Areal’s Panopticon is a build designed around locking down and out-ranging an opponent, so much so that nearly all will be defeated while you sit in another dimension.

The concept for this ‘build’ has existed for a while, but this is the real execution and write-up of it to my knowledge. So, lets introduce Areal’s Panopticon.

Vecna

This build makes use of the “Vecna the Archlich” statblock. Particularly relevant to this build is Vecna’s 3 reactions, and dread counterspell.

Reactions

Vecna can take up to three reactions per round but only one per turn.

Dread Counterspell. Vecna utters a dread word to interrupt a creature he can see that is casting a spell. If the spell is 4th level or lower, it fails and has no effect. If the spell is 5th level or higher, Vecna makes an Intelligence check (DC 10 + the spell’s level). On a success, the spell fails and has no effect. Whatever the spell’s level, the caster takes 10 (3d6) psychic damage if the spell fails.

Notice: There is no range on “dread counterspell”, it works no matter the distance from Vecna the caster is. This is a big part of the tactic of this build.

Along with dread counterspell, we get at-will animate dead and some other goodies, but low HP for a high CR creature.

We can become Vecna by dragon aging into true polymorphing a sim into a vecna to magic jar into, or by making a Vecna corpse by force sculpting, ect.

Vecna comes with other benefits, such as even if you do truly die, you’ll come back in 1d100 years, and we get a teleport that heals us on a BA without resources, and a reaction teleport in response to taking an attack.

Panopticon

Doing “Panopticon” tech is a bit hard to explain. Through various different methods of divination, telepathic bonds, minor illusion tech, ect, we can effectively keep eyes on something forever.

Here’s just a few methods to use for panopticon’s scrying:

Extra-Planar:
Scry on your simulacrum, Followers, Summons, ect
Use sending stones
Minor Illusion Omniscience Tech
Dip into the plane, cast some Arcane Eyes, Leave. This also works if your familiar uses glyphs of Arcane Eye.

A familiar should be casting clairvoyance and then disappearing to a pocket dimension, and glyphs of clairvoyance should be dispearsed through your armies.

I suggest having followers carry a bag of holding full of glyphs of arcane eye and resilient sphere, locking the eyes into spheres and littering them through a battlefield.

Using fabritech, we can possibly create more invisible clairvoyance sensors that aren’t dispellable, and place them within the ranks of our followers.

For Areal’s Panopticon, the goal is having eyes everywhere. We telepathically bond with everyone we can, we have divination constantly screaming through our room in our demiplane, we have scrying ontop of clairvoyance and more. The more eyes, the better.

Same-Plane:
Telepathically bonded army and sim
Scrying on that same army
Glyphs of Arcane Eye
Sitting in nested resilient spheres

Combining all of these techs, once you’re seen by panopticon, it’s almost impossible to get away, and with minor illusion omniscience, it’s almost impossible to remain unseen.

Using Areal’s Panopticon

The premise of this build is pretty different than others, your goal here is to be incredibly far away, and to slowly but surely work down an enemy. With three reactions and dread counterspell, we can lock creatures out of spellcasting all together. Give anything you want to see out of blindsight so obscurement can’t stop the dread counterspell. Panopticon follows you around through scrying and censors and illusion divination and small packed armies, and surrounds you in constant, unceasing eyes, that negate your spells.

With the high emphasis on divination, we shouldn’t be trying to attack a target out of the gate, we should be watching them until a moment where they need spells arises, and then counterspelling them, pulling the rug from under their feet. We can create this moment ourselves by creating small armies of invisible stalkers armed with weapons, or just having a party willing to enter missions with us as the ultimate long-range back up. More on this later.

Certain spells can be cast at range of “sight” like storm of vengeance, Tsunami, or Mirage Arcane. Mirage arcane is the best of these but even that isn’t going to win solo. Dream lets is target creatures from an infinite range and interrupt their rest; this is good for us. If a creature requires sleep to long rest, we can prevent that rest from occurring and potentially exhaust them to death.

Areal’s Panopticon is not a fast or close range fighter, it is a malignance inflicted on an enemy from infinite distance, a multi-dimensional illness, rotting their ability to work with an unblinking gaze until they wither away.

How bad is this? Well, it makes it impossible to escape a wall of force unless you have a non-spell method of getting out. This makes creating a spell-microwave rather easy on most creatures. It’s good enough to lot most stands in place, even GITM if it can scry / divine the chwingas. This doesn’t kill GITM as it can heal, but it does put it in a cage of infinite suffering and locks it to one plane until it finds someone else to teleport it or otherwise breaks the divinations / eyes. Having to endure a real fight like this would be agony. It can also lock anti-grammaton into one dimension, as well as prevent eternal puppetmaster from casting any spells.

If you step into the wrong dimension, where Areal’s gaze meets yours, you can potentially be locked there forever.

This is why non-detection is important, folks! never let your anti-divination measures fall. [note that while this helps, it won’t save you entirely, as Panopticon can use other creatures eyes, too]

Making an army

Potentially infinite armies aside, reasonable numbers of elementals and/or some concentration spells, like conjured animals, should be fair game. Similarly, We can send one simulacrum to fight, but not more than one. Once summoning and long-distance get put together, God-exit isn’t too far behind, but as long as the armies aren’t infinite or nigh-infinite, we avoid God-exit. The limiter here is up to the DM, I’d do something along the lines of ‘only one days worth of army’ or make a number of total planar bound and other loyal entities allowed that’s less than 100 and more than 2.

Even if we’re super against any planar bound army, a simulacrum can be enough. Make a copy of yourself and use another stand in the field, and use their senses with your panopticon and aid them in their fights.

Walls of Panopticon

Sitting in a demiplane nexus is a good method to use here, Always keep people out of your dimension, use private sanctum on all but one 5ft square that you can fill and unfill with an object or creature. Beyond this, we can also sit inside nested resilient sphere, and keep the place made of wall of force, able to teleport through the walls into other parts of our constructed base thanks the vecna’s unique teleportation powers. Areal should avoid taking a hit at all costs, only able to survive a few before being killed.

Avoiding Panopticon

Ironically, the only way to avoid AP is to act as if it were always looking. Constantly cloak yourself, don’t let random creatures get close, always have anti-detection methods, always have dark smoke filled rooms with teleportation and plane-shift glyphs ready anywhere you travel, bring magic items that allow teleportation, have a non-spell way to get burrowing speeds, ect.

A prisoner on best behavior

Conclusion

• Extra-Dimensional horrors are real
• having an Areal’s Panopticon buddy is great
• Once infested by Areal’s Panopticon, escape is all but impossible without help
• Areal’s Panopticon is weak to being up close and melee’d to death but is in many situations the strongest stand in the game, theoretically capable of beating the other 3 [or 4 if you count sickrad]
• Panopticon Watches