Ephemeral Swarms -- CR 5 ?!?!

[Plane Sailing]

12 HD, toughness 4 times for 90 hp total. The str drain specifically states it does kill you , just like a wraith does.

That does make it whacked. CR5? Let me see, what kind of capabilities might a 5th level party have to bring to bear. Well, the wizard might have picked up fireball, so that is a 50% chance (incorp benefit) of doing 5d6 to it. 17.5 damage if it fails its save. 72hp more to go. What, no more fireballs? Sorcerer hasn't got 3rd level spells yet...

Makes you wonder what kind of playtesting they did to set THAT CR - could it be a candidate for most whacked out CR evar?

 

[Diirk]

The only thing I can think of is Negative Energy Protection would make it pretty trivial to kill (even if it does take 5 minutes to kill, due to the DC TWENTY distraction ability and the miss chance). Unfortunately that got merged with Death Ward in 3.5 and isn't even available til lvl 7 at the earliest... ugh.