Xixecal and the way to beat it.

[Melcar]

I was looking into the epic monsters for a number of reasons, and when I came to the Xixecal. Now this seems to be a very powerful creature. But then I thought... Its cold based, so would a wizard not simply be able to cast energy immunity and then be immune to all the effects of its attacks?

If this somehow does not protect against its attack... then what would?

Xixecal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#xixecal)

I hope you guys will participate in my little "challenge" so to speak... :smallsmile:

[Cruiser1]

would a wizard not simply be able to cast energy immunity and then be immune to all the effects of its attacks? If this somehow does not protect against its attack... then what would?
Cold immunity is certainly very useful to have when facing a Xixecal. Cold immunity will make you immune to its breath weapon, most of its SLA's, its Dire Winter effect, and presumably the Cold (Su) extra damage from its hits. However, those sources of cold damage are only a small part of what makes a Xixecal dangerous. Cold immunity doesn't help against its melee attacks (including its Rend capability and Con drain) and it doesn't help against the melee attacks of the 5 summoned dragons the Xixecal probably has flying around it. (In this respect it's like facing a Red Dragon when you have fire immunity, in that the fire immunity certainly helps, but the dragon can still tear you to shreds.)

[Eldan]

It's rather slow, that's one point against it. Not the speed, the initiative. So, alpha strikes work.

It has no alternative movement modes of any kind, either. At epic levels, one should be able to stay outside of the range of its SLAs and bring it down with ranged attacks. The White Dragons would be a problem there, though.

If the challenger can stay incorporeal or ethereal and keep cold immunity up, they should be more or less immune.

[Know(Nothing)]

Some fire-based Mailman tactics could have it dead via HP damage in two rounds by level 21 or so.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

EDIT: To elaborate on a certain ignorant ninja's post...

Eh, the dragons don't have the same offensive capability, so you can finish them off later.

A CL 15+ twinmax'd searing orb of fire normally deals 180 damage. Against poor Xixecal it's 540* damage and bypasses regeneration. Two Ocular Split Twinned Maximized Searing Orbs of Fire*, i.e. your eye beams of DOOM, will put him down with room to spare as a full round action - he only has a touch AC of 3, after all.

*Xixecal takes double damage from fire, and searing deals double damage to cold types. Then you apply D&D's weird maths, where X2 and X2 gets you X3.
**It's a level 9 spell slot with Arcane Thesis and two +0 metas. Alternatively you could go Incantatrix and use Metamagic Effect on the loaded eye rays. Or you could use Arcane Spellsurge and Greater Arcane Fusion to spam less meta'd orbs at him.

[Psyren]

It's rather slow, that's one point against it. Not the speed, the initiative. So, alpha strikes work.

This; +5 at epic is a joke. So you go first and win; Time Stop, buff up, make sure it can't touch you.

Note that the dragons are not guaranteed to be there either - but even if he makes some, they can be dispelled or dismissed because they are summons.

[Extra Anchovies]

DeAnno's Surge of Fortune Shuffle, from the Mailman build (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1765181):


The Surge of Fortune Shuffle: This is a low Epic (level 21+) two round maneuver that deals 810 fire over two hits at the cost of a 9th and 7th level spell, plus some change and XP. On round one, cast Greater Arcane Fusion for Limited Wish -> Surge of Fortune and True Strike. If Spellsurge is already up, also cast Arcane Fusion for Assay SR and True Casting. If not, use another GAF to pump it out with an Assay. Use your move action to Hide in Plain Sight if you're capable. On round two, use your standard to cast Enhanced Twinned Maximized Empowered Combust as a 9th level spell. Use your move action to tumble next to the enemy. Then, use your swift action to activate Surge of Fortune, and finally, make the touch attack (which you can make at any point in the round after casting a touch spell).
It will auto-crit threat due to the Surge, get a +20 to hit on the crit confirmation melee touch attack, and have an SR check of 1d20+50 or so if you took the Marshal level. The 810 or so critted fire damage comes over two hits, meaning even Fire Resist 30 is pretty overwhelmed. If the enemy is immune to fire, you can use a Metamagic Rod of Substitution or just a Shocking Grasp (less damage) instead. The SR check is enough to get by a lot of Epic critters and some gods, and your melee touch crit confirmation roll with True Strike ought to be 1d20+30 touch at least, which again, is enough for most Epic critters and some gods. If you either screw up, or the thing for some ungodly reason isn't dead, cast Celerity immediately after your turn and dimension hop your butt away or put up a Force Wall or something. This could be adapted to lower levels with less metamagic, but its main value is the high damage/spell slot ratio and the shock value of so much damage, so it's less applicable.
That's 810 fire damage, without Searing Spell. Tack on Searing (cuz you'll have epic slots), and account for fire vulnerability, and you get 2430 damage. Open combat with Time Stop -> Arcane Spellsurge, Dimension Door (to get next to it) and round 1 of the Surge of Fortune Shuffle, wait for Time Stop to end, and begin the six-second beatdown.

So for a properly optimized character, slaying a Xixecal is a piece of cake fifteen levels before it becomes "level-appropriate." A single level 36 caster would easily be able to take it down, even if that requires a custom epic spell; a party of level 36 characters wouldn't even break a sweat.

[Threadnaught]

Twinned Split Ray Repeated Intensified Disintegrate for 3840 damage at CL20.

This is when using Planar Bubble linked to a Plane where all Magic is enhanced via every single Metamagic Feat ever. Kills it in one hit if you manage to bypass Spell Resistance.

[Extra Anchovies]

Twinned Split Ray Repeated Intensified Disintegrate for 3840 damage.

This is when using Planar Bubble linked to a Plane where all Magic is enhanced via every single Metamagic Feat ever. Kills it in one hit if you manage to bypass Spell Resistance.

Assay Resistance + True Casting for 1d20+20+CL should to it; with Arcane Mastery you have guaranteed success with a CL of 18 or higher.

[Threadnaught]

Assay Resistance + True Casting for 1d20+20+CL should to it; with Arcane Mastery you have guaranteed success with a CL of 18 or higher.

How convenient, you need CL of 17 to be able to create the Plane via Genesis. You do lose 192 damage per CL below 20th, for a total of -384 damage at 18th Caster Level. Not enough to one shot the thing, though there are ways to improve CL, so 20th is easy enough to reach anyway.

Fortify Spell actually knocks the Caster Level required to overcome the Spell Resistance down by 2, since that'd be in effect with the Planar Bubble, CL17 is the minimum CL required because of Genesis.

There's no guarantee that you'll be able to roll a 10, remember, the Xixecal has a SR of 48. Disintegrate is subject to Spell Resistance, but it deals such a massive amount of damage. DM's call, if Enhanced Spell is allowed to work on Disintegrate and is allowed to improve it by 2d6 per Caster Level, then that improves the damage to 6912 at the CR appropriate level.

[Extra Anchovies]

There's no guarantee that you'll be able to roll a 10

There's a feat for that!

Arcane Mastery [General]
You are quick and certain in your efforts to defeat the arcane defenses and spells of others.
Prerequisite
Ability to cast arcane spells or use spell-like abilities (including invocations)
Benefit
You can take 10 on caster level checks (as if the caster level check was a skill check). You can use this feat even while under stress.
I mentioned Arcane Mastery in the post you quoted, but didn't explain what it does, so it's understandable that you missed it.

[Threadnaught]

There's a feat for that!

I mentioned Arcane Mastery in the post you quoted, but didn't explain what it does, so it's understandable that you missed it.

Yeah, completely missed it.


Do me a favour and fix the number in the quote? I messed up and got it wrong the first time.

[Aharon]

You are, I think, ignoring one of its assets: It has a 1.000 ft radius dire winter effect.
This has several consequences:

The most obvious being targetability. The dire winter effect grants concealment, so it has concealment via dire winter + total concealment via greater invisibility. Any ranged-touch-attack based approaches suffer from this.

The second one is maneuverability - given the size of the effect, getting close may take more than one round, given the blizzard around the Xixecal.

The last and least obvious one is that the Dire Winter is magical weather, and magical weather causes Concentration checks vs. the distracting spell’s save DC. Normally, that would be 32 (10+spell level (10)+Cha Bonus (12)). However, it has this spell as a supernatural ability, and the save DCs of supernatural abilities are calculated as (10 + 1/2 the creature’s HD + the creature’s ability modifier (usually Charisma)), which would be 58.
This would add difficulty to any casting based approach.

[Extra Anchovies]

You are, I think, ignoring one of its assets: It has a 1.000 ft radius dire winter effect.
This has several consequences:

The most obvious being targetability. The dire winter effect grants concealment, so it has concealment via dire winter + total concealment via greater invisibility. Any ranged-touch-attack based approaches suffer from this.

The second one is maneuverability - given the size of the effect, getting close may take more than one round, given the blizzard around the Xixecal.

The last and least obvious one is that the Dire Winter is magical weather, and magical weather causes Concentration checks vs. the distracting spell’s save DC. Normally, that would be 32 (10+spell level (10)+Cha Bonus (12)). However, it has this spell as a supernatural ability, and the save DCs of supernatural abilities are calculated as (10 + 1/2 the creature’s HD + the creature’s ability modifier (usually Charisma)), which would be 58.
This would add difficulty to any casting based approach.

True Strike negates miss chances from concealment. True Seeing negates invisibility. Dimension Door negates distance. Concentration DC 58 shouldn't be too hard to make, and I'm sure there's a spell somewhere that lets you auto-make a check.

Time Stop + all of the above is your friend.

[Threadnaught]

You are, I think, ignoring one of its assets: It has a 1.000 ft radius dire winter effect.
This has several consequences:

There are ways around Concealment.

Immunity to Cold helps ignore damage, teleportation or simply using Enlarge Spell and being within 920 feet of the Xixecal at Caster level 36 both help.

Not sure myself how to trivialize Concentration Checks, but I do know 2 attempts in a round with no Somatic or Verbal components simplifies things.

[Aharon]

@Anchovies
I'm not sure about the order of your actions, there. Could you please spell out what you intend to cast when and where? Your approach may work, but there may also be flaws (you can't use your RTAs while under the effect of the Time Stop, for example).

@Threadnaught
If you're that far away, you can't see it with true seeing. Concerning your immunity to cold: it has Greater Dispel Magic, so your immunity won't last indefinitely. Also, not all of it's abilities are cold-based (CL 72 Blasphemy, for example)

@Skill Checks
There's Surge of Fortune (Clr 5, CC), which lets you treat a skill check as a natural 20. Discharging it is an immediate action. It's only good for one spell, though.
There's also Guidance of the Avatar (Clr 2, Web Enhancement), which gives you a +20 competence bonus for a single skill check.
Then there's Skill Enhancement (Artificer 1, ECS), which gives you +2+1/2 levels enhancement bonus.
It certainly is possible to get a high enough bonus to consistently make the checks, but it is not trivial.

@OP/General
While this is certainly one of the weaker epic monsters, its capabilities shouldn't be underestimated. While the Dire Winter Effect can be dealt with, none of the posters here had considered it before I came in. I'm sure Extra Anchovies and Threadnaught can come up with a plan that works - but if, in a game, a character had barged into the Xixecal's aura as they proposed before I became involved in this thread, the character would be in serious trouble - teleporting out also requires the Concentration check...

[Threadnaught]

I'm sure Extra Anchovies and Threadnaught can come up with a plan that works - but if, in a game, a character had barged into the Xixecal's aura as they proposed before I became involved in this thread, the character would be in serious trouble - teleporting out also requires the Concentration check...

An unmentioned part of my plan involves use of Ice Assassins, Astral Projection and maybe Project Image.


@Threadnaught
If you're that far away, you can't see it with true seeing.

Yeah, I forgot to consult Frostburn.


Concerning your immunity to cold: it has Greater Dispel Magic, so your immunity won't last indefinitely. Also, not all of it's abilities are cold-based (CL 72 Blasphemy, for example)

Oh dear, if only there were some way to increase a Wizard's Caster Level to above 29. Level appropriate, done.
Not level appropriate and of course, it'll take more time and effort.

As to Blasphemy, I really like the idea of having a Vecna-blooded Necropolitan under the 9th level version of Superior Invisibility. Vecna-blooded would make me vulnerable to Holy Word, but immune to Blasphemy.
One sure fire way to reach the Xixecal is to fly over it's Dire Winter, then HALF* onto it.


@Skill Checks
There's Surge of Fortune (Clr 5, CC), which lets you treat a skill check as a natural 20. Discharging it is an immediate action. It's only good for one spell, though.
There's also Guidance of the Avatar (Clr 2, Web Enhancement), which gives you a +20 competence bonus for a single skill check.
Then there's Skill Enhancement (Artificer 1, ECS), which gives you +2+1/2 levels enhancement bonus.
It certainly is possible to get a high enough bonus to consistently make the checks, but it is not trivial.

Can't guarantee having an Artificer on side, but then again, my Wizard who is likely to gain a benefit of Initiate of Mystra hangs around with an Artificer who respects his power. It is likely that he'd give me a boon, though with his CL9 item of AMF 1/day seems unlikely to allow his Infusions to work.

Though Wish can be useful for getting Guidance of the Avatar active.


*High Altitude Low Featherfall... Featherfall Persisted.

[Aharon]

An unmentioned part of my plan involves use of Ice Assassins, Astral Projection and maybe Project Image.


Pretty much everything published can be defeated with Ice Assassins, Astral Projection and Project Image (and it's pretty funny to defeat an incarnation of cold with Ice Assassins :smallbiggrin:) However, I would argue that if you need to resort to that kind of stuff to defeat the creature at a much lower level than its CR, maybe its CR isn't entirely unrealistic. (I think I would put it somewher in the low to mid 20s rather than mid30s, as it can be a credible threat to high PO level 18 characters. For example, none of Douglas' Team Solar (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?188138-Team-Solars-(Archiving)) can cast with 100% chance of success within the Xixecal's aura, and I think they are not immune to its blasphemy (although I may have missed it in the very long list of effects).)


As to Blasphemy, I really like the idea of having a Vecna-blooded Necropolitan under the 9th level version of Superior Invisibility. Vecna-blooded would make me vulnerable to Holy Word, but immune to Blasphemy.


Yep, that works.


One sure fire way to reach the Xixecal is to fly over it's Dire Winter, then HALF* onto it. *High Altitude Low Featherfall... Featherfall Persisted.


You wouldn't reach it in one round, then? The Dire Winter is an emanation, emanations default to burst, bursts default to spheres, meaning the Dire winter also extends 1.000 ft. upwards. Featherfall limits your speed to 60 ft./round.

[Threadnaught]

Pretty much everything published can be defeated with Ice Assassins, Astral Projection and Project Image (and it's pretty funny to defeat an incarnation of cold with Ice Assassins :smallbiggrin:) However, I would argue that if you need to resort to that kind of stuff to defeat the creature at a much lower level than its CR, maybe its CR isn't entirely unrealistic.

Level 18 is when Xamnim becomes invincible and conquers the world.


Yep, that works.

Of course it does, and the Xixecal wouldn't be able to detect the Wizard at all, even with it's True Seeing.


You wouldn't reach it in one round, then? The Dire Winter is an emanation, emanations default to burst, bursts default to spheres, meaning the Dire winter also extends 1.000 ft. upwards. Featherfall limits your speed to 60 ft./round.

Minimum of 17 rounds, but it' faster than walking or Overland Flight. Alternatively, I could Disjoin the Dire Winter and it'd be out of commission for 10 rounds, then See Invisibility would allow me to see the Xixecal and I can whack it with my Death Star beam. See Invisibility is likely to be up all the time btw.

[Aharon]

Of course it does, and the Xixecal wouldn't be able to detect the Wizard at all, even with it's True Seeing.

I meant the immunity to blasphemy part. How non-targeted divinations interact with Vecna-Blooded is debatable.


Minimum of 17 rounds, but it' faster than walking or Overland Flight. Alternatively, I could Disjoin the Dire Winter and it'd be out of commission for 10 rounds, then See Invisibility would allow me to see the Xixecal and I can whack it with my Death Star beam. See Invisibility is likely to be up all the time btw.


The Dire Winter is (Su), it can't be disjoined. The clause for it returning when dispelled is superfluous (and shows the writers didn't know what they were doing :smallyuk:)

[Extra Anchovies]

Selective Antimagic Field might do the trick.

[Threadnaught]

Selective Antimagic Field might do the trick.

At level 20, Xamnim could cast in a regular AMF.