Greeting everyone. So my players(level 7-8, 4 total) have stumbled across an old lost temple complex of a dead God of the sun. And I was thinking of making a vampiric phase spider to be cursed to guard this lost tomb, and the party will have to deal with it. What do y'all think would be some interesting ideas to change up from the basics of vampire. They've encountered some spawn she created from the guards who served an evil priest whom they followed to the temple, and i changed them to instead of having energy drain they spit webs (as the web spell). I wanna do some interesting stuff with the phase spider though, any ideas are welcome. I was also thinking of dropping a few level of sorcerer or maybe an occult class on the spider. Give me some good ideas y'all. Thanks.
Ultimately destroying a vampiric phase spider could wind up being quite difficult for a party of that level if you make the spider's "coffin" its ethereal "home" web. Then again, maybe if they turn it gaseous it cannot return for 24 hours granting the party time to do what they need to do, but not allowing them to set up shop and linger too long?
A spider that can spit out swarms of tiny spiders would be pretty cool and give you some minions for the party to deal with. Phase spiders feel "psychic" to me and giving it mental control over dominated thralls seems fitting for a vampire. Add in some of those. Maybe it has them stored in its ethereal webs and it can draw them forth as swift actions?
Sounds like a really neat encounter to me. Good luck!