This is simply edition creep.
The 3.5 version of the greater barghest lists it as having 10 ft. space/5 ft. reach. This is typical of 3.5 quadrapedal monsters.
The Pathfinder version of the greater barghest simply lists the creature as being Large. There's no callout of reach; that means that in Pathfinder, Malfeshnakor will have standard 10 ft. reach of a Large creature.
In Pathfinder #1, Malfeshnakor is listed as being an "Advanced elite greater barghest" and provides a full statblock; this is typical for nonstandard monsters.
In RotRL:AE, Malfeshnakor is simply listed as a greater barghest with a page reference to Bestiary 1. No statblock is reprinted there. I'm not sure if that was due to space constraints or if the devs thought that a standard greater barghest was a sufficiently difficult foe.
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I'm not sure if that was due to space constraints or if the devs thought that a standard greater barghest was a sufficiently difficult foe.Probably both considering Malfeshnekor is responsible for many PC deaths over the years.
-Skeld
How does that happen anyway? He is forced to be in small room with fire pit that damages him if he steps in it and nothing is preventing pcs shooting at him with ranged weapons. Like only way I can see that happening is if someone is unlucky and gets grappled by him or gets hit badly when he is invisible.
Creative Director
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This is simply edition creep.
The 3.5 version of the greater barghest lists it as having 10 ft. space/5 ft. reach. This is typical of 3.5 quadrapedal monsters.
The Pathfinder version of the greater barghest simply lists the creature as being Large. There's no callout of reach; that means that in Pathfinder, Malfeshnakor will have standard 10 ft. reach of a Large creature.
In Pathfinder #1, Malfeshnakor is listed as being an "Advanced elite greater barghest" and provides a full statblock; this is typical for nonstandard monsters.
In RotRL:AE, Malfeshnakor is simply listed as a greater barghest with a page reference to Bestiary 1. No statblock is reprinted there. I'm not sure if that was due to space constraints or if the devs thought that a standard greater barghest was a sufficiently difficult foe.
A standard greater barghest was a sufficiently difficult foe.
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How does that happen anyway? He is forced to be in small room with fire pit that damages him if he steps in it and nothing is preventing pcs shooting at him with ranged weapons. Like only way I can see that happening is if someone is unlucky and gets grappled by him or gets hit badly when he is invisible.I'm not sure if that was due to space constraints or if the devs thought that a standard greater barghest was a sufficiently difficult foe.Probably both considering Malfeshnekor is responsible for many PC deaths over the years.
-Skeld
Because not all GMs play the encounter that way. Also, sometimes, PCs aren't so smart about how they tackle an encounter. They don't know what constraints Malfeshnekor is under, and so on. There are a lot of reasons that can be a deadly encounter.
My players fought with him some, then retreated with the intent to come back later and destroy him.
-Skeld
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Creative Director
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The point of the Malfeshnekor encounter was many...
1) I wanted to include an encounter that was intentionally tough, to experiment with blurring the lines between the artificial start and end of separate books in the path. (I"d actually count this experiment as something of a failure, since it turns out, most gamers aren't comfortable with bleeding back and forth between books in an AP it seems—there's a perception that you can't start things in the next volume until the first volume is done, and/or that once you move to a second volume you can't go back and do things in a previous one... hopefully I'm wrong about this perception because being able to drift back and forth between adventures like that helps verisimilitude and combats the idea that the whole thing is an immutable railroad)...
2) I wanted to include a tough fight that is easy if you do it "right"; that is, ranged attacks are very much the intention.
3) I wanted an "optional" part of the dungeon. Technically, you don't need to explore any of the dungeon after the room with Nualia; the rest is "bonus" and in there as additional content. This is something lots of video games do (particularly the Dark Souls games); optional, kinda hard to find content that's extra tough.
4) I wanted there to be a reason for Nualia to be doing what she was doing, and Malfeshnekor was a great choice.
5) I wanted to contextualize the relationship between barghests and goblins in Pathfinder a bit; this was the first AP after all, and there was a lot of world-building going on there.
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How does that happen anyway? He is forced to be in small room with fire pit that damages him if he steps in it and nothing is preventing pcs shooting at him with ranged weapons. Like only way I can see that happening is if someone is unlucky and gets grappled by him or gets hit badly when he is invisible.I'm not sure if that was due to space constraints or if the devs thought that a standard greater barghest was a sufficiently difficult foe.Probably both considering Malfeshnekor is responsible for many PC deaths over the years.
-Skeld
Because not all GMs play the encounter that way. Also, sometimes, PCs aren't so smart about how they tackle an encounter. They don't know what constraints Malfeshnekor is under, and so on. There are a lot of reasons that can be a deadly encounter.
My players fought with him some, then retreated with the intent to come back later and destroy him.
-Skeld
Well if gm allows him to leave the room, its kinda not players' fault if they get tpk'd xD
Anyway, my players dealt with him rather easily yeah <_< They figured pretty fast he can't leave the room
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When I ran the encounter in 3.5, the PCs killed him in one round. It was very anticlimactic.
Are we sure the greater barghest is 10 ft with 10 ft reach?
The Bestiary entry for greater barghest is combined with the barghest entry and has no space listed (perhaps for page size limits?) The Stat block explanation for Space/Reach states "if the creature’s space and reach are standard (one 5-foot square and a reach of 5 feet), this line is omitted." But the greater barghest is obviously not 5 ft square.
There are several 10ft sq, 5 ft reach quadrupeds such as dire bear, grizzly bear, centaur, etc. And while I didn't search exhaustively, I could find no Large creatures with no space/reach entry. Except Dire Boar, which interestingly shares a page with the Medium sized version...
Further the d20pfsrd has an entry for greater barghest and like the Bestiary provides no size. However it has a link to an advanced elite greater barghest and that is listed as space 10, reach 5. Of course there is also a Mythic Greater Barghest and it is 10/10.
I'm so confused.
I'd suggest the OP make it 10 ft with 5 ft reach and move on with his day.
My players defeated Mal without much trouble though it took two attempts and a few rounds. His immobility is his great weakness. Their first encounter did not work out well mostly because of his DR. But they retreated, the wizard made a knowledge check and the next day the cleric put magic weapon on the fighter's axe and bard's bow. The cleric stood behind the fighter (out of reach) casting healing spells while the fighter hacked Mal down, supported by arrows from the bard and flaming spheres from the wizard. Blink kept Mal alive for a brief time, but in the end there wasn't much he could do especially after players mostly saved vs. charms and despair.
Creatures that take up more than 1 square typically have a natural reach of 10 feet or more, meaning that they can reach targets even if they aren't in adjacent squares.
Unlike when someone uses a reach weapon, a creature with greater than normal natural reach (more than 5 feet) still threatens squares adjacent to it. A creature with greater than normal natural reach usually gets an attack of opportunity against you if you approach it, because you must enter and move within the range of its reach before you can attack it. This attack of opportunity is not provoked if you take a 5-foot step.
Large or larger creatures using reach weapons can strike up to double their natural reach but can't strike at their natural reach or less.
The statblock of a greater barghest doesn't say otherwise, so I'd rule that Malfeshnakor has 10-foot reach.
I just ran this fight two days ago; Mal wrecked our party. I've never seen so many blink rolls go so unfavorably, but in short, Mal couldn't miss and they couldn't hit him. There were a number of rolls that would've been critical hits by the party, only to be stopped by blink. That fight took 10 rounds, with two downed PCs. They had no idea that they could've range-attacked him to death. If not for blink, the fight would've been over in 3 rounds. It definitely shows the high variance that occurs from table to table.
I've change Mal to something bigger and scarier and obviously in the "don't attack it or we'll die" category (CR >10), since my party didn't go after him at all - left the door closed and haven't come back. Luckily, the other changes I've made (since one player had run the first two books) will lead them back there eventually - but maybe still not for a fight yet.
My PCs entered the room, then managed to extract themselves after a brutal fight. They meant to come back but never got around to it. I decided that Mal was eventually released by another group of (goblins or hobgoblins, I forget which), whom Mal promptly slaughtered on his way out.
When we got to chapter 4, I decided that Mal was sufficiently annoyed at Karzoug-followers for trapping him for so long, that he was on the outskirts of the fortress and opportunistically taking out giants and others who were gathered there. The forces gathered around the fortress knew something was killing them and gruesomely staking the dead bodies out, but they had no idea what it was - they thought it was some sort of haunt or curse. The party ended up forming an alliance with Mal, and it ended up being one of the highlights of the campaign.
On Mal's reach, the table titled "Big and Little Creatures in Combat" from here clearly shows two types of Large creature. I see Mal as being Large (long). It amazes me how few players seem to know the tall/long distinction exists for anything bigger than Medium.
Edit: That last line sounds sarcastic or dismissive. This is one of the rare instances where I'm intending neither.
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Whelp I'm still really confused about this ._. Since I don't really feel like my party got particularly lucky... Then again, my party did this:
They opened the door and one of them stepped one square into it. Then they figured out that since they can't see anything and the door seemed intimidating enough so that clearly being Nualia wanted to free has to be here, they decided to go away leaving Mal no choice but try to grab and kill only party member in the room, he got away without much of problems and then they made his life rather short with reach and ranged weapons.
The point of the Malfeshnekor encounter was many...
1) I wanted to include an encounter that was intentionally tough, to experiment with blurring the lines between the artificial start and end of separate books in the path. (I"d actually count this experiment as something of a failure, since it turns out, most gamers aren't comfortable with bleeding back and forth between books in an AP it seems—there's a perception that you can't start things in the next volume until the first volume is done, and/or that once you move to a second volume you can't go back and do things in a previous one... hopefully I'm wrong about this perception because being able to drift back and forth between adventures like that helps verisimilitude and combats the idea that the whole thing is an immutable railroad)...
2) I wanted to include a tough fight that is easy if you do it "right"; that is, ranged attacks are very much the intention.
3) I wanted an "optional" part of the dungeon. Technically, you don't need to explore any of the dungeon after the room with Nualia; the rest is "bonus" and in there as additional content. This is something lots of video games do (particularly the Dark Souls games); optional, kinda hard to find content that's extra tough.
4) I wanted there to be a reason for Nualia to be doing what she was doing, and Malfeshnekor was a great choice.
5) I wanted to contextualize the relationship between barghests and goblins in Pathfinder a bit; this was the first AP after all, and there was a lot of world-building going on there.
Both of the times that I've run Rise of the Runelords, my players went back and fought Malfeshnekor later. I really played up the idea that he was a goblin god locked up in the island.
So, for what it's worth, your experiment was a big success for us and made our game much more rich. Thank you for that!
The point of the Malfeshnekor encounter was many...
1) I wanted to include an encounter that was intentionally tough, to experiment with blurring the lines between the artificial start and end of separate books in the path. (I"d actually count this experiment as something of a failure, since it turns out, most gamers aren't comfortable with bleeding back and forth between books in an AP it seems—there's a perception that you can't start things in the next volume until the first volume is done, and/or that once you move to a second volume you can't go back and do things in a previous one... hopefully I'm wrong about this perception because being able to drift back and forth between adventures like that helps verisimilitude and combats the idea that the whole thing is an immutable railroad)...
2) I wanted to include a tough fight that is easy if you do it "right"; that is, ranged attacks are very much the intention.
3) I wanted an "optional" part of the dungeon. Technically, you don't need to explore any of the dungeon after the room with Nualia; the rest is "bonus" and in there as additional content. This is something lots of video games do (particularly the Dark Souls games); optional, kinda hard to find content that's extra tough.
4) I wanted there to be a reason for Nualia to be doing what she was doing, and Malfeshnekor was a great choice.
5) I wanted to contextualize the relationship between barghests and goblins in Pathfinder a bit; this was the first AP after all, and there was a lot of world-building going on there.
This actually worked superbly for us.
During the 'initial' Thistletop foray, the PC's avoided unnecessary encounters (such as with the Giant Hermit Crab which they didn't find and the Tentamort which wasn't in their way) and they missed Malfeshnekor entirely which was partially by design. At a later point in the campaign, they were approached by a pair of druids from Mosswood who had designs on inhabiting the ruin and making it a place for a new Circle in the area... but first they needed the PC's aid to cleanse the place of a greater evil they sensed that still resided within. The PC's went back and referenced Tsuto's journal remembering a passage about Nualia trying to awaken a greater evil from the bowels of Thistletop...
When the group returned they were a little more seasoned, so I added a cool harpy encounter on the upper level and gave them a second run at Thistletop that they enjoyed, as well as new allies who would play a recurring role in adventures in the region.