In Pathfinder, there are certain monster abilities that act as gateways. A group has an extremely difficult time fighting these monsters until they get a certain ability. A large part of the monsters' CR rating is that ability.
- Examples that I know of:
- DR/magic. Gargoyles are an excellent example of this. With a magic weapon, it isn't that tough a fight. Without a magical weapon, it can be brutal.
- Invisibility. Without Glitterdust, See Invisible, or some other way to at least figure out which square they are in, these opponents are much more difficult than once you have those abilities.
- Flight on an intelligent creature.
Abilities that make you blind or turn you to stone, but many of the counters can be obtained by level 3.
Also monsters that curse you or give you a disease.
Curse is a good one, before a certain point you have no way to deal with it. The character cursed is greatly impeded until it is fixed to the point of potentially needing to retreat because of the curse.
Disease in my experience tends to just be a resource and time drain. They don't take effect fast enough to cause an immediate retreat, and can generally be handled by just going to a large town and paying to get them cured.
I'm looking more for the sort of things where it prevents a party from being able to dea with a challlenge before a certain point or without a certain ability.
All excellent points claymade, and just the sort of thing I'm looking for.
The reason I'm asking is that I have a friend that is a good GM, but has over-reacted to a TPK by softballing encounters too much since then. The encounter that caused the problem combined invisibility with DR/10 Magic just before the group had a magic weapons. It was the DR that really did us in.
I want to talk to him, get him to up the difficulty a bit again. Thing is, before doing that I want a good list of the monster specials to be careful about. The things that are much more difficult if the group doesn't have a way to deal with them -- especially if taken by surprise.
Thanks to everyone who have replied so far!
|
Grab can be a very deadly ability, in certain circumstances.
Nobody primarily uses 1-handed weapons? Grab is very strong.
Primary spellcaster? Grab is very strong, unless they have an alternative way of teleporting (ie: teleportation wizard subschool).
Of course, if the grabbing bad guys are outnumbered, that cuts down on its effectiveness quite a bit.
Deeper darkness spawning creatures are tough without daylight available.
Oozes and they're Engulf ability are a good lower level gateway. Gelatinous cubes the size of corridors are pretty threatening.
Rust Monsters. You want the party to turn and run? Send out the Rust Monsters and watch them rethink their life choices.
Ability Drain/Negative Levels in general can be crippling to an unprepared party of any level, deadly to lower level ones.
Tucker's Kobolds. Good God, probably the biggest gateway I can think of.
Antimagic Fields can be a terror.
I heard of a 7th level party turned into a 3rd and 4th level party by a dire wrath. The GM is desperately looking for a way to save the adventure path. Stand alone modules such as dungeons are the only answer. That and don't include level drainers that early. Anything else is homebrew.
For example, either throw out permanent level drain or throw out the use limit on restoration. You could give out rings of negative energy protection like candy. Maybe put them on every humanoid slave belonging to Drow.
I heard of a 7th level party turned into a 3rd and 4th level party by a dire wrath. The GM is desperately looking for a way to save the adventure path. Stand alone modules such as dungeons are the only answer. That and don't include level drainers that early. Anything else is homebrew.
For example, either throw out permanent level drain or throw out the use limit on restoration. You could give out rings of negative energy protection like candy. Maybe put them on every humanoid slave belonging to Drow.
Wraiths do con drain not level drain so that could not happen. Dire wraiths are also for around CR 10 so I doubt they were thrown against a 3rd or 4th level party unless it was something like Rappan Athuk.
However a wight(which has a terrible to hit bonus) which I think is a CR 2 or 3 monster or spectre(targets touch AC's) could do it.
I really don't like the idea of using level drainers before the party can reliably have a chance to undo it. Wights should just be adjusted to have a higher CR in my opinion.
A lot of monsters get teleport and unless you have dimensional anchor you will struggle to stop them from leaving.That's only a problem if you really need to kill the monster though. If monsters run away, then you win.
Even if they use hit and run tactics the PCs can just damage them when they do appear.
{. . .}
This doesn't work so well for the PCs if the monsters also have a way to heal faster than the PCs (usually this means Fast Healing or Regeneration, but could also mean PC-class NPCs/monsters with a lot of access to magical healing, either their own or their supporters).
Swarms, incorporeal creatures, and certain kinds of regeneration can all completely shut down an unprepared party, with little chance of a workaround.
Of course, depending on how the regeneration is canceled you can obtain counters at early levels if you're thinking ahead and are willing to shell out the gold. Swarms can be similar, depending on where you fall on the whole "splash weapons against swarms" debate.
Still, they can both technically still serve that sort of "gateway" function, even if its a gateway you can go through fairly early (so long as you're experienced enough to know how important it is to prepare for).
Depending upon the circumstances, suffocation (drowning, burial, choking, hanging, etc.) might work against regeneration, depending on terrain. Once the enemy is down, you can just keep on hitting it until you can find a way to make it suffocate.