Sunday's Encounter (E6)

[Tvtyrant]

This Sunday my party is attempting to meet with a Hag Covey to discuss getting rid of the areas Aboleth and the Vampire cult (actually they are delivering some goods to them, but the longer term goal is to get information out of the Hags.)

The party is going to stumble across a civil war between Kua-Toa who worship living statue of Dagon (actually the Aboleth) and the traditionalists who worship the Sea Mother. The followers of Dagon are winning due to hiring an Ogre Mage named Gaius who has a complete Array of the Manticore.

I'm planning on having Gaius fly overhead and drop off a summoned Manticore for the party to fight, and occasionally show up to tear down Traditionalist forts/leave more Manticores for them to fight. I worry that a Manticore might be a little much for my party, but they killed 4 Otyughs and a Troll last weekened without taking any damage. They are level 3ish.

[Zombimode]

This Sunday my party is attempting to meet with a Hag Covey to discuss getting rid of the areas Aboleth and the Vampire cult (actually they are delivering some goods to them, but the longer term goal is to get information out of the Hags.)

The party is going to stumble across a civil war between Kua-Toa who worship living statue of Dagon (actually the Aboleth) and the traditionalists who worship the Sea Mother. The followers of Dagon are winning due to hiring an Ogre Mage named Gaius who has a complete Array of the Manticore.

I'm planning on having Gaius fly overhead and drop off a summoned Manticore for the party to fight, and occasionally show up to tear down Traditionalist forts/leave more Manticores for them to fight. I worry that a Manticore might be a little much for my party, but they killed 4 Otyughs and a Troll last weekened without taking any damage. They are level 3ish.

In general a Manticore is doable for a 3rd level group.
Sure, it has the potential for one-shoting characters, and it flies and has a ranged weapon.
The toughness of the this fight is strongly dependent on the location (can the manticore roam freely, or can it be cornered?) and the specific abilities of your PCs (ranged attacks, attacks that target its will save like command or color spray, flight).

[Tvtyrant]

In general a Manticore is doable for a 3rd level group.
Sure, it has the potential for one-shoting characters, and it flies and has a ranged weapon.
The toughness of the this fight is strongly dependent on the location (can the manticore roam freely, or can it be cornered?) and the specific abilities of your PCs (ranged attacks, attacks that target its will save like command or color spray, flight).

It'll be dropped off overhead in a forest, so it will have to drop down to shoot at them. They have some good ranged abilities, they just tend not to use them. Our Goliath Dungeoncrasher and Duskblade have made melee combat so trivial that the party gets a little lazy about strategy. Last session the others actually left the two of them to fight a Huge Shark in the water...