Pimp my Naga

[Shallown]

I would Go for the Brackish water 3-4 feet deep but put in a maze like structure with an open top 10 feet tall. Have hanging from the ceiling globes of alchemist fire, tanglefoot bags, thunder stones etc. Then use this spell list.

0 - create water, detect magic, light, mage hand, dancing lights, open/close, mending, light

1- divine favor, shield of faith , magic missile, ray of enfeeblement, mage armor

2- shatter, eagles splendor, invisibility

3- summon monster III, Fly

Use the maze to seperate and disorientate the characters. Use shatter, magehand, open/close to trigger traps at a distance. They don't even have to be targetting the characters just having things explode rain fire where they can see it will frighten them. Fly and invisibility helps your manuverability and going underwater when you need to is useful (rmember it render's the invisbility not so useful). Think 3 dimensional in your tactics. Use monster summon for fiendish squids and other water advantaged creatures.

Eagles splendor helps your spell saves and your charming gaze DC. Use the Charming Gaze to turn the characters away and to perhaps lead others into traps.

Use PC's idea of holes but make them in the maze walls under the water so the Naga can move through the Maze knowing the shortcuts better than the players.

Knock out flyers as fast as possible. Ray of enfeeblement and a tangle foot bag makes for a bad day.

none of the traps should extremely lethal. Just terrorize the characters. Make them afraid to move and make them pay if they don't.

As far as equipment goes the alchemist stuff should take up some of the coin and the rest can be potions of healing and such since you need to run whenever your hurt. Always leave open a retreat point. Use the terrain to your advantage.

later

 

[tarchon]

Hm... it looks like "pimp" has been cinematically nerfed and/or broken.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

In response to a CR 11 monster with spellcasting of 14th level sorcerer...

In other words, it's at least CR 14 but the MMII got it wrong. Serpent Kingdoms has the bone naga as a template (as it should have been in that great mass of turgid dreck which is MMII) plus the new illustration, um, doesn't blow chunks like the one in MMII.

Yeah, this has always bothered me too. There are a few monsters around which have lower CRs than their sorcerer spellcasting abilities, and my question has always been - why? By the book, a 14th level sorcerer is a CR 14 challenge, but would have few other benefits over and above a monster with a reasomable number of Hit Dice and 14th level spellcasting. The rationale always seems to be that the 14th level sorcerer has heaps of magic items which make him worth a CR 14, whereas the monster with 14th level spellcasting doesn't. IMC at least, that's not always the case.

BTW I'm really hanging out for Serpent Kingdoms. Even though I don't DM Forgotten Realms, I just love yuan-ti and all things serpentine, hyper-intelligent, and evil. Gonna trawl that book for ideas.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Len]

Any ideas for what items to equip the naga with? Options are probably things like hats/crowns and lenses for the head and maybe necklaces. Most other equipment just doesn't easily conform to their body, although I could see something like a tail-ring, I guess.

Well, when my DM gave us a naga, it had swallowed its magic items. When it wanted to use a wand or a bead of force, it regurgitated the item and spat it at us, or wielded it with its prehensile tongue, as the case may be.

Note that the DM is required to imitate the regurgitation and funny tongue motions.

 

[Nifft]

In response to a CR 11 monster with spellcasting of 14th level sorcerer...

Yeah, this has always bothered me too. There are a few monsters around which have lower CRs than their sorcerer spellcasting abilities, and my question has always been - why?

The 3.5e Nymph is a good example of WotC re-thinking this policy. IMHO, it simply makes sense to force CR > Caster Level.

-- N

 

[ruleslawyer]

Yup. Welcome to MMII, the worst offender in this category. We have the immoth, elemental weird, bone naga, AND abeil queen, plus perhaps one or two others that I'm missing...

I can see a monster meriting caster level -1 for CR if it's REALLY fragile, but no lower. Moreover, I think NPCs in general should rate a bit lower in CR than CR = character level, especially for sorcerers at low level and fighters at high.

 

[Derulbaskul]

I think I'll keep the naga up on the top of the platform. Just having water at the bottom of this room below the platform might scare the PCs somewhat, as they wonder "what's down in the water?"

Cooool... the trash compactor scene from Star Wars.

Yup. Welcome to MMII, the worst offender in this category. We have the immoth, elemental weird, bone naga, AND abeil queen, plus perhaps one or two others that I'm missing... (snip)

Seriously, if MMII had been published by, say, Mongoose or (shudder) FFE, the would still be threads complaining about what a bad product it is.

Like 1E's MMII, 3E's MMII is simply about boosting the power level of monsters without considering the overall ruleset or even without considering WotC's own guidelines about how to create a monster. Actually, there seems to be a lot of 1E flavour about it: many monsters have a "grab bag" of abilities without any sense of design logic.

As for Al'Kelhar's comment:

The rationale always seems to be that the 14th level sorcerer has heaps of magic items which make him worth a CR 14, whereas the monster with 14th level spellcasting doesn't.

However, the value of the magic items in a creature's possession is supposed to be based on its treasure value according to its CR so there's a bit of circular logic being advanced with this argument (not that I am suggesting that you're supporting this argument: I realise it's of WotC origin).

 

[hong]

I read the title of this thread and my first thought was "Where's Hong when you need him?"

It's not my Naga, but it'll do: