Post/Author/DateTime	Post
lostone 02-04-05, 11:06 AM	Well my players have been given the task of holding back the Daelkyr in their prison, finding a way to stop them either through wholesale slaughter or re-imprisoning them in Khyber. The group is levels 17-18, extremely combat optimized for the most part. I'm looking for some info on the Daelkyr so I can prepare for the next several nights games. I am at work and unfortunately don't have the book with me, and am unsure how much free time I will have to fully read up on it other than Daeklyr statistics. I'm looking for: A general discription of Khyber, including the path to the Daelkyr prisons, and what the prison itself looks like. Daelkyr combat strategies, both individual and in groups. Including escape ideas, as I doubt Daelkyr would be willing to fight to the death. With search down I'm unable to fully examine the massive Ask Keith threads, but in the FAQ I found mention of beholder and mind flayer armies, neither of which are a strong point for me to run in combat, so strategy suggestions for them would be helpful as well. The group are all warforged, including a few immune to ability damage so that will not be as effective, but will still hurt some of the group members. There is also a wizard (lightning elemental savant), artificer (least optimized character), barbarian warforged juggernaut frenzied berserker, fighter master of chains, large sized war hulk.
Xyrcai 02-04-05, 11:23 AM	My strategy is run? I'm not sure, but don't Daelkyr have their strategies in the Eberron book?
Gurv 02-04-05, 11:30 AM	Wow. Thats an awful high level group for Eberron. The daelkyr are generally viewed as demons of unstoppable power by those who are even aware of them. But in the aim of actually answering your question rather than complaining about gamers who do it differently than I, I shall try to answer your questions. Khyber is Eberron's underdark. Twisting tunnels running deeper than most people can imagine dig through the depths, opening into caverns as large as some cities. In the many places of volcanic activity, one finds khyber dragonshards growing in the walls. Terrible aberrations and fiends make their homes in the caverns and tunnels, trapped here with their masters long ago, or created by them since. The actual prisons are left entirely up to the DM. I don't think that all the daelkyr are trapped in a single place. Some may be completely bound, trapped within huge khyber shards. Others may be free to move, but restricted in where they can go. I would suggest reading the binding spell for more ideas of how they might be imprisoned. Regardless, their very presence would attract armies of aberrations, led by the mind flayers and beholders. Daelkyr tactics are a hard subject. Although they are smarter by far than the average human, it is an insane sort of cunning. As the Lords of Madness, their tactics depend heavily on the inability of others to understand them. Something not to be overlooked is the impressive number of magical items they each have, likely many of them from Xoriat. Triple standard from a CR 20 monster means that they're packing some serious firepower as well! Beholders typically prevent others from reaching them by flying high overhead and blanketing the area with antimagic, letting minions do the fighting. Whenever this doesn't seem to be working, they switch tactics and use their many death-rays on whoever seems most likely to fail a save (they're very smart, and can quickly figure out who can tough out a disintegrate and who can be easily charmed.) In groups (rare, but possible in this situation), it is possible for the beholders to take turns with their antimagic, with one holding a readied action to use it right after another uses its rays. Mind flayers also use minions as best they can. They generally open up with mind blast while levitating above. Against an army of warforged, they'll generally run away though unless they have something specific to use against them. Remember that Khyber is home not only to the daelkyr, who are an afterthought, but to the rakshasa rajahs. These beings are actually god-like, and shouldn't be messed with. But daelkyr don't do what they're supposed to do, and may try to use the threat of these greater evils to hinder the PCs. Hope that helps. When you're done, I hope you come back to the rest of us and game at a more reasonable level.
Altaris 02-04-05, 11:45 AM	The Daelkyr are all imprisone deep within Khyber. It sounds to me like you need to do your own research, rather than asking people to tell you how to run your grame. Go back and read the ECS, and take the time to these boards. There is a wealth of information in both places. By the way, the Daelkyr START at CR20, and go up much higher from there.
Thramzorean 02-04-05, 11:54 AM	Heh, the daeklyr might just have gotten facinated with the warforges and this whole setup is in fact a load of smoke, the threat and the need to keep the daeklyr imprisoned is simply a lure by one of the daeklyr to bring these stange new powerful living constructs down into the daeklyr's labs. (this is actually true I think from one vaguely remember comment in the Keith Baker threads, the daeklyr aren't actually bound in Kyber, they just don't have any compelling mad reason to return to the surface at the moment) These could easily be the most power warforges on Eberron at the moment and likely to attract all sorts of strange curiousity. The warforges would be put through their paces, given physical and emotional workouts - let's see how they do against a deep dragon, then see how they split the hoard, then prod one to disagreement and attack a fellow party member, illusions of the party's death bar each individual provided to each individual, etc, etc. The daeklyr might end up making a few improvements to the warforged, giving one a flesh body just for fun, traping its soul to try and understand what happens to that/is it different from a true life form.. You could have a ball :D
lostone 02-04-05, 11:57 AM	The Daelkyr are all imprisone deep within Khyber. It sounds to me like you need to do your own research, rather than asking people to tell you how to run your grame. Go back and read the ECS, and take the time to these boards. There is a wealth of information in both places. By the way, the Daelkyr START at CR20, and go up much higher from there.The reason I'm asking is because I don't have time to reread the entire ECS for all the bits and pieces scattered throughout. As for the section on Khyber and the monster write-up on Daelkyr, IIRC it covers about 2 pages of the entire book combined, and about 75% of that is strictly combat stats, very little on their actual strategies. And since I'm not insane I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my mind around how they function. So I came to the boards for help, where I am belittled and told I play the game the wrong way. It's a wonder any people come to the boards at all... And if the search was functioning I would read the boards more carefully about Daelkyr. I did try to go through the Ask Keith FAQ, but most of the time Daelkyr pop up it has little to do with what I'm looking for. So if you aren't going to help and are not interested in my post in the first place, why did you even finish reading it? Close it, or hit the back button, no one made you read my post.
drogg 02-04-05, 12:47 PM	Here's what I would assume would be the "standard" strategy for a daelkyr and its attendants: -attendant mind flayers would read the thoughts of the party from a distance and relay their weaknesses to the daelkyr. They'd use mind blasts if any of the party seem susceptible. (DC 17, so probably not, at least not until the daelkyr's had a chance to get involved) -a cluster of beholders, using their antimagic rays, would negate any magics the party would carry. This would render the wizard and the artificer useless, obviously. they could take turns readying their actions to keep the rays down when the daelkyr or mind flayers needed to use magic, and then activate them again before the party can react. They'd be flying above, staying out of reach of the party. -dolgrims, dolgaunts, any other aberration you can pull from the books would act as a meat shield to slow the party down. -the daelkyr itself would probably use feebleminds (DC 28 against spellcasters) and mind fogs(-10 to Will saves, DC 24) to lower the party's mental resistance enought to dominate them. If they get close, it would use its aura of madness (DC 31, so a 17th level party will have a tough time resisting) to set the party against each other long enough for it to use its corrupting touch (1d6 ability damage with every touch attack, no save) to reduce them to masses of jelly. Using its tentacle whips, it can this from fifteen feet away. Once their fortitude saves are weak, the daelkyr could use quickened polymorph any objects (DC 27) to turn them into harmless vermin, to be destroyed or further corrupted at its leisure. -if the battle goes south for some reason (unlikely, given the daelkyr's damage reduction and fast healing, and the party lacking any magic weapons with which to damage it), the daelkyr can simply dimension door away. A group of daelkyr..the ECS says only six are still on Eberron. If you really want to throw a group of daelkyr at them, keep in mind each one has its own citadel in Khyber, each filled with thousands of aberrations that cater to its every whim. What would bring them together, and how would a party, even a powerful party like yours, overcome six of the mightiest lords of Xoriat at once?
drogg 02-04-05, 12:51 PM	Heh, the daeklyr might just have gotten facinated with the warforges and this whole setup is in fact a load of smoke, the threat and the need to keep the daeklyr imprisoned is simply a lure by one of the daeklyr to bring these stange new powerful living constructs down into the daeklyr's labs. (this is actually true I think from one vaguely remember comment in the Keith Baker threads, the daeklyr aren't actually bound in Kyber, they just don't have any compelling mad reason to return to the surface at the moment) These could easily be the most power warforges on Eberron at the moment and likely to attract all sorts of strange curiousity. The warforges would be put through their paces, given physical and emotional workouts - let's see how they do against a deep dragon, then see how they split the hoard, then prod one to disagreement and attack a fellow party member, illusions of the party's death bar each individual provided to each individual, etc, etc. The daeklyr might end up making a few improvements to the warforged, giving one a flesh body just for fun, traping its soul to try and understand what happens to that/is it different from a true life form.. You could have a ball :D i think this is a lot better of an idea than to have the party actually try and kill them, for what its worth.
Cloud Divider 02-04-05, 01:08 PM	I'm looking for: A general discription of Khyber, including the path to the Daelkyr prisons, and what the prison itself looks like. On the Daelkyr prisons... I'm having an interesting mental image of a three-dimensional Escher-esque maze (with stairs that can be climbed upside down and so forth). Whether the maze is designed to trap the Daelkyr within their own madness (ie to use their strength against them), or is actually a manifestation and corruption of what was once a mundane prison due to the Daelkyr's trapped minds (and perhaps the influence of Xoriat manifest areas as well) is up for debate. Lots of "Non-Euclidean Angles" and so forth - violations of conventional rules on time and space (doors and hallways that take more or less time to traverse than they should and so on). Granted, it would LOOK very cool. But it'd be a nightmare to actually run, particularly with anything like a conventional 2d map grid. Daelkyr combat strategies, both individual and in groups. Including escape ideas, as I doubt Daelkyr would be willing to fight to the death. Guh. I can't help you much here. High level D&D just isn't my bag, so I've got 0 experience to draw from here. Swarms of gibbering, bloodthirsty troops? Lots of maniacal laughter? Illusions and other mind-tricks designed to incite fear, confusion, and outright madness? Yrthaks (however it's spelled - those blind, sonic-blasting flyers from the MM) as an air force? Piles of all those other wierd MM creatures thrown in as inspired... Destrachan(?) used as sonic-blasting battle mounts by Dolgaunt cavalry. I would figure the Daelkyr would do his best to actually avoid going mano-a-mano. Raining death-rays from the sky is one thing. Getting into a situation where you could be cornered by the fighter-blender-of-death is something else. I suppose if the battle turned, he'd escape by sacrificing all the minions he could to get the PC's distracted and off his back while he ran off (or maybe flies off, "rescued" by one of those Yrthak things). Alternately, he could just take advantage of the terrain. If he's had thousands of years to explore the prison, he just might know which are the best warp-tunnel passages to get the jump on the PC's (or to escape and hide). Actually, that'd be the ugliest thing to do. Have him take advantage of his Castle of Insanity and use it against the PC's...
drogg 02-04-05, 01:19 PM	barbarian warforged juggernaut frenzied berserkerwow. i didn't even notice that. why did you allow this? a warforged barbarian is broken enough, since they're immune to fatigue and exhaustion. in fact, i would be tempted to say a juggernaut can't rage or frenzy once they become immune to mind-affecting spells, since they're rejecting the emotions that make them living things.
lostone 02-04-05, 01:47 PM	wow. i didn't even notice that. why did you allow this? a warforged barbarian is broken enough, since they're immune to fatigue and exhaustion. in fact, i would be tempted to say a juggernaut can't rage or frenzy once they become immune to mind-affecting spells, since they're rejecting the emotions that make them living things.Eh, they're magical constructs. I'm pretty sure there's an actual golem in a book somewhere that has rage, so why not a warforged juggernaut? The way I look at it is, the warforged juggernaut gives up what it sees as weak emotions of fleshy beings. Rage and Hate might not be perceived as weak, since it enhances combat. Edit: Ok, so I couldn't find a golem with Rage, but they have Berserk, which is close enough for me. (I'm pretty laid back about character design as long as they can roleplay into the class and meet the prereqs).
drogg 02-04-05, 02:02 PM	Eh, they're magical constructs. I'm pretty sure there's an actual golem in a book somewhere that has rage, so why not a warforged juggernaut? The way I look at it is, the warforged juggernaut gives up what it sees as weak emotions of fleshy beings. Rage and Hate might not be perceived as weak, since it enhances combat.But a juggernaut's immune to the spell Rage, since its mind affecting. Its immune to insanity affects that might provoke rage. Its immune to bard song, confusion, bless, good hope, prayer...why can it choose to rage(or even worse, frenzy) while ignoring any external affects that would provoke the same thing? If there's a golem somewhere that has rage I would be quite surprised -- Clay golems can go berserk, but that's because the spirit inside them breaks partially free, and the golem doesn't get any bonuses from it. It just loses the ability to distinguish between friend and foe. edit: Berserk is a BAD thing. Once a clay golem goes berserk it can never again be commanded. Its your game, but from my perspective playing a juggernaut is about rejecting one's living soul, and its that soul that allows a barbarian [or berserker] to gain its bonuses. Playing a warforged frenzied berserker is unbalanced enough -- adding in all the benefits of a juggernaut on top of that is broken. edit 2: I think you'll find if you pitted just that berserker against a daelkyr, the berserker would triumph. He's immune to the daelkyr's corrupting touch, to the aura of madness, to most of its spell-like abilities, and i shudder to think what his damage output must be when he's frenzying. +14 to strength, all the charge bonuses...and he can do it all over again when the frenzy is over, without the slightest pause for breath.
lostone 02-04-05, 02:14 PM	Would it be possible for people to stick with the topic at hand and not question things that are not the intent of the thread?
Nimrud 02-04-05, 02:19 PM	I read somewhere that 'rage' for a warforged barbarian is really just going into 'overdrive' and has nothing at all to do with emotions. I don't see why a juggernaut would have a problem with that.
Mike Czaplinski 02-04-05, 02:34 PM	More daelkyr thoughts: I'm sure you've already realized that the monster listed as a daelkyr in the ECSB is, at best, a low-level creature (kinda the daelkyr equivalent of a Bone Devil). The 'Daelkyr Lords' are much, much MUCH more powerful. Though the ECSB says that there are only 6 daelkyr lords imprisoned in Khyber, there are more likely many more lower-powered ones bound or imprisoned elsewhere. Not all the daelkyr may have been imprisoned by their enemies; some of them may have been imprisoned by their own kind (something pointed out to me by Keith himself when I spoke to him at WINTER FANTASY). In my own upcoming campaign, I will be using a middle-range daelkyr as the uber-villain. Nicknamed 'the Lady of Diamonds', she was imprisoned by her own kind ages past because of her obsession with infusing inanimate material with life. Basically, she was encased in raw Khyber shards and is basically immobile. As a result, she has had to develop her mind power and work through intermediaries; her most 'trusted' agents get pieces of shard implanted into their bodies as a means for her to keep track of (and occasionally control) them. Over time, she has corrupted a clan of Dwarves to her service (making them into duergar), and has been trying to get them to build constructs that she can project her consciousness into. Over the centuries this has met with failure, but now that the Warforged are about, she is seeking to make her own creation forge (please note: I had this idea long before I read a similar one earlier in this thread), or to capure as many as possible for experimentation. Her basic plan is to make crystals that can be put into a warforged expansion slot to allow her to bond with their life-force. Essentially, her mind will simultaneously inhabit an entire army of bodies made of non-living matter. To this end, her agents have been trying to contact the Lord of Blades to try and subvert his imperfect forge for The Lady's use, as well as scouring the area around her stronghold (in the Mror Holds) for information on the warforged (c'mon! Of course Cannaith would have used the services of the dwarves! They are master smiths, even in Eberron!), as well as trying to infiltrate the Karrnath faction of House Cannaith, and I think I've got an interesting game even before I try to start running the already-published Eberron mods (as much fun as they are). MikeC
drogg 02-04-05, 02:35 PM	I read somewhere that 'rage' for a warforged barbarian is really just going into 'overdrive' and has nothing at all to do with emotions. I don't see why a juggernaut would have a problem with that.I'd love a link if you could find one. But yeah, I'll stop derailing this thread -- just be aware that that character can ignore almost everything that makes the daelkyr so threatening. If you want your party to be challenged, it'd be a good idea to find a way to isolate him from the others.
Gurv 02-04-05, 02:51 PM	More daelkyr thoughts: I'm sure you've already realized that the monster listed as a daelkyr in the ECSB is, at best, a low-level creature (kinda the daelkyr equivalent of a Bone Devil). The 'Daelkyr Lords' are much, much MUCH more powerful. I think you're mixing the daelkyr and the rashasa rajahs. To my knowledge, there is nothing suggesting that the daelkyr listed in the ECS are anything but the actual monsters depicted in Eberron legend. That said, there is no reason not to advance their hit die, or give them levels. They should not be photocopies of one another. Daelkyr are masters of altering living flesh, so they may have even more symbionts that mentioned in the ECS, might have found a way to make themselves tougher (template-like) and will almost certainly be surrounded by creatures using such tactics. Personally, I would be using daelkyr as indefeatable monsters that must be thwarted by some method greater than mere death. If they could be simply killed, then the Gatekeepers would have done so somehow in the past. As any experinced adventurer can tell you, killing something is generally easier than capturing it an imprisoning it. So there must have been some factor that made the Gatekeepers decide to capture rather than kill.
Mike Czaplinski 02-04-05, 03:02 PM	I think you're mixing the daelkyr and the rashasa rajahs. To my knowledge, there is nothing suggesting that the daelkyr listed in the ECS are anything but the actual monsters depicted in Eberron legend. Somewhere in the original 'Ask Keith Baker' thread, Keith said as much, and he confirmed that to me in person when I chatted with him. Besides: if there were only 6 daelkyr lords, why would there be stats for them in the book, whereas giving stats for lesser daelkyr is completely consistant with the treatment of other powerful entities (IE, the Lords of Dust, the biggest dragons, etc.). That said, there is no reason not to advance their hit die, or give them levels. They should not be photocopies of one another. Daelkyr are masters of altering living flesh, so they may have even more symbionts that mentioned in the ECS, might have found a way to make themselves tougher (template-like) and will almost certainly be surrounded by creatures using such tactics. Precisely, but much like the Quori or the Rakashas, there are more daelkyr types than the one presented in ECSB. Which is rather frightening to me, anyway. Personally, I would be using daelkyr as indefeatable monsters that must be thwarted by some method greater than mere death. If they could be simply killed, then the Gatekeepers would have done so somehow in the past. As any experinced adventurer can tell you, killing something is generally easier than capturing it an imprisoning it. So there must have been some factor that made the Gatekeepers decide to capture rather than kill. My thoughts exactly. If they could be killed, then certainly they would have been. I just wanted to play with the concept of mad shapers of flesh, and figured that such beings would regard one of their own who hated & mistrusted flesh as insane themselves. The rest kinda fell into place, with shards of magical crystal replacing/supplementing the symbionts. MikeC
Aneul 02-04-05, 03:20 PM	Going on the (scant) description of the Gatekeeper Druids and their tactics vrs. the Daelkyr in the ESC, I created the following idea for a prison. 1) The Daelkyr himself would likely have been bound to a Khyber Shard or some such (This is derived from the Gatekeeper's love of sealing things into/with big magic stones). No doubt over time, a Daelkry of reasonable power could have broken free. 2) In anticipation of the eventaul escape of the Daelkyr, the Druids would probably have placed the bound fiend in a large and mazelike complex (artifical or not) and magicaly sealed in in any way possible. I'd start off with mundane doors made of Byshek and the like, and work my way twords walls of force and other powerful magical barries as the Daelkyr's prison chamber drew closer. 3) Powerful creatures of nature would be stationed as gaurdians. I'd use earth and fire elementals, given that we're in Khyber. Stone golems might also be aproperiate. 4) So, you can basicaly treat a prison who's Daelkyr is still bound as a typical dungeon- gaurdians, traps, and a great threat at the end. Given that the ECS says that the Daelkyr have underground citadels, I'd assume that they have long ago broken out of all of their bindings save the ones which confine them to whatever area in Khyber their prisons were in, and have commenced to rework the area around them to fit their own warped tastes. With this in mind, I would assume that a large cavern has been cleared of the dungeon out so that the Daelkyr could build his palace, and that the original gaurdians have been corrupted (Try adding the Half Fiend template onto the elemental gaurdians, and give the golems some wierds mutations) and used to bolster the Daelkyr's forces. Finialy, use Drogg's stratagies for DM the Daelkyr and its minnions and you are good to go.
SirLoin 02-04-05, 08:59 PM	o-O-o-O I know. Have the Daelkyr attack them with twisted warforged, like a perverse version of themselves. Red eyes, spiked shoulders, clawed hands, black metal, gnarly weapons, etc...
Thramzorean 02-04-05, 09:13 PM	For what it's worth I also think you should keep the Daeklyr as the big bad undefeatables. CR 50 for a top boss wouldn't be out of the reckoning from the AKB thread. Having a party go down to k.a. just to prove they're the nastiest warforged in town is a pretty basic scenario. Regards actual tactics you would be sure that the Daeklyr would have mutated a couple of very nasty variants of standard monsters just for an extra pet or two and you could rustle up something especially for the warforged: enlarged rust monsters that rust adamantine and mithral, super sentient oozes (the mother of all black puddings, ewww), a psychic swarm that drives sentients insane...