How Evil is This?

[Alistaroc]

How evil would it be to throw this at a party of 5-6 Level 16 players?

A Mithral Golem(ELH193), a Juggernaut(MMII132), and two 11 HD Arrow Demons(MMIII34) riding inside, in a 15 foot wide hallway of adamantine/obdurium/etc with Dimensional Anchor over the area
The Arrow Demons have a Captain's Standard for +2 to attack and damage rolls for a minute, and the Mithral Golem has an Antimagic Torc.

General idea is
Juggernaut: Wall of Force behind the players
Mithral Golem: Run in, activate the Antimagic Torc, and start wailing on the closest person
Arrow Demons: Start throwing out a combined 12 arrows a round

Basically the premise is Elminster forgot to tell his secretary to send the party in through the "safe" door, so they have to make it through the "not-so-safe" door before speaking to him.
Intended to be quite difficult, but passable.

Thoughts?

[Platymus Pus]

Now that these demons are being sent to other planes and given missions other than outright warfare, most who encounter them do so outside of the abyssal battlefields of the Nine Hells or the infinite layers of the Abyss. As archers first and foremost, arrow demons prefer to have allied creatures between them and an enemy, allowing them to reliably fire a steady stream of arrows from their twin bows.

Small groups of arrow demons have perfected an unorthodox method of holding a running battle. When pressed and working as a group, the arrow demon with the most hit points makes a full attack while all of his allies use dimension door to go as far away as they can and maintain line of sight to their foes. Once the lead demon is wounded, it uses dimensiondoor to relocate behind the group and all but one member of the group use dimension door to appear next to him, beginning the process once again. Using this tactic, the demons get to make the maximum number of full-attack actions possible in the terrain and their foes' attacks are always directed against the demon most able to withstand them.

An arrow demon's natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as chaotic-aligned and evil-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Close Combat Shot (Ex): An arrow demon does not incur attacks of opportunity for firing a bow while threatened. In addition, the arrow demon can shoot its bows to make attacks of opportunity as if it threatened the squares adjacent to it with its bows.

Summon Tanar'ri (Sp): Once per day, an arrow demon can either automatically summon 1d6 dretches or attempt to summon another arrow demon with a 35% chance of success. This ability is the equivalent of a 4th-level spell.
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040815b&page=4
I dunno, how well is your party going to be equipped to handle a tactic like this to begin with?

[Alistaroc]

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040815b&page=4
I dunno, how well is your party going to be equipped to handle a tactic like this to begin with?
The arrow demons won't be using that tactic due to the confined space, but rather firing from arrow slits inside the Juggernaut. Essentially they can't be hit until the Juggernaut is killed, but when it is killed, they'll be killed relatively easily.

[Platymus Pus]

10 ft is the range of AMF, they are in a hallway that is 15 foot wide.
If that golem gets in hard enough it could catch a few people, the spellcasters of the group being the most important to pick on, how many spellcasters?
Also I don't think it's 12 attacks. It is 8 per full attack

The statistics block above already includes these bonuses.

Full Attack: 2 Large +1 composite longbows (+5 Str bonus) +14/+14/+9/+9 ranged (2d6+6/3) or 4 claws +15 melee (1d6+5)
Unless you rapid shot I guess, but how is the party's ac at level 16?

[RhymarJared]

The Juggernaut by himself is a strong enough challenge. As a player, I encountered one and we got wrecked, even considering we were higher than level 12. The monster is all around unbalanced for a couple reasons.

1. He has force wall at will. That means that if the players are in an enclosed space and don't have a way to pass walls of force (our group unfortunately didn't), the characters will be trapped very soon.

2. He has several attacks which are likely to hit the characters, and since his grapples cause them to be pushed directly under him for high damage, they will suffer.

And those are only the 2 arguments I can remember about why the combat was tough. I don't have the monster stats with me, but I can remember he has several at will spells and his challenge rating is lower than what it should be.

At least, until one of the player gets a way to either disintegrate/dispel the walls or get a way to move himself and his allies away, like dimension door.

[Alistaroc]

10 ft is the range of AMF, they are in a hallway that is 15 foot wide.
A 15 ft Golem emitting a 10 ft AMF covers the width of the hallway and 10ft in either direction

If that golem gets in hard enough it could catch a few people, the spellcasters of the group being the most important to pick on, how many spellcasters?
One primary and two gishes

Also I don't think it's 12 attacks. It is 8 per full attack

two 11 HD Arrow Demons(MMIII34)
The extra HD gives them +11 BAB to get the third attack, which then doubles to 6 per.

how is the party's ac at level 16?
Pretty good, iirc the caster has 35, and the monk has 38, although that's primarily magic.(The monk is crazy too, he gets Wis to attack/damage from Shiba Protector and can do 200+ damage/round)

The Juggernaut by himself is a strong enough challenge. As a player, I encountered one and we got wrecked, even considering we were higher than level 12. The monster is all around unbalanced for a couple reasons.

1. He has force wall at will. That means that if the players are in an enclosed space and don't have a way to pass walls of force (our group unfortunately didn't), the characters will be trapped very soon.

2. He has several attacks which are likely to hit the characters, and since his grapples cause them to be pushed directly under him for high damage, they will suffer.

And those are only the 2 arguments I can remember about why the combat was tough. I don't have the monster stats with me, but I can remember he has several at will spells and his challenge rating is lower than what it should be.

At least, until one of the player gets a way to either disintegrate/dispel the walls or get a way to move himself and his allies away, like dimension door.
The AMF keeps them from getting away from the Wall of Force/Forcecage until they take care of it.

[RhymarJared]

How good is your players' contact AC and grapple checks? I hammer in the Juggernaut point, but if only your monk can avoid being put below the construct and taking massive damage, the simple way to destroy them is for the juggernaut to try to grab them and stomp them until they're dead.

[Platymus Pus]

The extra HD gives them +11 BAB to get the third attack, which then doubles to 6 per.
Yeah, that looks right. +5 composite bow 2d6+5 dmg per hit
+4 to hit from dex.

when making a full-attack action, it can fire one arrow from each bow for each of its normal iterative attacks (two arrows from each bow, each shaft at a -2 penalty).

Rapid shot: When making a full-attack action with a ranged weapon, you can fire one additional time this round

You get a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at ranges of up to 30 feet.

+1 bonus on all attack rolls you make using the selected weapon

Try seeing what abilities in use are like with Striped ac bonuses that are cancelled by antimagic field and see how well that hits.

[Alistaroc]

How good is your players' contact AC and grapple checks? I hammer in the Juggernaut point, but if only your monk can avoid being put below the construct and taking massive damage, the simple way to destroy them is for the juggernaut to try to grab them and stomp them until they're dead.


Yeah, that looks right. +5 composite bow 2d6+5 dmg per hit
+4 to hit from dex.
Try seeing what abilities in use are like with Striped ac bonuses that are cancelled by antimagic field and see how well that hits.
Alright, the Monk has 50 AC; Wis modifier of +15, and double Wis to AC from Monk and Saint. In an AMF? 40 AC. The Arrow Demons have a 5% chance to hit him on their first 2 arrows, but his grapple modifier is only +12, so the Juggernaut has a very high chance to crush him, and the Golem can still hit him on an 11 or above.
The caster has an AC of 35, and only 22 in the AMF. He has 100/100/75/75/50/50 for hit chances.

The Captain's Standard makes the Arrow Demons have a routine of +19/+19/+14/+14/+9/+9 for 2d6+8 each (oh yeah they have +3 longbows instead of +1)

[Arbane]

Basically the premise is Elminster forgot to tell his secretary to send the party in through the "safe" door, so they have to make it through the "not-so-safe" door before speaking to him.
Intended to be quite difficult, but passable.

Thoughts?

My first thought is that after they finish killing the golems and demons, THAT OLD BASTARD IS NEXT. :smallfurious:

[Platymus Pus]

Alright, the Monk has 50 AC; Wis modifier of +15, and double Wis to AC from Monk and Saint. In an AMF? 40 AC. The Arrow Demons have a 5% chance to hit him on their first 2 arrows

Safe to say they won't really target the monk.

[Alistaroc]

My first thought is that after they finish killing the golems and demons, THAT OLD BASTARD IS NEXT. :smallfurious:
Knowing my players, they'll at least try.

Safe to say they won't really target the monk.
Yeah, the monk would be left to the Golem or Juggernaut.

[Zanos]

Depends a lot on how many countermeasures the party has for the anti-magic field, and how initiative goes. I'm assuming this is a decently high level party if the monk's got 50 AC and they're fighting a CR 20 something encounter.

My only concern is that spellcasters rely a lot on buffs and magic items for defenses. If the enemies win intiative, which depends on how optimized the party is, there's a good chance the spellcasters will be dead before they can act if they're in an AMF and eating all those arrows.

I'm not 100% on this bit, but I don't think mindless creatures can activate magic items.