Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Fend 02-21-07, 04:57 AM	hey all. Not to long ago i whiped out fiendish codex 1 and placed a Barl'gura in my campaign as an encounter on the road back from a dungeon. The party had spent the night resting with a patrol of dwarves they met looking to investigate a beacon being light (done by the players a day before), only to find it was a false alarm, so they were planning to head back. Using major image to dupe them into beliveing they were with a group of dwarves (tho i did talk up how odd they were behaving and how they never talked among themselves. only the Cleric was wordy - and was still of only few words). The next day they headed back to town through the highlands. Fought a pack of grimlocks (Random encounter with no help from the dwarves) and set up camp at days end outside town. During the night the dwarves went missing and the next morning they heard moans comeing from down the road. Finding the cleric in a pool of blood. Going to heal him they were Jumped by the Barl'gura's summoned ally Barl'gura (no i didnt fluff it i rolled the percentages and summoned a second one as per its abilitiy) The cleric going to heal the injured dwarf turned in response to the ambush, and turned back only to find the dwarf on the ground was actually ALSO a barlgura (he was the original). And was quickly abducted back to the campsite - while the players handled the other Barlgura on the road. now heres what i have to say about this. a Barlgura is CR 5. I have a party of 6. All of which are level 5. They dont have too many magic Weapons, and God knows they werent carrying Any Cold Iron with them, but they still pack a deal of melee power and spell power. I dont think a Party of 4 CR'5's Could Even HANDLE a Barl'gura as a challanging for their CR Encounter Without Cold Iron. Infact, i think its completely impossible unless you play the Barl'gura Dumb and dont use its abilities. In short, i feel it played like i had thrown a CR 8 creature against my players. The Resulting battle Saw us play through 1 and a half hours of Irritating Combat with Both Barlguras. The Cleric and a Wizard took on one in the camp, while the Knight, Beguiler, Second Cleric and Sorcerer were being Thouroughly Taken Appart on the Road. I had to End it when i realised - And im not a Soft DM by any means - They just could not Beat this encounter and it would Jepordise my entire Campaign (on a Minor - Activity meant to liven up the journey home). They used a token the procured Earlier to summon, to their Surpise, a Nerra Silit. who even had a hard time himself besting the Barl'guras Summoned allie. When It FINNALY went down, i had the other barl'gura flee. But to be honest, even my players thought that was a weak ending to the encounter because It had them Thouroughly Owned. In short tho. I dont recommend using a Barlgura on a 5th level Party Unless they have cold iron and have been Slaying Deamons all session leading up to this combat. They make a nice End boss. maybe even a brutal henchman for a Mortal summoner... But As a Random out of the blue encounter? ... Think twice. ... Anyone Else use Barl'guras? (Note: my party Receive adequate gold, and acess to Shops for their group size and challange rateing. they dont play overpowered chars. It is a Standard Dnd set up just with a group of 6)
runestar 02-21-07, 06:55 AM	The barluga has dr10/cold iron or good. Your cleric did not have align weapon? No experience with it. What exactly made it so tough? Did it use its abduction ability to divide up your party?
Fend 02-21-07, 07:06 AM	Oh yeah. The Wizard didnt want to leave the Camp site when he heard the moaning down the road. figured hed gaurd the ponys. When the Barlgura Revealed itself it spent 2 Odd Turns Attempting to Abduct the cleric (Stupid high willsaves!) while the others got Smacked around by its Freind. The biggest problem with it is that it Can summon a Freind. i mean, im sure take away that ability it still wouldnt be anything less than a CR 5. i mean, i threw it in thinking it wouldnt be to bad. what do you mean no alignment weapon? he was just weilding a plain steel mace... i didnt think it would take on his Alignment damage? but that would have been nice and Cinimatic to have the cleric Smiteing the Deamon back to the abyss from whence it came... but alas that didnt happen. While the cleric and wizard found out it had energy resistances and a Spell resistance, The Sorcerer got Smacked down and left by the road side and the beguiler got flung into a tree. Leaving the knight and cleric saying "how the heck to we defeat this thing?" when i had to remind them about the token they picked up... call it a Divine incling on the Secondary Clerics behalf. anyway. point of it is if i didnt make the second Barlgura run off or if they didnt have the grossly out of their wealth range Summon Monster VI token (to call that nerra out) - theyed have been seriously doomed... what im tryin to say is the party had every base covered and 2 more players than standard and the encounter played out overpoweringly. Im actually writing it back in now that theyre level 6, as a villain (using abduction to steel the counts daughter for some cultists of demogorgon that found a way to bind it to them) ... I took the precaution of Arming them with a cold iron Longsword this time (given to them by the count who said he REALLY wants his daughter back) and i dont plan to attempt to summon back up this time. I still expect, from past experiance, the encounter to play out extreemly brutally...
Drag0nUL 02-21-07, 07:30 AM	I have no experience with Bar'Lguras but your post made me curious so I decided to take a look at his stats. And it is a dangerous monster indeed. The CR5 rating may be deceptive. If the party is well prepared (cold iron weaponry/align weapon, spellcasters filling their 3rd level slots with lightning bolts etc.) the demon could go down/ be forced to teleport away in a few rounds. In your situation, the party was quite at a disadvantage. First of all I assume the wizard had fireball and not lightning bolt prepared(a much more common choice) and usually a level 5 sorcerer's best offensive spell is scorching ray, which would have been rendered almost useless by the Bar'Lgura's fire resistance, not to mention SR. I don't see how the beguiler could have contributed much. They are more for stealth and deception than all-out combat. And there go the arcane spellcasters. As far as clerics are concerned, the fact that none of them prepared align weapon(a very useful spell) was a mistake. It could have made the fight somewhat easier. As for the melee aspect of the combat, the demon has an AC of 23. A level 5 full BAB character can get about +10 to attack unless heavily optimized.That's about 40% chance to hit for the knight and even less for the clerics(though they could have used Divine Favor to even the odds a bit). And even when they hit, it would be unlikely to put more than 1-2 damage over the DR unless they were wielding two-handed weaponry. In conclusion, I think the Bar'Lgura is quite appropriate for a prepared lvl. 5 party, but as a random encounter is almost mass murder. And if he manages to summon another one, this just adds to the fun.
runestar 02-21-07, 07:39 AM	Hindsight is 20/20. I guess this is one of those encounters where the party is supposed to have prior knowledge and had the opportunity to prepare amply, since as mentioned earlier, it requires some specific countermeasures to fight effectively. If it suddenly attacks at night when the party is resting, I suppose it could go poorly and result in a TPK. what do you mean no alignment weapon? he was just weilding a plain steel mace... i didnt think it would take on his Alignment damage? I meant the clerical spell "align weapon", which could have been used to make the fighter's weapon good aligned, thus allowing him to overcome its dr. If you can boost his to-hit rating with spells like bless and heroism, it could allow him to power attack some more.
Fend 02-21-07, 07:56 AM	GREAT analysis :D Thank you! :) heh.. for the record your right about the damages. The Sorcerer couldnt do nothing to it cause he only had scorching ray and magic missile really. The wizard focuses on Abjuration. in PHB 2 he took the Abjuration Wizard ability instead of a familiar (so he could fly, climb and swim at will). Nothing he had really could do much damage to it, he doesnt even have fire ball or lightening bolt. He took Slow and Haste. The clerics never set alignment weapon :/ to be honest tho i think they just Set spells in a rut they know work usually. bulls strength, Enlarge person, Sanctuary, Inflict wounds, seering light and lots of heal spells. but Rarely anything like magic weapon, divine guidence or even bless. which does worry me abit. Nothing in the party weilded 2 handed weapons, they all prefer higher AC's to damage output at the moment. thus the knight weilded a bastard sword and a Sheild at the time. yeah the beguiler decided hed try to hold it up for a turn, before dropping to -8 hp in 1 full attack. pretty nasty. (hence him being flung into a tree and discarded like a ragdoll) Perhaps it is partly their own inability to adapt that made them get so badly mauled over. *shrugs* But Like ive had them take on a CR 6 Cinderspawn (Libre Mortis) In the past and It was a Great combat. only had 4 party members present on that day aswell and it played out very satisfyingly. but yeah. this creature would definantly TPK a group unless they were experts on deamons. I mean tho, what level 5 adventuring party on the prime material puts much time into studying deamons?... however. my group did have an encounter with Were rats not to long ago, and as a counter measure the cleric bought himself a silver dagger. which helped with the subsiquent werewolf they met a few days later skulking about their camp site. I dunno... but yeah. I Also Threw a Juvenile Nabassu at them in the dungeon before hand. It would also have been a TPK had they not had Acess to a pool of Holy water - which they managed to grapple and drown it in... They cast enlarge person on the knight who grappled it when it entered the room and pinned it in the pool till it died from immersion damage. (10 d4 Holy damage a round). It began the Combat with Darkness and Obscuring mist then dropped down and snuck attack people. anyone who could see in the dark got an eye full and had to save against its death stealing gaze. everyone else was flat footed and vulnrable to its sneak attacks. And to make it worse cause everyone was blind in the fog they could only move 5 foot a round. ... Seriously tho the only conclusion i can come to is the Fiendish Codexes seem to be aimed at campaigns where the players know they will be fighting Deamons or devils and prepare themselves apropriately... Or so ive gathered thru my use of them so far. ... Next i plan to use an Armatine as the End Boss for the current module, killing the BBEG because he cant control the thing, which then attacks the players. I have a strange feeling its going to be a party wipe if they dont wise up.
Drag0nUL 02-21-07, 09:00 AM	Just for my own curiosity, how experienced are your players? Because if they are quite new to the game this inability to adapt is quite explainable. Some things look good on paper and function below expectations in game. The opposite is also true. And the only thing that helps you sort between these two is experience. Now that I know more about your party equipment/spells, this is what I think would have been the best course of action when fighting a Barl'gura: Clerics cast Bull's Strength and Enlarge Person on the knight, while wizard casts haste and attempts to slow the demon. You could argue the Barl'gura could dispel all this, but it is debatable; it has no ranks in spellcraft or knowledge(arcana) and apart from the slow and enlarge person, the other two spells have no distinct effects he could notice(and of course in a prepared fight you could buff before attacking), so the demon should have no serious reason to dispel them. Let's assume he does an area dispel (the best choice since he can also get rid of his slow and some of the other buffs as well). He has a 50% chance of success on each dispel check so I'll assume he only succeeds in dispelling his own slow and not the knight's most recent buff. so the knight is now large, hasted and with bull's strength. If he drops his shield and uses the bastard sword 2-handed he gets 2 attacks per round each dealing 2d8(I think this is the damage for a large bastard sword, not sure though)+9(assuming a 16 base strength score). Even if only one of them hits, this yields about 8 damage over the DR each round. Meanwhile the clerics should focus on keeping the knight alive at all costs. Of course this strategy involves some risks, but with a bit of luck could bring the demon down. However, In your case the party was scattered and had to fight two of those beasts at once. I see it as a run-away situation,using spells like haste, slow, darkness, sanctuary on the rear guard to cover the retreat. As for the armanite, if you are worried they would get slaughtered, maybe you should throw them a hint or two that they are about to face a demon again(assuming they don't make some research about the BBEG and his most dangerous allies on their own). Hopefully they will come prepared. As for the Fiendish Codex, I think the book aligns to the current WotC design policy: while the constantly deliver books with new, bigger, better classes feats and spells, they also deliver stronger monsters for a given CR. And finally, the summon tanar'ri ability seems very powerful but is quite easy to counter(or at least reduce it's effects). Protection from evil/Magic circle against evil prevents ,among other things, summoned evil creatures from attacking with their natural weapons. This would have rendered the summoned Barl'gura useless, but would have somewhat less effect against a summoned armanite (would only block his hoof attack).
Fend 02-21-07, 09:24 AM	:) moot points. specially liked the one about protection from summoned creatures with protection from evil. and yes the party was scattered. I have a feeling if my group was smarter instead of less weekend warriory they would have alot more fun and be less stressed out when encounters dont go their way. Nice point about the Armatine aswell :) Im really glad i posted this on this forum now. hehe. In my campaign at the moment, An artifact which had been locked away by the preists of pelor and heironious below a barrowyard was re-discovered by an aspiring ork Shaman who had received visions from Orcus. This artifact, an orb of anarchy, is hard to destroy and transport as it can only be safely kept in the posession of an evil soul - as it corrupts law to chaos and good to evil over time. what it also is however is a miniature maw to the abyss through which deamons can travel if lured. To lure a deamon through it however one must sacrifice something that oozes good or lawful properties. such as a holy relic, priest, or even just a wide eyed innocent. The more potent the offering the more potent the Deamon summoned forth. The Current mission they are doing should leave them some hints they are about to get an encounter with a larger deamon... basically the Barlgura once summoned was gifted from the ork shaman to a tribe of Demogorgon worshiping lizard folk who's ancestors owned the land the players home city is built near. After having raided a recent monastary the ork has summoned forth an Armatine (offering the collected holy relics to the orb) and a number of rutterkin deamons. and now marches his tribe/cult south through the woods to the walled town with intent on Raiding its Large Temple complex - the Sunfane. Anyway, while this happens, he offers the lizard folk use his gift to deal with the towns Count. The then use it to kidnap the counts daughter, and stage a mock Ritual with some Expendables in a lair by the lake side. except the Barlgura would be poseing as the counts daughter (while she languishes in a hidden room in a cage waiting to die) . my players already got this far and have rescued "her". Next session (unless they figur out what she really is) Theyll bring her to the count only to watch her Abduct him to some other location in the castle to Assasintate him. (if this happens, the Town will be leaderless before the assault). Corrospondants between the ork shaman and the lizard folk however speaking of a coming assault and its intent - to look for more artifacts to sacrifice to the relic - can be found in the shamans chambers (which they havent searched yet cause they already left with the fake daughter). chances are they will find this when they come back desperately searching for the "Real" daughter. It gives them a few days to prepare. at their disposal is a library, temple complex and a near by town of dwarves who mine cold iron (among other metals) I dunno if they play it right they should be ok. i hope. either way :) ill definantly have a pep talk with the clerics about smart spell choices.. It will enrich the Session and theyre experiance as players. I just wont give away so much about deamon weaknesses - so much as Expanding their horizons and effectivness.
Drag0nUL 02-21-07, 10:11 AM	So they are going to see the Barl'gura kidnapping the Count. They would have to be either foolish, either stupid to go after it again without some serious research/preparation. I think your current plotline gives them plenty of opportunities to find out what they are up against.
Fend 02-21-07, 10:28 AM	:) Oh thats the beauty of it. Fool me once. shame on you... fool me twice... GO FOR THE EYES BOO! GOOOO FOR THE EYES YALG!... (cough... couldnt resist) the descriptions given to them by the mortified hand maiden of the Daughter, Tufts of hair found in the market district and a Grate in the sewer ripped assunder like so much rubber have already led them to the conclusion its the same Barlgura they faced before... Infact, the Monk is almost certain the girl is the barlgura and is eager to pork her with her Daddy's sword. But the Swashbuckler wont let him, and is At the moment Carrying her (while the barlgura uses major image to simulate the noise and effect that they are being pursued by a Barlgura - should make for a nice chase scene, unless they call its bluff) Since the wizard and cleric of pelor both are good, theyre obliged to protect her until shes proven guilty. and as yet, theyve had no chances to investigate her. :) but yeah theyll have about 3 days after the attack on the count. hes a level 8 fighter, but he wont be prepared (he gave his sword to the players). Weather he lives or dies adds to some victory points on a tally to see how a battle between the towns gaurds and professional soldiers stationed in the Keep and the Orkish cultists outside the walls goes - while the players deal with the rutterkins and ultimately the Armatine within the city walls. Basically if things end up going really bad the orks will defeat the soldiers (leaving the town defencless) but will most likely flee anyway because their leader is dead (but will most likely come back later to finish sacking the town), but if the players do a few things well (like finding the actual daughter, getting aid from the dwarves, formulateing a plan to make the battle easier) the town should recover ok ultimately from the whole situation. The Orb tho will end up in the players posetion by the end of the seige. During the battle the BBEG flys into town uptop his Armatine, breaches the temple and (depending if the players were waiting inside, or have to battle their way through the streets from wherever they are at the time) this will ultimately decide the fate of the high preist. regardless the players arive and see him and horse deamon dude. He begins spouting some Speech about glorious rewards, Peeling their skin of slowly, etc... When the Armatine Turns on him viciously from behind with his Heavy Flail (collapsing his Skull) - Takeing the orb for himself then quoteing how only "he" will bring about a new Age of darkness. Anyway. they fight and if they win, they end up with the orb. Which (depending if the high preist is alive and protecting the relics in the basement, Or dieing near by because the players got there late) they are told to immerse the Orb in Holy water to contain its evil for a time until they can figur out how to dispense with it. And that part im yet to write... Anyway sorry if ive become side tracked. :P hehe
Archmage Atrus 02-21-07, 12:00 PM	Actually, I think you seriously misused their abilities. 1) Abduction: Only works when the bar'lgura teleports away. That means if hte cleric made his save on the first try, the bar'lgura disappears for at least a round as it shows up where it teleported to, realized its mistake, teleports back, and then attempts again the next round. Also, he needs to be able to touch the "victim", as greater teleport is a touch spell. So if your cleric hung around three rounds in a row next to the one that was trying to teleport him away, it was his own damn fault. 2) Summon Tanar'ri: I believe it works as a summon monster spell, which means its duration is 1 round/level - or 6 rounds. Which means that the second bar'lgura couldn't have been summoned prior to the party's appearance - or he should have disappeared after two or three rounds of combat (depending, of course, on how far the party was from the beginning of the encounter.) Edit: Nope, I just checked, its a 1 hour duration. Other than that - your meleeists, unless severely underequipped, should have at least eben able to hit 50% of the time and deal 2 or 3 points of damage (double that with a two handed weapon fighter.) With proper cleric/wizard spells, this could have gone up by 2 to 4 points. Magic missile would have been a great spell this battle. Average of 10 - 11 damage, can't miss, 50% chance of bypassing SR. Means you only need to hit it 5 times to kill it. (The Bar'lgura has no way to heal itself.) Even a fireball should have done some damage to it. Poor preparation/tactics on your players' parts probably contributed. I dunno. I think any 5th level party of mine would be able to take it on as a regular encounter.
nunchuckgun 02-21-07, 12:48 PM	I made a similar mistake with my group when I pitted a group of LG's and N's against a Bluespawn Godslayer. They were an appropriate CR, but due to its massive attacks (3d8+str+2d6 elec + 2d6 vs dragons[there was a dragonborn in my group]), and DR 10/chaotic, my group had no chance. I almost ended up killing two PC's in the same round, and I inevitably ruled to myself that this particular godslayer wouldn't have any damage reduction, and even so, those who were in melee with it just barely came out on top.
Drag0nUL 02-21-07, 01:19 PM	To Archmage: You are right about magic missile. It would be very useful. What I don't undersand are your claims regarding melee damage. The good melee weapons do 1d8 damage(not every melee character is a dwarf or willing to spend a feat on EWP:bastard sword). At level 5 the average wealth should be about 9000 gp, so that means +1 weapon unless you want to severely cut the corners in all other fields equipment-wise. The average melee fighter has a +2 or +3 strength modifier(let's asuume +3). So we have 1d8+4 damage per hit. That's an average 8,5 damage per hit, not even enough to bypass the dr. So I was wondering if you can explain what you base your claims on.
primemover003 02-21-07, 01:51 PM	It seems these players are all about sword and board according to Fend. But even so, Bull's Strength & Enlarge Person on the Knight with a bastard sword would raise his base damage to 2d8+3 minimum, not counting the Knight's own strength score (which we can assume is +2 or 3)... so average 15 points of damage from the Knight. Against an Armanite and some Rutterkin your party shouldn't be too bad. The Knight should use his class abilities to keep the Armanite from charging in and out and focus on him. The others should focus on the Rutterkin. The beguiler should use his illusions to confuse the demons while the Sorcerer blasts them.
RK)13 02-21-07, 02:15 PM	The preparedness of the party notwithstanding, and the above mentioned abduction problems, the only issue I have with the encounter is the use of the demon's summon ability. As DM, you have to rp the creatures as well as the NPCs. Demons, in general, don't like to use their summon ability unless there are dire circumstances because this leaves them beholden to the summoned demon (something not fun in the Abyss). However, the way the encounter turned out was for the best for your party and campaign. It gave you more storylines, and gave them the education they need to fight demons in the future. Remember, that knowledge (the planes) checks will give information about planar creatures.
Muspelheim 02-21-07, 02:52 PM	I pretty much agree with Archmage Atrus. While the bar-lgura is certainly a pretty solid CR 5 (especially if it gets the summon off, but that's more of an issue with the demon summon mechanic in general), it's not exactly an adamantine clockwork horror :D Granted, it probably *is* quite easy (and tempting!) to 'abuse' the abduction ability though. An abducted 5th level rogue or similar character will most likely be pretty much screwed at that point. As always, various circumstances can render an encounter much easier or much more difficult, which most likely is the primary reason for what happened though.
Fend 02-21-07, 07:53 PM	Actually, I think you seriously misused their abilities. I dunno. I think any 5th level party of mine would be able to take it on as a regular encounter. Well 1 big factor is my group is organic. And until you have been there / done that - i wouldnt make that claim... Cause thats how i felt about it until i saw it in action. Failure to teleport the target with him resulting in him leaving but it stay... i dunno. i just felt like he attempted to get away and was dragged back... besides the Barlgura had the cleric grappled and with a grapple check like a barlgura's you couldnt blaim him for being rather helpless. The towns yet to make their lewvel 5 Shoping spluge trip on magic weapons yet because they havent had a chance to go to a town with a large enough economy to support them. And this encounter fell upon them shortly after acheiving level 5. It doesnt really matter what my groups circumstances are now tho, because i still think for a 5th level encounter played on fairly open terrain (a road side in the woods) Using all the given abilities of the barlgura as they would be used. played out ok... Now for the Summon Deamon Bit tho. I know they only summon deamons in the direst circumstances, but that still doesnt put any penalty on the ability being used. Especially for a faceless grunt deamon such as this one. belive me, i was just trying to play the encounter non-liniearly. I mean consider this. The Barlgura Knows Its a large party. And he KNOWS anyone he just abducts hell only have a few rounds of melee with until the rest arive and he gets swarmed. Considering this i risked the summon. Succeded and hid the other Barlgura in the underbrush (thanks to its massive hide check - no worries). Now he could Abduct at will, full knowing the party would be held up on the road while he had his way with their freind. In the sake of fairness tho... if i played this encounter unfairly id have just ported into the wilderness and dealt with party members 1 by 1. Hence why i only ported to the camp site (or else my players would call unfair Scenario) I think you should all consider , As with the Blue spawn God Slayer, until you field it in a game against a group that under no other ordinary circumstances would Expect to be set upon by a Barlgura - that this encounter is pretty unfair. By the way. the Knight Left the party and Brought in a swashbuckler in his stead - and the Beguiler was slain and eaten by gricks in a water dungeon - and has now brought in a monk.
TessarrianDM 02-21-07, 08:40 PM	As an aside, when you talk to your cleric about spell selection, point out the passage in the PHB on spontaneous casting (pg.32). A good-aligned cleric should never prepare any cure spells ahead of time-switch them out when you need to.
Fend 03-05-07, 06:12 AM	Well they took it on again. Light of Luna and seering light ripped the barlgura to shreds. my group was level 6 when they took it on. but i must say a well prepared group CAN rip a barlgura to shreds.
wonlee76 03-05-07, 12:59 PM	Having DM'd games ranging from low levels to high levels, the one thing I learned about the CR system is its very discretionary. Lots of "little" things can throw off the CR/EL. 1: Ambushes in general are usually worth an extra +1 to +2 to the CR of the main bad guy. Dragons have an appropriate CR if the party is prepared to deal with that specific type of dragon. If a Dragon gets the drop on the PCs on the other hand via ambush/hit and run tactics, the dragon's CR increases substantially because your spellcasters probably don't have their "best" dragon dealing spells prepared. 2: Demons/Devils summoning abilities. Technically, the extra fiend summoned by a demon/devil doesn't increase the CR of the original monster because in theory, this has already been calculated into the CR of the monster. The creators of fienidsh monsters (in my opinion) either undervalue the CR because of the summoning ability or overvalue the CR because they may have completely forgot about the summoning ability (or some other ability that makes the demon/devil more dangerous). As you mentioned, once your group was prepared to deal with the fiend, it was torn apart. Its the unprepared party that gets their butts handed to them for good reason. If you want another monster that I think is undervalued for its CR, take a look at the Ice Devil. On paper, it looks appropriate for its CR. In reality... *cringe* It is a potential TPK depending on how lucky dice rolls go for your PCs or how prepared they are.
Drag0nUL 03-05-07, 03:23 PM	The CR system is also very relative. The PC's power levels may vary greatly without any modification in their on-paper CR. I have played for quite some time in a somewhat high powered campaign. We are all experienced players and the characters quite well optimized. As a result we have almost no problem mopping the floor with CR's equal to our level. I can't remember too many challenging fights whose EL was lower than party level +3-4. However I have recently begun playing in another campaign. Most of the players are quite new to the game (they know the rules but are not yet familiarized with effective combinations like power attack+true strike or divine metamagic+buffs to give only a few examples)and I have toned down my level of power accordingly(I go toward a fighter/rogue/fortune's friend-not very effective but fun to play). As a result, we tend to struggle with CR's equal to our level(we are lvl.4 and an EL 5 almost resulted in a TPK today- unbelievable). So if I were to extract a character from each of the campaigns at the same level(let's say 10), the one from the first campaign would doubtlessly win without even trying too hard. And therefore I wonder: which of these 2 is the 'real' CR 10 character?
Shadowmind64 03-05-07, 04:52 PM	Did i really see someone say that the wizard should have preped lightning bolt? *shakes head*
Drag0nUL 03-05-07, 05:09 PM	Did i really see someone say that the wizard should have preped lightning bolt? *shakes head* I actually said this earlier. However, in most cases fireball is a much better choice(it's much harder to get your enemies in a 20ft circle than in a line) so unless you know you are going to confront something that is resistant to fire, there are very little reasons to prepare a lightning bolt instead of a fireball.
Shadowmind64 03-05-07, 07:28 PM	Indeed, sorry for repeating what you said earlier, i must have missed it. Lets not forget that any wizard that prepares all of his spells of any certain level as the same spell needs to have his head examined, or reroll a sorceror.
Fend 03-05-07, 09:46 PM	Barlgura's are completely immune to lightening anyway. Next session they will be faceing an Armatine Thing is tho im abit worried, cause like... If they will be Prepared to face another deamon, and use the same strategies and spells that worked on the barlgura - I fear my armatine will not be much of a chalange. Despite being CR 7. I do not wish a TPK. But i want a Decent battle. Could a party consisting of said Classes/levels in my Sig Handle somthing bigger... say.. a Hezrou? Anyone else have a nice deamon suggestion?