MonsterDex: Strategies for taking down D&D's iconic foes

[Piggy Knowles]

In my most recent gaming session, we just came up against a couple of beholders. Now, this group is usually loathe to plan anything - even convincing them to do things like not run into my conjurer's stinking clouds or not wasting money on boosting their weapon's bonus when I can cast greater magic weapon is a stretch. But beholders shook them enough that they all stopped and decided to plan out their attack.

It made me think, though. There are a lot of iconic D&D monsters that will eat you alive (often literally) if you just charge straight in. Beholders are particularly nasty, as are dragons. But I don't know of any resource dedicated to strategies that work particularly well against any given foe.

So, I thought I'd put this up to the Playground. Any iconic monsters that you had trouble with, and you want to see some strategy ideas for? Any particular tactics that worked well for your group? Things you think are important to watch out for? Post it here, and I'll update these posts with relevant info. This way, there is one place where people can refer to for ideas on how to face off against otherwise terrifying enemies.

I'll start things off with a few fairly basic notes on dragons, just to get the ball rolling.

1

CURRENT MONSTERS:

Dragons
Beholders
Liches


MONSTERS TO COME:

Illithid
Aboleths
Tarrasque
Balor
Rakshasa
Clockwork Horrors?
That Dang Crab?


DRAGONS:


Things to watch out for


A dragon's two most potent weapons are its treasure and its spellcasting. A well-prepared dragon can often use spells or items to negate many of these strategies listed. For example, scintillating scales significantly reduces the issue dragons have with touch AC. Going up against a well prepared high-level dragon without disjunction or similar effects can often be suicide.
Don't underestimate frightful presence. Dragons tend to have high HD for their CR, meaning that the saves will be quite high. Without immunity to fear, you're guaranteed at least a minor debuff, and the possibility of being completely taken out of the fight before you can even swing your sword.
Tremendous move speed, spells and strafing attacks means that dragons are the ultimate hit-and-run fighter.
I know it was mentioned above, but dragons are insanely unpredictable, depending on feat, spell and item loadout. Two similar dragons can play as two completely different encounters. As always, research is important.


Effective strategies


Low touch AC and low Dex means that rays and touch spells can be particularly potent, especially shivering touch. Assay spell resistance, shivering touch and some sort of delivery method (spectral hand, spell storing items, spell channeling, etc.) will often one-shot any unprepared dragon.
Most dragons rely on their blindsense to detect enemies. Darkstalker can easily foil this, and at higher levels, mind blank will fool most magical detection methods they can throw at you.
The dragon's poor flight maneuverability is a significant disadvantage - if you can debuff their speed or keep them entangled so they can't keep enough forward momentum to stay aloft, you can bring them down to your level.



BEHOLDERS:


Things to watch out for


As flying enemies with an at-will antimagic effect, be sure that you are not relying on magical means of flight to reach them, or you could be facing down a long fall.
While you seemingly can ignore many of the beholder's rays while within their AMF, watch out for telekinesis, and having things chucked at you.
Disintegrate ray is an effective way of forcing through many methods of battlefield control and terrain concerns for beholders.
Beholders are smart enough to force fights into terrain that favors them, particularly underground tunnels and caverns.
Although they are slow, perfect flight means they can turn in place and aren't heavily penalized by effects like entangled.


Effective strategies


For all that they are offensive powerhouses, beholders have surprisingly low HP for their CR, so just pounding them with long-range arrows and spells, or flying chargers (although watch out for AMF), should be enough to bring them down rapidly.
Spells such as move earth and stone shape can help reduce the terrain advantage a beholder often has from fighting in its own lair.
The range on almost all of the beholder's abilities is 150', and their move speed is low, so if you can remain outside of that range, there is very little they can do to you.
The spell ray deflection can protect you from many of the beholder's abilities.
The spell seething eyebane from BoVD is a potent offensive weapon against beholders, although it does allow a Fort save, so consider debuffing them first. (Also, depending on alignment this may not be available, as it is a corrupt spell.)
The beholder's stats overall are fairly low, so consider effects that deal ability damage.


LICHES:


Lynching the Lich: Taking down Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics with more.

Things to watch out for:

A Lich can be a spellcaster (Divine, Arcane, Psionic, etc) of extraordinary power. As such you must be aware of their spellcasting over their physical prowess as a single spell can be the end of a would be Lich Hunter.
Although a Lich is not physically capable they do posses several abilities that augment their powers (either obtained through their practice or training):

The Lich has a touch attack that harms the very soul of their target that channels negative energy. For lesser would be hunters this can result in paralysis and if it results in death you should not have been hunting a Lich in the first place.
The procedure for creating a Lich hardens the body they inhabit making them much more durable towards physical attacks.
The very presence of a Lich can frighten those of lesser mettle. This "aura" can often send a would be hunter into a panicked frenzy, attempting to flee. Note: A would be hunter should always posses an immediate escape option.
The Lich's senses are heightened to the point where attempting an ambush will almost always result in the death of the Hunter. They can see in pitch darkness and on average can hear and see a minimum of 80ft further than a normal spellcaster. It should also be noted that a Lich's footsteps are much difficult to hear, the reason for this is unknown, however one should attempt to at least improve their sense to prevent a Lich's ambush.
The most frightening aspect of fighting a Lich is not always their spellcasting, often it is their resources. It has been said that a Dragon's hoard can purchase an entire empire, but a Lich's hoard can conquer it. In addition to near immortality, these creatures can attack a would be hunter with any number of magical items.

All Lich's are spellcasters of some sort or another, however with so many different variations of spellcaster, the Lich can posses any number of abilities (and often do) so you're primary weapon for fighting such a creature would undoubtedly be research. One of the greatest strengths of the Lich is it's near immortality and surely such a creature must have appeared in history before (either before or after Lichdom). It is up to you to obtain this information and use it against the Lich. It should be noted that a Lich will often continue it's training in which ever profession it held in life (A Wizard will continue training as a Wizard and so on and so forth).
A Lich has had years of time to plan and scheme making them master generals when commanding troops of any kind. Often they will use the undead because of their easy production and even easier control. Because of this, most Lich's will layer their lairs with entire legions of undead to slow down and dwindle supplies of would be hunters.
Never trust a Lich. They share tongues with Beelzebub and will likely lie to get out of any situation they are in, if it cannot be overcome with magic. Remember, a Lich in an Anti-magic field is still armed with his tongue.
Lich's are thick and thin undead, however they are undead with super genius level intelligence. As such they are immune to most mind effecting spells and powers, are immune to forced slumber, poisons, paralysis, disease, stunning and death. Their internal organs have long since ceased to function and therefore offer no critical damage when struck, their nerves and muscles have stopped function as well preventing them from tiring or growing vulnerable. The Lich is now entirely powered by Negative energy in place of these functions. It should also be noted that a Lich, as a creature of Negative energy, is much more difficult to turn than a normal undead.

Effective strategies:

Research, Research, Research. I cannot stress this enough, if you know the Lich's background then you have a much better chance of getting close to it. Often magical augmented research might help as long as you avoid subjects pertaining to only the Lich (as you might alert it to your presence).
Find the Phylactery. As has been mentioned time and time again, Lich's are semi-immortal Spellcasters who performed a procedure that converted them from a creature of flesh and blood, to an undead abomination. This procedure ties their soul to an object known as a "Phylactery" which a would be hunter must destroy before successfully killing a Lich (otherwise making death a mere inconvenience for the Lich). Often a Lich will hide their phylactery in either:
"The last place anyone would look" (Or at least the last place THEY would look, serious try emptying out your handy haversack, it has been done before.)
The rift created from a torn bag of holding (difficult, but not entire impossible).
Somewhere truly meaningful to the Lich (only a foolish Lich would actually do this).

Taking away the Lich's spellcasting is a certain way to kill it. This can be performed by surrounding the Lich in an Anti-magic field, grappling it, throwing it into an area of silence, making the creature deaf (as to incorrectly pronounce the verbal components to their spells) or, my personal favorite, taking away the Lich's spell component pouch (easier said than done).

I've no idea what more to add, since I think I covered the basics in hunting a Lich here. If you think of any more to add, please feel free to do so :smalltongue:

[Piggy Knowles]

Reserved, in case I need it.

[TuggyNE]

Aboleths and clockwork horrors should probably also be included (although I don't know how iconic the horrors are really).

Maybe illithids.

TDC isn't iconic, otherwise it'd definitely be in the list.

Special mention to the Tarrasque for being so comparatively easy to defeat with the right tactics (and absurdly dangerous with the wrong ones).

[Chronos]

Since you mentioned beholders: Their abilities are all relatively short-ranged, and they move slowly. So just stay far enough away that they can't zorch you, and plink away with bows and long-range spells.

The problem is, they're highly intelligent, and already know this. Thus, beholder lairs tend to be underground, in twisty tunnels with no straight section longer than the range of their eye beams. So terrain-altering spells like Stone Shape and Move Earth become essential.

Alternately, you can always just run for it. If their lair is too customized for your comfort, leave the lair. They can't follow you too far outside without exposing themselves to long-ranged attacks.

[Doorhandle]

A general thing like this should have been started a while back. I think we need a section on each beast about how to negate the negating of each one's essential weaknesses.

As for dragons, you should mention getting energy resistantance. it's self-explanatory, but it bear repeating. Also, beware of trickery (white dragon painting itself green) and again, spells (red dragon using cone of cold.) to bypass your abilities.

Dragons make excellent hit-and-run attackers due to flight, spells, potent single attacks, and their breath weapons, so preventing their flight and teleport at higher levels should be up there as well.

[Venger]

beholders are tricky assuming you're going up against them below lvl 13, which it sounds like you are. what's your party breakdown? lvls, classes, etc.

but in general (fought plenty of beholders in my games too) here's a couple things to keep in mind:

beholders have somewhat low ability scores with strength being its worst at a 10. if you can hit it with some str damaging poison in tandem with a ray of enfeeblement (or escalating enfeeblement since you're playing wizard) then you can render it helpless in relative short order (helpless meaning unable to move) so it can't rotate and move its eyes, allowing one of your party to CDG it in relative short order

their eye rays, being Su, are keyed off of cha. as mentioned, beholders have pretty low cha (15) so if you can lower it somehow (ego whip, etc) you can essentially let it blast you with eye rays all it likes and just not care very much since the save dc will be so low. again, with enough damage, you can CDG it when it becomes unconscious (safer than helpless since he can't fire at people in his LOF

I'm not sure if your character uses corrupt spells (alignment, etc) but bovd's seething eyebane is tailor made for beholders. debuff his fort (you're a wizard, there are zillions of ways for you and your friends to do so) and then blast him with seething eyebane. fails his fort save and he is permanently blinded and his eyes explode after that, he's just a floating head trying impotently to bite you for 2d4, so you can kill him at your leisure

depending on your group's op level, beholders don't have a lot of health. it's viable for a solid melee character to just demolish his low 93hp in one full attack if positioning can be finagled properly. since you specialize in conjuration, check out the many interesting tactical teleportation spells in PHB2 and the spell compendium (dimension hop, dimension shuffle, scattering trap, etc) in order to get your friends next to the beholder and ignore his AMF (since you're casting the spell outside of it) or depending on your level, move them over with telekinesis or the like

my DM likes "iconic" monsters a lot, so if you update with moar monsters, I can give you tips from my experience generalized to a wider audience

[Piggy Knowles]

Thanks for the updates, folks. I'll try to edit in the main post soon.


Aboleths and clockwork horrors should probably also be included (although I don't know how iconic the horrors are really).

Maybe illithids.

TDC isn't iconic, otherwise it'd definitely be in the list.

Special mention to the Tarrasque for being so comparatively easy to defeat with the right tactics (and absurdly dangerous with the wrong ones).

Definitely want to include aboleths and illithids, hadn't really thought about clockwork horrors.

I guess the tarrasque comes up enough that it's worth including, even if it's just a really long list of things that completely trivialize the encounter.


Since you mentioned beholders: Their abilities are all relatively short-ranged, and they move slowly. So just stay far enough away that they can't zorch you, and plink away with bows and long-range spells.

The problem is, they're highly intelligent, and already know this. Thus, beholder lairs tend to be underground, in twisty tunnels with no straight section longer than the range of their eye beams. So terrain-altering spells like Stone Shape and Move Earth become essential.

Alternately, you can always just run for it. If their lair is too customized for your comfort, leave the lair. They can't follow you too far outside without exposing themselves to long-ranged attacks.

Yeah, definitely going to mention the range on their attacks and the slow move speed, as well as the fact that they have fairly low HP for CR 13. Hadn't thought about adding in things like stone shape/move earth to shift terrain advantage though. Nice thought.


A general thing like this should have been started a while back. I think we need a section on each beast about how to negate the negating of each one's essential weaknesses.

As for dragons, you should mention getting energy resistantance. it's self-explanatory, but it bear repeating. Also, beware of trickery (white dragon painting itself green) and again, spells (red dragon using cone of cold.) to bypass your abilities.

Dragons make excellent hit-and-run attackers due to flight, spells, potent single attacks, and their breath weapons, so preventing their flight and teleport at higher levels should be up there as well.

I tend to think that a well-played dragon is just the most dangerous encounter in the game, and dragons are ridiculously under-CRed. The spellcasting in particular just makes them so unpredictable, and hard to come up with one particular solution (other than shivering touch and hope for the best).

I'll add in a mention about things to watch out for.


beholders are tricky assuming you're going up against them below lvl 13, which it sounds like you are. what's your party breakdown? lvls, classes, etc.

I'll spoiler this so as not to get too far off topic:

I'm not too worried personally; this group is pretty poorly optimized and only levels 9-10, but it's a HUGE group - there's me (wizard/master specialist), an archery-focused ranger, a cleric/walker in the waste, a druid that just joined but seems so far to like turning into a bird and using blasting spells from above, a daring outlaw swashbuckler, a weird gun-focused character that's pretty ineffectual, and some sort of third party divine melee guy.

In any case, it's two beholders, but we've spotted them early, so our goal is to take advantage of our numbers and the fact that they have fairly low HP. The encounter won't start until next session, but I've already pre-buffed the group pretty heavily to the point where I'm fairly confident we can take the first one out in one attack routine, barring any bad rolls. The other one will be held at bay temporarily with conjuration effects (it can disintegrate through them of course, but the goal is really just to not have another beholder on our backs while we finish the first).

Sadly only me and the ranger have anything with greater than 150' range available to us, but I'm still fairly confident we can pull it off.


but in general (fought plenty of beholders in my games too) here's a couple things to keep in mind:

beholders have somewhat low ability scores with strength being its worst at a 10. if you can hit it with some str damaging poison in tandem with a ray of enfeeblement (or escalating enfeeblement since you're playing wizard) then you can render it helpless in relative short order (helpless meaning unable to move) so it can't rotate and move its eyes, allowing one of your party to CDG it in relative short order

their eye rays, being Su, are keyed off of cha. as mentioned, beholders have pretty low cha (15) so if you can lower it somehow (ego whip, etc) you can essentially let it blast you with eye rays all it likes and just not care very much since the save dc will be so low. again, with enough damage, you can CDG it when it becomes unconscious (safer than helpless since he can't fire at people in his LOF

I'm not sure if your character uses corrupt spells (alignment, etc) but bovd's seething eyebane is tailor made for beholders. debuff his fort (you're a wizard, there are zillions of ways for you and your friends to do so) and then blast him with seething eyebane. fails his fort save and he is permanently blinded and his eyes explode after that, he's just a floating head trying impotently to bite you for 2d4, so you can kill him at your leisure

depending on your group's op level, beholders don't have a lot of health. it's viable for a solid melee character to just demolish his low 93hp in one full attack if positioning can be finagled properly. since you specialize in conjuration, check out the many interesting tactical teleportation spells in PHB2 and the spell compendium (dimension hop, dimension shuffle, scattering trap, etc) in order to get your friends next to the beholder and ignore his AMF (since you're casting the spell outside of it) or depending on your level, move them over with telekinesis or the like

I'll make sure to mention a lot of this. I've definitely already planned on including the max range of 150' on most of the beholder's abilities and the low HP, I'll add in some of this as well.

[Arcanist]

Lynching the Lich: Taking down Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics with more.

Things to watch out for:

A Lich can be a spellcaster (Divine, Arcane, Psionic, etc) of extraordinary power. As such you must be aware of their spellcasting over their physical prowess as a single spell can be the end of a would be Lich Hunter.
Although a Lich is not physically capable they do posses several abilities that augment their powers (either obtained through their practice or training):

The Lich has a touch attack that harms the very soul of their target that channels negative energy. For lesser would be hunters this can result in paralysis and if it results in death you should not have been hunting a Lich in the first place.
The procedure for creating a Lich hardens the body they inhabit making them much more durable towards physical attacks.
The very presence of a Lich can frighten those of lesser mettle. This "aura" can often send a would be hunter into a panicked frenzy, attempting to flee. Note: A would be hunter should always posses an immediate escape option.
The Lich's senses are heightened to the point where attempting an ambush will almost always result in the death of the Hunter. They can see in pitch darkness and on average can hear and see a minimum of 80ft further than a normal spellcaster. It should also be noted that a Lich's footsteps are much difficult to hear, the reason for this is unknown, however one should attempt to at least improve their sense to prevent a Lich's ambush.
The most frightening aspect of fighting a Lich is not always their spellcasting, often it is their resources. It has been said that a Dragon's hoard can purchase an entire empire, but a Lich's hoard can conquer it. In addition to near immortality, these creatures can attack a would be hunter with any number of magical items.

All Lich's are spellcasters of some sort or another, however with so many different variations of spellcaster, the Lich can posses any number of abilities (and often do) so you're primary weapon for fighting such a creature would undoubtedly be research. One of the greatest strengths of the Lich is it's near immortality and surely such a creature must have appeared in history before (either before or after Lichdom). It is up to you to obtain this information and use it against the Lich. It should be noted that a Lich will often continue it's training in which ever profession it held in life (A Wizard will continue training as a Wizard and so on and so forth).
A Lich has had years of time to plan and scheme making them master generals when commanding troops of any kind. Often they will use the undead because of their easy production and even easier control. Because of this, most Lich's will layer their lairs with entire legions of undead to slow down and dwindle supplies of would be hunters.
Never trust a Lich. They share tongues with Beelzebub and will likely lie to get out of any situation they are in, if it cannot be overcome with magic. Remember, a Lich in an Anti-magic field is still armed with his tongue.
Lich's are thick and thin undead, however they are undead with super genius level intelligence. As such they are immune to most mind effecting spells and powers, are immune to forced slumber, poisons, paralysis, disease, stunning and death. Their internal organs have long since ceased to function and therefore offer no critical damage when struck, their nerves and muscles have stopped function as well preventing them from tiring or growing vulnerable. The Lich is now entirely powered by Negative energy in place of these functions. It should also be noted that a Lich, as a creature of Negative energy, is much more difficult to turn than a normal undead.

Effective strategies:

Research, Research, Research. I cannot stress this enough, if you know the Lich's background then you have a much better chance of getting close to it. Often magical augmented research might help as long as you avoid subjects pertaining to only the Lich (as you might alert it to your presence).
Find the Phylactery. As has been mentioned time and time again, Lich's are semi-immortal Spellcasters who performed a procedure that converted them from a creature of flesh and blood, to an undead abomination. This procedure ties their soul to an object known as a "Phylactery" which a would be hunter must destroy before successfully killing a Lich (otherwise making death a mere inconvenience for the Lich). Often a Lich will hide their phylactery in either:
"The last place anyone would look" (Or at least the last place THEY would look, serious try emptying out your handy haversack, it has been done before.)
The rift created from a torn bag of holding (difficult, but not entire impossible).
Somewhere truly meaningful to the Lich (only a foolish Lich would actually do this).

Taking away the Lich's spellcasting is a certain way to kill it. This can be performed by surrounding the Lich in an Anti-magic field, grappling it, throwing it into an area of silence, making the creature deaf (as to incorrectly pronounce the verbal components to their spells) or, my personal favorite, taking away the Lich's spell component pouch (easier said than done).
The undead, and therefore the Lich are highly vulnerable to spells that effect objects and fortitude saves. Spells such as Disintegrate can result in a quick kill of the creature. It should be noted that Lich's are immune to spells that polymorph their form (Of course, they can polymorph themselves).

I've no idea what more to add, since I think I covered the basics in hunting a Lich here. If you think of any more to add, please feel free to do so :smalltongue:

[Seharvepernfan]

Remember, a Lich in an Anti-magic field is still armed with his tongue.

Metaphorically, anyway.

[Hamste]

Remember you don't always have to sunder weapons. You can sunder spell component pouches for a hilarious way to counter casters without eschew materials.

It has a ac of 10+ it's size modifier (probably tiny for a +2)+dex bonus... That means it's ac would probably be around 16.

With Improved sunder you will be able to sunder component pouches nearly every time. Seriously, sunder is a jerk move but it solves so many problems.

[Chronos]

The tricky thing with dragons is that there really is no default dragon. The book gives the skeleton of their capabilities, but there's the expectation that if a DM throws a dragon into a game, he's going to custom-build it (this can be done with any monster, of course, but it's expected of the dragon). This is made even worse by the wealth of customization options provided by Draconomicon, Dragon Magic, and Races of the Dragon, plus of course all of the spells in any book at all and most of the feats (dragons can get good use out of feats intended both for fighter-types and for spellcasters).

[Kuulvheysoon]

Techically, you can't have a Psionic Lich. The ritual requires a caster level of 11th. Funny enough, however, that this opens up the possibility for a Shadowcaster Lich.

As for psionics, there's the Spectral Savant (CPsi), which is an unfortunate mix between vampire, ghost and lich.

[Heart]

There is a third party book, Hyperconscious: Explorations in Psionics, That has a psionic lich template. And i honestly could have sworn there was an official psionic lich variant floating around on the internet somewhere, but my google skills are failing me right now.

[Mithril Leaf]

Techically, you can't have a Psionic Lich. The ritual requires a caster level of 11th. Funny enough, however, that this opens up the possibility for a Shadowcaster Lich.

As for psionics, there's the Spectral Savant (CPsi), which is an unfortunate mix between vampire, ghost and lich.

If Hyperconscious is on the table you have the actually really good Psionic Lich. That's (commonly allowed) 3rd party material though.

EDIT: Laziness ninja'd.

[Cirrylius]

BEHOLDERS:

EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES:

Research a new spell; Summon Moe Howard IV.

[Tvtyrant]

Beholders are really, really easy to kill using an AMF grapplebarian. Barbarian uses some sort of AMF device (the manacles work if you can still attack in them) and then runs up and grapples the Beholder. My brothers Goliath Bear Totem Barbarian has a grapple of 27 without any magical items (while raging.) More than enough to simply hold the thing down and punch it to death; The Beholder has a 12 on their grapple check, so it would take a roll of 20 to beat the Barbarian if the Barbarian rolled a 5.

[Xervous]

The first step to easily killing a dragon is to ground it, or at the very least obtain a method of flight for yourself and your comrades.

Secondly, spread out (if you aren't already). Reducing the number of players the dragon can hit with its breath weapon reduces the efficiency of strafing runs. If you have enough coordination between party members, you could potentially bait a dragon with a tempting target.

If the dragon is currently out of range and your party caster doesn't have a spell that is immediately useful, have them ready an action to counterspell. Dragons have piss poor CL, so you have a good chance of it succeeding. If successful, you have denied the dragon of nearly its entire turn (and stopped a nasty from coming your way).

Also, landing an enervation on dragons will limit or even cripple their spellcasting. The same goes for other sources of negative levels.

If you know the DM is going to put magic items and/or buffs on his creatures, hit the sucker with dispel magic.

[Flickerdart]

Rakshasa are pretty severe - they have ridiculous SR for their CR, good casting in their own right, sizable DR, and will almost always ambush you. I think they're iconic enough to qualify.

[Rethmar]

The secrets of monster slaying are jealously guarded from prying ears. Nobody wants to share that kind of glory.

[Venger]

Techically, you can't have a Psionic Lich. The ritual requires a caster level of 11th. Funny enough, however, that this opens up the possibility for a Shadowcaster Lich.

As for psionics, there's the Spectral Savant (CPsi), which is an unfortunate mix between vampire, ghost and lich.

bruce cordell's most excellent "hyperconscious" provides rules for being a psionic lich (pretty much the same, but you use ML instead of CL and your flesh doesn't biodegrade)

not kosher for iron chef and the like, but it was written by the guy who did 3.5 psionics, so there isn't really a valid reason not to allow it in practical play.

[Tvtyrant]

For the Lich: Lich's do not gain spell resistance from being undead, and do not have a con score. Disintegrate is basically "greater turn undead" for them, as their fort saves are likely very low (casters having bad saves and liches having no con score.) A level 13 wizard lich only has a fort save of 4, which is almost an autofail against a Disintegrate (DC 19 minimum for a wizard.)

[Xervous]

That is if you find a lich that doesn't have protection against disintegrate, consider yourself very lucky and laugh all the way to the bank ye olde magik item shoppe as you plan your next purchases.

[Hamste]

An undead targeted by a spell that targets objects gets it's charisma modifier to its fort save if required to make one.

[Tvtyrant]

An undead targeted by a spell that targets objects gets it's charisma modifier to its fort save if required to make one.

Where is this rule? The SRD does not have that under the undead type that I can see.

[Hamste]

Looking through it now, I can't find it either. I think I might have been thinking of pathfinder, where they do get it to their saves.

[ArcturusV]

Yeah, scoured everything, MM, DMG, Libris Mortis, couldn't find it. In fact Libris Mortis even mentions how SOL undead are against it due to having no stat bonus to saves.

[Xervous]

I know unholy toughness gives cha to HP, and I DO recall stumbling across one thing that granted cha to all saves for undead, somewhere... Looking...

[Venger]

Looking through it now, I can't find it either. I think I might have been thinking of pathfinder, where they do get it to their saves.

this is indeed a pathfinder rule. the ability exists in a few isolated instances in undead 3.5 monsters, but it is not true for all of them.

[Seharvepernfan]

They get their charisma to concentration checks, but the only mention about fortitude saves is "...and are therefor immune to effects that require fortitude saves, unless it also affects objects." The sample lich in the MM does not have their cha mod added in to their fort saves.

So...yeah. Disintegrate away!

[Xervous]

Vampire Progression (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a) gets it, so I agree that it is an isolated instance.

[Arcanist]

Techically, you can't have a Psionic Lich. The ritual requires a caster level of 11th. Funny enough, however, that this opens up the possibility for a Shadowcaster Lich.

As for psionics, there's the Spectral Savant (CPsi), which is an unfortunate mix between vampire, ghost and lich.

The Psionic Lich is what most people believed that I meant, but I was honestly painting it off a Cerebremancer. I tried to stick as core as SRD as humanly possible.


The first step to easily killing a dragon is to ground it, or at the very least obtain a method of flight for yourself and your comrades.

Trying to fight a dragon on equal terms will most certainly result in death. Ground the creature, fight it in a cave, anything you can do to force it into a 2d form of transition.

Due to how protective a Dragon is, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to disarm the Dragon of his/her magical protection and the hoard is out of the question. Quite honestly, you are only going to get to that treasure over it's dead body.


For the Lich: Lich's do not gain spell resistance from being undead, and do not have a con score. Disintegrate is basically "greater turn undead" for them, as their fort saves are likely very low (casters having bad saves and liches having no con score.) A level 13 wizard lich only has a fort save of 4, which is almost an autofail against a Disintegrate (DC 19 minimum for a wizard.)

I'll include that as a method, but this can be used against any form of Undead.


That is if you find a lich that doesn't have protection against disintegrate, consider yourself very lucky and laugh all the way to the bank ye olde magik item shoppe as you plan your next purchases.

If you don't find a Lich with immunity: Yes, you can consider yourself very lucky. I am assuming that the Lich in question is effectively fighting on the levels of the Batman Wizard :smalltongue:

[eggynack]

The entire guide to tarrasque murder is basically just flight+ summoned allips. It's one of the more straightforward methods of murdering an iconic monster.

[Flickerdart]

"How to fight the tarrasque in a suitably cinematic way that assumes you can't exploit its one glaring weakness because any DM setting up a climactic fight is going to be disappointed that it dies so easily to a third level spell and will probably say it doesn't work" is unfortunately a bit of a long title.

[Arcanist]

The entire guide to tarrasque murder is basically just flight+ summoned allips. It's one of the more straightforward methods of murdering an iconic monster.

Fighting all of these creatures can be simplified into a single sentence. "Killing a Lich? It's Undead and uses magic, work backwards from that."

Making it sound like an actual study (akin to the works of Van Richten) is our goal here, not actually detailing using game mechanics how to kill these creatures. Hell, killing a Dragon becomes "Piercing Cold, Shivering Touch."

I might want to do something on the Tarrasque or, my personal favorite hunt, the Death Knight :smallamused:

[eggynack]

"How to fight the tarrasque in a suitably cinematic way that assumes you can't exploit its one glaring weakness because any DM setting up a climactic fight is going to be disappointed that it dies so easily to a third level spell and will probably say it doesn't work" is unfortunately a bit of a long title.


Fighting all of these creatures can be simplified into a single sentence. "Killing a Lich? It's Undead and uses magic, work backwards from that."

Making it sound like an actual study (akin to the works of Van Richten) is our goal here, not actually detailing using game mechanics how to kill these creatures. Hell, killing a Dragon becomes "Piercing Cold, Shivering Touch."

I might want to do something on the Tarrasque or, my personal favorite hunt, the Death Knight :smallamused:
Fair enough on both counts, I suppose. I mean, I could probably come up with a decent narrative attached to murdering the tarrasque with an allip, but I dunno if there's a point to that. Presumably, it'd involve the tragedy of this monster's slow demise at the hands of an enemy that barely understands the legend it's taking from the world. I'll have to give this some brain based consideration.

[Runestar]

The tarrasque is in essence a big, dumb melee bruiser. If you can hit it with a slow spell (heightened if necessary to increase the DC), you have just crippled it to attacking with a single melee attack each round. Let the party fighter do the rest.

Why not dominate monster instead? I expect some DMs to give it some sort of immunity to mental effects, like monster of legend template. Though there's always steadfast determination to improve its will save dramatically...:smalleek:

[ArcturusV]

Opposite to the Godzilla Franchise however, The Army isn't entirely useless when the big T shows himself. If they can get set up and mobilized, almost any mundane army can actually take him down with no casualties. The Court Wizard/Cleric better be Divining stuff like this, it's pretty much their job description, and with that warning, easy peasy.

With the warning, you merely muster forth your longbow men, set up, and fire volleys at it from a good mile out, hammering it with thousands of arrows until it is knocked unconscious feebly and futility trying to close the distance to you. Then you're just one Scroll of Miracle away from ending this scourge.

Tarrasque wipe out a Town? Impossible. His diet merely consists of foolish adventurers and monks who try to stop him.

[Arcanist]

Dooming the Death Knight: Souls, Swords, and how to save them.

Things to look out for:


A Death Knight is one of the more physical Undead, often created by Demons and powerful Necromancers to serve as their champions. As such, these warriors are often forced into servitude towards their malevolent masters, however this is not always the case as some Death Knights are created willingly. These willing Death Knights should be feared the most.
Death Knights are known to posses a number of abilities that are to aid them in combat against almost any type of creature from warriors to wizards:

The Death Knight has a touch attack very similar to the Lich's in that it channels negative energy, however unlike the Lich's the Death Knights deals a little bit more damage against the living actually physically destroying their constitution.
The Death Knight can fire a blast of abyssal energy aptly named, the Abyssal Blast. This blast creates an explosion similar to a Fireball spell, however creatures that are normally immune or resistant to Fire spells are not resistant to the Death Knight's Abyssal Blast. The reason for this is that the Death Knight's Abyssal Blast effectively channels unholy magic which cannot be resisted through normal means.
The Death Knight is far more resilient than the Lich. The Death Knight is a living conduit from the abyss (or whatever source of the creatures creation). As such, unlike most undead, they cannot be turned while still possessing the same immunities that other Undead possess. However as a trade off of this the Death Knight can be banished to the abyss as if the creature were a Demon, but only with a properly casted Holy Word spell. Death Knights are often immune to weaker spellcasters due to how their metabolisms process such Eldritch energy and they are able to absorb more and more energy as they grow stronger.
To say that a Death Knight is physically strong would be an understatement. These mighty warriors have had centuries to train and hone their bodies, in addition to this anything short of a magical weapon will barely phase these warriors.
Through sheer force of personality, the Death Knight is a leader and king of the Undead. Often the Death Knight is surrounded by legions of undead warriors that have heard the call of the Death Knight to come and serve them. This force of personality also serves as to deter lesser warriors from approaching the Death Knight.
It has been said that Death Knights who have fallen from grace as Paladins are the most dangerous. Be careful when encountering such Death Knights as they are more likely to be Blackguards with a lust for violence in the service of their dark masters.
Death Knights are often very egotistical. Never talk down to these individuals as they will then try to capture you. When going on a hunt for a Death Knight, it is wise to have an Alchemical Tooth installed and loaded with poison. If the Death Knight captures you, it might resort to such barbaric methods as torturing you. Not for information, but for sheer sadistic pleasure. This applies double if the creature is a Blackguard as by fueling the creatures lust for suffering it will only empower it.

Effective Strategies:


Research. Attacking a Death Knight unprepared is suicide. Learning the creatures combat style, skills, methods of attack any special maneuvers they might know. This especially applies if the creature is a practitioner of the Ninefold lotus of the sublime way.
Death Knights are often armed with magical weapons. Taking away this magical weapon does not entirely disarm the Death Knight as they are still viable combatants even with their bare hands. Often preventing the Death Knight from entering close proximity with your spellcasters will force the Death Knight to resort to missile based attacks which can be covered with spells like Protection from Arrows or Wind Wall.
As a warrior, the Death Knight has fairly mundane options in combat excluding their abyssal blast. Limiting these options can make for an easy hunt.
Death Knights lairs are often abandoned forts, castles, ruins, etc. and they will defend these homes to the bitter end to the point where if a survivor escapes these homes and manages to spread information about them, they will still remain. This can be used to a would be hunters advantage as this means that the Death Knight's location remains static making running away and fighting for another day an entirely valid option.

[Piggy Knowles]

Thanks, all. I'll try to get these updated in the first post later today.

Anyone want to start taking a stab at any of the others up there? Illithid or aboleths haven't been touched yet.

[mangosta71]

Illithids can be swarmed by golems and/or undead - anything mindless is immune to their stuns and brain eating.

[Gwendol]

An well built paladin will certainly help against a lich (and possibly the death knight). Lay on hands work just as well against them as against any other undead... the trick being to get close enough to touch it. The divine spirity ACF may help with this though, as long as line of sight is maintained.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070209a

[Flickerdart]

Yeah, go ahead and try nailing a powerful spellcaster at touch range with a Will save using a T4 class. See how well that works out for you.

[Gwendol]

Well, they are immune to fear... And I daresay the A-game Paladin, or similar, is in T3 territory. My suggestion is to use the divine spirit to deliver the positive energy. It'll likely be dispelled/dissmissed/etc but that at least wastes an action on behalf of the lich (CL for the spirit is Paladin level, so not totally trivial).

[Kuulvheysoon]

Yeah, go ahead and try nailing a powerful spellcaster at touch range with a Will save using a T4 class. See how well that works out for you.

RAW, there is no Will save to reduce the damage from lay on hands. As a bonus, it's a (Su) ability, so it ignores any SR (f applicable).

But other than that, yeah, best of luck nailing the touch on a lich.

[Venger]

Thanks, all. I'll try to get these updated in the first post later today.

Anyone want to start taking a stab at any of the others up there? Illithid or aboleths haven't been touched yet.

Illithids can be run into as early as CR 8, which can make things difficult on the party since it's unlikely that people will have picked up necessary blanket immunities such as immunity to stunning and mind affecting. while a necropolitan PC can laugh off everything that makes an illithid dangerous (mind blast, suggestion, suggestion, extract) the template is not viable for all PCs, so shouldn't be assumed.

immunity to stunning is important, but likely beyond your reach at this level unless you've taken some very specific steps with your character (warshaper, bone knight, mark of the dauntless, etc) that can't be assumed to be generalized.

the wakeful mind graft and banner of the storm's eye (a splendid party item for the party pack mule to carry on his back) are likely beyond your reach due to the constraints of WBL. a third eye clarity, however, is only 3k, and takes up the ill-used face slot. it provides immunity to stunning 1/day as an immediate action. whether your dm explicitly says "you will fight mind flayers" or not, it's a very handy item that all characters who aren't otherwise immune to stunning should have handy

stunning is the biggie when fighting illithids. they have very poor grapple checks, so will be unable to attach tentacles effectively if you are not stunned. they'll also be in melee range, so if a DM plays illithids dumb (due to either throwing the party a bone due to low-op choices, inexperience on his or the party's part, or other reasons) it's not unknown for illithids to try to gish it up. should this transpire, just beat the hell out of them with the nearest available object. they have absolutely abysmal hp for their cr (44) and even assuming low op, any of your party should be able to kill or drop one in one full attack.

due to overall poor ability scores, poison or spells that damage con are also a good choice if you want to stay your distance due to a lack of stunning immunity. this too is a viable option since their mind blasts only have a range of 60 feet, and suggestion 45 feet.

SR 25 is unreasonably high for their level, and at 8, assay spell resistance is a poor use of resources for a foe this weak. a better bet is using either buffs on your friends or just spells that don't allow SR if you need to target the illithid for whatever reason (specializing in necromancy, being a warmage, etc) its fort and ref save are very poor, so if you have spells to target these saves, they'll be your best bet since at 8, your save DCs are likely not especially high

if you run into flayers at a higher level, where it's reasonable for the party to run into a group of them (especially flayers with class levels) then your strategy doesn't change that much (stay out of mind blast range, plink away at their meager hp, if there's a chance, demolish with a full attack) so much as it simply becomes more difficult.

staying 65+ feet away from one enemy is doable, but doing the same for 4 or 5 can be more problematic. spells obviously complicate things (sorcerer is the most likely since it's what's given in the book) since it is sometimes difficult to know what the biggest range the flayer has is, but they all essentially pale in comparison to mind blast.

since you'll be higher level (12 or 13) you can dispense more freely with high level slots, and have more multitarget effects available to target flayers' poor fort and ref saves. a favorite of mine is murderous mist if you are a druid, spirit shaman, archivist, or chameleon. small amount of damage and permanent blindness on a failed ref save. despite their telepathy, flayers have no special sensory ability (besides aberration's darkvision, but this doesn't function while blinded) so it's an effective way to incapacitate a bunch of them at once, especially in the tight spaces such as caves and tunnels that you are likely to encounter flayers in.

if you don't have this spell on your list, then the same general principle can hold true with other spells: blind the illithids because they are shockingly reliant on sight for monsters that live underground. fog cloud, acid fog, solid fog, or even silent images of rock walls or the like can block their LOS and leave them vulnerable to ranged AoE effects in subsequent turns

if you have the ability to summon any help that's immune to their tricks (undead via summon undead, vermin via summon swarm, constructs via astral construct, zelekhuts via summon zelekhut/ planar binding if you have time in advance, etc) then the fight will be that much easier for you, especially if you have to take on a large group of them at the same time.

I'll post one for aboleths later

[The Viscount]

A lich's greatest weakness is its CR adjustment. IT has a CR adjustment of +2, which means that the lich will be a whole spell level behind the party full casters. This can be used to your advantage, because it means you know what will be off limits.

A lich's fear aura is not an issue of any concern. A lich is required to have a caster level of 11 to make its phylactery. Even assuming it boosted its caster level, its unlikely it could boost it the 9 levels required to enter lichdom at level 2, which results in a CR of 4. The XP requirement for the phylactery is too great for a character of such a level. Thus, the lich's fear aura is incapable of affecting PCs. If the lich goes about it with slight cl boosts, it's still not enough to affect a ranger's animal companion. Libris Mortis puts it well: if the fear aura would affect you, you shouldn't be fighting it.
As for disintegrate, it's not inconceivable that a lich would have a spellblade keyed to disintegrate, as it is the famous undead killer spell.

[3WhiteFox3]

A lich's greatest weakness is its CR adjustment. IT has a CR adjustment of +2, which means that the lich will be a whole spell level behind the party full casters. This can be used to your advantage, because it means you know what will be off limits.

A lich's fear aura is not an issue of any concern. A lich is required to have a caster level of 11 to make its phylactery. Even assuming it boosted its caster level, its unlikely it could boost it the 9 levels required to enter lichdom at level 2, which results in a CR of 4. The XP requirement for the phylactery is too great for a character of such a level. Thus, the lich's fear aura is incapable of affecting PCs. If the lich goes about it with slight cl boosts, it's still not enough to affect a ranger's animal companion. Libris Mortis puts it well: if the fear aura would affect you, you shouldn't be fighting it.
As for disintegrate, it's not inconceivable that a lich would have a spellblade keyed to disintegrate, as it is the famous undead killer spell.

It should be noted, that a Lich that has a CR = to the party's ECL + 2 is a valid encounter. So that advantage could be moot if the DM desides to make it a boss encounter. A CR 13 Lich as an 11th level wizard vs an ECL 11 party is going to be much harder.

Note that most of the nasty D&D monsters are worst when fought with a CR higher than the party. Dragons? An ECL 7 party can probably deal with a Young Red Dragon, though it's probably going to be a tough fight unless your prepared to deal with them specifically (it's actual difficulty is completely dependent on optimization level and party makeup). However, send that same party against a Juvenile? Quite possibly a TPK is in store. So the advice here should assume higher CR'ed encounters.

[Arcanist]

Illithids can be swarmed by golems and/or undead - anything mindless is immune to their stuns and brain eating.

Quite true. When battling Illithids it is wise to attack it with Undead servitors as they are immune to most attacks used by the Illithid. They are mindless, brainless and, best of all, easy to produce. Of course anyone planning to fight Illithids has to be careful of the idiot behind the plan (i.e. the hunter).

[magic9mushroom]

Regarding liches: there are ways to beat them without going after the phylactery. Imprisonment and Trap the Soul are the two obvious ones, but Bestow Greater Curse + mundane imprisonment is another option, and there's probably a few more - the key is to neuter the lich's ability to do anything without killing it and without running into any of its many immunities. This absolutely should be in any guide to beating them, because liches can get awfully creative about hiding their phylacteries (and God help you if you're going after an epic lich with access to Aumvor's Fragmented Phylactery).

One thing worth noting about liches is that they have fairly-low HD, so Greater Turning can instakill them. You need to Dispel first, though, because liches love their Life Ward.

Regarding illithids: Rule one, get immunity to stun, because Mind Blast is at-will and not mind-affecting by RAW. Rule two, if you're using EPH they all manifest as 9th-level telepaths, so you might want to invest in Mind Blank and use anti-caster plans. Rule three, if you have to assault an actual illithid sept, your best bet is probably to collapse the roof. If you can't do that, then prepare for epic battle, because the Elder Brain is CR 25.

Regarding the Adamantine Horror: Tanglefoot bag. I'm serious, its Concentration modifier is +0 so this is quite likely to stop its SLAs. Grappling it is also a good idea for the same reasons, plus its bad grapple modifier (+8). Or you could just have someone ready "cast [insert damaging spell here] if the Adamantine Horror uses an SLA" every goddamned round. Basically, shut down the SLAs by any means at your disposal, and it becomes far less scary.