Demonweb Pits: Hammer of Lolth (need your help!)

[jiriku]

I'm revising Expedition to the Demonweb Pits for use with my group, and I need help with encounter D10, the Hammer of Lolth. The Hammer is basically a carbon copy of the Aspect of Lolth in the Miniatures Handbook, and the thing is such a disgrace to its challenge rating that I don't think I can salvage it. Can anyone point me towards a more usable alternate in the range of CR 11-13, or offer suggestions as to how I might build a replacement? I'm kind of running dry on good ideas.

[*.*.*.*]

Advanced Drider?

[Chilingsworth]

Advanced Drider?

Advanced half-fiend, anarchic drider. (Anrachic is the chaotic equivilant to fiendish/celestial and can be found in the Planar Handbook.)

[Runestar]

Can't you just have it wield a magical weapon or something? From what I see, it has good stats overall, just that its statblock has it attacking with just 1 bite attack each round for pitiful damage. Also, give it magical mithral chain while you are at it for the added AC boost.

As an outsider, it is automatically proficient with martial weapons, so give it a +2 spear or rapier or something and now it has 3 attacks, and can still bite as a secondary attack!:smallsmile:

[Zaq]

Toss on a few class levels. I don't have the book, so I don't know what the critter looks like to begin with, but if it's a brutish type, a ToB class is always a good choice, just because half of their HD will count towards their initiator level.

Also, a few levels of Warlock can do interesting things. Don't use Eldritch Blast if you haven't built the whole character around it (which you haven't), but invocations can do some very nifty things, and even just a couple of them can really change the way a creature fights, especially if they have tricks besides that.