Author Topic: Immortality ritual campaign  (Read 4256 times)

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DrHorrible

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Immortality ritual campaign
« on: October 01, 2011, 04:01:26 PM »
I'm running a 13th level evil campaign where the players' goal is to reach immortality through a ritual that I invented for this campaign.
The PCs need to collect the following ingredients to perform the ritual:

- A philosopher's stone done
- The heart of an Omnielemental ( once you kill the elemental he drops a gem containing its elemental powers )
- 4 pints of Planetar or Solar's blood
- Fang of an Ethereal Dragon
- Root of a Nightwist

I was starting to prepare some stuff for the encounter with the Planetar, and reading its stats, powers, spells it got me thinking. I don't think my players can beat one, even if they get there at the proper level (16).

I thought to change that part of the ritual but I can't find a monster that I like for it. I was looking for something "epic", a monster that has something to do with immortality, something that, as a player, you've always dreamt to fight.

The party is the following:

- Tiefling Rogue 7/Invisible Blade 5 ( kukris, twf, telling blow, sneak atks )
- Human Druid 13 with Dire Bear ( read spell compendium cover to cover )
- Human Fallen Paladin 1/Blackguard 10/Warrior 2 with Adult Bronze Dragon Zombie as mount ( Non-optimized charger )
- Human Warlock 13 ( He doesn't know the class very well )

I can assure that this is not an optimized party and the players are also not very experienced at high levels, so sometimes they tend to struggle.

What monster should I choose?


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SneeR

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2011, 05:23:22 PM »
What CR?
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I don't know if the designers meant you to take Skill Focus for every feat.
Sounds a little OP.

The monk is clearly the best class, no need to optimize here. What you are doing is overkill.

It's like people who have no idea what a turn signal is. They ruin it for everyone else.
When another driver brandishes a holy symbol and begins glowing with divine light, seek cover or get spattered with zombie brains. I do not see what is so complicated about this.
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DrHorrible

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2011, 05:47:22 PM »
What CR?

I thought I must have forgotten something  :lmao

16.


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SneeR

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2011, 06:15:35 PM »
How about Justicator from MM3? Lawful Neutral Outsider who lives to enforce order. Angel-like, but not too much in the way of casting, mostly debuffs. Maybe have him forget to cast Plane Shift to get away? :D
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I don't know if the designers meant you to take Skill Focus for every feat.
Sounds a little OP.

The monk is clearly the best class, no need to optimize here. What you are doing is overkill.

It's like people who have no idea what a turn signal is. They ruin it for everyone else.
When another driver brandishes a holy symbol and begins glowing with divine light, seek cover or get spattered with zombie brains. I do not see what is so complicated about this.
[/spoiler]

DrHorrible

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #4 on: October 01, 2011, 06:48:14 PM »
How about Justicator from MM3? Lawful Neutral Outsider who lives to enforce order. Angel-like, but not too much in the way of casting, mostly debuffs. Maybe have him forget to cast Plane Shift to get away? :D

Mmh... He's a CR13, you're suggesting to advance him 6HD, right?

It wouldn't be a bad idea, I guess.

My other idea was to let them face an avanced Unicorn(16HD) with like... 17 nonassociated levels of Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker or a Cloud Ray, just to see how they handle a flying enemy.

The monster doesn't necessarily need to be a good guy (like the planetar) I just need it to be an "epic" monster or one that is in someway related to immortality.
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SneeR

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #5 on: October 01, 2011, 07:14:49 PM »
Clouds rays are pretty epic! IIRC, though, they are grossly under-CRed. I like the idea of the blood of a creature composed of clouds as the component of eternal life.

Could have sworn justicator was CR 16. Balls
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SneeR
[spoiler]
I don't know if the designers meant you to take Skill Focus for every feat.
Sounds a little OP.

The monk is clearly the best class, no need to optimize here. What you are doing is overkill.

It's like people who have no idea what a turn signal is. They ruin it for everyone else.
When another driver brandishes a holy symbol and begins glowing with divine light, seek cover or get spattered with zombie brains. I do not see what is so complicated about this.
[/spoiler]

Agita

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #6 on: October 01, 2011, 08:58:09 PM »
Maybe some adaptation of the Tarrasque, altered to be an actual threat to competent characters? It's sort of iconic as a monster that's hard to kill... or would be, if it were less easily trivialized.
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Prime32

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2011, 11:45:58 PM »
What CR is an ascendant counselor from Eberron again? If it's too much, give some class levels to an undying counselor.
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DrHorrible

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #8 on: October 02, 2011, 12:00:53 PM »
Clouds rays are pretty epic! IIRC, though, they are grossly under-CRed. I like the idea of the blood of a creature composed of clouds as the component of eternal life.

Could have sworn justicator was CR 16. Balls

Yeah, that's what I thought when I first saw the image on the manual! They're also good 'cause I'd like to see how they handle a flying threat.

At first I wanted to challenge them underwater with a Titanic Shark of the Legend ( with Titanic and Monster of Legend templates ) but then once I finished writing stats and attacks of the shark I realized it would have torn them to pieces in a few rounds.

 :lmao

Maybe some adaptation of the Tarrasque, altered to be an actual threat to competent characters? It's sort of iconic as a monster that's hard to kill... or would be, if it were less easily trivialized.

Well, that would mean a LOT of altering, but still, that's an idea.

What CR is an ascendant counselor from Eberron again? If it's too much, give some class levels to an undying counselor.

I couldn't find that one, so I don't know.

I guess I'll wait for another couple suggestions but the Cloud Ray idea maybe it's the best in the end.
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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2011, 04:05:31 PM »
How about the Death Giant from MM3? Sort of like drawing life through death? It comes back to life after dying, IIRC... CR16

Also, the Horrific Vasuthant from MM3 is described as having "grown massive and terrifying after centuries of absorbing life energy. Horrific vasuthants have more potent reality distortion powers than ordinary vasuthants, in addition to spell-like abilities."
Creature made of unlife distorting reality? Sounds cool.

Jusg more ideas.
The answer to everything:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
SneeR
[spoiler]
I don't know if the designers meant you to take Skill Focus for every feat.
Sounds a little OP.

The monk is clearly the best class, no need to optimize here. What you are doing is overkill.

It's like people who have no idea what a turn signal is. They ruin it for everyone else.
When another driver brandishes a holy symbol and begins glowing with divine light, seek cover or get spattered with zombie brains. I do not see what is so complicated about this.
[/spoiler]

DrHorrible

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #10 on: October 02, 2011, 04:14:25 PM »
How about the Death Giant from MM3? Sort of like drawing life through death? It comes back to life after dying, IIRC... CR16

Also, the Horrific Vasuthant from MM3 is described as having "grown massive and terrifying after centuries of absorbing life energy. Horrific vasuthants have more potent reality distortion powers than ordinary vasuthants, in addition to spell-like abilities."
Creature made of unlife distorting reality? Sounds cool.

Jusg more ideas.

They're actually solutions I considered before. The only problem would be that I already have 3 sneak-attack-immune enemies in the list and I wouldn't want the rogue to feel useless...

The philosopher's stone was at the end of an all-constructs dungeon, where he wasn't that useful; after a while he seemed kinda frustrated even.
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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2011, 04:21:42 PM »
The philosopher's stone was at the end of an all-constructs dungeon, where he wasn't that useful; after a while he seemed kinda frustrated even.

There's ways to get around those things, you know. Might want to suggest one or two of those to your Sneak Attack-dependent players, Anyone who depends on SA should have a way around immunity to SA. For starters, there's Demolition Crystals, which let a weapon simply bypass the crit immunity of constructs, and an equivalent crystal for undead.
It's all about vision and making reality conform to your vision. By dropping a fucking house on it.

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DrHorrible

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #12 on: October 02, 2011, 06:26:14 PM »
The philosopher's stone was at the end of an all-constructs dungeon, where he wasn't that useful; after a while he seemed kinda frustrated even.

There's ways to get around those things, you know. Might want to suggest one or two of those to your Sneak Attack-dependent players, Anyone who depends on SA should have a way around immunity to SA. For starters, there's Demolition Crystals, which let a weapon simply bypass the crit immunity of constructs, and an equivalent crystal for undead.

Yeah, i know, I also told him of vinestrike and golemstrike but I didn't want to make him feel like I was picking immune enemies on purpose.

Don't know, I guess that I'll go for the Cloud Ray.

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Re: Immortality ritual campaign
« Reply #13 on: October 03, 2011, 05:18:05 PM »
Just alter the tarrasque's feats into soulmelds and other incarnum feats, and give it a reasonable essentia pool. Or give it levels in psion and pump its Int up. Remember that non-associated class levels only count for half-CR, and the tarrasque is (in actuality) CR 14 (at most).
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