RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I am sure everyone can guess it is the demilich.
I am a player in a COTCT game, but I also have a great amount of GM experience. I can see both sides of the argument of why it was designed the way it was, but I feel the encounter was not really fair to the player, who are the most important audience in this industry.
As a GM, I understand the need for a difficult encounter like the Demilich. I ended up finding a place online that had just the demilich's stats and the sidebar by James Jacobs (who I highly respect,) after the encounter was resolved in my game. I noticed that Mr. Jacobs even stated that the fight was quiet possibly too hard for the party, but felt the need for the fight to foreshadow future events.
What shocked me was that the demilich was nigh impossible to harm, and that he held some really, really powerful spell-like abilities that made him impossibly deadly. He was immune to almost all energy attacks, had DR 20/-, and spell immunity. That, I wasn't so bother by. I bothered, rather, by the fact that his attacks forms almost all focused around instantly killing his foes with death effects.
Not only that, but any death he brought about was permanent.
So what happened in my parties fight? He hit our druid with one of his spells, the player rolled a 1 for his saving throw, and that was it for that character. At the end of the fight we find out it is permanent, no chance of raising him, and that even more powerful spells are useless. I give the player some big credit for taking it really well. He was already looking through books for a new character concept when I was leaving his house that night.
If it was me, I would be furious, and I don't become angry easily. Why would I be furious? Because not only would I lose a character just because of one bad roll, but because a character I just invested 13 levels and one year of playing has no chance of being brought back no matter what my party did.
Personally, I really dislike instant, save or die death effects. I was happy Pathfinder made some changes in attempt to fix that, but I am still not sure it enough. This is a totally different matter though, and should be a separate discussion.
No player likes feeling useless or hopeless. This is often seen in situations where the players are told a flat out no when the normal expectation is yes. Saying that a character cannot be raised with anything less then a wish (and even then it is questionable,) is one of those situations.
So what would I change if I could?
- The DR to 20/+2, 20/+3, or 15/-.
- Change the energy immunities to high resistances. Like 20 or 25.
- I might keep the spell immunity, or just up the spell resistance to something really high and hard to beat.
- Add more spells, but make them more varied in nature and purpose.
- Stress the fly speed and it's use in the battle.
The above suggestions are not really about nerfing the lich, but about giving the players more hope while still making the fight difficult. Being told over and over again that the player did nothing and that there is nothing they can do to bass pass that defense can make players feel useless. Providing a way to overcome them, even if the way is a longshot, gives players hope and encourages them to stay involved in the battle.
Now, what about that permanent death effect?
Want to make it more difficult then normal still? Fine, lets make it difficult or even near impossible.
Here are some ideas; each of them involving those cool and expensive gems that were in the skull. Some of the gems gleam while other didn't and the surviving members of the party noticed the gems started to glow when a soul was taken.
- One of the items in the demiliches den allowed for it to bring back people it slayed to full life. This would be to raise mortal servants, and each person raised would be under the command and control of the lich. Only the souls in the stones can be raised this way, and the artifact that does this only has one or two more charges. The problem is, the demilich has kept several souls in the stones for this purpose for a while now and there are more then just the parties souls. The party has no way of knowing which souls are the right ones unless they have the right divining spells, knowledge check, or help from an NPC. Choose wrong, and the wrong soul is raised, which would be a good way introduce a new PC. Choose right and the PC is raised.
- The genie, which I honestly know little about and have not yet fought fully (we ran away from him once already,) could provide a good resource for raising a PC. Once defeated and released, the genie could offer a reward for his release. One or two wishes to raise one of the fallen foes in the gems. One could possibly even have the situation in the first idea, where the wrong gem means the wrong soul.
- An NPC outside of the castle could offer their services at a high price to raise a PC. This would be a less favorable option, as a player would have to sit out the game longer to wait for an opportunity to come back in.
So in short, don't make players feel useless. Give them hope that they can overcome the odds, instead of denying them options normally there. A fight can still be challenging if you weaken the demilich a bit. Lastly, changing the permanent death to a difficult to return from death will help the players feel better about their losses.
2. Wail of the Banshee is a death effect. Death Ward negates this completely.
So does a silence spell.
The fact that he just sits there until someone 'disturbs his remains' means you can just plainly see him sitting there and can do all of the pre-combat buffing and knowledge checks you want before you go wake the sleeping tiger.
In addition,
If the demilich is overcome before the soul is eaten, crushing
the gem releases the soul, after which time it is free to
seek the afterlife or be returned to its body by the use of
resurrection, true resurrection, clone, or miracle.
and on top of that I know you're a player and it was probably frustrating but the GM has a handy sidebar titled "The Demilich: Handle with Care" directly beside the monster's stat block that suggests making the encounter easier to match the tastes of your party.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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And I was just taught a lesson in gathering information before posting.
1. The demilich only has 10 HD which means a PC with Knowledge(religion) can find out everything there is to know about a demilich with a DC 20 check. This knowledge will allow the players to prepare a sound strategy.
Slight correction. DC to find out information on a monster is 10 + the CR. For rare creatures, like a Demilich is 15 + the CR, or even higher if the creature is completely unique. The CR to discover something out about the demilich should be about 29-34. My group failed all checks, the highest roll gave us only that it was a demilich, only a few have been encountered, and that Iomedae defeated one.
One issue with relying on knowledge check is that you are relying on a die roll. If the dice fail, and that was the only way to gain information, then the players will be in the dark. I liked the suggestion that additional sources of information should be found in other parts of the castle about what to find. The three rule of information gathering is excellent way to give players every chance to be prepared.
2. Wail of the Banshee is a death effect. Death Ward negates this completely.3. Trap the Soul is a conjuration so death ward won't help. There is a Fortitude save though, so that's something at least, plus the trapped soul can be recovered within 24 hours if the lich is destroyed. Aside from this, yes, this is a devastating ability.
4. The demilich does nothing for the first round of combat. During this period of time if the players have researched Scarwall properly they can dispel the spirit anchor and never have to fight the demilich at all. This is basically the preferred way of dealing with the demilich. A to to toe fight is not.
5. The demiLich is a classic D&D monster. The reason it is in Scarwall at all, I would guess, is because it is a classic D&D monster. If it didn't kill PCs it wouldn't be a classic. Sorry, but every once in while PCs (and parties) have to die, horribly. This is what makes the legends and stories. Unfortunately one of your players characters had to make the sacrifice. Make sure to thank him for adding to the legend for the rest of us ;)
2, 3, and 4 require that players to know the right information ahead of time. Death Ward and Silence need to have been prepared at the start of the day. The spirit anchor being turned off would only help in teleporting away, but there is little preventing people from running away.
I don't mind deadly encounters, that wasn't my issue. It was the pure reliance on instant kill death effects and the destruction of the soul. It appears that I need to wait until my group finishes scarwall, so that I can read the encounter in its entirety. I seem to be missing information on how the lich destroys souls and prevents raising the dead.
Thank you for your help, I appreciate it.
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And in general, players probably shouldn't be posting in this group. It could be tempting to read some other thread than your own (maybe someone else talking about the same thing) and have spoilers revealed to you. I know you marked your thread with "(Spoiler)" but I presume only GMs are here and I typically don't add that to my threads.
My party avoided the encounter entirely. They saw the skull, the pile of dust/ashes, and the stuff scattered around the obvious temple/shrine -- and ran in the opposite direction. Darn. >D
I'm not too turned off by save-or-die effects, as a player or as a GM. Death is part of life. Yes, it sucks when you think it has happened prematurely. But if death weren't possible, where's the sense of accomplishment upon surviving? It's like playing a video game and knowing that you only have three lives and then it's "game over". Players should be aware that they've only got X number of lives and eventually they could encounter a creature whose special effect is "game over"...
I got killed by the demilich. We were death warded up on general principles (didn't know there was a demilich on there but it's not like everything else in Scarwall didn't need it) but I got hit by the trap the soul; luckily the rest of my party killed it and broke the gem and took me back to get raised. On the one hand, you pay your money you take your chances - on the other hand, this turned into a somewhat lame hiccup in the story's progression. If it had been "permanent death" I would have been pissed - our games don't involve lots of raising, that's the only raise we've done in an AP yet as far as I can recall, so it's unusual and restricted enough for us.
I upped the HP of the Demilich to 90 HP and ruled that DR would still apply to the Paladins Smite Evil.
The Paladin still four-shotted it.
2. Wail of the Banshee is a death effect. Death Ward negates this completely.
Was true in 3.5.
Last time I checked Pathfinder's Death Ward, though, the spell was nerfed down to granting a +4 morale bonus to saves vs. death effects....or am I missing something important?
2. Wail of the Banshee is a death effect. Death Ward negates this completely.Was true in 3.5.
Last time I checked Pathfinder's Death Ward, though, the spell was nerfed down to granting a +4 morale bonus to saves vs. death effects....or am I missing something important?
Yeah. Curse of the Crimson Throne was built with 3.5 rules. So if you're using the Wail of the Banshee death effect of 3.5, you should be using the death ward effect of 3.5
In Pathfinder, Death Ward does give you a +4 morale bonus to saves vs death effects. But in Pathfinder, Wail of the Banshee also only does 10 damage per caster level (which can be impressive at levels 17 and 18) but isn't a death effect.
2. Wail of the Banshee is a death effect. Death Ward negates this completely.Was true in 3.5.
Last time I checked Pathfinder's Death Ward, though, the spell was nerfed down to granting a +4 morale bonus to saves vs. death effects....or am I missing something important?
Yeah. Curse of the Crimson Throne was built with 3.5 rules. So if you're using the Wail of the Banshee death effect of 3.5, you should be using the death ward effect of 3.5
In Pathfinder, Death Ward does give you a +4 morale bonus to saves vs death effects. But in Pathfinder, Wail of the Banshee also only does 10 damage per caster level (which can be impressive at levels 17 and 18) but isn't a death effect.
Uh, yes it is. It says so right in the descriptor of the spell.
Wail of the Banshee
School necromancy [death, sonic]; Level sorcerer/wizard 9
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one living creature/level within a 40-ft.-radius spread
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Fortitude negates; Spell Resistance yes
The much more interesting ( and a bit overpowered, IMO ) aspect of Death Ward is that it makes you completely immune to negative energy damage. That leaves Belshallam at about a third of his power, IMO, if the party happens to have Death Ward up by chance. In my campaign, he almost took out two PC's immediately with his first breath attack. They barely survived.
Uh, yes it is. It says so right in the descriptor of the spell.
Yes you're correct. It's not a save or die, but it is a death effect.
Not to mention, the start of the adventure gives each character a single get-out-of-death-effect-free card, pretty much for exactly this encounter...