Critique/evaluate a custom boss monster?

[TKDB]

I had an idea for a boss monster I really want to use for the fey forest campaign I'm planning, but it turned out to be rather tricky to make in practice due to the fact that there's really nothing like it in any of the books I've seen, and it's a somewhat complicated concept.

The short version: I'm not too certain of how difficult this encounter will be, so I'd like some feedback on the issue. Detailed critiques would be most helpful, but a simple estimation of CR is fine too.

The creature is an invisible, incorporeal air spirit that interacts with the material world through controlling air currents. She's the guardian of the fey princess of spring, who loves flowers, and thus has a floral association herself: Her main method of combat, rather than a touch attack as most incorporeal creatures have, is to create swarms from flower petals in the vicinity dancing on wind currents.
The tricky part here is that I want the fight to be able to proceed in one of two possible ways, depending on whether the PCs manage to figure out the true nature of this air spirit ahead of time. If they don't fully realize what's going on, the fight will essentially be against a swarm of flower petals that suddenly generates in front of them and appears to have wind-based abilities. I want them to be able to win the fight without ever even knowing that the air spirit exists, only realizing what was actually going on when the spirit briefly reveals itself just before dying. However, if they do know about the air spirit, they can attack it directly, (hopefully) making the fight easier.

So because of the complexity of the idea, and the fact that I'm using multiple elements (incorporeality, swarms) that tend to introduce some significant changes to how fights go, it's a bit difficult for me to gauge the expected difficulty of this encounter. Thus, I come to you for help. I was initially shooting for something that would be a challenging boss fight for a hypothetical party of around level 10, assuming a moderate level of optimization, but lately I've been rethinking how I want the campaign to be structured and I think this encounter is more likely to come up a bit later in the campaign, so I'll probably rework it to be more suitable for a party of around level 12 or so. But before I do that, I'd like to get a handle on where it stands as currently written, so I know just what to change.

I apologize for the lengthy background description; let's look at the statblocks, shall we?

Fleur, Retainer of Dana
--------------------------
Small Elemental (Air, Incorporeal)
HD: 12d8
Initiative: +10
Speed: Fly 100 ft (perfect)
AC: 22 (+1 size, +6 Dex, +5 deflection); 22 touch; 16 flat-footed
BAB/Grapple: +8/--
Attacks: None
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
Special Attacks: Spell-like abilities, generate petal swarm
Special Qualities: Elemental traits, darkvision 60', control petal swarm, petal swarm link, invisibility, air mastery, improved evasion
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +14, Will +6
Abilities: Str --, Dex 22, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 20
Skills: Concentration +16, Listen +17, Spot +17
Feats: Improved Initiative, Flyby Attack, Final Strike [SS], Skill Focus (Concentration), Extraordinary Concentration [CAd]

Spell-like abilities: At will -- Ghost Sound, Whispering Wind, Gust of Wind, Wind Wall, Binding Winds [SC], Downdraft [SC], Greater Mage Hand [SC], Defenestrating Sphere [SC]; 3/day -- Cyclonic Blast [SC]. CL 12; Save DC 10 + Cha + spell level.

Generate petal swarm (Sp): As long as Fleur is not currently controlling a petal swarm, she can create one provided there are enough flowers or loose petals within 40 ft to create a swarm. The swarm is created with Fleur at the center, and is under Fleur's direct control. Three times per day, Fleur can create an additional petal swarm while still maintaining control over the first swarm; however, she cannot create more than three swarms at once. All petal swarms created in this way must remain contiguous. A swarm created by this ability dissipates if Fleur leaves its space or the space of a connected swarm. If Fleur willingly leaves the space of a petal swarm, causing it to disperse, she loses the ability to generate swarms for 24 hours. This is in addition to the consequences for swarm destruction noted under petal swarm link, below. Fleur does not lose the ability to generate petal swarms if she leaves the area of the swarm involuntarily, though the swarm still disperses. Fleur prefers to form the petal swarm into the shape of a large, serpentine dragon, but like any swarm its form is mutable.

Control petal swarm (Su): Fleur possesses a mental link to the petal swarms she creates. She can mentally control the movements of swarms she's created; the effort necessary to do this is dependent on the number of created petal swarms concurrently in existence. If there is only one swarm, Fleur can control it with a swift action; otherwise, controlling any number of swarms (even just one) takes a move action.

Petal swarm link (Su): Fleur's link to the petal swarms she creates goes both ways. Whenever a petal swarm under Fleur's control takes damage, Fleur takes damage equal to half the amount suffered by the swarm. Whenever a swarm under Fleur's control dissipates (including by Fleur leaving the swarm's area), Fleur takes 3d6 damage (in addition to the damage that destroyed the swarm, if any).

Invisibility (Su): Fleur's body is completely transparent; she couldn't become visible even if she wanted to. However, See Invisibility or True Seeing will reveal her true form: a translucent green humanoid figure resembling a young girl. Her true form also becomes visible in an antimagic field and just before she dies.

Air Mastery (Ex): Airborne creatures take a -1 penalty on attack and damage rolls against Fleur.

Petal Swarm
-------------------------
Fine Plant (Swarm)
HD: 8d8
Initiative:
Speed: Fly 60 ft (perfect)
AC: (+8 size, +X Dex)
BAB/Grapple: +3/4 HD/--
Attack: Swarm 2d6
Full Attack: Swarm 2d6
Space/Reach: 15'/0'
Special Attacks: Distraction
Special Qualities: Plant traits, swarm traits, immunity to weapon damage, immunity to nonlethal damage, vulnerability to fire, immunity to sonic, wind tolerance
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +11, Will +4
Abilities: Str 1, Dex 20, Con 12, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 3
Skills: --
Feats: --

Distraction (Ex): Any living creature vulnerable to the swarm's damage that begins its turn with a swarm in its square is nauseated for 1 rd; a Fort save (DC 15) negates the effect. Spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of the swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills that involve patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check.

Daze (Ex): The petal swarm exudes an intoxicating aroma that muddles the senses of those that breathe it. Any creature in the swarm's space at the end of the swarm's turn must make a Fort save (DC 15) or be dazed for one round.

Wind tolerance (Ex): Because the petal swarm is animated by air currents controlled by Fleur, it is not harmed by any wind effects that Fleur produces. Furthermore, the swarm takes half damage from any wind effect not produced by Fleur.

 

[emoplato]

You forgot your constitution modifier to your hit die.
As for a critique your control link sort of defeats itself by adding the clause in the parentheses. You should say controlling a single swarm uses a swift action however controlling any additional ones is a move action. Also, the fifteen foot(3 space) is a bit hard to visualize. I think maybe you ought to make it an even number in which she could have control in how they line up. Finally, I ask what sort of party where you hoping to use this on because currently you have a rather weak monster. It only has a few of decent spell-like abilities and a kind of pathetic attack form that puts itself in more danger. Many cold area spell effects use fort. saves and would decimate it as it doesn't even need to target her.

 

[TKDB]

You forgot your constitution modifier to your hit die.

Not forgot so much as deliberately left out for my own notes. Since this is still a work-in-progress, I deliberately kept it to just the HD themselves, saving the actual calculation of HP for the end. Though I probably should've thought to include that for the purposes of this post.

For reference, the average HP values (which I'll probably use rather than actually rolling HP to ensure that the math of the half-damage link works out) are 66 hp for Fleur and 44 hp for the swarm.

As for a critique your control link sort of defeats itself by adding the clause in the parentheses. You should say controlling a single swarm uses a swift action however controlling any additional ones is a move action.

You misinterpreted the phrasing there. As long as there is only 1 swarm, it can be controlled as a swift action. If there are multiple swarms, controlling any number of them takes a move action.

Also, the fifteen foot(3 space) is a bit hard to visualize. I think maybe you ought to make it an even number in which she could have control in how they line up.

Fair point. To be honest, I think this might be a holdover from an earlier draft of the creature before I came up with the idea of adding more swarms to make the swarm bigger.
Not sure what you mean about "have control in how they line up". Unless I misworded something, that should be how it already works -- Fleur has full control over the movement of the swarms, and swarms are fully shapeable by default.

Finally, I ask what sort of party where you hoping to use this on because currently you have a rather weak monster. It only has a few of decent spell-like abilities and a kind of pathetic attack form that puts itself in more danger. Many cold area spell effects use fort. saves and would decimate it as it doesn't even need to target her.

To be honest, I was deliberately aiming a bit on the conservative side, because I know that swarms tend to be kind of tricky to fight due to their immunities and such. Especially since I don't anticipate the players being able to prepare specifically for a swarm, because I don't intend to have Fleur use the swarm-summoning ability except against the PCs.
But based on past experiences, I do know I have a tendency to underestimate PCs (no matter which side of the DM screen I'm on); while I've been trying to fix that, I guess I still have a ways to go.

The Fort-targeting area effects in particular didn't even cross my mind, and could definitely be an issue if the PCs use them (though I can't know for sure yet if they will or not). The 50% chance to ignore damage from corporeal sources would help, but I'll probably need more than that.

Removing the need for Fleur to be within the area of the swarm to maintain it would help, but it doesn't quite fit with the flavor I have in mind. I suppose if I let her leave but be at least adjacent that would open up the possibility of hiding in the ground, which would stop most area attacks.

I had also originally considered adding an ability making the usual 50% incorporeal miss chance reduced to 25%, under the rationale that Fleur is even more detached from the material world than most incorporeal creatures (simultaneously also explaining the lack of a touch attack).

Another thing I might do is change the sympathetic damage link with the swarms to simply being a flat chunk of damage whenever a swarm is destroyed rather than a matter of transferring damage directly from the swarm to Fleur. That seems like it would help with the problem of Fleur falling to area damage meant for the swarms, since she isn't effectively taking 1.75x damage from them. It would also generally just make the fight a bit easier to predict overall.

Just brainstorming. I'll also probably boost both Fleur and the swarms in other ways -- adding HD, beefing up the SLA list, maybe boosting the DCs for the swarm's distraction and daze effects. Any of these sound like good ideas?

 

[anest1s]

Greenbound Ghost Dryad or Nymph, with warlock class levels and summon swarm invocation?

The players fight the ghost directly, or manage to send it to its final rest without a (hard) fight.

 

[TKDB]

Greenbound Ghost Dryad or Nymph, with warlock class levels and summon swarm invocation?

The players fight the ghost directly, or manage to send it to its final rest without a (hard) fight.

That would be the easy way to do it, but doesn't really fit what I had in mind at all

 

[Loonook]

So the Lady of Spring's retainer is a sort of flower spirit? Alright, I can go with that... I just don't see her being a bodyguard. The Queens in any depiction seem to be beefy beasts, even the Lady's being able to swing some beatstick when the time is nigh.

Personally? I'd make the 'boss' have some henchmen... Something along the lines of creatures that appear to be large shaggy dogs or other creatures. Two big ones, four small ones, some such.

Have the battle occur in a courtyard or field, with Fleur (why does it not have Plant Growth?) casting Plant Growth to 'seed' the location. The beasties, when targeted by Fleur for the effect or destroyed, pops your petal swarm.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[TKDB]

So the Lady of Spring's retainer is a sort of flower spirit? Alright, I can go with that... I just don't see her being a bodyguard. The Queens in any depiction seem to be beefy beasts, even the Lady's being able to swing some beatstick when the time is nigh.

I suppose "champion" might be a better word than bodyguard; you're quite right in assuming that the Elvenking's Daughters would all be formidable opponents in their own rights.

Personally? I'd make the 'boss' have some henchmen... Something along the lines of creatures that appear to be large shaggy dogs or other creatures. Two big ones, four small ones, some such.

Have the battle occur in a courtyard or field, with Fleur (why does it not have Plant Growth?) casting Plant Growth to 'seed' the location. The beasties, when targeted by Fleur for the effect or destroyed, pops your petal swarm.

Hm...yeah, this I could definitely work with. It doesn't quite have the same dramatic flair as the "suddenly a dragon made of flying flower petals appears before you!" sort of thing I'd originally envisioned, but I think I can come up with something else similarly dramatic, with the added twist of the fact that the enemy that initially appears is in fact merely the beginning of the fight. Multi-stage boss fights are always fun.

(As for why Fleur 1.0 doesn't have Plant Growth, it's because I was mainly focusing on the air side of it, with the flower connection being mostly incidental. But I'm totally ok with playing up the flower side of things.)

 

[Loonook]

I suppose "champion" might be a better word than bodyguard; you're quite right in assuming that the Elvenking's Daughters would all be formidable opponents in their own rights.


Hm...yeah, this I could definitely work with. It doesn't quite have the same dramatic flair as the "suddenly a dragon made of flying flower petals appears before you!" sort of thing I'd originally envisioned, but I think I can come up with something else similarly dramatic, with the added twist of the fact that the enemy that initially appears is in fact merely the beginning of the fight. Multi-stage boss fights are always fun.

(As for why Fleur 1.0 doesn't have Plant Growth, it's because I was mainly focusing on the air side of it, with the flower connection being mostly incidental. But I'm totally ok with playing up the flower side of things.)

If you want to go with the 'petal dragon' concept... Personally? I'd take it in a completely different direction than what you have here .

Make the whole area into a verdant field, rich in grasses, and a constant wind blowing through the field making the grasses move. Two Fey "Hellhounds" (HD reduce to d6, maintain their fiery bites, remove breath weapon, adjust their stats like a half-fey)... I might go as far as to make a Bleed effect occur when they attack if you want to be tricky about it... In lieu of flame the thorns of a Hound of Spring rend flesh.

Why did I take everything away? Because I'm going to give them an ability.

Lost in Fecundity (Ex)
A Hound of Spring acts as if they have freedom of movement through natural rough terrain or fey-created magic effects. The Hound of Spring is invisible in any area of foliage that would serve as difficult terrain. If it leaves such an area it appears as a large hound wreathed in bright blossoms, with eyes canted like their Fey masters.

The board has a clearly delineated path, but the path is overgrown at points, making it a tight squeeze for Medium sized creatures. You can always take the path not traveled... But you're in their domain now . They pretty much attack, then 5' into the nearest bushes.

The Hounds harry the adventurers, and Fleur has a few of them in tow also (though they are less effective until Fleur uses effects to cause difficult terrain through Plant Growth). When Fleur drops below 50% she triggers the Hounds to call up your Petal Swarm. It's a rough battle, but it's winnable.. And the main threat will run away rather than die to report back to her Lady.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[TKDB]

If you want to go with the 'petal dragon' concept... Personally? I'd take it in a completely different direction than what you have here .

Make the whole area into a verdant field, rich in grasses, and a constant wind blowing through the field making the grasses move. Two Fey "Hellhounds" (HD reduce to d6, maintain their fiery bites, remove breath weapon, adjust their stats like a half-fey)... I might go as far as to make a Bleed effect occur when they attack if you want to be tricky about it... In lieu of flame the thorns of a Hound of Spring rend flesh.

Why did I take everything away? Because I'm going to give them an ability.

Lost in Fecundity (Ex)
A Hound of Spring acts as if they have freedom of movement through natural rough terrain or fey-created magic effects. The Hound of Spring is invisible in any area of foliage that would serve as difficult terrain. If it leaves such an area it appears as a large hound wreathed in bright blossoms, with eyes canted like their Fey masters.

The board has a clearly delineated path, but the path is overgrown at points, making it a tight squeeze for Medium sized creatures. You can always take the path not traveled... But you're in their domain now . They pretty much attack, then 5' into the nearest bushes.

The Hounds harry the adventurers, and Fleur has a few of them in tow also (though they are less effective until Fleur uses effects to cause difficult terrain through Plant Growth). When Fleur drops below 50% she triggers the Hounds to call up your Petal Swarm. It's a rough battle, but it's winnable.. And the main threat will run away rather than die to report back to her Lady.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

That would be a very interesting fight, but it would take some tweaking to fit into what I have in mind.

The idea I had was that for the early stage of the campaign the PCs will be dealing extensively with the Daughters, and particularly Dana, since she's the friendliest of the four. Once the players figure out what's going on with the Elvenking, there will inevitably come a time when they'll have to confront Dana about it. This exchange will certainly upset Dana considerably, since she (being rather naive) couldn't imagine that her dear daddy would ever do anything harmful. The more the PCs try to reason with her, the more distraught Dana will become, until finally she gets fed up and commands Fleur to "get rid of the bad people who want to hurt Daddy", at which point Dana teleports away.

Cue Fleur's dramatic entrance, and the boss fight.

So it doesn't really mesh well with the prolonged hit-and-run kind of fight you describe. However, I could have the "dramatic entrance" be the sudden sprouting of a field of dense underbrush, courtesy of Fleur's Plant Growth...that would work.

I don't think I'll have Fleur's use of the petal swarm be related to hp, though. Like I said, I want the PCs to be able to go through this fight without ever knowing what Fleur really is. In fact, I'd actually prefer that they not know what she is. And on a related note, I don't intend to have Fleur run away at the end of the fight. It will make for a much more interesting story that way.

As the PCs travel around the forest in the first act of the campaign (so to speak) trying to piece together clues about what's going on, Dana will be keeping in touch with them through Fleur's Whispering Wind SLA, so any messages they receive from Dana will be spoken in Fleur's voice -- the quiet voice of a timid little girl. The idea is to try to get the players somewhat attached to Fleur, even if they don't necessarily figure out what exactly she is. In truth, though I'll drop hints here and there when the PCs are around Dana, I'd actually prefer that the players not find out about Fleur. The reason for this is that it will make the end of the fight that much more poignant: As the petal swarm dissipates, Fleur's true form flickers into view. The players realize that they've basically been fighting a little girl -- a little girl that is now doubled over in pain, tears streaming down her face. They'll hear a familiar voice on the wind, punctuated by soft sobs: Fleur's last message to Dana.

"It hurts...it hurts...Dana...I'm sorry...I failed."

And then the Final Strike feat kicks in as Fleur's body bursts into elemental energy as a dramatic finale to the fight. I'm thinking of tweaking the feat a little to have the secondary effect for air creatures be a whirlwind (as the spell) rather than a burst of sonic energy -- it's more dramatic that way, and given that the earth version can trigger an earthquake as the secondary effect I don't see why the air version can't have a different 8th-level spell as the secondary effect.

Of course, I'll have to tweak things a little if the players do catch on and figure out that Dana has an invisible little girl following her around all the time and isn't just talking to the air when she mentions "Fleur". (Or is she? Elementals, man...) I'll probably try to work in some mid-fight banter to coax the PCs into trying to talk her down. They'll fail, of course -- Fleur is far too loyal to Dana to give anything less than everything she has to carry out the orders she's given -- but it will help add a bit of tragic spin to the fight.

 

[emoplato]

To be honest, I was deliberately aiming a bit on the conservative side, because I know that swarms tend to be kind of tricky to fight due to their immunities and such. Especially since I don't anticipate the players being able to prepare specifically for a swarm, because I don't intend to have Fleur use the swarm-summoning ability except against the PCs.
But based on past experiences, I do know I have a tendency to underestimate PCs (no matter which side of the DM screen I'm on); while I've been trying to fix that, I guess I still have a ways to go.

The Fort-targeting area effects in particular didn't even cross my mind, and could definitely be an issue if the PCs use them (though I can't know for sure yet if they will or not). The 50% chance to ignore damage from corporeal sources would help, but I'll probably need more than that.

Removing the need for Fleur to be within the area of the swarm to maintain it would help, but it doesn't quite fit with the flavor I have in mind. I suppose if I let her leave but be at least adjacent that would open up the possibility of hiding in the ground, which would stop most area attacks.

I had also originally considered adding an ability making the usual 50% incorporeal miss chance reduced to 25%, under the rationale that Fleur is even more detached from the material world than most incorporeal creatures (simultaneously also explaining the lack of a touch attack).

Another thing I might do is change the sympathetic damage link with the swarms to simply being a flat chunk of damage whenever a swarm is destroyed rather than a matter of transferring damage directly from the swarm to Fleur. That seems like it would help with the problem of Fleur falling to area damage meant for the swarms, since she isn't effectively taking 1.75x damage from them. It would also generally just make the fight a bit easier to predict overall.

Just brainstorming. I'll also probably boost both Fleur and the swarms in other ways -- adding HD, beefing up the SLA list, maybe boosting the DCs for the swarm's distraction and daze effects. Any of these sound like good ideas?

I would say give some linked capabilities and make Fleur more of a support piece. Currently your SLA's are mostly effective to stop opponents or ghost touch weapons reaching you. The swarms themselves would provide much of that the issue here is swarms are even more susceptible to area effects taking an extra 50% damage. As others have said give her some plant oriented abilities and some vigor allowing some fast healing for the petal swarms as currently they are her only consistent attack form.