High Level Creatures for Veteran Roleplayers

[Valkyrie-Storm]

Hi there Paizo fourms, I am currently making a mega dungeon for a bunch of Hack and slash kinda Roleplayers, the dungeon they will be doing is a Level 20 Dungeon they are pretty experienced with all classes so I can expect a lot of cheese from them, there after a dungeon adventure filled spills and thrills of playing high levels (They have gotten to 16th level at there highest in all there campaigns, so basically I'm asking for some really fun kind of encounters for them to vs in this Mega Dungeons.

Things I have looked in to are things like Tarrasques and Pit fiends and such, they will fight anything and I mean anything good or evil it dies, so Paizo fourms help me find some fun and exciting fodder for them to destroy with a sense of victory when they do it.

Basically I have given them these rules:
- 25 Point buy
- 750,000 GP
- All stuff is allowed bar stupidly overpowered things
- No Artefacts of Legend
- All Books are Allowed.
- All races and Classes.

So I would love links and such to scary and exciting creatures for them to do battle with, thanks.

[MuertoXSky]

I dont have much experience as GM, but I think my friend here will do the job.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/devils-un ique/devil-lucifer-prince-of-darkness-tohc

[Valkyrie-Storm]

Sorry sould of mentioned no 3rd Party stuff.

[MuertoXSky]

oh :(

I guess you could check the monster by CR.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary/monstersByCR.html

Regards.-

[Foxdie13]

I have a great suggestion. The adventure was for dnd 3.5 but I guess can easly be converted to pf. The name is Labyrinth of Madness. The adventure was for lvl 17 to 19. I've read most of it and I've tried it one time. I was not experienced to be honest but our party got almost destroyed in the very first room. (spoiler alert: it was funny as hell).

The fight are not that hard, but it's the kind of dungeon that force player to think outside the box and not just have the strongest character. Might be very cool for experienced players

[DM_Blake]

You may be in trouble here.

STARTING at level 20 without leveling there produces stronger characters that what you get by just leveling normally from level 1 through 20. If for no other reason than 750,000gp spent on EXACTLY what you want rather than having half your crap being the junk you found and you just made the most of it, or sold it for half price to buy something more useful but now you don't have the full 750,000 anymore. Even sometimes low level choices for feats and spells are things we need right now but don't need at level 20 (this can be retrained, but it costs cash and leaves you below the 750,000gp WBL target).

It just always seems that creating a high level character results in far more shenanigans than you get by actually leveling up to the same level.

If you only have 4 PCs created at level 20, I would plan encounters for CR22 or so, just to account for this. If you have more PCs, scale it up even more.

Now hit the SRD and look for encounters at that CR, whatever it is. Don't forget that they should face FOUR separate encounters of that CR each day in your mega dungeon so don't worry too much if they blow away the first couple encounters with killer 9th level spells, just keep throwing encounters at them and don't let them rest so that they run out of killer resources and have to handle the last encounter or two the hard way.

Oh, and thanks for thinking of me first; it warms my armored heart to be first on your list...

[Cuttler]

One recommendation: think about action economy...

If your Players outnumber your monster, yit will be easy for them....give them targets...

Spells will also play a big role as you surely know, so plan stratégies accordingly...after all, your monsters (sucha s Pit fiends) are Genius...

So why not use a pit fiend (or such a big creature ) with an anti-magic field to disrupt things....

they will probaly have ridiculous AC and miss chances spells/items....a lot of thpose high level creatures have True seeing, that will help..; use lots of debuff and not just a big tank....

tha'ts my new recommendations...

PS: why not build an opposing 20th level party of similar force that you play to your best....should give them a challenge...

[Bobo D]

If you have read Foundation and Empire, use Mule as inspiration for the big bad. Beyond that, I would say to remember that evil means differnet things to different people, and make thier actions reflect that. Only fanatics fight to the death. Sometimes evil thinks that its purpose is to turn heroes to their cause or prove he's the same as them, ala Joker and his pals from the arkham knight videogame (really good villian writing in that one). Remember with smart creatures to play them as smart, let them pick thier fights, and for the love of all things holy do not give the pc's plot armor. If they are crushing everything within CR+4, but piss of some insane CE diety? Good party optimization does not make your people gods, and sometimes the actual gods want to make sure you know that, especially at this level. Also pull out classic villian stratagies, especially making the party choose between two really bad outcomes. I remember someone saying in a thread somewhere that the best way to protect the phylactery of a lich is to make it from the soul gem of the terrasque, then tell everyone exactly where to find it and what it is. Kill me, you now have to deal with a pimped out terrasque, that the people you protect know that the lich could take care of. So hold hostages, cheat, lie, and spike the wine with lsd. Most bad guys are immune (i think).

[Valkyrie-Storm]

DM_Blake wrote:

You may be in trouble here.

STARTING at level 20 without leveling there produces stronger characters that what you get by just leveling normally from level 1 through 20. If for no other reason than 750,000gp spent on EXACTLY what you want rather than having half your crap being the junk you found and you just made the most of it, or sold it for half price to buy something more useful but now you don't have the full 750,000 anymore. Even sometimes low level choices for feats and spells are things we need right now but don't need at level 20 (this can be retrained, but it costs cash and leaves you below the 750,000gp WBL target).

It just always seems that creating a high level character results in far more shenanigans than you get by actually leveling up to the same level.

If you only have 4 PCs created at level 20, I would plan encounters for CR22 or so, just to account for this. If you have more PCs, scale it up even more.

Now hit the SRD and look for encounters at that CR, whatever it is. Don't forget that they should face FOUR separate encounters of that CR each day in your mega dungeon so don't worry too much if they blow away the first couple encounters with killer 9th level spells, just keep throwing encounters at them and don't let them rest so that they run out of killer resources and have to handle the last encounter or two the hard way.

Oh, and thanks for thinking of me first; it warms my armored heart to be first on your list...

750,000 GP Because they count pick anything up and they will fight around 3 - 5 Fight a Day, the Dungeon is litterally the plaything of a Demon Lord (Angels and such are just 'Fallen') He has his fun for the day with them and then let's them rest and begins it again, I was going for base CR of 24-25 as there will be 6 or 7 (If this guy gets the time from work) to be running it, and fight will be fun, I have ideas of Darkness rooms because so many people forget Light and such on there big bad level 20 spell list, Demons throwing Anti-Magic zones and such, then using wish to still be able to cast in them etc, it will be fun and hopeful not just a breeze for them.

[Valkyrie-Storm]

So far a couple of my ideas are:

Magically Dark Room with 2 Pit Fiends
Balor Lord
Double Ancient Dragons
NPC Party with levels made by myself.
Triple High Rank Elemental
Low Level Epic Monster (Etc: CR 28 Mythic Monsters)
Super Trap Rooms.

Then there are the between rooms, where I am going to test things like Skill Rolls, puzzles and traps etc.

This is ment to be fun for them so at the end if the part, dies the demon lord will become upset and give them a total of 1 Ressurention each after that they are mince meat, fight extra scary things will give them maybe a Ressurention token etc.

[Avoron]

You could do some interesting things with a dead magic demiplane, or even a plain old mage's magnificent enclosure cage battle.

[Kirth Gersen]

Valkyrie-Storm wrote:

I am currently making a mega dungeon for a bunch of Hack and slash kinda Roleplayers, the dungeon they will be doing is a Level 20 Dungeon

20th level characters can make their own demi-planes, but they're still mindlessly going into dungeons? Words fail me.

[Mayr]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Valkyrie-Storm wrote:

I am currently making a mega dungeon for a bunch of Hack and slash kinda Roleplayers, the dungeon they will be doing is a Level 20 Dungeon

20th level characters can make their own demi-planes, but they're still mindlessly going into dungeons? Words fail me.

Well, he said that it is a hack and slash type of Mega Dungeon and sometimes mindless - no big overarching plots, etc - fun can be the best fun!

[*Khan*]

Army of Ghosts
Rust golems - perhaps a beefed up version of this: http://grandwiki.wikidot.com/mstrust-golem

Give them individuel curses which alter their spell/combat abilities which they need to find solutions to in the dungeon.

"Grant" all the players venerable age and a couple of physical and mental diseases:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/afflictions#TOC-Mental-Disease-Track

Have fun

[Leonardo Trancoso]

Cthulhu

[MuertoXSky]

If you are going to make your own High level party anti-protagonist, i recommendo using PCGen.

http://pcgen.sourceforge.net/03_get_pcgen.php

Noble Drow/dwarf Vampire Cleric 19-20 for the win.-

[Captain K.]

OP, your post made me chuckle. It's fun when the players don't need to mess about with 'feelings' and 'motivation' and just want to get into the slaughter.

A good monster is the Shoggoth. This is because it is an Ooze (with a lot of immunities) and very helpfully, Chaotic Neutral thus can't be smited and is not an evil outsider. These things matter because a level 20 Good Divine character can destroy a lot of similar demonic chumps easily. This might happen in your dungeon. I expect that at least one player will have some tricked-out Paladin whose entire schtick is charging in and one-shotting anything which even flirts with Evil.

But the Shoggoth gets rid of that nonsense, and is resistant to much of the Wizard's silliness too, being a big ooze.

However, it's only CR 19 which isn't much. A well-built 13th level PC can solo these guys.

So make a swarm of them, four of them, crawling trough the oozing walls. And remember, they are aquatic so the entire party can be stuck underwater too. Drama! Danger!

[Raisse]

I'm a fan of a magicbane bandersnatch with a couple barbarian levels and the agile template.

Also, a Solar, a Star Archon, a Pit Fiend and a Balor all walk into a bar for a nice relaxing evening hanging out after work. And then your party walks in.

[Valkyrie-Storm]

As I said guys, there it's a Demon Lord as in a Deity making them his play toy basically, it was created to be a way for them to play 20th Level characters for fun and slaughter, so I said yes I can make one, the only problem is I'm not to GMie around high level things there a bit blank for me sometimes, So I'm a little wierd on spells like Wish etc, lik can a Creature break reality with a wish spell? As for Demiplane stupids, there a Void Locked as in the Demon lord litterally has control of there life or death. I fought of a simple story, there heroes brought to the demon lords plane to do battle in his 'Dungeon' (It's basiclly the demon Lords playground), I'm looking for things that they never fought as players because there so out there, Like as I have heard something can be Stright forward when vsing one but scary as all hell when fought as a Group for example Hydras.

I have fought of some mythic creatures for them to fight as well as many other Stright forward enemies for example a Summooner Room where 4 level 20 Summoners use Gate at the same time for maximum trollage, as I said I'm allowing them everything except what is banned, they also said throw anything as long as it is fun to fight.

[Valkyrie-Storm]

So far I have received 5 character ideas for them
- Wild Shape Druid
- Wizard
- Archer (Zen Archer 1/Fighter 19)
-'Crit Mounted Paladin (1 Cavalier/19 Paladin)
- Magus

My ideas are still floating like I had ideas of Lava Rooms with Linnorms, Pools with Shoggoths in them, Trap filled Rooms with Pit fiends flying around in them and such.

I'm still open to your Room ideas, each room is a Full Flip map wide and long so go crazy.

[Gurior]

I think your setting is awesome.

One of the thing I liked the most about running a (short) high level campaign was designing overpowered enemies, and going all-out with character building (most of them were npc-characters, not monsters per say.)

Although i don'T have specific suggestions for you, i would point out that you should feel free to tweak monsters in order to have a greater selection of challenges to choose from.
By that, I mean that you would find relatively very little creatures worth a CR22+ in all bestiaries.

For example, templates are great.
a +5 template can turn a measly Cr17 monster into "the First of his race" for a greater challenge :)

Adding a few class levels is great. Want to make good use of the across-the-board great stats of metallic dragons ? throw in a couple level of paladin/anti-paladin/monk.
An ancient dragon with a +10 modifier on charisma using Smite good is a terror to behold.
The added class features that players usually dip for in those classes will make a great difference :)

And finally, intelligent monsters should have access (and be able to profit from) magic items. Feel like the CR 20 Pit fiend have a too low AC ? throw in a +5 ring of deflection to balance the scales.

You just happens to be about to prepare something that I love to do, So please give us some news about how the thing is going if you can :)

[Rerednaw]

Define broken/OP regarding these PCs? Are you working with your players to define the campaign and expectations?

Are you allowing limitations of even Core rule silliness? Because a few simulacrums, gated allies, etc...can seriously skew a fight without impacting wealth restrictions on foes.

Generally, I would recommend the entire daemon category of foes. Good resistances, thematic, and usually have various beyond normal game quirks.

For example, the astradaemon, http://archivesofnethys.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Astradaemon is fairly middling, but say he's just been fed a small village's worth of peasants? That +2 untyped stackable to str can get really eggregious. Throw in an advanced template and he's now a very decent minion to use in waves against a higher level party.

And play your foes smart. The boss types won't charge in, they will throw lesser minions to learn the PCs tactics and weaknesses, then throw more minions to make sure before committing heavy hitters and only after they are reasonably sure the party has burned through a good chunk of their daily resources.

Good luck and have fun!