[3.5] Rakshasa Encounter

[Keld Denar]

So, I'm also planning a Rakshasa encounter for my upcoming Night Below game on Sunday. The book mentions that the Rakshasa dumps a Fireball on the party before closing for melee, backing out and casting Magic Missiles if it gets wounded (unlikely, it has 2 huge hooked horror guards and massive DR).

The spells listed in the MM are:
1st: Charm Person, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Shield, Silent Image
2nd: Bears Endurance, Invisibility, Acid Arrow
3rd: Haste, Suggestion

Given the fact that this one lives deep in the underdark surounded by hooked horrors, I'm thinking of dropping Charm Person and Suggestion. I was thinking about going with Fireball, as the campaign book suggests. Anyone have any thoughts on making my Rakshasa a bit more underdarky? I'm open to any spell suggestions in just about any book, but I'd like to stay away from really cheesy stuff like Power Word:Pain. I want to challenge my party, not kill them all off with no save.

PS, they are an 8th level BC Sorcerer, a 7th level Duskblade, a 7th level Archivist, a 7th level Unseen Seer blend, and a 6th level Beguiler. All about medium optimization.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Wall of Smoke or Benign Transposition would be a standard go-to for a 1st level spell, but probably not what you had in mind.

Ebon Eyes is decent, especially for the underdark, and combining it with magical darkness could put him at a significant advantage.

Drow of the Underdark has Snuff the Light, which takes a swift action to extinguish one nonmagical light source or suppress one alchemical light source for 1 round/level. There's no verbal component, so it's ideal for sneaking through an otherwise lit area. I'll have to keep this one in mind for future use.

[Keld Denar]

The party has a magical lantern that sheds Daylight, so magical darkness would get suppressed unless I had access to Deeper Darkness which is 4th level (and my Rakshasa only has 3rd level spells.

I do like Wall of Smoke, though.

Actually, Protection from Energy might be best if I give him Fireball. Assuming he'll get some time to buff (likely, my party is about as stealthy as a bear covered in pots and pans running through a glassware shop), he could easily drop Protection from Fire on his 2 minions and then Fireball them with impunity. He's CL7, so he hits the ER20 curb, and his 7d6 Fireballs will average about 24 damage.

I might have to give him that instead of Bears Endurance. That's a thought.

Plus, that keeps the party Sorceress from Webbing the crap out of them, since the Fireball will burn it away and deal some damage to the dwarf who likes to go into the web with Freedom of Movement.

[Alleran]

The party has a magical lantern that sheds Daylight, so magical darkness would get suppressed unless I had access to Deeper Darkness which is 4th level (and my Rakshasa only has 3rd level spells.
I tend to see a Rakshasa as schemers and planners, something you won't fight unless it seriously messed up or it wants you to fight, and fight on its own terms. So you could give it a 1/day Deeper Darkness magic item or something to that effect. It would fit with the sort of thing that a paranoid/scheming creature might keep on hand, just in case.

[Keld Denar]

They are also supremely arrogant, and will act as such unless a great show of force is made. This guy has been treated as a god for the last...something years by a hive of hooked horrors while he searches for one of his kind that he is supposed to bring back for "questioning".

Plus, deeper darkness would be crippling. The hooked horrors wouldn't care, they have echo location style blindsight. They operate just as well in it as not. The party would be absolutely boned, however. The horrors do enough damage that they can drop any party member if they both focus fire and claw/claw/bite/rend/grapple someone.

I'm not ready to absolutely gut the party. This is actually a relatively minor encounter in the grand scheme of things. I'll leave the really mean things to the Abolith.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

FYI a Continual Flame heightened to level 9 would be 1580 gp for standard NPC spellcasting fees. A Heightened Everburning Torch for that price will thwart any darkness effect of 8th level or lower, permanently.

Similarly, if he has any cleric allies they could cast (Heightened) Deeper Darkness on something of his a week ago and it will override lower level light effects. Using heighten spell on light and darkness effects may be the sort of arms race you just don't want to involve your party in, though.

[Keld Denar]

As I said, I don't really want to play the light game, yet. The lamp they have is actually an item in the module (with cool red glass so that it doesn't interfere with Infravision...it was a 2nd ed mod).

[Telok]

1: Mage Armor, Shield *2, Expeditious Retreat, Protection from Good or Obscuring Mist
2: Invisibility, Glitterdust, Resist Fire
3: Fireball, Haste or Protection from Good 10' or Wind Wall

A smart Rakshasa might keep a batch of humanoid slaves shackled to a chain nearby. If a fight goes badly he can retreat, kill them, don a set of shackles, and change shape into a badly wounded humanoid slave. Detect Thoughts and Bluff lets him allow the party to "rescue" him. This works better in his lair, it sounds like you're going for the Rakshasa ambushing the party.

[Essence_of_War]

I like Benign Transposition, that's a tricky little one that a Rakshasa would probably appreciate.

Other than wall of smoke, which is obviously great, "Underdarky" makes me think of:

Fist of Stone (1st). Would be a great choice if the Rakshasa actually wanted to melee (+6 to Str and an additional natural attack!)

Hail of Stone (1st). Sort of thematic, and is no save-just-take-damage.

Dawnburst (1st). Probably irrelevant to the PCs, but it sort of makes sense to a Rakshasa living in the Underdark.

Additionally, Karmic Aura could be a cute way to use swift actions.

[Keld Denar]

Well, I had the encounter. Party clomped about like the above mentioned bear in the above mentioned glassware store, so the Rakshasa got the jump on them. Starting behind a Wall of Smoke, which the party approached curiously, combat opened with a Fireball that hit everyone (almost everyone saved, DC16 is lolwut?, but half damage adds up!) and then a double pair of Hooked Horrors charging through the wall (made their saves) with Haste. The Hooked Horrors ended their charge shoulder to shoulder due to the 20' wide neck of the cave, so the party dropped Grease to trip them up, but they managed to drop the Duskblade even from prone. A Web went up from the Sorceress which was promptly burned away by the Rakshasa as he Fireballed his own troops (who had a precast Resist Energy(Fire) so they took no damage. Lucky for the party, the Rakshasa emerged from the Wall of Smoke and got Black Tentacled, and then one of the Hooked Horrors got stunned by a Sound Burst and finished off by a crit from the rogue, and the other got Deeper Slumbered on a botched save and CDGed by the Duskblade after the Archivist healed him back to consciousness.

If I had gone with Benign Transposition, the fight would have gone a lot worse. The Rakshasa could have BTed himself out of the Black Tentacles easily (DC16 Concentration check) and then the Hooked Horror could have broken free on his own (+18 grapple vs the Sorceress' +16) eventually. From the front lines, he could have finished off the Archivist, the Rogue, and the Beguiler because they could barely break through his DR 15/Piercing and Good and couldn't even touch his SR 27.

As it was, I knocked the Duskblade down to about -15 (we play to -Con score, and he has an 18 after racials), and almost everyone else was in single digits due to the 3ish Fireballs I was able to drop on them. It was a very tense encounter to say the least, and the 3rd encounter of the day so spells/day were pretty low to start with.

At least they were well rewarded. They recovered Finslayer, a +2 Morphing Bane:Aberration Bane:Aquatic Humanoid bastard sword with the special purpose of slaying ALL Kuo-toa and Aboleths who can detect them at will and cast Bless 3/day on it's own. So far I haven't had any ego battles with the Dwarven Duskblade who recovered it, but it should be interesting. I think I'll allow him to add his racial +2 vs spells to his ego checks to represent innate dwarven

It is Ego 17 right now (+5 sword with 2 lesser powers and a dedicated purpose, telepathy, Int/Wis 17, Cha 10), and I haven't picked it's dedicated purpose power. I'm not a huge fan of the sword casting spells, so I think I might go with the +2 luck bonus on attacks, saves, and skills, but only when within 60' (telepathy range) of Aboleth or Kuo-toa unless anyone has any other ideas.

[Seffbasilisk]

That Raksasha must have been surprised. They disdain combat, and usually manipulate proxies while remaining behind the scenes.


For the dedicated power, why not Air breathing? Counter the aboleth mucus, but don't sell it as that. Instead as something to let them breathe underwater? Maybe make them amphibious or somesuch?

[Keld Denar]

The adventure mod A Night Below (a 2nd ed book) says that unlike most Rakshasa, this one delights in physical combat.

Good call on the water breathing, though. I kinda like that.

[Essence_of_War]

So what's the moral of this story?

Never approach a mysterious wall of smoke or a Rakshasa and his merry band of Hooked Horrors will try to ruin your day. Also Benign Transposition is alarmingly good. :smalltongue:

Just to be clear, the Rakshasa met an ignominious end at the hand of the black tentacles? Man, the fact that spells auto-pass DR really worked out well for them!

[Keld Denar]

I didn't allow the Tentacles to damage the Rakshasa, just hold it. They explicitly deal bludgeoning damage, which, despite being from a spell, isn't good + piercing damage nor is it untyped spell damage or elemental damage. Maybe it was not the right thing to do, and if it wasn't SUCH specific DR, I might have allowed it (if it was DR 10/Magic, for example). The Rakshasa only had like, 42 HP, which they still chewed through reasonably fast, because of how much the grappling allowed the Duskblade to Power Attack for. It would have been the same thing, just 1-2 rounds quicker.

[Essence_of_War]

I didn't allow the Tentacles to damage the Rakshasa, just hold it. They explicitly deal bludgeoning damage, which, despite being from a spell, isn't good + piercing damage nor is it untyped spell damage or elemental damage.

I think that's the most sensible call, it seems like Black Tentacles goes out of its way to describe the damage type, which would be VERY silly if it had been intended to use the usual "all spells by-pass DR".

Even with EBT being a conjuration (creation) spell (so the damage is unequivocally being caused by the spell), I still think this is probably the most sensible interpretation.

Anyway, sounds like the encounter was a success!

[danzibr]

[...]we play to -Con score[...]
While I enjoyed the entire post, I wanted to comment that I'm definitely taking this as a new houserule!