Post/Author/DateTime	Post
davethebrave371 11-10-05, 07:40 PM	...ok, so how exactly is something with 20 d12 hit dice and an average of 150 hp a challenge rating 8 creature?
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 11-10-05, 07:43 PM	As near as we can tell, it's because a party with ranged attacked will slaughter it with several rounds if it can't get close enough to use use its Drown ability. Yeah, it's under-CRed.
savant_warlord13 11-10-05, 07:44 PM	hold monster makes it alot easier
cwslyclgh 11-10-05, 07:50 PM	hold monster makes it alot easier well except for the fact that undead are immune to hold monster... halt undead might stop it before it gets to you if it blows its save, although it is a will save and a drowned has a +12 will save... I believe the MM3 errata increases a drowned CR to 9.
davethebrave371 11-10-05, 07:52 PM	As near as we can tell, it's because a party with ranged attacked will slaughter it with several rounds if it can't get close enough to use use its Drown ability. Yeah, it's under-CRed. Under-CRed? I think a party of 4 8th level chars might have a bit of a problem with that thing killing them one by one before they could get him down to 0.
savant_warlord13 11-10-05, 07:55 PM	yes, under-CRed, as in its CR should be higher :looloo:
davethebrave371 11-10-05, 08:19 PM	I think it'd slaughter the party in my game right now, and there is more than 4 amongst them. Might need to give 'em a wand or two before they play GotEC.
cwslyclgh 11-10-05, 08:30 PM	actually a party of 8th level characters that is prepared and knows to stay away from it, and is fighting in a fairly open area should have little trouble taking a single drowned out with conentrated missile fire and spell attacks... the problem as I see it is that a party encountering a drowned for the first time might not know they need to stay away, and by the time they realize it it could well be too late... if the party is adventuring in cramped conditions, with little room to manuever, a drowned could concievably take out a much higher level adventuring party... :::begins making notes on a devius trap involving hidden drowned in a high level adventure:::
davethebrave371 11-10-05, 08:36 PM	actually a party of 8th level characters that is prepared and knows to stay away from it, and is fighting in a fairly open area should have little trouble taking a single drowned out with conentrated missile fire and spell attacks... the problem as I see it is that a party encountering a drowned for the first time might not know they need to stay away, and by the time they realize it it could well be too late... if the party is adventuring in cramped conditions, with little room to manuever, a drowned could concievably take out a much higher level adventuring party... :::begins making notes on a devius trap involving hidden drowned in a high level adventure::: Yeah, actually, Grasp of the Emerald Claw puts players in a cramped situation with a Drowned who is hiding, which none of my players have knowledge of even as players, save one, and none of them would have in character knowledge, at all. Also, a couple of them have mundane crossbows, and one has a shortbow, but most of them have no ranged capabilities, and none of them have good ranged attack except one, who has a weapon that takes a while to reload. In other words, it can close fast, and even if it couldn't, they wouldn't be able to take too much off until it got way too close.
The Abominable Darkling 11-10-05, 08:46 PM	Its AC is only 19. Those 150 hit points will disappear faster than you imagine. Also, though a fairly small difference, the drowned's CR is 9 (see the errata).
Molimo 11-10-05, 08:47 PM	actually a party of 8th level characters that is prepared and knows to stay away from it, and is fighting in a fairly open area should have little trouble taking a single drowned out with conentrated missile fire and spell attacks... "CR 8" doesn't mean "An eighth-level party can take this out if they're well prepared and have the right weapons and know it's coming and are in a nice wide-open area." Maybe that was your point but I just want to clarify here.
davethebrave371 11-10-05, 09:05 PM	yes, under-CRed, as in its CR should be higher :looloo: ...wait. Yeah. Ok, I was dumb. Now I see what I was thinking. :embarrass
cwslyclgh 11-11-05, 01:46 AM	"CR 8" doesn't mean "An eighth-level party can take this out if they're well prepared and have the right weapons and know it's coming and are in a nice wide-open area." Maybe that was your point but I just want to clarify here.CR 8 that a party with an average level of 8 should use up 20%-25% of its resources combating it... environmental siutaions can affect the EL of the encounter... in fact I think that the well prepared party in an open area could probably do it with well less then 20% of thier available resources... on the other hand in a different sitaution that same party could get wiped by a single one with out ever even seeing it. (note that certain monsters such as Dragons have thier CR calculated based upon a prepared party knowing what they are facing... you can argue that the lowering of dragons CR by a couple points nearly across the board in the change from 3.0 to 3.5 changed that policy, but throw a random CR 15 dragon at a party of 15th level characters out of the blue, using the dragon up to its potential of course, and see if the party gets away with using 20-25% of its resources... if it gets away at all). all in all I think it is an incredibly poorly designed creature what ever the CR given to it... making it CR 9 doesn't realy help the problem other then by perhaps making some DM's less inclined to throw it out there at lower level parties... a monster that can be beaten by hell even a 3rd or 4th level party with impunity under certain conditions and yet spells certain death for a 10th level group under others is just a crappy monster IMO, and moving the CR up or down a spot in the errata will not fix that.
rampant 11-11-05, 03:58 AM	The drowned is what we call a srategy monster it is much less dangerous to archers or spell casters than to melee fighters and sneaks. It is designed to give a different level of challenge to different characters sort of how minotaurs pown rogues or golems make spellcaster's lives miserable many monsters are conditional goblins need numbers, kobolds need traps, ogres need a leader with enough brains to use expertise
The Abominable Darkling 11-11-05, 08:19 AM	While that's true, I do think that the drowning aura is excessively dangerous. Unless the party has foreknowledge of the encounter, there is an extremely high probability that one or more members will be killed. As an interesting sidenote, a simple water breathing spell on your party will turn the drowned into a joke. ...well, maybe not a joke. It's still a brutal bruiser. :)
Turin 11-11-05, 09:06 AM	Our DM put our 9th-level party up against one last night, actually, and we found it to be pretty difficult. We have a warforged Scout 9, a dwarf cleric 9, a kalashtar psion (telepath) 9, and my half-elf sorcerer/elemental savant 9. The set up was a narrow passage to a door that opened onto the drowned one's room, about 20' square. The DM describes to the three other players (who, when the door opens, are all in the creature's aura) that they are having difficulty breathing and that the air has become thick with moisture. The warforged rushes in unaffected, and the dwarf cleric and the psion duck just inside the door and start throwing spells, hoping they can knock it down before they go down themselves. As it turns out, the psion's player didn't understand the danger and felt like the DM hadn't described the aura well, but the rest of us understood it just fine... and as a result the psion went down fast to the drowning aura. Fortunately, the psion got off a blast of energy bolt and my sorcerer was able to hang back clear of the aura and dump lightning bolts on the thing while the warforged and cleric beat on it. We managed to bring it down in 2 rounds and rescue the psion from the brink of death. Overall I have to say that at CR9 this monster is appropriate but difficult. The drowning aura is tough but not something that should TPK your group.
savant_warlord13 11-11-05, 09:15 AM	It helps when you have a character that doesn't breathe
The Abominable Darkling 11-11-05, 09:26 AM	True true. But then again, perhaps the drowned was designed with Eberron in mind? If you assume that there's a warforged in the party, it becomes quite a different sort of challenge.
savant_warlord13 11-11-05, 09:38 AM	What book is drowned presented in?
The Abominable Darkling 11-11-05, 10:24 AM	Monster Manual III. (It also has a big fat "Drowned in Eberron" block.)
savant_warlord13 11-11-05, 11:17 AM	Very well then
lugnut71 11-11-05, 11:24 AM	Yeah a lot of the monsters were made with Eberron in mind thus the drowned can be a CR of 8 since you have a better chance of having a character who doesn't breath. Of course it is still a decent combatant. Much like a giant it is the type of creature your better off not engaging in melee.
Turin 11-11-05, 12:36 PM	True enough, our warforged got his bell rung pretty badly in a stand-up melee (he was healed, but died later in the evening to a necromental :( ). But keep in mind he was a Scout, not a Fighter or Barbarian, so his melee damage impact wasn't nearly as much as it might otherwise have been and he's only got a d8HD. Even considering the fact that our cleric made the strange choice to cast a wimpy spiritual weapon in the first round of combat, I don't think the drowned one is too difficult in melee compared to a typical 9th-level party. In a typical party, the fighter will take a lot of damage from the drowned one. The cleric and the fighter will be able to shrug off the drowning aura fairly well, as they probably have decent Con scores. The cleric can either join in melee or support the fighter with healing and buffs, or even throw a searing light or flame strike to soften the beastie up. The arcane caster should be at range and casting spells, preferably high-damage spells that take advantage of the thing's poor Reflex save and touch AC (empowered scorching ray cast with electrical substitution was a nice choice for my sorcerer). The rogue is the most in trouble in the typical party, as he may be try to get into melee which could be fatal for him. The trick with the drowned one is to dump a lot of damage on him fast. Because of the drowning aura, you can't try to get fancy with your tactics or try to drag out the fight. Note that this is similar for many undead: decent hit points, good defenses against a limited number of effects, a couple of weaknesses like turning, and nasty level-independant special attacks like drowning aura, energy drain, or ability drain.
The Abominable Darkling 11-11-05, 01:34 PM	In a typical party, the fighter will take a lot of damage from the drowned one. The cleric and the fighter will be able to shrug off the drowning aura fairly well, as they probably have decent Con scores. That's just the point. Even someone with a decent Con score can't just shrug off the aura. A typical fighter or cleric will have 14 Con, meaning that they fail their first check 35% of the time (the second 40% and the third 45%). Such a character has only a 21% chance to make all three. Even a dwarf with 18 Con was only a 34% chance to make all three. It's just too flukey. If no one drops in the first round, the party will probably be ok (it'll only take 2 or 3 rounds to kill the thing). If the fighter drops in round 1, however, a TPK could easily follow.
Turin 11-11-05, 01:51 PM	That's just the point. Even someone with a decent Con score can't just shrug off the aura. A typical fighter or cleric will have 14 Con, meaning that they fail their first check 35% of the time (the second 40% and the third 45%). Such a character has only a 21% chance to make all three. Even a dwarf with 18 Con was only a 34% chance to make all three.Whoops... serves me right for posting without my books in front of me. I was just going by our success in-game last night without knowing the DC. Out of 6 Constitution checks forced, we made 5. So I guess we just got lucky with that (I think the dwarf has a really high Con score, too). Eberron's use of Action Points helps out a lot with this sort of stuff too, so maybe that was a factor, although I don't remember any of my comrades using AP during the fight. But here's the question: if your party all rushes in to melee and then discovers they're choking to death, why the heck are you staying in range of the aura? Time to pull back and rethink you're approach. I'm not saying the drowned one is a perfectly design monster, and I'll agree it's a bit fluky. But I think that's a general problem with a lot of undead. A couple of hits from a shadow or spectre and you are screwed. Fail a save vs a bodak and BANG, you're dead. You have to go into a fight with the undead with better tactics.
The Abominable Darkling 11-11-05, 01:57 PM	You make excellent points. Even so, I wouldn't feel comfortable sending one of these against my players. Ability checks are just too easy to fail. (Well, ok, I might do it, but I'd give them lots of warning first.)
Anterrabae 11-18-05, 05:10 PM	In a pirate-ish adventure my players recently went on, they had to find an artifact lost underneath the foundations of a library. Problem was, the lower three levels of the library had flooded years ago (a venice-like city) and had been sealed off....and they needed to get to the older ruins below the foundation. In a previous game the Drow rogue in the group came across a 'well of many worlds'(which has been inane to saythe least) and was able to drain the water in the three lower levels, negating the need for swimming. After a few oozes and rotted flooring, the characters made their way to the third level, at half speed due to the mushy book remains that formed a spiral-pattern in each level due to the draining waters. So beneathe a heap of book-mush lay a drowned...... Drow Rogue6 Shadar-kai Assassin4 (core class from Cityworks, not Wizards) Changeling Rogue 3/Pirate4 (custom class from Conan and Swashbuckler) Elf Scout 4/Rogue 4 Shifter Druid 8 NPC Human captain Fighter6/Dread Pirate 4 (I think?) That's it... One ranged character. One spell caster. They cleverly brought air plants with them (from Stormwrack), thinking they'd be swimming....They lost a bunch of hit points up front, but regrouped quickly, used air plants to overcome the drowning(I allowed this due to ingenuity) and took it down in melee..... A tough fight, yes, but a fair CR considering...... though it should've had either less HD or a CR of 10 or so. -Anterrabae
General_Ridley 11-18-05, 09:34 PM	will Water Breathing work, since there is technically no water to breathe in the first place?
Dungeons & Donuts 11-18-05, 09:42 PM	You people are too extreme. Just get a wand of drowned-killing... :D
MerricB 11-19-05, 07:00 AM	I've now run Drowned three times, and each time they were a considerable challenge for the party, but I do think a fair one. (The CR is definitely 9, however). Note that 20 HD for undead is pretty misleading. Drowned (CR 9) 150 HP, AC 19, 2 slams +12 (1d8+12); fast healing 5; drowning aura Compare to a frost giant (CR 9): 133 HP, AC 21, greataxe +18/+13 (3d6+13), rock +9 (2d6+9); reach 10' That's pretty comparable. The trick with Drowned is that they can become much more deadly in a cramped environment, and that if you don't make clear to the PCs that it is an *aura* around them, they're likely to not know that they can escape. Cheers!
The Abominable Darkling 11-19-05, 12:24 PM	will Water Breathing work, since there is technically no water to breathe in the first place? Yes. The drowing aura reads (in part), "All breathing creatures within 30 feet of a drowned are treated as if beneath water in terms of being able to breath." They went to great pains to relate it to being underwater, so I suspect they also intended water breathing as the standard defence. (After all, they could have just said that breathing creatures are unable to breath when within 30 feet.)
General_Ridley 11-19-05, 04:38 PM	okay, thanks. can't be too careful with wordings. Water Breathing makes this thing a joke.
Mr. Wilson 11-20-05, 02:13 AM	But that posits knowing what you are getting into when you fight it. If a party knows what it's getting into, yes, a Drowned can go down quickly. But if a party doesn't suspect they are going to fight one, and thus have no reason to carry Water Breathing potions, or if they are trapped in a close quarters fight, a TPK is very,very likely. As soon as the first character drops, it's PC nature to panic. And then things get ugly. CR 9 is slightly more reasonable, but I dislike creatures that are such a crap shoot. Simply put, I wouldn't use this as a Random Encounter when I DM. If I used a Drowned, I'd make sure the PC's had at least have heard of the creatures and what they were capable of doing. They get really scary when you start attacking parties with multiple drowned each 30 feet away from one another.
Templar_Prime 11-20-05, 12:33 PM	I once again have to point out my group's policy of increasing the CR of all Undead creatures in MM3 by 2. This was mostly in reply to the Bonedrinkers, but the drowned come in a close second. MM3 has a reputation of "use this when you want to kill PCs" with those groups I have played in.
General_Ridley 11-20-05, 08:04 PM	wouldn't a successful knowledge (religion, since its undead) check tell you what it is and its major power? I'm pretty sure the DC is monster HD, so a cleric would be able to identify it pretty easily and tip off the sorceror or something.
Hammer_of_Moradin 11-23-05, 08:31 AM	CR 8-9 is fair as long as the DM plays the creature to its full abilities. The party I play in (4x 10th lvl) was whipped pretty well by one. Remember, these things live in deep water and should be very dangerous to players in a boat. We encountered ours after the ship we were on crashed into a reef in a storm. Fighting a Drowned while trying to stay standing on breakers in rough seas tends to negate a lot of tactics that most folks take for granted. That drowning aura can make it awfully hard to get a spell cast too. Trying to destroy one while in a boat without getting capsized is even harder. The only thing that saved the party was my smart wife (playing the cleric) took water breathing and water walking spells "Since we're on a boat". She was the only one able to effectively attack the creature. The halfling thief and human sorcerer spent the whole time trying to stay on the rocks and fight off the drowning aura. My dwarven paladin spent most of the encounter underwater in his heavy plate or rescuing the other characters as they fell off the rocks and started getting washed away. Thank Moradin for a 22 con. :) If a DM is lame enough to put a drowned in an environment where its abilities are lessened/negated then it will be a cake walk. An 8th lvl party should be able to hit a 19 AC with relative ease. Even with 150 HP a party that can escape its aura will wipe it out in short order.