Can We Talk About Black Butterfly?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Of all the Demigods statted up in the Bestiaries so far, I've found none are quite as unstoppable as Black Butterfly. On top of all of her sweet Empyreal Lord abilities, this opinion comes primarily from her Silence Between Ability:

Silence Between (Ex) wrote:
When Black Butterfly takes a 5-foot step, instead of moving 5 feet, she can ride the spaces in between breaths and thoughts, disappearing and rematerializing anywhere within 150 feet and attempting a Stealth check to hide as a free action. She can hide even when being directly observed, and her Stealth can defeat any sense (for example blindsight, lifesense, and tremorsense) as long as the result of the check exceeds the result of the observer’s Perception check. She gains an additional +20 bonus on Stealth checks (+40 when immobile), which doesn’t stack with the bonuses from invisibility, and she can’t be outlined by spells like faerie fire or glitterdust. If she is hidden when she begins a full attack, any creature that wasn’t observing her is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC against all attacks in the full attack, not just the first attack. Black Butterfly loses access to her silence between ability when she is in an area of bright light.

So let's take that step-by-step: Black Butterfly takes a 5' step (no attack of opportunity), and rematerializes wherever she wishes within 150' of her 5' step. In addition, she can make a Stealth check at a +20 bonus (giving her a +73 to her Stealth check!) to essentially Hide in Plain Sight. This means that even in an Antimagic Field, she can do this as she pleases, as it's a mundane ability). During this time, she can't be auto-found with ANY sense, and can't be outlined by effects like Faerie Fire or Glitterdust - so basically only an old fashioned Perception check can spot her. She can then make a Full Attack on whomever she wants (120' range increment with her special throwing weapon (+5 Aberration Bane Ghost Touch Holy Starknife)), and that creature remains Flat-footed for her ENTIRE attack. When her Full Attack is over, guess what? 5' Step, rinse, and repeat. On average, she's dealing 23.5 damage plus 7 fire plus 7 cold damage per hit, with 4 hits, and her lowest attack roll is at a +37, and her target will never NOT be Flat-footed. Admittedly, her damage output isn't all that stellar for an Empyreal Lord, but seeing as I can't think of a way for an opponent to defend against this chain short of running, I'm not sure it's really a problem.

Is there any defense against this? Does Black Butterfly have any weakness I've missed? Do any Empyreal Lords have some tool to negate this ability, or have an ability of their own that makes it not matter?


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Last sentence of your quote:
"Black Butterfly loses access to her silence between ability when she is in an area of bright light."
Light up the room.


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Cuup wrote:
Does Black Butterfly have any weakness I've missed?
Silence Between (Ex) wrote:
Black Butterfly loses access to her silence between ability when she is in an area of bright light.

Know any sources of bright light that aren't quashed by the application of at-will deeper darkness?

Apart from that, well, hope you're immune to precision damage or have a ridiculously pumped Perception check.


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Rajnish Umbra, Shadow Caller wrote:

Last sentence of your quote:

"Black Butterfly loses access to her silence between ability when she is in an area of bright light."
Light up the room.

Sorry, forgot to mention the Bright Light bit, but as Blaphers said, she has At Will Deeper Darkness, which is gonna squash any Daylight spell or other Bright Light effect.


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Heightened Daylight.


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Eclipsed (metamagic) Lunar Veil makes a 120’ radius bubble of nope.

Individual GMs will have to decide how this ability interacts with abilities that prevent you from losing your Dex bonus. I don’t see why those protections wouldn’t still function.


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Or just find a way to prevent 5' steps. There are various abilities designed for lockdown builds that stop this.

FEAR THE FIGHTER! A brawler archetype fighter or just anything with the pin down feat (which is a fighter 11 feat).


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Cuup wrote:
Is there any defense against this? Does Black Butterfly have any weakness I've missed?

Um... difficult terrain?

Cuup wrote:
Do any Empyreal Lords have some tool to negate this ability, or have an ability of their own that makes it not matter?

Okay, now I really want to see someone run an arena combat between various empyreal lords.


Hmm. Any way to make the air difficult terrain?


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Avoron wrote:
Okay, now I really want to see someone run an arena combat between various empyreal lords.

I know, right? Empyreal Lords, Demon Lords, Archdevils, etc.


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The first rule of Black Butterfly is: You do not talk about Black Butterfly.

The second rule of Black Butterfly is: You DO NOT TALK ABOUT BLACK BUTTERFLY!


blahpers wrote:
Hmm. Any way to make the air difficult terrain?

Etheric Shards can halve movement in the air but isn’t listed as difficult terrain, not sure if that prevents a 5’ step.


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blahpers wrote:
Hmm. Any way to make the air difficult terrain?

Ice Storm should work, since it says that the "entire area" is treated as difficult terrain, and the area is a cylinder. Makes sense thematically too, since heavy snow and sleet are raining down. Freedom of movement is going to be an issue, though.


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Rajnish Umbra, Shadow Caller wrote:
Heightened Daylight.

And how many times have you ever seen that combination on a caster?

She also has at will Greater Dispel Magic with a CL 28, just in case someone makes it bright out there.


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The line about how the ability defeats all forms of sense makes me think See Invisibility and even True Seeing won't work, but Purge Invisibility should as far as I can tell. Of course, Purge Invisibility only reaches out 5 ft/caster level. Coincidentally though, at 20th level that reaches out to 100ft, which just happens to be the absolute maximum range a starknife (with its 20ft range increment) can be thrown from.

So the lesson to be learned here is "Don't fight Black Butterfly without a 20th level caster handy." Who would have thought you couldn't get away with challenging gods as sub-20th level characters?

Designer

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Schrödinger's Dragon wrote:

The line about how the ability defeats all forms of sense makes me think See Invisibility and even True Seeing won't work, but Purge Invisibility should as far as I can tell. Of course, Purge Invisibility only reaches out 5 ft/caster level. Coincidentally though, at 20th level that reaches out to 100ft, which just happens to be the absolute maximum range a starknife (with its 20ft range increment) can be thrown from.

So the lesson to be learned here is "Don't fight Black Butterfly without a 20th level caster handy." Who would have thought you couldn't get away with challenging gods as sub-20th level characters?

She is not actually invisible, so invisibility purge and the others shouldn't be relevant. The line about glitterdust allows her to avoid the -40 penalty on Stealth checks instead.

Another way to handle her is to keep on the move and use area attacks; if you end your turn far enough away from her, she can't step and full attack you with the starknife, and if she always has to approach to attack you, she won't be able to also step out of the spot that turn so you'll know where she ended up. Either way, it's a highly mobile fight, and you'll probably have to change up your tactics from the norm to handle her.


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i got sad when i saw this was a creature ability and not a class ability


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Xenocrat wrote:

Eclipsed (metamagic) Lunar Veil makes a 120’ radius bubble of nope.

Individual GMs will have to decide how this ability interacts with abilities that prevent you from losing your Dex bonus. I don’t see why those protections wouldn’t still function.

Greater Shadow Evocation (Daylight) cares not for your "Real" sorcery.

Delicious delicious 8th level Daylight.


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At least Uncanny Dodge still works though, right?


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I COULD talk about her... but then she would come get me, so no, I don't think I want to talk about her at all!

:P


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Mark Seifter wrote:
Another way to handle her is to keep on the move and use area attacks; if you end your turn far enough away from her, she can't step and full attack you with the starknife, and if she always has to approach to attack you, she won't be able to also step out of the spot that turn so you'll know where she ended up. Either way, it's a highly mobile fight, and you'll probably have to change up your tactics from the norm to handle her.

You'd have to end your turn really far away from her though, at least 250 feet if I understand right, and I'm not sure of many (any?) ways to move that fast in Pathfinder without also sacrificing your offensive potential for that turn because you've spent your actions moving instead of attacking/casting.

The ability doesn't require her to attack, so if you keep moving away she could just stalk you by taking her 150-step each round and remaining very effectively stealthed. At some point, you have to stop moving and then she can strike, possibly before 150-stepping away again and re-stealthing somewhere else. Makes for some serious hit and run tactics!

My second thought was that you'd be able to pin her down if you could stick a Dimensional Anchor spell (I don't have her stat block on hand but I'm sure she has some high SR you'd have to pierce first). But upon reviewing the spell's text, it looks like by RAW it would have no effect on this ability because it's (Ex) instead of (Sp). In fact, this makes me realize that Dimensional Anchor shouldn't work on hypothetical (Su) abilities that allow extradimensional travel by RAW either, although I think the RAI might reasonably extend to cover them.


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Overall, this is an exercise in showing why paizo was reluctant to stat gods- it is hard to give creatures at that level appropriate powers. Either they are too strong (as seen here), or they are too weak and thus useless against any party that prepares the usual array of spells (such as anti-invisibility stuff).

And as always, we are seeing discussions about how to completely dismantle these abilities with schrodinger wizards.

unfortunately, paizo has opened the can of worms that walk, and as such they will eventually see a call to stat true gods like asmodeus or lamashtu. "You already stated the demigods, why don't you stat the gods?"

The Exchange

Hubaris wrote:
Xenocrat wrote:

Eclipsed (metamagic) Lunar Veil makes a 120’ radius bubble of nope.

Individual GMs will have to decide how this ability interacts with abilities that prevent you from losing your Dex bonus. I don’t see why those protections wouldn’t still function.

Greater Shadow Evocation (Daylight) cares not for your "Real" sorcery.

Delicious delicious 8th level Daylight.

Regular shadow evocation is also above the 3rd level of deeper darkness. Of course, you can then get into a weird situation if Black Butterfly makes her save. She does not believe it is bright light, so her ability still functions, right?

There’s also unbearable brightness, wall of light, or several other such spells higher than 3rd level. Like just about any fight - if you know exactly what you are up against you can make exactly the right preparations to counter it.


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Original Poster wrote:
Of all the Demigods statted up in the Bestiaries so far, I've found none are quite as unstoppable as Black Butterfly.

Can she die? If yes, then I fail to see how there is any problem with this. The Tarrasque can’t die, and even if it somehow does die, it simply stops being dead from sheer power.


Reksew_Trebla wrote:
Original Poster wrote:
Of all the Demigods statted up in the Bestiaries so far, I've found none are quite as unstoppable as Black Butterfly.
Can she die? If yes, then I fail to see how there is any problem with this. The Tarrasque can’t die, and even if it somehow does die, it simply stops being dead from sheer power.

Yeah, but I think that a tarrasque can be beat and then put on hold long enough that you can dump it somewhere.

There are enough builds out there that can turn tarrasque into a punching bag until it is knocked out for long periods using some arbitrary amount of negative hp. Then you could just put something consistent, like a kineticist, on beating it over and over for hours a day to keep it in the negatives (buying time until you can find a dumping method).

The black butterfly is strong enough that it can do hit and run, which can make it hard to get good hits in.


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Come now, she still follows action economy. Her at will deeper darkness is still an action. And hey, you really expect to have to fight her as a random encounter? I can't really see it. If you go up against her, you will be high level, and you will know what to prepare for. Worst comes to worst, some eighty damage is pretty useless.

Don't worry about it.


I only know what abilities and items she has from what's been stated so these tactics may be more or less useful:
Does her starknife have returning or any way for her to get it back if she throws it?
Is the starknife immune to glitterdust or faerie fire?
Does arcane sight counts as a form of vision like darkvision, life sense, etc.? Does her ability say it cloaks her items and equipment like similar protection effects state? (She might still be considered 'invisible' or hidden, but at least you could tell her square from the detection of magic.)
A spiritual weapon should be able to track her and continue attacking once you set it on target (going on the assumption the fight will remain within approximately 200 feet).
Solid fog will prevent 5 foot steps and, while it makes her hard to see, it also makes everyone else harder for her to see (again barring some unmentioned powers). Fogcutting lenses are AP specific it seems, but the new storm goggles will at least mitigate attacks into the fog.


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I feel like a design goal when it comes to stating out demigods, archdevils, lords of various varieties, etc. (really anything that can grant spells) is "create the impression that 'fighting this might not be a very good idea'."

In which case, well done. The Black Butterfly is literally as old as the stars, so there's probably a good reason for that.

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I on otherhand like demigods statblocks, though to be honest, PC party should never know in advance what they can do :p You don't just "identify a demigod" if you ask me.

(That being said, at some point ye gotta run out of daylights even if you know to prep it)


It is a demigod.

You're not supposed to fight and beat it unless you ALSO are a demigod.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Unless you are mythic tier 10 I guess since you are at level 20/mythic tier 10 equivalent on of cr 25

Non mythic level 20 character? Yeaaah, even if cr is artform and not rule, you shouldn't be able to do it. If demigod can be beaten by level 20 character if it didn't have "epic/mythic/deific regeneration", its bit of underwhelming demigod.

Shadow Lodge Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8

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Pizza Lord wrote:

I only know what abilities and items she has from what's been stated so these tactics may be more or less useful:

Does her starknife have returning or any way for her to get it back if she throws it?
Is the starknife immune to glitterdust or faerie fire?
Does arcane sight counts as a form of vision like darkvision, life sense, etc.? Does her ability say it cloaks her items and equipment like similar protection effects state? (She might still be considered 'invisible' or hidden, but at least you could tell her square from the detection of magic.)
A spiritual weapon should be able to track her and continue attacking once you set it on target (going on the assumption the fight will remain within approximately 200 feet).
Solid fog will prevent 5 foot steps and, while it makes her hard to see, it also makes everyone else harder for her to see (again barring some unmentioned powers). Fogcutting lenses are AP specific it seems, but the new storm goggles will at least mitigate attacks into the fog.

She does have a unique starknife that returns to her instantly between attacks, explicitly allowing her to full attack by throwing it.

If you’re curious, you can see her full statblock here.


wow for a demi god her ability scores, saves and hp seem low


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Each round she uses deeper darkness, you get a round of attacking her. She is dangerous, but to a lvl 20 party? Do you even understand how big their can of whoopass is?


These super powerful monsters are more worldbuilding than actual encounters.
"This entity is so powerful, it can do something totally unfair stuff like this!"
Hastur for example exists to be a (very deadly) jump scare. Yellow sign exists as a plot hook.


Honestly the problem is she can pill box the players. This isn't a bad thing. She's an Empyreal Lord, you're not supposed to beat her.

Sure, dropping deeper darkness can such, but her mobile stealthed full attacks will rip a party to shreds. She only averages 180 damage a round.

Her best chance is to stay mobile. Use her magic and stealth to avoid eating full attacks.

Drop Mage's Disjunction on a party, then if the Starknife survives the effect, teleport around making full attacks. Moving far enough that readied attacks can't hit her. Hiding when she needs HP back. If an enemy gets on her steal breath then step away and stealth.


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lemeres wrote:
Or just find a way to prevent 5' steps. There are various abilities designed for lockdown builds that stop this.

Sorry, but....

Black Butterfly wrote:

Celestial Grace (Ex)

Black Butterfly adds her Dexterity modifier instead of her Strength modifier to her damage rolls with all melee and ranged weapons. She gains an insight bonus to her Armor Class equal to her Wisdom modifier. She ignores any effect that would reduce her movement speed or prevent her from taking a 5-foot step.


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I find it odd that so many people are up in arms over something that is literally a minor deity. Something that would give an optimized power gamed PC a run for its money.

It's a CR 28 demi-god lol.

I mean, to put it in perspective, this thing is +8 higher than a level 20 party. They *should* get beaten into the dirt for fighting it.


Sissyl wrote:
Each round she uses deeper darkness, you get a round of attacking her. She is dangerous, but to a lvl 20 party? Do you even understand how big their can of whoopass is?

Why would the group get to attack her on these rounds? [Standard action cast Deeper Darkness]; [5' Step tactic].

Pizza Lord wrote:
Does her starknife have returning or any way for her to get it back if she throws it?

Yes, her Starknife returns to her hand immediately after her attack, allowing her to make a Full Attack with it.

Pizza Lord wrote:
Is the starknife immune to glitterdust or faerie fire?

It doesn't expressly say, but here's a quote from the entry detailing her Starknife (Voidsenge): "Voidsedge is a +5 aberration–bane ghost touch holy starknife that exists as one of the stars in Black Butterfly’s wings until she calls it to her hand as a free action." It doesn't say what action is required to put it away (if it's a Move Action, you might have something, there), but I'd bet that as long as it's in its place, disguised as a Star, it's essentially part of Black Butterfly, and doesn't glow. I'd also say that if Glitterdust etc. is cast WHILE she's wielding the starknife, it doesn't count, either; it'd have to be a Readied action to cast Glitterdust when she throws it.

Pizza Lord wrote:
Does arcane sight counts as a form of vision like darkvision, life sense, etc.? Does her ability say it cloaks her items and equipment like similar protection effects? (She might still be considered 'invisible' or hidden, but at least you could tell her square from the detection of magic.)

You can only see the magic auras of magic items or active spell effects, so if she didn't have an active spell effect on her, which she probably wouldn't, unless someone tagged her with one first round of combat, so the only magic aura I can think of that she would have would be her starknife. I can't think of any reason this wouldn't work (unless the GM ruled that you'd need to spot her with Perception before you could observe any magical auras on her, since it's not a magical aura that's hiding her in the first place), though I think the best it would do would be to turn her unobserved Stealth into total concealment.

Pizza Lord wrote:
A spiritual weapon should be able to track her and continue attacking once you set it on target (going on the assumption the fight will remain within approximately 200 feet).

That's a unique tactic; you're right, a Spiritual Weapon doesn't care about your Stealth roll. Unfortunately, it wouldn't take Black Butterfly more than a couple rounds to get out of the spell's range. The upside is if that happens, it doesn't end the spell, which is good, though I'm not sure if the Spiritual Weapon would automatically re-target her when she got in range again; that would probably require a new Move Action. Another caveat to this spell is the initial SR contest. If you lose, the spell ends. Also, 120' is only her starknife's range increment, so she could perform these tactics from up to 240' away, taking only a -2 penalty on her attack rolls, if she so chose.

Pizza Lord wrote:
Solid fog will prevent 5 foot steps and, while it makes her hard to see, it also makes everyone else harder for her to see (again barring some unmentioned powers). Fogcutting lenses are AP specific it seems, but the new storm goggles will at least mitigate attacks into the fog.

Unfortunately, she has Constant Freedom of Movement, so her 5' Steps wouldn't be impeeded. The good news is that her ranged attacks would be. The bad news is that her Full Attack, 5' step tactic is just as usable in melee, and nothing is stopping her from just 5' stepping to an adjacent square with that ability.

Oh, and to everyone suggesting Heightened Light-based spells or Shadow Evocation, etc, her At Will Greater Dispel Magic (CL 28th) can shut those down with no issues. Speaking again of her SLA's, they almost haven't even come up yet. Just food for thought, here's some interesting SLA's she has that help make her unbeatable (I'll pretend she's not in her realm and doesn't have access to the Mythic versions): Constant Mind Blank, Constant True Seeing, At Will Haste, 3/day Antimagic Field, 3/day QUICKENED HEAL, 3/day Quickened Wandering Star Motes, 1/day Implosion (she can Stealth while concentrating on your death, and Regenerating to boot), 1/day Mage's Disjunction, 1/day Time Stop.


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HWalsh wrote:

I find it odd that so many people are up in arms over something that is literally a minor deity. Something that would give an optimized power gamed PC a run for its money.

It's a CR 28 demi-god lol.

I mean, to put it in perspective, this thing is +8 higher than a level 20 party. They *should* get beaten into the dirt for fighting it.

I agree with you on that. However, you may be surprised at how many threads you can find about builds designed to stomp CR 30 monsters like Cthulhu, who are also considered Demigods. I started this thread for two reason, the amusement/joy that Black Butterfly was actually a demigod that didn't seem beatable, and also to see if anyone was interested in pitting her against OTHER statted demigods as a comparison. Fighting another demigod at least - I feel - is a believable way for a demigod to die.


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Cuup wrote:
HWalsh wrote:

I find it odd that so many people are up in arms over something that is literally a minor deity. Something that would give an optimized power gamed PC a run for its money.

It's a CR 28 demi-god lol.

I mean, to put it in perspective, this thing is +8 higher than a level 20 party. They *should* get beaten into the dirt for fighting it.

I agree with you on that. However, you may be surprised at how many threads you can find about builds designed to stomp CR 30 monsters like Cthulhu, who are also considered Demigods. I started this thread for two reason, the amusement/joy that Black Butterfly was actually a demigod that didn't seem beatable, and also to see if anyone was interested in pitting her against OTHER statted demigods as a comparison. Fighting another demigod at least - I feel - is a believable way for a demigod to die.

With her, the biggest advantage, is she can run.


Her stealth bonus is only 73 when moving, so this is really just an optimization challenge for Perception on your ranged characters.


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Quote:
When she throws Voidsedge, it returns to her hand instantly upon striking a target, allowing her to make iterative thrown attacks.

What if she misses? (The weapon doesn't actually have the Returning property.)

I assume she doesn't lose it....


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It's a goddess's unique weapon that appears to actually be an extension of her, and the goddess in question is usually fighting Cthulhu mythos abominations in outer space. I'd say it still comes back to her on a miss.

If the response to a demigod's statblock is "hey, this is kind of unfair" I'd say that means the demigod was written correctly =P

@ HWalsh - by the numbers a lot of demigods are perfectly killable by L20 non-mythic characters. If your party can handle a CR 25 opponent, then they can take most CR 30s with proper preparation (to avoid things like insta-gib by mythic blasphemy).


Sissyl wrote:
Each round she uses deeper darkness, you get a round of attacking her. She is dangerous, but to a lvl 20 party? Do you even understand how big their can of whoopass is?

How many rounds can you do that?

'Cuz she's not running out of Daylights or Greater Dispel Magics.


I wonder, how would a Witch with the City Sight hex do against her? It should turn off all of her vision abilities save for blindsense, which makes the whole "getting smacked" with her 5-foot step full attack less worrysome, since she's now getting that 50% miss chance on all of her attacks. Deeper darkness++ at will doesn't seem so hot if she can't see through it either. It also targets her lowest save, and doesn't care about SR, and strips off 15 AC if she fails her save (if she can't see, that is). I'd call that worth.

City Sight wrote:
City Sight (Su): The witch curses a target with the simple vision of urban mortals. On a failed Fortitude save, the subject loses the use of darkvision, greensight, low-light vision, see in darkness, and other visual abilities beyond simple sight, but not nonvisual means of perception like blindsight, scent, or tremorsense. This effect lasts 1 minute. At 8th level, this effect lasts for 10 minutes instead. Whether or not the creature succeeds at the saving throw, it can’t be the target of this hex again for 1 day.


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Pounce wrote:

I wonder, how would a Witch with the City Sight hex do against her? It should turn off all of her vision abilities save for blindsense, which makes the whole "getting smacked" with her 5-foot step full attack less worrysome, since she's now getting that 50% miss chance on all of her attacks. Deeper darkness++ at will doesn't seem so hot if she can't see through it either. It also targets her lowest save, and doesn't care about SR, and strips off 15 AC if she fails her save (if she can't see, that is). I'd call that worth.

City Sight wrote:
City Sight (Su): The witch curses a target with the simple vision of urban mortals. On a failed Fortitude save, the subject loses the use of darkvision, greensight, low-light vision, see in darkness, and other visual abilities beyond simple sight, but not nonvisual means of perception like blindsight, scent, or tremorsense. This effect lasts 1 minute. At 8th level, this effect lasts for 10 minutes instead. Whether or not the creature succeeds at the saving throw, it can’t be the target of this hex again for 1 day.

That's a nice little gem! It would definitely slow her effectiveness with Deeper Darkness, though Bright Light is the only thing that stops her Silence Between ability from working, so unless she's engaging the group on a bright sunny day, a Greater Dispel Magic would still undo any Bright Light sources and prevent her need to use Deeper Darkness to counter. On the other hand, if she's fighting in natural darkness (which would be her preference), it definitely limits her offensive capabilities. Like you said, though, she still has Blindsense, so it doesn't stop her from running away, even in total darkness, so even though it makes a great combat stopper, Black Butterfly only needs to run and recoup for 10 minutes, then re-engage. Assuming that was the group's only Witch, she's safe for 24 hours.

Zhangar wrote:
If the response to a demigod's statblock is "hey, this is kind of unfair" I'd say that means the demigod was written correctly =P

Totally agree :)


Xenocrat wrote:
Her stealth bonus is only 73 when moving, so this is really just an optimization challenge for Perception on your ranged characters.

OK, I challenge you to make a 20th level character with at least a +53 in Perception (that's the minimum they'd need to see Black Butterfly on a natural 20 Perception check, if she also rolled a natural 1 on Stealth). Bear in mind that if a spell is involved, it's subject to dispel magic and/or Antimagic Field, and also that she has that 1/day Mage's Disjunction to ruin all of your magic items for 28 minutes :)


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Saldiven wrote:
Sissyl wrote:
Each round she uses deeper darkness, you get a round of attacking her. She is dangerous, but to a lvl 20 party? Do you even understand how big their can of whoopass is?

How many rounds can you do that?

'Cuz she's not running out of Daylights or Greater Dispel Magics.

Assuming the party is prepared for fighting her? Till the bloody cows come home. One or two in the party spam heightened light spells. Each round, she removes this - but there goes her std action each round. The others in the party can unload on her. And if she doesn't remove those, her 5' step teleport/ultra-stealth ability goes poof.

No SLA makes anyone unbeatable. They COST ACTIONS to use. While she is doing that, she isn't doing anything else with those actions. Note that a prepared lvl 20 party can easily expand their total actions per round. Summonings, gate, etc work fine.

Being on the wrong end of action economy disparity is rough.


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Sissyl wrote:
Saldiven wrote:
Sissyl wrote:
Each round she uses deeper darkness, you get a round of attacking her. She is dangerous, but to a lvl 20 party? Do you even understand how big their can of whoopass is?

How many rounds can you do that?

'Cuz she's not running out of Daylights or Greater Dispel Magics.

Assuming the party is prepared for fighting her? Till the bloody cows come home. One or two in the party spam heightened light spells. Each round, she removes this - but there goes her std action each round. The others in the party can unload on her. And if she doesn't remove those, her 5' step teleport/ultra-stealth ability goes poof.

No SLA makes anyone unbeatable. They COST ACTIONS to use. While she is doing that, she isn't doing anything else with those actions. Note that a prepared lvl 20 party can easily expand their total actions per round. Summonings, gate, etc work fine.

Being on the wrong end of action economy disparity is rough.

Sure, that wastes her standard action.... but then she gets a Swift, Move, and she can still 150-foot step and a free +73 stealth check to wait until the next round. You can’t kill something you can’t see.

EDIT: besides, they’re going to run out of spell slots eventually. How many Heightened Lights did you prepare? Because A) it’s not enough, and B) preparing that many means you prepared that fewer combat spells.

Oh, and C) Light can’t raise the light level beyond normal, so it doesn’t even interfere with her abilities to begin with.

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