Originally posted by Vobeskhan:
preparing for this weeks session I was looking at the stats for the young remorhaz and something felt missing, so I dragged out my old 1e and 2e monster manuals and compared them.
Now as written its fine for a level 2 party, but as with many of us, I'm running at a higher level (5th currently) and have found that nearly all the monsters hit like little girls. This isnt helped by having a large player group this season as we're a DM down till Scourge starts, With average turnout between 7-9 players a week I've had to up the ante in each encounter so far but never have the party truly felt "threatened", even a pair of Verbeeg and 10 goblins posed little more than a hiccup.
So, taking inspiration mainly from the 2e version I came up with these alternative stats for the Young Remorhaz:-
Large Monstrosity
Armor Class overall 18, head 16, underbelly 14 (Monster AC's are horrendously low)
Hit Points 78 (6d10 + 18) (throughout Next we have always given main monster full HP, but usually keep "minions" at the lower level)
Speed 60 ft., burrow
Senses Blindsight 25 ft., darkvision 50 ft., low-light vision
Str18 (+4) Dex14 (+2) Con 16 (+3)
Int2 (-4) Wis13 (+1) Cha 7 (-2)
Traits
Burrow: The remorhaz can burrow through ice and snow at its speed, and through the earth at one-third its speed. When burrowing through earth, ice, or packed snow, the remorhaz leaves behind a 5 ft. wide tunnel.
Heat: Any creature or object that touches the remorhaz' back takes 5d6+5 fire damage (DC 15 Dex save for half)
Immunities: The remorhaz is immune to fire and cold.
Actions
Melee Attack – Bite: +5 to hit (reach 10 ft.; one creature).
Hit: 20 (4d8 + 4) piercing damage, on a crit a Medium or smaller target must make a DC 13 Strength or Dexterity saving throw.
Failed Save: The target is grappled and is restrained while grappled. While it has a creature grappled in this way, the remorhaz can use its bite attack against only that creature. In addition, whenever a creature ends its turn grappled in this way, it takes 5d6+5 fire damage. A remorhaz can grapple only one creature at a time.
Save v magic at +6 (originally remorhaz had 75% MR)
We're planning on running this encounter with a battle grid so it will be easy to see if pc's are attacking the different ac's and also to use the famed remorhaz trait of its super-heated back.
I'll let you know how its works out in the session write up later in the week.
