Familiar - Tough encounter?

[RolandOfGilead]

Ok, my players are always whining about how familiars are never useful, less powerful than most 1 hit die humanoids, you know, the whole ball of wax. With that in mind, I present an encounter I plan for them. I want to know if you think its tough enough? too tough? too cheesy? Cool? etc.

The familiar's master is a 12th level wizard with Stitched flesh familiar feat from libris mortis.
He used craft wonderous to make his familiar Spellstitched
Rawk
Tiny Undead (Raven base creature) w. Spellstitched template
Hit Dice: 12d12 (HP 35)
Initiative: +3
Speed: 10' or 40' flight (average)
AC: 24 (+3 dex, +6 natural, +2 size +3 Deflection) Flat Footed 21, Touch 18
Grapple: -3
Attack: +11 talon (1d2-5)
Full attack: +11 talon (1d2-5)
Special Attacks: Spell like abilities
Special Qualities: Undead traits, DR 5 Magic and Silver, SR 17, Improved Evasion, Darkvision 60', +2 profane bonus on all saves,
Saves: Fort +6 Ref +9 Will +12
Abilities: Str 1 Dex 16* Con -- Int 11 Wis 15* Cha 6
*includes a +1 inherint bonus from wish
Skills: Hide +21, Listen +3, Spot +5, Concentrate +15, can speak common (Raven)
Feats: Weapon finesse
Possessions:
Ring of Protection +3, Ring of Chameleon
Spell like abilites: All are cast at 12th level
usable 4/day
1st - Mage armor, Ray of enfeeblement.
usable 4/day
2nd - Scorching ray, False life
usable 2/day
3rd - Fireball, Summon Monster III
usable 2/day
4th - Dimension door, Animated Dead.

so, he uses false life and mage armor every 12 hours giving him a 28 ac and +11-20 hp's.
His DR and SR make him somewhat hard to crack, along with his flight abilities. Ray of enfeeblement offers no save, and drains 1d6+5 strength! In fact, only fireball has a save, which is a meager 11 DC (charisma based; he uses it to destroy structures).He uses his ring of chameleon's change self power to appear as a normal raven if need be.

This creature acts as the wizard's enforcer. It rules a small village by proxy. It has a small army of undead the characters should mow through (48 hd of zombies and skeletons)

What encounter level would you rate this monster?

Imagine you walk on a scene of carnage.. crows picking the flesh from the bodies of many soldiers who died in a battle.. one crow hops between the bodies, (placing 25 gp gems in thier mouths)... suddenly, many of the bodies rise as zombies and attack!

 

[Dagger75]

CR 10 would be a rough estimate, just based on the undead he controls. I am not very good at assigning CR.


I had a 4th level wizards famalier kill a PC once. PC was help, the weasal performed a Coup De Grace and the guy rolled a 1 on his fort save. Was funny. We still laugh at that.

 

[RolandOfGilead]

Do you think its cool though? hehe. a nasty nasty familiar.

 

[demiurge1138]

I like it, and am reminded of the time the party fought an evil wizard's imp familiar and lost about two party members to it before the end. They hated that thing more than the actual wizard.

Demiurge out.

 

[RolandOfGilead]

Another cool feature is that this familiar can actually speak common. He can speak to villagers or hired thugs and make threats or demands. Heck, if the wizard is incapacitated or even imprisoned, this thing could run amok all its own. Who needs a master? hehe.
I'm thinking it needs a brooch of shielding though. or maybe nondetection amulet. what do you think?

 

[MonkeyDragon]

I don't know if anyone else has thoughts on whether this is a good resource or not, but the little I've poked at it seemed pretty keen. You just plug in all your goodness, and it makes your statblock--including CR

http://www.kencyclopedia.com/kender/monstergenerator/

 

[blargney the second]

I've been contemplating running an encounter with a dragon's Improved Familiar sometime. LOADS of hit points!

 

[RolandOfGilead]

The beauty of this familiar encounter is that its so simple. One feat to make it undead, one to make it spellstitched, and your familar is better than most cohorts. hehe.

 

[Stormrunner]

I should point out that in the Spellstitched template, the "per day" numbers are divided among the abilities, NOT each. So, the spellstitched raven could use mage armor 2x/day and ray of enfeeblement 2x/day, not 4x/day apiece. And the division is set at creation, he can't choose to, say, use mage armor 1x and the ray 3x on a given day.

Drops the threat level a bit.

 

[Eolin]

Where are these feats? I know them not. Srd?

Edit, it is really neat. I like it.