She's nuts. What have been your experiences with her in your own games? Have the PCs defeated her? If so, how? She seems like a TPK machine. DMs, use spoilers if necessary.
She kinda reminds me of Hosilla from Wrath of the Righteous.
Who is that? I didn't play that game.
Hosilla is an inquisitor character in WotR who has quite a bit of overlap in fighting style to Nox but has neither her mobility, nor her defensive staying power. She can hit very hard though.
For reference our full party consisted of an aether kineticist,a two hand fighter, a trap breaker alchemist, a life shaman, and a sacred huntsman inquisitor with a warcat (who was not there this evening). They're moderately optimized with 20 point buy.
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Nox is intended to be a tough fight (hence the sidebar on page 10, which is intended to telegraph to the PCs not only the fact that she IS tough, but that she regenerates)... but!
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Poor, poor Nox.
Things don't really go her way afterwards:-D
It's kind of funny really seeing the first Book strongly suggests she will die during this initial encounter, but provides for her to potentially escape. Book 3 seems to think she WILL escape but might not.
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It's kind of funny really seeing the first Book strongly suggests she will die during this initial encounter, but provides for her to potentially escape. Book 3 seems to think she WILL escape but might not.
It works either way, frankly. If the PCs DO defeat her in book one, they'll have things a bit easier in book 3 as a reward is all, but book 3 assumes she DID make it because it spends words and art on her.
Hrmmm - typically in my games the situation goes like this:
Buffed uber bad boss with magic items and huge hps and wicked attack:
Party kills it in 3 rounds.
Naked CR -2 monster meant to be a 'annoyance' -
18 rounds later and 1/2 the night gone the party rolls above a 3.
:)
Honestly though a hint for 'grease' - it works against weapons - you know how many bosses have a backup weapon?
Seriously if something is using a weapon and has a poor reflex save... it's a nasty spell - you don't just have to use it on the ground.
She ate my pcs alive but I think it's because they fought her on her terms. A tanglefoot bag, some more ranged damage and not letting her own the bridge would have made a difference. Plus the grease spell would've had her fighting with a hand axe.
I have a group of PCs who are quite weak in the hand to hand department. They are a support cleric (str 8), a bard, a spiritualist, a witch and a swashbuckler. I'm thinking about giving him an NPC dwarf tank if they lean that way and they play they cards right.
Overkill or something they would probably need for Nox and her cronies?
Well, she has dimension door and is written to flee if reduced to 10hp, so the party needs to do 47 to win.
With AC 21 a 3rd level fighter with a masterwork greatsword, an 18 strength, and weapon focus hits 45% of the time, dealing ~13 damage on a hit (for an average of ~6pts per round). A party of four such fighters would chop her up in about 2 rounds.
A 3rd level wizard could magic missile for about 7pts. A party of four such wizards could blast her in about 2 rounds.
A 3rd level rogue with an 18 Dex who can get a flank and a masterwork short sword will hit 45% of the time, doing ~14 damage a blow (again ~6pts per round). A party of four such rogues will stab her to death in about 2 rounds.
What's Nox going to get up to in those two rounds shes alive? Well, she'll hit swing for 1d10+14 (call it 20pts per blow) but only with a +9 to hit. A fighter with platemail and a 12 dex is avoiding about half her blows.
Yeah, she could get lucky and start rolling the party, she can potentially drop a PC a round with lucky hits, but she seems pretty well balanced for a tough but totally winnable encounter to me.
She's not alone
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I doubt Nox hangs out below the Monastery 24/7, so I was thinking of having her show up throughout the volume and go after the party Jason Voorhees-style. Specifically, she would appear if the party is too bold or reckless when confronting the Thrunies or waves a red flag in front of the bull, so to speak. The idea would be that the players are supposed to escape and FAST whenever she shows up.
I'm going to have her be more visible from this point until they finally beat her for good at some point. She beat the PCs in my game, so there will be no disappearance for her, at least not yet. She is going to be on the lookout for the survivors. After all, they killed her dog...
Should holy water harm Nox? I didn't think so because she is neither undead nor an outsider, despite being devil-bound. Does being devil-bound make her susceptible? It kinda makes sense if it does, but I found no mention of this in the write up of the template in Bestiary 4.
If it could hurt Nox, should its damage count as good? This is also unclear in the holy water write up in the CRB, but once again, would make some logical sense. Thanks!
Unless shown otherwise, my stance would be no to both questions, RAW.
Get some holy water and force Nox to drink it while telling jokes so she chokes on it and drowns. ;)
Should holy water harm Nox? I didn't think so because she is neither undead nor an outsider, despite being devil-bound. Does being devil-bound make her susceptible? It kinda makes sense if it does, but I found no mention of this in the write up of the template in Bestiary 4.
If it could hurt Nox, should its damage count as good? This is also unclear in the holy water write up in the CRB, but once again, would make some logical sense. Thanks!
Unless shown otherwise, my stance would be no to both questions, RAW.
I said it did, it made sense, since she's mainlining the power of an evil outsider. At the very least, it shut off her Regen for a round, noone actually successfully tagged her with one.
Our party had very few things that could touch her at the end of the first book, with her... well, her being her...
So after defeating minions and a whole lot of keeping her at bay and out of melee while doing very minimal dam per round via arrows and spells, she escaped.
And knows our faces, which has required us to taking precautions and second guessing where we go and how we approach things. We know better and have made better preparations. I am sure the GM will scale her up for the next "encounter."
Got very lucky when fighting her ( after having the group severely depleted by the rest of the dungeon and the Phantasmagorium before) with the witch (armed with Accursed Hex) bum rushing her, succeeding on Evil Eye and getting her "slumbered". While her hell hound killed the witch on the next round ( and subsequently got slaughtered by the rest of the group), the sleeping Nox was summarily decapitated with her own glaive for "sleeping at her post" and naturally failed the Fort Safe. Her head was taken along to prevent any raise dead or similar nonsense.
But basically it came all down to luck - if she had saved, she would likely have slaughtered the group's remaining 2 characters.
Overall - that fight cost the group 2 of 4 characters (thief and witch) . and since the group was aimed (at social play a la "Ultimate Intrigue") which they enjoyed but mostly had nothing to do with the pre-written plot, and severly disliked ,
So there are lots of stories about parties who have killed her
Have there been many where she gets away?
Isn’t that narratively unsatisfying? How did the players react?
And are we to assume Thrune tortures her without asking for details of who did it?
So there are lots of stories about parties who have killed her
Have there been many where she gets away?
Isn’t that narratively unsatisfying? How did the players react?And are we to assume Thrune tortures her without asking for details of who did it?
I’m towards the end of book 2. She got away in our play through. My players were wearing masks when they assaulted Hoccum’s so she doesn’t know who they are. It’ll be fun to reintroduce her in the future.
The threat of her still out there is a fun one and as far as she knows: “it was a group of masked people.” Only after they have continued to act against the government did Barzillai connect the dots about the Silver Ravens.
The players had to flee in my game after two of them went down. Nox would be able to describe those two well enough and give basic descriptions for the others. But that doesn't mean that Barzillai would know who they are, just who to look out for. Which is why the Silver Ravens notoriety goes up by 2D6.
And also why he would know if fake Ravens try to claim his gifts at the end of the second book.
