Another MM2 nightmare [Archive] - Wizards Community

Another MM2 nightmare [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
MerlintheTuna
06-22-06, 02:55 AM If my players would kindly leave the thread, I'd much appreciate it.

I'm about to start running the Into the Frozen Waste (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030111a) module with a group of 5 PCs of 6th level. (I've elected to give them a fair chunk of extra money to help shore up being slightly underlevelled.) As a whole, the adventure seems fairly well designed right up until the boss battle, when the Monster Manual 2 strikes again. The BBEG's pet is a Frost Salamander (CR 7), which seems to check out well enough; auto-damage is a bit lame, but eh, it should get brought down easily enough. The problem is that the BBEG fights them at the same time, and he's a CR 9 Immoth.

It's an EL 10 battle, which should be tough, but doable. The only problem is that the Immoth seems to be another one of the MM2's abominations against Dungeons and Dragons. Spell resistance 23 at CR 9? That's equal to a CR 18 Mature Adult Red Dragon. Sure, he's weak against fire, but it doesn't matter if the Sorcerer has to roll a 17 on his caster level check for fireball to deal ANY damage.

And speaking of spells, despite being CR 9 and having 10 HD, he somehow manages to cast spells as a 12th level sorcerer, and has 21 Charisma. That means he has access to 6th level spells, while the PCs can only manage 3rd. Oh, and in case he doesn't have enough spells from that alone, note this ability.

Ice Runes (Sp): Any spell Zilrus knows can be
inscribed on an ice nugget. He can then trigger the
spell contained in such an ice rune as a free action. An
ice rune remains magical until Zilrus triggers it.
Ice Runes Prepared: chill touch, cone of cold, magic
missile, invisibility, Otiluke’s freezing sphere, ray of
frost, sleet storm, wall of ice. Caster level 12th; save DC
15 + spell level.

Free quickened spells. No, wait, Quicken Spell shoots them off as a swift action. My bad.

But at any rate, we've reached the "Okay, he's a good spellcaster, take him down with a charge or three" point. Besides sporting DR 10/Magic Bludgeoning, his options aren't that bad. Melee attacks are unimpressive -- 2 claws at +10 (1d4+4, +1d6 cold) and a tail slap at +5 (1d4+2, +1d6 cold, poison), though the poison does have a Fort DC of 19, and paralyzes the target for 1d6+2 rounds, dealing 1 Int drain each round the character is stunned. He also happens to have a module specific item, a Rod of the Icy Prison. Functioning as a +1 light mace, it has the power to make a melee touch attack forcing a DC 15 Fortitude Save. If the save fails, the victim is encased in 1 foot thick coffin of ice, locked in suspended animation. Aside from the DR, this all isn't that big of a threat, except for the circumstances, as detailed below.

The Immoth hangs out in his fortress, waiting for the PCs to bring him the goods that their NPC ally (Human Druid 4) agreed to deliver. (Note that the NPC ally may have been brutally slain by a Remhoraz earlier, in which case the PCs have absolutely no reason to believe that the Druid's friend would be a hostile.) So basically, the PCs have no reason to buff. The Immoth, on the other hand, has an Alarm spell set around the only entrance to his glacier/fortress. Naturally, it's the one that only he can hear. At any rate, this allows him to get the following buffs up, according to the module: bull’s
strength, disguise self, mage armor, resist energy (fire), resistance, and see invisibility. The disguise self means that, unless the Druid is alive, the PCs won't even know that he's not an elderly human sorcerer until after the battle ends. We're now at 6 buffs versus 0. In case that isn't enough, the Immoth has Teleport as one of his 5th level spells, so he can jump to somewhere else in the fortress as many as 6 times, if necessary. And there are, of course, reinforcements deeper in that he can call on. Invisibility is an option, too. Furthermore, with judicious use of Wall of Ice, he can isolate people without the slightest problem before picking them off one by one.

Basically, he's overbuffed, has way too many spells with DCs that are too high, could theoretically cast 9 spells on the first round of combat, can barely be affected by magic because of his spell resistance, has too much backup and too many escape routes to get it, has pretty decent damage reduction, and basically just looks to be an anti-climactic thumping at the end of the adventure. He sports obvious weaknesses of being hurt badly by fire and by having a lengthy list of spells that can be neutralized with cold resistance, but the fact that it's nigh-impossible to hit him with fire magic means the first isn't an issue, and that he's so much more poweful than the PCs that blocking a chunk of his spells doesn't necessarily slow him down a lot.

Has anybody dealt with one of these before? If so, am I overreacting, or is this as excessive as I think it is? Any recommendations on toning it down or replacing the Immoth with another, more reasonable ice-themed enemy? Thanks much.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht
06-22-06, 04:11 AM SR 23 on a CR 9 is only 3 points above standard. Dragons are known to have terrible SR.
MerlintheTuna
06-22-06, 01:47 PM Yeah, I know that the SR comparison wasn't exactly the best one I could've made. Still, a 20% chance for spells to affect him is pretty rough.

Consider this, though. A level 9 Human Sorcerer is approximately CR 9. The Immoth, similarly, is listed as CR 9. And yet it casts as a Sorc of 3 levels higher, despite the fact that it has a Charisma of 21; there's no way that could be considered a non-associated class level. Thanks to its 10d8 hit dice, it's got significantly more hitpoints than a 12th level sorcerer, as well. (That doesn't even take into account that the thing has 19 Con and damage reduction.) The fact that he's got 8 spells he can fire off as free actions doesn't help the case. Am I to believe that his CR is 3 lower than a Sorc 12 on the grounds that he can't summon a familiar?

Oh, and because he casts as a 12th level sorcerer, his Resist Energy (which he enters the battle with) gives him Fire Resistance 30. Even on the off chance that the level 6 PC Sorcerer successfully sneaks a fireball by his spell resistance, it's 9d6 (average 31.5) vs. Fire Resistance 30. Let me repeat that: the monster who is weak against fire takes 1-2 damage from a fireball, 20% of the time, when he doesn't make his save.

I admit that I don't have much experience running a game, but this just seems patently absurd, ESPECIALLY because the guy is guaranteed to have lackeys of CR 7 (which would be a standard to difficult encounter by themselves). Not a single SRD monster with the Elemental type has ANY sort of Spell Resistance, much less higher than normal. The main elementals are all physical bashers though, so in the interest of keeping this guy as a mage-type, I'll probably keep the SR (maybe lower it to 20ish, where CR 9 should be) and maybe cut his spell casting down to that of an 8th or 9th level Sorc. That means he's casting magic of one spell level higher than the party rather than three. It also cuts resist energy down to 20, making it a bit more manageable. In the effort to make him more of a sorcery kind of guy, I may scale back some of his physical stats, too. (18 STR, 16 DEX, and 19 CON)

Each of those (or a combination of them) seems like it would make him a bit more reasonable, but like I said, I don't have a lot of experience with running games, and I don't want to have a panic attack looking at the stat block only to watch my players wipe the floor with the battle. Thus, does anybody have any advice for me here?
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht
06-22-06, 01:54 PM The MMII is known to have wildly inaccurate CRs. It's nothing new.
MerlintheTuna
06-22-06, 02:01 PM I know that. There's a reason why the topic title is "Another MM2 nightmare" and not "Oh great and trusty MM2, praise be to thee." But I'm running a module and trying to make it work without trying to find a new boss character entirely, so I'd rather retool one guy slightly rather than changing things altogether.
Morwen
06-22-06, 02:16 PM Since MM2 came before the concept of swift and immediate actions, I'd rule the rune-activation to be a swift action rather than a free action.
greatamericanfolkhero
06-22-06, 02:41 PM Drop the SR a few points, drop the casting level, and don't let him have as many ice runes. That should even it up.
Doom_Linnorm
06-22-06, 03:33 PM I only have one thing to add:
When in doubt.. just do it*.. see how it works out and then make mental notes (or real notes for that matter)

(*and with do it I mean go for your insincts and nerf the guy a little.. cus yeah.. your PCs don't stand a chance even though they should against a CR9)
Morrowner
06-22-06, 03:48 PM I'd say find a new nemesis, maybe a variant specialist evoker wizard or elemental savant. The MM2 is absolutely redunkulous when it comes to challenge ratings. This thing breaks all the rules. Casts as a spellcaster significantly higher than CR with a good spellcasting stat? Check. Does the immoth have strong abilities that allow it to break the fundamental rules of the game(quickened spells for free with no spell level hike). Check. Does it have significantly more hit points than an analogous threat(in this case a wizard or sorcerer with elite scores and a 14 in Constitution). Yes, yes it does, check. There is no point in nerfing it to the ground, find a suitable replacement of give the players more levels.
DungeonMaster
06-22-06, 04:32 PM My suggestion is to just run it but you're going to have casualties and perhaps a TPK. That's to be expected when you pit a level 6 party vs. EL10-11. Even if you've doubled their effective wealth for their level they're going to get smashed.

The immoth by and by isn't as bad as people make it out to be. It's CR is a bit off but not by a huge margin, CR10 at most. Not to recuse the CR of non-core D&D, in general they are terrible, MM2 is just another example.

The idea of comparing a 9th level sorceror to an immoth is fundamentally flawed. How many times do you see fire giants attack bonuses and number of attacks compared to 10th level fighter NPCs?
The reality is the monsters are few and the players are many, if it had equivalent spellcasting as they did it wouldn't really be a challenge.
NPCs have tens of thousands of GP worth of gear at that level while monsters generally don't. And NPCs need for the DM to chose their gear particularly well to make them powerful - otherwise they get run over pretty quick. That goes for feats and skills too.

This is also a 3rd edition monster and you're mixing and matching 3rd edition and 3.5 rules. In 3rd edition PCs have 3rd edition haste for instance, and resist fire doesn't absorb 30 points of fire damage per blow, it absorbs 12 per round, total. So if it's hit with 2 fireballs only 12 gets taken off the top.

Furthermore the designer of this particular Immoth didn't give it an optimal set of spells, they're definitely not the best choices that can be made. If you want to minimize the number of fatalities I say let your party encounter minions and reach level 7 for 4th level magic at least. With 4th level magic they can use spells like evard's black tentacles and so forth that can hurt the Immoth significantly.

The biggest issue I see is that the monster has a huge circumstance advantage in that the PCs don't anticipate being in a combat situation and may be ill prepared for combat at the time of encounter. That alone would raise the EL in my mind.
You're going to have to remember that the change self spell and variants only add +10 to the disguise check and so PCs do get a spot check to see through the disguise. Hopefully one of them had the presence of mind to max the spot skill out and see through it.
babysamurai
06-23-06, 05:55 AM I've said before and I'll say it again - the CR system is whacked across the board.

Every party is different.

What is a CR 10 creature to one party, is a CR 4 creature to another party of equal level.

Also, ability score generation methods greatly affects effective CR's.

The game is designed with the "Elite" array in mind, if you deviate from that, it affects encounter levels.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MerlintheTuna 06-22-06, 02:55 AM	If my players would kindly leave the thread, I'd much appreciate it. I'm about to start running the Into the Frozen Waste (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030111a) module with a group of 5 PCs of 6th level. (I've elected to give them a fair chunk of extra money to help shore up being slightly underlevelled.) As a whole, the adventure seems fairly well designed right up until the boss battle, when the Monster Manual 2 strikes again. The BBEG's pet is a Frost Salamander (CR 7), which seems to check out well enough; auto-damage is a bit lame, but eh, it should get brought down easily enough. The problem is that the BBEG fights them at the same time, and he's a CR 9 Immoth. It's an EL 10 battle, which should be tough, but doable. The only problem is that the Immoth seems to be another one of the MM2's abominations against Dungeons and Dragons. Spell resistance 23 at CR 9? That's equal to a CR 18 Mature Adult Red Dragon. Sure, he's weak against fire, but it doesn't matter if the Sorcerer has to roll a 17 on his caster level check for fireball to deal ANY damage. And speaking of spells, despite being CR 9 and having 10 HD, he somehow manages to cast spells as a 12th level sorcerer, and has 21 Charisma. That means he has access to 6th level spells, while the PCs can only manage 3rd. Oh, and in case he doesn't have enough spells from that alone, note this ability. Ice Runes (Sp): Any spell Zilrus knows can be inscribed on an ice nugget. He can then trigger the spell contained in such an ice rune as a free action. An ice rune remains magical until Zilrus triggers it. Ice Runes Prepared: chill touch, cone of cold, magic missile, invisibility, Otiluke’s freezing sphere, ray of frost, sleet storm, wall of ice. Caster level 12th; save DC 15 + spell level. Free quickened spells. No, wait, Quicken Spell shoots them off as a swift action. My bad. But at any rate, we've reached the "Okay, he's a good spellcaster, take him down with a charge or three" point. Besides sporting DR 10/Magic Bludgeoning, his options aren't that bad. Melee attacks are unimpressive -- 2 claws at +10 (1d4+4, +1d6 cold) and a tail slap at +5 (1d4+2, +1d6 cold, poison), though the poison does have a Fort DC of 19, and paralyzes the target for 1d6+2 rounds, dealing 1 Int drain each round the character is stunned. He also happens to have a module specific item, a Rod of the Icy Prison. Functioning as a +1 light mace, it has the power to make a melee touch attack forcing a DC 15 Fortitude Save. If the save fails, the victim is encased in 1 foot thick coffin of ice, locked in suspended animation. Aside from the DR, this all isn't that big of a threat, except for the circumstances, as detailed below. The Immoth hangs out in his fortress, waiting for the PCs to bring him the goods that their NPC ally (Human Druid 4) agreed to deliver. (Note that the NPC ally may have been brutally slain by a Remhoraz earlier, in which case the PCs have absolutely no reason to believe that the Druid's friend would be a hostile.) So basically, the PCs have no reason to buff. The Immoth, on the other hand, has an Alarm spell set around the only entrance to his glacier/fortress. Naturally, it's the one that only he can hear. At any rate, this allows him to get the following buffs up, according to the module: bull’s strength, disguise self, mage armor, resist energy (fire), resistance, and see invisibility. The disguise self means that, unless the Druid is alive, the PCs won't even know that he's not an elderly human sorcerer until after the battle ends. We're now at 6 buffs versus 0. In case that isn't enough, the Immoth has Teleport as one of his 5th level spells, so he can jump to somewhere else in the fortress as many as 6 times, if necessary. And there are, of course, reinforcements deeper in that he can call on. Invisibility is an option, too. Furthermore, with judicious use of Wall of Ice, he can isolate people without the slightest problem before picking them off one by one. Basically, he's overbuffed, has way too many spells with DCs that are too high, could theoretically cast 9 spells on the first round of combat, can barely be affected by magic because of his spell resistance, has too much backup and too many escape routes to get it, has pretty decent damage reduction, and basically just looks to be an anti-climactic thumping at the end of the adventure. He sports obvious weaknesses of being hurt badly by fire and by having a lengthy list of spells that can be neutralized with cold resistance, but the fact that it's nigh-impossible to hit him with fire magic means the first isn't an issue, and that he's so much more poweful than the PCs that blocking a chunk of his spells doesn't necessarily slow him down a lot. Has anybody dealt with one of these before? If so, am I overreacting, or is this as excessive as I think it is? Any recommendations on toning it down or replacing the Immoth with another, more reasonable ice-themed enemy? Thanks much.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 06-22-06, 04:11 AM	SR 23 on a CR 9 is only 3 points above standard. Dragons are known to have terrible SR.
MerlintheTuna 06-22-06, 01:47 PM	Yeah, I know that the SR comparison wasn't exactly the best one I could've made. Still, a 20% chance for spells to affect him is pretty rough. Consider this, though. A level 9 Human Sorcerer is approximately CR 9. The Immoth, similarly, is listed as CR 9. And yet it casts as a Sorc of 3 levels higher, despite the fact that it has a Charisma of 21; there's no way that could be considered a non-associated class level. Thanks to its 10d8 hit dice, it's got significantly more hitpoints than a 12th level sorcerer, as well. (That doesn't even take into account that the thing has 19 Con and damage reduction.) The fact that he's got 8 spells he can fire off as free actions doesn't help the case. Am I to believe that his CR is 3 lower than a Sorc 12 on the grounds that he can't summon a familiar? Oh, and because he casts as a 12th level sorcerer, his Resist Energy (which he enters the battle with) gives him Fire Resistance 30. Even on the off chance that the level 6 PC Sorcerer successfully sneaks a fireball by his spell resistance, it's 9d6 (average 31.5) vs. Fire Resistance 30. Let me repeat that: the monster who is weak against fire takes 1-2 damage from a fireball, 20% of the time, when he doesn't make his save. I admit that I don't have much experience running a game, but this just seems patently absurd, ESPECIALLY because the guy is guaranteed to have lackeys of CR 7 (which would be a standard to difficult encounter by themselves). Not a single SRD monster with the Elemental type has ANY sort of Spell Resistance, much less higher than normal. The main elementals are all physical bashers though, so in the interest of keeping this guy as a mage-type, I'll probably keep the SR (maybe lower it to 20ish, where CR 9 should be) and maybe cut his spell casting down to that of an 8th or 9th level Sorc. That means he's casting magic of one spell level higher than the party rather than three. It also cuts resist energy down to 20, making it a bit more manageable. In the effort to make him more of a sorcery kind of guy, I may scale back some of his physical stats, too. (18 STR, 16 DEX, and 19 CON) Each of those (or a combination of them) seems like it would make him a bit more reasonable, but like I said, I don't have a lot of experience with running games, and I don't want to have a panic attack looking at the stat block only to watch my players wipe the floor with the battle. Thus, does anybody have any advice for me here?
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 06-22-06, 01:54 PM	The MMII is known to have wildly inaccurate CRs. It's nothing new.
MerlintheTuna 06-22-06, 02:01 PM	I know that. There's a reason why the topic title is "Another MM2 nightmare" and not "Oh great and trusty MM2, praise be to thee." But I'm running a module and trying to make it work without trying to find a new boss character entirely, so I'd rather retool one guy slightly rather than changing things altogether.
Morwen 06-22-06, 02:16 PM	Since MM2 came before the concept of swift and immediate actions, I'd rule the rune-activation to be a swift action rather than a free action.
greatamericanfolkhero 06-22-06, 02:41 PM	Drop the SR a few points, drop the casting level, and don't let him have as many ice runes. That should even it up.
Doom_Linnorm 06-22-06, 03:33 PM	I only have one thing to add: When in doubt.. just do it.. see how it works out and then make mental notes (or real notes for that matter) (and with do it I mean go for your insincts and nerf the guy a little.. cus yeah.. your PCs don't stand a chance even though they should against a CR9)
Morrowner 06-22-06, 03:48 PM	I'd say find a new nemesis, maybe a variant specialist evoker wizard or elemental savant. The MM2 is absolutely redunkulous when it comes to challenge ratings. This thing breaks all the rules. Casts as a spellcaster significantly higher than CR with a good spellcasting stat? Check. Does the immoth have strong abilities that allow it to break the fundamental rules of the game(quickened spells for free with no spell level hike). Check. Does it have significantly more hit points than an analogous threat(in this case a wizard or sorcerer with elite scores and a 14 in Constitution). Yes, yes it does, check. There is no point in nerfing it to the ground, find a suitable replacement of give the players more levels.
DungeonMaster 06-22-06, 04:32 PM	My suggestion is to just run it but you're going to have casualties and perhaps a TPK. That's to be expected when you pit a level 6 party vs. EL10-11. Even if you've doubled their effective wealth for their level they're going to get smashed. The immoth by and by isn't as bad as people make it out to be. It's CR is a bit off but not by a huge margin, CR10 at most. Not to recuse the CR of non-core D&D, in general they are terrible, MM2 is just another example. The idea of comparing a 9th level sorceror to an immoth is fundamentally flawed. How many times do you see fire giants attack bonuses and number of attacks compared to 10th level fighter NPCs? The reality is the monsters are few and the players are many, if it had equivalent spellcasting as they did it wouldn't really be a challenge. NPCs have tens of thousands of GP worth of gear at that level while monsters generally don't. And NPCs need for the DM to chose their gear particularly well to make them powerful - otherwise they get run over pretty quick. That goes for feats and skills too. This is also a 3rd edition monster and you're mixing and matching 3rd edition and 3.5 rules. In 3rd edition PCs have 3rd edition haste for instance, and resist fire doesn't absorb 30 points of fire damage per blow, it absorbs 12 per round, total. So if it's hit with 2 fireballs only 12 gets taken off the top. Furthermore the designer of this particular Immoth didn't give it an optimal set of spells, they're definitely not the best choices that can be made. If you want to minimize the number of fatalities I say let your party encounter minions and reach level 7 for 4th level magic at least. With 4th level magic they can use spells like evard's black tentacles and so forth that can hurt the Immoth significantly. The biggest issue I see is that the monster has a huge circumstance advantage in that the PCs don't anticipate being in a combat situation and may be ill prepared for combat at the time of encounter. That alone would raise the EL in my mind. You're going to have to remember that the change self spell and variants only add +10 to the disguise check and so PCs do get a spot check to see through the disguise. Hopefully one of them had the presence of mind to max the spot skill out and see through it.
babysamurai 06-23-06, 05:55 AM	I've said before and I'll say it again - the CR system is whacked across the board. Every party is different. What is a CR 10 creature to one party, is a CR 4 creature to another party of equal level. Also, ability score generation methods greatly affects effective CR's. The game is designed with the "Elite" array in mind, if you deviate from that, it affects encounter levels.