Tovec
Explorer
I think the key thing that the write-up missed was how sphinxes are guards of things people are meant to get access to.
So, instead of maybe making the object impossible to access if the riddle is failed, why not do it the opposite way - open up the way or make it easier.
Also, I don't see how they are going to be effective against a whole party. If sphinxes need to guard a specific item, portal, or whatever they need some ability to lock down the party which isn't really hinted at in this description. To that end, I would suggest one part "claws and eats victims" and one part stealthy, using terrain and flight to hit and run or distract them from their goal and wear them down.
Also, if they're going to use teleportation on the PCs, then why not use it as a tactic to get rid of them? Sort of a "Oh, crap this fight is going poorly, I'd better teleport them." Seems like the first instinct should be eat them, and if they start to lose that front then teleport them away - where they might come back but then the sphinx can build defenses, maybe even the extent of thinking up another riddle or making them prove themselves worthy of another try at the first.
And lastly (I have explicitly NOT looked at the original lore but) aren't sphinxes meant to guard the dead? I could see them as guarding things the gods want protected ON world as opposed to how angels might protect things off plane. I guess this probably relates back to what I said in the beginning, that what sphinxes guard is ostensibly meant to fall into the right hands, and to that end they guard places like tombs of dead wizards, or places of magical power, or other curios, which are meant to go to the deserving - but act as living guardians of the dead, dead places, and/or forgotten discoveries?
So, instead of maybe making the object impossible to access if the riddle is failed, why not do it the opposite way - open up the way or make it easier.
Also, I don't see how they are going to be effective against a whole party. If sphinxes need to guard a specific item, portal, or whatever they need some ability to lock down the party which isn't really hinted at in this description. To that end, I would suggest one part "claws and eats victims" and one part stealthy, using terrain and flight to hit and run or distract them from their goal and wear them down.
Also, if they're going to use teleportation on the PCs, then why not use it as a tactic to get rid of them? Sort of a "Oh, crap this fight is going poorly, I'd better teleport them." Seems like the first instinct should be eat them, and if they start to lose that front then teleport them away - where they might come back but then the sphinx can build defenses, maybe even the extent of thinking up another riddle or making them prove themselves worthy of another try at the first.
And lastly (I have explicitly NOT looked at the original lore but) aren't sphinxes meant to guard the dead? I could see them as guarding things the gods want protected ON world as opposed to how angels might protect things off plane. I guess this probably relates back to what I said in the beginning, that what sphinxes guard is ostensibly meant to fall into the right hands, and to that end they guard places like tombs of dead wizards, or places of magical power, or other curios, which are meant to go to the deserving - but act as living guardians of the dead, dead places, and/or forgotten discoveries?