Laeral Silverhand is the open lord of Waterdeep, and probably the most powerful character in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. She is above average in all her ability scores, with extremely high Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, very good Dexterity, and slightly above average Strength.
Laeral is a politician, with proficiency in both Insight and Persuasion, so she’ll most likely try to talk her opponents out of attacking before she resorts to violence. In these pre-combat parleys, she’ll focus on showing her opponents how avoiding combat aligns with their values or gives them some benefit. For example, she might tell a good aligned character that attacking isn’t morally praiseworthy, or offer to decrease the prison sentence of characters that are obviously breaking the law. Laeral usually won’t threaten potential attackers
If Laeral is unable to resolve the problem through mundane persuasion, she has a couple magical tools at her disposal. She uses Detect Thoughts if she doesn’t think the players are being honest with her, truesight to see through deceptive illusions, and Geas to make shady PCs more likely to keep their promises. If she can’t keep resolve the situation any other way, she uses Mass Suggestion to force potential attackers to follow her will. Her orders may include “turning yourselves in to the city watch” or “Stand down, and tell me everything you know about this Vault of Dragons business.” If magic isn’t enough to deescalate the situation, Laeral has no choice but to stand in combat.
When it comes to combat, Laeral’s high mental ability scores and powerful spellcasting ability indicate that she’d work well as a ranged spell sniper. But that’s not accounting for her multiattack: three swings of her flametongue longsword or silver hair as well as one cantrip or first level spell. I’ll start by looking at the best ways to use this multiattack, then talk about when she’d use a higher level spell instead.
The main part of Laeral’s multiattack is her three strikes with her flametongue and her silver hair, which can be done in any combination. The flametongue deals significantly more damage, but a successful silver hair attack has roughly a 70% chance of paralyzing its target. A paralyzed target is effectively removed from combat until they succeed on a Constitution saving throw, and the expected damage for melee attacks against them almost doubles.
Since paralyzation is so effective, Laeral will attack with her silver hair first, preferably targeting a ranged spellcaster who’s forcing her to make Strength or Dexterity saving throws. (Due to her extremely high intelligence, Laeral can pick out the spellcasters in seconds) When she successfully paralyzes an enemy, she focuses on finishing them off with her flametongue, only attacking someone else if they deal over 20 damage to her in 1 round or neutralize two or more of her allies.
In addition to her Flametongue and Silver Hair, Laeral can cast a cantrip or first level spell. She has 8 spells that meet this criteria, but only Ray of Frost and Magic Missile are useful in combat (Shield is a reaction spell, so it can’t be used as part of this multiattack)
Of those two, Laeral will use Ray of Frost much more often. It deals an expected 18(4d8) damage on a hit versus Magic Missile’s 10.5 and can be combined with Misty Step as a bonus action when Laeral needs to move quickly across the battlefield. Also, Ray of Frost can score critical hits, so you get to roll 8d8 when Laeral uses it against a paralyzed target.
Even though Magic Missile automatically hits, Laeral’s spell attack bonus is high enough that on average, it will only deal more damage than Ray of Frost against opponents with AC 22 or higher. The only mainstream situation where Magic Missile beats Ray of Frost is when Laeral needs to break an enemy’s concentration but doesn’t want to leave her current target to attack them. Since Magic Missile forces 3 checks, it can break a 5th level character’s concentration a little over two-thirds of the time.
All in all, Laeral’s multiattack is devastating, and could easily deal 50–80 damage(less on heavily armored, high-constitution melee characters and more against lightly armored, low-constitution spellcasters) in one round.
Now that we’ve looked at how Laeral will use her multiattack,
- Light, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation, Detect Magic, Disguise Self, Invisibility and Tongues are useless in combat and have very limited utility elsewhere
- As mentioned earlier in the article, Detect Thoughts, Geas, and Mass Suggestion are extremely useful in pre-combat negotiations. Once the spells start flying, you can forget about them
- Sending and Rary’s Telepathic Bond are awesome for communicating with operatives throughout the city but are useless in combat.
- Misty Step can be combined with a multiattack to move quickly across the battlefield and reach a target
- Counterspell and Shield are reactions that protect Laeral from magical and mundane attacks respectively. In most situations, she’ll choose Shield, casting Counterspell only against spells of 3rd level or higher or impose debilitating conditions on Laeral or affect two or more of her allies.
- Teleport is an extremely useful escape hatch in the rare situation that Laeral actually wants to run.
- Cone of Cold and Prismatic Spray are Laeral’s only area of effect damaging spells. They deal more damage on average than her multiattack, assuming she can hit 4 or more targets (though preferably, she’ll be able to affect 6 or more). Of the two, Laeral will use Cone of Cold more often simply because she wants to save her 7th level slot in case she needs to teleport somewhere. She’ll only cast these spells if no allies with less hitpoints than the spell’s average damage are within its area of effect and if the total number of enemies in the area of effect is at least double the total number of allies.
- Power Word Stun is useful primarily for immobilizing opponents, and has a higher chance of working than a single attack from Laeral’s Silver Hair. However, Silver Hair imposes a far more debilitating condition, and can be used up to 3 times a round! I think it’s safe to say that Laeral would never give up her multiattack for Power Word Stun
- Feeblemind can take a spellcaster out of the battle completely with a single failed saving throw. However, against 5th level characters, a multiattack could also take a spellcaster out in a single round. If Laeral is facing spellcaster with 3rd level slots and over 70 hit points, she’ll use this spell. Otherwise, she’ll stick to her multiattack.
- Greater Invisibility is Laeral’s most versitile concentration spell. She’ll cast it at the beginning of any combat when she’s facing 3 or more 5th level (or CR 3+) opponents or 6 or more 1st-4th level enemies.
- Globe of Invulnerability protects Laeral from magic at the cost of an action and her concentration. She’ll cast it instead of Greater Invisibility when the majority of her opponents rely on spells more than mundane weapons.
- Banishment and Otilukes Resilient Sphere can temporarily take powerful opponents out of the battle. But when I say powerful opponents, I mean EXTREMELY powerful. Only opponents with 150+ hitpoints (that Laeral would have to spend a couple rounds to defeat with her multiattack) who can make more than half as many attacks as the rest of her opponents combined (so Greater Invisibility isn’t a better use of concentration) are worthy targets for these spells. If Laeral boosts Banishment up to 5th level to target two opponents, add up their hit points and attacks per round to determine it they meet the required threshold.
- Fly is really only useful for getting within melee range of opponents who can also fly
- Time Stop is useful for getting into position to target distant opponents and casting a concentration spell without using an action at the beginning of combat.
The last combat feature we need to discuss is Laeral’s Spellfire, which allows her to cast cure wounds, revivify, and create an instantaneous blast of silver fire that’s significantly better than a 2nd level spell but not quite as good as a 3rd level spell. None of these spells are good enough to justify using a combat action on Spellfire unless she has extra Time Stop actions, but its possible that she’ll have it active before combat begins.
If Spellfire is active and she runs out of spell slots for Cone of Cold, Laeral will use it to shoot silver fire if she can affect 4 or more opponents. If its active and one of her allies has been dead for 8 rounds, she’ll use revivify to resurrect them.
Now that we’ve analyzed all her features, lets do a quick rundown of what Laeral’s combat tactics will look like.
Before combat, Laeral will try to dissuade her enemies from attacking, using Detect Thoughts, Geas, and Mass Suggestion if she has to.
On round 1, Laeral will cast cast a defensive spell. This will be Greater Invisibility if her opponents are primarily martial, Globe of Invulnerability if they’re mainly spellcasters, and Banishment if one or two of them are significantly more dangerous than the rest. If Laeral’s most dangerous opponent is more than 60 feet away, she’ll cast Time Stop instead, using one of her extra actions from that spell to cast her defensive measure.
In later rounds, Laeral uses Cone of Cold if she can affect 4 or more enemies without hitting more than 2 or 3 allies, and uses her multiattack otherwise. She attacks with her Silver Hair first then switches to her Flame Tongue once her target is paralyzed. When using her multiattack, Laeral prefers to target spellcasters that are forcing her to make Strength or Dexterity saving throws (which she is relatively weak in) or enemies that are wreaking havoc on her allies. If one of Laeral’s enemies is a dangerous spellcaster with 70 or more hit points, she instead uses Feeblemind in an attempt to remove them from the battle.
Laeral uses her reaction on Shield unless she expects an opponent to cast a spell of 3rd level or higher that affects her allies or imposes a debilitating condition, in which case she casts Counterspell.
Laeral prefers to knock her enemies unconscious instead of killing them due to her Chaotic Good alignment. She flees when seriously wounded (reduced to 91 hp or fewer), using her 7th level spell slot to Teleport away.
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