Requesting Combat tips: playing an ekimmara

[Drache64]

I've been asked to guest appear for a group roleplaying the monster. The party is all level 8 I believe. They have a ranger half elf, Dragonborn paladin, gnome ranger/rogue, Dragonborn sorcerer, gnome cleric, aasimar paladin.

The setting should be a medium sized church basement. Maybe 60x80.

I'll post the creature bio below, but first I'd like to mention that the DM has asked me to go all out and kill 3 players if possible. I do have a lot more experience than the average player there, but without any legendary actions or lair actions it seems I'm going to be drowned by the action economy alone.

There are no minions or other creatures to aid me.

Ekimmara
Large undead, chaotic evil
Armor Class 16 (natural armor)
Hit Points 165
Speed 40ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
22(+6) 18(+4) 20(+5) 7(-2) 14(+2) 14(+2)
Skills Perception +10, Stealth +8
Damage Resistances: necrotic
Damage Immunities; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons
Condition Immunities: frightened
Senses; blindsight 120ft., darkvision 120ft.,
Passive perception: 20
Languages: understands Common but can't speak
Challenge: 10 (5,900 XP)
Echolocation. The vampire can't use its blindsight while deafened.
Regeneration. The vampire regains 20 hit points at the start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point. During daylight hours the regeneration of the vampire is reduced to 10 hit points.
Spider Climb. The vampire can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, the vampire has disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Actions
Multiattack. The vampire makes three melee attacks, only one of which can be a bite attack, or it makes two melee attack and turn invisible before or after the attack.
Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 2d12+6 slashing damage. If the target is a creature other than an undead or a construct, it must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or lose 2d6 hit points at the start of each of its turns due to internal injuries. Each time the vampire hits the wounded target with this attack, the damage dealt by the wound increases by 2d6.
Any creature can take an action to stanch the wound with a successful DC 14 Wisdom (Med) check. The wound also closes if the target receives magical healing. Instead of dealing damage, the vampire can grapple the target (escape DC 16).
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature that is grappled by the vampire, incapacitated or restrained.
Hit: 1d10+6 piercing damage plus 3d6 necrotic damage. The target's hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken, and the vampire regains hit points equal to that amount. The reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. The target dies if this effect reduces its hit point maximum to 0.
Invisibility. The vampire magically turns invisible until it attacks or until its concentration ends (as if concentrating on a spell). Any equipment the vampire wears or carries is invisible with it.

[iTreeby]

First, see if you have any magic items, they could be a game changer.
Second, it looks like you can really only multi attack so, do that.
Third, try to hide on the ceiling so you can get the drop on someone maybe.

Secret bonus strategy, leave evidence that someone else is the vampire, if this false evidence splits the party, you can take them out easier.

[Corran]

You have good stealth, so try to get surprise at least against some of them.
I would try to grab one of the ranged characters (to have less people shooting at you after you grab and run; see below). 2 claw attacks (but the grapple version), turn invisible (to avoid OA's) right after these attacks (as far as I understand you can do it in the same round), then move somewhere out of reach of their melee guys (make use of your spider climb ability to move up the walls, into the ceiling and from there hopefully on the outside of the building, all while trying to kill your grappled target). Once you do that (or alternatively if the pc manages to break the grapple and escape -hopefully taking some falling damage in the process), break the encounter, run away and hide. Hit them again when you are fully rested (assuming the DM lets you do that). You have the stealth, perception and senses needed to at least try and fight them this way. Probably ask the DM though if they don't mind that, because they might want just a quick encounter, and not a smart predator that will take his time to increase the chances of killing as many PC's as possible.

[Unoriginal]

Can you decide of some things in the basement the monster could have set up in advance?

[Dungeon-noob]

Oof, party of six, two palladins, a cleric and a sorcerer, and two rangers. That's a lot of divine punishment. Since you really don't stand a chance in a straight fight, normally i'd advise you to get yourself a labyrinth of some kind and focus on invisible spiderclimibg hit and run, using bite attacks to heal. With this setup, i'd ask the DM to change the battlefield a bit with more corners, nooks and crannies for you to hide and exploit to offset the action economy disadvantage.

As is though, you NEED to focus down single party members away from the rest. Taking them all on doesn't work, so you need ot play the long game. First, start invisible on the ceiling near a wall. Then when the party enters, pick a member that stands apart, drop down, grapple, and run up again, using an attack and going invisible afterwards for disadvantage on their attacks. Up there, quickly finish the poor player, staying as far away from the others as possible, using the bite to heal and the invisibility to mitigate against attacks, the rangers and casters will hate it most. The palladins are presumably melee, and should be avoided as much as possible.

In between grabbing players, stay invisible (of course), but don't beeline for them. Take a turn or two to position, and see if they leave openings in their movements to figure out where you are. Maximize your stealth advantage, and heal to full in the meantime with regen.

While targeting a straggler as so not to eat AoO on the way out is important, grabbing the spellcasters is too. They're the only ones with the options that might help the party counter these tactics: fly, see invisibility, spider climb and greater invisibility come to mind. The cleric also has significant healing to keep the party alive, which you don't want given your claws bleed.

That's really all i have, sorry.

[Drache64]

All your suggestions went too well. I instant killed one player and she threw her character binder across the room, I had the chance to kill another character but she started to leave the session angrily and she has invested so much time and energy into her character I texted the DM that I needed to ease up and he agreed. After another hour or so of playing cat and mouse I was offered up on a silver platter.

Haha it wasn't the right player base to handle character deaths.

Note we added legendary actions.

[Particle_Man]

Bad call of the DM to try to arrange at least three PC deaths like that on a group without knowing that the group was cool with it.

[Drache64]

Bad call of the DM to try to arrange at least three PC deaths like that on a group without knowing that the group was cool with it.

Haha well, I feel like he was trying to transition the players to higher stakes missions since they've been demolishing every encounter.

But I know as a DM it's hard to break the super hero mentality once it sets into a party.

Though it was a tough session for me, I haven't been the source of such aggression since I announced on social media that I thought starwars episode 8 was a good movie...

[Dungeon-noob]

Could you tell us a little more about what happend? I like the idea of having another player play a monster, so i'd like to know what worked an didn't, tactics wise and enjoyment-wise.

[Drache64]

Could you tell us a little more about what happend? I like the idea of having another player play a monster, so i'd like to know what worked an didn't, tactics wise and enjoyment-wise.

Because the mood of the table played such a large factor I'm going to add those details too.

I showed up to the night a little after the party and texted the DM that I would be hiding in the basement of the church spider climbed to the ceiling in the middle of the room using mimicry to project the sound of a crying baby at the back of the basement.

The party entered extremely over confident, they were talking a little smack before we got started.

The dragon born sorcerer lagged behind being cautious to enter the building to far in. As the group approached the altar of the church my sound effect could be heard by them and they began the discuss what to do.

I punched through wooden floor board and grappled the dragon born sorcerer down the hole. In a surprise round I dealt more than enough damage to drop her to zero, then I used a legendary action that allowed me to instantly and savagely rip her apart if she failed a DC 16 Constitution save. She failed and thus she was eviscerated. The DM described the horrific gore and we all rolled initiatives.

Here that player throws her character book and the entire party gets pissed. A character just died with no chance of response.

The entire party jumped down the basement eager to avenge their slain friend. Instead of fighting them there I busted up through the floor and ran up to the ceiling of the first floor.

They turtled up dropping all sorts of wards and enchantments and waited for me to come back down... But they came here to hunt me, not the other way, and I'm fully fed so I'm not going back down there. I decide to fight them on the roof where their heavy armored paladin will be less effective and I can use spider climb and strength to weaken the roof and pop up above and below them.

To be continued...

[Drache64]

Resumed.

While they waited for me downstairs I went outside and slaughtered the paladins horse then scurried up to the ceiling inside.

So as the party realised that I wasn't going to come into their basement of death, the druid Misty stepped up top and created three illusions of herself. Since illusions don't work on creatures who rely upon senses other than sight (I pointed out in the spell description) I dropped down next to the real druid and dropped her to 0 HP. I was then going to kill her character when the player seemed like she was going to cry (note: she's pregnant, and a loved one and her dog died this week) I just couldn't bring myself to kill her so I instead left her unconscious.

Then the DM texted me to take it easy on the party and cut my health from 165 to 100. I acknowledged that I would start making mistakes so they could kill me, but I couldn't make it obvious or too easy, they had to have a sense of accomplishment.

I dove back to the ceiling and planned my mistake of over confidence. The players began slowly moving upstairs but the paladin, ranger, cleric, and uh.. other ranger stayed in the basement. On my turn I dove from the ceiling, through the floor, into the basement and goaded the paladin to come out, the party unleashed a slew of prepared actions and did a little damage. I backed into the stairwell leading between the first floor and basement and prepared to attack whoever came through the door.

The party set up more defenses and refused to engage. The druid is revived and summons 8 pseudo dragons to hunt me as the cleric casts daylight in the main sanctuary room.

Using my escape legendary action I fled up the stairs, and burst out to the roof and waited for things to calm down.

The party then ended combat and began to resurrect their fallen sorcerer with a wonderous item.

Since no one really died and the encounter began to lose intensity as the players began to kill about, I skulked around the outside of the building using my blindsight 120ft to track the players. When the female ranger went a little too far away from the party to curse my character with orcish insults, I burst through a stained glass window, through the floorboards back down to the basement and surprise round dropped her to zero HP.

Even though the DM had stated combat had ended, he kept the same initiatives and counted my surprise action as a round of combat and let the party turn around and unleash all their attacks on me.

100 hp on an undead against a party with 3 holy characters haha. It only took them 2 players.

All in all I regret not going a little harder on them, and the DM spoon-feeding them the kill, but I think we read the room correctly and it was right to just end the encounter.

[Dungeon-noob]

Wow. All i can say is well played on your part, too bad the Dm didn't read the party right for this. Still sounds like a coll event, though i think some players might disagree :smallbiggrin: Thanks for the updates.