Tweak This Kobold! (My players, stay out)

[moritheil]

Heh, most of the party is actually immune to fear, so it's not a big deal.

"Suddenly, for no visible reason, so-and-so's skin starts stripping off. You get a glimpse of the underlying muscular structure before it unravels, revealing the bones underneath."

Put that way, saves vs. fear are still in order.

 

[javcs]

Most definitely.
Quite possibly saves vs sickening/nausea are in order put like that too.

 

[kerbarian]

1st—disguise self, mage armor, magic missile, shield, true strike;
2nd—acid arrow, bear’s endurance, eagle's splendor, scorching ray;
3rd—fireball, haste, vampiric touch;
4th—evard's tentacles, improved invisibility;
5th—baleful polymorph

If the main way this guy does damage is via engulf, then I'd choose spells to make that more likely. With Arcane Preparation or the PHBII sorcerer variant, you could get quickened true strike.

Another interesting combo would be Teleport + Celerity (PHBII) + Engulf. That would allow an immediate engulf attack against anyone, but it would leave the worm dazed for a round afterwards. Teleport is also a great escape spell, of course.

And then defensive options: Greater Mirror Image (PHBII) is a very nice spell. Slightly better than Mirror Image, but the main advantage is that it's an immediate action. Against a high-level party, I'd expect it to be more effective than invisibility -- about the only thing that sees through it is true seeing. Or Instant Diversion (Races of the Dragon) for a 1st-level version -- swift action, and it basically gives you a 1-round Mirror Image.

As Iku Rex recently pointed out, Wings of Cover (Races of the Dragon) is a great spell. As an immediate action, it gives you complete cover (and breaks line of effect) against any one attack or spell.

You could up his AC another good chunk with Dragonskin (SC), and that also provides energy resistance.

If he doesn't care about his allies' ability to attack, Blacklight is arguably better than Greater Invisibility -- magical darkness that travels with the caster and which he can see through perfectly.

And if he knows the fight is coming, Stoneskin always helps.

Stacking all the don't-target-me spells could also be quite effective. With greater invisibility + blacklight + mirror image, it would take at least 3 spells (or True Seeing or disjunction) to see through it all. It wouldn't be worth casting them in combat, though -- only if he can buff ahead of time (perhaps by holding off the party with fodder for a couple rounds).

 

[javcs]

I think, though, that this kobold's damage dealing capabilities are more from the tentacles wrapping the party (or most of it) up and unloading a few of his fireballs on them - the engulf is to deal with anybody trying to beat on 'weak kobold sorceror' or is the last man standing outside of the tentacles.

The party's also got to deal with whatever allies this kobold has and whatever vermin he summons up with his WtW spell-likes, I think I said this before, but evard's tentacles on the entire party followed by summoning a vermin swarm right on top of them, that's not something that they'd enjoy.

Anyways, he's not actually supposed to do a TPK .. just one or two of the cocky ones - and that's if he's lucky.
Besides, it's gotta be at least somewhat realistic - he didn't start out as a WtW sorceror - he started out needing to do something other than stand around getting attacked and casting defensive spells only.
Plus, after a while, the minions would get leary of standing next to him if he just engulfed all the ones that displeased him.

 

[moritheil]

Javcs is right in that conceptually, this was built as a sorc who happened to have a nasty surprise for "grapple the enemy caster" types rather than a full-out engulf machine. I'm mindful of the fact that Worm that Walks is arguably a bit on the unfair side, since it has a flat damage amount (100) for the engulf attack.

Thanks for your suggestions, Kerbarian! Instant Diversion looks promising. I'm not sure I agree about the utility of GMI vs. Greater Invisibility, since one can generally be attacked right off the bat with GMI up, but not with invisibility - buying precious time to lob fireballs. (That is, even if enemies can't see which image is you, they can hit you with area effects.)

If any of you are curious to see how it stands up in combat, links to the fight are in my sig.