BoVD: Babau - CR7???

[Scupper]

How did this beast slip under the CR radar at 7?

It has slime on its skin which destroys regular weapons on contact and magic weapons that miss a CR 17 reflex save and does 1d6 points of damage to unarmed attackers to boot.

It has DR 10/+1, meaning you pretty much have to use magic weapons to hit it. Magic weapons you're willing to lose, apparently.

It takes only half damage from slashing and piercing weapons.

It has an AC of 25.

It has 7 hit dice.

It has a gaze attack.

It has tanar'ri resistances and immunities.

It has tanar'ri summoning abilities.

It has multiple spell-like abilities, including fly and see invisible.

It sneak attacks as a 3rd-level rogue.

I could go on.

Anybody know what CR these things should have? Two of them are ripping my 10th-level PC party to shreds and I am getting glares of doom from the players.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Sounds much higher than CR7.

The weapon destroying skin sounds like one of those lame abilities. If the skin is guarunteed to destroy my regular or + weapon if it fails a reflex save then it should do more than 1D6 damage to someone who hits him unarmed.

To amke it more fair make the skin do 1D6 damage to weapons that fail the save. Of course this damage should automatically bypass hardness.

Also the creature has DR 10/ +1 that means technically his skin can only damage regular or +1 weapons. It cannot hurt weapons of +2 bonus or higher.

 

[Scupper]

Also the creature has DR 10/ +1 that means technically his skin can only damage regular or +1 weapons. It cannot hurt weapons of +2 bonus or higher.

Is that right? I've never heard that interpretation (though it makes good sense to me.)

 

[HeavyG]

Also the creature has DR 10/ +1 that means technically his skin can only damage regular or +1 weapons. It cannot hurt weapons of +2 bonus or higher.

Nah, it doesn't use sunder rules.

 

[Scupper]

So Paladins are really going to think twice before hitting a babau with a holy avenger, no? Doesn't really wash for me.

 

[mmu1]

It's just another example of someone being either lazy or thoughtless and desiging a special ability to do something because it's easier than going to the trouble of using the exisiting rules.

If you want another laugh, look up the Banelar in Monsters of Faerun. Full spellcasting abilities of a cleric and a sorcerer of higher caster level than its CR, a powerful physical attack with strong poison, and the ability to cast a spell each round as a free action while attacking...

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Nah, it doesn't use sunder rules.

I consider it universal otherwise the power is way too overboard.

 

[Tzarevitch]

How did this beast slip under the CR radar at 7?

It has slime on its skin which destroys regular weapons on contact and magic weapons that miss a CR 17 reflex save and does 1d6 points of damage to unarmed attackers to boot.

It has DR 10/+1, meaning you pretty much have to use magic weapons to hit it. Magic weapons you're willing to lose, apparently.

It takes only half damage from slashing and piercing weapons.

It has an AC of 25.

It has 7 hit dice.

It has a gaze attack.

It has tanar'ri resistances and immunities.

It has tanar'ri summoning abilities.

It has multiple spell-like abilities, including fly and see invisible.

It sneak attacks as a 3rd-level rogue.

I could go on.

Anybody know what CR these things should have? Two of them are ripping my 10th-level PC party to shreds and I am getting glares of doom from the players.

No offense. If two babau are ripping your 10th lvl party to shreds then I'd question your party's tactics. I remember someone posting nearly the same thing like 6 months ago and I'll give you the same response: they aren't that tough if you remember what you are dealing with. If run properly they are irritating foes, that much is true, but a 10th lvl party should be handling them with ease, especially if there are only two of them. Admittedly, I used to run a Planescape game in 2e so I am well familiar with babau.

In the Birthright game I play in we ran into 5 of them who used hit-and-run tactics. My paladin/cleric always keeps a spare mace in his bag of holding and a GMW wand for just such emergencies (and to deal with Clay Golems). We just cast GMW on spare ordinary weapons we had and went after them.

The one important thing to remember when dealing with them is they don't have all that many HP. Don't attack them with slashing/piercing weapons, all that does is inflate their effective HP and give them more time to use their gaze and special attacks on you and force you to take more swings with your weapon and risk more saves vs. its acid. Also, concentrate on one at a time to thin their numbers quickly.

Tzarevitch

 

[Scupper]

Re: Re: BoVD: Babau - CR7???

No offense. If two babau are ripping your 10th lvl party to shreds then I'd question your party's tactics. I remember someone posting nearly the same thing like 6 months ago and I'll give you the same response: they aren't that tough if you remember what you are dealing with.

How are the characters supposed to remember what they're dealing with if they've never dealt with them before? Should a pair of CR7 monsters shred a party of L10 characters simply because the characters haven't run into them before? (Assuming that you have either not read the BoVD or are the kind of roleplayer who leaves out of game knowledge out of the game, both of which are true of most of my players.)

My paladin/cleric always keeps a spare mace in his bag of holding and a GMW wand for just such emergencies (and to deal with Clay Golems). We just cast GMW on spare ordinary weapons we had and went after them.

Maybe this is just a weakness of D&D, then. To me, and the players in the game I'm running, carrying spare normal weapons in case your magic weapons aren't good enough is laughable.

The one important thing to remember when dealing with them is they don't have all that many HP. Don't attack them with slashing/piercing weapons, all that does is inflate their effective HP and give them more time to use their gaze and special attacks on you and force you to take more swings with your weapon and risk more saves vs. its acid.

They have an average of 59 hit points, which is quite a lot when you consider that a fighter may well lose his weapon on the first hit (which is likely to do half damage), and a wizard's evocation repertoire is almost totally compromised by their immunities and resistances. Unless you're an archer or a rogue, their abilites are very likely to end your career early.


According to the monster building article from Dragon waybackwhen, they have an effective hit dice of 26:

59hp / 4.5 = 13
Spell Resistance = +1
Spell-Like Abilities (a lot) = +2
AC over 20 = +2
Resistances and Immunities = +2
1/2 Damage from Piercing & Slashing = +1
Weapons destroyed on impact = +2
Gaze Attack = +2
Sneak Attack as a 3rd-level rogue = +1

Which puts them comfortably within the CR 9 tax bracket. So instead of throwing an EL 9 encounter at the party, I've thrown an EL 11 one. Not insurmountable, but considerably more dangerous than I intended.

 

[zorlag]

-

Erm, NOT carrying couple extra weapons is laughable. It's very easy to lose a weapon to disarm or sunder, or various targeted spells. So you are likely to need couple spares.

Z.