In my campaign, Obherak has been alerted that the PCs are on the way, and he's marshaling his troops and getting ready for the attack. As shaitan do, he's making plans, and what I'm realizing is... The layout of his base puts him at a serious disadvantage.
In the original draft (thanks for sharing, Jason!) shaitan had the ability to walk on walls, and it made perfect sense. But now they have earth glide instead. I guess they just move around inside the walls, instead of using the actual passages? Or climb? Make stairs using Wall of Stone and Stone Shape? How exactly does Obherak pass through the vertical 30' hallway to his chamber? If he just earth glides through the stone around it, then why even have the hallway? It all seems very awkward, and the central fane is almost perfectly designed to be bad news for the defenders in combat. Invaders are virtually certain to be flying. PCs will cast fly as soon as they see the layout of the room, and Obherak's historical enemy, Jhavhul, has an army of Jann and Efreet, both of which fly with perfect maneuverability. So do Proteans. Even Dillix, in the director's cut, has doppelgangers mounted on griffons and air elementals. Fighting flying opponents is not what Shaitan want; it takes away their bonus from earth mastery and turns it into a stiff penalty, it exposes them to ranged attacks, which they don't have a natural counter for except taking cover in the walls, and opportunities to bull rush flying opponents into the walls using stone curse are likely to be slim.
Now, Obherak may think that his hideout is so well hidden that the inside doesn't really need to be defensible. I personally think he's too smart for that. Given that the complex was written for shaitan with a different ability set... Has anyone made any modifications to make it more appropriate for the way the shaitan stat block turned out? Something that gives them the chance to use their best abilities, while shoring up their weaknesses?
I think given your concerns, the easiest fix would be to just restore their ability to walk on the walls. That could be either a way of describing how earth glide works (they stay submerged to their ankles, so stick), or it could be a side effect of Kakishon.
Read the description of area D2. This seems to suggest to me that the Fane was there before Obherak came in with Jhavhul's army. Obherak took it over and did not design it himself. As to why Obherak did not remake the area into something more defensible...*shrug*...that I cannot answer. Maybe the Nexian magic used to create the plane makes Stone Shape not work propery?
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Gordon has the correct interpretation. The shaitans did build it, but working with the operating principle that they could walk on the stone walls in any dimension. Since the final Bestiary version of the shaitan didn't retain that ability, the lair I designed for them to have built made no sense. I don't recall the text of the final adventure, so it may be so that in there it's stated as existing before Obherak got there. I can only speak to what I turned in, which was that it was a shaitan-built dungeon, built with their ability (which was dropped in the published version) in mind.
I'd suggest the easiest solution is simply to stipulate that THESE shaitans, for whatever handwave-y reason you like, do retain the ability to walk on stone walls, as Qualidar suggested above.
Ooh, handwavey reason: The earth seed. My players know it is there, and it is half the reason they want to go there. (More about that in another post, actually.) It has been established as the force that makes the sandrivers flow. So, its other ability is to give creatures with the (earth) subtype the ability to use subjective gravity within the complex that houses it. Thanks Jason, and others.