ABOLETH: Y U NO FUN?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Is it just me or does the Aboleth feel, well, weak? And any other monsters you guys and gals can think of that give you the same feeling?


8 people marked this as a favorite.

I have to say I disagree. If you're not walking around with A Magic Circle Against Evil already up, you're going to be fighting your own Fighter (or Alchemist, or Rogue) very soon, and it get's worse from there. Also, the Aboleth will have brought minions. Also, it's not actually in the fight, it's 200' away behind an illusion, you're fighting a Projected Image, and a loss is just a nuisance for the creature.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

Oh man, don't let the aboleth hear you...

But seriously, I don't find the aboleth weak at all. In fact, for its CR, it's a pretty strong monster I think. Not the highest attack bonus, but it gets 4 attacks which can hit for ok damage and if just one of them hits you have to save against that nasty slime effect (and the DC is pretty high). Furthermore, its dominate person spell has a really high DC for its CR and that spell is wicked. Beyond that, it has average AC and health plus a good amount of cool spell-like abilities.

And remember that the aboleth in the bestiary is the base aboleth. They're like the level 1 commoners in human society; there are plenty of stronger aboleth out there.

If I sound like an aboleth fanboy, I guess I kind of am :P But hopefully they'll take pity on me when they rise up from the depths...

Edit: Also, as for monsters that feel weak...none really leap to mind. The way I would compare them is based on other monsters of the same CR. I'm sure if I really looked I could find some, but I think monster design is one of paizo's biggest strengths.

Silver Crusade

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pupsocket wrote:
I have to say I disagree. If you're not walking around with A Magic Circle Against Evil already up, you're going to be fighting your own Fighter (or Alchemist, or Rogue) very soon, and it get's worse from there. Also, the Aboleth will have brought minions. Also, it's not actually in the fight, it's 200' away behind an illusion, you're fighting a Projected Image, and a loss is just a nuisance for the creature.

200' away, with an illusion, underwater .

Do not neglect how much of an absolute pain in the ass it is to engage these things in a flooded underwater environment, even if you can breathe the water.

What you end up with (barring aquatic PCs or freedom of movement) is a huge, reach equipped, jetski with mind-control powers running hither and yon while your group flounders in attempts to move at their base swim speed (if anyone even bothered with the skills for it) while at penalties to attack with the most common weapons they're using.

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.

An Aboleth's strengths are not geared towards straight combat. Throw one randomly into the combat ring and it's not going to shine. Enter a city where one has been living in the sewers for the past 5 years it's goingo to be a much different story.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

It needn't be underwater. It could just be a fight in a swamp.
Swampy terrain fights SUCK.

4 squares of movement, you can't Tumble, the aboleth has cover. It is 200 feet away and you are fighting aboleth illusions as he hits you with DC 22 Will saves or be Dominated (Jesus!) uggh.
Just uggh.

BogBoleths can be rough.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
9toes wrote:
Is it just me or does the Aboleth feel, well, weak? And any other monsters you guys and gals can think of that give you the same feeling?

I will say this for you, the Aboleth is counterintuitive to most creatures that could go against a party in solo combat. Most of the others are designed to simply last a couple rounds with their hit points and defenses, doing direct damage to the party. See Tarrasques, Ropers, Dragons, Oozes etc. The aboleth requires a bit more finesse than those things. They require an element of surprise stemming from a clever use of their illusion magic.

My favorite way to use them is not to put them underground or underwater, but use their magic to put them in an entirely unexpected setting. For example, that grand chandelier in the Duke's ballroom? It's actually an aquarium with an Aboleth in it.


And a whole cult of half-skum slaves too

Scarab Sages

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Victor Zajic wrote:
An Aboleth's strengths are not geared towards straight combat. Throw one randomly into the combat ring and it's not going to shine. Enter a city where one has been living in the sewers for the past 5 years it's goingo to be a much different story.

ATTENTION, PATHFINDER ADVENTURE DESIGNERS: This is your cue. Go!


Better yet, the city worships it as a god...

Scarab Sages

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Better yet, Razmir is an Aboleth...

Shadow Lodge

Also, the bestiary aboleth is akin to a first level commoner. Throw class levels onto it, and then ask if it feels weak.


9toes wrote:
Is it just me or does the Aboleth feel, well, weak? And any other monsters you guys and gals can think of that give you the same feeling?

I remember when I had an Aboleth Wizard 4 pitted against my level 7 party of 5 players. It didn't even make use of its wizard spells (except for one that i knew was going to be weaker than its own spell-likes) and no matter how much i held back and fudged the dice it was heading straight for TPK until i decided to go with a Deus Ex Machina.

Dominate monster 3/day is a weapon to be wielded with caution and respect.

Contributor

1 person marked this as a favorite.
I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
Victor Zajic wrote:
An Aboleth's strengths are not geared towards straight combat. Throw one randomly into the combat ring and it's not going to shine. Enter a city where one has been living in the sewers for the past 5 years it's goingo to be a much different story.
ATTENTION, PATHFINDER ADVENTURE DESIGNERS: This is your cue. Go!

Ahem. Or the past 10,000 years, at least.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

Besides, how many times do you have to fight it before you get to the real Aboleth? They have at will Project Image, through which they can use Dominate.


Weak? Think of 'disparity' between martials and casters - you know how a 15th level fighter is no real competition to a 15th level wizard? Well the aboleth is the high level wizard (or really psionicist) and most other combat heavy monsters are martials.

An aboleth has means to attack physically, but that's not where an aboleth wins the game - it's dominating lesser beings minds. Aboleth are an extreme threat.


I wouldn't say it's weak for its CR, but I would say it's weak for what I imagine as an Iconic creature. I wish it had a sort of age category deal, like dragons.

I'll post again if I think of something I think is too weak for its cr.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Well I can testify from a person experiance they are MUCH tougher than they look. I threw 3 aboleths vs a 7 man, level 10 party who is slightly over geared and they just about died. If I played them to their full potential the party would have died

details:
The 3 ABolets were in a giant pool underwater in a dungeon. The party did not notice they were in the pool. Well the attempt to cross the pool with water walking when the Witch (go figure?) ended up dominated. The party didn't notice the spell being cast and were oblivious to everything until the witch cast misfortune on the Cleric and the cleric ended up dominated as well (he rolled a nat 1). well when I noticed just how bad this was gonna end I made the Aboleths do some stupid stuff to not cause a TPK within the first few HOURS of our first game xD


The best encounter my party had with an Aboleth was when we didnt even fight it. It had over hundreds of years indoctrinated a city (it was a port city that had a flooded cavern underneath) so while we came into contact with its spells and abilities we mostly thought the civilians. Then our Inquisitor made a brake for it to get the beast and died before he could actually do anything.

Sovereign Court

The illusions it creates have pretty long durations. So half the terrain in its lair isn't real. The other half is probably traps.

A sewer aboleth is a pretty nice idea, I hadn't thought of that yet. Stealing.


Green Smashomancer wrote:

I wouldn't say it's weak for its CR, but I would say it's weak for what I imagine as an Iconic creature. I wish it had a sort of age category deal, like dragons.

Agreed.

But as mentioned before, the whole class level addition thing could work well.

One might even develop a ratio. 25 years = 1 level. So a 500 year old Aboleth might have 20 class levels. Definitely not a pushover then.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

The very first encounter with an aboleth that was ever written used a powerful illusion that caused the party to walk right out into a rapidly flowing stream. While they struggled to get out of the water—or keep from drowning if they had heavy armor—the aboleth would dominate one or two to get allies and slime tentacle others. Played correctly, it was vicious.


Feros wrote:
The very first encounter with an aboleth that was ever written used a powerful illusion that caused the party to walk right out into a rapidly flowing stream. While they struggled to get out of the water—or keep from drowning if they had heavy armor—the aboleth would dominate one or two to get allies and slime tentacle others. Played correctly, it was vicious.

Where were they first introduced, Feros? I'd love to get my tent-er...hands on a copy...

Dark Archive

Yea, you really have to take advantage of their illusions and enchantments to make them shine. I've had some crazy ass fights by abusing their SLAs to their fullest extent. The party couldn't see the real arena, the aboleth's minions didn't look like minions cuz they were all veiled, one melee combatant got taken out of the fight due to a well worded suggestion, the sorcerer got dominated and the party had to dominate him themselves to get him back on their side... they didn't know what was real anymore.

And that's without even throwing on class levels! You can make them awesome dude.

Scarab Sages

Brandon Hodge wrote:
I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
Victor Zajic wrote:
An Aboleth's strengths are not geared towards straight combat. Throw one randomly into the combat ring and it's not going to shine. Enter a city where one has been living in the sewers for the past 5 years it's goingo to be a much different story.
ATTENTION, PATHFINDER ADVENTURE DESIGNERS: This is your cue. Go!
Ahem. Or the past 10,000 years, at least.

Played it, nearly died in it but didn't, have the

Spoiler:
Pnakotic Manuscripts
to prove it - not the same.

I'm thinking something more in the vein of the Silent Hill games, or Night of the Living Dead and Invasion of the Body-Snatchers and all those other "American Cold War paranoia and/or deep-seated Telltale Heart complex" movies.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Daethor wrote:
Feros wrote:
The very first encounter with an aboleth that was ever written used a powerful illusion that caused the party to walk right out into a rapidly flowing stream. While they struggled to get out of the water—or keep from drowning if they had heavy armor—the aboleth would dominate one or two to get allies and slime tentacle others. Played correctly, it was vicious.
Where were they first introduced, Feros? I'd love to get my tent-er...hands on a copy...

The aboleth was introduced to D&D in the 1st Ed. AD&D module I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City back in 1981. It was the first actual module I ever bought for the game when I was a kid. It is considered by many as the first super dungeon as it was more of a setting with complete encounters than a standard dungeon.

At the back were four introductory "backgrounds" to get parties to adventure there (we would call them plot hooks today) and four adventure ideas beyond that given in the adventure itself. Whole campaigns could be run around the city alone.

After the adventure suggestions, there was a new monster section. The pan lung and the yellow musk creeper were reprinted from the original Fiend Folio, but they also put in four brand new monsters: the aboleth, the mongremen (now called mongrelfolk), the tasloi, and finally a strange serpent/human hybrid called the yuan ti.

Needless to say, the module had a very strong influence on the game going forward. The I series of modules was noted for that: in included I3-I5: the Desert of Desolation series and I6: Ravenloft.


In the aboleths case, never use them RAW out of the bestiary. Give them class levels or advance their HD to represent their "real world" purpose. I see the bestiary aboleth as the lone, "young," not trained version of his kind unlike the other monsters which are already more or less good to go with their intended role. Aboleths are puppeteers and schemers. I've also never seen an aboleth in any Paizo materials not have class levels.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Actually, there is one Buri, but I think evening saying which AP would be a spoiler.

9toes wrote:
Is it just me or does the Aboleth feel, well, weak? And any other monsters you guys and gals can think of that give you the same feeling?

I think the Aboleth made you say that so that people would begin to discount them...

Remember, if there's something strange going on, the Aboleth did it. *flees from the boards before being smited*


1 person marked this as a favorite.

As demonstrated, aboleth work just fine without class levels. I'm hesitant to suggest adding class levels to monsters unless they really make sense. Advancement isn't a bad idea for an aboleth motherthing or something.


Brain devourer. A killer brain can easily be a intelligent mastermind stealing powerful bodies and eating brains full of arcane knowledge.

Aboleths aren't exactly for grand smackdowns so they aren't a big deal in combat. If you want to have final boss fights involving aboleths they'd most likely manipulated a bunch of skum to build a giant construct that they ride, or attack with a guard of Gilmen while concealing them with mind control.


As others have noted, the aboleths work very fine for their CR, even without class levels.

I think aboleths are generally greatly designed, but:
For a race that it largely built upon mind controlled slave labour, they have very little (quantitively) mind control powers. It's very POWERFUL mind control, granted, but the maximum number of slaves they could keep running is quite low.

Hence, all my aboleths get Lesser Geas at will, but with a max HD of half their own. The difference in actual combat is neglible, but from a world-building perspective it makes sense.

Liberty's Edge

Ilja wrote:

As others have noted, the aboleths work very fine for their CR, even without class levels.

I think aboleths are generally greatly designed, but:
For a race that it largely built upon mind controlled slave labour, they have very little (quantitively) mind control powers. It's very POWERFUL mind control, granted, but the maximum number of slaves they could keep running is quite low.

Hence, all my aboleths get Lesser Geas at will, but with a max HD of half their own. The difference in actual combat is neglible, but from a world-building perspective it makes sense.

Well, they can do it 3/day and it lasts 16 days. That's 48 direct slaves at a time, potentially per Aboleth...and their usual strategy is to have mind-controlled slaves in positions of authority to control others.


K177Y C47 wrote:
. . . The party did not notice they were in the pool. Well the attempt to cross the pool with water walking when the Witch (go figure?) ended up dominated. The party didn't notice the spell being cast and were oblivious to everything until the witch cast misfortune on the Cleric and the cleric ended up dominated as well (he rolled a nat 1). well when I noticed just how bad this was gonna end I made the Aboleths do some stupid stuff to not cause a TPK within the first few HOURS of our first game xD

No, no, no... The party wakes up several days later, slimy, sore, and confused, and has to backtrack to find out what happened. It's kind of like the D&D version of The Hangover...

Ok. I'm kind of sick. Ignore me... IGNORE ME!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

If we're being honest, an aboleth encounter is more likely to be an encounter with a dominated sea serpent (CR 12 gargantuan magical creature with only a +7 will save-- which is child's play for an aboleth to control). No self-respecting aboleth is going to leave home without something along these lines as a bodyguard.


Aboleths make pretty lame random encounters. IMO, they would seem cooler if there was some adventure out there that gave them cool encounters.

With preparation, the highly intelligent aboleth can be downright murderous. Alas, a few spells can shut down its mind control and illusion abilities, and the latter are really fragile, nebulous, and so forth.

Shadow Lodge

Considering the Aboleth is the Oldest form of life on the material plane and [I believe] the mother of all abberations, I would say that it seems a tad weak at its base. However, slap a bunch of levels of some enchanting full-casting class, and it is terrifying. Note to self, aboleth scarred witch doctor/sorcerer gestalt...Mwahahahahah.


In the campaign I'm running (when we can actually get together again) the group will be infiltrating a series of citadels to break to power structure....there will now be an aboleth under one of the cities puppeteer the rulers.

edit: *cue maniacal laugh*

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / ABOLETH: Y U NO FUN? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion