In my last game, my party encountered the big devil himself Titivilus. I used the Monsters of the Multiverse version. He's an interesting boss, so I thought it would be neat to talk about him in actual play and provide my thoughts on what he does well (and what he does poorly).
The Setup
My party of 5 12th level characters (Paladin (Glory), Ranger, Warlock/Paladin, Paladin (Ancients), Rogue (Psi Blade) stumbled onto Titivilus polluting an underground river that was supplying a major town with some form of devilish contagion. Without going into the background too much, Titivilus pissed off his boss and so was forced to "slum it" doing some petty grunt work for a time. (aka this is completely and utterly beneath his pay grade).
Titivilus is near the water when the party arrives. He has put up a major image of this dark evil miasmic fog cloud around the area to conceal his people and their work. He has 8 White Abishai with him (his "honor guard" for this "oh so important activity" says his boss). When the party arrives, he casually sends 4 of his Abishai to slay what he assumes are weakling townsmen. As the party starts to cut into his forces, Titivilus becomes intrigued, sending the remaining 4 Abishai and enters the frey himself.
A few party and game notes
My first note about Titivilus....his damage is solid garbage. Even the max HP reduction is just 8 damage on average...that's not enough to scare a 12th level character. Its fine for a "remember me" kind of moment if he's about to leave, but its clear that he must rely on his minions to have any hope of actually hurting a party. further, the frightening word while a very powerful disable, has a very very short range and several of my party are immune to fear, so I decided to start out with Twisting Words.
Having the major image up was quite useful. Being able to see out of an area while the party can't see in is a major advantage to start the fight. I hit the rogue with twisting words, and he got a 20 total with that +5. when I told him he still failed the reaction from the group was immediate. DC21 saves are absolutely no joke at this level, and the party instantly realized that this was not a guy to mess around with. This was a refreshing change for me....because of my paladin heavy group (and the ancients paladin giving them resistance to spell damage) I have just come to expect that my spellcasters do very little against this kind of party. So seeing them suddenly realize that a spell DC was high enough to threaten even their godly saves was a nice way to showcase this guy's power.
On my legendary action, I tried to convince the rogue to attack the warlock. This requires a new saving throw, and the rogue unfortunately passed. Its an interesting mechanic creating a "dominate effect" that requires two saves an actions. If it was regular actions it would be garbage, as its a legendary action its ok. Also the fact that its a charisma save. If it was wisdom I might not bother, but charisma is often so low for certain characters it is easy to slip in. For my next legendary I tried getting the glory paladin with a TW....he was away from the others and "only" had a +3 save aura himself, so I figured lets give it a shot. He is the big melee bruiser of the group, so removing him as a threat from Big T was worth the gamble. It failed unfortunately.
Dealing with the Cloud
So far my party was avoiding this seemingly deadly gas while they were fighting the abishai. The ranger decided to cast a fog cloud to block out the sight of Big T and anyone else in that immediate area. with an upcast to 2nd level, fog cloud is a 40 FOOT RADIUS EFFECT! (I had no idea it was that large until I graphed it on the battle map, like its HUGE). The party was super impressed with the idea, they thought either the guy would have to come out, or just stay there while they dealt with the Abishai.
And for a moment I agreed with them, I thought I was going to have to leave the cloud to engage. Until I remembered....mislead!
I cast the spell Mislead, which creates a double that I can see through. However, I technically messed this up a bit, as I forgot that moving the image requires an action. I realized after the fact, and so committed my 3rd legendary action to the movement (not by the book by seemed close enough).
The party finally got a look at Big T, and the warlock came in with a full fury smite..... which of course went right through him. I played it off as Big T just send the sword aside with his innate power...until the warlock made his DC 21 wisdom save. (This is an area mislead is vague on. If it like a major image for example where you have to disbelieve to know its not real, or is it intended that you just whiff through the image and immediately know its fake? To make the guy more intimidating I decided on an immediate save).
I will say that I have found a lot of great success in using even simple illusions at this level. Because players often have to have some kind of interaction before they can tell an illusion is fake, even if soak a single attack its often a great way to diminish the party's offense.
The Paladin's Charge
The glory paladin decides enough is enough, and if the real Big T is still inside the cloud, then he would bravely go in after him. He used divine sense to find his location (even invisible through the illusion I let the effect work, its such a limited effect normally). The paladin charged in, and passed his save realizing the miasma was also an illusion. He charged next to Big T and was ready to go to battle with him.
I will say on the defense.... Big T is pretty awful. AC 20 isn't that impressive at this point, and 150 hitpoints is nothing. He regens 10 a round, which is so low I don't even consider it a real factor. Its clear that your supposed to use minions and his conditions to prevent the party from attacking him, because he will fold like a paper plane if the party actually goes to work on him.
Closing the Session
So I've gotten in a few rounds and we closed for the evening. I have about half of my Abishai left, but only one true landed condition on the party, so its not going all that well for me at the moment, I'll report back what happens next time. Still the players seem decently concerned about this guy. I planned to fight until my minions are killed and then will return to hell (they never let devils just port to hell but if its good enough for Baldur's Gate 3 its good enough for me!)
I do think Titivulus is one of those boss monsters you have to be really careful about....and its not about killing your party but boring your players. A few failed saves and you can have half of your party unable to attack T or in a constant state of running away screaming.
Minions are essential in any good boss fight but I think they are EVEN MORE essential with T. You need them for real damage, there is no point fighting with T alone he's a water gun to high level players. It also ensures that your charmed players still have something to fight, and you can have a few of them run after frightened players to keep some tension for them (and again something to fight if they make their follow-up saves, rather than having to spend an entire turn racing all the way back).
this guy definitely has the control of a high level devil, but you have to be careful about toooo much control in any fight and risk boring your players to death, and I think high damage minions is the main way to offset that.
I did debate using suggestion over twisted words, suggestion can be almost as good as dominate with the right effect. But I think the charisma save and the lack of concentration on TW keeps it competitive.
My critique about many high level monsters, the defenses just aren't there. His resistances almost never apply at this level, the regen is so low its barely worth discussing, his hitpoints are LOW. His entire defense hinges on charming or fearing several of the party so that only a few of them can actually attack him. But I could easily see if a party got initiative on this guy (or god forbid surprise) that they could just gack him in one round no sweat. I at least wish he had some kind of first round defense that was just innately there. Something that might go away after one round but at least ensures he holds himself up long enough to start bringing his tricks into play, otherwise its a very gamble style of play, which doesn't fit the theme of a high level scheming devil.
The Setup
My party of 5 12th level characters (Paladin (Glory), Ranger, Warlock/Paladin, Paladin (Ancients), Rogue (Psi Blade) stumbled onto Titivilus polluting an underground river that was supplying a major town with some form of devilish contagion. Without going into the background too much, Titivilus pissed off his boss and so was forced to "slum it" doing some petty grunt work for a time. (aka this is completely and utterly beneath his pay grade).
Titivilus is near the water when the party arrives. He has put up a major image of this dark evil miasmic fog cloud around the area to conceal his people and their work. He has 8 White Abishai with him (his "honor guard" for this "oh so important activity" says his boss). When the party arrives, he casually sends 4 of his Abishai to slay what he assumes are weakling townsmen. As the party starts to cut into his forces, Titivilus becomes intrigued, sending the remaining 4 Abishai and enters the frey himself.
A few party and game notes
- An important game note is that in this campaign, players can't have spells above 2nd level (they can have the higher spell slots but fill them with lower level spells). So a lot of the magic you would expect in this kind of fight isn't there.
- I allow casters in my game to maintain concentration on up to two spells at once (but both drop together if concentration is lost).
- Due to the paladins in my party, most of the time my players have +5 to their save DCs. And two of the paladins are immune to fear.
My first note about Titivilus....his damage is solid garbage. Even the max HP reduction is just 8 damage on average...that's not enough to scare a 12th level character. Its fine for a "remember me" kind of moment if he's about to leave, but its clear that he must rely on his minions to have any hope of actually hurting a party. further, the frightening word while a very powerful disable, has a very very short range and several of my party are immune to fear, so I decided to start out with Twisting Words.
Having the major image up was quite useful. Being able to see out of an area while the party can't see in is a major advantage to start the fight. I hit the rogue with twisting words, and he got a 20 total with that +5. when I told him he still failed the reaction from the group was immediate. DC21 saves are absolutely no joke at this level, and the party instantly realized that this was not a guy to mess around with. This was a refreshing change for me....because of my paladin heavy group (and the ancients paladin giving them resistance to spell damage) I have just come to expect that my spellcasters do very little against this kind of party. So seeing them suddenly realize that a spell DC was high enough to threaten even their godly saves was a nice way to showcase this guy's power.
On my legendary action, I tried to convince the rogue to attack the warlock. This requires a new saving throw, and the rogue unfortunately passed. Its an interesting mechanic creating a "dominate effect" that requires two saves an actions. If it was regular actions it would be garbage, as its a legendary action its ok. Also the fact that its a charisma save. If it was wisdom I might not bother, but charisma is often so low for certain characters it is easy to slip in. For my next legendary I tried getting the glory paladin with a TW....he was away from the others and "only" had a +3 save aura himself, so I figured lets give it a shot. He is the big melee bruiser of the group, so removing him as a threat from Big T was worth the gamble. It failed unfortunately.
Dealing with the Cloud
So far my party was avoiding this seemingly deadly gas while they were fighting the abishai. The ranger decided to cast a fog cloud to block out the sight of Big T and anyone else in that immediate area. with an upcast to 2nd level, fog cloud is a 40 FOOT RADIUS EFFECT! (I had no idea it was that large until I graphed it on the battle map, like its HUGE). The party was super impressed with the idea, they thought either the guy would have to come out, or just stay there while they dealt with the Abishai.
And for a moment I agreed with them, I thought I was going to have to leave the cloud to engage. Until I remembered....mislead!
I cast the spell Mislead, which creates a double that I can see through. However, I technically messed this up a bit, as I forgot that moving the image requires an action. I realized after the fact, and so committed my 3rd legendary action to the movement (not by the book by seemed close enough).
The party finally got a look at Big T, and the warlock came in with a full fury smite..... which of course went right through him. I played it off as Big T just send the sword aside with his innate power...until the warlock made his DC 21 wisdom save. (This is an area mislead is vague on. If it like a major image for example where you have to disbelieve to know its not real, or is it intended that you just whiff through the image and immediately know its fake? To make the guy more intimidating I decided on an immediate save).
I will say that I have found a lot of great success in using even simple illusions at this level. Because players often have to have some kind of interaction before they can tell an illusion is fake, even if soak a single attack its often a great way to diminish the party's offense.
The Paladin's Charge
The glory paladin decides enough is enough, and if the real Big T is still inside the cloud, then he would bravely go in after him. He used divine sense to find his location (even invisible through the illusion I let the effect work, its such a limited effect normally). The paladin charged in, and passed his save realizing the miasma was also an illusion. He charged next to Big T and was ready to go to battle with him.
I will say on the defense.... Big T is pretty awful. AC 20 isn't that impressive at this point, and 150 hitpoints is nothing. He regens 10 a round, which is so low I don't even consider it a real factor. Its clear that your supposed to use minions and his conditions to prevent the party from attacking him, because he will fold like a paper plane if the party actually goes to work on him.
Closing the Session
So I've gotten in a few rounds and we closed for the evening. I have about half of my Abishai left, but only one true landed condition on the party, so its not going all that well for me at the moment, I'll report back what happens next time. Still the players seem decently concerned about this guy. I planned to fight until my minions are killed and then will return to hell (they never let devils just port to hell but if its good enough for Baldur's Gate 3 its good enough for me!)
I do think Titivulus is one of those boss monsters you have to be really careful about....and its not about killing your party but boring your players. A few failed saves and you can have half of your party unable to attack T or in a constant state of running away screaming.
Minions are essential in any good boss fight but I think they are EVEN MORE essential with T. You need them for real damage, there is no point fighting with T alone he's a water gun to high level players. It also ensures that your charmed players still have something to fight, and you can have a few of them run after frightened players to keep some tension for them (and again something to fight if they make their follow-up saves, rather than having to spend an entire turn racing all the way back).
this guy definitely has the control of a high level devil, but you have to be careful about toooo much control in any fight and risk boring your players to death, and I think high damage minions is the main way to offset that.
I did debate using suggestion over twisted words, suggestion can be almost as good as dominate with the right effect. But I think the charisma save and the lack of concentration on TW keeps it competitive.
My critique about many high level monsters, the defenses just aren't there. His resistances almost never apply at this level, the regen is so low its barely worth discussing, his hitpoints are LOW. His entire defense hinges on charming or fearing several of the party so that only a few of them can actually attack him. But I could easily see if a party got initiative on this guy (or god forbid surprise) that they could just gack him in one round no sweat. I at least wish he had some kind of first round defense that was just innately there. Something that might go away after one round but at least ensures he holds himself up long enough to start bringing his tricks into play, otherwise its a very gamble style of play, which doesn't fit the theme of a high level scheming devil.
