I have just finished reading howl of the carrion king and have some worries about the final encounter. Xulthos really seems to me overpowered and i am wondering if the PCs, even if they make no mistake, can beat Xulthos.
Here are my guesses, from the stats i read :
- Any full round attack from Xulthos targeting a single character results in an instant death. A buffed fighter (or any high HP class) may survive one full round, but may die too.
- Xulthos has many hit points, a good AC improved with his daze and drone features. Some elemental damage mitigations are here to deal with the wizards massive damage. All of that make the encounter a long one.
- There is an high probability to have all PCs confused since round 1. A DC 18 will save is not an easy one, especially for all the "low will save/low wisdom" character classes. Fighter and rogue will probably be useless for a few rounds. Leaving cleric and wizard alone facing the melee war machine that will kill them one at a time every two rounds : one to move, one to full attack.
- This is a one try encounter. No retry after gathering information such as "next time, come with the silence spell prepared to negate drone". If the encounter fails, it's a TPK, or an evade from Xulthos.
All of that makes me think that even with a well balanced group of 4 or 5 level 4 characters, experienced and good players, it can easily result in a TPK, even with players making no mistake.
So, first of all, am I missing something?
How did this encounter ran for you that have already finished HotCK? Did you play Xulthos as-is, and it ran just fine? or did you use any trick to make it easier?
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I ran that fight about 3 weeks ago and I must say that Xulthos proved much too easy. I had a group of 4th level characters using the Beta rules. The group was:
Human Fighter
Half-orc Fighter
Halfling Rogue
Elf Wiz/Clr
Human Cleric
Haleen(NPC, and sister of the full Cleric)
Felliped the Bard NPC
Felliped and Haleen fell. The rogue was in Flanking 80% of the time, and the party had Xulthos down in maybe 5 rounds. It wasn't terribly tough...could also be that a I had rolled a few 1's. The party rolled 2 crits, one with a Great Sword and one with a spell. So it wasnt too hard. I imagine without the NPC's the group would have died terribly because by the end, only the full cleric and the rogue were standing with more than 9hp.
I would say lucky saves by the fighters really helped their cause.
Good luck in this fight, and hope it ends well!
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It's also incredibly important to remember that people are only confused as long as they remain within 50 ft. of Xulthos. This negates the big, big problem with confusion; that you can roll the 'flee caster at top speed' result a few turns in a row and then be stuck miles from the fight babbling, since many of the actions become impossible with no enemies in sight. With Xulthos, after fleeing once you're out of the confusion effect, and can plan your next move. Ranged fighters and casters can try to attack from the corridor to avoid re-entering his aura at that point, and if you do re-enter, you get another save.
Also, I doubt very much that a full attack from Xulthos is an insta-gib situation. Xulthos has incredibly impressive attack rolls, but no access to Power Attack. Hitting with all his attacks does a total of 6d6+15 damage; very high, but something level 5 characters - the suggested level for fighting Xulthos - should be able to take for a round or two. An level 5 fighter with Con 14 and average hit points per die has 42 hit points, requiring a roll of 28 on 6d6 to drop him in one full attack routine - and that's assuming all the attacks hit. Sure, a wizard taking a full attack will be shredded like paper, but that's one dumb wizard. Rogue is the sticky situation; an average of 30 hit points at Con 14 could render them vulnerable, but rogues also tend to have one of the better ACs in the party at low levels, and could reasonably hope for an attack or two to miss.
If you're worried about overwhelming your party, I'd suggest Xulthos directing his first full attack at a character you know can take it, just so people are aware how dangerous he is and can react accordingly, perhaps by fighting defensively or attempting alternate strategies.
Grimsh : 7 characters did the trick for you. I plan to play with five players, and i am not to found of taking NPCs along with them. Personal taste I'd say. Beside, Beta characters are a little more powerful than 3.5 are. It might have helped.
Ninjaiguana : I agree that fleeing is a good result for a confused character.
I was quite sure that the level required for this encounter is 4th. I read everywhere and found that on page 8 that "[PCs] should not enter the crypt under he church until they are 4th level" and on page 49 that "under no circumstances will [Almah] grant the key if they are lower than 5th level".
I definitely think that 5th is the right level for a group of 4 or 5 players. The "hit point bag" of the group is then able to take a full round (and beg for heal after that). And I will make sure that the first full round attack will be directed against the HP bag.
But i am still worried. A fighter has 75% chance to fail the will save, and i guess that with a fighter that saves the encounter is a great one, where PCs defeat Xulthos by a narrow margin, while with a failed will save, it becomes nearly impossible.
And while I am okay with the fact that this encounter has to be tough, I dislike the fact that victory relies on one single save of a single player.
Creative Director
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Almah witholds the key to the crypts precisely because of the fact that the encounters in there are really rough; PCs should be 5th level before they go in there, and if they did all of the encounters leading up to that point... they should be 5th anyway (assuming 4 PCs; if you have more than 4, the XP division is less per PC so you should have them do a few additional encounters to get up in XP if you need to).
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Ugrosh: I am normally not for taking NPC's with the group either, but because there was a reason (Haleen being the clerics sister, and Felliped being an idol to the Rogue because of the Pathfinder connection).
The group did not go in at level 5 like they are supposed to in the module, but everyone was so into it and wanted to figure out what had happened to Kelmerane and the church they begged Almah, who they party had become close with. She did warn them of the dangers and they knew the risk.
I must say it was a good encounter, but far from the most difficult they have fought in the AP so far (beginning The Jackel's Price tomorrow) and it has been one of the most memorable fights though.
The Beta characters are more resistant and have more options so it probably did account for a bit of an edge.
The encounter with the undead and the elementals in the undercrypt were a cakewalk for my group. The encounters in the Battle Market and with Bonegrinder proved 4x more difficult where there were nearly 2 TPKs.
Do be wary of the Will save though, because I do agree if they fail it they will be in a world of hurt.
Ah, Xulthos. Such a tough looking stat block. Such a pushover.
My group (5 players, PFRPG Beta characters) killed him and disabled Kardswan (again) without even getting hit. How? My dice apperently hate me. On round one, the wizard beat Xulthos on initiative and hit him with hideous laughter. I failed the save and Xulthos is basically done. The fighter and fighter rogue move in to seperate him from his hit points with ease. Kardswan shows up, under Xulthos's mental domination. Takes a swing at the wizard (he was closest to the entrance. Critical fumble (we use the Paizo critical hit and fumble decks). I don't remember what the fumble was but it really didn't matter, since the next round the wizard hit Kardswan with some enchantment, (Sleep? Was Kardswan only four hit dice? No, I think it was another hideous laughter.) and I failed that save, too.
Ah, well. If those spells never work, they're not worth using. At least the Carrion King was immune to enchantment.
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Ah, Xulthos. Such a tough looking stat block. Such a pushover.
My group (5 players, PFRPG Beta characters) killed him and disabled Kardswan (again) without even getting hit. How? My dice apperently hate me. On round one, the wizard beat Xulthos on initiative and hit him with hideous laughter. I failed the save and Xulthos is basically done. The fighter and fighter rogue move in to seperate him from his hit points with ease. Kardswan shows up, under Xulthos's mental domination. Takes a swing at the wizard (he was closest to the entrance. Critical fumble (we use the Paizo critical hit and fumble decks). I don't remember what the fumble was but it really didn't matter, since the next round the wizard hit Kardswan with some enchantment, (Sleep? Was Kardswan only four hit dice? No, I think it was another hideous laughter.) and I failed that save, too.
Ah, well. If those spells never work, they're not worth using. At least the Carrion King was immune to enchantment.
I agree, Xulthos was a pushover, if you can get lucky right away. Kardswann was nothing in this encounter either. We also use the Crit Decks from the GameMastery line.
The Carrion King in my game unfortuneatly met an all too quick death...stupid 1 on saves...
Thanks for reporting your Xulthos encounters. It seems that none of your group had a really hard time with him. I am quite relieved, while still interested in any testimony of some unlucky players or group.
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My group also had an easy time, but I was strapped for time and wanted to end the adventure, so there were no other encounters under the church, meaning the party was fully-rested when they faced him. There were some big hits by Xulthos, but the PCs succeeded on their saves against the drone so it ended up going pretty well, even with a three-person party.
I pictured this battle going poorly as well, but it ended up going better than I expected. If they had been hurt or had less spells, it could have been worse.
They are going to have an easy time next adventure though: the main fighter of the party is a Ranger with Favored Enemy: Gnoll +4, the Gnoll Killer trait and the All Gnolls Must Die! achievement feat. :D
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They are going to have an easy time next adventure though: the main fighter of the party is a Ranger with Favored Enemy: Gnoll +4, the Gnoll Killer trait and the All Gnolls Must Die! achievement feat. :D
Yours too, huh?
Our group found Xulthos a nice challenge. I'm using Pathfinder Beta rules, with double starting hit points and 25-point buy characters. The four-man party was level 4 and had just rested to full hit points when they encountered Xulthos. I multiplied Xulthos' hit points by 1.5. Kardswann had been killed by this point.
The monk went down, the bard went into single digits, the cleric spent most of the fight confused, and the ranger ended up fleeing down the hallway after taking one full attack. However, right after the ranger fled, the cleric's confusion allowed him to take a shot at Xulthos, which resulted in the fiend fleeing over the ranger, who then saw his chance and shot it down.
Xulthos' mandibles are now displayed over the mantelpiece at the party's manor in Kelmarane.
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They are going to have an easy time next adventure though: the main fighter of the party is a Ranger with Favored Enemy: Gnoll +4, the Gnoll Killer trait and the All Gnolls Must Die! achievement feat. :D
LOL 2 of my players have that. The House of the Beast was far too easy when the second PC got the feat.
I have just finished reading howl of the carrion king and have some worries about the final encounter. Xulthos really seems to me overpowered and i am wondering if the PCs, even if they make no mistake, can beat Xulthos.
Here are my guesses, from the stats i read :
- Any full round attack from Xulthos targeting a single character results in an instant death. A buffed fighter (or any high HP class) may survive one full round, but may die too.
- Xulthos has many hit points, a good AC improved with his daze and drone features. Some elemental damage mitigations are here to deal with the wizards massive damage. All of that make the encounter a long one.
- There is an high probability to have all PCs confused since round 1. A DC 18 will save is not an easy one, especially for all the "low will save/low wisdom" character classes. Fighter and rogue will probably be useless for a few rounds. Leaving cleric and wizard alone facing the melee war machine that will kill them one at a time every two rounds : one to move, one to full attack.
- This is a one try encounter. No retry after gathering information such as "next time, come with the silence spell prepared to negate drone". If the encounter fails, it's a TPK, or an evade from Xulthos.
All of that makes me think that even with a well balanced group of 4 or 5 level 4 characters, experienced and good players, it can easily result in a TPK, even with players making no mistake.
So, first of all, am I missing something?
How did this encounter ran for you that have already finished HotCK? Did you play Xulthos as-is, and it ran just fine? or did you use any trick to make it easier?
We just fought Xulthos last week, 4th level paladin/fighter/druid-sorc/ and bard. bard countersongged the confusion effect, fighter and paladin drank potions of haste. It was a hard fight, almost one round killed the fighter. Paladin smited for like 30 damage and failed the miss chance, but about 3-4 rounds we killed it.. the sorcerer gave the ultimate taunt and used open/close to shut the door when xulthos tried to flee.
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This was a very difficult fight for my group.
We were using the Pathfinder beta rules.
5 level 4 PC's: Monk, Ranger, Wizard, Rogue and Cleric.
I figured that 5 level 4's would be roughly the equivalent of 4 level 5's...
They chose not to bring any NPC's with them.
Every single character failed their Will save, so they were all confused for the entire fight.
Unless my eyes are cheated by some spell, there is no "run away from caster" effect in the Pathfinder Beta version of Confusion?
Xulthos almost always hit with all attacks, and was doing about 40-45 points of damage per round.
Because of the confusion, characters were only effective against him 25% of the time. The rest of the time was spent babbling incoherently (25%), mutilating themselves (25%) or attacking another party member (25%).
What I ended up doing was halve Xulthos's melee damage. Even so, it was a near-TPK. At the end, we only had the ranger and the wizard still standing.
For sure, if you have some super-duper fighters in the group, and they make their will saves, the fight will be much easier.
And for sure, if on round 1, Xulthos fails his save against a disabling spell like Hideous Laughter, the fight will be easy... that's a given. Doesn't mean that he's a pushover.
This was a very difficult fight for my group.
We were using the Pathfinder beta rules.
5 level 4 PC's: Monk, Ranger, Wizard, Rogue and Cleric.
I figured that 5 level 4's would be roughly the equivalent of 4 level 5's...
They chose not to bring any NPC's with them.
Every single character failed their Will save, so they were all confused for the entire fight.
Unless my eyes are cheated by some spell, there is no "run away from caster" effect in the Pathfinder Beta version of Confusion?
Xulthos almost always hit with all attacks, and was doing about 40-45 points of damage per round.
Because of the confusion, characters were only effective against him 25% of the time. The rest of the time was spent babbling incoherently (25%), mutilating themselves (25%) or attacking another party member (25%).
What I ended up doing was halve Xulthos's melee damage. Even so, it was a near-TPK. At the end, we only had the ranger and the wizard still standing.For sure, if you have some super-duper fighters in the group, and they make their will saves, the fight will be much easier.
And for sure, if on round 1, Xulthos fails his save against a disabling spell like Hideous Laughter, the fight will be easy... that's a given. Doesn't mean that he's a pushover.
Pathfinder bard countersong for the win.. We were worried also on that confusion b/c it has no duration it just stays on, that Xulthos could kill an entire party on bad saving throws. He was mean but now he's going to be two medium breastplates with a 10% miss chance...
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For those who say the fight was a pushover, I wonder if they ran the droning as an aura or as an ability that had to be activated?
This was a very tough fight for my group (fought last night) because of that aura and the high BAB of the monster. Two people immediately failed their saves (and there is no fleeing from confusion under the PFRPG). The ones who made their saves (a cleric and a ranger) had not a chance of beating the thing.
Furthermore, there is some confusion in the book as to what level the party should be before going down - the beginning of the adventure says 4, the beginning of the episode says 5. I went with 4 because they had just leveled up at the end of the Battle Market.
The only reason it was not a TPK was because I use both action and hero points in the game and they were heavily used to make additional saving throws and avoid being killed in round two of melee. The cleric also had the good sense to take an action to cover the ears of the sorceror in round 4 of the fight after he had beat himself up some and attacked her some and he (on his third attempt) made his saving throw. The daemon however did not miss with a single attack and scored two criticals. At the end of the fight, both the fighter and the ranger had exactly 1 hp (and again thats only because of Hero Points that allowed them to remain at 1 hp instead of dropping). The Critical deck did come into play at the end of the fight as well when the ranger criticaled with her long sword, knocking the daemon prone. It was killed from AoOs when it tried to rise to flee.
All in all a very memoriable fight but it was very nearly a TPK.
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Pathfinder bard countersong for the win.. We were worried also on that confusion b/c it has no duration it just stays on, that Xulthos could kill an entire party on bad saving throws. He was mean but now he's going to be two medium breastplates with a 10% miss chance...
I am the DM for Grasshopper. I gave Xulthos Full HP and they CRUSHED him still.
Our group crushed Xulthos. Of course we were buffed to the max before going and and then my hasted barbarian, with the flanking rouge on the other side, chopped him into little bits.
We both made our saves, the spellcasters stayed just outside of the room and hit him with long range stuff.
He hit hard, but my enlarged Barbarian with the greataxe hit alot harder, especially with 2 attacks per round.
It took us 4 rounds to take him down.
I just ran this for the family a few weeks ago, so I still have the notes. The 4 main PCs were at 5th level. They also brought along 3 NPCs who were at 4th (Haleen, Filliped, and Oxnard). On one hand I thought the group was too big. However, I felt it was too odd to build up this evil entity that destroyed a town, but then not allow the PCs to bring all of their resources to bear.
At any rate, the group buffed at the door, and won intiative. Xulthos took down Haleen and a summoned dire bat, but died in the third round.
All the cool kids have troglodyte avatars.
I am the DM for Grasshopper. I gave Xulthos Full HP and they CRUSHED him still.
Pathfinder bard countersong for the win.. We were worried also on that confusion b/c it has no duration it just stays on, that Xulthos could kill an entire party on bad saving throws. He was mean but now he's going to be two medium breastplates with a 10% miss chance...
I'm another player in this game. We got lucky in several ways. We have a bard, Xulthos split up his attacks, and we had a three prone attack front due to my animal companion. Xulthos also failed a will save versus a sound burst spell which bought us a round that the fighter got healed in.
We had:
Druid 3/sorcerer 1
Fighter 4
Paladin 4
Bard 4
In addition when we were told what we needed to do by Alma we went and bought some potions of haste to take with us, and managed to activate some sort of blessing by:
Reburying the Hecuva.
Which had the direct result of the fighter not dying. Xulthos didn't get to use any special powers he might have wanted to use since the fighter closed on the first turn, withdrew on the second (after getting smashed hard) when the paladin charged in.
Just the right party to bring to this battle (we've had a lot of luck like that to date... we've just done the right things a lot).
However, I think this was mostly a case of dice going good for us, bad for him.
I think I was much more worried about it than anyone else in the party but I tend to expect the worse (bad habit left over from some bad DMs in the past).
My party had a hard time with Xulthos, too. The 5 PC’s (Pathfinder rules) lacked the XP for 5th level, so I decided to give them an in-game level-up at the doorstep of the funerary chamber. Before that, the encounter with the
Enter Xulthos. Everyone but the monk got confused in the first combat round, and most of the characters started to attack each other. Meanwhile the monk alone faced the fiend, but soon realized that it’ll be healthier to help his comrades first. Most of them succeeded with the additional saving throw granted, and in a last-ditch attempt they slowly turned the wheel. In the end, Xulthos managed to flee, avoiding all AoOs...
Both the high BAB and the diverse defenses of the daemon made it a tough fight near a TPK. But - it was a party of “4.5-level” characters.
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Due to the sandbox (heh heh) nature of my Katapesh Nights campaign, my party didn't get to Kelmarane until they were 4th level (5 out of 6; the new PC is rgr3). This is a good thing; if they had been any lower level, Xulthos would have wiped them.
As others have pointed out, Xulthos deals ludicrous damage on a full attack, particularly with his high to-hit bonuses. Both the monk and the paladin had to withdraw from melee for healing after absorbing one round of his full attack damage.
Additionally, the elemental resistances really blocked a lot of the magical targeted damage that the party normally brings to bear. Both the wizard and the druid felt particularly ineffective when their best damage spells had almost no visible effect.
Ultimately they were only able to take him down due to the large chunks of Smite damage that the paladin was able to inflict in some of the rounds, combined with a constant barrage of arrow fire from the ranger -- Xulthos' only weakness is a lack of DR that would allow him to withstand ranged weapons fire.
When my party fought Xulthos, they were the appropriate level according to the advancement track. Their initial actions were likely what won it for them. When the doors popped open and the fight was on, the rogue and ranger/rogue advanced to flanking positions, the wizard dropped a flaming sphere and the cleric enlarged the fighter who played cork in the hallway's bottleneck. Xulthos, unable to simply move past the enlarged armored dwarf, was forced to full attack repeatedly, in the hopes of mowing him down. Unfortunately, the cleric was capable of casting from nigh complete safety, only having to take saves against the droning. There was a hairy moment where the cleric finally failed a save and a couple of the others were confused, but by this point Xulthos was low on his maximized hit points, and a final shot managed to end him.
I'd not worry about it. Xulthos is a bit of a glass cannon, albeit one with some neat tricks. The one your party should be worrying about doesn't come until House of the Beast. Ghartok is a bad, bad gnoll.
I SOOO cannot wait to discover what my players will do to Xulthos...or vice-a-versa!
Xulthos slaughtered 3 of my 6 PCs, the rest had to flee. Both the cleric and fighter (4th level) were dropped in 1 round of full attacks. 5 of 6 feel to the Confusion.
I didn't see a definitive answer above, but the SU drone ability seems like a free ability - if he flies, he's doing it.