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Message: <blockquote data-quote="coyote6" data-source="post: 1447879" data-attributes="member: 1225">The only softening I did was to let the party's knowledge skills function (i.e., the bard made a bardic knowledge check to recall a roper's weakness). That, and allow some mostly-useless NPCs (a hireling or two, and some rescued prisoners). The PCs had also made 4th level by the time they met Mr. R.The group wandered into the room, and the roper promptly ate a couple of the rescued prisoners; after a couple of PCs took that 2d8 Str loss, the rest chopped off a couple of strands, and they all fled. IIRC, they spent a few days recovering (lots of lesser restoration) & preparing before going back (actually, they may have even finished exploring the Forge before preparing & going back). In any case, they set about Getting Even. With scrolls scribed and LOTS of alchemist's fire in hand (remember, there's a partially broken trap on an upper level that can be turned into quite a few vials of alchemist's fire), the PCs used nearly every single buffing spell, scroll, or potion they had (IIRC, the cleric did use every non-orison spell he had on buffing spells -- bull's strength, bless, shield of faith, endure elements, etc., and the sorcerer spent all her 2nd level slots, plus some scrolls, making the whole party invisible), snuck up (invisibily), used an invisible portable footbridge (that they built; a PC had profession "carpenter" or "handyman" or some such) to get the stealthy ranger & rogue close to the roper (bad Listen roll, and that darned invisibility), and opened fire with sneak attacks and alchemist's fire. Two or three PCs readied actions to swing their slashing weapons (gripped in both bull's strengthed hands) at the roper's strands.Between a couple-few lucky hits, a couple-three people pelting the roper with alchemist's fire, and a couple of terrible rolls (in the open, IIRC), those 90 hp went away *quick*. A roper's touch AC is 10, and every vial of fire either did 4d6 of fire damage (only take 6-7 vials to kill it dead, and they had over a dozen), or did 2d6 and cost the roper an action, trying to put the flames out (and thus halve the damge). The adventurers were beat up, and they took days to recover, but they bloody well killed the roper. (And then cast detect magic, at which point I had to rule that a roper's stomach was not, in fact, the equivalent of a foot of stone or an inch of metal, and the sorcerer ended up very happy. And many future villains that lacked immunity to magic missiles ended up very unhappy.)A 3.5e roper would've slaughtered 'em, though. The instantly-regenerating-strands would've hurt, a lot -- the PCs chopped through a couple-three strands in the first couple of rounds, and I think they managed to chop through all or almost all before the end of the fight, thus cutting the roper's number of attacks down quite dramatically.</blockquote>

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