3.5 Need a little help changing a few encounters

[lytokk]

So, my last session ended with the bard suicidally walking into a room where an unknown number of an unknown type offering to help them. Unfortunately for him, he forgot that any intelligent creature in this area is going to be evil, and want his head. Well, he's ECL 8, and wandered right into a group of goblins. Not particularly deadly to someone of that level, but we had to end the session before the combat actually started, leaving me with the opportunity to make it somewhat deadly.

Now, for the background info. These goblins have been around a refluffed earth elemental wierd for many generations. The wierd is now refluffed to be one of the 4 elemental pillars on the material plane, and of course there is a wierd for each element that the party will come across.

A thought of mine is that they've been living around this open portal to the elemental plane of earth for generation of goblins, so some of that power has become part of the goblins. I'm thinking about giving each of them the half earth elemental template, as well as a few class levels. The question I have is class levels in what, or if the template works for them. I don't really want to overpower the party, but I don't plan on softballing these anymore.

Now, for the second encounter I need some help with retooling. They will end up against the wierd, or the wierd's elementals. Originally, I had the thought of them having to cure the wierd's corruption, but then got a different idea to instead have something controlling the wierd. Something demonic or devillish works. Right now, I have a succubus as the BBEG, who could, concievably be the one controlling the wierd, or I could use a different creature, and have this be a completely separate plotline. There's pros and cons to both, the biggest con would be logistics of having to confront the succubus now, as opposed to much later when I had planned. I'd rather have them confront an underling of the succubus, but am having problems figuring out what. Any assistance in this regard would be great.

[Solaris]

Give 'em all a level in battle sorcerer and have them cast earth fist from the Spell Compendium. Couple that with a level of barbarian, and they can go bigfistragesmash for fun and profit. Enlarge person might be a good one for them to cast on themselves, too.

Instead of half-earth elemental, have you considered the mineral warrior template?

[lytokk]

No, I hadn't considered mineral warrior. Just pulling up the first google result for it, it looks like a pretty nice template for this. Maybe have a few of them be mineral warriors and one half elemental bigger baddie.

Now that I think about it, this might actually be a decent time to pull in some Stone Dragon manuevers.

[lytokk]

Any other thoughts? My hope is to make them hard to kill over making them little death machines.

[atemu1234]

I'm a fan of the crystalline template from Advanced Bestiary.

Also, sticking a bit of DR on them (Like DR 2/-) would probably suit. Describe them as looking less like goblins and more like statues of them, and probably make them of the elemental type.

[Trasilor]

So, my last session ended with the bard suicidally walking into a room where an unknown number of an unknown type offering to help them. Unfortunately for him, he forgot that any intelligent creature in this area is going to be evil, and want his head. Well, he's ECL 8, and wandered right into a group of goblins. Not particularly deadly to someone of that level, but we had to end the session before the combat actually started, leaving me with the opportunity to make it somewhat deadly.

Now, for the background info. These goblins have been around a refluffed earth elemental wierd for many generations. The wierd is now refluffed to be one of the 4 elemental pillars on the material plane, and of course there is a wierd for each element that the party will come across.

A thought of mine is that they've been living around this open portal to the elemental plane of earth for generation of goblins, so some of that power has become part of the goblins. I'm thinking about giving each of them the half earth elemental template, as well as a few class levels. The question I have is class levels in what, or if the template works for them. I don't really want to overpower the party, but I don't plan on softballing these anymore.

Now, for the second encounter I need some help with retooling. They will end up against the wierd, or the wierd's elementals. Originally, I had the thought of them having to cure the wierd's corruption, but then got a different idea to instead have something controlling the wierd. Something demonic or devillish works. Right now, I have a succubus as the BBEG, who could, concievably be the one controlling the wierd, or I could use a different creature, and have this be a completely separate plotline. There's pros and cons to both, the biggest con would be logistics of having to confront the succubus now, as opposed to much later when I had planned. I'd rather have them confront an underling of the succubus, but am having problems figuring out what. Any assistance in this regard would be great.

First off, this is a level 8 bard...their diplomacy/bluff/intimidate check may be high enough to stall the room full of goblins.

Second, goblins may be evil, but they are not stupid (in fact, they are just as smart as humans). This means they might want to hear this foolish human out before they kill him. Also, unless the goblins are thralls, they will have an agenda that differs from the Earth Weird. Just something to keep in mind before turning the bard into a squishy pulp.

The Earth Weird as it stands is a powerful CR 12 creature with access to 9th level spells. This means that unless your party gains quite a few levels, they stand no real chance against it (in terms of defeating it). The Succubi, conversely is only a CR 7 creature. This is exactly something an 8th level party could hand. In fact, you might have to bump up the succubi power.

Honestly, given the nature of Elemental Weirds, I would think a powerful (high level) warlord would want the divination powers of the weird at their disposal.

[lytokk]

First off, this is a level 8 bard...their diplomacy/bluff/intimidate check may be high enough to stall the room full of goblins.

Second, goblins may be evil, but they are not stupid (in fact, they are just as smart as humans). This means they might want to hear this foolish human out before they kill him. Also, unless the goblins are thralls, they will have an agenda that differs from the Earth Weird. Just something to keep in mind before turning the bard into a squishy pulp.

Actually, he's a level 6 bard with a +2 template. Part of whats going on, and something the entire party has been exposed to before, is that intelligent creatures who are in this part of the continent are bloodthirsty evil. I have shown it with every single humanoid they came across. They never once have gotten one of them to talk, except after a sucessfully cast remove disease spell. The disease spreads from the earth into anyone who comes into contact with the ground. And all of these creatures attack anyone who does not have the corruption in them. All part of the disease.

When I put the goblins into the earth wierd's cave, I had them in mind as sort of protectors of the wierd, or errand boys basically. The goblins were also going to serve a dual purpose, as the psychic warrior is needing to spread the gift of psionics in order to help an amethyst dragon ascend to godhood. The dragon needs followers who use psionics, which I touched on here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?377696-Levelling-up-a-psionic-themed-weapon) PsyWar demonstrates power, goblin goes into convulsions, gets thrown into a psionic stasis, and upon removal of the corruption of the land, turns into a blue.


The Earth Weird as it stands is a powerful CR 12 creature with access to 9th level spells. This means that unless your party gains quite a few levels, they stand no real chance against it (in terms of defeating it). The Succubi, conversely is only a CR 7 creature. This is exactly something an 8th level party could hand. In fact, you might have to bump up the succubi power.

Honestly, given the nature of Elemental Weirds, I would think a powerful (high level) warlord would want the divination powers of the weird at their disposal.

I didn't fully explain before, since I already had a huge wall of text, but I'll explain the goings on now. The party freed an imprisoned succubus from an amulet while deep inside the corrupted part of the continent as stated above. The succubus was powering a powerful necromantic item, which turned nearby corpses into zombies under the control of the person wearing the amulet. Said succubus is now travelling the landscape to destroy the other items the wizard who imprisoned her created, which has other hellspawn imprisoned inside of in order to fuel the items' power. If enough of these creatures get freed, it could send the world back into the apocalypse that it just barely survived.

Now, onto the wierds. Those came along as a sidequest. Only one member of the party didn't have their own subplot, and I was trying to think of a way to fix that. Following some advice (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?376936-Need-a-personal-quest-for-a-changeling-druid) from the forum, I decided on using the elemental wierds, but with a bit of a rewrite. In addition to their divination powers, they're also now elemental pillars, which tie their individual elemental planes to the material. If the wierd was to be killed, that element would no longer work on the material. When the hellspawn were invading the material, they couldn't kill the wierds, but were able to corrupt them. This corruption has the side-effect for them of them not being able to access a good 90% of their powers, which works out fine for the demons/devils. They get to invade and corrupt the material, and even if the wierds could get a clear enough mind to fight back, they'd be too weak to do it. The encounter with the wierd is going to end up being more fighting summoned elementals and whatver is controlling the wierd than fighting the wierd itself, until the controller is killed or a successful remove disease is cast on the wierd.

As for the controller, right now I'm thinking an imp with some class levels, but not sure what.

I know demons and devils don't work together under any normal circumstances, but the apocalypse happened because of a temporary truce in the blood war, after the gods got into a big fight and started killing each other.