PDA

View Full Version : Strategy for a Giant Octopus



henebry
2007-05-14, 06:10 PM
My players stand poised on the brink of an underwater adventure. Early on, in the lair of some Kuo-Toa, they will encounter a giant octopus which stands as a guard dog for the K-T.

Lately, though, the party (5 fifth level characters) have regularly bested creatures well beyond their party's ECL. I have the feeling I'm lame when it comes to strategy, so I'm asking your advice.

They encounter the octopus in an underwater cavern with three visible exits. All the exits show a dim light, but the cavern itself is dark. The octopus is either lurking (camoflaged) on the floor of the cavern or in a caven beneath this one, with a narrow opening between.

The octopus (CR 8) has a powerful Imp Grab / Constrict routine, but to use his full Grapple +15, he has to use his whole body, right? According to my understanding of Imp Grab, if he just uses the tentacle, he grapples at -5.

My sense is that the octopus will be at a substantial disadvantage if he uses his own body to grapple, as that will leave him vulnerable to the attacks of the rest of the party. I'd prefer that he hit with as many tentacles as possible, but remain at distance so he can hit with AOOs when they try to close the distance. (By the way, why does the Giant Octopus have the lame feat Toughness rather than Combat Reflexes so he can max out his AOOs?)

But I'm sure there's a much better tactic than the ones I've come up with. Ideas?

DaMullet
2007-05-14, 06:21 PM
Firstly, feel free to change out the feats in the monster stat blocks. They're there for a reason. If Octopi have Toughness and not Combat Reflexes, that's a nice waste of a feat there.

Your reading of Improved Grab is correct, and if you snatch the small or low-strength party members, chances are they will fail anyway.

cupkeyk
2007-05-14, 06:23 PM
First off, as DM you can choose your Octopus's feats. Drop the toughness, get him Combat Reflexes.

The best strategy for the Giant Octopus is it's 20 land speed. It should attack creatures on the ground and take them under water and drown them. Grapple casters and skill monkeys with low strength. Watch the hilarity ensue as the heal bot and the tank decide whether they will strip off their heavy armor and jump in the water or wait on the surface.

I hope nobody took ranks in swim. It's always funnier that way.

Zaeron
2007-05-14, 06:30 PM
My players stand poised on the brink of an underwater adventure. Early on, in the lair of some Kuo-Toa, they will encounter a giant octopus which stands as a guard dog for the K-T.

Lately, though, the party (5 fifth level characters) have regularly bested creatures well beyond their party's ECL. I have the feeling I'm lame when it comes to strategy, so I'm asking your advice.

They encounter the octopus in an underwater cavern with three visible exits. All the exits show a dim light, but the cavern itself is dark. The octopus is either lurking (camoflaged) on the floor of the cavern or in a caven beneath this one, with a narrow opening between.

The octopus (CR 8) has a powerful Imp Grab / Constrict routine, but to use his full Grapple +15, he has to use his whole body, right? According to my understanding of Imp Grab, if he just uses the tentacle, he grapples at -5.

My sense is that the octopus will be at a substantial disadvantage if he uses his own body to grapple, as that will leave him vulnerable to the attacks of the rest of the party. I'd prefer that he hit with as many tentacles as possible, but remain at distance so he can hit with AOOs when they try to close the distance. (By the way, why does the Giant Octopus have the lame feat Toughness rather than Combat Reflexes so he can max out his AOOs?)

But I'm sure there's a much better tactic than the ones I've come up with. Ideas?

Remember that the feats given to monsters are only suggested. Unless they're a racial bonus feat, which I doubt toughness is, you can change it.

Also, do remember though, something like that has the potential to change the power level of the monster pretty significantly. A creature with reach already decimates the melee fighters as they try to close, and one that can then follow up with a grapple using improved grab is usually even more difficult to defeat. I think you might find that with combat reflexes, any melee members of the party would be fairly useless.

Edit: Also note that what the poster above suggests is patently unfair. The giant octopus is an animal. It would not be intelligent enough to pick out the players with lower grapple modifiers, and if you play it that way you're being unfair to the players. An animal of 1-2 intelligence would almost certainly simply attack the closest enemy, or the most dangerous enemy. In fact, I'd argue that the tactic he suggests it using is possibly beyond it as well. That doesn't sound like a usual hunting tactic to me - octopus generally fight underwater if I remember right. Although admittedly, this isn't real life.

It is important though, in my opinion, to keep the intelligence score of the creature in mind.

Jack Mann
2007-05-14, 06:30 PM
It would also help to know what the party consists of. Having some idea of their abilities would help us to help you shore up any obvious weaknesses in the octopus.

Turcano
2007-05-14, 06:33 PM
If I were DMing this scenario, I would do the following:

Attack the weakest party member that's easily accessible, establish a grapple with improved grab.
Maintain the grapple while moving away from the party.
If successful in pulling the first victim away, continue to move and grapple the victim until he or she dies; repeat with a new victim.
If the other party members intervene, use ink cloud.
If they continue to intervene, jet away and sneak back to try again.

If they don't have access to freedom of movement, I think this stands a very good chance of working.

Jack Mann
2007-05-14, 06:55 PM
I sure hope it wouldn't. I don't think his purpose is to kill the party, Turc. He probably just wants to give them a good challenge. Remember, a TPK isn't fun for anyone, except bad DMs.

goat
2007-05-14, 07:06 PM
They encounter the octopus in an underwater cavern with three visible exits. All the exits show a dim light, but the cavern itself is dark. The octopus is either lurking (camoflaged) on the floor of the cavern or in a caven beneath this one, with a narrow opening between.

A giant octopus could be fairly threatening if it was intelligent, I think the CR on an awakened one would have to go up quite a bit.

It just has to nip up, attack till it gets a grapple, keep hold for a round, deploy an ink cloud for cover then jet backwards 200ft into the darkness of its caves, spend a few rounds munching on whoever it's got, rinse and repeat.

I_Got_This_Name
2007-05-14, 07:50 PM
Edit: Also note that what the poster above suggests is patently unfair. The giant octopus is an animal. It would not be intelligent enough to pick out the players with lower grapple modifiers, and if you play it that way you're being unfair to the players. An animal of 1-2 intelligence would almost certainly simply attack the closest enemy, or the most dangerous enemy. In fact, I'd argue that the tactic he suggests it using is possibly beyond it as well. That doesn't sound like a usual hunting tactic to me - octopus generally fight underwater if I remember right. Although admittedly, this isn't real life.

It is important though, in my opinion, to keep the intelligence score of the creature in mind.

Animals aren't stupid. Grabbing the weakest possible creature for prey is a standard tactic that has been developed by. . . Lesse here, carry the two, about every predator ever. . . ish, and octopi are actually pretty smart animals. Knowing that the shiny stuff (armor) is shell and that the big guys are better able to escape your tentacles is easy for even an octopus to understand. Wolves IRL fight more tactically than many DMs play their orcs (using ambush tactics, strike and retreat, flanking, tearing enemies apart when lying on the ground and the like; as opposed to charging with a greataxe. Then charging some more as soon as you aren't in melee).

I'd have it attack from the water, grappling anyone weak that comes in close, or doing a one-tentacle grapple on the mage or halfling. Then, it tries to pull them (probably by opposing a grapple check) back into the water. Then they drown and it eats.

Turcano
2007-05-14, 08:15 PM
I sure hope it wouldn't. I don't think his purpose is to kill the party, Turc. He probably just wants to give them a good challenge. Remember, a TPK isn't fun for anyone, except bad DMs.

On second thought, yeah, that's probably not a good idea for a 5th-level party. But it is close to how they would do it in real life; the only major difference is that they would use ink cloud and jet at the same time.

However, there is a strategy that won't result in a TPK, and that's to attack all at once once it grapples one party member. Octopuses are generally timid and will normally retreat in the face of determined resistance.


It just has to nip up, attack till it gets a grapple, keep hold for a round, deploy an ink cloud for cover then jet backwards 200ft into the darkness of its caves, spend a few rounds munching on whoever it's got, rinse and repeat.

I don't think you can jet and maintain a grapple at the same time.

Fishy
2007-05-14, 08:15 PM
That doesn't sound like a usual hunting tactic to me - octopus generally fight underwater if I remember right. Although admittedly, this isn't real life.

Real-Life octopi are mostly ambush hunters- they don't really get into extended battles. They use their remarkably awesome camoflage abilities to hide somwhere promising, snatch something up in their tentacles, and then carry it off to feed. Not really the first animal you'd think of for a guard, but hey. They are, however, incredibly smart, and this particular one has presumably had some sort of training for its job.

D&D wise, your basic big stupid Brawler octopus takes Enhanced Reflexes, gets dropped into the middle of a party and attempts to beat on them until the mage nukes it. That's certainly one way to optimize it.

The Evil War Trained Guard Octopus, however, lives in a complicated coral-like structure, full of caverns, nooks, crannies and tunnels that branch a lot and loop around on themselves. Have her hide, wait for one of the PCs to get within range of a full attack/improved grapple, and then use her Jet ability to bolt for the tunnels. She makes her way through the maze to the nearby Kuo-Toa prisoner chamber, dumps the PC, and tries to maneuver her way back to the entrance cavern to do it again. If the PCs give chase, they very quickly find themselves in a narrow passageway, filled with ink, fighting an opponent with 12 Escape Artist and a ton of reach weapons.

blackout
2007-05-14, 08:51 PM
Dontcha know? Use fire-based spells. Sheesh. It's like no one here's ever fought Ultros from FF6/3 before.

henebry
2007-05-14, 09:02 PM
A few clarifications: if the characters get this far, they've obtained potions of water breathing. Perhaps this reduces the effective CR of the encounter?

And the cavern complex is fairly small, with only a few side passages. But perhaps the octopus' lair has been equiped with a sliding door by the Kuo-Toa, and the octopus has been trained to operate the mechanism. In that case, the octopus grabs a character, grapples it into his lair, and triggers the door to close (operate mechanism as a move action with a successful grapple check).

The closed door enables it to concentrate on a single grappled victim without exposing it to attacks from the rest of the party.

And, as frosting on the cake, perhaps the same mechanism trips another door which releases a few sharks into the enclosure, distracting the party from rescuing their friend.

You're right that my aim here is NOT TPK. Ideally no one will die. But I want excitement. And I'm hoping that excitement can be generated by (1) the scent of character death and (2) a tough choice required to save a threatened character.

El Jaspero, the Pirate King
2007-05-14, 09:56 PM
Water breathing actually doesn't do a lot: according to the Swim skill entry (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/swim.htm), you can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to your Con in combat before anything bad even starts to happen to you. If the thing has your mage grappled for 10 rounds, he's already quite dead from getting chewed on, so drowning is not much of an issue.

Your idea is pretty cool, but I think it'll be important to make it not too hard to rescue the grapple victim. Getting chewed up by an octopus because your party was too chicken to pull the big rusty lever would be a really crummy way to go.

Fax Celestis
2007-05-14, 10:53 PM
Water breathing actually doesn't do a lot: according to the Swim skill entry (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/swim.htm), you can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to your Con in combat before anything bad even starts to happen to you. If the thing has your mage grappled for 10 rounds, he's already quite dead from getting chewed on, so drowning is not much of an issue.

Not quite: you lose a round's worth every time you take a standard action.

NEO|Phyte
2007-05-14, 11:13 PM
Not quite: you lose a round's worth every time you take a standard action.
Thats already factored in, outside of combat, its 2x Con, with the note that some actions lessen the time you can stay under.


If you are underwater, either because you failed a Swim check or because you are swimming underwater intentionally, you must hold your breath. You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to twice your Constitution score, but only if you do nothing other than take move actions or free actions. If you take a standard action or a full-round action (such as making an attack), the remainder of the duration for which you can hold your breath is reduced by 1 round. (Effectively, a character in combat can hold his or her breath only half as long as normal.) After that period of time, you must make a DC 10 Constitution check every round to continue holding your breath. Each round, the DC for that check increases by 1. If you fail the Constitution check, you begin to drown.

AtomicKitKat
2007-05-14, 11:32 PM
Animals are not dumb.

Octopus tactics 101:

1: Get above your prey. It is important that you keep your tentacles fairly close together at this stage.
2: Balloon out your tentacles(and more importantly, the webbing between them) so that your prey is surrounded by a blanket of your undulating flesh.
3: Suck the whole lot, including tentacles, towards your beak. You can always regrow your tentacles if they're damaged. Just spit them out AFTER the prey is inside your beak.

Faced with a veritable smorgasbord of food(the party), the octopus would likely aim for the smallest(ie, quickest to dispose of) member, hoping that it can get more after.

Never forget, predator thought process generally includes "Will the big one hurt me enough that I cannot hunt?".

deadseashoals
2007-05-15, 03:26 AM
Swapping out default monster feats for cherry picked ones can adversely affect the "true" CR of a monster, depending on what you sub in. It might be good to err on the side of caution there.

Deepblue706
2007-05-15, 09:36 AM
Dontcha know? Use fire-based spells. Sheesh. It's like no one here's ever fought Ultros from FF6/3 before.

Just be wary of his ink counterattack.

Also, PCs should remember to keep any Bannons in the back row.

A Gray Phantom
2007-05-15, 07:26 PM
A few clarifications: if the characters get this far, they've obtained potions of water breathing. Perhaps this reduces the effective CR of the encounter?

Snip!
I'm sorry, but potions of water breathing don't help much in deep-sea adventures. Albeit it is the first thing you need to think of, but it isn't the last.

Do you have methods of seeing underwater? The deep can be quite murky, as sunlight cannot penetrate farther than the shallows.

What is your heat source? Davy Jones' locker doesn't come equipped with a thermostat. Without any light, the water will become quite cool (but not freezing). Volcanic vents could solve this problem, and encourage underwater organisms to thrive. (Volcanic vents= energy source and energy source= life.)

Crushing depth: Underwater pressure can be a scary thing. Going deep enough can cause problems with balance and equilibrium.

Sonic attacks: Sound travels faster and louder through water than in does in air. If a creature has sonic attacks, it will probably do more damage underwater. This doesn't really come into play too often, but in a magical world, anything is possible.

You'll want to have all your bases covered when traveling under the sea (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVkq7RI3GzM&mode=related&search=). I find the best mode of travel is the apparatus of kwalish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#apparatusoftheCrab) with laser beam eyes (everything is better with laser beam eyes!).

Beleriphon
2007-05-15, 08:09 PM
apparatus of kwalish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#apparatusoftheCrab) with laser beam eyes (everything is better with laser beam eyes!).

Its true, I can only imagine what Cyclops would be like without them.

Enzario
2007-05-15, 09:56 PM
The basic "animal instinct" strategy looks fine to me...

for the first fight.
It is perfectly reasonable for an octopus that is injured (particularely a half-starved, giant, trained guard-octopus) to retreat, then come back and ambush the party when they're least expecting it. It's got a +12 hide modifier, which, depending on the conditions, should be MORE than enought to fool a party of 5th-level adventurers. Murky water, as far as I know, doesn't get clearer the more light you have. For more chee- er, I mean PC-fight goodness, have it attack at a very nasty *ahem*coincidental*ahem* moment, for example (purely hypothetical of course, its all just a matter of "chance") when the party healer is getting ganged up on by kuo-tua and say, the squishy guy that happens to be at the back of the party is open.