Challenging my high-lvl group (NPCs and monsters; my players shouldn't read this!)

[Greybar]

Oooh, fun!

Playing super-genius villains is always intimidating since, well, most of us aren't super-geniuses.

What's your take on this? If the players think of something you didn't, will you toy with letting him have retroactively thought to put up a defense against it?

john

 

[Piratecat]

Nah, that's a little sleazy. I'm going to pull dirty tricks that I think will work, and good for the players if they figure them out!

For instance: He'll be hiding behind an illusory wall in one end of a dark cavern, using a silence effect to hide the sound of spellcasting, out of range of most detection abilities, but his projected image will emerge from another illusory wall at the other end of the cavern. He will be disguised as a ghoul, so that they waste precious time turning him. He'll have goblin minions attacking, but they've been polymorphed into trolls to appear more threatening. That sort of thing. I'm hoping that the one-two punch will keep the PCs off balance long enough for him to win.

Note that I'll be thrilled if he loses horribly, too; the fun is in the battle. My theory is that if I'm going to use a villain with darn high spell DCs, those spells should not be save-or-die spells. Transmutation seemed like the way to go.

 

[Samnell]

As for the big-ass unfinished construct, I'm also liking the carrion crawler idea a lot, and the eyes... hmmm. I have to think about this. And centipedes... I like centipedes.[/B]

Go with the eyes...you know you want to. Just say it with me now "eyesss"

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Sorry about the double post, lag made me think that my first didn't get through..delete this if you like

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

I'm not sure if I should ask this, but after reading the last post a thought popped into my head.

Is it possible that the Puppeteer a true ghoul version of Morak?, and perhaps the other spellcasters who helped him were from the old party. Especially the person who got his faced ripped off by the true ghoul queen, since she didn't have time to eat his body the create spawn effect would have taken place the next night?

Was just thinking it might make sense since they recovered the body of Sir Aleax...and because you're a rat-bastard DM Oh well, just speculation on my part.

 

[Kaodi]

Drow Transmuter

I am sure you could figure out a statistical way to make this work...

Since you are going to try and have him polymorph all of his opponents into toads, why don't you let one of the more weak willed dwarves or PCs be turned into a snake? hehehehehehehe... *cackle*

 

[Spatzimaus]

Bronz Dragon, I think I'm gonna have nightmares about that construct. But, you HAVE to give it a name. Depending on your mood, it could be "Timmy", "Shiva", or "the Righteous Indignation". Anyhoo, you left off one little thing: that whole apparatus at the front end is great for digging through rock, but what about other materials? You'll need two Rust Monster tentacles/antennae/whatever you call them, for dissolving metals. And, of course, a Folugub (PsiHB) tongue for dissolving crystals.

Oh, and it needs Turn Resistance or something. After all, it IS undead, and you can never be too careful.

But, it made me think of something else. The ghouls kill a lot of creatures. Not all can be turned into ghouls, and not all are entirely edible. So, you end up with, well, spare parts. Bulette heads, dragon scales, whale skeletons, whatever isn't edible. You could cover the construct with these sorts of things, making it have a real patchwork quality. Besides, it confuses the players more.

 

[Bronz Dragon]

you left off one little thing: that whole apparatus at the front end is great for digging through rock, but what about other materials? You'll need two Rust Monster tentacles/antennae/whatever you call them, for dissolving metals. And, of course, a Folugub (PsiHB) tongue for dissolving crystals.

Oh, and it needs Turn Resistance or something. After all, it IS undead, and you can never be too careful.

But, it made me think of something else. The ghouls kill a lot of creatures. Not all can be turned into ghouls, and not all are entirely edible. So, you end up with, well, spare parts. Bulette heads, dragon scales, whale skeletons, whatever isn't edible. You could cover the construct with these sorts of things, making it have a real patchwork quality. Besides, it confuses the players more.

Going! Added the True Ghoul Template to the write-up (one page back or so). +4 turn resistance, Yea baby!

As for the other different creatures in its mouth, I picked the Destrachan because they can shatter pretty much any solid material, and while Rust monster and Folugubs would be useful in disarming the party, the transport is basically an APC, nothing more.

The body IS a patchwork, read the write-up and you'll find that landgoing AND aquatic animals were used in its construction. I just used a leviathan's hit dice because it seemed most appropriate. There is definitely a few pieces of leviathan in there, but there are also Delvers, Dragons, mundane whales, dire elephants and brontosauri, just to name a few. I thought the carrion crawler legs covering most of the body, constantly twitching and wriggling and groping with their tentacles was disturbing enough.

 

[Bronz Dragon]

Re: Corroded Dragons & Statues

Ah, here is another interesting idea (at least I hope it is interesting to you).

As the Defenders of Daybreak are going up a bunch of undead, maybe you should send them some variations on monsters that are a sort of metallic form of undead. In short, Corroded Monsters.

For instance, say that in whatever city the ghouls occupy, there used to be a colossal spider statue (I know, we don't need more drow, but this is just an example). Instead of being just a normal animating statue under the control of the Puppeteer, or even just preprogramming, it would be describe as being corroded, and could have a bunch of abilities springing from that idea... say, nonmagical metal striking or struck by it instantly dissolves, its venom is powerful acid, and stuff in a similiar vein. The creatures would be immune (at least partially) to positive energy, keeping them still in theme.

What would happen if a true ghoul rust monster took a bite out of an automaton, or other animated metal construct?

Food for thought ...

 

[Burne]

As Rust monsters have been brought up:

Halfling Fighter 6/lasher 3/ Windrider X

Mount: Rust Monster
Tatics: Disarm foes weapons into off hand, free action drop weapon, Rust monster uses its action to eat yummy weapons.

More weird fun
Vampire Druid 5 (I think) Tamer of Beats X
Nothing but Stirge beast companions, Think of the Image, Vampire swarm of Stirges, stirges get to hunt, Vampire get convient feeding objects.