CR for Outsiders

Jovacs are pretty mean. A small group of 8 of them gave my party of 18th level characters fits. Of course, they also had a CR18 demon lord (Maphistal), 4 Spellweavers (advanced b 1 Hit Die), a Death Knight Devoted Defender, and several broodling, adult, and juvenile Kythons to work with.

However, even without all the backup, if you fight Jovacs in a plkace where the entire party has little choice but to stand in the retribution aura, they are mean. They actually punish characters for making smack-down level attacks. :)

The first thing the Psychic Warrior did when he saw them was to use Breath of the Dragon. If the things hadn't had Fire Resistance 20, he may have killed himself by catching 8 of them in his cone.
 
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The Jovacs my group faced were summoned into a gladiatorial arena, so the party quickly learned to stand clear of the retribution area. Unfortunately for them, that meant only the ranger could do any real damage (we use an archer-variant ranger instead of the PHB ranger).

Jovacs are CR3... 8 of them is CR 11...
The Spellweavers are CR14 together...
The Demon Lord is CR 18...
The Death Knight is at least CR 13... but it has to be around CR 18-20...
And I can't even find the Kythons...


So... that was like a CR what... 27? :D

All in all though, that's a nice collection of oddities -- all those creatures, while not necessarily Outsiders, they would make excellent choices in a campaign that features the weird and the wild.
 

Every Yugoloth I've seen is woefully underpowered for its CR.

I feel that the Babau from the Book of Vile Darkness is a bit overpowered at CR 7.

The Malebranche is definitely overpowered.

The Bebilith is probably the most overpowered CR 9 creature around. I'd say it even exceeds the dragon CR's.

The Vrock is possibly underpowered, but Mass Charm at will is pretty nasty, even if it has a fairly easy save.

That's about it. Most of the others seem to be at least reasonably accurate.
 

Mordane76 said:
The Jovacs my group faced were summoned into a gladiatorial arena, so the party quickly learned to stand clear of the retribution area. Unfortunately for them, that meant only the ranger could do any real damage (we use an archer-variant ranger instead of the PHB ranger).

Jovacs are CR3... 8 of them is CR 11...
The Spellweavers are CR14 together...
The Demon Lord is CR 18...
The Death Knight is at least CR 13... but it has to be around CR 18-20...
And I can't even find the Kythons...


So... that was like a CR what... 27? :D

All in all though, that's a nice collection of oddities -- all those creatures, while not necessarily Outsiders, they would make excellent choices in a campaign that features the weird and the wild.

The Death Knight was CR 16 (13th level character). The Spellweavers were advanced, and thus totalled CR 16. CR 16 + CR 16 = EL 18. EL 18 + CR 18 = EL 20. The Jovocs are actually CR 5 (unless I've misssed an erratta). 8 of them is still EL 11 though, which technically doesn't add to the encounter. However, when combined with the Kythons (around EL 11 themselves) they could reasonably bring the encounter up to EL 21. The results (1 dead PC, 2 dead animal companions, many dead enemies, and a fleeing party) are about what you'd expect from that EL.

The Jovocs and Kythons were added on because the party decided to sleep the night in the demon citadel and got found. The Quasit that noticed them was not killed before it could tell others, and the monk on gaurd decided to just go back to gaurding rather than tell anyone what had happened.

Kythons are from the Book of Vile Darkness. They are the results of demons infusing their life force into reptiles and insects a few hundred years back. These are kept around to use as a small strike force / food supply.

The Jovocs are the primary strike force of the citadel. There are more inside, but many of them were busy re-killing some Bariur on Elysium.

The Spell Weavers are there because each wears a Slave Ring, to which Maphistal holds the Master Ring. A wearer of a Master Ring can deal 3d6 damage to a Slave Ring wearer as a free action every round, and thus they are on his side. They aren't exactly loyal, but they don't have a lot of choice.

There was also a Palreshee (sp?) there, but all it did was fail a couple of summonings and then stand back. It is not a big fan of Maphistal either.

The close quarters definitely hampered the party by forcing them to be near the Jovocs, but it also slowed the Spellweavers and Death Knight a bit, as they couldn't fireball, lightning Bolt, or Abyssal Blast.

The encounter took almost the entire afternoon, but it was enjoyed I think. The monk has learned to wake people (and two other party members now have rings of sustenance to allow them to stay on watch). The monk also learned not to try to trip big burly warriors in Full Plate. :D
 

Interesting scenario!

I believe that the Kytons, not to be confused with the Kythons form BoVD, from the MM are under rated.
 

That's odd. I thought Kytons (not Kythons) were overrated. They can be incredibly devestating in their own lair, since there will be chains all over the place. Without that though, they aren't too much to worry about.
 

Well, the demons CR are to high.. particulary the Marilith and vrocks... The mariliths CR is particulary too high, a 10th level parry can kill one without problem.

The celestials have a low cr... the ghaele casts spells as a 14 level cleric and have CR 13... the solar and planetar are wost...
 
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SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS said:
The mariliths CR is particulary too high, a 10th level parry can kill one without problem.

this surprises me...

The marilith's ac of 33 shoudl mean the better fighters at 10th are hitting maybe 1 time in 3 at their highest BAB? less with their iterative attacks? After a few hits from the strength loss, since making an F21 save is not all that easy, even for a 10th level fighter, these chances to hit drop even furtner.

Their SR of 25 means the spellcasters are getting one spell in three through and the mariliths saves are very good... with nets of F+15 R+12 and W+14.

Their offense is their weakest category but with the constrict and the sheer number of attacks, they ought to be a credible threat to a gang of 10ths from what i have seen.

of course, all the above assume no magic items for the marilith to use.
 

The celestials have a low cr... the ghaele casts spells as a 14 level cleric and have CR 13...

'course, it doesn't get Domain Powers or Turn Undead, so you can't really consider it anywhere near as tough as a real 14th level cleric ;)

-Hyp.
 

I would boost planetar/solar's cr about 3 or 4 points higher than it currently is. Fighters BAB, Monks Saving throws, Spells like a 20th level Cleric as well as insane outsider atributes, flight, highest SR in the MM and they get to break the game by getting 5 attacks a round... with a Vorpal sword. Dancing vorpal!
 

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