Let's Read The Immortal Handbook Bestiary

[Eldan]

That reminds me... it has an enormous range on AoOs, but don't AoOs require line of sight? It would pretty much need either a few ten thousand points in spot or divinations.

[Eldan]

Akishra, CR 40

Spoiler: Eel in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCEE!!!

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Wait, is that a giant errect phallus in the background?

[OgresAreCute]

Wait, is that a giant errect phallus in the background?

If you're asking seriously, I think it's supposed to be the underside of the upside down horned guy's foot.

If you're joking, yes, and it even has pearly penile papules.

[Eldan]

Of course I'm aware it's not intended to be one.. The similarity just immediately struck me when I saw the image again.

[Aniikinis]

If you're joking, yes, and it even has pearly penile papules.

I feel kinda sorry for the guy, the head is chipped and so in need of moisturiser that the skin is cracking. Also, that viperfish jaw probably won't be good for the *cough* health of it either.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Wait, is that a giant errect phallus in the background?

I, did not notice that before.

[Karl Aegis]

It's an odium passing by.

Edit: Oh it's some deceased deity's foot okay.

[Blue Jay]

I think they're all posing in front of their surfboards, which happen to all be portals into other bizarro worlds.

[Lleban]

I can't un see it now, also this thread is a great idea.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Amidah, CR Varies

Spoiler: Picture

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This is a template, a paragon of paragons. The template can be applied to gods as well as paragon creatures and it gives out… a lot of benefits, actually.

Wish at will as an SLA. Do I need to go on at this point? Amidah also get a +60-luck bonus to AC, attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, initiative and spell/SLA DCs. Their enemies suffer a -12-luck penalty to just about all those things too, plus damage rolls.

+75 to all ability scores, Fast Healing 100, DR 150/epic and cursed (yes, cursed) change all hit dice to d100s and it gets max HP per hit dice. +80 to its CR. Obviously how tough it is going to depend on what you apply the template to, but Wish at will is pretty insane.

The sample monster is a CR 163 (?!) paragon vampire with 6 (yes, 6) artifact swords. I think this is the highest CR monster we’ve seen yet in this book. He has 11,700 HP and SR 187!

I… honestly don’t know what a level 160+ party would look like, but I suspect that short of abusing that Wish SLA, they’d stomp this vampire flat. I think?

[Karl Aegis]

You use Combine Turning from Ghostwalk Web Enhancement and Disciple of the Sun from Complete Divine and hope you can get past his Evil Eye and Luck abilities. Done.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Hey guys I think we found Goku. Brb imma make a level 500 amidah monk

[ExLibrisMortis]

So basically, an amidah goblin commoner 1 is CR 79 or so, with about 137 hit points, +97 or +98 to pretty much any check (AC 107 or 108, skills +101 or +102), and at-will wish. It is, in fact, capable of disposing of a hecatoncheires (by using wish, of course--the hecatoncheires can only save on a 20, and the goblin will always go first), and it's virtually immune to its attacks (the hecatoncheires can only hit on a 20, and then can't overcome the goblin's DR).

Apart from the hit points, it's probably not far off the benchmarks for its CR. I'm sure that's an accident.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Apart from the hit points, it's probably not far off the benchmarks for its CR. I'm sure that's an accident.

Most likely, but I doubt it'd beat a level 75 party.

[danielxcutter]

So basically, an amidah goblin commoner 1 is CR 79 or so, with about 137 hit points, +97 or +98 to pretty much any check (AC 107 or 108, skills +101 or +102), and at-will wish. It is, in fact, capable of disposing of a hecatoncheires (by using wish, of course--the hecatoncheires can only save on a 20, and the goblin will always go first), and it's virtually immune to its attacks (the hecatoncheires can only hit on a 20, and then can't overcome the goblin's DR).

Apart from the hit points, it's probably not far off the benchmarks for its CR. I'm sure that's an accident.

Well, compared to the trainwrecks in the ELH and this book, it's probably a lot better than those.

Speaking of which, how well does the Paragon template fare? Once saw a campaign journal with a Paragon Jovoc as part of the guards of a MacGuffin which a near-epic, highly optimized party had to retrieve. A party with a DMM: Persistent cleric, a Pact Adept with custom dragonpacts, a Ranger/Deepwood Sniper who's favored enemies are the main focus of the campaign, and not one but two Frenzied Berserkers, as a matter of fact.

Apparently, most of them ended the fight with single-digit hit points.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Speaking of which, how well does the Paragon template fare?

Not so well on low level monsters. They end up being glass cannons with extra glass.

[danielxcutter]

Not so well on low level monsters. They end up being glass cannons with extra glass.

Depends on the monster; the Paragon Jovoc I just mentioned was apparently quite frightening.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Depends on the monster; the Paragon Jovoc I just mentioned was apparently quite frightening.

It should be CR 20. I can't see it posing any threat to a level 20 party. Or a level 17 one for that matter.

What level were the PCs who battled it?

EDIT: Paragon is a +15 to CR, BTW.

[danielxcutter]

It should be CR 20. I can't see it posing any threat to a level 20 party. Or a level 17 one for that matter.

What level were the PCs who battled it?

EDIT: Paragon is a +15 to CR, BTW.

About 17~18th-level, I think. There were also two Immolation Demons and a Nemesis Demon(ported from Pathfinder) as well. Aura of Retribution is very scary when the Jovoc can survive taking 100 points of axe damage to the face and not die, you see.

[Lleban]

Ya know normally I'd say its a shame that at will wish overshadows any other feature this class has...but its just overshadowing numbers bloat. What kind of abilities should a paragon of paragon template give though.

[danielxcutter]

Ya know normally I'd say its a shame that at will wish overshadows any other feature this class has...but its just overshadowing numbers bloat. What kind of abilities should a paragon of paragon template give though.

I don't know, but generalized, powerful enhancements do seem like the right direction, since it's not a specific boost for just one archetype.

[martixy]

This thread makes me wanna design a better epic handbook.

One that isn't just all numbers. Don't get me wrong, numbers are important too, but at that point bags-of-HP are about the most boring imaginable. Which the immortals handbook is overflowing with. It's lazy.

These things should start acting like the natural disasters and eldritch horrors they ought to be.

On that point, I'm particularly interested what this thread would have to say about the Nexus Dragon.

[danielxcutter]

This thread makes me wanna design a better epic handbook.

One that isn't just all numbers. Don't get me wrong, numbers are important too, but at that point bags-of-HP are about the most boring imaginable. Which the immortals handbook is overflowing with. It's lazy.

These things should start acting like the natural disasters and eldritch horrors they ought to be.

On that point, I'm particularly interested what this thread would have to say about the Nexus Dragon.

To be fair, when non-epic monsters or even players can cause natural disasters fairly easily, it's hard to expand on that much without rehashing stuff.

Still, I wish the average had been closer to the Odium, at least in design and coolness if not power.

[unseenmage]

I remember wah back in my newbie days I'd made a tribe of goblins who were made from force effects. Literally just took the physical traits of a wall of force and slapped them on the goblin stat block. Could even make game attacks through them.

Players wound up burying the little buggers one by one since they weren't high enough level to actually destroy them.

I recall it as an example of an 'overpowered' template just not mattering on a weak monster.

Now the Kaiju template from Dragin Magazine, THAT we had done epic fun with.

[martixy]

To be fair, when non-epic monsters or even players can cause natural disasters fairly easily, it's hard to expand on that much without rehashing stuff.

Still, I wish the average had been closer to the Odium, at least in design and coolness if not power.

When I say natural disaster, I mean so in the context of a magical universe. Events that span planets, planes, dimensions and pantheons, not a volcanic eruption.

[danielxcutter]

When I say natural disaster, I mean so in the context of a magical universe. Events that span planets, planes, dimensions and pantheons, not a volcanic eruption.

Hmm. Okay, fair. Still, you can get that with monsters on the relatively low end of Epic - the Elder Evils come to mind, for one.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Now the Kaiju template from Dragin Magazine, THAT we had done epic fun with.

I had a player harass a seal in our D&D game.

So I made a Winged Kaiju seal and had it declare vengeance on him.

It never went anywhere, but it was kind of funny.

[danielxcutter]

I had a player harass a seal in our D&D game.

So I made a Winged Kaiju seal and had it declare vengeance on him.

It never went anywhere, but it was kind of funny.

What issue number is that?

[Lapak]

Don't get me wrong, numbers are important too,

Honestly, I don't agree. Epic level PC parties can deliver arbitrarily high numbers in any given category, so numbers are never going to be an interesting challenge.

I agree with the rest of your post a lot and think the threat they pose should be broader and more existential than 'can drop a dice bag's worth of damage on a PC,' but tied to that I think the only road to making them feel different and epic is to make them essentially puzzle encounters. Don't give me an Uber-lich with a billion hit points and five lives. Give me one who can only be harmed by a grandmother who has never known sorrow and let the party work out how to find one, arm her, and recruit her without disqualifying her in the process.

Give me an avatar of conflict who can only be defeated if every sapient being within 100 miles forgives their worst enemy.

Give me a forge-god wielding Swordbreaker who makes every war around him escalate to increase the power of his worshippers and let them figure out that he can only be attacked by someone who is unarmed.

[Quarian Rex]

This exercise begs the question; What DO we want in an epic monster?

Kaiju are supposed to be punching bags so far as their lore is concerned.
Do we want every epic challenge to be wizard Godzilla?

Is Galactus a threat purely due to his size?

Perhaps late season Stargate style Replicators on occasion.

What exactly constitutes an epic threat, let alone an epic monster?

This is actually a pretty good question. I think the main obstacle I've had with a lot of the Epic type rules/ideas I've seen is that they usually just pile on the numbers without doing anything remotely interesting. Also, 'epic' monsters are best used in a non-epic campaign (from a narrative point of view). Battling Cthulhu loses a lot when the PCs are now technically his peers.

Aniikinis posted a thread about adapting The Eldrazi Titans a while back that was interesting but suffered (from my perspective) from some of the meaninglessly large bag of numbers issues that can be seen in Epic content.

Thre post I made in that thread, here...

I hear ya, and that's why no one plays epic. It's a game of rocket tag and the only players are those who have epic spellcasting. It becomes yet another game of arbitrary number stacking.

I would ask you to consider re-balancing this for something that can be used in a normal campaign. That is not to say that it can't be epicly ridiculous, just that it shouldn't be hand-wavingly impossible. Here are some thoughts because criticism needs to be constructive...

- Currently your Eldrazi is too small. Look at those pictures, 30' by 30' doesn't do it justice. Create a new size category (Colossal+ to keep it simple) where you can put an arbitrary spacing (within mild reason, like 100' by 100' or somesuch). Having a monster take up the majority of one side of the battlemap (without fully being on the board) is a great way to let the players know that they are in the sh*t.

- Set up facings so that only 1/4 of its total attacks can be used within a cone facing outward from a given side and reduce the total number of attacks to 40-60 (10-15 attacks per side) so the DM doesn't have to give up on rolling attacks and declare the PCs dead because he's tired.

- Add a hp multiplier to the Eldrazi subtype so that you can get to an appropriate HP total without requiring an unusable number of HD. Try keeping the HD around the 25 mark to prevent things from scaling to stupidly.

- To make up for the reduced number of attacks have all melee attacks affect a 5' AoE (check the to-hit once against everyone in the area) and do double damage to unattended objects. This way when attacking cities/crowds the carnage is exactly as devastating as you think it should be but delta force/adventuring parties don't have to die in one swipe (unless they're caught in a group hug).

- Lower the to-hit against small things. I'm talking something like -5 per size category starting at Colossal. Tweak it till it has about a +5 to 10 to hit medium characters. Commoners will mostly be wiped out in one hit (though some kids might be able to survive to become a plot hook), armored soldiers might have a 50% chance of not being squashed on the first hit and a fully decked out knight might be able to take a couple swipes. With 10 to 15 AoE hits coming down a round this has the effect you want without just saying 'the army's dead'. "What?!?", I hear you say, "That's insane, how is my eldritch horror supposed to show these pesky adventurers that they are nothing if he can't hit them?". That's because these attacks are just the Eldrazi swatting insects out of the way. When something draws its interest then...

- For every extra attack used on the same target you negate a size penalty (so 2 tentacles = +5 to hit, 3 tentacles = +10, etc.) but the attack only does one hit of damage (which for this guy is still going to be nuts). This lets hard targets (like the players) act as tanks (something that doesn't usually work very well in 3.P) because every extra tentacle used on them is an attack that isn't being used on someone else.

- The massive threatened area (120' or more) needs to be addressed. AoO are something to multiply the number of attacks in an area (justifying the lowered number of attacks) but would still follow the previous convention where multiple AoOs can be expended for a higher hit bonus. A lot of the combat is going to be happening away from the Eldrazi but it still needs to be engaging. Say that the tentacles can be attacked for one round after they make an attack as if they occupied the squares of their AoE. Each tentacle has 1/4 (or something like that, adjust to taste) of the Eldrazi's hp and half of all damage done to the tentacle is done to the main body as well. As tentacles are destroyed the Eldrazi can spend a full round action to change its facing, bringing a new set of tentacles to bear while simultaneously giving the party a small, well earned, breather. Fast healing (something you left out) would be applied to the body and tentacles separately so this is still no joke.

- For something like Eldritch Moon, draw those effects out. This is the sort of thing that can turn a campaign into a supernatural disaster movie instead of a hand-wave that says that the entire country has been annihilated before you can finish watching Lord of the Rings. If you're dealing with a radius of 350 miles then you can afford to start off "subtle". Say that it starts with a DC 5 made once per day. Not really a threat to the average adventurer but you will lose about 20% of the commoner population per day. That is an apocalypse that needs to be dealt with. For every 150 miles you are closer to the Eldrazi the DC goes up by 5 to a max of DC 15. Within 50 miles the save has to be made every hour. Escalating threat and coupled with a lowered movement rate of 20 (120 means this puppy can travel 96 miles a day, which is too damn much for an approaching apocalypse). MV 20 allows humans to outrun it so long as they're unburdened or don't hit difficult terrain.

- Stat up an actual template for the victims of Eldritch Moon (increasing the HD and such) and have them make Will saves (DC 15 or 20) every day or be forced to move to Emrakul at full speed, attacking anything in the way. Once within Emrakul's threatened range they must make another will save every round or be permanently dominated by the Eldrazi. Remove Dominate Monster from the normal spell-likes.


Those are some thoughts on how to turn this from an auto-death encounter (or worse, something that can be "easily defeated through an epic-level banish spell or through the use of an instant death effect") into a herald of its own apocalypse and changer of the setting while still leaving the potential of having a setting afterward.

Thoughts?

... basically sums up a lot of what I'm generally looking for in an 'epic' threat. Something that has a far reaching effect that cannot be ignored. Something with the action economy to deal with a party (preferably in a way that actually makes sense). Something with somewhat of a scaling threat (again, in a way that makes sense) so that it's presence doesn't just auto-destroy any nation it lands in.

I've been tinkering with a version of Emrakul adjusted along my suggestions but haven't completed it yet, mainly because I don't currently have a campaign that it would be useful in. I kinda wish Aniikinis had gotten around to that redesign.