Vecna the Archlich

 All right, so!

Remember how, in the previous post, I made a new Lich statblock to reflect the changes to how spellcasters are being written these days? Well, WotC just released "The Vecna Dossier," which provides a stat block for Vecna prior to his betrayal by Kas (hence, this Vecna has both eyes and both hands). It's a CR 26 stat block.

The supplement is free on D&D Beyond.

Let's dive in!

First off, I think it's important to note that Vecna's Undying feature is not quite like a typical Lich's one, in that he does not require a phylactery to rejuvenate. So no, there is no way you can kill Vecna permanently. However, rather than 1d10 days, Vecna requires 1d100 years, meaning that your party can likely at least put off his vengeance long enough to die of old age (well, unless you're a long-lived race or druid).

So, from the top:

Vecna gets an AC of 18 - a nice one-point bump over the standard Lich. He also has 272 average hit points, which is just over twice as much as a standard Lich. I'd still say that 272 hit points is a bit low for a CR 26 monster, but there will be some other features that stretch that 272 out quite a bit. (Though, as always, I think they need to nerf Chill Touch).

Vecna's stats are also high - he has 22 Intelligence and 24 Wisdom. The latter is a little surprising only in how it's higher than intelligence. He also has a little more strength and a little more constitution. This is, after all, the most powerful Lich in D&D, so it makes sense his stats are a bit higher.

Vecna gets 5 legendary resistances per day, rather than the typical 3. We're going to get into Legendary status when we talk about Legendary Actions, or the lack thereof, or rather, perhaps a preview of how they're being changed.

As expected, Vecna's spellcasting trait is just one of his actions, with a fair number of solid spells at will - for example, he can cast lightning bolt all day, as well as animate dead as an action. A few spells are more limited, like dimension door, dominate monster, or invisibility.

But his main bread-and-butter multiattack is a four-part combo.

First is Flight of the Damned, which is a recharge ability, so only one in three turns. This is a 120-foot cone where he basically shoots ghosts at people. There's a DC 22 Con save (save for half) that deals 8d8 necrotic damage and frightens those who fail the save for 1 minute (they get to repeat the save at the end of their turns). There's no 24-hour immunity to this, so having a 10+ level paladin will be very helpful.

Next is Rotten Fate. This is basically a Finger of Death-like ability. One target makes a Con save (again, DC 22) and takes 8d8+60 damage on a failure, or half as much on a success. This is really the "cannon" part of the tempered-glass cannon Vecna is, as, even with successful saves, a reliable 48 damage each round.

Finally, Vecna has two Afterthought attacks, which is a magical dagger that deals only moderate damage, but the real horror of it is that the target keeps taking necrotic damage on their turns, and while they're affected, they cannot regain hit points. They need to succeed on a DC 20 Con save after they take the damage-over-time damage on their turn to end the effect.

So, the picture I think we've got here is some truly nasty damage output, though Vecna has to get into melee range to fully terrorize the party. With 272 hit points, even with an 18 AC, you wouldn't expect him to last very long.

That's where the bonus action comes in. As a bonus action, he can teleport up to 30 feet, and anyone within 15 feet of his destination takes 3d6 psychic damage. If anyone takes that damage, Vecna then regains 80 hit points.

Now, a party ready to face a CR 26 monster is not going to have much trouble doing 80 hit points a round, but that's still going to significantly slow the rate at which the party can take him down. You know, unless they use Chill Touch. (Seriously, WotC, nerf Chill Touch).

Now, we get to the Reactions. I don't know if this portends what we're going to be seeing moving forward with legendary creatures, or what. Vecna, shockingly, does not have any legendary actions. Instead, he can take 3 reactions per round, though only one per turn (which sounds very similar to legendary actions).

The reactions here are Dread Counterspell and Fell Rebuke.

Dread Counterspell is essentially a 4th level counterspell that also does 3d6 psychic damage to the person casting the countered spell. The fact that this is not, technically, a spell means that, technically, the party can't counter this counterspell, though I don't know how I'd rule that in play.

Fell Rebuke lets Vecna deal 3d6 necrotic damage to someone that hits him with an attack (melee, ranged, weapon, spell - any attack) and then, importantly, Vecna teleports 30 feet away.

We saw something like this with the Eldritch Lich, but I think this could potentially give Vecna a very powerful survival ability. If used twice in a round, you could force melee characters to use their full movement to get to him, and then only get one attack in. Potenitally, this could significantly reduce the amount of damage that melee characters can deal to him, again extending his survivability.

Still, the lack of legendary actions makes me wonder how Vecna would really do against a full party. I would definitely recommend giving him some minions - Necromancer Wizards would be on-brand. I also run a game with a large party, so this might be a lot scarier to a party of like, 4 players, than one that has 6-7 on a given night like mine.

I have a lich that my party will eventually face (though likely when they're a lot higher-level, and they're already 14). I'd been intending to use my rebuilt Lich as detailed in the previous post, but I am somewhat tempted to try this one. They will have to face the lich multiple times (his phylactery was taken to another plane - the first fight will be, unbeknownst to the party, something of an experiment to see if lichdom can allow him to circumvent the Mending and allow a non-planeswalker to travel from Ravnica to New Phyrexia.)