AlanBruce
2014-06-17, 02:22 AM
First off, my players please do not read this.
Greetings! I'm running a fairly high optimized 3.5 game. First, the PCs involved:
Lolth Touched Drow Wizard 1/Paladin of Freedom 5/Abjurant champion 4
Pixie Bard6/Lyric Thaumaturge3
Grey elf Wizard (conjuration specialist) 10/Master Specialist (conjuration) 2/Wayfarer Guide 1, (Abjurant Jaunt ACF)
Human Paragon 3/Cleric 5/ Druidic Avenger5 , focuses on DMM
Merfolk Sorcereress 9/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 1
Human cleric 11, focuses o ranged combat (he will retrain to spellwarp sniper or ruathar, most likely)
The party is very well geared, and they know how to use their spells and abilities effectively in battle, so fighting opponents a few CR above them is not much of a problem, usually.
As of now, the party is cruising through the ocean, stopping at certain islands to ressuply or solve some random quests in the form of cryptic treasure hunts, plus the main objective which is to reach a city across the sea.
So far, the party has faced off against crab people, a powerful sea hag, a dragon turtle, an advanced greenvise (MM2), and are currently engaging pirates in a beach.
However, their trip will, most likely, take them to other areas out at sea. As such, I was looking at some interesting opponents for them to battle underwater (the party has enough means to fight under the water, so that isn't a problem). The problem I'm having is mechanically optimizing these two encounters, using two monsters that I've never had a chance to use before.
Sochsna, aboleth wizard5/savant aboleth 5
This guy is a conjurer, and I was considering giving him the Abrupt Jaunt ACF. His feats so far:
Ability Focus (enslave)
Ability Focus (slime)
Craft Aboleth Glyph
Quickslime
Scribe Scroll (B)
Empower Spell (B)
Sculpt Spell
And by my count, he is missing 2 feats, which I'm at a loss as to what to give him. I know aboleths are illusionists and have SLA that emulate very powerful ones, so I have illusions covered on that side, for the most part. However any ideas for feats or even spells that he could have would be most welcome.
The second one will be much later on, also underwater. This is a creature that, because of badly written abilities in his entry, it's difficult for me to come to a ruling regarding one of his special qualities, if any could give clarification on that, I'd be most grateful.
Iku-Turso, Morkoth (MM2) master specialist 4/nightmare spinner 5, he has access to the Brief Figment ACF
I read somewhere (nowhere official), that a morkoth, because of it's high intelligence, ought to have spellcasting as a 7th level wizard (much like rakshasas cast as 6th level sorcerers and nymphs as 7th level druids), allowing him to qualify to some of the prestige classes outlined above. I liked that idea and so, I gave him that ability plus his class levels. This would give him access to 8th level spells, which by the time the party faces him (if they do), they should have access to 7th level spells, and quite possibly 8th as well.
His fluff is that this guy hypnotizes prey who swim past his lair- a convoluted tunnel maze and once at the center, begins devouring it. Naturally, the party should have will saves through the roof to resist the ability, but npcs with them might not (they travel with a bunch of lower level npcs on the ship).
These are his feats, changes and critiques are, of course, welcome:
SF (Spellcraft) (B)
GSF (Illusion) (B)
SF (Illusion)
Collegiate Wizard
Arcane Disicple (Hunger)
Empower Spell
Craft Contingent Spell
The idea for this guy is to lure 1 PC or NPC and when the party follows suit into the maze tunnel, confuse them with illusions along the way as he devours his prey at his own leisure.
Gear would be as an npc of their level, which I'm having a hard time as is because they have RHD to boot, so I;m uncertain if that gets factored in to calculate how much cash they'd get and what would be the best items for them (since one has too many arms and the other has none, but vestigial shrimp claws).
Thank you very much in advance. Looking forward to your amazing input!
Greetings! I'm running a fairly high optimized 3.5 game. First, the PCs involved:
Lolth Touched Drow Wizard 1/Paladin of Freedom 5/Abjurant champion 4
Pixie Bard6/Lyric Thaumaturge3
Grey elf Wizard (conjuration specialist) 10/Master Specialist (conjuration) 2/Wayfarer Guide 1, (Abjurant Jaunt ACF)
Human Paragon 3/Cleric 5/ Druidic Avenger5 , focuses on DMM
Merfolk Sorcereress 9/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 1
Human cleric 11, focuses o ranged combat (he will retrain to spellwarp sniper or ruathar, most likely)
The party is very well geared, and they know how to use their spells and abilities effectively in battle, so fighting opponents a few CR above them is not much of a problem, usually.
As of now, the party is cruising through the ocean, stopping at certain islands to ressuply or solve some random quests in the form of cryptic treasure hunts, plus the main objective which is to reach a city across the sea.
So far, the party has faced off against crab people, a powerful sea hag, a dragon turtle, an advanced greenvise (MM2), and are currently engaging pirates in a beach.
However, their trip will, most likely, take them to other areas out at sea. As such, I was looking at some interesting opponents for them to battle underwater (the party has enough means to fight under the water, so that isn't a problem). The problem I'm having is mechanically optimizing these two encounters, using two monsters that I've never had a chance to use before.
Sochsna, aboleth wizard5/savant aboleth 5
This guy is a conjurer, and I was considering giving him the Abrupt Jaunt ACF. His feats so far:
Ability Focus (enslave)
Ability Focus (slime)
Craft Aboleth Glyph
Quickslime
Scribe Scroll (B)
Empower Spell (B)
Sculpt Spell
And by my count, he is missing 2 feats, which I'm at a loss as to what to give him. I know aboleths are illusionists and have SLA that emulate very powerful ones, so I have illusions covered on that side, for the most part. However any ideas for feats or even spells that he could have would be most welcome.
The second one will be much later on, also underwater. This is a creature that, because of badly written abilities in his entry, it's difficult for me to come to a ruling regarding one of his special qualities, if any could give clarification on that, I'd be most grateful.
Iku-Turso, Morkoth (MM2) master specialist 4/nightmare spinner 5, he has access to the Brief Figment ACF
I read somewhere (nowhere official), that a morkoth, because of it's high intelligence, ought to have spellcasting as a 7th level wizard (much like rakshasas cast as 6th level sorcerers and nymphs as 7th level druids), allowing him to qualify to some of the prestige classes outlined above. I liked that idea and so, I gave him that ability plus his class levels. This would give him access to 8th level spells, which by the time the party faces him (if they do), they should have access to 7th level spells, and quite possibly 8th as well.
His fluff is that this guy hypnotizes prey who swim past his lair- a convoluted tunnel maze and once at the center, begins devouring it. Naturally, the party should have will saves through the roof to resist the ability, but npcs with them might not (they travel with a bunch of lower level npcs on the ship).
These are his feats, changes and critiques are, of course, welcome:
SF (Spellcraft) (B)
GSF (Illusion) (B)
SF (Illusion)
Collegiate Wizard
Arcane Disicple (Hunger)
Empower Spell
Craft Contingent Spell
The idea for this guy is to lure 1 PC or NPC and when the party follows suit into the maze tunnel, confuse them with illusions along the way as he devours his prey at his own leisure.
Gear would be as an npc of their level, which I'm having a hard time as is because they have RHD to boot, so I;m uncertain if that gets factored in to calculate how much cash they'd get and what would be the best items for them (since one has too many arms and the other has none, but vestigial shrimp claws).
Thank you very much in advance. Looking forward to your amazing input!