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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ashockney" data-source="post: 655823" data-attributes="member: 1363">UK, just curious...Have you ever run a 16th level party through a module?  I've done it twice.  And 17th and 18th and 19th.They are tougher than hell.The 16th level party has the capacity to deal 300 hp damage per round.  Yes.  I'm talking about CAPACITY here, not "what I'll do against a 40 AC and 36 SR". That would kill the Pit Fiend outright.  Round 1.  Probably before he got his first action.  How do you prevent that from happening?  Massive defenses.  Kick up that AC and SR so that only about half the stuff thrown at him hits.  Now you're down to roughly 150 hp/round...we're on the right track.Why stop there?  Buff up those Saves, mix in some immunities, and slather on some damage and energy resistance.  Very nice.  If he's lucky, this step cuts it down to about 100 hit points a round.  Our poor friend has increased his life expentancy to 2 rounds.  Nice job!Now, Mr. Fiend (like his friends call him) isn't going to just stand around and take it.  Nope, he's going to bring it back, hard core.  He's got a couple real nice stun and hold effects. What's that really do? Probably negate 1/4 of the damage output for one round or two at the most.  Keep in mind a 16th level party has a counter-measure for pretty much everything, and that's IF you can get it past their considerable defenses.  Spell Turning and Free Action come to mind.  But, let's hope the party was stupid and didn't have those defenses up or with them at the time.  So we'll knock a couple of actions out of the middle, and say Mr. Fiend's survived to Round 3.  Amen!So Mr. Fiend now brings it!  Meteor Swarm, ha, ha!24d6 = 24x3 average = 72 points of damage.  Assuming no SR, no ER, no Imp Evasion, and no ridiculous saving throw (yes, I'm talking to the Paladin and Monk in the back with big smiles on their faces).  Well, this will definitely "threaten" the mage, but pretty much everyone else is shrugging it off or down about 1/4 of their HP. So he's definitely picking on the mage, cause now he's going to go put some melee whoop ass on him!Assuming of course he can find him.  But let's pretend he can.  The silly mage forgot to mem any good defensive spells today.  At this point in time...we're up to about round 3, and the pit fiend stomps over to the mage, busts him up, and disrupts his spell!  D'oh!  This is probably where the "likely to die" character would come in.  This largely depends on initiative and the previous actions of the cleric.  Most likely the cleric would see fit to healing up Mr. Mage, but if they didn't.  Uh-oh. Rinse and repeat.  More of the same, but the outcome is pretty heavily favoring the advantage to the party.I did all of the above, btw, assuming no haste, which using our current 3rd Ed rules, would have AUTOMATICALLY been provided, of the MASS HASTE variety, as the first action in the first round.  Significantly increasing the defenses of the party and allowing the Cleric to get off things like Mass Heal and Break Enchantment while dishing out some loving.This isn't a shot or an attack.  Just merely sharing my experiences, and justification for why I'm not surprised Mr. Fiend is a good CR 16.  Check out the beasties in MM2 for more examples of better challenges appropriate to the level above CR 11.</blockquote>

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