Any advice on the best way to beat a phoenix?


Advice


So the party consists of 6 11th lvl part members. 1 Bard, 1 Multiclassed Rogue, 1 Antipaladin, 1 Generic Summoner, 1 Fighter, and 1 Heavens Shaman(me). The problems are its 26 SR, Greater Dispel as an 18th lvl caster at will, Heal 3 times per day, and Firestorm 3 times a day.


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Have you tried stabbing it?

Frankly anything past that and I'm lost


For a start, Dweomer's Essense, piercing spell metamagic (off a metamagic rods/metamagic) gems and/or Sure Casting will pretty much take care of SR if you don't mind blowing a bit of cash doing this.

Give me a little time to look through the spell lists of your party and I might be able to come up with some tactics to use now that most spells aren't shut down by the SR.

EDIT: Could you also put up exactly what your party consists of. Not just their class, but the tactics they specialize in. Can the rogue actually fight? Is the antipaladin a heavy debuffer or just a bruiser? What does your fighter do? Is your summoner the stereotypical pounce50naturalattacks build? Stuff like that.

Double EDIT: Also, how are you encountering this phoenix. Indoors or outdoors? Close to the ground or high in the air? Other details would be nice too.


Thats a tough battle. If you don't need the body, use a portable hole and bag of holding. Other than that I am at a loss...

Liberty's Edge

Well I would obviously suggest you invest in fire resistance. Potions, spells, items, ect. A Phoenix that does not get to use his fire is a sad bird. A giant terrifying bird with powerful attacks but less effective. The dispel is going to be tough to deal with because the CL is pretty high. Try to counterspell it with dispel but it's going to be a tough check. Your best bet will be get close and smack him. If he tries to cast use the Oppertunity Attack or prepare to Attack if he tried to cast.


If it's using greater dispel magic or heal it's not damaging you.

Go into the fight with communal protection from energy and communal energy resistance. If everybody has it the phoenix can't remove both off of everyone (most likely). After that, SR will make most of your spell casters not very useful in directly attacking. So focus on supporting your party through buffing and control spells.

The summoner should summon flying and/or fire based creatures. I think I would go for 1d3 Baubau Demons using the summoner's summon SLA. They have fire resistance and have dispel magic and darkness as at will SLA. The phoenix doesn't have darkvision, so if you are inside the darkness will really hamper it (as the light conditions are likely to fall to darkness). The phoenix can't really hit anything if it can't see it. The baubau doesn't have a great chance of hitting, but the phoenix has a chance to take damage from the protective slime.

Have the bard buff the party as normal. Actually, with the bard's buffing the summoned demons may actually have a decent chance at hitting and dealing damage. Have him use haste and other similar buff spells on the party. Fighter and antipaladin just need to get up in it's face and pound away. Make sure they bring a couple potions of flight. And probably also Snapleaf (to protect from fall damage when the phoenix attempts to dispels it). And smite will work on it as well. Have both the fighter and antipaladin bring bows to the combat. And you should cast greater magic weapon on those bows so that they have a good chance to hit with them (assuming they're both normally melee combatants).


The problem is that shamans don't get communal protection or resist energy. We are running through Way of the Wicked and we have limited time to get everyone and everything in a valley killed, and we also have put out some sacred fires. Also Phoenix do possess Darkvision. I am going to buff the part with Resist and protection when we go after it.


Darn, I saw low light vision on there not the darkvision.

Your summoner has access to communal protection from energy and communal resist energy. It's unlikely that they would take them as spells known, but buy a scroll of each and they can use it without needing UMD.

Communal Resist Energy scroll will cost 525 for a 7th caster level scroll that will give 20 reist. A communal protection from energy will cost 700 and will provide 84 points of energy absorption.

Also, what cruelties does your antipaladin have? If he can use a cruelty such as nauseated or staggered successfully on the phoenix it will do wonders. No full attacks is a good start. It's possible to win, but this phoenix is a CR 15 meaning it should be a challenge for you party.

You also lack the key full arcane spell caster which makes this a bit more difficult but still possible.

The main thing is focus on getting your fighter and paladin next to the phoenix and inflicting as much damage as possible.


Duskbreaker wrote:
So the party consists of 6 11th lvl part members. 1 Bard, 1 Multiclassed Rogue, 1 Antipaladin, 1 Generic Summoner, 1 Fighter, and 1 Heavens Shaman(me). The problems are its 26 SR, Greater Dispel as an 18th lvl caster at will, Heal 3 times per day, and Firestorm 3 times a day.

I can tell you right off the bat your big problems: You don't have dedicated full casters. Even if the Summoner is a pseudo-full caster and the Shaman is one, their spell lists are limited, meaning they only count as such for support/buff type spells. Their CC isn't going to be strong when measured against SR, so lacking Spell Penetration feats (which you should invest in, if you're focused on your spells) results in problems actually using spells against him working at all.

Improving your defenses, such as resistances and the like, will keep you alive from its extremely powerful SLAs and defensive abilities. It also has crazy strong reach, so finding a way to exhaust its AoO will allow your melee to get in range and slaughter it.

You better have the ability to Fly, through items or spells, going on your martials, because the Phoenix isn't stupid enough to sit there and let the melee guys kill him on the ground. Also consider methods of debuffing the enemy that don't require spells or saving throws, because the creature's SR and Saves are through the roof.

Even with you guys being 11th level and having more resources and action economy than the Phoenix, it has a lot of survivability itself (with 3 Heal spells and Greater Dispel at-will, which can shut down your Martial Attack plan with just a single cast). Not to mention the probability that it has a sort of self-reviving ability, meaning it's not over until it's over, and unless you can prepare yourselves for that (I doubt it), you're not going to get that far.

I will say this though: Remember your mission is to put out the fire, not kill the Phoenix. Take that into consideration when dealing with him.


Well I can hamper the Phoenix's Heal with
Curse of Suffering (Su): The shaman causes a creature within 30 feet to take more damage from bleed effects and causes its wounds to heal at a slower rate. When the cursed creature takes bleed damage, it takes 1 additional point of bleed damage (even if the bleed is ability damage). Furthermore, when the target is subject to an effect that would restore its hit points, that effect restores only half the normal amount of hit points. This curse lasts for a number of rounds equal to the shaman's level. After the duration ends, the creature cannot be the target of this hex again for 24 hours.
but that will only work for 11 rounds, and will drop once it rezzes itself. Also we were told to kill every intelligent non-evil thing is the valley we just invaded, so we will have to kill it before the winter ends.


How're your party's Stealth capabilities?


I"m sorry this isn't helpful but I just can't help myself.

Shoot it with the Colt. That kills just about everything.
(supernatural reference)

i can't think of anything more than whats been suggested though. Other than maybe hiring helpful npcs


Zwordsman wrote:

I"m sorry this isn't helpful but I just can't help myself.

Shoot it with the Colt. That kills just about everything.
(supernatural reference)

i can't think of anything more than whats been suggested though. Other than maybe hiring helpful npcs

(Lucifer Voice) Don't feel too bad. There are 5 things in all of creation that gun can't kill, and I just happen to be one of them.

It was funny that we treated our minions like Fight Club. (It's just the first rule wasn't "Don't talk about Minions.")

Remember to use whatever minions you have, they are more useful than you think. The first rule of Minions: They are expendable.

Shadow Lodge

Lots and lots of glitterdust.


Lots of water? Does it have defence against drowning? No? Then get a very large barrel, fill it with water, and pour it on its head, and hold it down until...

...Wait WHY are you trying to kill a force for good? Unless, you're evil? YAY! Welcome to the darkside. We are fresh out of cookies.


Plan A: Be Wolverine.

Plan B: Faced with a post-apocalyptic future, go back in time to before the Phoenix ever existed, and then totally retcon it out of the timeline. This backup plan carries the unfortunate side effect of your world soon having to face a different kind of Apocalypse in the not-too-distant future.


This fight was hilariously easy when we ran through it.

All you need is Resist Energy: Fire and then it gets really sad and you whack it really hard afterward.


Goddity wrote:

Lots of water? Does it have defence against drowning? No? Then get a very large barrel, fill it with water, and pour it on its head, and hold it down until...

...Wait WHY are you trying to kill a force for good? Unless, you're evil? YAY! Welcome to the darkside. We are fresh out of cookies.

Way of the Wicked.


Then why kill it? Tie it down permanently and get rich selling phoenix organs, as it heals itself.

I also apologize for my lack of cookies.


Goddity wrote:

Then why kill it? Tie it down permanently and get rich selling phoenix organs, as it heals itself.

I also apologize for my lack of cookies.

Healing does not regrow organs.


Ipslore the Red wrote:
Goddity wrote:

Then why kill it? Tie it down permanently and get rich selling phoenix organs, as it heals itself.

I also apologize for my lack of cookies.

Healing does not regrow organs.

The phoenix has regenerate.

regenerate wrote:
Regenerating creatures can regrow lost portions of their bodies and can reattach severed limbs or body parts if they are brought together within 1 hour of severing. Severed parts that are not reattached wither and die normally.

This plan works fine.

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