So there's a town the PCs are going to be sent to on a fact finding mission. It's a three layer deal. Long ago a few dwarven clans and their human allies found some rich veins of ore in Numeria and they pooled their resources and went hog wild getting rich. Then the dwarves hired some spellcasters to show up and stone shape the hell out of the played out upper tunnels leading to having more or less a two story underground city, the floor and roof both having buildings hanging or standing. The humans kind of didn't want to go all morlok and kept mostly to the aboveground city.
Then one of my campaign's big bads drifted through, murdered everythingish and opened a gate to the plane of water.
So a second level band of adventurers (sorcerer, barbarian/druid and gunslinger) are going to find a ghost town with half of a flooded city underneath to explore and loot.
Last time I almost TPK'd them with a young owlbear and again with one of the fin backed dinosaurs. I don't want to TPK them per se but I do want to challenge.
They'll be sick of elementals (small) after the game before this but I can justify any form of water thing with the gate open. Or underground people/things showing up to see what the deal with the sudden waterfall into the underdark is.
Suggestions?
A tribe of (albino?) grindylows, devilfish, and giant octopi that have moved in.
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It really depends on what you think would move into the city? Also, how long ago all this murder and flooding occurred.
Most of the stuff they face should have a CR of 1/2 - 2. If its kind of a newer game, I'd feel them out a little with some easier stuff and then ramp it up. Owlbears are kind of notorious in my games for being party killers.
I'd personally mix a few different sources - naturally occurring, undead arising from such a large number of individuals killed, and toss in a couple aberrations for good measure.
You could have them encounter a wounded Undine Cleric who was trying to explore the ruin and encountered two Akatas, then set the fight up next to a pool of salt water. Have the Undine tip them off to the Akata's weakness against salt water, or require a check for it, whichever.
The following are all CR 1 equivalent encounters, so you can tack on another 200 XP of monsters to make them a little harder, as needed. Pretty easy to adjust on the fly too, if you think its going to hard or easy.
3 x Dire Rats
2 x Giant Centipedes
3 x Giant Botfly
3 x Skeleton
2 x Stirge
Straight CR 1 creatures
Reefclaw
Sea Snake
Clawbat
Amoeba Swarm
Any of these can have a CR 1/2 creature paired with it to push their challenge up, and still be appropriate. I wouldn't be able to resist the urge to expose them to cholera while they were swimming around in water that may or may not include corpses.
Hopefully all of that isn't too general.
I was bitten (by a real life one of these) as a kid. Hurts like every kind of hell you can think of. This version, while only CR 3, can wipe a party out if they're not prepared. I very nearly caused a TPK with these things in chest deep water in a flooded chamber once.