As I've got one more episode of Stranger Things 4 left to watch, I've been giving a lot of thought to the Vecna the Archlich statblock that Wizards of the Coast released a month or two ago. The Vecna in Stranger Things is, like all the D&D-named beings in that show, only called that because of a reminiscence the D&D-obsessed main characters see between the characters. "Vecna" in Stranger Things is likely only vaguely aware that they're even calling him that.
The statblock came out shortly after I did a redesign of the Lich in an effort to put it more in line with the modern spellcasting statblock design - giving the creature plenty of unique but straightforward actions and reserving spellcasting more for utility.
What I wanted to figure out is how deadly Vecna is as a monster.
One of the hallmarks of D&D that you'll notice a lot more if you're a dungeon master is that, once the players hit tier 3 or so, they can overcome monsters that you'd expect to be a bigger deal given their Challenge Rating. This gets exacerbated if you run tables with lots of players - I have seven consistent players in the game I run and with a player returning that's been bumped up to eight.
Players will carve through a monster's HP very quickly, so unless you have ways to keep that monster from getting hit (things like Strahd's Heart of Ravenloft or whatever it's called, which siphons off damage he takes, is a good example) or minions that are powerful enough to withstand a little punishment of their own and present a genuine distraction for the party, you're going to have a bit of a tough time.
I think in Critical Role, when Vox Machina faced off against Vecna (with I think eight players given that Joe Manganiello's Arkhan the Cruel was helping them) he had I think something like 1100 HP, and that was even a fight where the goal wasn't to kill him, but to sink a number of anchors into him before banishing him.
Vecna the Archlich is meant to represent this iconic villain prior to the betrayal by Kas that led his eye and hand to be removed, though as a powerful wizard, he could show up in this mortal form even after his apotheosis thanks to time travel. I'd also imagine this could be a kind of avatar similar to the Aspect of Bahamut or Aspect of Tiamat - not the god itself, but a physical manifestation of its power.
According to Xanathar's Guide to Everything's guidance for encounter building (or, rather, the old UA on encounter building, which I think was published more or less unchanged) a group of 6 level 20 characters should find a CR 24 monster to be an adequate challenge.
I disagree.
Or rather, if this fight is to be one of several in a day and not one that you expect to be particularly dangerous, it's fine. But it's not what you want out of a climactic boss.
Vecna is CR 26, though there's a little ambiguity on his challenge due to the fact that he has a very powerful health-regeneration ability (albeit one that puts him dangerously close to the party). Basically, his CR drops by, I'd say like 10, if your party has someone casting Chill Touch.
While his defensive capabilities are a little tough to math out, I think we can look at his offensive capabilities with relative ease - though again, there's an extra wrinkle here where the damage he does with his dagger, Afterthought, is... an afterthought, as the big thing is that it can prevent healing - something that will terrify the party after they get hit with something like Rotten Fate.
Really, I think the main thing to discuss here is Rotten Fate - the other abilities he has can be nasty, but if we're talking about character-killing features, this is the big one.
One thing I should note also is that when I first read the statblock, I misinterpreted the Multiattack - he uses Flight of the Damned if available, Rotten Fate, or Spellcasting, and then does two Afterthought attacks. So, he doesn't get to do Rotten Fate and Flight of the Damned on the same turn. Flight of the Damned, damage-wise, only catches up to Rotten Fate when it hits three targets - not terribly difficult with a 120-foot cone, but something to consider.
The fear effect on Flight of the Damned is also worth noting, as it can help keep Vecna safe from powerful melee characters.
But let's talk Rotten Fate. This does 8d8+60 necrotic damage to someone on a failed save (and with a DC of 22, there's a pretty decent chance of a fail - maybe not on my level 20 Armorer build that gets a +19 to Con saves, but that's pretty unusual).
So, that's an average of 96 damage on a failure.
By level 20, most PCs should have over 100 hit points. But let's consider, for example, a Wizard using the standard array, who starts off with +2 to Con. If we assume they don't take any feats and just max out Intelligence and then Constitution, that means that at level 20 they can have a +5 to Con. Taking average HP, they'll have 182 HP at level 20. Enough to take... well, one of those and then get killed by the second.
Actually: point of order: while Rotten Fate will raise a creature killed by the ability as a zombie, Rotten Fate does not automatically kill a target if it gets them to 0, the way that Disintegrate does. So this is actually not terribly likely for a character of that level.
What if that Wizard is a mere level 15? That means they haven't gotten those extra ASIs, meaning after maxing Int to 20, they only have the level 12 ASI to get Con to +3. Thus, their average HP is going to be 107. While this is still enough to survive an average blast of one of these, the max damage of Rotten Fate is 124, so it's possible if Vecna rolls lucky, the damage might be too much. Still shouldn't be able to insta-kill them.
So, how do we play Vecna tactically? As a big bad, this is the sort of villain that should play to win - as a DM, I often have to remind myself not to hold back (I'm invested in these characters, after all,) and Vecna should be nasty.
I'd recommend making sure that the environment in which Vecna fights is all set up to his advantage - magical traps and pits and things to separate the party out are all useful. While Vecna has things like his Fell Rebuke to gain distance against melee opponents, he'll want to be able to close in on other characters in order to benefit from Afterthought.
Even if its damage might not be as big as Rotten Fate, I think liberal use of Flight of the Damned when available is key to reducing the number of players who can attack him - potentially shutting down melee attackers from getting close enough to him entirely, but also scaring ranged attackers into missing more often. If possible, I might even use Lightning Bolt in place of Rotten Fate if you can get enough people in it - Lightning Bolt does an average of 28 damage, so you'll need to hit 4 targets to get more damage out of it than Rotten Fate.
Fly is a good spell to have concentration on, though Globe of Invulnerability will severely limit what enemy spellcasters can do - but I'll say this, if you have Fly up, you've basically made yourself immune to melee attacks (and you can use the at-will Dispel Magic to remove the spell from PCs) and then you can use Dread Counterspell to keep the party from launching spells against you, meaning that really only ranged-weapon folks will be able to do much against you.
I would actually consider forgoing Afterthought attacks unless you can get the party separated enough to isolate someone.
I have yet to run this stat block, and I'm a little wary of high-level one-shots, as players have a ton of things to learn in a short amount of time. But there is a character who I expect my party will have to fight more than once, and the second round might use this stat block, so we'll see how it goes (this is probably not going to happen for, like, a year or more).
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