Ran this last night with lots of problems.
#1: Shami has at will blasphemy. All of the PCs are her level or lower, so automatically dazed and losing 2d6 STR. So can't she just sit there doing that over and over until the PCs are out of STR? They're dazed, so can't attack back at all. She can then walk up and coup-de the helpless PCs.
#2: The Chokesnake has an AC of 39 and 39 hit points. Shami's AC is 40. There's no reason to attack Shami at all. One hit on the snake and it's likely gone -- which is what happened for me to make a really anti-climatic battle.
Ran this last night with lots of problems.
#1: Shami has at will blasphemy. All of the PCs are her level or lower, so automatically dazed and losing 2d6 STR. So can't she just sit there doing that over and over until the PCs are out of STR? They're dazed, so can't attack back at all. She can then walk up and coup-de the helpless PCs.
#2: The Chokesnake has an AC of 39 and 39 hit points. Shami's AC is 40. There's no reason to attack Shami at all. One hit on the snake and it's likely gone -- which is what happened for me to make a really anti-climatic battle.
Correct, she does indeed have at-will Blasphemy. However, Greater Spell Immunity should be available to the party's cleric (s), and by this point in the STAP that should be a pretty routine matter of course for that character to have up before engaging in a fight.
The pansy-ness of the choke snakes is why I added 2 or 3 more of the critters for my group, making her something of a challenge for longer than 3 seconds.
Of course, it is possible that the masters of trickery decide to disguise there presence for quite some time.
she does indeed have at-will Blasphemy. However, Greater Spell Immunity should be available to the party's cleric (s)Silence is also an excellent defense to Blasphemy.
Naturally - albiet at the expense of requiring Silent spellcasting on the part of the one whom is silenced. ^_^ Rather a steep trade off for most...