Now I'm thinking of statting up my own version of this critter.
It depends how energetic I'm feeling (and whether I get distracted by something else!).
ok is a while since I looked at this one. In 1e and 5e, wraiths are generally more formidable adversaries than wights, so thinking it should have more hit points (say 240-250) or so - so 21d12 + 105 (for CON 20) = 242.
ok wight tweaked to here
Contrariwise, at most the Cairn Wight (Undead Stone Giant) can only do four levels of exhaustion per round, two with its standard Action and two as a Legendary Action, and the target has to fail two DC 10 Constitution saves for that to happen (since it must miss its DC 15 CON save by 5 or more).
Now that I think of it, that DC seems extraordinarily low for a Challenge 16 creature. The recommended DC for a CR 16 creature is 18 after all.
While I did deliberately gimp the DC by making it CHA-based instead of CON-based like a standard Wight, maybe we should go back to the default and make it CON-based for the Cairn Wight, which'd give its Death Grip and Soul Drain DC 19 (so the target would have to miss a DC 14 to get two levels of exhaustion, which is pretty easy for a Challenge-appropriate PC).
Should I update the Cairn Wight (Undead Stone Giant) with DC 19 for its life sapping special attacks?
Furthermore, I'm thinking the Cairn Wraiths should have a low enough CR it'd be practical to have one or maybe two of them team up with a Cairn Wight and a bunch of Cairn Zombies or Shadows for a serious encounter that isn't so overwhelmingly lethal the PCs would have little or no chance of surviving it.
Okay I can live with that (the CR 13 I had forgotten to adjust anyway)...ok. If bring HD down to 14d12(+70), that gives 161hp and a good place to work from. I have found the legendary actions really fun to play with though so would prefer to keep them.Furthermore, I'm thinking the Cairn Wraiths should have a low enough CR it'd be practical to have one or maybe two of them team up with a Cairn Wight and a bunch of Cairn Zombies or Shadows for a serious encounter that isn't so overwhelmingly lethal the PCs would have little or no chance of surviving it.
That'd likely also involve dropping the Legendary Actions and maybe even making them CR 12 or less.
Primarily just to keep the encounter complexity manageable. It's best to have only one or at most two enemies in an encounter have Legendary Actions. If there's a whole bunch of them, the poor DM will have trouble keeping track of it all.
Think of Cairn Wraith as being like Spectres, which suffered a major power drop in 5E to become weaker than a Wraith. Spectres in early editions of AD&D were more powerful than Wraiths, the 5E version is not only a fraction as powerful as a Wraith, it's barely stronger than a Shadow.
So you didn't fancy making the Cairn Wight's exhaustion drain a CON-based DC?
Okay I can live with that (the CR 13 I had forgotten to adjust anyway)...ok. If bring HD down to 14d12(+70), that gives 161hp and a good place to work from. I have found the legendary actions really fun to play with though so would prefer to keep them.
Umm. Yes...? It is CON-based DC in mine...unless I'm missing one??