WotBS Statblock Fixes for WotBS?

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Hey, I was just browsing through the latest adventure and like to go through the stats of the BBEGs for fun. Freedom is a major badass with a nice combination of Trillith/SoulKnife/Scout but I noticed a few small errors as well and am posting to give some notice for whoever uses them. I figured I'd keep the thread title generalized in case I find some more mistakes later though.

Freedom:
-Initiative bonus should be +20 (+12 Dex, +8 Superior Initiative - the epic feat says it doesn't stack with Improved Initiative)
-Saves should be Fort +17, Will +20 (+10 Base, +7 Con/+3 Wis respectively, if you want a higher Will save maybe give her Iron Will as a bonus feat)
-BAB for a 30 HD Aberration should be +22, boosting up her attacks by +7 each to +40/+35/+30. These #'s seem a little high for her CR so perhaps give her Combat Expertise and reduce her AC by a few points (maybe her Natural bonus to +7) so her AC won't get too much higher.
-Her Damage Reduction references an ability called 'Motion Mastery' but I can't find it in her stats.

Less of an error, but for being a potential end-game badguy she doesn't have any way of dealing with invisible creatures (no see invis/true seeing or Listen/Spot checks). I suppose the Nightmare Architects can use Greater Dispel Magic but they'd need some way to find the target first. I'd suggest giving her a little more intelligence and bumping her Listen/Spot checks so she at least has a chance, or giving all "high end" (original?) Trillith the ability to use True Seeing.

Annihilation:
-CL of his Greater Dispel Magic is 25th, but it caps at +20. Was the intention supposed to make it give a bonus of +25? Since it's a supernatural ability it'd probably be fine to break the rules a bit, just looking for clarification here.
-What's the DC of his Nether Breath Weapon? It could be DC 21 (cast as a Sorcerer), DC 44 (10+1/2HD+2 Cha mod) or DC 51 (+9 Con mod). 21 seems too low, but anything in the 40's not even the party mage is going to make. It seems unlikely he'll be able to hit more than 1 or 2 people with this attack though, thankfully.

Annihilation is awesome as well and his stats look almost perfect but if someone uses the adventure as the capstone to the campaign I probably wouldn't let Trilla's help heal him of half his hitpoints. The amount of actions a party has vs. him, combined with their level means they can do a crazy amount of damage-especially when he's vulnerable. If I ran him I'd reduce the vulnerable time to 1 round and give him only a standard action on the next round, probably.

I hope this isn't seen as much of a complaint because it isn't, I really dig the 10th episode of this series and am excited to run the whole path

 

[Rugult]

Hello Solir. I would just like to post some reply comments to Annihilation. Not meant to be a 'jerk reply' but I figure I'd show my side of the coin as well.

Personally I think this is one of the most 'broken' encounters in the entire adventure series. I understand it's meant to end the campaign, but the way he's stated out, as a DM I would likely have to play him like a drooling moron to avoid a complete TPK. Here are some reasons why...

----------

1. Without criticals this dragon is capable of dishing out 67 to 138 points of physical damage a round, not counting Negative Levels, Awesome Blow, & Evil Clones. His Attack bonus is enough on all his attacks that he will likely only miss on a 1.

2. He is immune to spells until charged. Normal epic campaigns I have run tend to have magical casters 'get the drop' in the first round with massive spells... in this case they won't even come halfway to cracking the Dragon's shell (and deal no damage).

3. His base DR is 20/epic. This means that the Torch of the Burning Sky, the artifact that the entire campaign is based around, CANNOT hurt him. At this point (even if it is the last adventure) there is a VERY small chance players will have magic items of that power unless their DM is feeling very generous.

4. Lets talk clones and greater awesome blow. Assuming all attacks hit a target (and they most likely will) the following steps would occur...

-Dragon takes a bite attack.

-Dragon takes first claw attack bestowing a negative level.

-Dragon takes second claw attack, sends player flying back 30ft knocking them prone and creating an evil clone beside them and depending on how a DM calls this clone is effectively 1 level higher.

-Dragon Attacks prone character with his bite attack casting greater dispel.

-Player spends action getting up provoking attacks of opportunity from both the dragon and the evil clone.

5. Islands. I've done some basic math in my head on this... baring 20's no player in my group can avoid a hurled island. A guaranteed 20d6 points of damage a round is rather lethal... especially when it's 50ft across.

6. The time it will take the party to kill Annihilation will be dependant if they are able to acquire the Mime Materia, and if they've bred the necessary black chocobo to acquire Knights of the Round.

----------

You might consider me a bit harsh, and you might be right. Thus far I have considered Adventure 10 to be the least strong of the adventures, so that might influence my thought process here.

I suppose one thing I have to say, is that up to this encounter everything I've seen is reasonable for a party to fight without too many handicaps. Some of the enjoyment my party gets from this adventure series is playing through some really tough encounters where both the party and I (the DM) are at the top of our game, exhausting all options to win combat. I don't see that with Annihilation... infact his name says it all! :-D

 

[RangerWickett]

The intention with Annihilation is that it doesn't full attack. It uses flyby attack. No drooling required; I just took a 4th edition design mentality and gave it one attack per round, with some extra stuff, so it would keep the battle dynamic and moving, instead of having the dragon squat down and full attack, at least not until the final rounds of the battle.

Also, my bad for not making the Torch a +6 item.

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

*Shrugs* I've run one successful campaign from 2 to 20 (really ECL 22) and I ended up throwing a CR 30+ opponent at them. You've got to consider for all that 20d6 damage he's doing, players can spread out and clerics can cast Mass Heal. 20d6 (average 70 damage) might hurt the party wizard but for a CR 26's entire round it's laughable. Damage-wise, even having to bypass DR 15/-, my party's ranger did a good 200 damage a round with an attack bonus that would hit the dragon 75% or more (w/ Haste, Greater Heroism, Bardic Inspiration +4, etc..). At that high level, unless it can kill you in 1-2 rounds, it isn't going to be potent enough to cause harm that can't be repaired. For instance, I'd normally worry about its Grapple +81 but the monk IMC could by that time, Dimension Step or turn into Gaseous Form to automatically stay away or help out someone who was grappled.

I was worried about the Evil Clone at first but it appears he can only summon 1 at a time and I'd imagine a fighter type is more likely to get cloned than a caster. A clever spellcaster on the PC's side could at least delay them with some kind of spell like Forcecage or Maze.

For campaign-ending encounters they should be at least a little over the top. PCs should have maybe a 50% chance to succeed in my book (well, more like 80% but don't let them think of it that way).

Edit-And if you like, you can Rule 0 the torch bypassing his resistance automatically