Fiendwurm: Coolest Monster EVER?

[Darkness]

He's supposed to. Deathknights are enemies to base campaigns around.

Besides, if your nice wizard-advancing Lich is still too weak, you could always have him go Demilich

Or use some of the additional lich abilities in Monsters of Faerun.

 

[Spenser]

So toss it in at lower levels. Who says the PC's have to kill it? Orchestrating the evacuation of a village can be just as dramatic as slaying a monster.

Quite true, an evacuation scenario can certainly be an exciting adventure!

However, I think this only works of the PCs are well aware that they can't beat the "big bad" monster. In the case of the Orcwort, unless the PCs have read the MM2 thoroughly, they're probably going to first attempt to hunt down and destroy the mysterious source of these strange "plant-orcs". Or at least scout it out. And when they stumble across the Orcwort, half the party is gonna get eaten. That's the problem.

 

[Darkness]

Quite true, an evacuation scenario can certainly be an exciting adventure!

However, I think this only works of the PCs are well aware that they can't beat the "big bad" monster. In the case of the Orcwort, unless the PCs have read the MM2 thoroughly, they're probably going to first attempt to hunt down and destroy the mysterious source of these strange "plant-orcs". Or at least scout it out. And when they stumble across the Orcwort, half the party is gonna get eaten. That's the problem.

Hmm... Have them witness the thing eating an ogre or giant - or show them the body...

 

[lambdaZUG]

Quite true, an evacuation scenario can certainly be an exciting adventure!

However, I think this only works of the PCs are well aware that they can't beat the "big bad" monster. In the case of the Orcwort, unless the PCs have read the MM2 thoroughly, they're probably going to first attempt to hunt down and destroy the mysterious source of these strange "plant-orcs". Or at least scout it out. And when they stumble across the Orcwort, half the party is gonna get eaten. That's the problem.

Though on the other extreme, a party can easily kill an orcwort if they knew it was there. IIRC, it only moves 10'. So couldn't they either a) shoot it with flaming arrows from outside its reach, or, assuming that the forest is too dense for those tactics to work, b) simply burn the thing out. Neither method really depends on what level the party is.

I agree though that with both the orcwort and the fiendwurm that the affiliated creatures (wortlings and the summond fiends) are so weak in comparison to the "parent" critter as to be irrelevant. Incidentally, the Xixecal in the ELH suffers from the same problem.

 

[Kai Lord]

I agree though that with both the orcwort and the fiendwurm that the affiliated creatures (wortlings and the summond fiends) are so weak in comparison to the "parent" critter as to be irrelevant. Incidentally, the Xixecal in the ELH suffers from the same problem.

Ditto with the Death Knight and his entourage of 20 skeletons and zombies.

 

[Spenser]

Hmm... Have them witness the thing eating an ogre or giant - or show them the body...

Not bad! Alternatively, a crazy wild-eyed druid could pop out of the forest to warn them, "...'tis a tree so foul, so cruel that no man yet has fought with it and LIVED!" Or something like that. Anyway, lambaZUG makes a good point -- a smart, cautious low-level party could at the very least drive it off. Maybe the CR should be lower...?

As for the death knight - I think the skeletons are just there for flavor. I suppose you could give him a few advanced wights instead, if you wanted his minions to (maybe) last past the first round. What worries me more about the death knight is his low hit points. 65 hp for a CR13 melee-oriented creature is just not a heckuva lot.

 

[kenjib]

I like the Avolakia too. Perhaps it's because I'm a big HP Lovecraft fan...

 

[Grazzt]

Or how about the Orcwort. A Colossal tree that uproots itself and plants itself near a village, creates pods that drop off its limbs and grow into orc-like humanoid plants, which in turn invade the village and carry off the helpless villagers to be devoured by the maw in the trunk of the massive tree. When the entire village has been consumed, the tree uproots itself and finds another settlemet. Good lord there are some cool monsters in here.

I remember trees that dropped pods like that. This is pretty close to the Animal Trees (Tigertree and Lambtree) from Rolemaster (way back when it was still around).

 

[Galactic Hobo]

OOOOoooh! I need this book!

Q: What do you get when you add "Death Knight" to a fallen king of Numenor?
A: UGLY UGLY UGLY UGLY UGLY UGLY RUN AWAY-type badness, and 6000 skeletons.

Wheeeeeee! (Probably not the most appropriate "fiendish DM" sound)

EDIT
ACH, IDENTITY SWITCH:
I AM Sir Hawkeye