An open request from the r/monsteraday subreddit. Just a Medium-sized deity didn’t make much sense to me, so I took the same route as I did with other divine entities I’ve homebrewed and cheated by making him actually Gargantuan, with the shapechange ability to take the form of anything else.
As a god of all magic, I felt like trying to use any magic against this guy should be as poor a decision as using a sword against the god of metal, but I also want to always make sure my creatures (and bosses in particular) are still fun and engaging for all players to have an encounter with. Limited magic immunity is a problem to be solved, total magic immunity is a dick move. Is a free counterspell on every turn super difficult to deal with? You betcha. However, it isn’t unbeatable by any means.
Off the top of my head, tactics for dealing with his magical mastery involve:
- Burn your own counterspell against his. Yes, it’s a DC 19 and it essentially means doubling the spell slots used for every cast, but it’s not super out there for a level 20 wizard to accomplish with relative ease.
- Cast spells in tandem with a party member (or a clone!). By holding your action to cast until someone else does, now Azuth has two spells coming at him at once with only one reaction to burn on a counter. Like a feint in fighting, the first spell is sacrificed so that the other one can go through clean.
- Fight from the shadows. Not literally, of course, dude still has truesight and free clairvoyance, but keeping your location secret and hidden from him will mitigate a lot of what his mortal avatar can deal with. Making good use of cover, hit and run, and other stealthy options will keep you out of view and out of range of his toughest abilities. Remember that counterspell only has a range of 60 feet, which is paltry at a tier where you can cast fly on yourself.
Like all boss encounters, as much fun as it might be as a DM to go whole hog and just stack the deck completely against the party, that’s not what this game is about. As the game runner, you can at any time just say “Rocks fall, everyone dies.” The game exists as a vehicle for our imaginations and to create shared stories and memories with our friends. We’re not here to kill the party or assert our monster creations as the best most unbeatable things ever. We’re here to have a good time and ROOT FOR OUR PARTY. If you make an encounter that cannot be beaten, you have found the only one way to lose at D&D. Encourage your players to think creatively, and reward them for coming up with stuff you didn’t think of. Cheat the numbers both ways to keep the encounter interesting, and when things have built to an appropriate climax, let your players deliver the final blow. Share in their victories, and console them in their defeats. Have fun, friends.
