I need your advice, D&D community. My DM has gone crazy (not litteraly), and is pitting us against Orcus. What would you do in this situation?
Two "leaders." I find warlord and cleric or bard & cleric to do the trick.
One dwarf tank with a weapon that prevents teleport and specced to use a lot of self-healing. Max con, don't worry about Str.
And that oughtta do it. It did for my group. The dwarf keeps Orcus "locked" down and can't be killed. The leaders stand well out of range until needed to heal or offer bonuses.
It's a little bit sad how easy it was, once we hit our groove.
CCS wrote:
Lord_of_Asdf wrote:
Lord_of_Asdf wrote:
Orcus is level 25 or your party is level 25? Well, this advice is going to apply no matter what the monster is. If a DM wants you to do a combat encounter that's much higher level than your party, talk to him first.
If your party is level 25 vs. Orcus ... he's gone a little crazy, or maybe he just doesn't get it.
Ask him what he's trying to accomplish by having you fight a solo monster 8 or 9 levels higher than you are with a party of seven that is going to accomplish nothing more than drag the fight out. Is he trying to kill you all? Kill a few of you? Make you retreat? Have the fight not be a fight at all but some kind of story twist? Does he want you to win? If so, explain to him that that's unlikely given the difference in levels here, regardless of the size of the party. Does he want you to lose? If so, what is he setting up that will lead to more fun?
If your DM is going to polish his viking hat while keeping these things secret, just explain to him that most people don't like spending hours watching their characters get pulled limb from limb in slow motion unless they know that something really fun and rewarding is going to be the result. People don't play D&D to be punished or tortured (figuratively speaking) by the DM's proxies, they play to have fun and be awesome. Hopefully this encounter will actually be fun for someone other than the DM, otherwise the best thing to do would be to skip the combat and just cut to what happens after you all die messily, which will hopefully be more fun.
Otherwise, if the DM wants a straight up fight, what thespaceinvader said about levelling Orcus down appropriately and setting him up with some allies is the correct advice. If a fight is what the DM wants, ask him whether he set Orcus up to be an appropriate level where you can be expected to hit him often enough. If he did that, don't worry, you'll do fine, and your DM has not gone crazy.
To answer: The Party is level 25 each, the Paladin I don't remember which diety (will check)
Note:
the DM gave the warlock a ring of corruption that in addition to corrupting, will give the wearer a freaking ton of power. The Warlock(me) arcana-checked it. 
Lord_of_Asdf wrote: