. Everytime WotC almost gives monks something incredibly good or interesting it either gets pulled back or overshadowed by any other class, or he comes up with some reason why it can't happen. Did a monk player bully him? Did a monk player derail his campaign in 3.5?
If we PWK her after having fully concentrated on TP, I don't think she reverts back to her regular form, and having died as a hare, her immortal nature shouldn't kick in, since her statblock has been replaced. Ofc, in actual play, I'd expect many DMs, me included, to have her immortal nature work, since its more of a plot device than an actual feature.
It's an answer, but not a realistic one. Only if you specifically ran a level 20 one shot vs Sul khatesh would you have 5 chronurgy wizards. In most situations Sul would be revealed later in the campaign, or even a surprise. So the characters would be diverse instead of all the same class and subclass. So what would you pick if you found out around level 3 so you could pick your subclass in anticipation of fighting sul khatesh later in the campaign, but the 5 players were playing different classes.
Jeremy crawfords tweet on smite : Divine Smite & Improved Divine Smite are definitely in a gray area relative to antimagic field. IDS definitely works there. DS-DM's call. Seems like just requiring a spell slot is a gray area according to him.
I would love to see how Sul holds up against the 2 arcane archers you made to deal with Vecna! She's got a +4 AC and almost double the HP, so does she last 3 rounds or 4?
After the first one takes their turn she uses her legendary action with the stun option on the second one. She then takes her turn, using Hold Person on the one that was not stunned. They are both still taking turns, they just can't do anything on those turns, so she kills them both and leaves.
On the grappling immuntiy: Sul Khatesh wouldn't be able to change shape while in the anti magic field. Just grapple them with the entire party, stuff a cloth in their mouth and suffocate them with a water container. They can't do anything when they can't see anything (head in a bucket of water) and they can't use somatic or verbal components when grappled in this manner either. A group of beefy barbarians and fighters would have no issue hanging on long enough for them to suffocate.
What about force field? It can be a free floating square on top of the battlefield. If arcane cataclism needs to plumet to the ground like meteor swarm and the spheres don't overlap it means that you only have to block one of the spheres. A warmage wizard with resilient + aura of protection + 20 con can get a +20 to concentration to resist her concentration breaking feature. You can also take the metamagic adept feat to cast the wall without components to avoid beeing counterspelled and also being targeted by her spell consumption. If you can protect from one of the spheres than all of your spells are still online so dealling with her with a "regular" party becomes feasable.
Psychic blade say that it is a magic blade, and thus would be negated by an anti-magic field? Magic vs magical shouldn't make a difference I would think?
I’m so excited you’re talking about her! My favorite combat session in dnd EVER was a boss fight against her. we defeated her as a party of 5 level 15s and it required everyone to be on their absolute A games. Our party was a Goliath oath of devotion Paladin, a human artillerist, a human war wizard/Psi warrior (5,10), a half orc path of ancestral barb, and me a Warforged War Domain cleric. We were all juiced out to our gills with magic items it should be said. However, none of us were particularly optimized (I had 8 dex which meant I auto failed all dex saves for example). The hardest part of the fight was the anti magic zones. Sul also had a Rhakshasa as an ally that helped win a chained counter spell for her. We got rid of the magic zones with a clutch divine intervention. My DM ruled that it dispelled them, only because I prayed to Boldrei (god of the BBEG) and RP’ed the prayer in detail, instead of my usual Onatar. From there it was a fight of us constantly going down. I spent the whole time healing, just to pick people up, but it eventually got to the point where it was pointless for me to pick them up since they’d just go right back down. I believe I cast 1 attack cantrip the whole time. It was also so difficult with the halved healing so my 7th level Heal did only like 35 healing. Comically our artificer stayed in the bottom corners of the fight sniping while everyone else were basically flipping between being dead, getting a swing in, and dropping again. I remember pulling out some RAW tactics like dropping prone to give Sul Khatesh disadvantage on ranged attacks. And ultimately I believe our Paladin got the final blow on her. It was epic, and as the demiplane or wherever her lair is was collapsing our artificer met the Silver Flame. Even though it was an online session I will always fondly hold her as my favorite boss battle.
I love that this solution is essentially recreating the original form of her prison described in the lore for the character: She was defeated by a group of dragons and a self-sacrificial coatl to imprison her deep underground. After she has been freed, a circle of wizards must do what the dragons did before them, for it is the only path to victory.
Can't she still take legendary actions in between your mages' turns? If she whispers maddening secrets into the ear of the next wizard, then it all stops working
I just realized If you antimagic her then she cant use her antimagic (it states it recreates a magical effect. So if you have magical methods to pin her in one place and damage her with things like breath weapons she is useless.
If you can settle for just killing you could also use normal polymorphs + Power word kill. Bonus, your fifth could be a watcher paladin for extra initiative + counter spell. (And the paladin can even lose initiative!) Or, you can run four redemption paladins at 20. Ideally all hill dwarves with max constitution and tough. There is no part 2, you stand there and let your capstone kill her for you. Sure, she'll probably run. She may even end the world after she leaves. But will you be party wiped? Not a chance. (Bring a diamond to revifiy whoever she power word kills though)
First of all, love your content. Treantmonk last week: This high CR monster is too weak. It should have immunity to non artifacts to match the lore, and the DM should give one artifact to the PC before the fight. That would be interesting. Treantmonk this week: High CR monster that dispels all magic except for artifacts. What if you dont have an artifact?
If I read right Sul Katesh would not retain her immunities to magical damage if she changes shape. So if she tries to prevent grappling and dragging by changing shape, she becomes open for the party to attack.
Would planar warrior from the Horizon Walker work? "At 3rd level, you learn to draw on the energy of the multiverse to augment your attacks. As a bonus action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The next time you hit that creature on this turn with a weapon attack, all damage dealt by the attack becomes force damage, and the creature takes an extra 1d8 force damage from the attack. When you reach 11th level in this class, the extra damage increases to 2d8."
Sul Khatesh being a good monster to use Imprisonment on is funny to me because the price of the spell components is based on the monsters hit dice & Sul has the most hit dice out of all monsters
It gets even worse, you'd have it up already and be actively HUNTING this monster.. if you're a divination wizard. All those fun divination spells, telling you what they are, their capabilities, their location, their weaknesses. All sul khatesh has is scrying.. and no real way to stop divination against them. It's real fuckin sad. A div wizard would just show up with their 4 best friends and say 'Ok, these guys are gonna pick you up by your legs and slam you into the ground several times, cool?' Worst part is any wizard has enough counterspells avialable to just say fuck you to khatesh's dispels and counterspells so they're now a helpless kinda meh melee mob. dear god I hope it's not a wizard with the 2 9th level slot boons(actually had one from AL funny enough), then it's just even funnier.
you can also bait her into using arcane cataclysm with a party of simulacrum then fight her for real as she can only can it once a day and it only last for one hour
One thing to note about the grappling escape by turning into a giant, this would remove her non-magicical damage immunity so she can be damaged again by non-magical attacks.
Excellent video. I do really enjoy that your tactic ended up being imprisoning her, just like they had to deal with her in Eberron's history. Granted, it was a bunch of dragons and celestials who did it then, but very funny that you came up with an idea similar to theirs.
In regards to the first idea, if you cast a 9th level glyph of warding using a Spell Gem, you can cast anti magic field without concentration, thereby bypassing the consume magic.
Fun video, but I think you got one thing wrong: You don't need Imprisonment. If everything went how you want, just hold concentration on True Polymorph for the hour and it becomes permanent. Make her into a statue of Sul Khatesh. Or into a huge block of gold. Or into a diamond statue of the wizard who cast the spell stepping on Sul Khatesh's head in triumph! You don't need to make her into a creature at all.
Depends if the dm considers her dead at that point. After 1 hour she is gone and her form is gold or whatever. Those forms aren't alive, and as such dead material. Would be better to change her in in one of those yellyfish that are essentially immortal. Just make sure the yellyfish is being taken care of.
@@captainpandabear1422 That is true as well Hmmmmm. I can see both points regarding ruling tho. Still the hare+imprisonment seems like the best option.
Funny enough, my party used an uncommon item to beat 2 legendary creatures at the same time, at level 10. A high level wizard was controlling Xanathar. He'd put him to sleep and gain godlike status and full invulnerability. We'd wake Xanathar up and now we have to deal with two big time threats threats but now the main one can be hurt. One guy opened an eversmoking bottle and removed most of the spells from the equation. Uncommon item, full blindness, no real way to counter it unless you have like Warding Wind prepped but that's not really something you'll pack normally. Eversmoking bottle beats anything sight based unless you have blindsense. If we fought her we're getting like 10 of those things.
We're going to need some non-magical weapons that don't do Bludgeoning, Piercing, or Slashing damage. Acid grenades? Flame Thrower? Sci-fi crew? Or go with the Chronurgist Squad - they work.
Funnily enough, five Dragon Monks 18/Fighter 2 should be able to beat down Sul Khatesh inside his AMF. +12 Con save vs. DC19 Stunning Strike results in a 30% chance to fail. With *30 attacks in the first round at +11 base to hit (can be buffed with Ki), Team Monk should burn through his 3 legendary resists fairly quickly. Ki-Empowered Strikes and One with the Blade both state that the Monk's attacks "count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks", but they are not, in themselves, magical. This means that AMF from Arcane Cataclysm doesn't shut them down. Evasion and Diamond Soul also make them really tough to disable.
@@TJTrickster I saw the ruling and changed my reply. This has got to be the dumbest ruling ever. If they wanted Ki-Empowered Strikes to be magical, why doesn't the ability say "Your unarmed strikes are magical" as opposed to "your unarmed strikes count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage". As others have stated, Dragon Monk gets around this via Breath of the Dragon.
But can any party defeat the fearsome Knucklehead Trout from Rime of the Frostmaiden? Hope to see a three hour video discussing what it would take to defeat that creature.
Hey this rabbit hare idea got me thinking…. What if something similar happened, but as a campaign hook. And it was leading the party, subtly, to release it upon the world
The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o could probably do the job of putting her down. It's basically a battlemech, and its an Artifact so it'll bypass her antimagic. If your dm is willing for the party to quest in order to find it, you can basically beat her into submission Evangelion Style.
Sul Khatesh can't use change shape in the anti-magic field because the ability's description says it is magical, so grappling might indeed work. "Sul Khatesh *magically* polymorphs".
An ever-smoking bottle is a great way to prevent arcane cataclysm. It covers a huge area, heavily obscures everything and doesn't require concentration. It's not even a spell, so she can't dispel the effect.
You could use pyrotechnics (non concentration) in place of fog cloud, preventing Arcane Cataclysm and Gate, i guess you need a counterspeller with blind sight to prevent a teleport, and a grappler, and then you can sort of have a normal fight. It's not going to be as effective as the answer provided in this video, but it also requires less specialisation (unless im forgeting something).
i've got a much simpler solution. manage a way to throw an average of 140 gunpowder horns on her(280 pounds). 488 horns if you want to be sure(976 pounds). just make sure you get her before she turns into something fire immune. load up your bear totem barbarian and tell him to go hug her.
The solution proposed works... like it works on almost 99% of encounters, but I appreciate the solution to the "Immortal nature" feature (although it is not a stat block feature). But if you want to simply reduce Sul Khatesh to 0 hp, I mean there are a lot of combinations that works: the most simple is the classic Bugbear Fighter Battlemaster 11 / Ranger Gloomstalker 4 / Rogue Assassin 4 / Warlock Hexblade 1; with only 2-3 characters with this build and a magic Longbow (or better Rifle), you can easily win.
