Let's talk about Elder Evils

[danielxcutter]

So... I joined a PbP game not too long ago, and the DM said that it's an Elder Evil themed one(a homebrewed one). My mind got stuck on them, and honestly they're pretty cool IMO. Okay, pretty sure the Hulks are way underpowered(seriously, five CR 16 monsters?), most of the others are pretty tough at average optimization level(average as in usual table, not average GitP optimization), and Pandorym is a major pain in the ass, considering that it's CR 25. What do you think about them?

Also, what's your favorite? Mine is, yes, Pandorym, because nothing screams badass like thoughts being epic Telepaths. I'd love to see Atropus and Ragnorra duke it out, though, considering that they're each other's antithesis. Speaking of that, how'd each of the EEs fare against fights against each other?

[Kaleph]

I personally like them, not only due to their mechanical design, but also because of the additional special flavor they add to a campaign. Some Topics (for example putting PC's into lose/lose Situations, the Horror-like feels, etc.) treated in the Manual, and included in the adventures' guidelines, can really improve the roleplaying experience.

Up to now we included with my Party two EE: Atropus and the Leviathan. In neither case we arrived to deal with the real Thing, since they were more some Background Features of the Setting, going on in parallel with the main Story; they had the potential to become the BBEG of any follow-on campaign at higher Levels, but it didn't unfortunately happen.

[danielxcutter]

I personally like them, not only due to their mechanical design, but also because of the additional special flavor they add to a campaign. Some Topics (for example putting PC's into lose/lose Situations, the Horror-like feels, etc.) treated in the Manual, and included in the adventures' guidelines, can really improve the roleplaying experience.

Up to now we included with my Party two EE: Atropus and the Leviathan. In neither case we arrived to deal with the real Thing, since they were more some Background Features of the Setting, going on in parallel with the main Story; they had the potential to become the BBEG of any follow-on campaign at higher Levels, but it didn't unfortunately happen.

So the campaign didn't go up high enough for the final CR 20 battle?

[atemu1234]

Worm that Walks. Definitely.

A preponderance of first and second-party material for perusing if you run out of ideas on how to stretch it out, and links to enough pre-existing material that you don't really have to worry about running about related material no matter what the players do.

[Kaleph]

So the campaign didn't go up high enough for the final CR 20 battle?
Exactly.

With Atropus we were actually close, on average at level 19 and, by the time the PC's completed the main quest, I had already introduced the first two event of Atropus' storyline as secondary-quests. But the players wanted to start over with something completely new and so we never did it to the main bosses.

[Afgncaap5]

I like the Elder Evils in general. And I'm fine with some less-than-epic ones since, frankly, epic levels are ridiculous and I wanna believe that even tenth level challenges can be potential world ruiners even if not reality renders.

[danielxcutter]

I like the Elder Evils in general. And I'm fine with some less-than-epic ones since, frankly, epic levels are ridiculous and I wanna believe that even tenth level challenges can be potential world ruiners even if not reality renders.

Maybe not world ruiners either, but yes, a major threat to at least the neighboring countries.