Lord.Sorasen
2011-02-23, 07:08 PM
So, I recently had the party I've been dming encounter a dustblight, a creature in Sandstorm. For flavor's sake (dustblight in my campaign are completely different than the Sandstorm entry, and play a big part in the story) I applied to the creature the "Half-celestial" template. I felt like this battle would be difficult but not too much to handle... But it was too much to handle. Hopefully I realized this right as the first blow was dealt to the monster, so I just silently eliminated its spell-like abilities, Damage reduction, and spell resistance, and it went ok. The party at the time was...
A Half-Ogre (Neanderthal base, took out the size bonus to strength and went with a straight "now you're large, also 4 strength from template") Psychic Warrior 3
A half-elf cleric 2
A Warforged Dragonfire Adept 3
A Human Paladin 3 (who for story reasons has a sun blade)
It should be noted that I really messed up, and as it's my first campaign I failed to give them nearly as much money as I should have (to explain the reason of my error, I didn't see the wealth by level chart, and not knowing how much certain magical items would effect the game looked not to magical items but to non-adventurer items. You can probably imagine how that went.)
The monster was stat-ed out like this:
LESSER DUSTBLIGHT
Medium Outsider [Native]
Hit Dice: 5d8+15
Initiative: +4
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), burrow 30 ft., fly 60 ft. [good]
Armor Class: 21
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+10
Attack: Magic Bite +10 melee (1d8+7), Magic Claw +8 melee (1d3+3)
Full Attack: Magic Bite +10 melee (1d8+7) and 2 Magic Claws +8 melee (1d3+3)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Spell-like Abilities, Smite Good 1/day
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60, Tremorsense 60, Spell Resistance 15, Damage Reduction 5/magic, Acid Resistance 10, Cold Resistance 10, Electricity Resistance 10
Saves: Con +4, Ref +7, Will +8
Abilities: Str 24, dex 19, con 16, int 8, wis 18, cha 12
Skills: Craft (trapmaking) +2, Hide +5, Listen +3, Spot +3
Feats: Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack, Sand Dancer
CR: 4
Spell-Like Abilities (Save Lvl-1, Caster Level 4): Aid 1/day, Bless 1/day, Cure Serious Wounds 1/day, Darkness at will, detect good 1/day, neutralize poison 1/day, protection from good 1/day
Also, later on the party fought another of these. The difference here is that the half-giant leveled up to psychic warrior 4, and they were accompanied by a Hadozee Scout 2/druid 2. And there was only 1 this time. It was still a close encounter. Note that it was fine when I got rid of its spell-like abilities and damage reduction.
SO, I'm figuring the error was based on one or more of a few possibilities:
A: CR 6 on a party closer to CR 3!? That's dumb (though this doesn't explain how the larger party had such trouble with CR 3)
B: There's better synergy between this monster and that template than I originally understood, and the encounter is stronger.
C: It's not that this monster is always tough, but that your party's build is not set to handle this sort of beast.
D: I did it wrong, statted it out wrong. This is totally possible.
E: The party is just terribly optimized. Though it doesn't feel like that's the case.
F: The magic items the party should have at this point would really have come in handy. Though the sunblade, which would deal double damage (I have decided these Dustblight count as "negative Energy plane" type creatures) didn't really make a difference, as she couldn't really land a solid hit.
Either way I'm lost, and I really want to do better. I feel like I should start a thread (the last one has been inactive too long) where I just ask stupid questions that are obvious to everyone else, but somehow that seems wrong too.
A Half-Ogre (Neanderthal base, took out the size bonus to strength and went with a straight "now you're large, also 4 strength from template") Psychic Warrior 3
A half-elf cleric 2
A Warforged Dragonfire Adept 3
A Human Paladin 3 (who for story reasons has a sun blade)
It should be noted that I really messed up, and as it's my first campaign I failed to give them nearly as much money as I should have (to explain the reason of my error, I didn't see the wealth by level chart, and not knowing how much certain magical items would effect the game looked not to magical items but to non-adventurer items. You can probably imagine how that went.)
The monster was stat-ed out like this:
LESSER DUSTBLIGHT
Medium Outsider [Native]
Hit Dice: 5d8+15
Initiative: +4
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), burrow 30 ft., fly 60 ft. [good]
Armor Class: 21
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+10
Attack: Magic Bite +10 melee (1d8+7), Magic Claw +8 melee (1d3+3)
Full Attack: Magic Bite +10 melee (1d8+7) and 2 Magic Claws +8 melee (1d3+3)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Spell-like Abilities, Smite Good 1/day
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60, Tremorsense 60, Spell Resistance 15, Damage Reduction 5/magic, Acid Resistance 10, Cold Resistance 10, Electricity Resistance 10
Saves: Con +4, Ref +7, Will +8
Abilities: Str 24, dex 19, con 16, int 8, wis 18, cha 12
Skills: Craft (trapmaking) +2, Hide +5, Listen +3, Spot +3
Feats: Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack, Sand Dancer
CR: 4
Spell-Like Abilities (Save Lvl-1, Caster Level 4): Aid 1/day, Bless 1/day, Cure Serious Wounds 1/day, Darkness at will, detect good 1/day, neutralize poison 1/day, protection from good 1/day
Also, later on the party fought another of these. The difference here is that the half-giant leveled up to psychic warrior 4, and they were accompanied by a Hadozee Scout 2/druid 2. And there was only 1 this time. It was still a close encounter. Note that it was fine when I got rid of its spell-like abilities and damage reduction.
SO, I'm figuring the error was based on one or more of a few possibilities:
A: CR 6 on a party closer to CR 3!? That's dumb (though this doesn't explain how the larger party had such trouble with CR 3)
B: There's better synergy between this monster and that template than I originally understood, and the encounter is stronger.
C: It's not that this monster is always tough, but that your party's build is not set to handle this sort of beast.
D: I did it wrong, statted it out wrong. This is totally possible.
E: The party is just terribly optimized. Though it doesn't feel like that's the case.
F: The magic items the party should have at this point would really have come in handy. Though the sunblade, which would deal double damage (I have decided these Dustblight count as "negative Energy plane" type creatures) didn't really make a difference, as she couldn't really land a solid hit.
Either way I'm lost, and I really want to do better. I feel like I should start a thread (the last one has been inactive too long) where I just ask stupid questions that are obvious to everyone else, but somehow that seems wrong too.