The Explicatae Incompositae - Being A Bestairy of the Sometime Lords of Chaos

[Celebrim]

More! More!

What, fourteen isn't enough for you?

Seriously, I'm not so good at estimating CR's of anything this potent. Any pointers in that from any readers would be welcome.

 

[Kafkonia]

What, fourteen isn't enough for you?

What can I say? I'm insatiable.

Seriously, I'm not so good at estimating CR's of anything this potent. Any pointers in that from any readers would be welcome.

In all honesty, I haven't even looked at the mechanics yet; the flavour alone is magnificent.

 

[paradox42]

Seriously, I'm not so good at estimating CR's of anything this potent. Any pointers in that from any readers would be welcome.

Combing through massive statistics blocks takes time, as you've no doubt noticed in converting these to 3.X for posting. That said, I've done a lot of it for my Epic game, and I have the handy-dandy IH "Challenging Challenge Ratings version 5" document to help if I want to be really precise.

I checked out Baseraxs today, and with an "eyeball" look over the details I'd say that as written, he's more like a CR 22 than a 24. He has a lot of hit points, true, and AC 46 is nothing to sneeze at even for 24th-level PCs. It's worth noting in this analysis, though, that most serious fighter-type builds I've seen at or around 20th level are capable of hitting AC 46 better than half the time, at least with the first attack, and dealing over 50 points of damage per hit. SR 28 is laughable to any spellcaster of 24th level, and the DR he has- 35/Lawful- should probably be /Lawful and Epic to really make him an Epic challenge. The 35 is a little iffy, it's higher than is normal for monsters in 3.5, but it's certainly substantial enough to warrant a high CR! Finally, the save DCs for his abilities are a bit low for CR 24; compare him for example to Demogorgon in FC1 (if you have it) who is only rated CR 23.

The only potential mistake I found in his stats during my initial read-through is that he has Emotion as a spell-like ability; unfortunately, that spell was split up into its constituent parts for 3.5. I've found that most annoying in converting creatures myself, and recently got caught with it by a player who noticed it was still listed as a requirement for a magic item in my setting; obviously this means my mind is primed to notice it now.

I'll check over the others later, as I have more time, but hopefully this will help you out for now.

 

[Celebrim]

That said, I've done a lot of it for my Epic game, and I have the handy-dandy IH "Challenging Challenge Ratings version 5" document to help if I want to be really precise.

Now that's what I'm talking about. Thanks. More than a few levels over 20 offend my 1st edition sensibilities, and as I get older I find it harder and harder to find games - especially long running ones - so I've little experience with 3rd edition high level play.

I checked out Baseraxs today, and with an "eyeball" look over the details I'd say that as written, he's more like a CR 22 than a 24.

That's perfectly fine with me. The idea is to target a CR which makes for a reasonable 'big bad' for a party at or just above 20th level. My design goal is an average of 6 rounds of combat with a CR equivalent party. Thus the high hit points, high AC, and hopefully decent saves and immunities.

The only potential mistake I found in his stats during my initial read-through is that he has Emotion as a spell-like ability; unfortunately, that spell was split up into its constituent parts for 3.5.

You will find that if I think that the change in 3.5 is a mistake, that I'll just ignore it. Emotion is just one example of that. So, yes, not official, but not a mistake either. Or rather, it is a mistake, but its thier mistake and not mine.

He has a lot of hit points, true, and AC 46 is nothing to sneeze at even for 24th-level PCs. It's worth noting in this analysis, though, that most serious fighter-type builds I've seen at or around 20th level are capable of hitting AC 46 better than half the time, at least with the first attack, and dealing over 50 points of damage per hit. SR 28 is laughable to any spellcaster of 24th level, and the DR he has- 35/Lawful- should probably be /Lawful and Epic to really make him an Epic challenge. The 35 is a little iffy, it's higher than is normal for monsters in 3.5, but it's certainly substantial enough to warrant a high CR! Finally, the save DCs for his abilities are a bit low for CR 24; compare him for example to Demogorgon in FC1 (if you have it) who is only rated CR 23.

That's a bit more damage than I would have expected at fighter to do on one hit, but I'm gratified to hear that the AC is spot on the design goal.

The reason that the DR is not lawful and epic is that I didn't want to rule out a non-epic party taking on this challenge. A mistake added to the game in 3.5 edition however makes that somewhat problimatic.

The reason the save DC's are low is the design goal is that a character with poor saves in that category will still make the save about 2/3rds of the time (if they've paid attention to thier weakness), and with good saves should probably not fail. That's about as high as I feel comfortable with. I dislike how much high level play depends on single die roles, especially the way many existing monsters are built (low AC's, high DC 'save or die' attacks, high attack bonus relative to thier own AC, etc.). If I'm failing to meet this design goal, I'll think about fixes.

I don't have FC1, and it sounds like that they have slightly different design goals than I do. If they have Demogorgon stated out at CR 23, then they are targeting primarily a non-Epic audience. For my part, if the outer planar lords aren't significantly more powerful than ordinary mortal heroes, I think that creates an internal consistancy issue. On the other hand, if they are too much above mortal heroes, then there is no point stating them out at all because they can't interact with the PC's in any meaningful way. I would have targeted about CR 29 for Demogorgon, Ssendam, ect.

For reasons that will come out as I get more of them stated up, Baseraxs is intended to be near the low end of Slaad Lord power, so a CR around 22-25 is ideal AFAIC.

Still, I'm not sure I buy it is as low as 22. Somethings you didn't mention:

He's got several abilities that don't even allow a save: reverse gravity at will, power word (kill) three times a day, and word of chaos at will (in 3.5, this could TPK a 15th or even 20th level party, which is just dumb).

His real AC is effectively much higher than that. Against lawfuls, you are dealing with someone who will have Cloak of Chaos up (+4 to AC) [Edit: nm, just noticed that its a deflection bonus] and has an effective +1 bonus to AC due to his aura. And he's somewhat built to fight defensively if he has the AC advantage and isn't under time pressure, which take that 24th level fighter whom you mention up to the point where he needs a 20 to hit if he's lawful and would seriously cramp anyone else.

As for spell casters, he has a brutal grapple, strong resistances, a strong Fort save, and a few immunities. The spell resistance isn't going to knock out many spells against a spell caster that cares about his penetration, but its not intended to. It's intended to block the occasional spell from a spell caster that didn't work on penetration, and provide a significant defence against wands, staves and the like. If you think it needs to be more important, I'll bump it up by 5 points.

He has greater dispelling at will, which is likely to seriously debuff a high level party depending on buffs.

I'll check over the others later, as I have more time, but hopefully this will help you out for now.

Indeed it does.

 

[paradox42]

Finally I have some time to respond to this!

Now that's what I'm talking about. Thanks. More than a few levels over 20 offend my 1st edition sensibilities, and as I get older I find it harder and harder to find games - especially long running ones - so I've little experience with 3rd edition high level play.

Few do, as evidenced (though partly precipitated by) the large number of products geared towards the so-called "sweet spot" of 6th-12th level. For my part, I've always preferred the rarified heights above 16th, in every edition of the game. I think it's more fun when the DM can throw out world-shaking and cosmos-shaking plots at the drop of a hat and the PCs can (A) handle it, and (B) take it seriously since they've seen stuff like it before. The epic drama available at these levels allows storytelling like nothing else.

That's perfectly fine with me. The idea is to target a CR which makes for a reasonable 'big bad' for a party at or just above 20th level. My design goal is an average of 6 rounds of combat with a CR equivalent party. Thus the high hit points, high AC, and hopefully decent saves and immunities.

Here's your lack of experience showing, sorry to say. High-level combat in D&D 3.x just about never lasts as long as 6 rounds unless multiple combatants are engaged on each side. Before then, one side or the other will be taken out by some super-instant-death-type effect, or retreat to regroup. Either way, the combat is over. Most combats, IME, last one or two rounds.

Also, CR 22 is not a "big bad" for a 20th-level party- it would be for 18th, but for 20th you need to go at least to 24 or 25 to have a really credible "big bad" enemy that's scary. CR 22 is diffcult to a 20th-level party, but not really scary. The Adventure Paths in Dungeon have done a good job of showing what "big bads" and "mooks" and "lieutenants" look like at and around 20th level- in Dawn of a New Age, for example, the last module in the Age of Worms, several opponents are CR 22 or 23, most ELs are 21 (made up of multiple creatures), and the real "big bad" is so powerful that his CR isn't actually rated (though to be fair, it is supposed to be the end of a campaign).

600-odd hit points may seem high, but look at it this way: expect the party tank to come in and deal on the order of 20 hit points per successful hit, and you can expect one or two hits per round. But the tank's not alone: throw a Rogue into the mix and suddenly those 10d6 Sneak Attacks from flanking come into play. Then the party blaster mage is throwing around Maximized Disintegrates (a Sorcerer could potentially do this 5 times) for 240 damage each, and as I noted in my last "comment" post the entity's SR is a joke to many casters of that level. Throw in the Metamagic Rods that high-level spellcasters love, and you can get Maximized Empowered Disintegrates and even more fun things. Admittedly his Fort save is high, but even so- Maximized Disintegrates are only one of the many options for massive damage that a 20th-level spellcaster has available.

In other words, 600 hit points won't last 6 rounds. If you want 6 rounds, you'll need to go up to 1000 at least- and even then you can expect the party to run away when the "invincible monster just won't die!!!"

You will find that if I think that the change in 3.5 is a mistake, that I'll just ignore it. Emotion is just one example of that. So, yes, not official, but not a mistake either. Or rather, it is a mistake, but its thier mistake and not mine.

Fair enough! I agree on this spell, actually, though I did go with the official rules for my own game even though I disagreed with the change. It's worth noting, though, in the monster statblock, that you're using the 3.0 version of Emotion and some DMs running 3.5 may want to change it to the list of sub-spells instead.

That's a bit more damage than I would have expected at fighter to do on one hit, but I'm gratified to hear that the AC is spot on the design goal.

The reason that the DR is not lawful and epic is that I didn't want to rule out a non-epic party taking on this challenge. A mistake added to the game in 3.5 edition however makes that somewhat problimatic.

Believe me when I say, Epic DR will not prevent a sub-Epic party (at 19th or 20th level) from taking on a beast with Epic DR and winning. At least, in the CR range we're talking about- 22 or so.

The reason the save DC's are low is the design goal is that a character with poor saves in that category will still make the save about 2/3rds of the time (if they've paid attention to thier weakness), and with good saves should probably not fail. That's about as high as I feel comfortable with. I dislike how much high level play depends on single die roles, especially the way many existing monsters are built (low AC's, high DC 'save or die' attacks, high attack bonus relative to thier own AC, etc.). If I'm failing to meet this design goal, I'll think about fixes.

Fine design goal, but note that this renders most of his SLAs useless against a party of the level he could be expected to face according to your posts. Most on the list are "save to negate" effects, which means by using the SLA you waste his action. In high-level play, actions are by far the most precious commodity- whoever gets the most, wins.

I don't have FC1, and it sounds like that they have slightly different design goals than I do. If they have Demogorgon stated out at CR 23, then they are targeting primarily a non-Epic audience. For my part, if the outer planar lords aren't significantly more powerful than ordinary mortal heroes, I think that creates an internal consistancy issue. On the other hand, if they are too much above mortal heroes, then there is no point stating them out at all because they can't interact with the PC's in any meaningful way. I would have targeted about CR 29 for Demogorgon, Ssendam, ect.

Pages upon pages of threads about FC1 were on this very topic. No need to rehash all that, but know that the vast majority of DMs who run Epic games agree with you. The one bright spot of the FC1 stats is that they gave a nice procedure for advancing the Demon Lords right there in the same chapter, and it does help make them more appropriate challenges when correctly used. I did a Demogorgon advanced to 40 HD (and CR 36) for my own Epic game, and was satisfied with the results even though he only lasted 2 rounds once my PCs unleashed their full fury at him.

For reasons that will come out as I get more of them stated up, Baseraxs is intended to be near the low end of Slaad Lord power, so a CR around 22-25 is ideal AFAIC.

Still, I'm not sure I buy it is as low as 22. Somethings you didn't mention:

The above secondary comments may help, but I'll see you point for point below.

He's got several abilities that don't even allow a save: reverse gravity at will, power word (kill) three times a day, and word of chaos at will (in 3.5, this could TPK a 15th or even 20th level party, which is just dumb).

Reverse Gravity is a cute trick at the sorts of levels you're talking about, and nothing more really. Most PCs I've seen or read about at 20th level either have magic items that let them fly more or less at will, or can Teleport and thus bypass the region of reversed gravity painlessly. Reverse Gravity is only good for tactical carving-up of the battlefield, really, and not all that good even at that once the enemy knows it's there.

Power Word, Kill is nasty to people without 150 hit points- but at 20th level, that will usually mean the Sorcerer or Wizard and that's it. CON-boosting items and spells are used as a matter of course at this level, and tanks should be expected to have on the order of 400 hit points or more when at full health. In my own Epic game, both of the current party blaster-magi had over 200 hit points at 20th level, though both of them started with high CON scores and were using stat-boosting items to the hilt at the time (so my situation is by no means standard). Also, and far mroe importantly, Power Word Kill is an Enchantment spell. And Mind-Affecting besides. At 20th level, the party that goes around without Mind Blanks protecting at least their low-hp members is just asking the DM to drop a Ninja Demon Death Squad on them. Mind Blank, of course, renders the recipient immune to Mind-Affecting effects- and thus all three Power Words are useless against somebody under its effect. And beyond Mind Blank, Power Word Kill is also a Death effect, which means that Death Ward renders its recipient immune. Death Ward is a mere 4th-level spell, so at 20th level you can expect a prepared party to be protecting every member with it- and possibly some helpful NPCs as well who just came along for the ride.

Word of Chaos is indeed a show-stopper, and very difficult to get around. This is his ace in the hole, but of course- there are ways around it. Sage Advice columns have noted (IIRC) that a Silence cuts off the effect of all four alignment Words, except for the Banishment, and I also believe Spell Turning and similar effects can stop it.

His real AC is effectively much higher than that. Against lawfuls, you are dealing with someone who will have Cloak of Chaos up (+4 to AC) [Edit: nm, just noticed that its a deflection bonus] and has an effective +1 bonus to AC due to his aura. And he's somewhat built to fight defensively if he has the AC advantage and isn't under time pressure, which take that 24th level fighter whom you mention up to the point where he needs a 20 to hit if he's lawful and would seriously cramp anyone else.

Never assume the party will contain solely members of the opposed alignment, when designing a monster. If you do, you're just nerfing the monster against enemies you didn't consider (in this case, non-Lawfuls). Also, a 24th level Fighter worth his salt will have a lot more going for him than the measly +2 from his Epic Attack Bonus, compared with 20th level. There's Epic Weapon Focus to take into account, bigger STR boosts from items, Manuals of Gainful Exercise and/or Wishes, and of course the ability increase from levelling up, and last but certainly not least- increased weapon enhancement bonuses. I did say that a "serious build" 20th level Fighter could hit AC 46 "better than half the time" with the first attack; this means that even if we do take into account the +4 AC from Cloak (which, as you noticed, you shouldn't anyway since it's Deflection), you've only reduced the 20th-level Fighter's chance to hit to about 1/4 the time instead of 1/2. The 24th-level Fighter is going to have an attack bonus considerably higher, swinging the chance back in his favor again.

As for spell casters, he has a brutal grapple,

How's he planning to get past the party tank to grab those casters? Also, Arcane casters at this level can nearly always Teleport- which is an insta-escape to any grappling situation. Even Swallow Whole. Finally, once again a mid-level spell puts a rain on this parade; Freedom of Movement is only 4th level but renders the recipient utterly immune to all Grapple attempts.

...strong resistances, a strong Fort save, and a few immunities. The spell resistance isn't going to knock out many spells against a spell caster that cares about his penetration, but its not intended to. It's intended to block the occasional spell from a spell caster that didn't work on penetration, and provide a significant defence against wands, staves and the like. If you think it needs to be more important, I'll bump it up by 5 points.

As a general monster-design rule, most monsters should have SR equal to CR + 10 to have it be credible. If you look at most high-CR monster stats you'll find that to be the case.

He has greater dispelling at will, which is likely to seriously debuff a high level party depending on buffs.

Here's where the point I made above about actions comes into play. If he uses his action to Greater Dispel- and note that he has to do the targeted version to be able to get more than one spell with it, which would mean he has to pick one out of the four assailants (monsters are typically designed assuming a party of four PCs as you may know)- that's an action he didn't use to attack the tank who's barrelling down on his toady butt, grapple that sorcerer who was all set to Horrid Wilting him into next week, or some other offensive action. This gives the party a whole round to set up their strike against him, or replace the buffs he just got rid of if they're that critical. One Time Stop is all the 20th-level Arcanist (or even Cleric with the Trickery Domain) needs to get a lot of the lost buffs, if not all of them, back. His caster level 25th doesn't help his Dispel here, because it caps at +20 on the check- and that means he still only has about a 50% chance to get rid of any spell cast by a 20th-level caster.

Indeed it does.

Glad to help- hope you don't take the above as aggressive argumentation. I'm just showing you some of the things I've seen used, either by my own Epic party or somebody else's, which can really ruin a DM's day and throw those nice spiffy high-level powers you were sure were going to rain on their parade out the window.

So, now I guess I need to find the time to do a detailed check on the others. Perhaps tomorrow.

 

[green slime]

Shouldn't this be over in the Monster/Creature Catalogue forum?

 

[Celebrim]

Finally I have some time to respond to this!

Thanks again.

Glad to help- hope you don't take the above as aggressive argumentation.

I wouldn't worry about it. You should see me in aggressive argumentation mode. I'm flame proof, and I consider your criticism helpful and more gratifying even than much of the praise. I could quibble with alot of what you say, but since I'm not wanting an argument here I'll try to minimize the quibbling.

Here's your lack of experience showing, sorry to say. High-level combat in D&D 3.x just about never lasts as long as 6 rounds unless multiple combatants are engaged on each side. Before then, one side or the other will be taken out by some super-instant-death-type effect, or retreat to regroup. Either way, the combat is over. Most combats, IME, last one or two rounds.

Which I think is highly ungratifying and which I will do my best to avoid. Nonetheless, I tend to agree with you that while I've given them alot of defense, I've not given them enough offensive ability and I've probably neglected a few key areas.

and the real "big bad" is so powerful that his CR isn't actually rated (though to be fair, it is supposed to be the end of a campaign).

Well, as presented the CR of the final baddy is in the low 30's and probably can't be defeated by a party of say 22nd level without considerable help - which is basically what the text says.

600-odd hit points may seem high, but look at it this way: expect the party tank to come in and deal on the order of 20 hit points per successful hit, and you can expect one or two hits per round.

I was expecting 120-200 damage per round.

Then the party blaster mage is throwing around Maximized Disintegrates (a Sorcerer could potentially do this 5 times) for 240 damage each, and as I noted in my last "comment" post the entity's SR is a joke to many casters of that level. Throw in the Metamagic Rods that high-level spellcasters love, and you can get Maximized Empowered Disintegrates and even more fun things. Admittedly his Fort save is high, but even so- Maximized Disintegrates are only one of the many options for massive damage that a 20th-level spellcaster has available.

By my estimate, a maximized empowered disentigrate would do on average about 57 damage to Baseraxs + about 16 damage for each DC of the save was above 36.

In other words, 600 hit points won't last 6 rounds. If you want 6 rounds, you'll need to go up to 1000 at least- and even then you can expect the party to run away when the "invincible monster just won't die!!!"

200 damage per round would require 4 full rounds take down Baseraxs.

Fair enough! I agree on this spell, actually, though I did go with the official rules for my own game even though I disagreed with the change. It's worth noting, though, in the monster statblock, that you're using the 3.0 version of Emotion and some DMs running 3.5 may want to change it to the list of sub-spells instead.

Fair enough. I'll make a note of the rules assumptions when I do section #16, which is supposed to contain alot of the crunch that goes along with section #1's flavor.

Believe me when I say, Epic DR will not prevent a sub-Epic party (at 19th or 20th level) from taking on a beast with Epic DR and winning. At least, in the CR range we're talking about- 22 or so.

I'll take it under consideration.

Fine design goal, but note that this renders most of his SLAs useless against a party of the level he could be expected to face according to your posts. Most on the list are "save to negate" effects, which means by using the SLA you waste his action.

I'm having a hard time envisioning what saving throws bonuses are like at this level of play. I'm presuming something like +3-4 above the sample characters in the DMG to be pretty typical, which still makes DC's around 25 pretty rough. Nevertheless, I agree with you that I'm not putting enough pressure on the party - I'm not 'stealing' enough of thier actions - especially since for most of the Lords I've deliberately steered away from instant death effects. However, I want to avoid putting the sort of pressure on the party that they feel the need to cut and run if the fight goes over 2 rounds. That tactic is perfectly reasonable given that most published opponents at this CR have alot of save or die effects and/or dish out average 200+ damage on a full attack. I'm trying to avoid putting that much pressure on the party that it forces those kind of tactics, and I'm trying to avoid luck dependency. I want, for lack of a better word, the 'drama' that seems to be missing from so much high level play (or at least high level combat).

So, let's talk about fixes. Any or all of the following is under consideration.

1) DC and SR boosts - I could cheese the SL's (Slaad Lord's) SLA' and SR's out by an across the board +5 increase to the DC and SR. This would put the SR close to the CR+10 rule of thumb, and would make the DC's certainly threatening to parties a couple CL's below CR.
2) Go the full divine rank 0 route - As it is, the SL's are almost fully divine rank 0 creatures, and by the time I get to listing the mechanics general to SL's we are going to be practically there anyway. The relevant additional immunities by going this route would be form change immunity (already not a large problem, since most are shape changers), mind effecting spells, energy drain, and ability drain.
3) Attack boosting - The SL's are being seriously hurt by the fact that they depend on natural attacks and not items. So they are missing iterative attacks, x1.5 strength modifers, magical enhancements, etc. They idea here would be to boost thier natural attacks up a bit in hopefully a believable non-cheesy way to make up for this flavor constraint. I could break the flavor constraint, and plan to in at least one case, but I don't want to go there just because of system mechanics.
4) Stat Boosting - I could increase the ability scores of the SLs across the board by say 10% (20 would become 22, 30 would become 33, etc.). This would further boost the DC of SLA's for those SL's that depend on them, make the damage from combat brutes more threatening, further boost the hp's by 30 or so, possibly add a point or two to AC and generally all around buff the SL.
5) Add epic DR - The problem I have with epic DR is the same problem I have with magic DR at this level. It's either just irrelevant because everything can overcome it, or else its overwhelming because the party just doesn't have epic weapons. Nonetheless, I want the SL's to overcome epic DR, and giving them epic DR just makes that easier without making a special exception.

I'm leaning toward #1 and #2, feel pretty good about #3, and will take step #4 if you think its necessary. I don't feel good about #5, but I'm leaning that way just because I dislike more fiddly rule exceptions than I'm already making.

As a final note, I don't own 'Book of Vile Darkness' to check this, but from what I remember of it and glancing at the web enhancement I would say that my SL's as presented aren't far off the power scale of the archfiends in that book. Are the BoVD's epic challenges way overrated, or has 3.5 had that much power inflation? I don't want to cheese out the monsters so that the 'new' CR 24 is that much more potent than the 'old' CR 24. That way really lies madness.

Anyway, strange new SL latter today.

 

[paradox42]

I was expecting 120-200 damage per round.

If raw damage is being dealt, and taking his DR into account (which I was, in saying a tank would be dealing a measly 20 damage per hit- without the DR it would be much higher), this seems a reasonable estimate to me. However, a party using optimized tactics could wipe the floor with 600 hit points. As an example, one tactic the sub-20th-level PCs in JollyDoc's Age of Worms storyhour (over on that forum) were known to use on most big bads was,

• (1) Cast Time Stop to get extra, uninterruptable actions.
• (2) Enclose enemy in Forcecage (specifically the barred version so spells could get through it).
• (3) Enclose enemy in Dimensional Lock or Dimensional Anchor to prevent escape.
• (4) Assuming you have rounds 3, 4, or 5, create one or more Walls of Fire or similarly damaging location-based effects which intersect inside the Forcecage such that the enclosed big bad is unable to avoid them in any way.
• (Phase 3) Profit!

This tactic was especially effective for them because their party included a Warlock, whose Walls of Perilous Flame deal half Fire damage, half nontyped damage- so Energy Resistance/Immunity doesn't fully negate it. Also, it's especially hurtful to Undead, per Wall of Fire's description, which means it was brutally effective in the Age of Worms AP in general. Using this tactic, I believe they took out Dragotha in two or three rounds.

Now, their case was atypical in that (a) every PC was min-maxed to the gills, and (b) the players are great tactical thinkers who very rarely use suboptimal tactics in any given combat situation (in fact, their group- or at least several regulars from it- won the D&D Open at Gen Con in 2006 IIRC). But they're also characters below 20th level, and it shows you what can be done by serious powergamers out to exploit every rule they can.

Fair enough. I'll make a note of the rules assumptions when I do section #16, which is supposed to contain alot of the crunch that goes along with section #1's flavor.

That would be wise. And, not a bad way to do it, since this is being written essentially like a book. If this were a monster manual on the market, I could see the publisher doing it that way.

I'm having a hard time envisioning what saving throws bonuses are like at this level of play. I'm presuming something like +3-4 above the sample characters in the DMG to be pretty typical, which still makes DC's around 25 pretty rough.

The DMG NPCs don't take into account the most important thing at these levels: buff spells. If the party is stuck using magic items alone, your estimates may be reasonable (though don't forget cheap items like Cloaks of Resistance +5 and Stones of Luck- my players certainly never do), but buff spells and effects like Bardic Music open up whole new areas of bonuses for the powergamers in your party to use. I'm used to the powergamer players in my games (one of which is currently sitting at 20th level) having every save bonus above +20; the less-obsessive-about-rules characters are more around your suggested design parameters in that group- at least for their bad saves.

Nevertheless, I agree with you that I'm not putting enough pressure on the party - I'm not 'stealing' enough of thier actions - especially since for most of the Lords I've deliberately steered away from instant death effects. However, I want to avoid putting the sort of pressure on the party that they feel the need to cut and run if the fight goes over 2 rounds. That tactic is perfectly reasonable given that most published opponents at this CR have alot of save or die effects and/or dish out average 200+ damage on a full attack. I'm trying to avoid putting that much pressure on the party that it forces those kind of tactics, and I'm trying to avoid luck dependency. I want, for lack of a better word, the 'drama' that seems to be missing from so much high level play (or at least high level combat).

Drama does not require a long fight in terms of game time, actually- in fact, some of my most dramatic combats only ran one round. The drama is in what happens, what the combat means, and particularly in the buildup to the actual fight. Good, flavorful descriptions of things like that massive critical hit that took the beast down for half its hit points can go a long way here. But, I can sympathize with your motive here, certainly. The entire reason to keep playing the game at high levels is for the massive, epic drama and scope that becomes possible there.

1) DC and SR boosts - I could cheese the SL's (Slaad Lord's) SLA' and SR's out by an across the board +5 increase to the DC and SR. This would put the SR close to the CR+10 rule of thumb, and would make the DC's certainly threatening to parties a couple CL's below CR.

If the SR is not above the +10 rule, chances are the party won't really care much about it in the case of a Big Bad. Remember, the SR = CR + 10 means that on average, a spellcaster of level = CR needs a 10 or higher on the caster level check to beat the SR. That's a 55% chance of success, since equalling the SR means success. But here, you also need to take buffs into account again. There are several magic items which can increase caster level for the purpose of SR checks, and even some actual spells like Assay Resistance (in the Spell Compendium). That one in particular is a favorite in my player groups.

2) Go the full divine rank 0 route - As it is, the SL's are almost fully divine rank 0 creatures, and by the time I get to listing the mechanics general to SL's we are going to be practically there anyway. The relevant additional immunities by going this route would be form change immunity (already not a large problem, since most are shape changers), mind effecting spells, energy drain, and ability drain.

Not a bad idea. It both fits the flavor of the Lords, and makes them immune to things such as Power Words and Enervates. (The latter is particularly important since it doesn't allow a saving throw.)

3) Attack boosting - The SL's are being seriously hurt by the fact that they depend on natural attacks and not items. So they are missing iterative attacks, x1.5 strength modifers, magical enhancements, etc. They idea here would be to boost thier natural attacks up a bit in hopefully a believable non-cheesy way to make up for this flavor constraint. I could break the flavor constraint, and plan to in at least one case, but I don't want to go there just because of system mechanics.

Greater Magic Fang is your friend. Giving them a means to buff themselves can work wonders. Also, you could get away with a few Cleric-type buffs I think, particularly if you go the DR 0 route, and this would help all of them become more threatening. It might also work to your advantage to give some of them powers like, say, having a constant stream of music fill the air near the Lord, providing a Bardic Music-type bonus that's relatively permanent and doesn't require the Lord to actually concentrate on it or even think about it. That can only work for appropriately-flavored Lords, obviously, but it's a possibility you might consider. You've already made similar "off the wall" powers for several of them, which are both very cool and mechanically helpful. But I'll get to those as I get to each Lord.

One thing you might consider using at least once is providing the Slaad Lord with a Luck bonus to saves, AC, or other rolls. Luck is associated with Chaos, so it would not be out of flavor for most of them- though it may be best to use this idea sparingly to avoid a strong whiff of limburger.

4) Stat Boosting - I could increase the ability scores of the SLs across the board by say 10% (20 would become 22, 30 would become 33, etc.). This would further boost the DC of SLA's for those SL's that depend on them, make the damage from combat brutes more threatening, further boost the hp's by 30 or so, possibly add a point or two to AC and generally all around buff the SL.

This is also a possibility. It's better used for the stronger ones of course, but you knew that. Honestly, the scores you gave them are fairly on-target IMO.

5) Add epic DR - The problem I have with epic DR is the same problem I have with magic DR at this level. It's either just irrelevant because everything can overcome it, or else its overwhelming because the party just doesn't have epic weapons. Nonetheless, I want the SL's to overcome epic DR, and giving them epic DR just makes that easier without making a special exception.

Most unique Outsiders- the sort called "Lords" by planar scholars- should have Epic DR, IMO. They're supposed to be legendary beings nearly impossible to hurt, and Epic DR is precisely tailored for that sort of flavor. But, that's me.

As a final note, I don't own 'Book of Vile Darkness' to check this, but from what I remember of it and glancing at the web enhancement I would say that my SL's as presented aren't far off the power scale of the archfiends in that book.

They aren't, though I think your Slaad Lords could use more buffs as I said above.

Are the BoVD's epic challenges way overrated, or has 3.5 had that much power inflation?

A little bit of both. They creatures were overrated- high-level characters aren't nearly as fragile as WotC was assuming when setting CRs back in the days of 3.0- but 3.5 has seen power creep that can be significant when powergamers grab at the new suite of options. Spells like Assay Resistance are a perfect example. That existed in 3.0, too, but I'll bet it's a lot more commonly used now that it's in the Spell Compendium.

I don't want to cheese out the monsters so that the 'new' CR 24 is that much more potent than the 'old' CR 24. That way really lies madness.

But... you're dealing with Slaad Lords here! Would that really be a bad thing?

Cheesing shouldn't be necessary- minor tweaks can make them much more flexible and dangerous without breaking the flavor. Your ideas above are good ones; going with them should do the trick. Plus, we've been talking about arguably the weakest one you posted, all this time- the others aren't necessarily affected by his issues.

 

[paradox42]

Loarsraol!

Since these are Slaad Lords, I refuse to go in order when talking about them! And you can't make me!

But to the point...

This monster is brilliant. Truly, astoundingly a work of art. Two thumbs up, 5 stars. Bravo!

A quick tally shows that he has several abilities usable at will which can tie parties up in knots even outside of combat. Demand, I'm looking squarely at you, and Mirage Arcana and Persistent Image can make any potential battlefield into a nightmare for any party not equipped with True Seeing all-around. If the Lord of Paradox can somehow manage to time his use of his mind effects (like the aforementioned Demand) during the one time of day when the party is not protected by the constant Mind Blanks they'd be fools not to use against him, then so much the better! One failed save against "You don't need that Mind Blank today. Really. Pretend you have it and just move on." and That's All Folks. Then there's his Tenacious Polymorph Any Object SLA. That's not a commonly-used combat spell, but it can have truly nasty uses if done correctly- one of my now-Epic PCs used it on several occasions to turn enemies into dolls or other innocuous objects, and in Loarsraol's case the effect isn't even dispellable once in place (well, technically it is for a few rounds, but it comes back so the dispel is effectively wasted). I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that by the rules as written, this would allow him to duplicate the effects of the infamous Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity, which would be a Permanent duration effect and by also being Tenacious, non-dispellable.

Perhaps more importantly, he has Disjunction- one of the famous "nuclear options" of D&D- which means that no buff is safe from him, nor are many magic items. With his Wishes (and note that since it's an SLA he doesn't need to pay XP for it), he can potentially get anything the DM wants him to have- personally I'd let him use this to mimic the automatic-buff-removal effect of Disjunction on one target, no questions asked, but that's me.

More important still- he has powers that make him a threat comparable to truly Epic parties. For starters, he's immune to flanking. This immediately cuts off the most common source of Sneak Attacks, and the other most common source at high levels- invisibility- is easily solved by using his at-will True Seeing buff. More interestingly, he's got an ability to Feeblemind a victim by touch that gets around Mind Blank. This alone is a killer for low-Will-save members of the PC party, a category which typically includes exactly the sort of characters who'd be up in melee with Loarsraol anyway.

Finally, and by far the most important, Loarsraol gets to take two actions in every single round thanks to having two heads. His ability to make extra skill checks and Will saves is really just gravy, compared to this. I said it before, and I'll say it again: in high-level and Epic games, actions are the most important commodity. Loarsraol has a surplus.

Best of all, every single one of these powers is in keeping with his concept as an entity, and the way his body is structured. They are powerful, but not the least bit cheesy in the sense of "Obviously the DM threw these in just to screw the party."

That said, there are three problems I can see with his design. First, his AC is probably too low- certainly it's low for a CR 27 creature (even FC1 Demogorgon, at a mere CR 23, has AC 43), and it's actually the exact same number given to Baseraxs, who is of significantly lower CR than Loarsraol even by your own original estimates. Second- SR 26?!? For a CR 27 monster? I admit that a monster having lower SR than his own CR- which would mean that even casters below his CR could never fail SR checks against him- is paradoxical, but please can we raise this? At least get it as high as 40! Give the poor Slaad Lord a break from the enemy spellcasters. And third, he has that great Quintessence ability- as well as the Epic Spellcasting feat- but he has no actual caster levels or Epic spells to use it with. As I pointed out above, per the rules his Wish SLA does not require him to use XP to power it, so the Quintessence is useless for that- and since he doesn't have integrated Sorcerer or Wizard levels, he doesn't get to cast it as an actual spell either. This means that it would normally be used to power Epic spells, but since he hasn't got any Epic spells to use, that sort of makes it useless.

Other things I didn't mention: the Aura of Chaos is a great effect for him, very much in keeping with what the entity represents. I consider it largely combat-neutral, unless he gets something like an Epic spell to call up an army of non-unique slaadi; certainly the Globe of Invulnerability effect is nice, but by the low-Epic levels most casters don't rely on hitting the enemy with low-level effects anyway (particularly not "big bads" like Loarsraol would be) so it's not likely to be much of a factor. The slaads he's capable of summoning with his Summon Slaadi ability should be pushovers to any party of a level capable of fighting Loarsraol credibly, so whether or not they're protected by the Aura of Chaos they won't be a huge factor in the fight.

All in all, this is definitely a credible CR 27 creature, and a very very cool one besides. This beastie, or something very much like him, is almost certain to make a showing in one or both of my games in the future.

 

[Celebrim]

Now, their case was atypical in that (a) every PC was min-maxed to the gills, and (b) the players are great tactical thinkers who very rarely use suboptimal tactics in any given combat situation (in fact, their group- or at least several regulars from it- won the D&D Open at Gen Con in 2006 IIRC). But they're also characters below 20th level, and it shows you what can be done by serious powergamers out to exploit every rule they can.

Back in 1st edition, I used to play with a group like that (and who where great RPers to boot). I've found that it seriously skews my impression of what a PC party can be expected to handle.

If the SR is not above the +10 rule, chances are the party won't really care much about it in the case of a Big Bad. Remember, the SR = CR + 10 means that on average, a spellcaster of level = CR needs a 10 or higher on the caster level check to beat the SR. That's a 55% chance of success, since equalling the SR means success. But here, you also need to take buffs into account again. There are several magic items which can increase caster level for the purpose of SR checks, and even some actual spells like Assay Resistance (in the Spell Compendium). That one in particular is a favorite in my player groups.

SR is a really harsh tool though, which is why I'm hesitant to employ it too much. And I would expect, especially a really min/maxed party, to wipe the floor with a CR equivalent challenge.

But, that said, I'm going to go through an up the SR's. I may be upping the DC's of the saving throws vs. the SLA's too, but I'm certainly upping the SR's. Probably not as much as you are going to be happy with, but up around the DR 0 = 32 SR standard.

Not a bad idea. It both fits the flavor of the Lords, and makes them immune to things such as Power Words and Enervates. (The latter is particularly important since it doesn't allow a saving throw.)

I think so too. Immunities are another really harsh tool, but these are supposed to be examples of some of the most powerful things in the multiverse that aren't gods.

Greater Magic Fang is your friend. Giving them a means to buff themselves can work wonders.

Adding greater magic fang to the SL's standard SLA list that they all get (along with cloak of chaos, word of chaos, etc.) is one direction I'm leaning. The other option is to give them all a standard 'magic fang' package, that makes all of thier natural attacks +5 or even +6 enhancement equivalent weapons.

One thing you might consider using at least once is providing the Slaad Lord with a Luck bonus to saves, AC, or other rolls. Luck is associated with Chaos, so it would not be out of flavor for most of them- though it may be best to use this idea sparingly to avoid a strong whiff of limburger.

Wait until you see the Lord of Serendipity.

Most unique Outsiders- the sort called "Lords" by planar scholars- should have Epic DR, IMO. They're supposed to be legendary beings nearly impossible to hurt, and Epic DR is precisely tailored for that sort of flavor. But, that's me.

Ok, SR, full DR 0 immunity suite, and Epic DR are all 'in'. I think I'll leave the ability scores where they are at, and if I can't think of something better, I'll give them all greater magic fang.

Now, if I go full Epic DR, do you think I should pull back some of the higher DR's by 5 or 10 points? DR 35/Epic and Lawful can be pretty rough to have on hand, and I don't want the tanks feeling like they've nothing to do.