Celestial Assassin Vine

[Gorthawar]

Hi all,
My party is likely to travel the darkness of Karasuthra (Beastlands) in our next session and I was looking at an encounter with an advanced (16HD, huge, CR9) celestial assassin vine. I'm struggling with a few thing however where I could use some advice.

1. What's an appropriate spot check to see the vine in the dark? I assume it's still 20 with Darkvision.
2. When the vine increases to huge I'm assuming it's range goes up to 30 feet is that correct?
3. What are some good feats for it? The only thing I can think of is martial study to take shadow jaunt but that might make the encounter a bit harder than planned.

My party consists of a hunter druid with a tiger, a human paragon cleric, a swift hunter who doesn't have plants a fav enemy, a daring outlaw, a wildshape ranger who can only turn into a gold dragon wyrmling and a wizard who is unfortunately absent for this session. They are all at level 7 and we're using most books with the exception of the alternative magic systems as I'm not familiar enough with them. ToB is ok though. Thanks a lot for the help!

[Saintheart]

Hi all,
My party is likely to travel the darkness of Karasuthra (Beastlands) in our next session and I was looking at an encounter with an advanced (16HD, huge, CR9) celestial assassin vine. I'm struggling with a few thing however where I could use some advice.

1. What's an appropriate spot check to see the vine in the dark? I assume it's still 20 with Darkvision.

Should be, yes. All darkvision does is just negate the problem of having no light to see by. An assassin vine's Camouflage ability gets it a flat DC 20 check to be Spotted/Knowledged/Survival'ed, it doesn't have skill ranks to cause opposed checks via Spot vs. Hide.


2. When the vine increases to huge I'm assuming it's range goes up to 30 feet is that correct?

If you're talking about its entry which says Space/Reach "10 ft./10 ft. (20 ft. with vine)", well,Huge Long creatures have a Reach of 10 feet (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#bigandLittleCreatu resInCombat) - because the assassin vine is long, not tall. I'd say its reach with its vine doesn't increase at all because its Reach hasn't increased in the shift from Large to Huge.

If you're talking about the range of its Animate Plants ability, then no, that's more akin to a caster ability which isn't affected by the increase in size.


3. What are some good feats for it? The only thing I can think of is martial study to take shadow jaunt but that might make the encounter a bit harder than planned.

Martial Study only grants one use of a martial maneuver per encounter, so Shadow Jaunt basically gives the Vine one chance to reposition itself 50 feet away. This is leaning away from the vine's primary tactic, which is to tangle people up and then crush them to death. The vine can't regenerate and it can only pull the trick once, so the party either appreciates the opportunity to recover and then go ranged or charge back in, or the vine has to come back to finish them (if it can). Shadow Jaunt for this encounter either gets used first or last: used first to close to range suddenly, or used last to beat a hasty retreat (which will likely fail because it can only move at 5 feet per round otherwise).

Other thing being that it's a standard action maneuver, so while the vine can still bampf into the party's midst and then entangle them all as a free action, it can't attack anyone that round and thus gives the party a chance to prepare countermeasures.

In terms of feats? Power Attack. Because Power Attack applies to melee attacks, but not to Grapple checks, and still applies to Constrict damage and melee damage. So you suck up -8 on the attack roll (or whatever the BAB comes out at), your Grapple check stays intact, and if successful you pick up +16 in damage to the enemy as if you were wielding a two-handed weapon: 1 iteration of 8 damage from the Slam attack, the other 8 from the Constrict damage if your Grapple comes off (which it should given the modifier is above +12 or so.) And mind you, that's on top of the 1d6+7 in damage from melee and Constrict you're already doing, i.e. 2d6+30 or so on one pass. Your guys are level 7 meaning their maximum possible health is somewhere in the 80s, maybe 90s if they've got high CON, a one round smack carving a quarter to half their hitpoints off ought to impress someone.

Other alternatives? Ability Focus. +2 to the DC of the Entangle is a better chance of snaring targets, from DC 13 to 15.

[Eurus]

If you're talking about its entry which says Space/Reach "10 ft./10 ft. (20 ft. with vine)", well,Huge Long creatures have a Reach of 10 feet (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#bigandLittleCreatu resInCombat) - because the assassin vine is long, not tall. I'd say its reach with its vine doesn't increase at all because its Reach hasn't increased in the shift from Large to Huge.

If you're talking about the range of its Animate Plants ability, then no, that's more akin to a caster ability which isn't affected by the increase in size.

As a large creature with a space/reach of 10/10, assassin vines are apparently treated as tall creatures, odd as that might seem. Presumably because their tentacular nature means that "length" and "height" are basically the same...

Anyway, I don't actually recall if there's a rule for what happens to a natural weapon that has enhanced reach when size increases, but treating it like a normal reach weapon (doubling the wielder's reach) makes sense. So 30 feet for the vine attacks would be accurate, in that case.

Hidden Talent (Expansion) might be pretty funny, or Hidden Talent (Dimension Hop) for a swift action ten foot teleport.

[Saintheart]

As a large creature with a space/reach of 10/10, assassin vines are apparently treated as tall creatures, odd as that might seem. Presumably because their tentacular nature means that "length" and "height" are basically the same...

Anyway, I don't actually recall if there's a rule for what happens to a natural weapon that has enhanced reach when size increases, but treating it like a normal reach weapon (doubling the wielder's reach) makes sense. So 30 feet for the vine attacks would be accurate, in that case.

Hidden Talent (Expansion) might be pretty funny, or Hidden Talent (Dimension Hop) for a swift action ten foot teleport.

Dangerous as it is to tailor an encounter to a party's precise strengths and weaknesses, I think a Vine advanced to 16HD at these levels is dangerous enough to this party even with a 20 foot reach. It would be worse if it had DEX and/or Combat Reflexes and thereby be able to swat more than one person at a time as they close in. The Daring Outlaw's shut down because it's a plant, likewise the Swift Hunter given it's a plant and he likely has to contend with DR from the Celestial template with 1d6+WhoCares arrows. The tiger can't charge to use Pounce, the Hunter Druid has no Wild Shape. The cleric can cast stuff, but let's hope some of it is Freedom of Movement.

The only threat that can do anything significant here seems to be the Wildshape Ranger's Gold Dragon Wyrmling, which can kite and breathe since its range will be 30 feet on the dot, but even then the Vine has 10 [fire] resistance against the dragon's 2d10 damage ... and the breath only happens once every 1d4 rounds.

[Gorthawar]

Thanks a lot for all the good advice. I think with the wizard absent I might reduce the vine to 12 HD only which will be a little less difficult for the party to handle. That would still be 5 feats however. Currently looking at Power attack, ability focus, improved natural attack and martial study (shadow jaunt) to allow the vine to break of combat. This can be interesting as it would allow the party to lure a later opponent to it if they decide not to follow and kill it. Any thoughts on the last feat?

Also one more question on how the vine works in combat. My understanding is that once it hits + grapples + constricts somebody the vine counts as being in a grapple and loses its threatened area / Dex bonus. From there the rest of the party can basically hack the vine until either it or it's victim is dead. Would the multi-grab feat work and allow it to attack others as well? Or does this not work as it only has one attack / appendage?

[Saintheart]

Also one more question on how the vine works in combat. My understanding is that once it hits + grapples + constricts somebody the vine counts as being in a grapple and loses its threatened area / Dex bonus. From there the rest of the party can basically hack the vine until either it or it's victim is dead. Would the multi-grab feat work and allow it to attack others as well? Or does this not work as it only has one attack / appendage?

This is where the stupidity of the Grapple rules both work for and against you.

The moment you hit with the Slam attack, you start a grapple check. If that comes off, Constrict damage then immediately applies. But the Grapple rules tell us that in order to maintain the Grapple in subsequent rounds, you then have to move immediately into the target's space. (According to the SRD this movement is apparently free and doesn't count as part of your movement in the round, which on the RAW creates a hilarious limited teleport capability for the otherwise 5-feet-of-movement vine.)

Anyway, there's nothing that says you have to maintain the Grapple, and letting go "immediately" suggests it's a free action to do so. So you could hit, grapple, constrict, and then release the target all in the one pass. That way you're no longer grappling, still have your DEX bonus to AC, and thus can still make an AoO that same round if the opportunity arises.

And from what I can see this is the optimal damage-dealing strategy for the Vine, because if just maintain the grapple to do more Constrict damage the next round, you're nerfing your chance to double up that damage from the Slam attack. My understanding of the Grapple rules is that even if you've got more than one attack out of your BAB, your total suite of options while grappling are those listed in the SRD. One of those options does include attacking your grappled opponent with a natural weapon, i.e. your slam attack, but that attack is made at -4. Yes, your opponent is denied his DEX bonus to AC because he's grappled as well, but if that DEX bonus is lower than +4, you have better mathematical odds of doing that 1d6+7 Slam damage by hitting with a normal attack, Constricting, then letting go of the target and swinging again the next round.

For that reason, I wouldn't take Multigrab, because it implies you want to maintain your grapples.

[Gorthawar]

Thanks a lot again. I'm going with a huge 12HD version of the vine now with 30ft reach on its attack.

As feats I've chosen INA for both the slam and constrict which will up the damage to 2d6+15 each. As such I've decided to leave power attack out as the combined 4d6+30 damage of the slam plus constrict will already give most of the characters a pretty bad day.

For the next feats I've chosen ability focus for both the entangle ability (raising the DC to 15) and it's camouflage ability which might not be RAW but so what. That will increase the spot check to notice the vine outside of it's reach to 25 for the characters with Darkvision.

Last but not least I'm sticking to martial study: shadow jaunt. This way I can let the vine disappear into the distance after a hefty attack from the Party and avoid the fight to the death (Vine and characters). In a way it feels almost like a trap encounter in the end which is fine by me. Also means that they can potentially use it to lure the Beast of Malar they are hunting into it's grasp if they play it smart. I'll let you know how it went after the Weekend.

[Tzardok]

This is where the stupidity of the Grapple rules both work for and against you.

The moment you hit with the Slam attack, you start a grapple check. If that comes off, Constrict damage then immediately applies. But the Grapple rules tell us that in order to maintain the Grapple in subsequent rounds, you then have to move immediately into the target's space. .
.

There is an exception to that. If you have Improved Grab, you can hold the target just in the appendage you used to grab the target and keep the rwst of your body outside grapple in exchange for a penalty to grapple checks.

[Gorthawar]

There is an exception to that. If you have Improved Grab, you can hold the target just in the appendage you used to grab the target and keep the rwst of your body outside grapple in exchange for a penalty to grapple checks.

It certainly allows the vine to pull it's victim into its own space instead of jumping to it. I'm not sure however how the appendage thing works for a vine with only one slam attack. It only has one main vine and a bunch of smaller ones according to the description. Only the main vine seems to have the long reach as such. I decided to leave that one alone for now but if the combat turns to easy I might have it smack some people around with the shorter appendages in addition.