In Search of Monster


Advice


I am the DM for a group, and I want to set the party against another party of adventurers - but the other party is made up of more-powerful races. The parts of the party I have chosen so far are a pair of twin Janni Tactician Fighters and a Shae Shadow-bloodline Sorcerer. I'm trying to think of other CR 4 monsters that fit reasonably well with the group, specifically for a divine caster but another member too (the player party is a little larger so I don't want them to have too much numerical advantage). Does anyone have any ideas for monsters they think would fit well?


I'm monster. I'n fight.

(sorry, I'm a tarrasque momentarily channeling a little Randy Quaid there)

I don't really understand the problem. Is it that you're just looking for a 4th NPC to join this NPC party and fit in racially? Why? Is it a themed encounter taking place in some exotic plane? Why not just have a human cleric or an aasimar oracle or some such ordinary choice (I cringe at the notion of aasimar being "ordinary" but it certainly seems to have become so).

Do you want a divine caster and another NPC or another monster or is the divine caster supposed to be the monster? It's a little unclear.

Throw in a djinn to go with the jann, or even a shaitan if the CR is not too high. Or throw in a few shadow mastiffs to hang out with the Shae.

Another alternative is give each of the NPCs you already have a couple extra levels - they'll be fewer in number but greater in power. Could be fun.


If you want a CR4 divine caster, I'd go with an outsider with the right subtypes. Based on the rest of the encounters, I'd favour caotic alignment, and enemies tend to be evil, so maybe an accurser devil? (has a decent wisdom to add cleric levels, only CR3 though)

Scarab Sages

Maybe an Augur Kyton oracle with the Deaf Curse? It's a little floating ball of death that can heal as well as eviscerate. You would need to really adjust the CHA though.


A very young white dragon
Or a dark stalker

Scarab Sages

You could always use the worst monster of all!


Half-succubus oracle would be interesting. Half-fiend template would work pretty well with just about anything actually.


Sorry if I was unclear. The party is a party of monsters (with racial hit dice), and then class levels to bring them up to CR 8 or 9. So the Twins are Janni who are 5th level fighters, the Shae is a 5-7th level sorcerer (It doesn't come out the same because of roles). I need to round out their party and adding a divine caster seems like the way to go. So far their party is all neutral and I am keeping them a little ambiguous. I was considering possibly a Korred druid or Tanuki cleric but looking for other ideas. It seems to me that it would probably be most balanced power-wise if they were all monsters with about the same CR and HD so they can have about the same number of class levels.

Liberty's Edge

How about a flumph cleric? You want strange?


Kinda medium-weird if that makes sense. Flumphs are like one step weaker though...


Try Korred Cleric. CN Cleric of Cayden Cailean, play up the similarities in CC's portfolio to Dionysus and you're good to go. Tactically, he'd play like an AoE debuffer. Probably want variant channel (Ale/Wine) to add to the madness/entertainment value. Tanuki with the same premise would work too, but be slightly worse at controlling (due to losing out on entangling hair and stunning laugh) and slightly better as an extra mainline combatant (plus Quick Channel Ale/Wine Variant Channel plus Sake Affinity plus a spell or attack would be the BOMB). Druid...could be entertaining, but one of the best builds for druids as enemies is when they grant their whole team "home field" advantage, and that doesn't seem to be your foe-party's game.


home field advantage how?

That Korred cleric is an interesting idea though. I had just assumed druid would work best since they're normally kind of forest/nature based, but a slightly excessive taste for drink could probably help explain why one was adventuring.


Druids work best with allies that can work around difficult terrain somehow- a field overgrown with nonmagical briars and thorns is a nightmare for most PC parties because of the difficult terrain, but a druid backed up by a handful of archers (or anything with reach and feather step) will tear them apart. A 9th-level Druid with six 5th-level rangers as backup would tear most parties apart just by dint of "watch us move freely while you get half speed," ranged weapons, buff spells on all the rangers, and "lol, we have Combat Reflexes, Stand Still, and reach weapons". That's not to mention the druid raining down Call Lightning Storm bolts while using Fickle Winds to protect the rangers from PC ranged rebuttal.

Druid might work OK too, it's just that druids control the battlefield by reshaping it and letting their allies ignore the problem while clerics do it by punishing their enemies directly. Different mindset from a tactical standpoint. Not sure which you would prefer.

Plus druid has redundant effects with Korred. Entangled comes from a lot of sources for druid and would be unnecessary with their hair. They chuck stones with the force of javelins so magic stone is useless. So on and so forth. Cleric has a suite of totally different control options, while allowing for better party buffing and utility.

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