Kezef the Chaos Hound, now in 5e!

[Dachimotsu]

One of the most fearsome creatures to ever ravage the Outer Planes is now available for you to torment your players with. I based all of his stats and abilities on his 3.5 incarnation, from the book "Champions of Ruin". I did my best to convert him to 5e's system. I wanted desperately to make him CR 30, but even after giving him legendary actions, he would either become unfairly powerful, or he wouldn't feel like 3.5's Kezef anymore.

Spoiler: Kezef the Chaos Hound

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[Dachimotsu]

Bump (72 hours have passed).

All I want is a little feedback.

[PotatoGolem]

Seems pretty weak, honestly. It's a big dumb block of HP with mediocre attacks and one short ranged AoE. Easily killed by anyone with flight or Phantasmal Force

[VoodooPaladin]

I'm mostly unversed in 5e mechanics - what I know about them comes almost entirely from the osmosis of pre-release statements and whining - but if no one else wants to respond...

It doesn't look too weak, all things considered. Automatic 30 init and at will plane shift, greater teleport, and gate certainly looks okay for a supermonster.

The problem I'm seeing is that it doesn't feel like a gigantic soul-devouring hound made of maggots and bile. It needs some environmental effects, methinks. A Lair, if I'm not mistaken?

Lucky for me, lazy as I am, The Death Shallows are already detailed in Champions of Ruin. So, while it's not a perfect conversion, I would start there. For instance: Kezef's footprints expand after a couple hours into 10' wide puddles containing ooze paraelementals that can destroy equipment, and any place he lays down to sleep ends up a giant acid pool occupied by a powerful ooze weird and surrounded by a host of larcenous ooze mephits. (Also: wow, that acid pool's effect is boss)

[JNAProductions]

I'm not gonna bother running the math to see if the CR is accurate, for two reasons.

1) Anyone with flight can kite this guy forever, making the fight easy for a party with an 11th level caster who knows Fly.

2) It's... It's kinda boring. There's some neat fluff there, but not much mechanically interesting.

Can you tell me more about Kezef, so I can make suggestions on how to make the fight more fun?

[Dachimotsu]

I'm not gonna bother running the math to see if the CR is accurate, for two reasons.

1) Anyone with flight can kite this guy forever, making the fight easy for a party with an 11th level caster who knows Fly.

2) It's... It's kinda boring. There's some neat fluff there, but not much mechanically interesting.

Can you tell me more about Kezef, so I can make suggestions on how to make the fight more fun?

Everything you need to know about Kezef's abilities can be found in this pdf, page 145:
http://seelie.net/garyonwolf/DnD%20B...0of%20Ruin.pdf

It does have a lair and "lair actions", but those don't belong in the stat block. And as far as I know, Kezef doesn't have the ability to attack mid-flight (such as with Wind Walk) or long-range attacks, so flying would make it pretty trivial, huh?
One thing I did forget though, was that any creature Kezef kills loses its soul forever, so no Raising Dead party members with this guy.

[VoodooPaladin]

And as far as I know, Kezef doesn't have the ability to attack mid-flight (such as with Wind Walk) or long-range attacks, so flying would make it pretty trivial, huh?

The hard part about Kezef, I imagine, would be getting him to actually stick around in one place long enough to chew through him HP/legendary resistances. He has above-average intelligence and can teleport without error at will. If he feels cornered or frustrated, he'll probably just leave and go eat someone else in a couple minutes (regen ftw). Even D&D's most powerful wizards can't keep pace with at will plane shift forever.

Is there something a max level 5e caster can do to reliably lock down a free-ranging Kaiju without allowing a save or requiring an easily-destroyed nearby physical object?

[Dachimotsu]

The hard part about Kezef, I imagine, would be getting him to actually stick around in one place long enough to chew through him HP/legendary resistances. He has above-average intelligence and can teleport without error at will. If he feels cornered or frustrated, he'll probably just leave and go eat someone else in a couple minutes (regen ftw). Even D&D's most powerful wizards can't keep pace with at will plane shift forever.

Is there something a max level 5e caster can do to reliably lock down a free-ranging Kaiju without allowing a save or requiring an easily-destroyed nearby physical object?

If you can make Kezef waste its legendary resistances, and then somehow impose disadvantage on its Wisdom saves, Imprisonment (Hedged Prison) might work, since it wards against planar travel. You couldn't kill it that way, but you could seal it.

Planar Binding can't work because it doesn't affect aberrations.

According to the story, Kezef was eventually imprisoned by the gods when they challenged him to escape their bindings, but Tyr lost his hand in the process. Even the gods couldn't take Kezef out, so he's really just meant to kill as many things as possible and escape all the time.