So my group just went up against Malfeshnekor last night and I gotta say, he is unreal.
We're running a mythic game and the players had slaughtered everything else I had thrown at them. They basically just walked through Nualia (whom had been given a mythic rank and an extra cleric level) and her mythic Yeth hound. It was sort of last minute so I didn't have time to apply an actual mythic tier to him, so I gave the big guy the Invulnerable mythic template and refluffed him to be the demi-god offspring of Lamashtu and the goblin Hero-God Hadregash, imprisoned by Karzoug long ago with the intention of running experiments to try and extract his divine spark.
It was insane. Even without the mythic, he would have been more than my group could take on. He almost one-shotted the party magus, and would have done so to the druid if I hadn't decided that in his madness he would split his attention between two "morsels" and attack both the druid and his companion (his bite missed).
At this point I knew I had to get them to run away, so I had them receive hear a voice in their head (Desna, their patron and the one who originally gave them their mythic power) tell them to get the hell outta Dodge.
And this is all with one player playing a psion and blasting for upwards of 40 damage; ole' Mal made his reflex save to halve the damage, and reduced it to almost 0 with his energy resistance.
...+11 damage is really, really low though
First level Barbarians do +11 while Raging
What is your party again?
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how a party, one with Mythic tiers no less, is at all challenged by this, much less overwhelmed.
Does everyone have 7 Con? And 2 Hit Dice?
He is dangerous, but far from invincible. My group killed him , although he did drop at least one pc first but only to negatives. Two handed weapons and Paladin smite evil really helps with his DR although without your upgrades it is DR5 Magic which is easy to overcome if nothing else they have Nualia's magic sword and several other weapons found in thistletop
However your problem may have been boosting him too much. Baseline with all his buffs up he is only +16 to hit, and + 9 on damage. With that he is a CR7 Encounter which is meant to be near overwhelming for a party of 3rd level characters so losing and having to run away would noe br unnusual
My group had tremendous difficulty facing him and he wasn't Mythic. The only reason the Barbarian didn't die was I had a couple NPCs enter as well to support him, and Mal has a taste for elves (and thus divided attacks).
They did realize but tthe group doesn't have much in the way of ranged. Theyr a gnome druid, tiefling brawler, human rogue, human psion and human magus, all 5th level with a single mythic rank. And orik was with them. But as a group their surprisingly lacking in ranged effect and what they had wasn't enough. Admittedly I think they were rolling poorly, but the Invulnerable mythic template adds DR 5/epic and energy resist 10.
When psions maximised empowered blast dealt 0 the group grew concerned. I think the real issue might be they mowed through everything to that point and when he was a real challenge everyone sort of panicked, though like I said he did get lucky and almost one-shot the magus.
Does Mal's stat block on the SRD include his buffs? If so that explains it as I applied them to that.
I think they plan to come back after collecting a few more levels and another mythic rank or 2.
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When we first encountered Malfeshnekor he nearly tore us to bits and we barely made it out of the room. We came back a few days later and he went down like a chump. What makes Malfeshnekor dangerous is surprise. Once the surprise was gone we planned accordingly and beat him like a bad puppy. That's kind of how that encounter is supposed to go. It should teach the party the value of advanced planning.
My group rested the night, buffed up, and used a magic weapon after talking the Barbarian into using Nualia's sword instead of his two-handed blade. It almost made no difference.
Don't forget, he's got Displacement up. A few bad rolls, and your heavy hitter is missing with every roll and Mal is tearing him into chunky salsa.
...+11 damage is really, really low though
First level Barbarians do +11 while Raging
What is your party again?
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how a party, one with Mythic tiers no less, is at all challenged by this, much less overwhelmed.
Does everyone have 7 Con? And 2 Hit Dice?
Hmmm. Do you have any familiarity with this fight?
In case not, you can look at Malfeshnekor here.
Odds are good the party is facing him at L3.
So with bull's strength, he's doing 4d6+33 damage a round to 3rd level PCs.
He's an insanely nasty fight for the level where the party actually meets him.
On top of that, the OP gave him the invincible template, so he's now got DR 10/epic and can negate an attack every round with an opposed roll that he should win.
I'm not surprised in the slightest that a low level mythic party marched up to him and got their asses handed to them.
Yeah, his one big weakness is he can't leave the room to chase folks, so they can easily prep for the rematch.
My group nearly took him out in the first round. The paladin and rogue both won initiative, rushed in to flanking positions, and hit him with a Smite Evil and a sneak attack (respectively). They both then popped a Hero Point to act again, and did it again.
This brought Mal to single-digit hit points, before he got to take a single turn.
Luckily for me, I had altered the conditions of his prison so that saying his name while inside it would release him. The dire warnings on the walls included, very clearly, "DO NOT TALK TO HIM". Since talking is a free action, the paladin accidentally let him loose right after the second smite, so I had him dimension door away.
I have plans for him later.
I didn't think he was an appropriate fight for the PC's at that level and I had a few ideas of what I wanted to do with Thistletop. They defeated Nualia after an incredibly difficult fight (she used superb tactics) and brought her back to Sandpoint, having failed to locate the secret doors on the bottom level, missing out on the Giant Hermit Crab and Malfeshkenor. They also bypassed the Tentamort thanks to Orik and avoided the Bunyip...
...so, later, I had a pair of Druids come to town (3rd level) who intended to use Thistletop as a home for their burgeoning order, but they sought the PC's aid in ridding the place of 'the evil they could still sense within'. So, the group returned, this time facing a couple of harpies whom had made roost in the upper level and then clearing out all of the others until they finally faced Malfeshkenor a level higher and with a little bit of assistance from the Druids. As a reward, I made sure the Druids were able to help them locate anything they may have missed.
...+11 damage is really, really low though
First level Barbarians do +11 while Raging
What is your party again?
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how a party, one with Mythic tiers no less, is at all challenged by this, much less overwhelmed.
Does everyone have 7 Con? And 2 Hit Dice?
Hmmm. Do you have any familiarity with this fight?
In case not, you can look at Malfeshnekor here.
Odds are good the party is facing him at L3.
So with bull's strength, he's doing 4d6+33 damage a round to 3rd level PCs.
He's an insanely nasty fight for the level where the party actually meets him.
On top of that, the OP gave him the invincible template, so he's now got DR 10/epic and can negate an attack every round with an opposed roll that he should win.
I'm not surprised in the slightest that a low level mythic party marched up to him and got their asses handed to them.
Yeah, his one big weakness is he can't leave the room to chase folks, so they can easily prep for the rematch.
Ah, I see. I haven't played books 2 and 3 of RotRL, so I assumed he was later in the game if we were talking Mythic tiers.
Is the OP accounting for teh fact taht all of his own attacks have a 20% miss chance?
It still doesn't seem like THAT ridiculous of a fight until you add in DR 10/Effectively Insurmountable (which at level 3 may as well be DR You only Deal 5 Damage Ever) if you have good tactics.
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Wait. The OP gave a CR 7 creature a mythic tier that includes DR/epic and resist energy 10 and is shocked said creature is pasting his level 5 group? All mythic tiers are not created equal and those "invulnerabilities" are really harsh for a level 5 pc. Or does the group have Epic weapons already?
Mal can be a challenge and if your players choose to slug it out with him toe-to-toe, they may be in trouble (even without any mythic tiers.) Secret: he's trapped. Withdraw, create an optimized plan and try again.
My group got whacked pretty hard the first time they opened the door but withdrew and shut the door. A successful Knowledge check by the too-smart-for-his-own-good wizard revealed Mal probably had DR/magic. Next day, the cleric prepares a couple magic weapon spells (one for fighter's waraxe, one for bard's bow) and after that it was all over but the crying. Blink kept Mal alive for a couple extra rounds but it really didn't matter - with the fighter and bard hammering at him, the wizard throwing flaming spheres and magic missiles and the cleric healing every round, Mal had no chance.
If the pc's come upon him strung out after several encounters - very dangerous. If they've already cleared the rest of Thistletop and can focus all their efforts and powers on one fight - not so much.
And they are crawling through an ancient Thassilonian ruin and fighting an evil outsider that's been bound up for 10000 years. Maybe that should be dangerous after all.
My group nearly took him out in the first round. The paladin and rogue both won initiative, rushed in to flanking positions, and hit him with a Smite Evil and a sneak attack (respectively). They both then popped a Hero Point to act again, and did it again.
This brought Mal to single-digit hit points, before he got to take a single turn.
Luckily for me, I had altered the conditions of his prison so that saying his name while inside it would release him. The dire warnings on the walls included, very clearly, "DO NOT TALK TO HIM". Since talking is a free action, the paladin accidentally let him loose right after the second smite, so I had him dimension door away.
I have plans for him later.
How'd they see him? He was Invisible, after all.
(And I was wrong. It's Blink, not Displacement, that he had. Which can actually disrupt his OWN attacks as well. Still, he's quite nasty for even 4th level crews.)
They didn't see him at first. When they entered the room I had everyone roll init as he began taunting them. He went last and the magus decided to waltz in to throw a blind burning hands. It wound up being point blank and triggering an AoO, which Mal took, dropping his invis. And damn near dropping the magus.
I'm not surprised at all they couldn't beat him. I intended him to be a side boss, like Ruby Weapon from Final Fantasy 7. I just thought id share the story.
It really depends on the party. My players ROFLstomped Malfeshnekor.
Detect evil from the paladin and a scroll of glitterdust from the sorcerer revealed M before they entered.
One of the players took some serious damage, but create pit gave them a round or two to recover (M can levitate out of it). I had an evocation-optimized sorcerer spamming magic missiles, and an oracle spamming spiritual weapon, both or which get past the blink effect. A self-healing-optimized paladin stayed in front and tanked while the rogue scout ran around and took shots when he could.
It took about 4 or 5 rounds for M to go down. But my party was well suited for beating him.
Our group wrecked him.
Fighter landed and confirmed two crits over two rounds. We use the Critical Hit deck. First crit removed one of his claws. The second, his jaw.
Down to one claw and his spell like abilities, he didn't do so hot against us.
Our group had to go after him twice. The first time he mopped the floor with us (actually, my druid) and then left the rest of the party so freaked out and feeling helpless that he had time to start eating my corpse right there in front of everyone. It was glorious.
We were successful on our second attempt and just barely avoided a rout.
But then, of course, a fellow party member decided to wander off into a room on his own, get jumped by shadows, turn into a shadow himself, and come after us. So in the wake of fighting Malfeshnekor, half of our second party remained behind to haunt the dungeon forever. It was hilarious.