Phase Wasp Encounter Design

[sonofzeal]

I've been looking at things to throw in a massive mob against the PCs (ECL 9). Problem is, anything with a CR low enough to come in a sufficiently large group, also can't hope to touch them with anything. Then I remembered Phase Wasps, with their Magic Missile effect. Problem is, I don't really like the combat dynamic, with the wasps either circling maddeningly, or attacking pitifully with their +0(1d4-4) bites. Doesn't seem like a good encounter either way.

So here's the thought - make their magic missile attack a part of their bite. Instead of a recharging SLA, make it an at-will channeled touch attack thing. Trade Alertness for Weapon Finesse, be liberal with flanking bonuses (which should be easy to come by), and you're off to the races.

Problem - by CR guidelines, there's still only 10 of them. Even with this fairly definite increase in power, any one of my PCs could potentially take out 10 of these guys in short order, and there's always the Sorc with his Acid Breath to seriously ruin their day. So any suggestions on making it more reasonable?

[Hunter Noventa]

CR is just a guideline. If you feelt hat your PCs can handle a few more, throw a few more at them. Granted this results in more experience, for them, but at least it will (theoretically) be more fun and challenging.

[AbyssKnight]

Sounds like what you want is a Swarm.

A bunch of little critters (bugs, birds, bats, snakes) treated as one big critter.

[Kol Korran]

i second abyssknight- swarms are probably the way to go. if you're interested, i made some changes to the stirge, including something called a "bloodlust swarm". check my sig. it is far from complete, but can certainly serve as an inspiration.

other ideas:

- a swarm of tiny elementals? (fire and earth could probably be interesting- maybe you could give the swarm an extra ability such as to bury the target in stone?)

- speaking of stone- how about a group or swarm of miniature cockatrices? sure, their chance of hitting are low, but if they do hit...

- another idea, is to choose monster that get their strength by numbers. i can't realy think of something except shocker lizards. 6 lizards can deliver 12d8 electricity damage to all enemies in 20ft radius from any of the lizards (ref for half). the DC should be about appropriate (8 lizards are DC 6 i think?16 should be like CR 8 if i'm not mistaken. i forgot how to claculate CR in 3.5) just make sure their danger isn't appearent at first glance (have something else to occupy the characters, make the lizards appear as pets, or maybe have some concealment such as by heavy mist?)

hope this helps,
Kol.

[Sinfire Titan]

The Mob template in DMG 2 could work, but it needs to be adapted for a magical beast the size of a Phase Wasp.

[sonofzeal]

Sounds like what you want is a Swarm.

A bunch of little critters (bugs, birds, bats, snakes) treated as one big critter.

I know about swarms, but part of the motive is that we have a new player who's never done D&D before, and his Fighter picked Cleave so I want it to come up at least once in the session. A swarm would just make him feel even more useless.

Does a Mob solve that problem? And has anyone run a mob, who can tell me how well it worked for them?

[Sinfire Titan]

I know about swarms, but part of the motive is that we have a new player who's never done D&D before, and his Fighter picked Cleave so I want it to come up at least once in the session. A swarm would just make him feel even more useless.

Does a Mob solve that problem? And has anyone run a mob, who can tell me how well it worked for them?

It works decently. I've run it once, turned commoners into a decent threat to an 8th level party.

[TheOverlord]

My only thought is that every encounter's actual CR can be tailored to the party.

For instance my current party does a lot better against creatures that don't have significant magic defense (things like high SR or magic immunity or a bunch of prepped defensive spells like ray deflection and energy resistance) and mop up any encounter where they can get all their magic involved. So the same CR (officially) can be dramatically different in terms of actual challenge.

If the creatures you want are going to get stomped set it up as a wave-based attack. First 10 attack...they get mopped up by the party too fast...send in the second wave...of 15. Even back to back these encounters don't make each other significantly more difficult so they are considered separate encounters in terms of difficulty (unless you make the second wave purposefully attack the most injured characters).

Keep in mind that the lower the relative CR the easier it is to have a higher level party clean up the baddies too easily...and if they can do that just tweak the amount as CR is a fairly good system for estimating difficulty...but it is just an estimate.

Wave based combat can take a while at higher levels so do your experimentation now while you can do it easily.

Lots of smaller creatures weigh themselves better against parties that don't go all out. (Fireball or other AoE right away and/or against players have low HP. )

The Overlord
Monster Advancer - D&D 3.5 Monster, NPC and random Encounter generation, customization and advancement.

[sonofzeal]

Yeah, I'm thinking wave-based is the way to go here. I haven't really done that yet, but it sounds perfect for this situation. Thanks!