Making an Improved Bullrush flying encounter

[Oko and Qailee]

Hey I was wondering if you guys had any good ideas for an improved bullrushing flying monster. The idea is that the PC's (all lvl 7) would be in a room filled with pillars that are spaced 5ft apart and only fit a single person at a time. ~20 ft below the pillars would be solid ground (and maybe a little bit of fire). I'm looking for something with CR 3-9 (if it's a low CR I'd just put multiple of the creatures, if high CR this would end up being a boos fight).

Anyway, if I couldn't find anything I was thinking of taking the griffin and removing it's Iron Will in exchange for bullrush. Any thoughts?


The reason for this is my D&D group sometimes meets to do a couple of random encounters on weeks where we don't have session (our DM is very busy) and I'm trying to think of creative encounters for us (one I am particularly proud of was a fight with a Zezir and two star elf fire sorcerers who ignited the Zezir's flammable goo).

[ericgrau]

Sure that should work fine. Improved bullrush requires power attack, so the griffon would have to lose another feat too. The only difficult part is figuring out how hard it will be for the PCs to beat it and therefore the CR.

The griffon is going to have a +12 to bullrush vs. the PC's ~+2 to +6. That gives him a 72%-84% chance of success by my calcs. The attack does up to 2d6 falling damage. Melee will only be knocked over again if he climbs up, so he's better off using a ranged weapon. Those who are primarily ranged won't be so bad off. With the reduced damage of a backup ranged weapon the griffons are about twice as good against melee (4 times as long to kill, but don't do any more damage than normal, so it averages out to 2x), for +2 to the CR. Because others besides melee aren't hampered, it might average to only CR +1. So I'd treat the griffons like CR 5 each instead of CR 4.

A griffon only has average maneuverability so he must circle around after each attack, moving at least 40 feet before the next one. As long as he has a 20 foot diameter circle to fly in that shouldn't be a problem though. On a failed bullrush it would provoke an attack of opportunity though from moving away from the guy standing on the pillar.

[Oko and Qailee]

Sure that should work fine. Improved bullrush requires power attack, so the griffon would have to lose another feat too. The only difficult part is figuring out how hard it will be for the PCs to beat it and therefore the CR.
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So far our group does seem to fight at above average ECL. We have a cleric, Rouge (who rolled a total mod of +10...), Warblade, and Warlock dead guy (he has the dead commoner feat, he is essentially an animated object with permanence or something like that.)

I probably will treat them as 1 CR higher, since I think the group has decent tools to deal with them (rouge has +abazillion tumble, climb, and jump, cleric is a cleric, warlock is so optimized (despite being nerfed as a dead commoner) that it's not even funny, and the Warblade does warbladey things and also has a decent jump and tumble.)

[ericgrau]

Well most should make the DC 10 jump checks (5 x 2 for no running start). Unless the melee climbers are super fast to move up and attack in the same turn they'll just get knocked over again before they can attack though. Climbing is at 1/4 speed, or 1/2 if you take a -5 penalty. I figured all the melee would be forced to pull out slings and bows and fight from down below. The warlock and probably the cleric wouldn't have any trouble though. So ya if the cleric is ok that's an average of +1 CR.

The jump DC to run and leap 12 feet in the air and slice the griffon is 48. Which is hard but not impossible with major jump optimization. Medium characters can reach 8 feet above their feet which accounts for the rest of the 20 feet.

[Oko and Qailee]

Well most should make the DC 10 jump checks (5 x 2 for no running start). Unless the melee climbers are super fast to move up and attack in the same turn they'll just get knocked over again before they can attack though. Climbing is at 1/4 speed, or 1/2 if you take a -5 penalty. I figured all the melee would be forced to pull out slings and bows and fight from down below. The warlock and probably the cleric wouldn't have any trouble though. So ya if the cleric is ok that's an average of +1 CR.

The jump DC to run and leap 12 feet in the air and slice the griffon is 48. Which is hard but not impossible with major jump optimization. Medium characters can reach 8 feet above their feet which accounts for the rest of the 20 feet.

Our warblade and Rouge both have excellent jump mods.

What I'm thinking is also adding ladders to the pillars, essentially a DC 5 or 10 check. Taking a minus 20 would at least allow our rouge to climb up at full move (he would be able to make it with a roll of 9 at DC5 or 14 at DC 10)