Hi, folks.
My players will be encountering Malfeshnekor next session and I`m looking for some tips.
The thing that disturbs me about this fight is the room itself. With the pit of fire in the middle, there are limited spots that Malfeshnekor can stand in without being burned. He has almost no mobility unless he uses the squeezing rules to get past the fire, or dimension doors or levitates across the room.
Is this your experience And what did you do about it?
It may be that the limited mobility is intentional in order to give the players a better chance. But forcing Malfeshnekor to park in the corner makes it tricky for my party rogue to do much here.
Thoughts?
Peet
Well, he can turn into a goblin or a wolf if he wants to walk around without getting burnt, but DR does not protect against fire damage, strictly speaking.
He's got DR 10/magic, so since the firepit deals Fire damage and not magic damage, I'd rule that he can stand in it all day without caring. I mean, dude's been in that room for thousands of years. I don't think he did it having to cram himself against the wall so he didn't burn his paws on the fire.
This is not correct. Damage Reduction and Energy Resistance are not the same. Fire still burns him fir full damage.
This is a killer fight, to be sure. I had him levitating and invisible when the PCs entered, and he waited for the right moment to strike - which came in the guise of the bard, when she wanted to examine the candles. She went from full health to dying in one round, and it took all the PCs ingenuity and skills and a lot of healing magic to kill the beast, and not getting killed themselves. Without magic weapons, forget about it. PCs at that level will have great difficulties penetrating the DR of 10 without the right weapons. Yes, he is basically squeezed in one corner, but that lessens the danger only minimally. The PCs are limited as well, and that might even be the bigger problem.
Yes, pc's without magic weapons = very difficult fight. PC's with magic weapons = very easy fight.
My group entered the room, fought him rather pointlessly for a couple rounds and then retreated when the wizard made a knowledge the planes check to recognize it as a barghest and deduce it had DR/magic. Given there wasn't anything left alive on the island (except Orik) they retreated, rested overnight, the cleric memorized a couple magic weapon spells and it was all over but the crying. Blink kept Mal alive for a few rounds but the fighter engaged him in melee, the cleric kept healing the fighter, the bard peppered him with arrows and the wizard used flaming sphere and magic missile. Trapped in the room, Mal doesn't have much room to maneuver and if crushing despair and charm monster don't avail him of much, he's destined to get pasted.
Yes, with Mal in a corner, a rogue with a melee instead of ranged focus is going to be neutralized even if he does have a magic weapon.
I'm not going to have him levitating at the start of the battle, because the party sorcerer has create pit and I don't want to completely nerf that. But M will use levitate to get out of the pit, and after he has it up he will be immune.
Magic Weapon-wise the party has Koruvus' +1 longsword and Ripnugget's small +1 shortsword. Nobody can use Nualia's bastard sword. The oracle has a couple scrolls of magic weapon. I'm not worried about invisibility as the party has a couple scrolls of glitterdust.
It looks like the trick will be to spam force effects which get past blink. The party sorc can spam magic missile @ three missiles a pop and the oracle can throw spiritual weapon up to 4 times.
Peet
Only the Paladin has martial weapon proficiency and she's using the longsword. She has a shield also, so she can't use the bastard sword without dropping the shield, and even if she did nobody else can use a longsword.
Peet
Well, the party steamrolled Malfeshnekor in about 4 or 5 rounds.
The Oracle cast a couple of spiritual weapons, the Sorc used create pit to slow him down and then spammed magic missile, the paladin got in a couple good smite evil hits, and the rogue(scout) was buffed with vanish and got in a good couple of sneak attacks. Most of the melee hits made it past the blink, but even if they didn't the combat would have probably only lasted a couple more rounds.
Not sure what I could have done to make this fight harder... I probably should have had M use charm monster and crushing despair right off the bat instead of saving them as the tactics dictated.
Peet
Blink should have protected him from half of the splash weapons. He has 85 HP, and with alchemist's fire doing 1d6 and holy water 2d4, it would take a long time (and a lot of vials) to kill him this way. If you assume two acid flasks and one holy water flask per round then you average 6 HP of damage per round, or about 15 rounds of combat.
If M was getting ranged to death and couldn't retaliate, I would have had him change shape into a wolf or a goblin (both medium) which would allow him to get out of line-of-sight of the doorway. The party would have to move right to the doorway to hit him and this would give him the chance to attack again.
M is not really meant to win here but he can do a lot of damage if he has the opportunity to full-attack.
Good point about the miss chance, though that only affects the one character. Alchemist is also a pretty good class for this encounter. However, splash damage is area effect and will automatically do only 50% damage (25% on a save), though a direct hit will still do normal damage (assuming the miss chance didn't get you). The normal 1 point of splash damage from a non-alchemist will do nothing to a blinking character.
It also looks like you also have inflated your damage calculations. It looks like the character has an INT of 22, right? This is why you have listed holy water as doing 2d4+6 damage?
If so your regular bombs will do 1d6+7, not 1d6+10. Point Blank shot adds 1 damage and Firebug adds nothing to damage (it only adds +1 to attack rolls). Minimum splash damage will be 8, but this is reduced by 50% by the blink spell.
Likewise, if your holy water does 2d4+6 damage on a hit then the splash damage will be 7. The rule about splash damage equaling the minimum hit damage only applies to alchemist bombs, not other thrown splash weapons. Holy water normally does 1 splash damage but since you are an alchemist it will be 1 + 6, or 7 points. However, blinking reduces this by 50%, to 3, and a successful save reduces it to 1.
Yes, the idea of him preparing a charge in the corner of the room is exactly what I mean. He certainly is not going to stand in a spot where he can be hit but cannot retaliate. Someone who wants to throw a bomb/acid flask etc. Will have to at the very least stand in the squares just outside the room in order to get him (and from there M will have cover against this attack). As long as they are in the squares just outside the doorway M can attack them, and his bite does a lot of damage.
The idea that Malfeshnekor will stand there and do nothing is pretty silly. That basically turns it into a CR0 encounter.
Peet
It was months ago.
Targeted bomb admixture double your INT bonus to damage, but doesn't allow splash damage.
Ah, that explains it. So it could have been more damage probably. Was your INT 20 then? 1d6+11?
Malfeshnekor has a 5' reach he couldn't attack them from the corner, its 15' from the furthest square you could see him from. His touch AC is 13, if you allowed cover it would be 17, wizard had (I think) a +6 to hit with ranged attacks at this point.
Cover is a significant bonus; it drops the hit chance of bombs and flasks from 70% to 50%. That plus a 20% miss chance means only 40% of those attacks are getting through.
Meanwhile you have to expose yourself to a charge attack to attack him while he is in the corner, since you have to come right to the doorway to get line-of-sight. He can still attack a creature in the squares just outside the room. With Bull's Strength and Charge he has a +18 to hit and will do 1d8+8 on his charge. That probably nearly always hits and your wizard/alchemist can likely only take 2 or maybe 3 of those hits before going down.
If Malfeshnekor can get a party member to stand in the doorway then he can move out of the corner to attack. Then the party falls back and range attacks him, he goes back to the corner, repeat. This strategy is still good because it limits him to a single attack every second round instead of a full attack every round. But he has a lot of hit points; if he concentrates on one enemy he could probably take him down.
It doesn't really matter because Malfeshnekor can't leave the room. The PCs could easily travel back to Sandpoint stock up on supplies and go back. Then simply pour oil into the room and catch the whole room on fire to kill him.
Malfeshnekor is only dangerous if PCs enter the room. Our party's fighter did and died, then the rest of the party just killed him from outside.
Of course, if the party is really difficult to get at Malfeshnekor could just close the doors, and hold them shut.
Your party mook would have to make some kind of opposed strength check to get them open again, and if he did Malfeshnekor could full attack afterwards.
On the other hand, maybe Malfeshnekor wants to die. He's been trapped for 10,000 years in there and is probably a bit nuts.
EDIT: actually, an amusing but weird strategy would be for him to cast mass enlarge person on the party. The Wizard in this case would probably fail his save, and his AC and ranged to hit both would go down by 2. It also prevents two people standing in the hall side-by-side (unless some of the characters were small) which means cover penalties for everyone except the guy in front.
Peet
If I run this again, in future I may expand the size of the room. Possibly the room could even end up being a kind of demiplane if it won't fit within Thistletop.
