Tag: gaming

REPENT! Your time is nigh! Justice shall be unleashed upon your wretched lands! Purified with divine retribution and the blood of the sinners, this land shall be reborn the same laws your kin abide by: The Laws of War!”

– Absolution’s Decree.

Absolution: The Overview

As the first member of the Celestial Compendium, Absolution is by no means a push over. Weighing in at a hefty Challenge Rating of 16 (on par with with many Adult Dragons), Absolution is a force to be reckoned with and while might appear in earlier sections of a story, will only be found in combat towards the later levels of the campaign. A zealous and powerful force of nature with an obsession to smite the hedonistic sinners, fiends, and unholy creatures of the realm in blazes of divine light without remorse. Loaded with powerful spells, bits of machinery orbiting around itself to bludgeon nearby enemies, and surrounded by an aura that weakens the unholy creatures that have earned Absolution’s ire.

Taking the appearance of a vaguely humanoid person from the waist up, Absolution wears ragged robes around their chest with an intimidating yet ornate head piece. From roughly the waist down is where Absolution shifts to something foreign and vaguely eldritch. Comprised of metal wings with rows of sharp edges, gears, feathered wings, and ornate motifs spread across their body in golds and reds. Absolution is not a celestial to bestow kindness or hope: Their an agent of unmaking, using their divine strength to vaporize and wipe away stains across the land. Due to their over-the-top methods and mannerisms, rarely are they permitted by their overseers (often a literal god or Empyrean) to actually interact with the planes directly, much to their annoyance. This doesn’t stop them from commanding other celestials under them from acting in their name, though in more trying times Absolution will descend from the heavens and revel in the destruction of the unholy.

Stats and Abilities:

Absolution is a powerhouse and has little weakness in their abilities, relying on destructive spells and abilities with some support for any allies or innocent bystanders that happen to be in the fray of Absolution’s war path.

Starting from the top, as a Lawful Good creature, Absolution does want to do good and just by others. Yet, their perspective is slightly twisted and skewed as they believe peace can only be obtained through the absolute (heh) eradication of Aberrations, Fiends, and the Undead. Poison may seem like a weird damage to be resistant to and in hindsight I agree, yet a lot of creatures throughout 5th edition are resistant or flat out immune to the poison damage type, though i do not believe looking back that Absolution should be resistant towards poison damage as no other Celestial from the Monster Manual is either. This would also remove the immunity to the poisoned condition. Utilizing truesight, Absolution is also able to see through illusions and invisible creatures, making it that much harder to get the drop on them or trick them in combat.

Stats and Skills: Absolution first and foremost is focused on hitting hard and leaving sparing none of their combatants. With their lowest stat being a 16 in DEX, Absolution is strong in almost every regard, but excels in their mental stats. 20 INT, 24 WIS, and 20 CHA make Absolution a spellcaster’s nightmare already, but paired with advantage on all spell saves this makes Absolution almost impossible to deal with spells such as the big damage dealers like Fireball, Blight, or Lightningbolt. Even spells to try and remove/hinder Absolution such as Banishment or Planeshift would be difficult to pull off leaving Absolution a force that must be tackled almost exclusively with brute force. Being proficient with both Insight and Perception checks, Absolution will see through any deception or trick like a glass pane and see any attempt to sneak up or away with minimal issue. Ever vigilant, ever ready to smite.

Passive Abilities and Actions:

This is a very, very useful ability for Absolution as a supportive measure. Despite being a powerhouse that can do quite the bit of damage on its own, Absolution have no qualms teaming up with other Celestials or heroes that share in the urge to fight such creatures. A lot of higher tier monsters have Magic Resistance so being able to nullify that outright is quite the boon. There is exactly 1 Aberration/Fiend/Undead that shares the Lawful Good Alignment and that is the Flumph, a token helper and sign of good fortune for adventurers. All others suffer under Absolutions oppressive aura.

Our first Legendary Creature of the series! Legendary Resistances are an ability where if a creature fails a saving throw, it instead can expend a use of one of its Legendary Resistances to succeed instead. Most Legendary Creatures have 3 per day, regaining all uses the next day. Absolution is in a league of its own and will rarely fail a saving throw, so when it does it will use one of its Legendary Resistances immediately.

Working as the inverse of Absolution’s Angelic Aura, the floating debris and metal that makes up most of Absolution’s form orbit and protect allies of Absolution, giving them a boon in festively the Magic Resistance feature so long as they remain within 30ft. of Absolution. Hindsight, I think this ability needs to be changed slightly to offer bonus AC instead as visually i cant really see how suddenly being engulfed and surrounded by floating debris helps you against spell saves.

Magic Resistance is a stapple for higher tier monsters, especially ones tied to magical capabilities such as divine powers. Not much else to note as this is just the cherry on top for defenses against spells like mentioned earlier.

• Cantrips (at will): light, sacred flame, spare the dying
• 1st level (4 slots): command, detect evil and good, detect magic, guiding bolt
• 2nd level (3 slots): lesser restoration, silence, zone of truth
• 3rd level (3 slots): dispel magic, magic circle, spirit guardians
• 4th level (3 slots): aura of life, banishment
• 5th level (2 slots): flame strike, greater restoration
• 6th level (1 slot): forbiddance

Hoooo, the first creature with spellcasting and it is a doozy of a list. Strap in, this will be a bit long but I’m going to try and simplify it.

Cantrips:
–Light-Because Absolution has truesight, it has little use for Light as it can see up to 120ft. in absolute darkness. Light only grants a 40ft. radius. This is a spell really useful when Absolution is aiding allies in areas of darkness who cannot see.
–Sacred Flame– An offensive spell requiring a DEX save. As a 12th level caster, its damage is increased up to 3d8 radiant, which is nothing terrible to scoff at, but not great either.
–Spare the Dying-Only useful if an ally of Absolution falls to 0 hit points. Even then, unless its a PC or an NPC that the DM is purposely using death saves for, its functionally only there to aid a player.

1st Level:
–Command-Very useful for shutting down certain individuals by forcing a WIS save and commanding them with 1 word. “Grovel”, “Halt”, and “Scatter” are some commands Absolution might use to cause an enemy to leave themselves open to attacks from others.
–Detect Evil and Good-Allows the caster to sense most magical creatures within 30ft. of themselves. Functionally useless once in combat as Absolution has truesight, being able to detect anything hiding without requiring a spell slot.
–Detect Magic-Allows the caster to see lingering magical effects and enchantments within 30ft. of themselves. Another fairly useless spell for Absolution directly due to their truesight and the spells lack of use in combat.
–Guiding Bolt-A ranged attack that deals a solid 4d6 radiant damage on a hit and granting advantage on the next attack roll towards the target. No notes, this is a very good spell for Absolution.

2nd Level:
–Lesser Restoration-Decent support spell, but under current rules of Machinery Orbits, it will not be super useful as a lot of debilitating conditions come from spells. Still, useful to have on hand.
–Silence-A great support spell to shut down enemy casters even further. Concentration means this competes slightly with others, but can be used a great opener if starting from a distance. With Absolution’s flying speed, it can remain outside the sphere and still sling spells and firing ranged attacks.
–Zone of Truth-Entirely useless in combat and more so used as a form of proof if Absolution figures out its being deceived. With a +12 to Insight checks, Absolution will not be needing Zone of Truth for itself.

3rd Level:
–Dispel Magic-Great spell for removing beneficial buffs to other creatures and fits nicely with Absolutions semi-supportive kit.
–Magic Circle-Useless once in combat due to its 1 minute casting time (each round of combat is 6 seconds. 1 minute equals 10 rounds of combat). However, very beneficial for weakening magical creatures if used preemptively due to its three abelites crippling a chosen creature type. Niche, but not bad.
–Spirit Guardians-Gold standard spell. Concentration so Absolution won’t be able to cast another concentration spell while this is active. Deals good damage over time to any creature (of Absolutions choice) in a sizeable area. Additionally slows creatures down while in the Area of Effect. Absolution will almost always start with this spell unless they are starting combat far from the fray.

4th Level:
–Aura of Life-Situational at best. If this wasn’t a concentration spell it would be better for Absolution; granting resistance to necrotic damage, granting 1 hit point for allies at 0 hp, and preventing hit point maximums from being reduced are all beneficial. However because it is a concentration based spell, Absolution has better spells to focus on.
–Banishment-Very, very good spell. A pesky enemy threatening or harassing Absolution? Boom. Gone. Out of the fight until concentration drops or a full minute passes. Another bonus is that when banishing Aberrations/Fiends, chances are they aren’t from the plane their on (unless your specifically on their home turf), so banishment will just remove them from the fight indefinitely (as long as a full minute of concentration is used).

5th Level:
–Flame Strike-Big damaging AoE spell that deals appears in a large column of fire. Great for purging the unholy. No notes.
–Greater Restoration–Lesser Restoration on steroids. More useful out of combat due to niche situations that call for it (dispelling curses, more serious conditions like Petrification, or reductions to ability scores).

6th Level:
–Forbiddance-Useless in combat due to its 10 minutes casting time (100 rounds of combat…) but can be useful in Absolution is guarding a sanctuary or consecrated sight as it prevents creatures from teleporting within a 40,000sqft. area and it deals damage to 1 kind of creature that enters the area for a good chunk of damage (5d10 radiant/necrotic) each time the creature first enters the area or starts its turn there. The issue is… Absolution is an aggressive celestial and prefers to focus on offense over defense. Niche at best, useless at worst.

Standard amongst nearly every monster above CR 5. Could be modified by just saying two attacks as there is no real reason why Absolution is limited to one ranged and one melee attack each turn.

Straightforward, long distance, heavy hitting spell attack. Unless facing a creature that relies on a high AC and dumped DEX into the ground, there’s little reason to use Sacred Flame over this.

Hindsight 20/20. It makes no sense, no matter how holy or divine, being socked in the head by a flying gear deals radiant damage. Needs to be reworked: significantly less chance to hit than Light Beam, deals 1 point less damage over all, and is restricted to a range of 10ft vs 120ft.

Recharging feature that should be equivalent to a dragon’s breath weapon. Instead it does less damage than Absolutions entire multiattack… Needs heavy reworking. CON saves are also just near useless for a large chunk of both fighting other creatures and Player Characters.

Every Legendary Creature has a set of Legendary Actions alongside their Legendary Resistances (again, usually 3) that recharge at the start of its next turn. The only difference is, instead of occurring when failing a save, the creature can choose to take 1 Legendary Action (so long as it has remaining Legendary Actions available) at the end of another creature’s turn. Absolution has the following Legendary Actions:

Unless otherwise mentioned, each Legendary Action takes 1 Legendary Action to use. So for example, Absolution could take use Light Burst three separate times (each after a different creatures turn) within 1 round of combat before needing to wait before their turn. It is common for a creature to have a simple attack for a Legendary Action.

Another ability in need of revision. The idea is ok, but with the only restriction being that each individual summoned celestial cannot have a CR rating greater than 5, summoning (average) 7 unicorns would just ruin a fight with their abilities to teleport and heal each other. Additionally, Absolution has no limit on how many summons it can have in total nor how long they last. Hope you enjoy 21 unicorns by round 3…

A very strong ability that again, needs some refining. For 3 times per day, this a grand total of… 2,100 hit points. While this is spread between 3 separate creatures, this is ridiculous. For maximum effect and value, Absolution would have to wait until itself and/or 3 other creatures of its choosing are on deaths door and then fully heal. Because it can take a Legendary Action immediately after a players turn (granted it needs all 3 actions available), it is can use this ability as soon as it feels like it absolutely needs to without too much punishment (Mass Heal 9th level spell so counterspelling is expensive/risky).

Revisions:

Oh boy where to begin. To put it simply, this statblock is a mess. It is grossly overturned while also wielding frankly lackluster or questionable features. Its a creature that enjoys being in the fray, maximizing its usage of its Angelic Aura, Machinery Debris, and being able to use Heavenly Radiance, yet its melee attack is weaker than its ranged option, the abilities it has are a myriad of questionable choices from my end. I plan on heavily revising this creature later, and that’s kind of what this is. A way for me to revaluate, tweak, and gain input form others. So if any of you read something else that causes you to scratch your head a bit, please reach out. Until next time!

The first of the celestials done! Despite my harsh critiques, I still really like what I have done with Absolution and I think it functions as a great baseline for a higher tier celestial adversary. I just believe and know I can do better, so with some modifications this can go from an ok statblock to something much much better.