Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Just for giggles I wondered how many 1st level characters it would take on average to take down the Chuul Juggernaut, a level 23 Elite Soldier.
I saw the Chuul Juggernaut in the excellent Monsters and More document, it was the highest CR in it, and an elite at that.
Chuul Juggernaut Level 23 Elite Soldier
Huge aberrant magical beast (aquatic) XP 10,700
Initiative +17
Senses Perception +17; darkvision
Psychic Moan (psychic) aura 1; a chuul juggernaut exudes a constant hum of psychic energy. Enemies in the aura take a -2 penalty to Will defense and gain vulnerable 5 psychic.
HP 434; Bloodied 217
AC 39; Fortitude 37, Reflex 31, Will 33
Saving Throws +2
Speed 7, swim 7
Action Points 1
Claw (standard; at-will) Reach 3;
+30 vs. AC; 2d8+8 damage, or 5d8+8 damage against an immobilized creature.
Double Attack (standard; at-will) • Paralysis, Poison
The chuul juggernaut makes two claw attacks. If both claw attacks hit a single target, the chuul juggernaut makes a secondary attack against the same target with its tentacles.
Secondary Attack: +28 vs. Fortitude; the target is immobilized (save ends).
Psychic Lure (standard; at-will) • Psychic Range 10; +29 vs. Will; 2d10+3 psychic damage, and the target is pulled 5 squares.
Tentacle Net • Paralysis, Poison A creature hit by a chuul juggernaut's opportunity attack is immobilized until the end of the juggernaut's next turn.
Alignment Unaligned Languages Deep Speech
Str 27 (+19) Dex 19 (+15) Wis 22 (+17) Con 25 (+18) Int 4 (+8) Cha 16 (+14)
Attacks by characters only hit on a 20, which still happens to be a critical. Looking
at the pregen characters, I'm averaging 15 HP of damage for a crit. That means we need 29 hits.
I am assuming the Chuul hits on a 2+, and it takes two hits to kill a PC. Since it has a double claw attack, that often happens. There is a 9.5% chance of getting a single miss and a 0.25% chance of a double miss. However, this is the exact same chances of getting a crit, which would be a one shot kill. Let's call that a wash. So basically it kills 1 per round. This makes the secondary effect of two hits moot.
Characters put on their mark if needed, and the Chuul can attack the defender with the mark or ignore it (it's onus to hit it to high to care) with impunity. This is to be able to ignore it for calculations.
I'm assuming characters and the Chuul are at a range they like. This is WAY simplistic, and misses a major point of the mobility of 4e, but is needed for the calculations. Because of this, I am skipping things like opportunity attacks. It also ignores the ability to pull closer with the psychic lure.
Healing would play a big part of this until it ran out, and as both the cleric and the paladin can do it as a minor that's something. But they also do less damage. I'm just going to wave my hands and call it a wash - the extra effectives they would provide for a few rounds vs. their own reduced ability to do damage zeros out.
Finally, I'm ignoring mass use of daily and encounter powers. The law of averages will make it fail sooner or later to 200 sleep spells.
Okay, to make statisticians blanch, I'm going to use the false but convenient assumption that for every 20 characters there will be a hit. I'll prorate it for partial 20s of characters.
Let's look at 35 first level characters. Chuul wins initiative with +17 and kills one. Then the characters attack, for 1.7 hits (prorated, remember; 34 * 5% chance to hit), for 25.5 damage leaving it with 408.5
This continues every round. The characters do 0.75 less damage a round (5% chance to hit times 15 damage), while the Chuul Juggernaut gets worn down slowly and kills a character every round.
Finally, at the end of round 29 there are six characters remaining. The Chuul has been reduced to -1 HP. The six characters - the six heroes - are victorious.
Man, that's the adventuring group I want to be part of.
And hey, they all leveled.
Frankly, this is a rough approximation at best. I've abused the laws of averages, ignored tactical movement and most powers. I think with them the characters would have had a bigger bonus by simple numbers of daily and encounter powers. Plus healing. And use of action points. As a point of interest, 34 weren't enough - they all died and the Chuul Juggernaut still had 13.25 HPs level.
I'm a bit disturbed that a platoon of level one characters can take down an elite paragon creature. But really, this is a soldier - it's strength is not in dealing with a mass of foes. When you take making characters more resilient and flattening the damage growth at higher levels, the Chuul was only killing one per round. The Pit Fiend example would have been able to cause a lot more havoc with it's aura alone.
Part of encounter design they have said is putting interesting things together. The Chuul would be very able with it's speed and tentacle net to run interference for a controller. Putting one by itself isn't really a showcase of what it can do. It's like taking the Halfling paladin and dueling him one on one - his challenge wouldn't' come into play, not his hide in a crowd, and his slow movement and low damage wouldn't offset his lay on hands to keep him alive. But as part of a group, part of a dynamic, he's a lot more.
Thoughts?
Cheers,
=Blue(23)
I saw the Chuul Juggernaut in the excellent Monsters and More document, it was the highest CR in it, and an elite at that.
Chuul Juggernaut Level 23 Elite Soldier
Huge aberrant magical beast (aquatic) XP 10,700
Initiative +17
Senses Perception +17; darkvision
Psychic Moan (psychic) aura 1; a chuul juggernaut exudes a constant hum of psychic energy. Enemies in the aura take a -2 penalty to Will defense and gain vulnerable 5 psychic.
HP 434; Bloodied 217
AC 39; Fortitude 37, Reflex 31, Will 33
Saving Throws +2
Speed 7, swim 7
Action Points 1
Claw (standard; at-will) Reach 3;
+30 vs. AC; 2d8+8 damage, or 5d8+8 damage against an immobilized creature.
Double Attack (standard; at-will) • Paralysis, Poison
The chuul juggernaut makes two claw attacks. If both claw attacks hit a single target, the chuul juggernaut makes a secondary attack against the same target with its tentacles.
Secondary Attack: +28 vs. Fortitude; the target is immobilized (save ends).
Psychic Lure (standard; at-will) • Psychic Range 10; +29 vs. Will; 2d10+3 psychic damage, and the target is pulled 5 squares.
Tentacle Net • Paralysis, Poison A creature hit by a chuul juggernaut's opportunity attack is immobilized until the end of the juggernaut's next turn.
Alignment Unaligned Languages Deep Speech
Str 27 (+19) Dex 19 (+15) Wis 22 (+17) Con 25 (+18) Int 4 (+8) Cha 16 (+14)
Attacks by characters only hit on a 20, which still happens to be a critical. Looking
at the pregen characters, I'm averaging 15 HP of damage for a crit. That means we need 29 hits.
I am assuming the Chuul hits on a 2+, and it takes two hits to kill a PC. Since it has a double claw attack, that often happens. There is a 9.5% chance of getting a single miss and a 0.25% chance of a double miss. However, this is the exact same chances of getting a crit, which would be a one shot kill. Let's call that a wash. So basically it kills 1 per round. This makes the secondary effect of two hits moot.
Characters put on their mark if needed, and the Chuul can attack the defender with the mark or ignore it (it's onus to hit it to high to care) with impunity. This is to be able to ignore it for calculations.
I'm assuming characters and the Chuul are at a range they like. This is WAY simplistic, and misses a major point of the mobility of 4e, but is needed for the calculations. Because of this, I am skipping things like opportunity attacks. It also ignores the ability to pull closer with the psychic lure.
Healing would play a big part of this until it ran out, and as both the cleric and the paladin can do it as a minor that's something. But they also do less damage. I'm just going to wave my hands and call it a wash - the extra effectives they would provide for a few rounds vs. their own reduced ability to do damage zeros out.
Finally, I'm ignoring mass use of daily and encounter powers. The law of averages will make it fail sooner or later to 200 sleep spells.
Okay, to make statisticians blanch, I'm going to use the false but convenient assumption that for every 20 characters there will be a hit. I'll prorate it for partial 20s of characters.
Let's look at 35 first level characters. Chuul wins initiative with +17 and kills one. Then the characters attack, for 1.7 hits (prorated, remember; 34 * 5% chance to hit), for 25.5 damage leaving it with 408.5
This continues every round. The characters do 0.75 less damage a round (5% chance to hit times 15 damage), while the Chuul Juggernaut gets worn down slowly and kills a character every round.
Finally, at the end of round 29 there are six characters remaining. The Chuul has been reduced to -1 HP. The six characters - the six heroes - are victorious.
Man, that's the adventuring group I want to be part of.
And hey, they all leveled.
Frankly, this is a rough approximation at best. I've abused the laws of averages, ignored tactical movement and most powers. I think with them the characters would have had a bigger bonus by simple numbers of daily and encounter powers. Plus healing. And use of action points. As a point of interest, 34 weren't enough - they all died and the Chuul Juggernaut still had 13.25 HPs level.
I'm a bit disturbed that a platoon of level one characters can take down an elite paragon creature. But really, this is a soldier - it's strength is not in dealing with a mass of foes. When you take making characters more resilient and flattening the damage growth at higher levels, the Chuul was only killing one per round. The Pit Fiend example would have been able to cause a lot more havoc with it's aura alone.
Part of encounter design they have said is putting interesting things together. The Chuul would be very able with it's speed and tentacle net to run interference for a controller. Putting one by itself isn't really a showcase of what it can do. It's like taking the Halfling paladin and dueling him one on one - his challenge wouldn't' come into play, not his hide in a crowd, and his slow movement and low damage wouldn't offset his lay on hands to keep him alive. But as part of a group, part of a dynamic, he's a lot more.
Thoughts?
Cheers,
=Blue(23)
