I think I might be overdoing it. (Upping the power on an enemy)

[Better_with_Bacon]

Good Morning Fellow Gamers,

So, I am boosting a villain in my Rise of the Runelords Campaign, and I've only added 2 levels to him.

BUT, it's pretty savage. And while the party consists of roughly 9 characters (Including NPCs and cohorts) this guy could theoretically one-hit-quit anyone he manages to strike...

Part of me wants to unleash it on the party, because some of them are kind of arrogant. But part of me is like; "C'mon man, this is supposed to be fun."

Jaagrath Kreeg

Spoiler:

Statblock includes his Rage, Power Attack, and Raging Brutality abilities as active

Jaagrath Kreeg CR 11
XP 12,800
Ogre Barbarian (Beast Totem) 9
CE Large humanoid (giant)
Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +11
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Defense
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AC 20, touch 7, flat-footed 20 (+5 armor, -1 size, +8 natural)
hp 230 (9d12+4d8+139)
Fort +19, Ref +4 (+3 bonus vs. traps), Will +9
Defensive Abilities improved uncanny dodge, trap sense +3; DR 2/—
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 35 ft.
Melee +1 bane (human) ogre hook +20/+15/+10 (2d8+44/19-20/×3+2d6 vs. Human) and
2 claws +14 (1d8+14)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks rage (27 rounds/day), rage powers (beast totem, beast totem, lesser, increase damage reduction +1, renewed vigor 2d8+9)
--------------------
Statistics
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Str 35, Dex 10, Con 28, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 7
Base Atk +12; CMB +21 (+23 bull rush); CMD 33 (35 vs. bull rush)
Feats Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (ogre hook), Intimidating Prowess, Iron Will, Power Attack, Raging Brutality, Toughness
Skills Climb +15, Intimidate +26, Perception +11
Languages Giant
SQ fast movement, tireless rage
Combat Gear potion of cure serious wounds (2); Other Gear +1 hide armor, +1 bane (human) ogre hook, belt of giant strength +2
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Special Abilities
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Beast Totem +3 AC (Su) +3 Natural Armor while raging.
Beast Totem, Lesser (Su) Gain 2 d6 claw attacks while raging
Damage Reduction (2/-) You have Damage Reduction against all attacks.
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Fast Movement +10 (Ex) +10 feet to speed, unless heavily loaded.
Improved Bull Rush You don't provoke attacks of opportunity when bull rushing.
Improved Uncanny Dodge (Lv >=13) (Ex) Retain DEX bonus to AC when flat-footed. You cannot be flanked unless the attacker is Level 13+.
Increase Damage Reduction +1 (Ex) While raging, your DR increases by 1.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Power Attack -4/+17 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage.
Rage (27 rounds/day) (Ex) +4 Str, +4 Con, +2 to Will saves, -2 to AC when enraged.
Raging Brutality (+9) Add Constitution bonus on damage rolls
Renewed Vigor 2d8+9 Hp (1/day) (Ex) As a standard action while raging, you can heal yourself the listed amount.
Trap Sense +3 (Ex) +3 bonus on reflex saves and AC against traps.

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What are your opinions?

Very Respectfully,
--Bacon

(edited for propriety)

[Indrajit]

I take it he was still pretty close to “one-hit-quit” any character prior to the two levels, and that they just pushed him over the edge? If so, you may want to, instead, consider throwing in a few minions for him. They'll be able to soak up some fire and allow the big guy to maybe get an extra round in, allowing for fear without insta-killing people (maybe).

Alas, I don't know the scenario nor encounter they have set up for him in the book, so I don't know that that is as easily done.

[Spastic Puma]

I noticed his will save is +9. Not awful but still a possible weakness. Improved iron will might be the insurance you need if you're paranoid of slumber hexes, save or sucks, etc.

[drbuzzard]

One question, is he by himself, or does he have lackeys?

If it is the former, the encounter will not be as bad as you might think. Likely someone is going to get hammered, but the guy will go down like a chump. With that AC and 9 PCs, he is going to be a pitiable victim of action economy. I run a table of 7 and keep running into this problem. You are pretty much always better off increasing the number of BBEGs rather than trying to make one extremely uber. That, at best if they win initiative, can make one PC into a pile of goo before the baddie goes down, but that's about it.

[Better_with_Bacon]

In the scenario, he will (likely be encountered on his own, but once reduced to X hp, he'll dash off (through) to get reinforcements.

If word gets out that the PCs are barreling through the stronghold, reinforcements come running, and then we've got all sorts of bad falling on the PCs

His allies that have taken the fort include:
30+ Ogres (minus the ones they've already dealt with)
6 Ogre Fighters (Level 7)
1 Ogre Oracle (Level 10)
That will all come to his aid. (There are a few of the ogre fighters who might join the PC's side, if they can be convinced that the PCs will let them take control of the tribe/clan... but there aren't many 'diplomacy' PCs... and the last two times the bard tried, he was shut down by one of the players...

Very Respectfully,
--Bacon

[ashern]

One quibble: power attack is listed at -4/+17 and should be -4/+12 when he's two handing and +8 otherwise.

The fort attack is a great scenario, hope your players don't try to rush in and take on everyone at once! (also I don't know what level your players are, but if they're level 9 breath of life is a wonderful amerliorative to the Splat effect that heavy hitters like Kreeg can do. That way you can destroy one of them and then the cleric can effectively bring them back to life. win-win)

[kBro]

There's a difference between scaling up and scaling out.

If you scale up (increase the power of the one enemy) then you risk a lot of problems. He could gain too much AC and be untouchable by all but the PCs with high enough to hit bonuses, which as a player is infuriating when you can't hit on anything but a 20 and feel helpless. You risk him hitting so hard that he can 1shot kill a PC from full to dead dead on a single crit or full attack, which is extremely frustrating as a player to get dropped from full to none in one round, and never getting a chance to even act. To a point you can scale up to increase HP so the enemy lasts longer, or increase AC enough so he's harder (but not impossible) to hit.

If you scale out, you add more bad guys for your PCs to deal with, which creates a more interesting combat scenario if the initiative is spread around. Your players will have the opportunity to play more strategically in who they focus. Does the rogue sneak around to try and disable the caster so they can't disable your fighter? Do the casters split their focus between AOEing the mooks and disabling the bosses? Does the fighter slam straight to the boss or take a round to great cleave through 4 mooks? But there is a danger to having more enemies, in that if multiple enemies gang up on a single PC, they can drop them just as fast as up-scaled single boss, but this can be lessened with good positioning and tactics.

When you have a lot of players, it's better to scale out more than up. It gives the players more to do in combat rather than "everyone hit this guy till he dead." If your players are smart and fight with tactics, make their enemies do the same. If your players have a predictable fight progression, make their enemies prepared for it (if a group of psychopathic adventurers always enter a fight the same way, word would get around). If your players are dropping enemies too fast, boost the enemies' health first, then AC to a point, and only boost damage if you keep in mind how much it takes to 1hit full kill the squishiest player. Also, pulling punches is never a bad thing in a situation like the BBEG getting two crits with a scythe and doing enough damage to kill someone twice over. There's also nothing wrong with your players playing smart, dropping multiple Hold Person on the big boss, and having the rogue coup de grace to end the fight quickly and cleanly (did this in one of my last campaigns, and prevented the alchemist from throwing bombs all over her lair and reducing the loot).

[Better_with_Bacon]

Depending on how this week's session goes, they will be very high 8th level, or very low 9th level.

Party consists of:
Hatashi - Human Samurai 6/Fighter 2
Alysangela - Half-Elf Sorcerer(Abyssal) 8
Andrew - Human Fighter 5/Ranger 3
Kiirn - Human Bard 8
Yurak - Dwarf Magus 7
Fagan - Dwarf Inquisitor (Desna) 6
Ylloura - Human Sorcerer (Draconic/Rime Blooded)5/Fighter 1
Kidala - Human Fighter (Brawler) 3/Rogue (Thug)3

Shalelu, Jakardros, Vale, and Kaven are NPCs that will probably help the party, but do so off-camera.

@ashern... you're right. I'll have to double check... Hero Lab did the math for me, so there might be something that I'm not seeing, or that wasn't copied into the statblock.

Very Respectfully,
--Bacon

[aegrisomnia]

Well, you've taken a big strong humanoid and given it one of the more powerful swingy hitty classes along with some of the better swingy hitty feats & powers. If your party lets him get close enough for any of this to matter, they're either arrogant, dumb or just unlucky. In the first two cases they have it coming, and in the last case... well, it's a game based mechanically on dice. Sometimes, you're gonna have a bad day.

[marcryser]

When my group played this particular scenario, this particular NPC entered a room where we had holed up. We heard him coming and had the two front line guys (dual bastard sword wielding 1/2 orc barbarian/rogue/fighter & dual waraxe wielding fighter/ranger/rogue) standing on opposite sides of the door. He stepped into the room, took our prepared actions, lost initiative to both flankers, and then died.

The GM took it pretty hard!

[Snowleopard]

marcryser wrote:

When my group played this particular scenario, this particular NPC entered a room where we had holed up. We heard him coming and had the two front line guys (dual bastard sword wielding 1/2 orc barbarian/rogue/fighter & dual waraxe wielding fighter/ranger/rogue) standing on opposite sides of the door. He stepped into the room, took our prepared actions, lost initiative to both flankers, and then died.

The GM took it pretty hard!

That is why bad guys always send in some lackeys to check for ambushes.

[Claxon]

My guess is this guy will splat one player before being completely destoryed. If you want to make this a real credible threat I would seriously remove the two levels you added and instead add like 4 6th level ogre minions to accompany him.

At 1 to 9 action economy ratios he will die before he can do much to the party. He has no form of crowd control on anything else. All he can do is run up and attack someone. He may be able to kill an opponent in a couple hits, but he is unlikely to be able to attack more than once if he is all alone. Your two sorcerers will likely see to that with some sort of magic targeting his will save.

[Better_with_Bacon]

I think I'll put him in the room with [Spoiler} Dorella and Hookmaw [/Spoiler] That way the other ogres nearby can join the fun too.

(And if the PCs face the ogres first, the named NPCs can join in the fun that way. DC 0 perception check to notice the sounds of battle after all.

Very Respectfully,
--Bacon

[Gilarius]

We fought this guy last week.

We had 5 PCs (Level 8) and one cohort. Plus the npc rangers loitering around.
We were quite sneaky and hadn't been detected before we attacked Kreeg, who had also been beefed up by our GM.

Kreeg got one round of fighting in before we'd dropped him, and the cloak of displacement (20% miss chance) on our lead fighter worked on every hit, negating over 150 points of damage.

No-one took a single point of damage from him. On the other hand, the noise we made attracted both the other named villains plus some minion ogres. One confusion spell resulted in half the rangers plus 2 PCs attacking the rest of the party and we were quite hard-pressed for a round or two before we'd taken out the baddies.

Overall, I'd second the advice of adding more minions instead of beefing him up, and maybe keep the npcs out of sight until/unless the party need rescuing. 8 PCs are a lot, so give them all something to do!

[Better_with_Bacon]

Appreciate the advice.

Spoiler:

I've got 6 'minion' ogres right across the hall from where Jaagrath is keyed for, and I have Dorella, Hookmaw, and Kirus Kreeg just down the hall. Dorella is a 10th level Oracle, and Hookmaw and Kirus are both 7th level fighters.
...
If that's not enough, if the heroes are loud and obnoxious, I'll have Lucrecia join in the fun. Her Fey bloodline and Spell Focus (Enchantment) should make her pretty burly. (Murderous command on the Fighter/Archer or Samurai should be pretty devastating.)

Can Murderous Command cause a character to use their special abilities? Rage/Smite/Challenge

I would almost feel bad if the Samurai decided to challenge the bard (Or Magus, or Sorcerer, or... anybody really).

Very Respectfully,
--Bacon

[Beopere]

Not sure if someone mentioned it, but his statblock doesn't seem to include the AC penalty of raging.

[Sarrah]

Can he use his weapon and claws in the same round?

[Better_with_Bacon]

What should he AC be? I'm seeing 22 AC, -2 for raging = 20. Am I missing something?

Unfortunately, no, he can't use his claws and his weapon.
(But, if he's disarmed, he's still got his claws)

Very Respectfully,
--Bacon

[Petty Alchemy]

As others have mentioned, one man bosses lose out from action economy. Give him multiple initiatives rather than a few extra levels, I'd say.