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gooddragon1
2011-10-06, 03:52 PM
Someone in the D&D club I am part of requested a boss monster with an ice theme and something of an environmental effect. So I made this:

http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Ice_Fiend_%283.5e_Monster%29

I have a few questions:
-Is it balanced at it's CR? (It's meant to be a boss fight)
-Is it reasonable to expect a party of 4 level 2 characters to be able to beat it?
-If it's CR is unreasonable or a higher level party would be needed, what are the suggestions for those numbers (party level or CR or both)?
-What do you think of the abilities of the monster?
-What have I done? I've created a monster? (Rhetorical questions but feel free to answer)

Hanuman
2011-10-06, 03:58 PM
First of all, do you have Frostburn?

gooddragon1
2011-10-06, 04:00 PM
First of all, do you have Frostburn?

No. Are you hinting at the idea of cold that goes through resistance? Or some monster that already exists?

Hanuman
2011-10-06, 04:02 PM
It's the "Everything to do with cold flavor" supplement.

gooddragon1
2011-10-06, 04:03 PM
It's the "Everything to do with cold flavor" supplement.

Oh, well... meh.

137beth
2011-10-06, 04:20 PM
If it's an elemental...why is it chaotic evil? Shouldn't it be true neutral? I don't think cold is inherently evil...

gooddragon1
2011-10-06, 04:52 PM
If it's an elemental...why is it chaotic evil? Shouldn't it be true neutral? I don't think cold is inherently evil...

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/belker.htm

Belker - Neutral Evil

This elemental desires the destruction of everything that is not like it. Chaotic evil.

Pyromancer999
2011-10-06, 07:40 PM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/belker.htm

Belker - Neutral Evil

This elemental desires the destruction of everything that is not like it. Chaotic evil.

Like politicians? :smallbiggrin:

In any case, yeah, take a look at Frostburn. If you love ice and cold, it's pretty much awesomeness defined.

Dumbledore lives
2011-10-06, 08:21 PM
I think it's got a bit much HP for a CR 5 creature. Even comparing it to zombies which typically have a lot of HD for their CR, a CR 5 one only has 103 HP and can only take single actions. This thing would take forever for a 2nd level party to beat.

Admittedly its AC is terrible, but a party of 2nd level will still be missing it as often as they hit, and that DR won't help anything. I'd say lower the hit dice to 5, as well as lowering its DR to 5, that should make it a fair challenge, especially if you change its feats to something more than Skill Focus.

gooddragon1
2011-10-06, 08:35 PM
I think it's got a bit much HP for a CR 5 creature. Even comparing it to zombies which typically have a lot of HD for their CR, a CR 5 one only has 103 HP and can only take single actions. This thing would take forever for a 2nd level party to beat.

Admittedly its AC is terrible, but a party of 2nd level will still be missing it as often as they hit, and that DR won't help anything. I'd say lower the hit dice to 5, as well as lowering its DR to 5, that should make it a fair challenge, especially if you change its feats to something more than Skill Focus.

Reduced DR by 5 and gave it a weakness to bludgeoning damage as well.

Debihuman
2011-10-06, 09:45 PM
Con is probably too high. A Large Earth elemental has these stats: Str 25, Dex 8, Con 19, Int 6, Wis 11, Cha 11. Yours has these stats: Str 24, Dex 12, Con 30, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 14. I would reduce Con to 20.

Debby

gooddragon1
2011-10-06, 09:55 PM
Con is probably too high. A Large Earth elemental has these stats: Str 25, Dex 8, Con 19, Int 6, Wis 11, Cha 11. Yours has these stats: Str 24, Dex 12, Con 30, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 14. I would reduce Con to 20.

Debby


Furthermore, the loss of a spike is harmful to the ice fiend and causes it to take a penalty of 1d4 points to it's constitution score (this cannot reduce it's constitution score below 1) and a -2 on all rolls thereafter.

The key is to go after it's spikes (preferably with fire damage).

Debihuman
2011-10-06, 10:07 PM
Sentient spikes that can teleport don't exactly lend themselves to being targeted for attack. There is a reason that most special abilities aren't that complicated. It's too much work for the DM to keep track of during combat.

Debby

gooddragon1
2011-10-06, 10:13 PM
Sentient spikes that can teleport don't exactly lend themselves to being targeted for attack. There is a reason that most special abilities aren't that complicated. It's too much work for the DM to keep track of during combat.

Debby


If acting independently, a spike may teleport above any target up to 100 feet away and fall upon them dealing 2d6 piercing damage (Reflex half). A spike may only use this ability once per minute.

The guy I'm making this monster for has used complex things in boss fights before.

Debihuman
2011-10-06, 11:27 PM
For every spike you use, you have to recalculate Con, hit points and any skills that are also reduced. During combat, this is too complicated. If all it did was cause damage, that would be fine. It's the rest that makes it complicated. Also, if it can only do this once per minute, it probably won't be able to it more than once during combat. This is why the entire special ability should be reworked.

Debby

gooddragon1
2011-10-07, 02:18 AM
For every spike you use, you have to recalculate Con, hit points and any skills that are also reduced. During combat, this is too complicated. If all it did was cause damage, that would be fine. It's the rest that makes it complicated. Also, if it can only do this once per minute, it probably won't be able to it more than once during combat. This is why the entire special ability should be reworked.

Debby

Changed it to damage that cannot be healed. However, the reason it is only once per minute is to allow the ability to be used as battlefield control. I also gave the spikes the ability to teleport 5 feet each round afterwards while in cube form for additional battlefield control.

Hanuman
2011-10-07, 04:37 PM
8 Spikes x 1d4 = 32 So assuming that the array is 4/4/4/4/4/4/3/3 then you can kill it through con alone, but on a 8 array with 4 options each and only a handful of solvable arrays I shouldn't have to tell you what the odds of that are.

so let's say you do hit 29 con damage, that's 29HP taken away where as other elementals of that CR should have started at almost 1/3 of the ice fiend's hp.

What I see this effect mainly used for is a fort debuff, most flavorfully, Shatter.

A boss monster is mainly something with higher CR, for instance OOTS fighting packs of goblins and suddenly... GOBLIN WITH CLASS LEVELS! OH NO!

gooddragon1
2011-10-07, 04:41 PM
8 Spikes x 1d4 = 32 So assuming that the array is 4/4/4/4/4/4/3/3 then you can kill it through con alone, but on a 8 array with 4 options each and only a handful of solvable arrays I shouldn't have to tell you what the odds of that are.

so let's say you do hit 29 con damage, that's 29HP taken away where as other elementals of that CR should have started at almost 1/3 of the ice fiend's hp.

What I see this effect mainly used for is a fort debuff, most flavorfully, Shatter.

A boss monster is mainly something with higher CR, for instance OOTS fighting packs of goblins and suddenly... GOBLIN WITH CLASS LEVELS! OH NO!

Actually it's just straight up HP loss now because someone mentioned that keeping track of Con would be difficult for a DM and this guy is new at it. However, he asked me for an ice based boss monster with the ability to control the field of battle. As such I have made this monster to accomodate that request.

EDIT: Your flowdancer class is really long :( (I'm a lazy guyu)

Hanuman
2011-10-07, 04:50 PM
Aha, so 6 busted spikes = KO at 2.5 x 10 x spikes damage.

Yeah it's technically a sourcebook.