So our group got Cretle hung. She was a freaking beast. Can anyone link me her stats? or is it against Paizo rules?
Sort of? I don't think there's a "rule" per se that's against it - but that being said, there's no actual place online where her stats are actually located. So no one can actually link you her stats.
That being said, I believe she's only CR 1 as written. Perhaps your GM either played her well or buffed her a little. You'll have to talk to him.
...And this is the first I realize that favored enemy now also adds to attacks as well as damage.
Ah well. I've run that fight twice now and both times it has been a slog. (Mostly because both groups decided that the best approach would be to bumble inside making as much noise as possible.)
Well looking at krestle:
ranger 2 =+2
Mwk hand axe =+1
Favored enemy = +2
16 Str = +3
weapon focus = +1
so she would be +9 with one hand axe, and +7 if she two weapon fights, against humans that is.
everything else of course +7/+5.
That is pretty nasty if your party is only level 1 when you get to her.
I can't remember what the level was (1 or 2) when this fight happened in our campaign..
I remember my wife's rogue doing a reconnoiter, and getting spotted. She tried to run but they got her in the throat with a crit arrow.
The monk basically ran across the entire bandit camp (dodge/mobility really helped here) to stabilize her.
The other three party members (a barbarian, a paladin and an wizard) started a fire in some wagons with alchemist fire and opened up with arrows from the other side of the camp.
Krestle first few rounds were taken up giving orders and settling confusion, and moving.
Krestle moved toward the downed rogue and the monk with I think three men.
The monk Stabilized the rogue, and then gave her a potion of healing (we allow force feeding potions, using a healing check so you don't drown the unconscious person, if, you roll poorly, you do damage instead of healing, so it's risky).
rogue was up and had time to drink another potion before krestle and her thugs were on the monk and the rogue.
Monk and Krestle squared off, but Krestle had a hard time hitting the monk (he was half-orc) but the monk couldn't hit her either, it was a biff fest.
Meanwhile the rogue had to fight off the three mooks.
Krestle only started to take damage when the wizard, at medium range started lobbing arrows at her from across the camp into melee (she was an elf with high dex) I think she even critted once.
Once the mooks were down (with the help of more arrows) the rogue and the monk teamed up on krestle, and the monk succeeded on a grapple and the rogue got in a few sneak attacks.
My memory of the fight is that above mentioned biff fest of really bad rolls between krestle and the monk, so I suppose it could have gone alot worse for us.
Eventually krestle had moved to swinging only one axe because she couldnt hit the monk (i think his ac was 18).
Effectively, the monk "tied" krestle up from wreaking alot of damage int he party, but it was just alot of bad rolls.
Against a party of humans, she can be devestating within a few rounds with some nice rolls, indeed!
I was trying to remember why she wasn't as big a threat the last go around (with an all human party) and then remembered it was because the sorceress slept her pretty early on in the fight.
It was still a tough fight, what with it being a 3 person party and there being nearly a dozen bandits shooting arrows at them, but it wasn't as devastating as it could've been. I think Kressle only got off one shot.
I am using the six person changes to the AP. I have five players, but gave them 20 point build. Also, one is a druid with a bear animal companion, and the paladin has a trained warhorse.
Kressle took two of them to negatives (they did stabilize) and the druid and bear were down to about 2 hit points each before they took her down. Everyone except the wizard took at least some damage.
I will say however, that I rolled very well, and the group rolled very poorly!
-- david
Papa.DRB
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(Both my stories use my 6 player conversions with 5 players on 20 point buy). In my RL game I had her take down a prone Oracle with a thrown dagger from 30 feet- a beautiful critical hit against a favoured enemy. She ended up going down fighting like an animal dual wielding her handaxes and being the last bandit to finally die.
In my PbP she managed to spring a partially successful ambush on the PC's trying to ambush her camp- things swiftly went south for her but her luck turned when she managed to cut down the Fighter/Bard and ransom him in exchange for her life. Some events involving her sister Karina (not part of the book, stuff I added in along with the Stag Lord lying to her about the deaths of her family) and some great deal of effort by the party have successfully redeemed Kressle, with a PC making an honest woman of her. There were some hairy moments though, including a public trial at Oleg's culminating in Oleg giving her 20 lashes in the middle of the trading post.
Even before the conversion she had quite nice gear and attack rolls. With the conversion she had favoured terrain (forest), which I tried to represent with her ambush in the PbP.
I'm glad to hear the little psycho wench gave a good account of herself in a few games. Unfortunately, in the one I'm running she went down like a chump before even getting a chance to use her axes. Sleep spells in the hands of a high Charisma sorceress really mowed bandits down in the early part of the AP, including Kressel. They did have fun interrogating her, though. I played her as an impossible to break psycho who taunted the PCs even after she was bound and helpless, threatened with death. Her last words before her well-deserved execution were "Are you going to try to talk me to death or what?"
KM has a whole string of memorable female villains (beware the Stripper from Hell), but Kressel ranks right up there with the best of them for personality and flavor.
I gotta say I rolled poorly for the encounter(which had a few extra bandits in there because my players are incredibly well-organized and deadly), but Kressle really didn't do too much damage to the party herself. She went out after being psuedo-tortured for information, and she did attempt to turn the party against each other as the started crying out loudly that she was afraid she was going to be sexually violated as they started going through her pockets, but that gambit failed.
Although I didn't change up Kressle overly much, one small change I made was that two of the bandits present were actually local hunters/wilderness trappers effectively press-ganged into providing food for Kressle's band, with the excess food going back to the Stag Lord. A great bit of RP and some unexpected NPC allies for cluing the party in on the villain of the book.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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Kressle and her group gave a great fight to my group. They sent in the ranger to recon the area, who failed all checks to remain unseen. She was then overpowered and tied up. All of the bandits were waiting in ambush, and the party took some huge hits.
Once everyone was through the bandits, Kressle showed up and wailed on the softened up fighter, but fell below 5hp and started to run. We did a chase scene, and the fighter ended up tackling her and knocking her out.
Back at Oleg, the party tried to convert her and three other bandits. She became friendly, and convinced the party wouldn't do her any harm if she behaved herself. The fighter though, special ordered an elixer of love. I did all I could to discourage his idea, but to no avail. Once he had his hands on it, he mixed it with the expensive booze and gave it to Kressle. We did some roleplaying, and I had him roll five Charisma checks (his Cha is 8) and he beat the DCs on three of them. Taking that result, I came up with a DC for Kressle to beat at the end of 5 minutes (the amount of time the elixer had an effect on her.) She failed. The Fighter of the group made out with her.
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First, I recast Kressle as a were-badger. Kressle ultimately escaped. Oh yeah, she wailed into the party for a few rounds, then when the tides were against her, she grabbed a fellow bandit, threw him at the PC that was fighting her and used him as a shield (cover) to give her a retreat w/o attacks of opportunity - jumped in the river and swam - none of the PCs had a swim score.
So she got away, much to Svetlana and Oleg's chagrin.
Later one of the PCs went off on his own, only to fall prey to a random encounter. He made a new PC.
I narrated that the last thing the PC saw as the random encounter critter (whiptail centepede) moved in for the kill, he saw a fierce woman jumping over a fallen tree with twin axes flailing.
He later woke up at the Stagg Lord's camp as a captive - and was systematically tortured for info. She also took her 'frustrations' out on him as well - showing her cruel matriachial dominance over men.
So when the PCs attacked the StaggLord's fort, they were well prepared for the PCs abilities thanks for the info they learned from the captive.
She used the imprisoned PC (now NPC) as a bargaining chip for her life when the PCs finally prevailed - by holding one of her axes to his throat. Once again she got away. Later, the party was horrified to learn that their now liberated once companion was a werebadger who first turned while the PCs were marching the repentant bandits back to Oleg's camp to start their new life - she killed two of the "good" bandits that swore fealty to the PCs. They had to kill their former companion.
Later she turned up in the new kingdom -
I replaced the werewolf event with a pair of were badgers.
They caught the man/boy, but the other they learned was Kressle -- who had turned him into one. They connected the dots,and realized she was who was responsible for their former companion's fate.
She is not well thought of by the PCs at this point and they have sworn themselves to slay her. She hasn't turned up since. We're almost done w/ book 2.
Though the PCs believe she is the benefactor that..
...hired Grigori.
Not sure yet how I wish to use her at this point. Will have her advance a bit as the PCs do - more ranger levels. But I am sure she has decided their kingdom to be her arch rival - perhaps she'll team up with ....
...Irovetti
Perhaps she's strike out at..
..Tatzleford first.
That will really fire the PCs up.
Robert