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View Full Version : The Ankubusa: Run... Fast. [MitP2]



Maerok
2007-04-28, 08:10 PM
(Mood art)

http://www.jaestudio.com/AbyssalGroupshot.jpg


The Ankubusa are power incarnate as these ancient, and generally forgotten, scourges are formed from the sheer malevolence and power of existence. Their mere presence is disruptive to existence itself and many are forced to remain on their home planes among the infinite layers of the Abyss in order to preserve what they intend to rule; their power seeps out and incites ruin among the mortal planes. Even without asserting their supernatural might, the ground itself will buckle at their step, and even the stoutest of warriors would slay themselves before considering combat with these concentrated beings of demonic power.

There are only a few Ankubusa, but every so often they will form from the pure intensity of the Blood Wars or the concentration of great evils. Slaying an Ankubusa will inevitably lead to the formation of a new Ankubusa somewhere in the Abyss as their immense power will eventually work its way back to some distant layer of the Abyss where it will coalesce into a new creature. In essence, they never truly die. The resulting demon is independent of its prior life as if through reincarnation, but still maintains its HD and number of class levels, which may be rearranged in a new manner.

Ankubusa are a terrible sight to behold, and luckily the chances are nearly impossible that someone will ever see one. But when the time comes, expect nothing but destruction. They do not like to sully themselves with anything but the most important of battles or the most troublesome of enemies.

Within their layer in the Abyss, Ankubusa are pretty much gods, capable of shifting their layer around by will alone. They will adopt a single layer or two of the Abyss and shape it to their preferences while amassing a horde of demons to carry out its agenda. Outside of their domains, this doesn't change much.

Among demon lords and other obyrith, the Ankubusa will occasionally form alliances but they prefer brutality over diplomacy any day. They are rather indifferent to the Blood War, honoring no innate allegiance to Tanar'ri other than to those that serve them, but they do despise devils who they consider to be lesser beings and can occasionally be found in battles that will prove to shift the scales.

As far as classes, Ankubusa will pursue only the most powerful of practices. They generally despise following the ways of the lesser beings but may become Clerics to their own power (usually of Destruction, Evil, Chaos, Pride, or Strength), Sorcerors, or look to a prestige class. Magics are seen as a great boon.

Each Ankubusa is a unique character, a veritable lord of the Abyss, and shouldn't be treated as a random encounter.

These behemoths are 60 feet tall, weighing in at hundreds of tons. They speak Abyssal as well as employing telepathy.

Ankubusa
Gargantuan Outsider (Chaotic, Evil, Extraplanar, Obyrith)
HD 30d8+450 (585 hp)
Speed 80 ft.; fly 160 ft. (perfect)
Init +15
AC: 21; touch 13; flat-footed 14
(+7 dex, +8 natural; -4 size)
BAB/grp +21/+57
Attack +6 unholy power, fiery blast trident +44 melee (4d6+20; 17-20/x3)
Full-Attack +6 unholy power, fiery blast trident +44/+39/+34/+29 melee (4d6+20; 17-20/x3)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft.
Special Attacks Spell-like abilities; fast healing 10; hellspike; ruinous aura; tempest wings
Special Qualities Demon Traits; DR 25/cold iron and good; resistance to acid, cold, electricity, and fire 20; Blindsight 60 ft.; immunity to poison; SR 40; telepathy 200 ft.; true seeing (CL 20); regeneration 15; demon commander; plane-locked; grant wish; eternal name
Saves Fort +31 Ref +24 Will +27
Abilities Str 51, Dex 25, Con 39, Int 30, Wis 30, Cha 32
Skills Bluff +44, Climb +53, Concentration +47, Diplomacy +44, Gather Information +44, Intimidate +60*, Jump +53, Knowledge (the planes) +43, Knowledge (history) +43, Knowledge (arcana) +43, Knowledge (religion) +43, Listen +43, Ride +40, Search +43, Sense Motive +43, Spellcraft +43, Spot +43, Tumble +40.
Feats Power Attack, Improved Bullrush, Awesome Blow (10d4 feet), Improved Initiative, Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Sunder, Epic Prowess, Superior Initiative, Epic Toughness, Dire Charge
Environment Abyss
Organization Squadron (One Ankubusa, 2d4 Balors, and 3d6 hezrous)
Challenge Rating 36
Treasure Double
Alignment Chaotic Evil
Advancement 31-40 HD (Gargantuan), 41-50 HD (Colossal), 51+ (Colossal+)

Any weapon or natural attack the Ankubusa uses is treated as evil, chaotic, and epic for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Against objects, its attacks ignore hardness.

Hellspike (Su): Ankubusa are capable of creating powerful tridents at will, but only one may exist for an Ankubusa at one time. These Hellspikes are treated as unholy power, fiery blast, +6 tridents; they gain a modified critical: 17-20/x3. If it leaves the Ankubusa's hand, it will dissolve into nothing or reform in the demon's hand. If thrown, it will resist any attempt to move it until the Ankubusa draws it from its landing spot or reforms it. It can be thrown for up to 80 feet.

Spell-like Abilities (Sp): At will - black blade of disaster, cloak of chaos, mass inflict critical wounds, destruction, blasphemy, word of chaos, summon monster IX (chaotic or evil only), telekinesis, unholy aura, fire storm. 3/day - plane shift (flawless, self only). Caster level 30. (DC equal to 36+spell level)

Regeneration (Ex): Divine or good damage deals damage as normal. The Ankubusa may reattach limbs instantly.

Ruinous Aura (Su): While on a plane where the Ankubusa would be extraplanar, its Ruinous Aura takes effect. All objects within 50 feet lose half their hardness and take 1d10 damage each round. Natural vegetation dies off within this zone. Any enemy within this area takes 3d6 vile damage each round and becomes nauseated. When a creature first encounters an Ankubusa and enters this hellish field, it must also attempt a DC 36 Will save, or be afflicted with ruin. While afflicted, any damage the creature suffers becomes vile damage and must succeed on a new Fortitude save or become staggered; damage that was already vile is doubled (receiving 6d6 per round while in the field, as previously mentioned). If the save succeeds, the creature cannot be affected again for 24 hours. Chaotic evil outsiders are immune. This effect lasts for one year and one day and may only removed by greater restoration, heal, limited wish, miracle, or wish.

Demon Commander (Su): An Ankubusa has infallible mental control over creatures with demon traits as long as they are within the range of its telepathy. They become extensions of the emperor's will, but the Ankubusa cannot use its abilities through the demons. Ankubusa are immune to other Ankubusas' control. Divine magic of enemies cast anywhere within the aura is subject to its spell resistance no matter what the target or effect.

Plane-locked (Su): Ankubusa cannot travel to other planes except through their plane shift spell-like ability nor can they benefit from any sort of teleportation magic. They are too powerful to fit through mortal spells of planar travel as well as extradimensional space. Very rarely do Ankubusa leave their plane; they prefer to have their prey sent directly to them. In order to guide an important battle, they will make their appearance, however. They are immune to summoning magic such as planar ally.

Tempest Wings (Ex): When the Ankubusa begins its flight from on the ground, all creatures within 40 feet and of a size smaller than the demon are pushed away as if they had been bullrushed (use one bullrush check against all the creatures).

Grant Wish (Su): Once per week, the Ankubusa may grant one wish (as per wish) to any mortal creature seeking its assistance. This favor comes at the price of being in debt to a demon emperor.

Eternal Name (Su): If true names are power, then the true name of an Ankubusa is endless. This renders them immune to true name effects as if it had been forgotten or removed permanently. Entire demonic verses and hymns are contained within the eternal names of the Ankubusa. In most cases, their names are listed for the first thirty or so letters and amended by an ellipsis. Such as "Segarimokuparikesujettharelkendentaise..."

*The Ankubusa adds its grapple modifier to its Intimidate checks. They flaunt their power with nearly unsurpassed skill.

Combat
As power incarnate, Ankubusa will resort to close combat augmented by their supernatural abilities. While every one is different in its ideologies, they will almost always follow the innate aggression and power they contain. They will Power Attack for about 10 to 20 and adjust this number if the enemy proves to be difficult to strike. Sunder, bullrush, and charge are also very high on their to do list.

Round 1: Buffing spells/abilities and troop orders.
Round 2: Close the distance with a charge and full attack, if possible. Put the enemy into the range of the Ruinous Aura. If the enemy is far away, it will throw its hellspike and immediately reform it.
Round 3: Should be reasonably close, having moved probably 160 feet with a charge. Let loose with a charge or throw the hellspike again.
Additional Rounds: Alternate between melee attacks, especially attacks of opportunity, and spells. They will fight aggressively, only to retreat when the opponent is too resilient or has an absolute advantage. Though they are aware of the rebirth, Ankubusa grow particularly attached to their power. In case of being swarmed, take off and knock them all back with wings or a bullrush.

jindra34
2007-04-28, 08:14 PM
You cannot run fast enough... but make an effort none the less...

Lord Iames Osari
2007-04-28, 08:14 PM
Could you either resize or spoiler that pic? It's causing some sidescroll.

Edit: Thanks! Oh, and I added this to the index already.

Maerok
2007-04-28, 08:41 PM
Which index is that? MitP?

Lord Iames Osari
2007-04-28, 08:42 PM
Yep, that one.

Maerok
2007-04-28, 08:43 PM
Ok. Thank you.

Lord Iames Osari
2007-04-28, 08:45 PM
Oh, you need to add the Obyrith subtype to the line with all the other subtypes. :smalltongue:

Maerok
2007-04-28, 08:50 PM
Your wish is my command. :smallbiggrin:

Icewalker
2007-04-28, 09:40 PM
If it's an Obyrith it needs form of madness. Just lookin at it causes some form of (often permanent) insanity, such as minuses whenever confronted by fire, or some such thing. (not WOOHOO I'M CRAZY insanity, just like some crazy form of paranoia or something like that)

Maerok
2007-04-28, 09:51 PM
I couldn't really think of one so I made the damage -> vile damage part of Ruinous Aura 'it'. Have any ideas? Fear of criticals, power attacks, charges, or big creatures (power)?

Lord Iames Osari
2007-05-11, 02:11 PM
Bump. Keep voting, people!

DracoDei
2007-05-18, 08:27 PM
I voted no on this one simply because epic level seems too specialized to include much of in this book, and they don't have enough detail to there personalities or motivations, or enough powers that can effect their powers as those followers travel the planes to serve as interesting 'behind the scenes' characters.

Zherog
2007-05-21, 01:42 PM
>>snipped flavor text for space<<

You have several OGL issues here in your flavor text. The following terms are most definitely WotC IP and cannot be used:

Blood War
Tanar'ri
Obyrith

In addition, I think "Infinite Layers of the Abyss" is also WotC IP (though you can refer to just the "abyss" without the formal name. I'm not certain on this one; I am on the other three.


Gargantuan Outsider (Chaotic, Evil, Extraplanar, Obyrith)

See above about Obyrith.


BAB/grp +21/+57

Alright, so here's where we'll run into problems, and it's caused mostly by WotC not completely updating the epic rules to 3.5.

Outsiders have BAB equal to their hit dice. For example, look up a solar. It has 22 hit dice, and a BAB of +22.

Epic rules, however, list a different progression, with a +1 per 2 levels after 20th.

And WotC wants us to believe monsters are supposed to use the epic rules the same as a character. We can demonstrate, though, that that isn't true - again, look at the solar.

My advice is to simply advance the creature by outsider hit dice when it comes to BAB and saves, and not worry about epic progression of those values. While that flies in the face of the epic rules, it's consistant with how WotC themselves have advanced monsters.

So, your BAB would be +30, and you'd have to alter attacks and grapple accordingly.

I compute your new grapple mod as +62. (+30 BAB, +20 Str, +12 size)


Attack +6 unholy power, fiery blast trident +44 melee (4d6+20; 17-20/x3)
Full-Attack +6 unholy power, fiery blast trident +44/+39/+34/+29 melee (4d6+20; 17-20/x3)

Magical items have their names italicized.

Your primary attack should be +53 (+30 BAB, -4 size, +20 Str, +6 enhancement, +1 Epic Prowess). Full attack with the trident would be 53/48/43/38.

How come it doesn't have a ranged weapon? You mention it can toss it's trident, so you need to have ranged numbers for that.


Special Attacks Spell-like abilities; fast healing 10; hellspike; ruinous aura; tempest wings

Alphabetize these.

Fast healing is a special quality, not a special attack.


Special Qualities Demon Traits; DR 25/cold iron and good; resistance to acid, cold, electricity, and fire 20; Blindsight 60 ft.; immunity to poison; SR 40; telepathy 200 ft.; true seeing (CL 20); regeneration 15; demon commander; plane-locked; grant wish; eternal name

A few things here:

Alphabetize this list.

SR 40 is actually really weak. You're expecting 36th level characters to go up against these guys. So that means our casters in the party facing this critter only need to roll a 4 or better on their d20 to bypass SR. Weaker than a ninja. :smallbiggrin:

Computing SR is actually pretty simple. I use four categories:

Really damn tough: I want my spellcasters to only succeed on a 16 or better on their d20. SR = CR + 15
Moderately tough: I want my spellcasters to succeed about half the time. SR = CR + 10
Fairly easy: I want my spellcasters to rarely fail, requiring a roll of 6 or better to make their check. SR = CR + 5
May as well not be there: If I want a spellcaster equal to the critter's CR to always succeed, I use this one. I don't use it often. SR = CR

You probably want one of the first two.


Saves Fort +31 Ref +24 Will +27

Looks like you're already calculating saves directly on the creature's hit dice.


Skills Bluff +44, Climb +53, Concentration +47, Diplomacy +44, Gather Information +44, Intimidate +60*, Jump +53, Knowledge (the planes) +43, Knowledge (history) +43, Knowledge (arcana) +43, Knowledge (religion) +43, Listen +43, Ride +40, Search +43, Sense Motive +43, Spellcraft +43, Spot +43, Tumble +40.

These should be in alpha order; your Knowledge skills are in the wrong order.

Even without adding grapple to Intimidate (more on that later), I can't back into these numbers. Given your Hit Dice and Intelligence mod, you should have a total of 594 skill points to spend. I have you spending 566 skill points - and that includes having 45 ranks in Intimidate (which is too many).

Some things you might've missed:

Epic Skill Synergy: You have the following synergies:

Diplomacy gets a +4 from Bluff, and another +4 from Sense Motive
Intimidate gets a +4 from Bluff
Jump gets a +4 from Tumble
Spellcraft gets a +4 from Knowledge (arcana)
Tumble gets a +4 from Jump


In addition, you have a built-in racial mod to Jump equal to +20, due to your increased base speed. For every 10 ft. above 30 feet, you gain a +4 bonus on Jump checks.

So there's a few things to check out to see if your skills are correct.

As for adding grapple to Intimidate... that makes no sense to me whatsoever.


Feats Power Attack, Improved Bullrush, Awesome Blow (10d4 feet), Improved Initiative, Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Sunder, Epic Prowess, Superior Initiative, Epic Toughness, Dire Charge

These should be in alpha order. I'm just going to go ahead and assume you can pick each of those at a "level" where you meet the prereqs. I'm too lazy to work it out. ;)


Alignment Chaotic Evil

You need to word "always" in the front of that, I believe.


Hellspike (Su): Ankubusa are capable of creating powerful tridents at will, but only one may exist for an Ankubusa at one time. These Hellspikes are treated as unholy power, fiery blast, +6 tridents; they gain a modified critical: 17-20/x3. If it leaves the Ankubusa's hand, it will dissolve into nothing or reform in the demon's hand. If thrown, it will resist any attempt to move it until the Ankubusa draws it from its landing spot or reforms it. It can be thrown for up to 80 feet.

Yay! Your wording prevents the "Balor mining" cheese of the shapechange spell!


Spell-like Abilities (Sp): At will - black blade of disaster, cloak of chaos, mass inflict critical wounds, destruction, blasphemy, word of chaos, summon monster IX (chaotic or evil only), telekinesis, unholy aura, fire storm. 3/day - plane shift (flawless, self only). Caster level 30. (DC equal to 36+spell level)

Spell names should be italicized.

What ability mod is the save DC based upon?

Where is the spell black blade of disaster? If it's from a WotC book, you can't use it; if it's from another 3rd party book, you need to make a note of it so that when Fax does up the final version he can properly attribute it in the OGL text. If it's a homebrew spell, you need to include it.


Ruinous Aura (Su): >>Snippy McSnip was here!<<

You need to mention what abilities the saves are based upon.

This seems much too strong to me.


Demon Commander (Su): >>snipped<<

Even if the other demon has more hit dice than the Ankubusa? Even if it's one of the demon lords that cannot be mentioned in OGL products? What if the demon has fewer hit dice, but has gained a Divine Rank?


Plane-locked (Su): Ankubusa cannot travel to other planes except through their plane shift spell-like ability ...

Isn't that a bit like saying, "A fish cannot travel in water except by swimming?" ;)

I know what you mean; it just struck me as funny.



Eternal Name (Su): If true names are power, then the true name of an Ankubusa is endless. This renders them immune to true name effects as if it had been forgotten or removed permanently. Entire demonic verses and hymns are contained within the eternal names of the Ankubusa. In most cases, their names are listed for the first thirty or so letters and amended by an ellipsis. Such as "Segarimokuparikesujettharelkendentaise..."

Is this from Tome of Magic? If so, you need to drop it - it's not OGL.

***

I think I need an aspirin now...

JackMage666
2007-05-21, 05:00 PM
Eternal Name (Su): If true names are power, then the true name of an Ankubusa is endless. This renders them immune to true name effects as if it had been forgotten or removed permanently. Entire demonic verses and hymns are contained within the eternal names of the Ankubusa. In most cases, their names are listed for the first thirty or so letters and amended by an ellipsis. Such as "Segarimokuparikesujettharelkendentaise..."

C'mon! Immune to Truename magic? Weak. Truenamers are already at the bottom of the power list, might as well give them some benefits. Truenaming fiends and such may be about their only power, after all.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-05-21, 06:20 PM
I voted no on this one simply because epic level seems too specialized to include much of in this book, and they don't have enough detail to there personalities or motivations, or enough powers that can effect their powers as those followers travel the planes to serve as interesting 'behind the scenes' characters.
I agree that epic level is specialized, but I don't really see it as a flaw so much as a preference. (There are epic level parties out there, and they only have so many elder dieties to fight)

I like the concept and the execution a lot, so I put in a yes; but I really don't see myself ever using anything so high level.