D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Rhakshasa scoop [Possibly spoiler for players]

[kallisti_dk]

There has been made some changes to the monster with every DMs favorite annoying vulnerabilty.

- 3.0 - Spell immunity to level 8 spells and below
changed to:
- 3.5 - Spell Resistance 27

- 3.0 - Slain by a blessed crossbow bolt and DR 20/+3
changed to:
- 3.5 - DR 15/Good and Piercing

- 3.0 - CR 9
changed to:
- 3.5 - CR 10

- 3.0 - Can cast 1st level cleric spells as arcane spells
changed to:
- 3.5 - Loses that ability

Otherwise it's the same, with some clarifications of it's powers.

 

[hong]

An archer with a holy bow is gonna go to town on this thing.

 

[Petrosian]

aaack!

assuming this is accurate, its crap.

one of the great flavor pieces of the rakshasas was the whole blessed crossbow kills thing. Now its just more vulnerable to holy spears, lances, bows, crossbows, and iirc daggers?

I thought the new designer dr thing was about restoring the flavor for the monsters with legendary vulnerabilities?!?

 

[Technik4]

I never like a monster with overly specific immunities like the rakshasa. Its fine if a DM wants to do that, make it part of an adventure, but to specifically be forced to carry a crossbow and blessed bolts seems silly. Im surprised you don't agree Petrosian.

Technik

 

[Belphanior]

The whole bolt-thing was moronic.

You can either attack it the conventional way and face an overpowered monster (9th level characters routinely do not have access to a cache of +3 weapons and 9th level spells.)

Or, you can use its bolt-weakness and get no xp whatsoever, because the EL was next to nothing. Oh, and you were probably abusing your player-knowledge.


Edit:
Oh, and WHY only crossbow bolts anyway? Why not arrows? Does the method of launching matter that much? Any piercing weapon makes much more sense.

 

[Henry]

The legend is SPECIFICALLY a crossbow bolt blessed by a Brahman, if I recall correctly. Hence they tried to stay true to the source.

This Rakshasa I'm not even sure why they gave him a CR 10; a 6th level Archer is going to take him out by himself. Admittedly, he'll still have the problem with a first level cleric with a crossbow, but he's far weaker in his defense.

 

[Petrosian]

I never like a monster with overly specific immunities like the rakshasa. Its fine if a DM wants to do that, make it part of an adventure, but to specifically be forced to carry a crossbow and blessed bolts seems silly. Im surprised you don't agree Petrosian.

Technik

One of the stated purposes of the new dr... restoring the flavor of legendary monsters.

one of the results of the new dr... removing specific creature problems in order to make them all fit into the new dr and thus losing its specific flavor.

What in the world could i be disagreeing with?

I mean, its not like they could not have simply written it as "good and bolts" instead of "good and piercing" if they wanted to restore the flavor. Also they could have left that part out of the DR and left it as a special weakness like vampires and sunlight, which is what it was.

but then, theat rakshasas would not have fit the new dr system perfectly.

making the legend fit the mechanic is not restoring the flavor.

YMMV

 

[HeavyG]

So basically, they nerfed it across the board and upped the CR ?

Wow.

 

[Belphanior]

The legend is SPECIFICALLY a crossbow bolt blessed by a Brahman, if I recall correctly. Hence they tried to stay true to the source.

Ok, so the legend say he got killed by a blessed bolt. Does that automatically mean crossbow bolts only should be capable of killing a rhakshasa? Why not any piercing blessed weapon?

Should medusas and cockatrices automatically petrify anybody, without allowing people to save? The legends say you turn to stone, not that you had a chance to.


Legends aren't what they're all cracked up to be.

 

[HeavyG]

Er... Belphanior ...

You could always kill a Rakshasa by lowering it's hps to -10 like anything else.

It was a special vulnerability, not an invulnerability power.