I'm considering throwing a Yuki-Onna at my PCs, because they're moving through an arctic area and I just think the YO is a cool monster. Unfortunately the Yuki-Onna is CR 8, which is a bit out of their weight class (party of six 3rd level PCs).
Yuki-onna:
Yuki-onna CR 8
XP 4,800
LE Medium undead (cold, incorporeal)
Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +17
Aura snowstorm (200 ft.)
DEFENSE
AC 21, touch 21, flat-footed 16 (+6 deflection, +4 Dex, +1 dodge)
hp 94 (9d8+54)
Fort +9, Ref +7, Will +11
Defensive Abilities incorporeal; Immune cold, undead traits
Weaknesses vulnerable to fire, snow dependency
OFFENSE
Speed fly 30 ft. (perfect)
Melee 2 touches +10 (4d6 cold plus chilling touch)
Special Attacks chilling touch, fascinating gaze
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 10th; concentration +16)
Constant—blur
3/day—cone of cold (DC 21), eyebite (comatose and panicked only, DC 22), ice storm
STATISTICS
Str —, Dex 18, Con —, Int 17, Wis 21, Cha 22
Base Atk +6; CMB +10; CMD 27
Feats Combat Casting, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Mobility, Spring Attack
Skills Bluff +15, Fly +12, Intimidate +18, Perception +17, Sense Motive +17, Spellcraft +15, Stealth +16, Survival +14
Languages Common
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Chilling Touch (Su)
A yuki-onna's touch causes 4d6 cold damage. Whenever a creature takes cold damage in this manner, it must make a DC 20 Fortitude save to avoid being staggered by the supernatural cold for 1 round. This duration stacks. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Fascinating Gaze (Su)
Fascinated for 1d4 rounds, 30 feet, Will DC 20 negates. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Snow Dependency (Ex)
A yuki-onna is staggered if she is ever in an area without snow while her snowstorm aura is suppressed or otherwise not functioning.
Snowstorm (Su)
A yuki-onna is surrounded by whirling blasts of snow, even in areas that wouldn't allow for such weather, that comprise a 200-foot-radius spread. Within this area, the snowfall and wind gusts cause a -4 penalty on Perception checks and ranged attacks. The wind itself blows in a clockwise rotation around the yuki-onna, and functions as severe wind. A yuki-onna is unaffected by snowstorms or blizzards of any kind. Any effect that causes these winds to drop below severe (such as control weather or control winds) cancels the snowstorm effect entirely.
They have limited range capability, and she has a Fly speed. So she can just hover and hammer them with her SLAs (that Eyebite should eliminate a couple of them tout suite). Then between her Fly and Spring Attack she can zip in and out and pick them off with her chilling touch. It's a recipe for a TPK. What to do?
Well... if I apply the Young creature template, she gets -4 Con, -4 Str and +4 Dex. In theory this would make her CR 7. In practice, it doesn't actually make her much weaker at all. She doesn't have Con or Str scores! And her spell-like abilities are all the same, she does the same amount of damage, and she's actually +3 on AC, which pretty much cancels out the lower hp. I like the creepy image of a young girl coming at you in a snowstorm, but Little Girl Yuki is every bit as deadly as Grownup Yuki. So, gotta do something else.
Okay, let's try this. (1) keep the Young template, but also take away a couple of hit dice. That'll reduce her from 9 to 7 HD, with accompanying drops in hit points, BAB, saves, and so forth. (2) Adjust her SLA and chilling touch damage to fit her new HD. (3) instead of Str and Con, lower her Wis and Cha by -4 instead. How will she look now?
Variant Yuki-onna (child):
Kid Yuki CR 7
LE Small undead (cold, incorporeal)
Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +13
Aura snowstorm (200 ft.)
DEFENSE
AC 22, touch 22, flat-footed 16 (+4 deflection, +6 Dex, +1 dodge, +1 size)
hp 60 (7d8+28)
Fort +8, Ref +8, Will +7
Defensive Abilities incorporeal; Immune cold, undead traits
Weaknesses vulnerable to fire, snow dependency
OFFENSE
Speed fly 30 ft. (perfect)
Melee 2 touches +9 (3d6 cold plus chilling touch)
Special Attacks chilling touch, fascinating gaze
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 8th; concentration +12)
Constant—blur
3/day—cone of cold (DC 19), ice storm
STATISTICS
Str —, Dex 22, Con —, Int 17, Wis 17, Cha 18
Base Atk +5; CMB +6; CMD 25
Feats Combat Casting, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Mobility
Skills Bluff +11, Fly +12, Intimidate +14, Perception +13, Sense Motive +13, Spellcraft +13, Stealth +16, Survival +10
Languages Common
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Chilling Touch (Su)
A yuki-onna's touch causes 3d6 cold damage. Whenever a creature takes cold damage in this manner, it must make a DC 17 Fortitude save to avoid being staggered by the supernatural cold for 1 round. This duration stacks. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Fascinating Gaze (Su)
Fascinated for 1d4 rounds, 30 feet, Will DC 17 negates. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Snow Dependency (Ex)
A yuki-onna is staggered if she is ever in an area without snow while her snowstorm aura is suppressed or otherwise not functioning.
Snowstorm (Su)
A yuki-onna is surrounded by whirling blasts of snow, even in areas that wouldn't allow for such weather, that comprise a 200-foot-radius spread. Within this area, the snowfall and wind gusts cause a -4 penalty on Perception checks and ranged attacks. The wind itself blows in a clockwise rotation around the yuki-onna, and functions as severe wind. A yuki-onna is unaffected by snowstorms or blizzards of any kind. Any effect that causes these winds to drop below severe (such as control weather or control winds) cancels the snowstorm effect entirely.
Got rid of the eyebite power and the Spring Attack feat, and dropped her chilling touch power to 3d6. Still pretty nasty against lower level characters, but to me she looks like a reasonably CR 7 opponent now. What think you?
Alternatively, have a big buildup so they KNOW they're about to face something deadly. They find a group of slaughtered travelers, torn apart, frozen solid, with some kind of obvious eye damage too. And only one set of tracks leading away. Make it bloody and gruesome and emphasize how this group of travelers looked well equipped and got ripped apart. Let them find a few useful consumable items, like a few potions, or a wand with only a few charges, or even a Necklace of Fireballs with just one or two of the low-level beads left on it. (Don't be afraid to let them find a small treasure hoard on these bodies - you can use this as Li'l Yuki's treasure, it is just that they find it before the fight instead of after, and you can even give them too much but some of it is clearly marked with engraved initials - for example, an engraved +2 sword - and very soon they'll meet a relative of the dead guy who wants his brother's sword back, and has the legal right to it and the might to take it if they refuse).
This will give them the warning that something wicked this way comes, and it's truly gonna be NASTY (make sure to play this up bigtime so they can't miss it), and it will also give them some temporary tools to help with the fight.
Side note, I have an all-white Akita named Yuki, so I love the title of your post.
I like the way you think, DM Blake. The scenario you're describing probably won't fit this particular encounter, for in-campaign reasons, but I like the cut of your jib.
One set of tracks leading away: incorporeal flying/floating undead, so not. But frozen solid, sure. Or, the YO's Fascinate power would allow stuff like "chase him out onto the thin ice, then Fascinate him so that he stands there gaping while the ice cracks under him". Yeah, find that guy first, maybe when you go down to the stream to get some water. Then his colleagues a bit upstream -- dead, frozen solid, expressions of terror on their faces, but not a mark on them.
The tracks leading away could be the sole surviving npc paladin, hunting the Li'l Yuki that slaughtered his companions, only to die horribly himself (with his engraved +1 ghost touch sword).
In any case, a creature this tough, even modified to a CR 7, is likely a TPK if the party doesn't have specific means of dealing with it like I described. Incorporeal is hard to handle at level 3, and so is flying (though I probably wouldn't even have it fly at all), and having enchantment types of powers will that take out the fighters, rogues, etc., really quick, probably before they even find the enemy (Stealth 16 and the PCs are all -4 or more to their Perception checks - it can take 10 and have a 26 DC to be seen, while I doubt any level 3 PC has enough Perception to make that roll with a -4 penalty, plus additional range penalties). Then it moves in (underground) and makes two ridiculously easy touch attacks against the party's cleric (it might be able to hit on a natural 2, or close to it), dishing out 6d6 (average 21 HP) which would probably drop a level 3 cleric, or very nearly - next round he's gone. Then it mops up the stragglers, still attacking from underground. With 17 INT and WIS, it will be smart and clever enough to use its powers to destroy a Level 3 group. And all of that didn't even consider using its deadliest ability, the 8d6 Cone of Cold that can be used 3 times to dish out 84 points of damage (average) to the whole party if Li'l Yuki is so inclined - I am sure the first time the party wizard spots it (if he EVER does, which is unlikely, though if the player is clever enough the wizard will ready a spell for the Yuki's attack at which time it breaks its own stealth) and hits it with a magic missile (force damage for full effect against incorporeals), it will retaliate with a 28 HP (average) Cone of Cold that will almost surely drop that wizard instantly (REF 19 is tough on level 3 wizards).
Final thought: If you play your child variant even close to its INT and WIS scores, with the abilities listed, your PCs are all dead. Maybe it's time to do a full rewrite, or just bag this creature for now and wait til the PCs grow up a bit first.
While challenging, I don't think Li'l Yuki should be a TPK unless the PCs roll badly or panic. Her only enchantment ability is the Fascinate, which spends a standard action to shut down one PC for 1-4 rounds. Her stealth means she probably gets a surprise round, but that just means she gets off a SLA first.
There are 6 PCs, and they're run by experienced players. They have a lot of healing -- anyone who gets dropped will bounce back up next round, unless Yuki actually kills them.
Losing the Spring Attack feat is actually a big deal -- it means she can't pop up out of the ground, hit a PC, and drop back down again. Correct play for her is to sneak up, stand off at a distance, and hit the party with SLAs. But once she runs out of those (3 shots), she'll have to attack with her chilling touch, and once she does that she'll be vulnerable to melee attack. The party tank has a magic weapon and the magus can magic-ize his. Half damage (and a 20% miss chance from her constant Blur) means it'll take several rounds to whittle down a creature with AC 22 and 60 hp, but OTOH they can speed things along with spells.
I agree that Cone of Cold is the big kicker here. Everything else, meh, they can survive. But 8d6 is a lot of damage; it'll probably drop the weaker characters and could kill the wizard with a single shot if she rolls high. Mind, a couple of PCs have racial cold resistance 5 (Aasimar, Tiefling), they have access to anti-cold magic (since they're in an arctic region), and they're tactically savvy enough to spread out once she zaps them. So it's not auto-kill. But if she's playing utterly brutal, then yeah -- Cone of Cold three times in a row is probably a fight-ender and TPK. Dropping her caster level to 7th would help a bit but it's still pretty powerful. Hm.
Let me add, I think the original version of the YO is a bit overpowered for CR 8. Spring Attack plus fly plus incorporeal is brutal, and her ability to stand off in the sky and pump Eyebites and 10d6 Cones of Cold would make her a real challenge even for 7th-8th level PCs. They'd eventually wear her down -- characters at that level can heal a ridiculous amount of damage -- but without a fireball-spamming sorceror or a missile paladin or something similar, they'd have a rough time of it first.
