Help Creating a 3.5e Siren!

[Fushigi]

Hello all,

I have never DM'd before, but our group is kind of taking turns DMing and I figured I'd take a shot at it. The problem is I'm REALLY new to D&D, so I'm not sure what's available to me basically.

I plan to have a girl named Melody. I want to create her to be a Siren, more or less, being able to control, daze, or otherwise mess with the players (specifically male only if possible).

All of our characters except one person are Level 12. What level should she be (she's supposed to be this quest's boss)? How can I build her? I am only allowed to use information actually printed in D&D books, no homebrew, unfortunately. Any help?

[ArcturusV]

Well, the obvious creature that comes to mind is the Nymph. Adding something like the Feykissed Template would make it even more dangerous. Add a few levels of Bard, and you're basically exactly where you'd want.

Depending on power levels for the Boss, that is.

The only real problem is Nymphs are Good Creatures normally. So if you want it to be a typical evil villain you'd need a good story to explain it. Or hope your players forgot they are naturally good.

You could, if Evil is the thing, replace Bard Levels and Fey Kissed with Dark Speech. Lower power level in general but would have a lot of the same ability to hurt people and generally mess them over with the words coming out of her mouth.

A Neried with Bard Levels, or Sorcerer focused on Illusions and Enchantments, could also suffice.

[mattie_p]

How fatal do you want this to be? An encounter with a Harpy (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/harpy.htm) Siren 10 (prestige class for Harpies, Savage Species p84-86) is a CR 14 fight. DC for most of the supernatural abilities will be 12 + 10 (Siren Level) + 7 (Cha modifier) = 29.

[Fushigi]

Thank you both for your reply! I will look into both of your suggestions.

And @mattie_p, there are 8 of us. 6 male, 2 female (which is why I think it would be interesting to make the males useless for a bit). So I'm not sure what an appropriate level would be for us to fight if we are all 12 except one 13. Also, I'd like this to be a fairly difficult fight lasting more than 2 rounds (typically we barely get through 2 because of the shear amount of players we have!)

[Tantaburs]

Thank you both for your reply! I will look into both of your suggestions.

And @mattie_p, there are 8 of us. 6 male, 2 female (which is why I think it would be interesting to make the males useless for a bit). So I'm not sure what an appropriate level would be for us to fight if we are all 12 except one 13. Also, I'd like this to be a fairly difficult fight lasting more than 2 rounds (typically we barely get through 2 because of the shear amount of players we have!)

The important thing if there are 8 PCs is to try to balance the action economy. If the party gets 8 actions for every 1 the boss gets then it will be over quite quickly. Instead of one CR 14 send them against 2 Cr 12s or 3 Cr 11s

[Fushigi]

Well, would CR 14 Melody and two or three CR 13s be okay? Last mission we had 4 CR 12s and it only took 1.5 rounds.

Also, so what I'm gathering is that there is no way to make a traditional Siren, as in, I can't have it only affect male players? Also, if I took the Harpy, which is CR 4, then I could/would just add the 10 levels of Siren, effectively adding 10 to the CR, and adjust the stats based on bonuses for Siren? Does she get feats and abilities points like players do?

[Urpriest]

Well, would CR 14 Melody and two or three CR 13s be okay? Last mission we had 4 CR 12s and it only took 1.5 rounds.

Also, so what I'm gathering is that there is no way to make a traditional Siren, as in, I can't have it only affect male players? Also, if I took the Harpy, which is CR 4, then I could/would just add the 10 levels of Siren, effectively adding 10 to the CR, and adjust the stats based on bonuses for Siren? Does she get feats and abilities points like players do?

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is that if you're DMing, you really need to understand the monster rules backwards and forwards. They become most essential when you modify monsters like you're trying to do now, but it's important for running monsters too, or even just for playing at high levels. If you aren't familiar with what happens to a monster when you add class levels then you really ought to read my Monster Handbook, link in sig.

There's very little gender-dependent stuff in D&D, so you're unlikely to find an ability that will only work on male characters (let alone male players! :smallwink:). The only thing like that I can think of off-hand is the Swashbuckler's Seduction ability, picked up through the dead levels articles (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20070227x). But that only works on NPCs.

Edit: Eight PCs means you're about double the standard party, so you should be facing things with EL two higher than normal. Since it's a "boss" encounter you might want to add an EL or two to make it more climactic and challenging. So if Melody ends up as CR 14, having her have two CR 12 bodyguards would in general be fine. That said, if you feel like the party can handle it, bumping those guys up to CR 13 or adding another should still be doable. Do be aware that more challenging encounters often go faster, not slower, as both groups use their most powerful abilities to speed up the fight.

[Fushigi]

The long answer is that if you're DMing, you really need to understand the monster rules backwards and forwards. They become most essential when you modify monsters like you're trying to do now, but it's important for running monsters too, or even just for playing at high levels. If you aren't familiar with what happens to a monster when you add class levels then you really ought to read my Monster Handbook, link in sig.

There's very little gender-dependent stuff in D&D, so you're unlikely to find an ability that will only work on male characters (let alone male players! :smallwink:). The only thing like that I can think of off-hand is the Swashbuckler's Seduction ability, picked up through the dead levels articles (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20070227x). But that only works on NPCs.

Thanks. Could I use any tools to "push" it that way? Like, I know my group sometimes uses "circumstance" penalties or bonuses. Could I use those to give a penalty to the saves for the males and bonuses to the saves for females?

Also, I plan on reading the Monster Handbook and such, I was just trying to get an idea of what I could do from more veteran D&D players. Always a good idea to ask the experts.

[ArcturusV]

Also having some disposable mooks would really help a Boss Encounter like that, since you have so many players. One of the things I really liked in 4th Edition was the Minion Monster type. And porting that idea over can really help flesh out encounters where you have a lot of PCs to worry about.

Simple ideas behind it?

The "minions" have standard stats for it's level. So if you throw a CR 13 minion out there? It'll attack like a 13 HD monster and be roughly on par as far as BAB, Attacks, SLAs, Saves, Skills, Dealing Damage, etc, with what you'd expect from a 13 HD monster. However if they take any HP damage, they die.

I normally wouldn't suggest using something like this, but the large amount of bodies you have in the PC Party makes it an obvious step to take in my mind.

So you have something like Melody, the Siren at CR 15. Plus three "bodyguards" of some sort at CR 13. Plus a dozen "Thralls" at CR 12, people she had lured in and basically been toying with for a few days when the PCs find her, who will fight to defend Melody.

Now that sounds a bit like you might have the standard Kobold problem in that enemy numbers can come in a wipe out the party through action economy, lucky crits, etc. But the paper tiger nature of the minion/thralls means that they can go down pretty fast. Your Fighter who picked up Great Cleave actually has a reason to use it for a change, etc.

[Urpriest]

Thanks. Could I use any tools to "push" it that way? Like, I know my group sometimes uses "circumstance" penalties or bonuses. Could I use those to give a penalty to the saves for the males and bonuses to the saves for females?


You could probably do something like that. I'd only make it around +2 or -2, though, as ad-hoc circumstance bonuses and penalties aren't supposed to go much beyond that. And only do it if your group usually uses those sorts of bonuses/penalties.

[Fushigi]

Also having some disposable mooks would really help a Boss Encounter like that, since you have so many players. One of the things I really liked in 4th Edition was the Minion Monster type. And porting that idea over can really help flesh out encounters where you have a lot of PCs to worry about.

Simple ideas behind it?

The "minions" have standard stats for it's level. So if you throw a CR 13 minion out there? It'll attack like a 13 HD monster and be roughly on par as far as BAB, Attacks, SLAs, Saves, Skills, Dealing Damage, etc, with what you'd expect from a 13 HD monster. However if they take any HP damage, they die.

I normally wouldn't suggest using something like this, but the large amount of bodies you have in the PC Party makes it an obvious step to take in my mind.

So you have something like Melody, the Siren at CR 15. Plus three "bodyguards" of some sort at CR 13. Plus a dozen "Thralls" at CR 12, people she had lured in and basically been toying with for a few days when the PCs find her, who will fight to defend Melody.

Now that sounds a bit like you might have the standard Kobold problem in that enemy numbers can come in a wipe out the party through action economy, lucky crits, etc. But the paper tiger nature of the minion/thralls means that they can go down pretty fast. Your Fighter who picked up Great Cleave actually has a reason to use it for a change, etc.

I really love this idea, but my group is a stickler for rules. Is there anything in one of the 3.5 books that says I can do this? Or anything that says I can't?


You could probably do something like that. I'd only make it around +2 or -2, though, as ad-hoc circumstance bonuses and penalties aren't supposed to go much beyond that. And only do it if your group usually uses those sorts of bonuses/penalties.

Thank you for your help! I think I'll look over some ideas this weekend and see what I can come up with. Would you be willing to look over my ideas when I post them?

[ArcturusV]

Eh. The closest to it that says you can't is the general rule that when you gain a Hit Dice, regardless of any penalties it's a minimum of +1 HP gained.

Though it would be perfectly legit in the rules to have 10 Con Mooks with 13 HD to only have 13 HP. Which is close enough to the effect when you're dealing with Players of that level, if they can't do 23 damage in a hit something is pretty off kilter.

[Fushigi]

So I think I want to go for the Harpy, but I planned on having her follow us throughout the dungeon and turn on us at the end (pretty typical plot, but I plan to make it seem impossible to think of that she'd turn). Now my problem is, that I know my group, and no one is going to follow a Harpy through a dungeon. Which brings me to my next question, is there a way that I could make the Harpy appear as another race? Like, a sickly elven woman or something?

One of my main issues is that one of our group detects magic all day long, so I'd have to make it so that he wouldn't notice anything about it. I was looking into polymorph, but I don't think I could pass her off as polymorphed without one of her minions at the end changing her, which I don't think they'd be high enough level to cast for the length of the dungeon.

So here I am to ask the experts. How can I make this work?

[Fushigi]

I think for Melody, I will have her be the Harpy Siren 10 with a Psychoactive Skin - Proteus. If I am correct, because it's a Psionic Item, the magic detecting person could not detect it, therefore allowing her to be a nymph as far as the party knows. But I also have a character with Mindsight. Would her having a ring of Block Telepathy stop his Mindsight?