Dnd 5e Moduel 2 Families Fighting for the Throne

Hey all,

When the next session of my entrada takes identify, we'll exist rolling initiative for the near monstrously complex (and unfair) fight that I've put my players up against yet. I'm coming to you lot for aid in ensuring that I made interesting and fun choices for the bad guys. Allow me brainstorm past outlining the state of affairs.

Outline
The players are in Tu'Narath, home to the Githyanki, and have fought their way into the throne room of the Lich Queen Vlaakith CIX. This is from the 3rd edition hazard Lich Queen's Dear. She's perfectly aware of who they are, and has been scrying on them enough to have a good understanding of their abilities and tactics. The characters were greeted by Vlaakith, who offered them the chance to attain all their goals (free some slaves) and leave without repercussions, just they decided to get for gainsay instead. They didn't want to go out her - a powerful lich - alive, and also didn't want to 'get a reputation as quitters'. They made that choice in the full cognition that this fight is probable to be a TPK, so I deem that I can take the gloves off and become for the kill, within reason.

The opposition hither is really, truly, punishing: in addition to a CR25 Lich (all magician spells known, 473hp), there is two 16th level undead spellcasters (same spell list as a Lich), two CR10 spectral Githyanki Knights, and two Adult Red Dragons without wings. The EXP here is 162,800, with a difficulty after modifiers of 407,000. In other words, 8x Deadly for a party of this size and level. Hopefully a file volition exist inserted below here which shows the layout of the room - enemy along the left wall, a dragon to the top and lesser, party on the right, and a necrotic-damage spell trap in the centre of the room. Miscellaneous magical effects in the location include no invisibility, everyone can fly at the speed of their Intx3, everything has resistance to radiant harm.

The Party's Plan
They are 19th level: Storm Cleric, 4Elements Monk, Devotion Paladin, Champion Fighter Archer, Arcane Trickster. No sharpshooter on the Champion. Their plan is to use a 8th level Cleric slot and the monk's Ring of Wishes to cast ii Antimagic Fields, and use them to neuter the Lich and at least i of her spellcasters. They'll move into melee and grapple to try and make information technology stick. The Paladin will dual-cast Banishment on the Dragons to try and get rid of them. Then anybody will try and nuke down the Lich offset.

Antimagic field is a complex spell: here is a blog post discussing it and giving the spell's text. The party expects that they'll lose the ability to impale the Lich in melee (no magic weapons, she's immune to non-magic weapons) except for the Monk and his magic fists.

Enemy Plan
My baseline plan was for Vlaakith to use True Polymorph on herself (not Meteor Swarm, which the party are expecting) and to try to use an Ancient Argent Dragon'south jiff weapon to paralyze the whole party, especially those that normally avoid Red Dragon breath weapons with evasion. If that failed, she'd at least have loads of free HP. Once knocked out of that shape, probably Forcecage would be my next step, but I'm wary of it since the party cannot exercise anything about it - no arcane caster so no friendly curt range teleport options, and it isn't even concentration. It seems likely to be unfun, so I didn't desire to open with it. The ii spellcasters would simply use Finger of Death and whatnot to try and chip away at the political party, and the Dragons would wade into melee.

As to the political party's plan, it seems to me to be very devious. The Dragons are unlikely to fail against Adjournment - since they have +11 on Cha, even if I ignore their Legendary Resistance as they're really non the boss hither - just the Antimagic fields are the killer. Once those are cast, I can run into only ii routes for Vlaakith and her minions: either fight in melee to endeavour and break concentration, or use Counterspell at the moment of casting to close information technology down. Having her exercise Counterspell would almost certainly piece of work - the political party can't cast that themselves - only seems like a bit of a dick move to arbitrarily negate what is actually an interesting tactic.

My Question to you
What should I accept the bad guys do? I wouldn't ordinarily come to a forum for answers on how to handle a political party'southward tactics, but like I say, it'due south a large one. In addition, this is probably going to be the biggest fight in the campaign every bit a whole, which has run from i-20, so I want it to stick in the heed whether information technology'due south won or lost.

Part of my mind is to let the party try the anti-magic, and not counterspell information technology or whatnot; the fight is insanely tough anyway, then letting practiced play negate the Lich isn't a bad thing, and the monk lone volition struggle to strip 473hp from her in melee. However, information technology's worth asking ya'll what you lot call back well-nigh it, and seeing whether I've missed any more than interesting options.

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Source: https://www.enworld.org/threads/help-with-19th-level-boss-fight.557618/

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