[3.5] Monsters vs. Casters

[Thurbane]

Hey all, looking for some DM advice in regards to monsters to challenge casters in an upcoming campaign.

The PCs are not set yet, but likely to include at least 2 tier 1 or 2 casters.

What are some monsters that have some or all of the following qualities, through various CRs:
Decent SR
Decent touch AC and/or miss chance
Good saves, especially Will
Good immunities vs. various spell inflicted conditions (stunned, blinded, etc.)

Not looking to hose players, but I want to have the occasional monster than can put up a decent fight against casters up my sleeve.

Cheers - T

[Krobar]

Baatezu are always a good time.

[Thurbane]

Baatezu are always a good time.
Cool - various Devils are going to be a major theme in the campaign anyway, so that works out well.

[(Un)Inspired]

Golems are always nice to send against casters and there are so many of them that you can always find one that fits the cr of your party

[Psyren]

For immunities, it's hard to beat undead, oozes and plants.

For specific suggestions you may want to use an encounter builder or CR calculator of some kind.

[Flickerdart]

I like using Astral Constructs for this (divorced from the power, just as their own monsters). They come at all levels, can have excellent SR starting at CR8 (SR23, 25% chance of success for a basic 8th level caster). There's a menu option for deflection bonuses to AC, they don't care about saves very much, and the construct type gives them a ton of immunities.

[ddude987]

Some good creature types with immunities are undead and oozes. Intelligent undead can plan clever traps. Mindless undead, or intelligent undead with class levels, can threaten casters by getting in close, and class levels in monk or barbarian would allow them to walk up and grapple the caster. Oozes can shut down a caster very quickly too, if you use them intelligently. Oozes are not intelligent creatures, but other creatures can use them to benefit. Have trapdoors in the cealing drop oozes onto the casters. Auto grapple means good luck casting spells.
Also remember you can use gear to opposed casters. A ring of spellbattle is amazing as is the 1/day don't get crowd controlled mask that I can't remember the name of both do wonders. There's nothing like using the ring of spellbattle to use a players disjunction on them and their party instead of you.
Also flesh golems inside an amf... with mundane pressure plates that drop oozes on them and sharks with freaking lazer beams :smallcool:

[Thurbane]

Golems are good, but in my experience, quite vulnerable to "SR: no" spells (i.e. most offensive Conjuration spells).

Undead, oozes and plants are great suggestions for their immunities, thanks. :smallsmile:

[Flickerdart]

Golems are good, but in my experience, quite vulnerable to "SR: no" spells (i.e. most offensive Conjuration spells).

Undead, oozes and plants are great suggestions for their immunities, thanks. :smallsmile:

If you are willing to create an antagonist mage that summons opposition from a safe spot, consider Imbued Summoning from PHBII. Whenever you summon anything, you can cast a 3rd level touch range spell on it for free...for which Displacement qualifies.

[(Un)Inspired]

Does mummy rot work in an anti magic field?

If so, hit the party with shadow hand teleporting mummies in an anti magic field that use emerald razor to ensure their slams land.

Kung Fu mummies!

It's like that old tv show Mummies Alive!

[Eldariel]

Dragons are the ur-example of a hard-to-touch target, though they need to shore up the whole with few feats (Awaken Spell Resistance-feat from Draconomicon, Scintillating Scales-spell from Spell Compendium, preferably some stuff to make the defensive buffs harder to dispel such as Practiced Spellcaster-feat [Complete Arcane] and Ring of Enduring Arcana [Complete Mage]).

Add to that some key spellcasting (Wings of Cover [Races of the Dragon], Dispels & Teleports if possible) & feats (good flight helps for starters) and they're an absolute terror in any open terrain. Some breath weapon feats like Lingering Breath [Draconomicon] make that even more of a problem too. Of course, the most scary ones are the ones with the best spellcasting/HD (Red out of evil ones).

[Thurbane]

One I have considered - Gravetouched Ghoul Will-O-Wisp. A silly but legal combo.

High touch AC, spell immunities, invisibility; added to undead immunities and a paralysis attack.

[Callin]

Spellstitched Monster of Legend Necropolitan of a Monsterous Humanoid.

[Psyren]

Does mummy rot work in an anti magic field?

No - it's supernatural and thus will be suppressed. However, any drain already incurred will stay.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Outsiders, especially ones with flight but few spell-like abilities (because w/ the SLA's they can kite martials and hose them WAAAAAY harder than they do casters), are pretty ideal. Demons tend to get the most toys and immunities, including teleportation and true seeing, and so forth.

The entire Underdark is basically ant-caster. I unintentionally made my party's casters really frustrated, just sending them against standard underdark foes like drow (SR), beholders (antimagic cone), mind flayers (high SR), Urophions (the beefed up Ropers; also high SR), and so forth. Like, 3/4 of the stuff down there has SR, and several of them have like 15 + HD/CR, rather than the usual 10 or 11.

One monster commonly claimed to be anti-caster that's definitely not is Golems. No SR spells still work, so the caster still neuters them with Glitterdust. Meanwhile, they almost NEVER have flight or teleportation to actually get to the casters. And very high hp, high DR, good AC (but awful touch AC), big reach and melee damage... They hose martials harder than they do casters! My favorite is the iron golem, which gets a free action "screw you" poison gas breath weapon every few rounds that hits all the way out to...what? 10 ft? Gee, I wonder who's getting hit with that... Man, those golems sure make casters shiver...

[LordBlades]

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet: Ethergaunts from Fiend Folio. They cast as a wizard of their CR and there's no better opponent to a caster than another caster.

Also, don't rely on Sr too much. Any good caster would have at least some SR: no spells in his arsenal.

[Emperor Tippy]

There are very, very, few official monsters that are good against casters and yet don't slaughter non casters.

Incidentally, I'm actually working on a campaign right now that takes the party from ECL 3 to 20 with one real BBEG. His primary minions are called the Blessed and they are mostly Monks that just so happen to be amped with permanent Epic spells. A Ward that negates all non epic spells, a ward that negates 20 points of piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage each round, true seeing abilities via the Reveal seed, and (for some of them) an amped AC via the armor seed.

Those make surprisingly good random encounters and challenges.

[nedz]

Warforged with character levels. These may not fit into your setting, but they have a host of immunities, just choose some classes which pad out the rest.