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View Full Version : CR for an encounter [3.5]



Tvtyrant
2010-12-24, 11:40 AM
I am working on a plug-and-play vampire encounter for my group. It revolves around a level 6 Cleric named Tharzine who is a vampire and has turned three level 4's into his vampire minions (A Wizard, a Fighter and a Rogue). These each have two Vampire Spawn servants, one that they order to serve their master and one that they have for themselves. This maxes Tharzine's vampire controller HD. He also has a Megaraptor skeleton that he rides/keeps as a pet, along with some lower level skeletons.

They are all living in a church Tharzine has built an alter to his god in and Desecrated (hence the Megaraptor) and will be encountered in either one very big battle or two fairly big battles. Using the D20 encounter calculator this comes out to "Very Difficult" for a level 13 party; but that would put the party at higher levels then the vampire lord!

So my question to the Playground is: What CR would this encounter be? What level should this be plugged at?

Flickerdart
2010-12-24, 11:42 AM
Sounds about right. The sheer action advantage of the enemy side makes it quite dangerous.

tyckspoon
2010-12-24, 12:03 PM
It's certainly not level 13; a party of that level should have the resources to pretty much instantly destroy at least the Skeletons and the Spawn.

If you want to do it by the official numbers:
The head vampire is nominally CR 8 all on his own- 6 levels of a PC class are supposed to be worth CR on a 1 to 1 basis, and then the Vampire template is +2 CR. Each of his minions is likewise CR 6, as a solo encounter. Give them the advantages of prepared home ground (the Desecrated church), that's probably worth about another CR. Add in minions and/or the combined arms tactics they can use by working with each other, probably worth another one or two..

As separate fights (say, Rogue and Fighter plus some spawn are patrolling the halls, Wizard and Cleric are working on some Evil Magic [adding a Corpsecrafter quality to the Megaraptor, maybe] in the nave of the church) they're probably tough fights for level 6ish, reasonable for level 8, and getting a bit easy by 10. If all fought at once, well.. it gets tricky. You've got huge numbers on the enemy side, and vampires have some really swingy abilities that can bring down much higher-level characters (energy drain, Dominate- imagine running into the whole quartet and watching your BSF suck down four Will saves in the first round. Then he turns around and cuts off your Cleric's head.) But outside of those they wouldn't be much threat to a high level party. D&D doesn't scale large numbers of enemies well- I would probably just calculate based on which of the classed vampires are present, maybe the Megaraptor skeleton, and place the encounter based on that.

Flickerdart
2010-12-24, 12:13 PM
CR13 means that a 13th level party shouldn't have too much trouble with it, though, which is accurate. They destroy the weaker stuff, take a few blows from the stronger stuff and then clean up.

Chilingsworth
2010-12-24, 12:14 PM
I am working on a plug-and-play vampire encounter for my group. It revolves around a level 6 Cleric named Tharzine who is a vampire and has turned three level 4's into his vampire minions (A Wizard, a Fighter and a Rogue). These each have two Vampire Spawn servants, one that they order to serve their master and one that they have for themselves. This maxes Tharzine's vampire controller HD. He also has a Megaraptor skeleton that he rides/keeps as a pet, along with some lower level skeletons.

They are all living in a church Tharzine has built an alter to his god in and Desecrated (hence the Megaraptor) and will be encountered in either one very big battle or two fairly big battles. Using the D20 encounter calculator this comes out to "Very Difficult" for a level 13 party; but that would put the party at higher levels then the vampire lord!

So my question to the Playground is: What CR would this encounter be? What level should this be plugged at?

Sorry to point this out, but characters have to have at least 5 HD to become vampires, these level 4s would be vampire spawn. You'd have to give them one more level, each. I'm not sure what the EL for the resulting group would be.

Flickerdart
2010-12-24, 12:16 PM
Sorry to point this out, but characters have to have at least 5 HD to become vampires, these level 4s would be vampire spawn.
Vampire Lords create only regular vampires, never spawn. So all you need to do is bump the Cleric a few levels and this makes sense. Or I guess raise the level of those two guys.

Tvtyrant
2010-12-24, 12:16 PM
So... Break it into two or three fights? If I was going to do two fights how should I divide them?

I'm thinking one of the following three;

1. The three classed vampires with 3 vampire spawns; battle would be fought in the graveyard outside the church. Then a fight inside the church with the Vampire Lord, his raptor and three more spawns.

2. The Fighter and the Rogue vampires with their spawns (4) in the monk cells area, then a big altar battle with the Lord, the Wizard, and the remaining undead (2 spawn and the raptor).

3. The Fighter and the Wizard instead of the Rogue, and then the Rogue and the Lord in the altar battle.




Sorry to point this out, but characters have to have at least 5 HD to become vampires, these level 4s would be vampire spawn. You'd have to give them one more level, each. I'm not sure what the EL for the resulting group would be.

There is a house rule reason; blood sucking someone only creates Vampire Spawns if the person had a BaB of less than 1. Basically because a commoner would be worthless as a Vampire so they turn into spawns, but almost everything else becomes Vampires. Energy Draining always turns someone into a Spawn except if they have a BaB of less then 1, in which case they turn to dust. Otherwise one Vampire could kill the entire planet by beating village after village to death with his/her fists.

Tvtyrant
2010-12-24, 03:36 PM
The big issue I am facing now is that the CR goes up if the Vampires summon swarms; so depending on the tactics of the party the battle could add as many as four swarms on top of the rest :(

Also, I am slightly worried about the Vampire Fighter. I was originally going to make him grapple based to take advantage of the blood drain ability, but I worry that he would kill off the party member he is grappling.

Flickerdart
2010-12-24, 03:45 PM
The big issue I am facing now is that the CR goes up if the Vampires summon swarms; so depending on the tactics of the party the battle could add as many as four swarms on top of the rest :(

It doesn't actually. Anything that's created with an enemy's ability doesn't count for CR.

Anxe
2010-12-24, 03:54 PM
You could have the Vampire Lord send in his minions one at a time just like in the movies.

Tvtyrant
2010-12-24, 04:08 PM
Okay, but 4d6+4 swarms of rats is not a fund occasion at any level. Or 4d4+4 swarms of bats. Luckily they wouldn't arrive for 2d6 rounds, by which time the battle is usually over.

Sending the Vampires in one at a time loses some of its vitality. If I need to lower the CR of the encounter by that much I would probably dump the other vampires all together and have it just be Tharzine and a trio of Vampire Spawn. What I really want for the encounter is going into the church and seeing the Vampires all lined up around Tharzine's altar-throne and have a terrifying diplomatic exchange with the party knowing that this battle will be over their heads if they screw up. Then they either have to cut their way out and return in the day time or make a bargain with Tharzine. The reason the party goes at night at all is they were told the Vampires were Wights, and that the graveyard and church had been abandoned for 100+ years. A group of Wights would be fairly easy, a group of Vampires in their Desecrated lair is less so.

KillianHawkeye
2010-12-25, 09:42 AM
Okay, but 4d6+4 swarms of rats is not a fund occasion at any level. Or 4d4+4 swarms of bats. Luckily they wouldn't arrive for 2d6 rounds, by which time the battle is usually over.

The fun thing about summoning swarms isn't to help in battle, it's to chase or annoy the party while they're coming into the vampires' lair or trying to escape. Or as cover while the vampire escapes like the swarm of bats in Batman Begins.