MM3 - Drowned

So ...

I noticed in the MM3 Errata that the Drowned (a particularly nasty undead beasty) had had its CR upped to 9 (from .. 6? where it was before).

I thought I'd also seen something, somewhere, about how its drowning aura had been errataed as well. Am I out to lunch?

For reference, its aura forces a DC 10 Con check every round for all creatures within 30'. A single failure sets the drowning rules in motion: you immediately drop to 0 hit points and unconsciousness, the next round brings you to -1 and dying, and the third round results in automatic death.

Hi Patryn of Elvenshae,

I threw four of these at my high level party (18th, 18th, 17th Gestalt and 17th). They had two of them down and if it wasn't for a little weasing from one of the players, it easily could have been a TPK.

Admittedly, this was in an underground tunnel that was filled with water with about 15 foot of air. It joined a massive underground sea cavern with an undergound tower. However, I feel because of their HD (20) and their Hide check +big from memory, they are absolutely devastating to an unpreparted party. To a party with water-breathing, they're pussies though.

They must have changed the "Miasma" ability because even as a CR 9, they are still severely "broken".

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Herremann the Wise said:

I threw four of these at my high level party (18th, 18th, 17th Gestalt and 17th). They had two of them down and if it wasn't for a little weasing from one of the players, it easily could have been a TPK.

Click to expand...

Yeah, my APL 5 group (of ~6 characters) fought two last week.

The DM had one retreat after about 2 rounds.

No one died, but that's only because we had a shifter barbarian (with the beasthide elite shifter trait) who had a +5-7 on his Con checks. Even then, he had to blow a bunch of hero points. Had we not killed the thing when we did, he'd have died, I think, when both his shift and his rage ran out.

The rest of us were content to allow him to engage the thing in melee while we plinked away with (relatively ineffective) missile weapons. Had he gone down, the rest of us would have very, very quickly followed.

We had three people nearly die from the aura - luckily, one was pulled to safety by her trained wardogs, another was pulled away by ... someone else ..., and a third was grabbed by the shifter (who manfully took the AoO) and carried to safety.

We were probably about two or three rounds from a TPK.

Patryn of Elvenshae said:

So ...

I noticed in the MM3 Errata that the Drowned (a particularly nasty undead beasty) had had its CR upped to 9 (from .. 6? where it was before).

I thought I'd also seen something, somewhere, about how its drowning aura had been errataed as well. [...]

Click to expand...

Hi!

The former CR was 8, just in case you want to know.

IIRC, no further errata has been published by WotC, especially not about the Drowning Aura.

Kind regards