CR for Outsiders

[SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS]

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.

Ok, I was a litle over, but the unholy aura is the only thing that saves the marilith from lose a fight with a well prepared 10th level parry. And a 10th level fighter´s AC can easily be 30 so with a +13 as hers BEST attack bonus she will miss most of the time (even with 8 attacks... ). And a marilith can´t fly! a fling archer can kill her easily.

 

[dkilgo]

A Kyton that doesn't carry a large bag of chains with him?

I would think that a Kyton leaving his home would carry a large bag of chains with him everywhere he went, just in case.

 

[Petrosian]

Ok, I was a litle over, but the unholy aura is the only thing that saves the marilith from lose a fight with a well prepared 10th level parry. And a 10th level fighter´s AC can easily be 30 so with a +13 as hers BEST attack bonus she will miss most of the time (even with 8 attacks... ). And a marilith can´t fly! a fling archer can kill her easily.

To handle the tank the marilith should grapple. She avoids most of the AC issue from armor and such, and with the large number of attacks, the PC will run out of AoOs soon enough. A tail grapple attempt will be a cinch once the other arms have a hold and the PC loses any weapon except for light as a threat. She can then constrict away and 4d6+7 is nothing to sneeze at.

Against a flying archer, she has the relatively low damage area spells such as chaos hammer and unholy blight to give her a shot beyond reach. While these will do low damage, they will likely be more reliable than his shots against her 33 ac will. Also, she can figure that eventually he will run out of +2 or better arrows or even just arrows themselves.

More to the point if she has the foresight to have some fire source around, she can sit inside a purotechnics cloud, turning the archer into a random shooter into complete concealment wqhile her projected image sits outside with an unobstructed view casting spells.

Now, in theory he can sit outside of her spell ranges, and maybe she wont have any fire sources, and if the scenario does indeed force her into such a lopsided SETUP, then the 18 int 18 wis marilith should sue the GM for non-support.

No argument that a scenario can be *designed* or *scripted* so that such a party can take on the marilith, just arguing that such ashould not be expected.

And again, if items in her treasure are useful, things can get really ugly really quick. One potion of haste means teleport without error and a tail strike and your flying archer is toast.

 

[dkilgo]

Nice strategy. Very well thought out. I do like, indeed.

 

[SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS]

No argument that a scenario can be *designed* or *scripted* so that such a party can take on the marilith, just arguing that such ashould not be expected.

Ok she have a good chace to win, but as a CR 17 monster she would TPK a 10th level parry easily and that is not the case. the marilith´s cr should be 14 or 15.

 

[Petrosian]

i think you have your numbers off.

A CR10 creature should be a challenge that means being defeated only depletes the party resources by 25% or so and that their is almost no chance of loss for the party.

At Cr14 with one marilith against the party of four level 10s, there should be a 50/50 chance of victory or defeat for the party. The sides are supposedly evenly matched.

Since, from what i can see, unless the party has foreknowledge, favorable terrain, or surprise (which would raise their CR) they cannot beat the marilith and will likely be slowly killed, and the best they can hope for is to temporarily drive her off... this does not seem like an "even" fight to me.

i come down on CR16 myself. Double the power level of "even fight" seems to me to be the level at which "almost no chance of winning" chimes in.

Now, the question is... do four 12th level characters have a 50/50 chance of winning?

Ok she have a good chace to win, but as a CR 17 monster she would TPK a 10th level parry easily and that is not the case. the marilith´s cr should be 14 or 15.

 

[Li Shenron]

So far, some "must-be" in my story will be:

Avoral/Leonal, Trumpet Archons, Astral Deva, Planetar

Barbazu, Erynnes

Succubi, Marilith, Kelvezu, Balor

...plus few lower-level ones which shouldn't be much of a balance problems.
There is already a thread about Solar CR, but anyway my PCs are supposed to fight against the fiends, not the celestials. Anyway, what do you think of those others fiends' CRs above?

Also I will make plenty of Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic and Anarchic animals (and few beasts, magical beasts and vermins), also with combinations, such as a Fiendish/Axiomatic giant spiders team . Do you think that applying two of those templates on the same creature would really rise the CR by +4 or less?

 

[James McMurray]

It should probably raise it by +3 instead. Most of the abilities are duplicated (DR and SR) so you don't gain as much from a secondary template added.

 

[Schmoe]

Also I will make plenty of Celestial, Fiendish, Axiomatic and Anarchic animals (and few beasts, magical beasts and vermins), also with combinations, such as a Fiendish/Axiomatic giant spiders team . Do you think that applying two of those templates on the same creature would really rise the CR by +4 or less?

Many of the templates have overlapping abilities. As such, adding two or more templates doesn't necessarily justify adding the CR modifier for each template. For example, adding both Axiomatic and Fiendish probably would be no more than a +3 CR, rather than a +4 CR.

 

[Vuron]

While many of the outsiders as written are woefully off in terms of CR I think that if you adjust some of them slightly perhaps giving the ones with Teleport without Error the Quickened Spell Like ability feat the weak ones become far tougher.

Beware of letting too many sonic effect spells and weapons into your game as they are absolute killers.

Don't be afriad to adjust some of the spell like abilities to better suit the outsiders especially demons due to thier chaotic nature.

One thing I would suggest is giving all true tanari and greater devils is Darksight 60' that functions even in Deeper Darkness as a Exceptional ability, combine this with Darkness and/or Deeper Darkness at will and demons become terrors in the dark.