Aboleths are....letdowns?

[knightnday]

Ross Byers wrote:

I don't get the sentiment that if something isn't of an earthshaking CR it isn't big and scary. Take a party of 4th level characters and an Aboleth is one of the tougher things they might expect to actually defeat.

Given all the threads I see, all parties are optimized 20th level characters who single shot balors and dragons and Gods. If it doesn't have some super stats and high CR, people will laugh at it.

[Buri]

knightnday wrote:

Given all the threads I see, all parties are optimized 20th level characters who single shot balors and dragons and Gods. If it doesn't have some super stats and high CR, people will laugh at it.

I'll 2nd this.

[Icyshadow]

Kryzbyn wrote:

Axial wrote:

Linky

This article does a pretty good job of why the Aboleths don't really come across as terrifying eldritch abominations by the standards of the setting.

Linkified

...I am so going to make something of this article for a future campaign.

[Ross Byers]

knightnday wrote:

Given all the threads I see, all parties are optimized 20th level characters who single shot balors and dragons and Gods. If it doesn't have some super stats and high CR, people will laugh at it.

That sounds awfully boring.

[Major_Blackhart]

I remember one campaign we played, just a random type of adventure, the GM created an Aboleth that was some twisted variant not seen before: deep maroon-red scales with a lionfish-like set of fins and barbs, six barbed tentacles that always sparked with green eldritch fire, four black eyes arranged in a diamond fashion, and no normal tail but instead a strange combination of three long, thin appendages with fins along them to propel it through water, though they weren't capable of grabbing. He had a nasty sting, and always True Sight and Freedom of movement that couldn't be dispelled. He flew primarily. I believe the GM gave him levels in wizard.

He was so badass, but we never even fought him. He was a master mutator and manipulator, even going so far as messing up a few dragons (two in fact, tho both were young and easily made into believing they were partners and not slaves), wyverns, ogres, and several giant types and giving them some extra special abilities. He had a lot of fun with making frost giants have a natural fire resistance and the ability to exhude a torrent of snow from their mouths.

When we FINALLY confronted it, it simply laughed, said thanks for the memories, and proceeded to activate a self-destruct in what we thought was an island fortress with a dormant volcano, James Bond supervillain style. It wasn't dormant, apparently it was very active but suppressed through aboleth magics and arcane devices, which the aboleth deactivated using mage hand on a ceiling panel. The self-destruct was apparently to flood the entire place with Lava.

It was immune to the stuff, but at that point so was our half-orc Orc Blooded sorcerer (level 20 capstone Orc Bloodline ability baby!). Still, the rest of us were screwed, so as we attempted to find a plausible escape route, the sorcerer searched around, found some notes and tomes made of obsidian. One of the other characters noticed the panel in the ceiling and flew up to reactivate it. This stopped the flooding of lava into the fortress, but the volcano was still active. So we essentially had to escape as the place was wracked with constant earthquakes.

We did not bother trying to pursue the aboleth, and instead escaped the island as it was consumed by a massive amount of lava and wracked with earthquakes, splitting the mountain. Interestingly enough, we managed to make it back to the mainland some weeks away without further incident. When meeting with Pathfinder contacts, the pathfinders managed to translate the tomes our sorcerer had found as we continued on to Belkzen in order to change the face of our home nation and enter mythic rank.

The whole damn thing was apparently a bet between two aboleths about whether or not one's experiments of quick mutations would outdo the other's careful centuries of genetic manipulation to breed the best qualities in an individual. It was then that we realized the whole quest, mission, all of it that we'd been sent on, all of it meant that the Orc tribe we hailed from, the murdered child, was in fact controlled and manipulated by Aboleths.

Oh, and beyond pride, nothing of worth was wagered in the bet. Kind of like an 'I owe you a coke' type of gentleman's agreement between evil geniuses.

[knightnday]

Ross Byers wrote:

knightnday wrote:

Given all the threads I see, all parties are optimized 20th level characters who single shot balors and dragons and Gods. If it doesn't have some super stats and high CR, people will laugh at it.

That sounds awfully boring.

I agree completely, but it seems to be a commonly held belief. I like the aboleths myself and can see a number of uses for them. Standing in an open field as a combatant is not one of them.

[Ckorik]

Norgrim Malgus wrote:

I have had the pleasure of playing through Night Below so I understand what Aboleth are capable of. I know it wasn't intentional, but next time, try not to zero in on a single comment I made in response to a poster that made a humorous comment without seeing if I had made any prior posts indicating that they are indeed puppet masters. They pull the strings and people/kingdoms dance.

Sorry - I didn't mean it to come out directed at you specifically. More of a generality (so many posts about how they have to be advanced, given class levels, etc) to the fact that the big bad doesn't always have to be a big evil creature.

Moriarty wasn't a ninja with superpowers, but still managed to be the big bad to Sherlock Holmes. Sometimes giving your big adventuring group a bit of hubris by showing them the little guys can shake the world too is a proper way of doing a villain. That's what I meant. Again apologies if it rubbed wrong.

[The Golux]

Peet wrote:

An Aboleth religion`s domains would probably include some of:

Law, Evil, Madness, Trickery, Charm, Darkness, Water.

Any others?

Rune, Knowledge, Magic?

[Norgrim Malgus]

Ckorik wrote:

Norgrim Malgus wrote:

I have had the pleasure of playing through Night Below so I understand what Aboleth are capable of. I know it wasn't intentional, but next time, try not to zero in on a single comment I made in response to a poster that made a humorous comment without seeing if I had made any prior posts indicating that they are indeed puppet masters. They pull the strings and people/kingdoms dance.

Sorry - I didn't mean it to come out directed at you specifically. More of a generality (so many posts about how they have to be advanced, given class levels, etc) to the fact that the big bad doesn't always have to be a big evil creature.

Moriarty wasn't a ninja with superpowers, but still managed to be the big bad to Sherlock Holmes. Sometimes giving your big adventuring group a bit of hubris by showing them the little guys can shake the world too is a proper way of doing a villain. That's what I meant. Again apologies if it rubbed wrong.

Right on, again, I didn't think it was an intentional jab. I like when the lower tiered opponents can still cause problems for higher level PC's. If the Aboleth are the main antagonists within someone's campaign, there will come a time when creating more potent variations of Aboleth will be required. I believe that was the intent of the folks mentioning advancing/class levels in their posts.

Using Night Below again as an example, the Aboleth operated within a structured organization, hierarchy if you will. That CR 7 Aboleth answers to a higher authority, who in turn answers to a more powerful leader type and so on.

[The Beard]

It bears repeating! CR isn't always an accurate measure of power. That owlbear sitting in the corner is technically a CR 4. Ever see what happens to the party fighter if it gets ahold of him? Ya probably don't want to. Aboleths are similar to this. They don't "seem" imposing. ... Until they mind control the raging orc barbarian and it cleave spams your party to death.

[wraithstrike]

The Beard wrote:

It bears repeating! CR isn't always an accurate measure of power. That owlbear sitting in the corner is technically a CR 4. Ever see what happens to the party fighter if it gets ahold of him? Ya probably don't want to. Aboleths are similar to this. They don't "seem" imposing. ... Until they mind control the raging orc barbarian and it cleave spams your party to death.

Their(aboleth) combat abilities are not that great. Just like the succubus it has a high DC for a dominate type spell but beyond that they don't do a whole lot. They work better if you place minions in front of them, and I think they were designed to be used that way.

Personally I don't think their CR and their scariness from an in game point of view have to be connected, and a CR 7 is still strong for most adventurers. Players are looking at things from a PC and/or metagame point of view.

[Ravingdork]

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.
.

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Aboleth spellcasting class progression:
Hit Dice/Character Level - Class Levels - Challenge Rating

HD | CL | CR
----------------
08 | 00 | 07
09 | 01 | 07
10 | 02 | 08
11 | 03 | 08
12 | 04 | 09
13 | 05 | 09
14 | 06 | 10
15 | 07 | 10
16 | 08 | 11
17 | 09 | 11
18 | 10 | 12
19 | 11 | 12
20 | 12 | 13
21 | 13 | 13
22 | 14 | 14
23 | 15 | 15
24 | 16 | 16
25 | 17 | 17
26 | 18 | 18
27 | 19 | 19
28 | 20 | 20

Looks plenty terrifying to me.

At CR 20 it could easily have an intelligence score of 26-31, more if you apply the Advanced Creature template to it.

EDIT: Nevermind, it's +1 CR per 2 class levels until it has a number of class levels equal to it's ORIGINAL CR. My mistake.

Revised Progression:

HD | CL | CR
----------------
08 | 00 | 07
09 | 01 | 07
10 | 02 | 08
11 | 03 | 08
12 | 04 | 09
13 | 05 | 09
14 | 06 | 10
15 | 07 | 10
16 | 08 | 11
17 | 09 | 12
18 | 10 | 13
19 | 11 | 14
20 | 12 | 15
21 | 13 | 16
22 | 14 | 17
23 | 15 | 18
24 | 16 | 19
25 | 17 | 20
26 | 18 | 21
27 | 19 | 22
28 | 20 | 23

Yeah, a little bit less scary that...

[The Golux]

I thought the progression changed when class levels reached the monster's ORIGINAL CR?

[Ravingdork]

They do. How did you not see my edit when it was clearly posted before you ever started writing your post?

[Feros]

The first module I ever purchased was called Dwellers of the Forbidden City. It had all sorts of cool stuff in it, various plots that could be run through, no order in which the encounters had to be played. It was a true Sandbox Adventure.

There were several new monsters—never before seen in the game—which appeared at the end of the module. This was quite common at the time, and some were from the new Fiend Folio. Mongrelman, Tasloi, and Yaun ti were new; the Pan Lung and Yellow Musk Creeper (with Zombie in tow) were from the Fiend Folio.

Heading the mini-bestiary was a brand new monster, the Aboleth. It's entry was well detailed and the alien looking psionic creature bore little resemblance to a three-eyed fish.

The original encounter was with an Aboleth that was worshipped by the City's Mongrelmen as a god. It stayed hidden underwater in an underground river that ran past the tunnel the PC's were walking down. It put up an illusion away from itself that showed the path turning out into the river instead of on to a waterfall just ahead. Incautious characters would wind up in the drink and then tentacles would erupt out of an obscured mass of mucus, almost invisible under the water. It's ability to make people who got into it's mucus drown in air, change skin to a slimy membrane with a tentacles touch, and make people obey it utterly made it a very big challenge. Even if it started to lose, it would try and flee with enslaved PCs to it's underwater city many miles downstream.

Even today, with all the changes, I find the Aboleth still works best as an ambush predator. They are far too smart for a straight up fight. After all, in a fair fight the PCs might actually win!!! :)

[The Golux]

Ravingdork wrote:

They do. How did you not see my edit when it was clearly posted before you ever started writing your post?

Sorry, sitting on a page for a while before responding without refreshing.

[RJGrady]

wraithstrike wrote:

The Beard wrote:

It bears repeating! CR isn't always an accurate measure of power. That owlbear sitting in the corner is technically a CR 4. Ever see what happens to the party fighter if it gets ahold of him? Ya probably don't want to. Aboleths are similar to this. They don't "seem" imposing. ... Until they mind control the raging orc barbarian and it cleave spams your party to death.

Their(aboleth) combat abilities are not that great. Just like the succubus it has a high DC for a dominate type spell but beyond that they don't do a whole lot. They work better if you place minions in front of them, and I think they were designed to be used that way.

Personally I don't think their CR and their scariness from an in game point of view have to be connected, and a CR 7 is still strong for most adventurers. Players are looking at things from a PC and/or metagame point of view.

Aboleth has project image. They are their own minion of distraction.

[insaneogeddon]

In murky water, in the dark, layered behind at will illusory walls (DC 17), mirage arcanas (DC 18), persistent images (DC 18), programmed images (DC 19), and veils (DC 19)
Your attacked by a dominated monstrosity while also targeted by dominate monster (DC 22) through a at will project image.

If you get near it you have to deal with the once land dwelling creatures that are now dependent on its mucus cloud and have been slowly subdued through illusions/dominates/torture.

You get close you get slimed.

Only if you play them as lonely fish in a bowl that don't use their illusions with wit are they weak. No wit does that to any monster. Then a gain an aquatic synthesist summoner will pretty much role you and anything else.

[RJGrady]

Honestly, I've only used aboleths twice in a real encounter, because one time, it turned into a wampus hunt, and I nearly accidentally TPK'd the PCs with a "challenging" (APL+1) encounter. Project image is evil, evil, evil.

[Izar Talon]

Aboleth aren't something you encounter in a field in the middle of the day and have a toe-to-toe fight with. They are something you run into in a dark, flickering torchlit cave deep underground, on an island in the middle of a underground lake, on the edge of a stagnant moon-pool at the center of an ancient, twisted temple, in the shadow of a crumbling statue of an alien god with no name.

Think of Bilbo meeting Gollum in the cave under the mountain. Now replace Gollum with an Aboleth, and you will understand what makes themvterrifying.

Unfortunately, some people absolutely hate the idea of adding mystery or horror to the game because they simply cannot bear the thought that they might not be able to "win" their weekly accounting session of reducing the hit points of cartoon monsters to zero.