As I was looking over the Ebon Aspect, I noticed several things about it that make it a very strong foe. One thing is a base attack bonus of +10, and the power attack feat= "You had how many hitpoints? Ouch, that's going to leave a mark." And not to mention the spell resistance + healing from spells.
So, just wondering if anyone else was thinking along the same lines here.
As I was looking over the Ebon Aspect, I noticed several things about it that make it a very strong foe. One thing is a base attack bonus of +10, and the power attack feat= "You had how many hitpoints? Ouch, that's going to leave a mark." And not to mention the spell resistance + healing from spells.
So, just wondering if anyone else was thinking along the same lines here.
Yes, he seems under-CRed. He's fast, has quite a few hit points, 4 attacks, and those special abilities. Plus he's practically immune to magic with all that SR and energy resistance and Blessing of Vecna to boot. Add in Power Attack and Cleave and he'll be slaying multiple characters every turn. I'm hoping my PCs will have some common sense and flee back to town where the numbers of the garrison and power of Allustan can finally kill the Aspect. I'm not sure how Mearls envisioned 4th- to 5th-level characters killing this thing. My party will be encountering it in 2 sessions probably so if anyone could post innovative ways their PCs slew it or warnings of what to watch out for, that would be helpful.
That said, if he uses max Power Attack he will miss a lot of the time (+4/+3/+3/+3). You can roleplay his rage by having him always max out his Power Attack, which may not be optimal if the PCs have good ACs. He is also very limited at ranged combat. PCs with Spring Attack or (magical) ranged attacks will do very well against him. Inexperienced PCs or close-combat specialists are venturing close to TPK town.
Hopefully my group will have the common sense to run the heck away, because earlier in the game, the sorcerer cast detect magic on the pool and got a killer headache.
Edit: But now that I said that, they'll stay, fight, and most likely die.
Senior Software Developer
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One thing you're forgetting is that a party will fight the Ebon aspect at the end of the adventure. When they are at their strongest and have all their spells available (insert sarcasm here). I'm looking forward to running this and expect a few causalities. Maybe the party will surprise me. This will be one of the times my players wished there was a save button. In the infamous words of Sir Robyn "Run away".
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I have 5 pc's in my group. When they encountered the ebon aspect they were all 3rd level. They took it out in 3 rounds and it only hit the rogue once. I think it was right on target. The pc's were out of spells and the fighters were low on hit points. I nearly threw another one at them just because it went so quick.
Well, both of my parties beat the Ebon Aspect while not at full power. (Course, both parties are at 8 players...) They mainly played against his weaknesses. For example; a distinct lack of ranged combat, his large size in a ROOM full of columns, flanking him for sneak attacks, etc.
A smart party should be able to beat him. Do consider that he's a boss monster, and should be treated as such.
Squid
I have 5 pc's in my group. When they encountered the ebon aspect they were all 3rd level. They took it out in 3 rounds and it only hit the rogue once. I think it was right on target. The pc's were out of spells and the fighters were low on hit points. I nearly threw another one at them just because it went so quick.
It would be helpful to hear exactly how your PCs achieved this. Especially since for one of those rounds the Aspect could have been invincible using Bloodthirst of Erythnul.
At least it doesn't have fast healing. Most of the time, anyway.
I have 5 pc's in my group. When they encountered the ebon aspect they were all 3rd level. They took it out in 3 rounds and it only hit the rogue once. I think it was right on target. The pc's were out of spells and the fighters were low on hit points. I nearly threw another one at them just because it went so quick.It would be helpful to hear exactly how your PCs achieved this. Especially since for one of those rounds the Aspect could have been invincible using Bloodthirst of Erythnul.
At least it doesn't have fast healing. Most of the time, anyway.
Yes. Pray tell.
WaterdhavianFlapjack
It seems nasty to me. I have a fairly strong group of player characters, but then again I've already knocked them all out once (hextor) and TPKed them (Vecna). They have a new batch of characters that I believe are better suited for the challenges that await them (the last group was a bit spotty after the goliath died). So I guess we'll see how they fare against the Erythnulites. I would not be surprised to see one or two deaths with the Ebon Aspect though.
I just ran this encounter tonight. 3 down and 1 wounded, but there was some bad luck along the way. They darn near revolted when the Aspect used the Bloodthirst for a round.
I was afraid that the group's tank Dwarf Fighter would take him out right off the bat when they emerged from the final temple with the Aspect lined up perfectly for a charge --> '1' on the to hit. He wound up getting another charge attempt later on the battle, after being Enlarged --> another '1'. He went down after a full attack (with a +5 Power Attack) but had Fast Healing on him (thanks to the cleric's Vigor spell) and managed to get back up before getting knocked back down a round later at -9 (this touched off a large scale debate as to whether he was at -9 or -10, I made it -9).
The fighter/magic-user botched his Summon Monster attempt (Spell Failure) and got off a lightning bolt only to fail against the Spell Resistance and heal the little bit of damage that was done on the party's first hit. The group talked him out of trying Shocking Grasp, so he Enlarged and attacked landing a solid (if DR'd) hit before going down at -3.
What can I say for the cleric? The +13 to hit for the Spiritual Weapon was a killer.
The Ranger/Rogue, who is routinely mocked for his inability to fight, stayed alive thanks to a good AC and a lot of Power Attacks from the Aspect.
Bad rolls or not, though, I'm not completely sold on the CR 6 for the thing, though.
First, The ninja/Thief, Spellthief/Thief, and straight monk
were good at hitting without getting hit.
The first 2 are half dragons.
The telepath had a damaging power that could not be absorbed.
The Kabold sorcerer saw a magic missle spell get absorbed
and he stuck to using the wand of enlarge after that.
Dispite all this it was a major challenge.
The Aspect was so busy with hand to hand he couldn't use
the Vecna power.
This is the only time a combat got to the 5th or 6th round
so far.
There was a halfling paladin healing them so they they didn't
go to negitives but they got close.
They convinced the dwarven miners to fill the whole dungeon
in.
I was rather astonished when my players killed EA with only two hits. The Enlarged fighter critically hit for 75 damage with a battle ax held in both hands at full power attack. the EA had DR 5/epic at the time but I fear it didn't help one bit.
My players just beat the aspect today, and throughout the battle I was afraid they were going to beat it too easily. They were 4th level, and rested up (since the adventure isn't very well-written, as per my last rant on these boards, I restored them all back to full HP and spells and such after the battle with Grallak- since, after all, there's really no opportunities to rest, especially with how I had to hack and re-build the adventure from scratch). Anyway, since the party pretty much knew it was coming, they were all prepared- Bless, Bless Weapon, Magic Weapon, all that stuff- and so its DR and it poor AC didn't really contribute to the battle at all. The party consists of a Paladin, a Barbarian/Cleric, a Hexblade, and a Rogue, so what with crits and Sneak Attack, its (somewhat) measly 75 hit points went down pretty quickly. As I often do with important bad guys, I just fudged his HP, giving him something around 110- in addition to making his Bloodthirst of Erythnul last for two rounds instead of just one- and he still died rather quickly. He managed to kill one PC, and that was because I specifically tried to kill that PC for continuity's sake (as the player is leaving the campaign next week), and that was still just barely. As there's no real spellcasters, only one spell was cast at it- from the Hexblade- and it got over its SR. So, um, I guess it could have been a bit beefier, in my opinion. The players were still terrified of it, though, so my job as a DM was accomplished.
I too will be boosting the Aspects abilities. Mainly because my party is made up of level 5 Gestalt characters. They get to fight him in 2 weeks. I raised a few of his attributes, and maxed his hit points. I think my version has 130 hp.
When they first killed Theldrick I had the pool start to fizzle (much like a carbonated drink), they recently killed Grallak Kur and were talking of going to sell all the treasure they have found. (They litterally jingle when they walk). Well when the went into the Dark Cathedral they saw that the pool was now bubbling (like a hot tub with the jets on full blast). Plus the wizard deciphered Grallak's message. So they know something is being awakened. They have put their selling plans on hold.... for the time being >:)