E6 Advice

[ZamielVanWeber]

So I am writing up an E6 game and would like the surprise final boss to be a lilitu. They are CR 12 and pack 9th level cleric casting. Would like to chime in: too strong or pretty good? Any suggestions for my first E6 DMing experience in general would be good too.

[Aegis013]

Too strong or pretty good really depends on your group. Even in E6 there is a pretty wide variance of op-levels.

[tasw]

If its alone it should be okay. But if its got backup mooks it would probably be too much.

[JusticeZero]

If it's a surprise, it's definitely going to be too strong, unless there is a lot of things in the players' favor. Tough encounters take some prep and setup in character. If they're just walking along and whoops! epic boss! they will have problems. And anything with that powerful of spells will probably be beyond the pale for most e6 groups.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I was hoping to have this mostly written before I got players. I can help them build to keep up. She will have no backup and there will be subtle hints as to what she is. Very subtle though.

[PaintByBlood]

You may want to do more than just give subtle hints. Perhaps arrange for them to find the evidence of it in a long quest line, for example, so that they know what they're going up against. Without proper preparation, I would think it would definitely be too much, and even then it will still be tough.

[JusticeZero]

E6 can deal with very tough encounters - with preparation. Not "I think there's something in the next room" preparation, though. I mean like "OK, it's a vampire, everyone has wooden stakes everywhere, we've bought every holy symbol we can find, tracked down everything that can do daylight, set up an ambush near running water, trained hawks to attack bats on sight and put enchanted beak spikes on them, and covered our armor in garlic cloves" prepared.

[Sarison]

I would be careful about "very subtle." You can drive a train full of red herrings through an investigation encounter and some players will say "I think the conductor did it." I would focus on leaving evidence of the bad guy around, in really obvious ways, so the investigators know what it is capable of, but then make your own monster, so know no one ever says "oh, its a such and such monster from this monster manual."

[ZamielVanWeber]

I believe my initial plan was for thd lilitu to be a primary quest giver. Disguised of course. What about throwing a sacred watcher go back them up if beed be. I had planned for an end of game encounter with one anyways.

[Yogibear41]

I kind of picture the spell limit in an e6 universe as hard capped at 3rd level spells,(except for the gods) so even if a monster normally gets higher level casting it is still limited to just 3rd levels as its highest spell level available, simply because higher spell levels aren't available. You could still give it the 4th and 5th level slots though and just have him prepare 3rds in them.

[Zombimode]

I kind of picture the spell limit in an e6 universe as hard capped at 3rd level spells,(except for the gods) so even if a monster normally gets higher level casting it is still limited to just 3rd levels as its highest spell level available, simply because higher spell levels aren't available. You could still give it the 4th and 5th level slots though and just have him prepare 3rds in them.

Of course you can choose to play that way, but it is not mandatory in an E6 game.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I kind of picture the spell limit in an e6 universe as hard capped at 3rd level spells,(except for the gods) so even if a monster normally gets higher level casting it is still limited to just 3rd levels as its highest spell level available, simply because higher spell levels aren't available. You could still give it the 4th and 5th level slots though and just have him prepare 3rds in them. Of course you can choose to play that way, but it is not mandatory in an E6 game.

I'm certainly not doing it that way, when I run my E6 campaign my party faces an Illithid then they're facing a 9th level psion. In terms of how challenging a creature is a lot is going to depend on HOW it uses those abilities. If your worried about a 4th or 5th level spell killing your E6 party have the higher level slots used for defensive or buff effects not things that will directly hurt the party.

The issue the OP will run into is it being a surprise final boss, in E6 a CR 12 is not a surprise final boss its something they spend days planing on how to fight.

Used directly out of the Fiendish Codex without any alterations to its prepared spells the 4th and 5th level spells it has won't be a problem. But it has plenty of other abilities that could pose a problem if the party isn't prepared for.

In a normal D&D campaign the BBEG spell caster can usually cast higher level spells then the PC's can.

[Lonely Tylenol]

For a higher-op group, a CR12 creature is entirely manageable (with caveats), but higher-level spell casting tends to be a qualitatively different beast than lower-level. It basically operates on a log scale. However, if the Lilitu used the standard spells prepared (changing out Cures for Inflicts as you feel appropriate), you end up with a spell casting list that does not necessarily break the encounter in any way. If, however, you combine her DC25 Dominate Person SLA on the BSF with Slay Living (also DC25) on whatever it will most likely kill, and the Injury poison on whatever divine casters the party might have... Against a party of 4, that right there is a TPK on three rounds. Against a party of 8, this might still be manageable if they prepared well, but it's still well beyond the sphere of normal difficulty.

[ZamielVanWeber]

So if I give them some good hints and a helper (deathless warden I think is the one I am going for) would that help? Well, give them a chance to get a deathless warden helper. I was also thinking of giving then a shot at an anti demon minor artifact (can suppress their SLAs). It is the goal of the BBEG to acquire and corrupt it.

[Gullintanni]

The way I always ran my E6 game was that spellcasting of 4th level or higher was beyond mortal means. Monsters fall outside of that category for me, for the most part, and get to cast whatever spells they can typically cast.

Creatures like Titans and Solars are nigh deific in their power in my version of E6.
What that means is that you have to be very careful in how you plan your encounters. A Lilitu has access to tools that your party will never have.

Encounters like this should be heavily foreshadowed, because it is only by leveraging every feat and resource the party has available (unless they are very high op) that they'll be able to succeed.