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View Full Version : DM Help Picking a challenging monster



Bobby Baratheon
2016-03-14, 05:49 PM
So, my party is drastically exceeding expectations for effectiveness. Last week they took on and beat a purple worm in four rounds, fair and square, with an average party level of 6. Part of that was plain old dumb luck (one player miraculously surviving the sting, the two that got swallowed not dying and cutting their way out, a timely critical hit that ended up doing something like 60+ points of damage) and some crazy on their feet thinking (shoving a grenade inside a wound in the purple worm's side). I didn't even intend for them to fight the worm; it was supposed to chase them back into a ruined keep for a siege type scenario.

It's been my opinion for a while that most, if not all, of the beatstick type monsters are vastly overrated in terms of CR, but I feel that doesn't totally diminish the fact the party beat a CR 12 monster. Were I to throw another purple worm at them, they would most likely die, but this has been rather enlightening on their capabilities. I've been perusing the various monster manuals looking for an appropriate fight for them, and so far I'm just not feeling it on most of the options, while a couple of others just don't make sense.

For whatever reason, the only thing coming to mind is a gang of half-golem phase spiders, but I'd like something a little less silly. I'm also planning of having a hellfire wyrm level the city they're in to instill a little fear of the DM in them :smallwink: I want them to have a preliminary fight first, and so I turn to you, good people of the playground. What would you throw at the party?

We have (after leveling up from purple worm experience):
-Human Duskblade 5/Alchemist Savant 1 (new player who loves his explosives)
-Human Witch Hunter (a custom melee class I made centered around debuffs and ganking casters) 6
-Human Paladin of Freedom 2/Bard 4 (the best optimized of the players)
-My DMPC, a Lesser Cansin/Unseelie Fey Sorcerer 1/Warlock 1/Anima Mage 3/Eldritch Theurge 1 (yes, this is somehow RAW)

What would you throw at this group? For new players, they're fairly tactically sound but not too familiar with magic, so things that run almost totally off magic probably won't be a great fit.

J-H
2016-03-14, 06:37 PM
A group of lesser monsters will be more challenging than a single monster due to the action economy.

You could always try a couple of youngish dragons.... or a kraken, if they're near water?

ksbsnowowl
2016-03-14, 09:57 PM
.... or a kraken, if they're near water?A Phantom (MM5) Kraken... to attack on land?

Eh, it would still suffocate... Air Creature (Manual of the Planes); maybe that would alleviate the issues of the aquatic subtype?

Bobby Baratheon
2016-03-15, 10:59 AM
I'm not sure if they'd be able to defeat a Kraken - the Purple Worm out-grappled them with ease, and the Kraken is a better grappler, and has eight attempts per round (if using its full attack) to grapple them into submission.

What about a pair of night hags? That might be a good way of easing them into fighting magical monsters without crushing them. The city they're in is home to a large number of wights as well, so perhaps a pair of night hags and a randomized number of wights might attack them. I could even go back to the siege idea, and have the number of wights present increase each round until the night hags are killed.

Note - we're not doing negative levels (yet), so the wights are significantly less dangerous than they otherwise would be.