Guilty of powergaming...doting this thread for later.
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Mr. Meepo...if I had a hat, I would tip it to you. As for my request: the 3rd edition Fiend Folio contained a CR 25 demon called a klurichir...a nasty beast. Though I've never seen an infernal equivalent to it's brutality anywhere; which sounds like a discrepancy you could correct. More specifically, I'm thinking some manner of devilish juggernaut that possesses epic-ified monk-like abilities and an aura to keep demonic prey (and any other kind) from teleporting out, flying away, or fleeing in general...maybe even punishes them for trying. Among other abilities, of course. I suspect that their use of ki would also be more decidedly unpleasant then a typical monks. Vanguard of Asmodeus type monstrosities, something you could picture steamrolling right through an abyssal front line and mangling a bunch of balors with it's bare hands and swatting aside anything less like a toy. Perhaps a massive anthropomorphic cerberus...I'm a sucker for anything monstrous and canine. I would politely suggest augmenting the normal threat range and multiplier for the "unarmed" attacks and adding some features for use in grapples, along with any other powers you feel would play off such a beast's theme of awesome martial dominance. Could paint a pretty frightening picture, methinks. Come to think of it, I might try cranking out a digital painting of this... Very impressed with all your work so far...good show!
Please pardon the long-winded nature of this post. It went like this: a 3.5 all lycanthrope (therianthrope) campaign, average ECL was 17. I was playing a dwarf dire were-wolverine with four levels of warshaper and some monk levels to boot. Our party had become trapped in a silver dragon's cave high in the mountains with no apparent means of exit other than the way we came in (did I mention we were all evil?). We had just gotten through pillaging the hoard and (thanks to an abundance of extra-dimensional storage devices) literally butchering the former resident and stuffing a lot of neatly packed bits of dragon into bags. And then the mate showed up, and was rather put off by the whole business at hand. After a considerable scrap, the dragon retreated outside, flew away and thoroughly healed itself, and began simply circling and waiting to pick us off from the air as we tried to leave via the narrow pass that got us there in the first place. Left tapped of heals, (except for Ulfgarr, thanks to his warshaper levels) and otherwise low on resources and HP, the call went out to start emptying backpacks. Among all the useless clutter, there was one potion of enlarge person, a scroll of fly, and a scroll of invisibility that we had just salvaged from the hoard. And after much hashing and scheming, it was decided that my proposed solution was the only viable one with what we had to work with: we called it DBFW. Downing the potion and receiving the effect of the scrolls from our were-ape wizard Darwin, Ulfgarr launched himself outside and (keeping a safe distance from the dragon) ascended to six hundred feet above the wyrm...then hit terminal velocity and used the horrifically open-ended nature of the warshaper abilities to turn himself into an aerodynamic, shock-absorbing, now 16,000lb ramming prow, nailing the dragon flat-footed between the wings like a freakin' comet. As it turns out, 16,000lbs falling 200ft or more in 3.5 inflicts...wait for it...100 d6 damage. Realizing that by our house rules regarding massive damage, even a below average roll would result in an unbeatable fort save vs. death for the dragon (entirely discounting the fact that Ulfgarr had optimized his body as a projectile weapon) Our DM ruled we had a dead dragon. Once his eyes stopped bugging out, the DM gleefully ruled that since I had done everything possible to mitigate the impact damage for myself (reinforcing his skull and spine and growing squishy shock absorbing bladders between the vertebra, relocating all important organs as far from the contact point as possible, and so on) I would ONLY incur half damage for the collision. Odds of survival: not good. At all. After rolling a lot of dice, the damage was such that even though it was not enough to kill him outright from full HP (thank you, high constitution), it was still pretty unlikely he would live through the massive damage save. And sure enough, despite missing the save by a mere two points, Ulfgarr was ruled also dead in the air. Until it occurred to me that upon sustaining any damage, a dire wolverine instantly enters a berserk rage; a state that confers a +4 bonus to strength and constitution. Meaning that he had, in fact, made his save vs. massive damage. This obliterated the smug look that occupied my DMs face for about the last 15 seconds as surely as the dragon was busted in half. The "Death By Flying Wolverine" tactic has seen many incarnations since, but what we call any idea that involves dropping really heavy stuff on other stuff is not likely to change no matter what happens to be falling. |