Campaign through Hell : Fighting Cerberus


Advice


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Hi ! not sure if the advice forum is the appropriate place to ask for help DM'ing an adventure, but here it is :

Soon, I'm going to bring my players in an adventure through Hell in order to retrieve one of their captured companions.

Obvioulsly, it is played at high level (in the range of 18-20)

At some point, I want to have the party Fight Cerberus (as shown here). Which will guard a particular Portal leading to another destination in Hell.

however, In his description, Cerberus " never willingly moves more than 60 feet from the Gates[...] " Which I find is appropritate, And want to keep.
However, I'm having trouble imagining what kind of environnement to place around him that would prevent the group from simply hitting him from a safe distance until the beast in slain, then continue on their way. (the party, having a "full-archer", is fully capable of doing this)

I've thought that the plains around him could be heavyly covered in obcuring flames, but that dosen't prevent the players from flying above. If I obscure the Skies too, then that goes against my view of the encounter, where the Gate Cerberus is guarding is visible from far away.

I don't want either to force or imprison the players within 60 feet of Cerberus, as I want to leave them a way of escape if the fight goes badly.

Giving Big C. a fly speed dosen't adress the problem either.

I guess I could make it so the Gate he is protecting is un-passable were Cerberus to be slain, but I'm not sure that's the best approach.

Any ideas ?

Thanks :)

(edit: typos)


Why not give Cerberus an ability that obscures his own body, making him more difficult to hit with ranged attacks? Or something that makes him resistant to ranged attacks? Just a couple of ideas: you don't necessarily need to change the environment.


Risharc Moonblood wrote:
Why not give Cerberus an ability that obscures his own body, making him more difficult to hit with ranged attacks? Or something that makes him resistant to ranged attacks? Just a couple of ideas: you don't necessarily need to change the environment.

I Kind of have a bad habit of always trying to compensate monster's weaknesses by giving them additional powers, despite the fact that I think that A challenging environment provides a more interesting encounter than a "buffed" monster.

Plus, I think the players might take it a bit personal if I protect Big C. specifically against ranged attacks.


Gurior wrote:
Risharc Moonblood wrote:
Why not give Cerberus an ability that obscures his own body, making him more difficult to hit with ranged attacks? Or something that makes him resistant to ranged attacks? Just a couple of ideas: you don't necessarily need to change the environment.

I Kind of have a bad habit of always trying to compensate monster's weaknesses by giving them additional powers, despite the fact that I think that A challenging environment provides a more interesting encounter than a "buffed" monster.

Plus, I think the players might take it a bit personal if I protect Big C. specifically against ranged attacks.

All valid points, to be sure. Hmm...I'll answer your question with a question then: how would Cerberus be able to use the environment to his advantage? That goes for the PCs as well. The environment is its own character in this scenario, it seems, so I would treat it as such. But that's just me.


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Will not "willingly" go more than 60 feet.

"willingly" leaves much room for interpretation. Perhaps he would reluctantly charge and attack enemies beyond 60 feet in self defense?

I certainly don't think he would just stand there and let a few commoners with crossbows shoot him to death just because they're standing 80' away (and immune to his SAs).

If that doesn't work, then you can keep the idea of obscuring flames (on the ground and in the air) that suddenly appear AFTER the combat starts, so you can see the gate from far away but have limited area in which to fight.


Risharc Moonblood wrote:
All valid points, to be sure. Hmm...I'll answer your question with a question then: how would Cerberus be able to use the environment to his advantage?

Cerberus has no advantage. He's a land-bound creature with limited capability to operate at any decent range (aside from his howl).

He is meant to be fought in a cavern where these are not disadvantages. Fighting him in an open plain where his gate can be seen from far away means he's fodder for a mid-level wizard (probably panicked for a few rounds then comes back, airborne, and destroys the puppy from above).

Putting him in a cavern (literally or figuratively using prismatic walls or other battlefield control magic) is about the only simple way to give him an environmental advantage that might let him live past the second round.


DM_Blake wrote:
Risharc Moonblood wrote:
All valid points, to be sure. Hmm...I'll answer your question with a question then: how would Cerberus be able to use the environment to his advantage?

Cerberus has no advantage. He's a land-bound creature with limited capability to operate at any decent range (aside from his howl).

He is meant to be fought in a cavern where these are not disadvantages. Fighting him in an open plain where his gate can be seen from far away means he's fodder for a mid-level wizard (probably panicked for a few rounds then comes back, airborne, and destroys the puppy from above).

Putting him in a cavern (literally or figuratively using prismatic walls or other battlefield control magic) is about the only simple way to give him an environmental advantage that might let him live past the second round.

Well, that explains the boss fight in Kingdom Hearts II now...

At any rate, if he's that limited, then it seems there aren't many good ways to negate those advantages aside from what is listed here. I was thinking plateau-like spires where he could jump on them and attack from there.


Risharc Moonblood wrote:
I was thinking plateau-like spires where he could jump on them and attack from there.

The good news is he could easily jump 60' with an average roll. The bad news is he won't go more than 60' away from his gate unless the GM takes liberties with the word "willingly".

Besides, fliers could easily be hundreds of feet high and rain down death and destruction on poor old ground-bound Cerberus and never take a scratch from him.


DM_Blake wrote:
Risharc Moonblood wrote:
I was thinking plateau-like spires where he could jump on them and attack from there.

The good news is he could easily jump 60' with an average roll. The bad news is he won't go more than 60' away from his gate unless the GM takes liberties with the word "willingly".

Besides, fliers could easily be hundreds of feet high and rain down death and destruction on poor old ground-bound Cerberus and never take a scratch from him.

Or the Gate could move with Cerberus. That sounds incredibly silly, but it might actually work, especially if Hell is an ever-changing location.


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DM_Blake wrote:
Risharc Moonblood wrote:
All valid points, to be sure. Hmm...I'll answer your question with a question then: how would Cerberus be able to use the environment to his advantage?

Cerberus has no advantage. He's a land-bound creature with limited capability to operate at any decent range (aside from his howl).

He is meant to be fought in a cavern where these are not disadvantages. Fighting him in an open plain where his gate can be seen from far away means he's fodder for a mid-level wizard (probably panicked for a few rounds then comes back, airborne, and destroys the puppy from above).

Putting him in a cavern (literally or figuratively using prismatic walls or other battlefield control magic) is about the only simple way to give him an environmental advantage that might let him live past the second round.

Hahaha, that puppy thing made me laugh :) !

but it does point out one of the sad truth in pathfinder : If there is an easy way to beat a monster, The player will use it without remorse, even if that goes against the spirit of the encounter (can't really blame them for that)

The Obscuring flame Starting AFTER the start of the first round is an option.

Stupid as it sounds, I never though of putting him in a cavern. That might be another way to go about it. Hell being "Divinely Morphic", I could find some way to justify the cavern to be "unalterable", were the players to try to re-mold the environment to their advantage.

I've also though of making the only way to pass though the Gate Cerberus is protecting to be brute force (...ridiculous level of brute force)
Which implies having to close in melee reach of the Gate to blast it. I though of adding a prisoner NPC (like an Elysian Titan) as a short side quest, which would be perfect for the battering-ram Job. The PC would then have no choice to engage in melee with Big C. in order to hold him off, during the few rounds the titan would need to bash open the gate. (as a 1v1 Titan vs Cerberus could very well go into Cerberus favor), And I can divide Cerberus Attacks between the Titan and the PCs.

Lastly, I need just a reason for NOT killing Cerberus Prior to bashing the Gate (which , we can't deny, would be the best way to go about it)

I've though maybe The act of outright Killing the Beast would enrage a Lord of Hell beyond measure, and convince the players that this isn't a wise thing to do, although just Holding off Cerberus (even putting him below 0 Hp and keeping it there) and forcing through the Gate would be a viable option.


DM_Blake wrote:
Risharc Moonblood wrote:
I was thinking plateau-like spires where he could jump on them and attack from there.

The good news is he could easily jump 60' with an average roll. The bad news is he won't go more than 60' away from his gate unless the GM takes liberties with the word "willingly".

Besides, fliers could easily be hundreds of feet high and rain down death and destruction on poor old ground-bound Cerberus and never take a scratch from him.

For the "willingly" moving away from 60ft, I really think of preventing Cer. from moving further, no matter the situation. After all, if his job is to guard the Gate, it would defeat his purpose if he could be lured a bit further away, in a way that would alloy another creature near the gate before Cerberus could run back and attack in a single round.

I also had in mind some kind of restricted area in the shape of a plateau at the top of a spire, or a 120ft wide section of rock at the middle of a very large chasm, which can be crossed by a few very narrow bridges.

After the beginning of the fight, a multitude of lesser devils could swarm any PC staying isolated to hit Cerberus from afar (whether from above, or far off horizontally), yet refuse to approach anywhere near Cerberus himself. Although, as cool as that sounds, that doesn't address the fact that even if I plan the encounter that way, Cerberus could very well not survive the first round ,rendering all that environmental flavor useless...


I'd make the heat from the environment impact long distance vision, like the shimmering you get in the desert. You can still see Cerberus and the gate from a great distance, but they get an increasing miss chance depending on the distance. I'd do something like +10% per 10 feet beyond 30. If you are within 30 feet, you can see clearly (and easily get mauled by Cerberus). At 60 feet, you have to deal with a 30% miss chance. At 75 feet (Cerberus' effective range), you have to deal with a 45% miss chance (yikes). At 130 feet, the impact of the shimmering heat makes every shot a miss (don't tell your players this - let them keep rolling and missing). Naturally, extend the effect vertically to stop any pesky flying spellcasters. You could even apply the miss chance to long distance spells too. Sure you can drop that fireball, but the visual distortion was so great, you just nuked a spot 50 feet from where Cerberus was standing.

It is effectively putting Cerberus in a cavern, but might make for an interesting combat and be something your players may never have faced with the constantly changing miss chances based on range to the target. Just a thought.


Cerberus is kind of underpowered for a CR 23 - it's got raw numbers but is sorely lacking in CR appropriate abilities.

That being said...

Cerberus's gaze attack has no range limit. While possibly an omission, I'd roll with it's freaking Cerberus, the range on the attack is line of sight..

I'd also tweak the poison so that every head can do it, not just the center head, with each head having its own cooldown timer. And remove any range limit for the breath weapon, because it's frikkin Cerberus.

And you might want to look at the breath weapon and multi-headed rules for the gorynych for inspiration.


A fun thing from an outer plane location in Shackled City - the sky was full of millions of flaming spheres the size of elephants that seemed to be sentient. There were so many that you couldn't see the real sky, if there was one. The lowest of these spheres was only about 100' up. If anybody flew more than 30' off the ground, dozens of the nearest spheres started homing in on him, following and chasing and apparently trying to collide with him, and they could move faster than PCs could fly.

Nobody ever stayed up in the air long enough to figure out what would happen if the spheres reached the PC. Hint: it would be very bad...


Zhangar wrote:

Cerberus is kind of underpowered for a CR 23 - it's got raw numbers but is sorely lacking in CR appropriate abilities.

That being said...

Cerberus's gaze attack has no range limit. While possibly an omission, I'd roll with it's freaking Cerberus, the range on the attack is line of sight..

I'd also tweak the poison so that every head can do it, not just the center head, with each head having its own cooldown timer. And remove any range limit for the breath weapon, because it's frikkin Cerberus.

And you might want to look at the breath weapon and multi-headed rules for the gorynych for inspiration.

I have to agree with that.

for anybody attacking Cerberus from a distance (even while averting his eyes) , the Gaze poses a threat (i though too of making it line of sigth.

I think the poison is already terrifyingly strong. Either The PC will be immune (via delay poison), or if not, anyone receiving about 2 hits from it will be insta-killed.
I kinda prefer to leave it as it is, so as to scare off anyone hit to maybe back off (and leave them more vulnerable to other lesser devils), and make them think of their impending doom for whenever the second effect of the poison will kick in (1 minute).

About the miss chance for distance and heat distortion, i might very well use it. I'll have to tweak the distances to be fitting for the encounter, but that might work ! I'll have ot take into account that the Archer probably ignores anything like partial concealment (20%), and i see no reason for the miss to ever go higher than 50% (which is equivalent to attacking in the direction of the monster, without seeing it at all).

thanks for the input so far :)


The poison can be fixed with a heal spell or stopped entirely with delay poison. And linnorm poison is actually worse.

Cerberus spewing a stream of poison from thousands of feet away has way more shock value than the poison damage itself =D


Sadly, Cerberus shouldn't spit poison at all. At least, I don't recall anything from mythology about it. For that matter, his gaze attack seems inappropriate too; that belongs to a different Greek myth.

But I guess he needed something to try to handle out-of-reach fliers, which makes it strange that it has such a limited range in his write-up.


Honestly, if you want to have the encounter be meaningful, I would make it something like forcing the players to reprogram the gate. That should keep the wizard/skill monkey busy, especially if you make it a standard or full round action (or perhaps both; i.e. make it a move action but drop the dc from say 50 to 40 if they do it as a full-round action). I would make it a knowledge (planes) check. If you felt really mean, you could make it so that you can only reprogram the portal if you're touching it.

As far as fighting Cerberus goes, I would have it so that if he dies he is spawned by the gate in a round or two. this keeps the weapon based characters happy (since they get to kill stuff while the wizard is dealing with reprogramming the portal). Make the Cavern dark (obviously) but make it so that the cavern itself is only 60' in diameter or so. the abyss being what it is, I would create a chart that determines random environmental effects for the fight as well (gusting winds, lava spurts, rocks falling, that sort of thing).

The real key to a fight like this is making it dynamic. With an ever-changing set of environmental parameters, the party should be given motivation beyond "we let the shooty/magic guys stand in the back and blow it up while the melee folks beat on it to draw it's attention".

This type of encounter works great, because it gives everyone a chance to contribute (even the rogue if he's a skill monkey).


Gurior wrote:

...stuff...

About the miss chance for distance and heat distortion, i might very well use it. I'll have to tweak the distances to be fitting for the encounter, but that might work ! I'll have ot take into account that the Archer probably ignores anything like partial concealment (20%), and i see no reason for the miss to ever go higher than 50% (which is equivalent to attacking in the direction of the monster, without seeing it at all).

thanks for the input so far :)

I think going above 50% is necessary to avoid the original problem - the PCs kill Cerberus from a safe distance. A 50% miss chance means it will take them twice as long to do it (an even more boring encounter). There is no reason for the party to step closer than necessary. They have to be "forced" into range. Something to think about if you decide to use it.


Meh, totally overthinking this.

he doesn't move, because nothing outside his radius affects him.

Or, more importantly...

Just rule 0 it.

Nothing outside of his radius affects him.


Random thoughts and ideas

Any dedicated archer character near 20th level is likely not going to miss owing to miss chances (and hitting AC 40 reliably at well beyond 60ft is also not much of an issue).

I agree that going above a 50% miss chance is not a good idea. How do you get harder to hit than something you can't even see? I also agree with the assessment that such chances will just lengthen the fight from a distance.

Maybe the Gate itself is so easy to see because it is blindingly bright and that it is what causes miss chances. Blindingly bright as if you're looking at something as "bright as the sun". Cerberus simply happens to be the 'gunfighter' who always has the sun behind him.

Maybe there is a howling wind rushing from the gate which blows any missile weapons fired towards it auto miss (as if effected by Fickle Winds) so any PCs using ranged weaponry must be upwind between the Gate and Cerberus (cone effect from gate out to ... 120 ft). And perhaps it must be resisted like Wind Force: Windstorm (helpfully tending to blow PCs away from the Gate and towards Cerberus). Clever PC's may use Control Winds or similar to alter/negate this effect of the Gate. Maybe this wind effectively halves the range of Cerberus' breath weapon when he spits towards the gate but doubles his range when he spits away from the gate.

Cerberus has a rather solid ability to track by scent ... pretty odd and contradictory ability for something that never leaves the vicinity of the gate. Points towards while he doesn't like to leave the area he will if necessary in particular to fulfill his duty to ward the Gate.

Nothing really says which side of the Gate he must be on. Maybe he simple retreats to the other side and waits if heavily threatened by something. Perhaps Cerberus is the only being outside of Greater Deities that can easily move back and forth through the Gate (and perhaps readily see something on the other side of the Gate as well). So he waits until the PC's get close to the gate then emerges (passes through the Gate) to attack.

The Gate is visible at great distance but that doesn't mean Cerberus is standing out in the open. His den is a cavern adjoining the portal. If found outside his den and seriously threatened and hurt he simply retreats within the allow his Regeneration to heal him. He has Spring attack and solid Perception. The den gives him total cover but is well within his movement range to emerge, attack and retreat back under cover if needed.

The Howl is readily useable from within the total cover of the den and can be heard within several hundred feet of the Gate even when used under the total cover of the den.

Using the Gate requires a key. The key to use the Gate is a chunk of Cerberus' black drool-matted fur. Because Cerberus rarely if ever leaves the area around the Gate, the area around the Gate (and specifically his den) is also the only place one can readily find the fur. This might also explain why only Cerberus can readily use the gate ... he always has a handy supply of black drool-matted fur :p

Maybe Cerberus is effectively immortal (that last line of his descriptive text is merely disinformation :D), you kill him and lich-like he merely reforms within a day or so within his den (and ready to try and stop the living on their return trip). Or maybe one of the souls he's previously devoured gets reborn as the new Cerberus 24 hours later.


Kayerloth wrote:

Random thoughts and ideas

[...]

Maybe there is a howling wind rushing from the gate which blows any missile weapons fired towards it auto miss (as if effected by Fickle Winds) so any PCs using ranged weaponry must be upwind between the Gate and Cerberus (cone effect from gate out to ... 120 ft). And perhaps it must be resisted like Wind Force: Windstorm (helpfully tending to blow PCs away from the Gate and towards Cerberus). Clever PC's may use Control Winds or similar to alter/negate this effect of the Gate. Maybe this wind effectively halves the range of Cerberus' breath weapon when he spits towards the gate but doubles his range when he spits away from the gate.

Thanks a ton, Kayerloth ! those a great ideas, and i particularly love that one.

Also, thanks everyone else for participating here.

I'll build the encounter in the following days, and it will probably be played within 2 weeks.

For those interested, I'll come back and post the results of that part of the quest, so you might want to check back on the thread in a couple weeks :)


Hey , all !

Fight was played yesterday.

So, I did put Cerberus in a 60-ft high, ~80ft wide quasi-squared cavern. On the far wall from the entrance stood the 50ft-high, Duper-Reinforced iron Gate of Hell, which was flanked by two ceiling-high walls of Hellfire. The massive heat deployed by the flames was responsible for, first, environmental fire damage in the cavern, plus also a powerful and constant wind blowing away from that wall.

I did Add an Elysian Titan to be rescued prior, as to provide an accessible mean to the players to bash the door in. (although, in the end, they could very well have managed to break open the 500 hp, 50 hardness magic-impervious Gate by themselves too).

Concerning the miss chance from heat distortion : I decided against hit, since in the end the only player affected in any way by the wind was the archer, (with an added -4 malus to hit to his arrows) and thus giving him (and him only, since he is pretty much the only ranged character) an added environmental penalty felt unfair.

About the Shenanigans about opening the door with some set of skills, although a great idea, felt was inappropriate for the group. The previous skill-monkey just switched to a brand new character, and after the year long campaign we're been having where barely participated in any fights (with reason), i felt a more combat-oriented encounter was more suited for the group.

So...

well, Zhangar was right with his first intuition that Cerberus was "unsuited" as CR 23 creature. Just to put this in perspective, Here's a rough presentation of the group :
All players characters are a different combination of character levels and mythic ranks, which totals 18 (the most "mythic" character having 6 MR), which are :

A slayer, focusing on archery;
A paladin, with a Tanking-DPS role;
A Transmuter Wizard (siegemage archetype), made just for funzies ;
An arcanist, focusing on enhancing himself through golem armor and other constructs,
A lvl 12 cleric follower (yeah, I know, Leadership is OP);
Another story-line added Djinn "follower", played by the wizard, that accounts about to a CR 15-17 creature, and accounting for the role of the fighter.

So this group walked into the cavern, knowing they were going against a big Dog, and will have to face both petrification and poison attacks. They also add the objective of NOT killing the thing.

On the first round, Cerberus' Howl panicked both the cleric follower and the Arcanist for the whole duration of the fight. the others made it through.
Due to different combinations of Freedom of movement, planar adaption and life bubble spells, All character were unaffected by the environmental effect of the windstorm, except for the Slayer archer.

Leaping into the fight, Only the Djinn was petrified. The Slayer got lucky in the 3 important rounds of combat by averting his gaze, The wizard immuned himself against petrification (through Iron body), and the Paladin just needed to not roll a natural 1 on every round (he's that much of a badass, having different mythic and non-mythic abilities and buffs allowing to stack over +34 on fortitude saves).

With the help of cleverly placed wall of force and some positioning, the slayer found a niche were to fire his bow with a -4 to his attacks, combined with a 20% miss from averting his gaze. Although that was a great improvement from "ranged weapon attacks impossible due to windstorm", he did very little of the whole figth DPS.

The bulk of the damage came from the two other still-standing characters : The Paladin and the wizard.
First, a smite from the paladin combined with a critical hit from the Siege mage and his Cannon took 430 hit points out of the beast.

Then, after realizing how much the beast was hurt, all they had to do was hit it little by little with damage that would not bypass its regeneration (good-aligned weapon) in order to defeat - but not kill - the beast.

Annnd that's were it got ridiculous. The only character capable of doing so was the wizard (the Pal and slayer had holy weapons), with natural attacks gained by Form of the dragon transmutation. Altough it DID work, and took a few rounds of effort, it had this unnerving sense of disappointment where the challenge was to BE CAREFUL NOT TO HIT FREAKING CERBERUS TOO HARD.

Cerberus, with his 40 AC and NO other defensive abilities, isn't worth a melee combat-oriented CR 23 creature. (hell , a CR 20 Pitfiend using his natural abilities, rank up to 42 CA, and is supposed to be a melee/caster hybrid)

Secondly, although it felt its +42 bonus to attack was at the right level, the damage was just not cutting it. three times 4d10+13 might seems like a lot to start with, but the characters were too armored for power attack to be worth it, and only 1 or 2 bites hit each round. Meaning around 50-70 damage, NOT accounting for damage reduction (such and stoneskin or Iron Body). As far as I know, Cerberus bite does not count as adamantine.

So that's pretty much it.

I knew to expect that a EL 18 party could pass a over-estimated "CR 23" Cerberus, but I expected it to be harder.

After downing the beast, the party rallied the fleeing characters and the petrified ones, and went through the gate.

The END.


Ummmmm... Just thought I'd point out that Cerberus has ajob to do. He is not that bothered about letting people In, it is OUT that is a big no no. And so, if you actually KILL him... The endless masses of Hellbound dead will be able to return to the world............


Sissyl wrote:
Ummmmm... Just thought I'd point out that Cerberus has ajob to do. He is not that bothered about letting people In, it is OUT that is a big no no. And so, if you actually KILL him... The endless masses of Hellbound dead will be able to return to the world............

Ha, haven't though about that approach. It does actually makes a lot more sense.

Initially, the excuse I gave the PC for not killing him is that it would enrage Barbatos, the Lord of the first Layer.
And powerful as they are, they can't face a demi-god level being. Yet.

Had I have though of what you just said, I would have preferred it entirely.


So, in retro-respect, if anyone is thinking of using Cerberus in a campaign...

You can make what you want of the information here, but here's a few suggestions :

I think, as a huge creature, Cerberus is too small.
I feel adding the giant Simple monster template would be appropriate. It would rank up the damage form its bites, add some HP and natural armor (although canceled by the size change). Not sure about buffing up the (constitution-based) DC on poison. Feels already high enough for me.

Also, Cerberus seems to apply only 1x his strength bonus on bite attack ,rather than 1½x. Understandable for a creature having 3 head for a same size body, and yet.... This might deserve a change.

At last, he is vulnerable to invisible or DR carrying enemies (despite see in darkness, scent, and blindfight)
Maybe allow his bite to bypass some types of DR, or amping up the damage should suffice

A ranged invisible rogue could very well kill him in a single turn with a well placed full-attack with sneak.
He might be worth considering giving him blindsense, and improved or greater blind-fight.

Also, considering he is supposed to be preventing the spirits of the dead from escaping the deeper layers of Hell, is should be fitting that Cerberus have a "ghost-touch" bite. Plus, adding either some Charisma damage/drain to his attacks (his teeth are soul-rending, literally) or giving him the ability to pin down any enemy trying to pass by him (A grab ability on his bite, that works on incorporeal creatures AND bypass any freedom of movement effects) would be both fitting and scary.

Evidently, there were other environmental challenges exposed in this thread that I did not used, and were good ideas.


You sent in a 4 Mythic PC + 2 Followers party into a CR 23 encounter and appear to be surprised that it didn't measure up to your expectations. I've played a Level 12 / Mythic 6 Inquisitor, faced a CR 22-23 Encounter (that maximised enemy action economy) thrown at me by a GM, and still come out ahead on my own. Mythic just turns everything up a notch, so I'd prolly take what you said with a grain of salt. I'd be interested into how the encounter would have gone against a non mythic party, I suspect it would very likely have turned out the same way, but its difficult to know whether you are suggesting advantages because your mythic party rolling through one individual monster with terrible action economy, or if you genuinely think its not a particularly strong monster for a non mythic party, in which case your advice/suggestions would be very useful.


Here's my suggestions
1) apply the mighty template on that poor CR 23 doggy. that will make it bulky enough to last 2 round more without effecting too much is damage output
2) create a connection between the portal and him, like a regeneration 30 that can be prevented only by hitting him in melee with a specific weapon made of hell metal or something like that
3) have the environment react to the players presence. What if Cerberus is a guardian to an Hellmouth and said Hellmouth likes the doggy, having "teeth like walls" arising from the ground or "tongue like whips" manifesting from the ether as black tentacles?. Also, if you do not like the hellmouth, the portal could be half submerged in lava, with smoke everywhere (granting concealmente between 20% and 50%).
Be creative!

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