That would be rather tricky to do, given that swarms are unaffected by single-target spells. I'm sure I can find some options, but they'd take some digging to find.
Critique/evaluate a custom boss monster?
- Thread starter TKDB
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lolstrider7
First Post
I would love to see this ability at work in an antimagic field. First of all, the ability is Supernatural, so does her true form not become visible in an AMF? Does she stay invisible? How does a Su ability even function in an AMF at all? And, most importantly, how can she possibly die in an AMF, when she, an incorporeal creature, can't even exist at all in one?
As for a CR estimation:
She has amazing defensive capabilities (incorporeal, excellent fly speed, invisibility), amazing mobility and battlefield control (invisibility, fly, TONS of BFC abilities at will), but very little damage if you get past her 3 swarms and her Final Strike. In short, if you have any AoE spells, fire spells, or a torch, she is completely ignorable. Light up the petals and move on... she might come back at you tomorrow, but you just wave your fiery wand and she does nothing but irritate you for the next 24 hours. On the other hand, if you lack the ability to defeat petal swarms, you die. You pretty much can't touch her reliably until mid-levels and you can't run from her (most likely).
I'd say CR 5-6. That's when AoE spells -really- come online and characters can start overcoming the petal swarms if they optimize a little bit. Granted, I tend to underestimate the CR's of "glass cannon" monsters like this (either she completely obliterates the party or is ignorable), simply because those with whom I game tend to disable "glass cannons" first. If your players are not good at optimization, or are shortsighted, bump the CR to 9-10. she'd be a great monster to "defeat" without killing at lower levels, and then perform a quest to put her to rest/banish her/whatever.
It doesn't, hence why I wrote "Her true form also becomes visible in an antimagic field". The "and just before she dies" is a separate clause describing a separate condition in which she becomes visible.
Only incorporeal undead blink out in an AMF; as far as I can tell, non-undead incorporeal creatures can exist within them just fine.
At any rate, this is largely an academic issue since I highly doubt it will ever actually come up. I just figured I'd include that clause to verify that yes, this does function (or rather, fail to function) as any other Su ability does in an AMF. Why I decided to bring it up...I dunno, guess I'm just weird like that.
I think you're misinterpreting something here -- if you defeat the petal swarms, you defeat Fleur; there is no "come back at you tomorrow". I'm specifically trying to engineer this so that the PCs can kill Fleur simply by defeating the petal swarms, without ever actually touching Fleur herself.
But at any rate, I think the general consensus here is that the petal swarms are considerably weaker than I'd hoped, so I'll work on beefing them up a bit.
lolstrider7
First Post
Unfortunately, since this is listed under a (Su) ability, it is suppressed in an AMF, and thus is redundant. The "and just before she dies" clause can never occur in an AMF b/c 1: she's incorporeal (I'll get to that), and 2: the effect of the clause can never activate b/c it's suppressed in an AMF.
Special Abilities :: d20srd.org
The reason that the spell AMF references undead is because the monster manual has no non-undead incorporeal creatures.SRD said:
I believe that the negation of a creature's key defensive ability by a spell designed to negate creature's key defensive abilities might come up, especially when it involves the possible death of said creature. Call me crazy, but don't adventurers usually like to kill things?
I am misinterpreting nothing. You say that Fleur dies if the swarms take enough damage. As long as Fleur has no healing/regeneration/damage prevention, this is true. However, in the case that she is intelligently played, she will likely have SOME kind of way to heal/prevent damage outside of resting. She does have an INT of 12 and a WIS of 14 after all.... hell, even a wand of CLW would be sufficient if she had UMD ranks...
Ah, I see I was mistaken. But at any rate, I still don't believe AMFs will come up because while players do like to take advantage of tactics that negate their opponents' advantages, they also tend to avoid the use of such tactics that would also negate their own advantages. Players by the higher levels are rather dependent on magic items, and in my experience are pretty loathe to give up those benefits.
But at any rate, the fact that Fleur does actually blink out in an AMF makes the use of AMFs a fairly poor tactic for dealing with her. If their goal is simply to hold her off so they can run away, sure, it works, but it doesn't really help with the goal of killing her. It's a stalling tactic.
Well, first and foremost there's the little issue of the fact that, as an incorporeal creature, Fleur can't use magic items to heal or prevent damage. I suppose you could argue that holding an item with Mage Hand and speaking the command word with Ghost Sound would work (I should have perhaps clarified -- Fleur can't interact with the physical world except through her magic, and that includes speaking); however, at least within the context of this particular campaign, I wouldn't allow that. Anything that must be worn or ingested is of course totally out of the question no matter which way you slice it.
There's also the fact that this would entirely undermine the purpose of the encounter -- the focus is intended to be on the swarms, with Fleur herself being there as a supporting agent, a rationale for the swarms' existence, and a "weak point" of sorts that the players can exploit if they figure out that the swarms themselves aren't the "real" enemy. If Fleur survives the destruction of the swarms, and the players don't know what she really is, I've missed out on an opportunity for a poignant storytelling moment (see my reply to Loonook a few posts back), and that's more important to me in this instance than playing the boss encounter at peak tactical efficacy.
lolstrider7
First Post
It's a nice idea, to be sure.
But she can still use item... they just have to be usable by incorporeal creatures.
Like say... a Ghost Touch Weapon with a Wand Chamber (Dungeonscape).
But I do like the monster- that's why I'm being so critical
But she can still use item... they just have to be usable by incorporeal creatures.
Like say... a Ghost Touch Weapon with a Wand Chamber (Dungeonscape).
But I do like the monster- that's why I'm being so critical
Now that's stretching things a bit much, don't you think?
Glad to hear it!But I do like the monster- that's why I'm being so critical
I just realized that I've been forgetting something rather important in the course of the discussion so far:
Did I mention that this campaign will be taking place within a wild magic zone? And that devoted servants of the Elvenking (such as Fleur) can choose to ignore the wild magic fluctuations if they so choose?
Yeah...I kind of dropped the ball there.
I doubt that this alone will make the encounter suddenly level-appropriate, but given that the main threat is the swarms, which primarily will need to be handled with magic, it's a pretty significant omission. To be honest, I haven't even been considering it myself.
I will be using a few tweaks to make it a bit easier on casters; while I do welcome the potential for wild magic to nerf casters by making their spells less reliable, I don't want magic to be too unreliable. For one thing, I'll be changing the formula for the DC to avoid wild magic: instead of making a CL check against DC 15 + spell level, it will be 1 + 1/2 spell level. This will keep the DC to cast your highest level spell without risking wild magic mishaps more or less constant across all levels, whereas the RAW formula results in decreasing chances of wild magic happening as you go up in level. I'll also be allowing spellcasting characters to add a +2 synergy bonus to their CL check to avoid wild magic going off if they have 5 or more ranks in Spellcraft. Finally, I'll be using a custom wild magic table, which I'll post once I have it finalized (probably sometime in the next day or two); I'm shooting for approximately a 15% chance of spell failure for a caster's highest level spell between the chance of wild magic occurring and the actual wild magic effect itself (assuming they have the +2 bonus from Spellcraft ranks), though half of the failure outcomes will preserve any resources used to cast the spell (spell slots, material/XP components, item charges, daily uses of an ability or item, etc.).
So, if anyone would like to revise their assessment in light of that information, please do.
Empirate
First Post
The main problem I have with this encounter (btw, EXCELLENT idea. Love it!) is the action economy. Not only do single boss monsters naturally struggle against groups of PCs - Fleur also gives up a lot of actions just to control her ongoing effects. Some of these don't even work together well. Defenestrating Sphere (probably my most beloved Evocation spell ever) and controlling swarms can't be done at the same time if Fleur also wants to move or cast. For that reason, I'd make the swarms into a pure extension of Fleur's will: they move perfectly at her whim without taking up an action.
I also strongly suggest you just introduce flat damage numbers whenever a swarm is killed. Half damage from each swarm, PLUS extra damage when a swarm is dissipated, with the swarms' massive vulnerability to fire AoEs, makes Fleur much too fragile. How about she just takes a flat 10 damage when a swarm is dissipated? That way, the PCs have to work through about six swarms to kill her - horrible, especially for the nigh useless melee guys. Targeting her directly, if the PCs find a way of doing so, makes the fight much less aggravating then.
BTW, I'd fully expect the PCs to find out Fleur's true form rather quickly. The moment she uses anything besides her swarms, the PCs will know there's a caster hidden somewhere. See Invisibility is a no-brainer at that point - and some PCs (like Warlocks) may even have access to always-on See Invisibility anyway, or Mindsight, or even True Seeing.
I also strongly suggest you just introduce flat damage numbers whenever a swarm is killed. Half damage from each swarm, PLUS extra damage when a swarm is dissipated, with the swarms' massive vulnerability to fire AoEs, makes Fleur much too fragile. How about she just takes a flat 10 damage when a swarm is dissipated? That way, the PCs have to work through about six swarms to kill her - horrible, especially for the nigh useless melee guys. Targeting her directly, if the PCs find a way of doing so, makes the fight much less aggravating then.
BTW, I'd fully expect the PCs to find out Fleur's true form rather quickly. The moment she uses anything besides her swarms, the PCs will know there's a caster hidden somewhere. See Invisibility is a no-brainer at that point - and some PCs (like Warlocks) may even have access to always-on See Invisibility anyway, or Mindsight, or even True Seeing.
Those definitely sound like good ideas.
I also think I'll remove the requirement that Fleur stay within the swarm to maintain its existence, because as I was fleshing out the wild magic tables I'm going to use I realized one of the wild magic results I wanted to use could completely spoil the entire fight -- teleporting every creature in a 30-ft radius in a random direction. At most I might have it so she can only control the swarm's movement while within it, but the swarm itself will stick around even without Fleur in it.
My plan was to make it look as though the swarm itself was producing the effects. For one thing, the swarm will appear in a draconic shape, and dragons are known to have magic, so that will give the suggestion that it's capable of producing the effects. And more significantly, whenever Fleur uses magic, I'll describe the swarm as acting in a way that suggest's it's responsible (for instance, playing the Cyclonic Blast as a breath weapon, or flapping its "wings" to generate a Defenestrating Sphere).
Of course, it's still quite possible that the players will see through my ruse anyway, but I wouldn't say it's a certainty.
So, I've drafted up improved statblocks for Fleur and her swarms. Let me know what you think!
I added a few new SLAs: Plant Growth for a thematically appropriate form of battlefield control, Blood Creepers (PH2) as a minor damage source and form of spot control, and Waves of Fatigue (which I'll fluff as a wafting floral fragrance that saps away strength) for debuffing.
I also tweaked the way she interacts with petal swarms: First, she can control any number of swarms as a free action. Second, she no longer needs to be within the swarm to maintain it -- one of the wild magic effects I'm planning on using involves teleporting all creatures in a given radius a random distance in a random direction, which could make for a rather anticlimactic end to the fight if Fleur took damage simply for leaving the area of the swarm. And speaking of damage, the sympathetic damage link is now simply a flat 1/4 of Fleur's HP total. Kill four swarms, kill Fleur.
And speaking of swarms...
I added a few hit dice to boost her saves a little bit, and also tweaked her stats, boosting her Cha to make the SLAs a little bit more effective and dropping her Wis. The main reason I had her Wis high in the first place was to pad out her Will save, but really I don't envision her as a very "wise" sort of character -- she's really quite naive and childish (much like her master). But since I added some hit dice, she gets another feat, so I gave her Force of Personality to boost the Will save. That gives me the wiggle room to drop her Wis down to represent her naivete. So she's naive, but stubborn.
I added a few new SLAs: Plant Growth for a thematically appropriate form of battlefield control, Blood Creepers (PH2) as a minor damage source and form of spot control, and Waves of Fatigue (which I'll fluff as a wafting floral fragrance that saps away strength) for debuffing.
I also tweaked the way she interacts with petal swarms: First, she can control any number of swarms as a free action. Second, she no longer needs to be within the swarm to maintain it -- one of the wild magic effects I'm planning on using involves teleporting all creatures in a given radius a random distance in a random direction, which could make for a rather anticlimactic end to the fight if Fleur took damage simply for leaving the area of the swarm. And speaking of damage, the sympathetic damage link is now simply a flat 1/4 of Fleur's HP total. Kill four swarms, kill Fleur.
And speaking of swarms...
I added a few more hit dice and points of Con to boost the swarm damage, the DCs of the abilities, and the general survivability of the swarm, and also added Ability Focus and Lightning Reflexes as bonus feats. I also removed the vulnerability to fire and replaced it with regeneration overcome by fire and cold, taking inspiration from the Dread Blossom Swarm in MM3, but I'm worried that might make them a little bit too powerful. Both regeneration and swarms are things that are pretty difficult to deal with if you aren't prepared for them, and I don't anticipate the players being prepared for this fight, or at least not the swarm aspect of it (since I don't plan to have Fleur do any fighting at all until this fight against the PCs). But on the other hand, fire and cold are very common damage types for area attacks, so the primary damage sources are pretty likely to get through the regeneration. Should I go back to the fire vulnerability and just add fast healing 5 instead of regeneration?
