D&D 3.5 Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Utreshimon Encounter [Spoilers!]

[ColorBlindNinja]

I've put the relevant bit in a spoiler tag, in case anyone wants to avoid spoilers for a module that's nearing 20 years in age. :smallwink:


The first major encounter in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil is a young blue dragon named Utreshimon (Utre for short).

The players start this module at level 4 and easily could head straight from town to the dungeon where Utre resides (the moathouse). The module admits that this could easily be the case:




The typical party might come to town, hang about in the Inn of the Welcome Wench, go off to the moathouse (possibly resting at the inn between trips), visit an establishment or two, and confront the cultists in the mill before heading off to the mountains.


Even if the PCs deal with the cultists first, they won't get enough XP to level up. So I ask, how in the Nine Hells are a group of level 4 PCs supposed to slay a CR 6 (under CRed) dragon?! :smallmad:

Utre has an AC of 21, 102 HP, a +15 to hit on his bite attack and his lowest save is a +8 to REF (+10 to FORT & +9 to WILL).

If he flies over the PCs heads and nukes them with his breath weapon, the party loses (6d8 damage with a DC 18 REF save for half every 1d4 rounds).

If Utre melees the party, they lose horribly, he has attacks for his full attack routine (bite, 2 claws, and 2 wings) with a +10 for his secondary natural attacks.

Utre is immune to sleep, paralysis and electricity and has a 150 foot fly speed with an 60 foot range breath weapon. Your only saving grace is that it's a line and not a cone.

How is the party expected to win?

The only thing I can think of (outside of obvious TO tactics) is to use Lesser Shivering Touch combined with Spectral Hand.

Or have an Artificer in your party and have her craft a scroll of Shivering Touch (again, combined with Spectral Hand).



Does anyone else have any advice for this encounter? Am I overreacting? Are there more encounters like this later in the book?

I'd appreciate any input on this matter. :smallsmile:

[Eldariel]

CR6 for 4xlevel 4 PC is pretty tame numerically. CR8 is the nominal 50-50 fight. CR6 is...well, yeah, Dragons are under-CRd and this is before the big spells come online so it's a tough fight but winnable for certain parties. First of all, the Dragon has no SR and if you manage to Glitterdust/Pyrotechnics it, it'll go down hard. It has +9 Will, yes, but the party has 4-to-1 action advantage so it depends on the number of spellcasters available. A 20 Int Wizard casts at DC 10+5+2 = 17, so it's got a 35% chance of failing...which is low but not inconsequential. Of course, Ray of Enfeeblement would really wreck its melee ability too, and if it lands to fight you always have the Web option to pin it down for a moment (might work in some flight patterns too with the terrain but that really depends on how the DM rolls it).

Breath strafing is the bigger problem though; it's much harder to deal with a flying enemy even if it isn't doing that much damage. 6d8 averages 27 damage, which is again significant, but a level 4 PC non-full caster should be able to take that and they should split out. Even assuming they botch all their saves, it'll take the dragon maybe 4-6 breaths to kill everyone (a level 4 Cleric with 14 Con has 9+4.5*3+2*4 = 29.5 HP so they could probably take a hit though it's close; Wizard would have to have False Life up and even then it'd be down to the dice gods with the Wizard at average 28 HP and the Dragon's breath dealing 27) and with 1d4 rounds between breaths, that's looking at about 5+2.5*5=17.5 rounds, which is a lot of time to do stuff (though admittedly, if your guys are going down all the time, those actions keep getting much worse). There's time to heal up with e.g. Wand between the breaths too; 1-4 rounds with even Wand of CLW averages 13.74 HP healed (by a single person on a single target).

Druid would be really good here; Blinding Spittle is one option that can nuke the whole fight and you've got maybe 50/50 shot at landing it (maybe +3 BAB, +1 Dex or so and the -4 from the spell). Of course, getting within 35' would be trickier but it's not out of the question. Blind, it's really restricted in how it can move and act due to flight and stalling rules (if you're blind you can only move at half speed and if you fly at Poor maneuverability, you need to maintain half your max forward movement speed or stall so it's basically stuck flying in a straight line or falling due to the movement penalties Poor turning causes you); and it doesn't have any good options for washing its eyes without opening itself up to a dangerous counterattack. Its melee threat is practically neutralized and its breath weakened a lot by that as well. Readied action to cast Dark Way is a great way to block its movement forcing it to stall and fall, if it comes close enough you can drop it (though its breath range is 60' while that spell has 35' cast range). Silent Image is a Long Range option for trying this but of course, if it's forced to fly at the illusionary wall, it's obviously not going to be very efficient so it takes some more finagling to make that work (but it's certainly something worth going for).

4 level 4 characters with Bows are attacking at like +4 - +10 for 1d8 - 1d8+5ish (a focused Archer can easily be looking at +8/+8 for 1d8+5 on this level - or much more but assuming Wood Elf Ranger 2/Barb 1/Targeteer 1 with double 18s in Dex/Str is a bit much). A Wizard with 14 Dex has the +4 (or +5 at Mw.) Crossbow/Longbow for...piddly damage (and frankly better options for using their actions most likely) while a Cleric might look at +5 (though dumping Dex, they are probably better off casting spells too) and the warrior types can shoot higher. +5 for 1d8 averages like 1.23 damage a round (at 20/x3) while +8/+8 for 1d8+5 is looking at 8.36. In short, the party needs party boosts (such as a Scroll of Haste) to have a shot at the damage race. Or to get to melee; a Barbie can unload pretty decent wallop on this level already (a two-hander Orc Barbarian with 22 starting Str can look at 2d4+13 at +11/+11 and it's not even hard to trip at mere 17 Str Medium) and can easily sustain through its attacks at 40+ HP. So if the Barbie Tripper can get into melee, it can probably bring it down and paste it with some support. Particularly with Enlarge Person, the Dragon can't get close enough to attack back if tripped and its chances of avoiding the trip are +3 vs. +6-8 Str + 4 Improved Trip = pretty abysmal (let alone if Enlarge Person is involved).


Of course, encounters like these are why you should always invest in higher level spell scrolls where you can; sometimes you need to punch above your weight class. Shivering Touch is the obvious nuke but there are other nice options.

Also, having access to Resist Energy would weaken its breath strafing a ton. So with forewarning, the fight would not be that tough for many parties but out of the blue (heh), it might be quite rough or at the very least extremely party-dependent. A heavily buffed guy or two getting into melee is the best way to put it out of its misery unless you have some highly specific archery stuff available (Bane from the Artificer, Psionic Minor Creation from the Shaper or something might make arrows efficient enough even without a dedicated archer).

Tanglefoot Bags are rather strong here if the party happens to have access to those and a decent thrower.

[ColorBlindNinja]

CR6 for 4xlevel 4 PC is pretty tame numerically. CR8 is the nominal 50-50 fight. CR6 is...well, yeah, Dragons are under-CRd and this is before the big spells come online so it's a tough fight but winnable for certain parties. First of all, the Dragon has no SR and if you manage to Glitterdust/Pyrotechnics it, it'll go down hard. It has +9 Will, yes, but the party has 4-to-1 action advantage so it depends on the number of spellcasters available. A 20 Int Wizard casts at DC 10+5+2 = 17, so it's got a 35% chance of failing...which is low but not inconsequential. Of course, Ray of Enfeeblement would really wreck its melee ability too, and if it lands to fight you always have the Web option to pin it down for a moment (might work in some flight patterns too with the terrain but that really depends on how the DM rolls it).

Breath strafing is the bigger problem though; it's much harder to deal with a flying enemy even if it isn't doing that much damage. 6d8 averages 27 damage, which is again significant, but a level 4 PC non-full caster should be able to take that and they should split out. Even assuming they botch all their saves, it'll take the dragon maybe 4-6 breaths to kill everyone (a level 4 Cleric with 14 Con has 9+4.5*3+2*4 = 29.5 HP so they could probably take a hit though it's close; Wizard would have to have False Life up and even then it'd be down to the dice gods with the Wizard at average 28 HP and the Dragon's breath dealing 27) and with 1d4 rounds between breaths, that's looking at about 5+2.5*5=17.5 rounds, which is a lot of time to do stuff (though admittedly, if your guys are going down all the time, those actions keep getting much worse). There's time to heal up with e.g. Wand between the breaths too; 1-4 rounds with even Wand of CLW averages 13.74 HP healed (by a single person on a single target).

Druid would be really good here; Blinding Spittle is one option that can nuke the whole fight and you've got maybe 50/50 shot at landing it (maybe +3 BAB, +1 Dex or so and the -4 from the spell). Of course, getting within 35' would be trickier but it's not out of the question. Blind, it's really restricted in how it can move and act due to flight and stalling rules (if you're blind you can only move at half speed and if you fly at Poor maneuverability, you need to maintain half your max forward movement speed or stall so it's basically stuck flying in a straight line or falling due to the movement penalties Poor turning causes you); and it doesn't have any good options for washing its eyes without opening itself up to a dangerous counterattack. Its melee threat is practically neutralized and its breath weakened a lot by that as well. Readied action to cast Dark Way is a great way to block its movement forcing it to stall and fall, if it comes close enough you can drop it (though its breath range is 60' while that spell has 35' cast range). Silent Image is a Long Range option for trying this but of course, if it's forced to fly at the illusionary wall, it's obviously not going to be very efficient so it takes some more finagling to make that work (but it's certainly something worth going for).

4 level 4 characters with Bows are attacking at like +4 - +10 for 1d8 - 1d8+5ish (a focused Archer can easily be looking at +8/+8 for 1d8+5 on this level - or much more but assuming Wood Elf Ranger 2/Barb 1/Targeteer 1 with double 18s in Dex/Str is a bit much). A Wizard with 14 Dex has the +4 (or +5 at Mw.) Crossbow/Longbow for...piddly damage (and frankly better options for using their actions most likely) while a Cleric might look at +5 (though dumping Dex, they are probably better off casting spells too) and the warrior types can shoot higher. +5 for 1d8 averages like 1.23 damage a round (at 20/x3) while +8/+8 for 1d8+5 is looking at 8.36. In short, the party needs party boosts (such as a Scroll of Haste) to have a shot at the damage race. Or to get to melee; a Barbie can unload pretty decent wallop on this level already (a two-hander Orc Barbarian with 22 starting Str can look at 2d4+13 at +11/+11 and it's not even hard to trip at mere 17 Str Medium) and can easily sustain through its attacks at 40+ HP. So if the Barbie Tripper can get into melee, it can probably bring it down and paste it with some support. Particularly with Enlarge Person, the Dragon can't get close enough to attack back if tripped and its chances of avoiding the trip are +3 vs. +6-8 Str + 4 Improved Trip = pretty abysmal (let alone if Enlarge Person is involved).


Of course, encounters like these are why you should always invest in higher level spell scrolls where you can; sometimes you need to punch above your weight class. Shivering Touch is the obvious nuke but there are other nice options.

Also, having access to Resist Energy would weaken its breath strafing a ton. So with forewarning, the fight would not be that tough for many parties but out of the blue (heh), it might be quite rough or at the very least extremely party-dependent. A heavily buffed guy or two getting into melee is the best way to put it out of its misery unless you have some highly specific archery stuff available (Bane from the Artificer, Psionic Minor Creation from the Shaper or something might make arrows efficient enough even without a dedicated archer).

Tanglefoot Bags are rather strong here if the party happens to have access to those and a decent thrower.

So a well built party would fair a lot better here. Makes sense.