Whats the hardest official monster?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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CR 30 seems to be the cap for monsters, however there are many monsters at that CR so which is hardest? I would vote for the archdevil Baalzebul since he is effectively a CR 30 SWARM!


Kaiju Varklops has my vote.


Reksew_Trebla wrote:
Kaiju Varklops has my vote.

While Varklops is very powerful, he has a few critical weaknesses. The first is that will save, which is quite frankly pathetic for a CR 30 monster that lacks SR or immunity to mind-affecting. This thing is Dominate Monster bait. Secondly, his only way of perceiving invisible foes is with tremorsense. This means Varklops has no way of locating invisible attackers if they're flying. These two weaknesses, taken together, mean a party with access to high-level spellcasting can virtually guarantee a surprise round, and is very likely to incapacitate or neutralize the threat of Varklops on that surprise round. Even if he makes all his saves, he has no real way to fight back since he cannot perceive his assailants. Varklops is very threatening if you want to walk up to him and trade blows, but completely defenseless to a well-prepared magical assault.

That's the hard part when we get to these obscenely high CR levels. You could have the biggest numbers in the world, but it only takes one exploitable weakness and you're toast.


Dasrak wrote:
Reksew_Trebla wrote:
Kaiju Varklops has my vote.

While Varklops is very powerful, he has a few critical weaknesses. The first is that will save, which is quite frankly pathetic for a CR 30 monster that lacks SR or immunity to mind-affecting. This thing is Dominate Monster bait. Secondly, his only way of perceiving invisible foes is with tremorsense. This means Varklops has no way of locating invisible attackers if they're flying. These two weaknesses, taken together, mean a party with access to high-level spellcasting can virtually guarantee a surprise round, and is very likely to incapacitate or neutralize the threat of Varklops on that surprise round. Even if he makes all his saves, he has no real way to fight back since he cannot perceive his assailants. Varklops is very threatening if you want to walk up to him and trade blows, but completely defenseless to a well-prepared magical assault.

That's the hard part when we get to these obscenely high CR levels. You could have the biggest numbers in the world, but it only takes one exploitable weakness and you're toast.

Pretty sure all CR 30 and lower creatures have an exploitable weakness when it comes to high level magic.


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If nothing else, Baalzebul could beat Varklops fairly easily. Half damage on physical attacks, immunity to fire, immunity to redirected cold, and a good shot at Varklops' weakness.

In terms of fighting as a PC party, I would agree it would be hard to beat Baalzebul's SR 41 no-weakness swarmy self. As far as a Kaiju that requires that level of workarounds, Vogozen might be a better bet. No specific weaknesses, more immmunities than Varklops, and an ability that makes attempts to Save-or-Die and other magic cheese less reliable (and 40 SR to Varklops' zero) Sure, firesnake hits harder, but Grab->swallow whole coming off +55 CMB would give oozeboy a few more rounds to do something.

As for best beatstick in the bestiaries, my vote is for the Oliphaunt of Jandelay

Edit: ninja'd while researching.


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She's only CR 28, but I believe Black Butterfly is the single hardest Paizo monster to deal with. Here is a thread that discusses her more thoroughly (my opinion isn't universally agreed upon), but her general tactic is to full-attack (+5 ranged weapon with 120' range increment), teleport up to 150' as a 5'-step and make a free stealth check with a +73 to the check to Hide in Plain Sight, which means no mundane or magical means can detect her besides good-old-fashioned Perception, which you'd need at least a +54 in to find her assuming she rolled a natural 1 on the Stealth check. Repeat until everyone stops moving. To stop save-or-suck cheese, she has 3/day Antimagic Field, which, according to James Jacobs in the same thread I linked, doesn't affect her.

So, she doesn't hit super hard, or come with unbelievable defenses (at least when compared to CR 28+), but she's all but un-hitable.


Dasrak wrote:
Reksew_Trebla wrote:
Kaiju Varklops has my vote.

While Varklops is very powerful, he has a few critical weaknesses. The first is that will save, which is quite frankly pathetic for a CR 30 monster that lacks SR or immunity to mind-affecting. This thing is Dominate Monster bait. Secondly, his only way of perceiving invisible foes is with tremorsense. This means Varklops has no way of locating invisible attackers if they're flying. These two weaknesses, taken together, mean a party with access to high-level spellcasting can virtually guarantee a surprise round, and is very likely to incapacitate or neutralize the threat of Varklops on that surprise round. Even if he makes all his saves, he has no real way to fight back since he cannot perceive his assailants. Varklops is very threatening if you want to walk up to him and trade blows, but completely defenseless to a well-prepared magical assault.

That's the hard part when we get to these obscenely high CR levels. You could have the biggest numbers in the world, but it only takes one exploitable weakness and you're toast.

All Kaiji have a "shake it off" effect called recovery that deals with this sort of vulnerability. You only get to control them for a round (or so, I can't look up the rule right now).

The Sideromancer wrote:

If nothing else, Baalzebul could beat Varklops fairly easily. Half damage on physical attacks, immunity to fire, immunity to redirected cold, and a good shot at Varklops' weakness.

In terms of fighting as a PC party, I would agree it would be hard to beat Baalzebul's SR 41 no-weakness swarmy self.

Baalzebul has no electricity defense and has swarm characteristics (50% vulnerability to AOEs). Mind control a few powerful blue dragons and turn them loose, SR won't save him.


You know, I was rereading that thread, and grappling (with a counter to FoM, obviously) was mentioned. It's utter cheese (as is her warp itself, given the ludicrous wording), but her 5-foot step wouldn't break a grapple since there is no reason for that text to be in the rules when you can't normally 5-foot step while grappled. So what happens after she retreats? Well, you're still grappling her, so make a check to maintain.

Prd, grapple wrote:
If you successfully grapple a creature that is not adjacent to you, move that creature to an adjacent open space (if no space is available, your grapple fails).

You can flee all you want, but you can't escape.


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The hardest creature is from Iron Gods pt 6. The Overlord robot (CR 20/MR 8) clocks in with a hardness of 20, making it literally the hardest creature in the game since no other creature has a hardness rating above 15.


The Sideromancer wrote:
You know, I was rereading that thread, and grappling (with a counter to FoM, obviously) was mentioned. It's utter cheese (as is her warp itself, given the ludicrous wording), but her 5-foot step wouldn't break a grapple since there is no reason for that text to be in the rules when you can't normally 5-foot step while grappled. So what happens after she retreats? Well, you're still grappling her, so make a check to maintain.
Prd, grapple wrote:
If you successfully grapple a creature that is not adjacent to you, move that creature to an adjacent open space (if no space is available, your grapple fails). [/url]You can flee all you want, but you can't escape.

Right, so you'd need to locate her, counter her FOM, and Grapple her in the same turn, because she can re-activate FOM as a Standard action. Even though she for some reason didn't have Anti-magic Field active before that, you better believe she does now, and you can no longer counter her FOM. Assuming you DO Counter and Grapple in one turn, she's still hidden to anyone else in the party that doesn't make their Perception checks (sure, you can pinpoint the space she's occupying, but she still has 50% Concealment), and on her next turn, she re-activates FOM as a Standard action and 5'-steps away. I'm not saying she's un-beatable, but using that tactic, you'd need the entire party prepared to beat her at her own game of Stealth>Perception, succeed at the counter vs. her FOM, close the distance and succeed at a Grapple, and hope the rest of the group can nuke her to death in one turn. All of this assuming she didn't throw up AMF already, and chances are she did. She has a couple other niche ways to be beaten, but what monster doesn't?

Xenocrat wrote:
Baalzebul has no electricity defense and has swarm characteristics (50% vulnerability to AOEs). Mind control a few powerful blue dragons and turn them loose, SR won't save him.

Or a group of Alchemists with the Shock Bomb Discovery!


Cuup wrote:
She's only CR 28, but I believe Black Butterfly is the single hardest Paizo monster to deal with.

I totally agree with that. It's a real pain to confront. Big C. was easier to fight.


The Sideromancer wrote:

If nothing else, Baalzebul could beat Varklops fairly easily. Half damage on physical attacks, immunity to fire, immunity to redirected cold, and a good shot at Varklops' weakness.

In terms of fighting as a PC party, I would agree it would be hard to beat Baalzebul's SR 41 no-weakness swarmy self. As far as a Kaiju that requires that level of workarounds, Vogozen might be a better bet. No specific weaknesses, more immmunities than Varklops, and an ability that makes attempts to Save-or-Die and other magic cheese less reliable (and 40 SR to Varklops' zero) Sure, firesnake hits harder, but Grab->swallow whole coming off +55 CMB would give oozeboy a few more rounds to do something.

As for best beatstick in the bestiaries, my vote is for the Oliphaunt of Jandelay

Edit: ninja'd while researching.

We aren’t comparing them to each other, but to players, otherwise it is merely coincidental who wins based of their immunities.

But you know what isn’t immune to fire? Baalzebul’s sword, which Varklops’s attacks ignore the first 20 points of hardness, and the fire damage is full, not half. Three breath weapons turn one will deal 40 damage minimum, which doesn’t break his sword, and this damage is only if Baalzebul makes all three reflex saves (not hard, though still has to roll a 10 or higher for each). But the average damage if all reflex saves are made? 190, which is enough to destroy his sword.

And as a swarm, while it is true Baalzebul takes half damage from the bludgeoning part of Varklops breath weapons, and none from the fire damage, he takes half as much damage again due to it being an AoE. So that is a minimum damage if all reflex saves are made, on round one of 21, but an average damage of 78.

So likely 1/10th of his HP gone in turn one, as well as his sword being destroyed.

Round 2 is where things get better. Without Power Attacking, Varklops only needs to land a 2 on any of his bites and tail slap, and a 4 on his wings to hit. With three bites landing, he will deal severe rend damage. Average damage is 161, a little more than 1/5 his HP. So in 3 more turns, he will have killed Baalzebul.

Baalzebul however can only deal 82 average damage with his slams, so he won’t be able to kill Varklops before Varklops kills him.


Reksew_Trebla wrote:
The Sideromancer wrote:

If nothing else, Baalzebul could beat Varklops fairly easily. Half damage on physical attacks, immunity to fire, immunity to redirected cold, and a good shot at Varklops' weakness.

In terms of fighting as a PC party, I would agree it would be hard to beat Baalzebul's SR 41 no-weakness swarmy self. As far as a Kaiju that requires that level of workarounds, Vogozen might be a better bet. No specific weaknesses, more immmunities than Varklops, and an ability that makes attempts to Save-or-Die and other magic cheese less reliable (and 40 SR to Varklops' zero) Sure, firesnake hits harder, but Grab->swallow whole coming off +55 CMB would give oozeboy a few more rounds to do something.

As for best beatstick in the bestiaries, my vote is for the Oliphaunt of Jandelay

Edit: ninja'd while researching.

We aren’t comparing them to each other, but to players, otherwise it is merely coincidental who wins based of their immunities.

But you know what isn’t immune to fire? Baalzebul’s sword, which Varklops’s attacks ignore the first 20 points of hardness, and the fire damage is full, not half. Three breath weapons turn one will deal 40 damage minimum, which doesn’t break his sword, and this damage is only if Baalzebul makes all three reflex saves (not hard, though still has to roll a 10 or higher for each). But the average damage if all reflex saves are made? 190, which is enough to destroy his sword.

And as a swarm, while it is true Baalzebul takes half damage from the bludgeoning part of Varklops breath weapons, and none from the fire damage, he takes half as much damage again due to it being an AoE. So that is a minimum damage if all reflex saves are made, on round one of 21, but an average damage of 78.

So likely 1/10th of his HP gone in turn one, as well as his sword...

Are you taking into account V's lack of a dispel to B's at-will greater invisibility?


Dasrak wrote:
Secondly, his only way of perceiving invisible foes is with tremorsense. This means Varklops has no way of locating invisible attackers if they're flying.

Isn't detecting an invisible creature "just" a DC 40 Perception check? Varklops gets a +34 on its roll.

CRB wrote:
A creature can generally notice the presence of an active invisible creature within 30 feet with a DC 20 Perception check. The observer gains a hunch that “something’s there” but can’t see it or target it accurately with an attack. It’s practically impossible (+20 DC) to pinpoint an invisible creature’s location with a Perception check.

Ok, there is another +1 DC for each 10 feet the opponent is away, but on the other hand there are hefty penalties for combat (-20) and moving (-5 or -10). And as I read Perception, pinpointing is a move action - which means the breath weapon (two lines version) can still be used in the same turn.

Speaking of breath weapon, against sneaky players I'd ready an action to fire it at anything that shows up.


SheepishEidolon wrote:
Dasrak wrote:
Secondly, his only way of perceiving invisible foes is with tremorsense. This means Varklops has no way of locating invisible attackers if they're flying.

Isn't detecting an invisible creature "just" a DC 40 Perception check? Varklops gets a +34 on its roll.

CRB wrote:
A creature can generally notice the presence of an active invisible creature within 30 feet with a DC 20 Perception check. The observer gains a hunch that “something’s there” but can’t see it or target it accurately with an attack. It’s practically impossible (+20 DC) to pinpoint an invisible creature’s location with a Perception check.

Ok, there is another +1 DC for each 10 feet the opponent is away, but on the other hand there are hefty penalties for combat (-20) and moving (-5 or -10). And as I read Perception, pinpointing is a move action - which means the breath weapon (two lines version) can still be used in the same turn.

Speaking of breath weapon, against sneaky players I'd ready an action to fire it at anything that shows up.

Depending on what's going on, the distance penalty adds up. A CL 20 Medium Range spell like Greater Posession can reach 300 feet, or +30 to the DC.


Xenocrat wrote:
All Kaiji have a "shake it off" effect called recovery that deals with this sort of vulnerability. You only get to control them for a round (or so, I can't look up the rule right now).

Wow, that's easy to miss. So you couldn't eliminate Varklops with a single well-placed spell. That certainly makes him a lot more dangerous, and you'd probably need to follow up with a Mind Fog or another will save reducing ability so he only recovers on a natural 20. That kind of long setup is usually hard to pull off against CR 30, but for a monster that lacks the ability to perceive you thats should be doable.

Reksew_Trebla wrote:
Pretty sure all CR 30 and lower creatures have an exploitable weakness when it comes to high level magic.

The problems Varklops has are not small ones. They're huge gaping holes. Not being able to beat invisibility is an absolutely crippling issue at this high CR, since greater invisibility is eminently spammable with very long durations by this point.

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

Now that's a nasty one. If she's not fighting you in a brightly lit featureless room (and there's no way she is) the Butterfly is going to be an utter nightmare to pin down. You'd first need to neutralize her antimagic field (... times three uses), then use readied actions to cast Daylight in order to interrupt her attack routine and prevent her from disappearing again. Even then you need to restrict her movement so she can't escape the daylight effect, negate her deeper darkness, and prevent her from dispelling your daylight spell in order to keep her pinned down.

Funnily enough, I can't help but notice that she's only immune to spells that outline creatures. Non-magical effects still work. As funny as it is to use the "bag of flour" trick on a CR 28 monster, that still only negates the +20 bonus from the invisibility effect and you still need to beat her +53 stealth check. In practice powering through with Daylight seems to be the better option there.

SheepishEidolon wrote:
Isn't detecting an invisible creature "just" a DC 40 Perception check? Varklops gets a +34 on its roll.

It's a DC 40 perception check to determine the location of an invisible creature within 30 feet. Stay out of its reach, and you're good.


PEOPLE! Varklops breath weapon includes ash. If he pinpoints the square an invisible person is in, and thus auto hits with the Breath Weapon (assuming no Evasion on target), they cease being invisible on technicality that their whole body is covered with visible ash.


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He needs to pinpoint the square first, which he has no way of doing outside of 30 feet. In three dimensions where targets could be hundreds of feet away, the chances of hitting their exact square while shooting blindly is basically zero.


Cuup wrote:


Right, so you'd need to locate her, counter her FOM, and Grapple her in the same turn, because she can re-activate FOM as a Standard action.

Tetori monks can spend Ki to negate FoM in things they're grappling. Itd burn a lot of Ki so you'd have to do massive damage in a short period to pull it off though.


Dasrak wrote:
He needs to pinpoint the square first, which he has no way of doing outside of 30 feet. In three dimensions where targets could be hundreds of feet away, the chances of hitting their exact square while shooting blindly is basically zero.

Also, nothing in the text says it cancels invisibility, and you can't just selectively apply common sense. And if you *fully* apply common sense, Any kaiju is incapacitated if not dead before initiative is even rolled.

Edit: and while I'm here, I noticed a few more problems with the earlier post vs. Baalzebub. The breath weapon does not reduce hardness by 20, it ignores hardness of 20 or less. The full 30 hardness of +5 adamantine is applied. Not that it would come up much in the case of a breath weapon, since gear is only at risk if the save is a natural 1. Secondly, once closed, the kaiju needs to make a DC 39 Will to melee attack if it is flying (with an extra effect, but it's mind-affecting and thus is subjet to a kaiju's recovery), and in either case takes 7d6 damage for meleeing B and a chance for nausea (Fort DC 42) on the first hit and another 7d6 damage next turn along with needing to make a DC 30 Will save on each attack to avoid being slowed due to being Chaotic against B's Shield of Law aura. Sure, V saves on a 7 in either case, but there's going to be a lot of saves happening.


The Sideromancer wrote:
Dasrak wrote:
He needs to pinpoint the square first, which he has no way of doing outside of 30 feet. In three dimensions where targets could be hundreds of feet away, the chances of hitting their exact square while shooting blindly is basically zero.
Also, nothing in the text says it cancels invisibility, and you can't just selectively apply common sense. And if you *fully* apply common sense, Any kaiju is incapacitated if not dead before initiative is even rolled.

Powder: Powdered chalk, flour, and similar materials are popular with adventurers for their utility in pinpointing invisible creatures. Throwing a bag of powder into a square is an attack against AC 5, and momentarily reveals if there is an invisible creature there. A much more effective method is to spread powder on a surface (which takes 1 full round) and look for footprints.

It doesn’t have to say it negates invisibility, as the rules in general already say that.


And if our Kaiju makes an attack roll against AC 5, then it will momentarily reveal if there is something there. But a breath weapon isn't that.


The Sideromancer wrote:
And if our Kaiju makes an attack roll against AC 5, then it will momentarily reveal if there is something there. But a breath weapon isn't that.

Specific trumps general, and Varklops specifically shoots ash with his breath weapon, which is an appropiate material to reveal an invisible creature.


About Baalzebul, Doesn't he have the normal resist 20 to electric like most devils? If so you'd have to throw a lot of shock bombs to kill him.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Yqatuba wrote:
About Baalzebul, Doesn't he have the normal resist 20 to electric like most devils? If so you'd have to throw a lot of shock bombs to kill him.

There exists no such thing as "normal resist elecrtic 20" for devils. Monsters don't get any abilities that are not part of their statblock (or type/subtype). Electricity is a staple weakness of Devils in D&D since times immemorial. There are few devils which have resist or immune to electricity (Nemesis Devil hoooooo!) but they are exceptions to a rule. In fact, I don't recall any archdevil that has res/imm to voltage.

Alchemist with shock bombs is pretty much auto victory against Baalzebul, as long as you keep the Alchemist alive (not that hard to do, if you prepare well).

I too vote for the Black Butterfly as the most all-round powerful CR 30 monster that's CR 28.


What about some of the great old ones?
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/great-old-on es/


Cuup wrote:

She's only CR 28, but I believe Black Butterfly is the single hardest Paizo monster to deal with. Here is a thread that discusses her more thoroughly (my opinion isn't universally agreed upon), but her general tactic is to full-attack (+5 ranged weapon with 120' range increment), teleport up to 150' as a 5'-step and make a free stealth check with a +73 to the check to Hide in Plain Sight, which means no mundane or magical means can detect her besides good-old-fashioned Perception, which you'd need at least a +54 in to find her assuming she rolled a natural 1 on the Stealth check. Repeat until everyone stops moving. To stop save-or-suck cheese, she has 3/day Antimagic Field, which, according to James Jacobs in the same thread I linked, doesn't affect her.

So, she doesn't hit super hard, or come with unbelievable defenses (at least when compared to CR 28+), but she's all but un-hitable.

You'd need someone that can cast Daylight to hold an action and cast it in response to her attack. That would prevent her from using Silence Between until the next round. In that gap of time someone would need to apply a non-magical means of sticking a mundane light to her. Some kind of glowing fluid would be perfect but she's immune to 2 spells that do the same. I'd say sovereign glue and a sunrod would do the trick. Now she's forced to carry a light she can't hide. You just need someone to counterspell her deeper darkness till she's dead.


One thing people seem to forget about the Daylight tactic vs. Black Butterfly is that her weapon has a 120' range increment, and Daylight is range touch. With a 150' "free" action move, she's never going to put herself within 60' of someone she even remotely suspects will have a Daylight on deck.


The best arena to fight the BB isn't outside on a sunny day. It's not outside at all. Remember how little the range between a longbow and shortbow matters in a dungeon? Why make it so there are spaces 150' away that you can be attacked from?


The Sideromancer wrote:
The best arena to fight the BB isn't outside on a sunny day. It's not outside at all. Remember how little the range between a longbow and shortbow matters in a dungeon? Why make it so there are spaces 150' away that you can be attacked from?

Of course realistically speaking, how often are you going to encounter a demigoddess of travel with no real domain who spends most of her time wandering the void for kicks outside of a location of her choosing?

Not very and even if you somehow do, it's fairly trivial for her to just deny the battle and warp out to engage on more favorable terms.


Then the question becomes how do you get BB into such an area and that falls pretty much entirely into the realm of campaign and adventure specific design. She's a demigod whose focus is the void (distance, silence and space) between the stars, i.e. outer-space. Even areas that she might consider confining are liable to very 'open'. There's hardly a more wide open natural arena in existence. Some might be similarly open such as the Elemental Plane of Air but not more so. And a 120ft range increment is huge even if you limit it to 5 range increments (since it's a thrown weapon). You could be looking at her attacks coming from 400 or 500ft away (What was your perception again?).

Edit: Ninja'd


Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Not very and even if you somehow do, it's fairly trivial for her to just deny the battle and warp out to engage on more favorable terms.

Yes, so now it's a question of how to get her there and then her wish to stay and engage the PCs.

Sounds like a job for a very experienced, very evil, artifact and/or Mythic owning group of PCs using guile and subterfuge to get a high level and important worshiper to gate/request her presence, followed by ambush and hostage taking (both of the holy site and its occupants) and combat in a relatively confined area ... no sweat :).


Kayerloth wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Not very and even if you somehow do, it's fairly trivial for her to just deny the battle and warp out to engage on more favorable terms.

Yes, so now it's a question of how to get her there and then her wish to stay and engage the PCs.

Sounds like a job for a very experienced, very evil, artifact and/or Mythic owning group of PCs using guile and subterfuge to get a high level and important worshiper to gate/request her presence, followed by ambush and hostage taking (both of the holy site and its occupants) and combat in a relatively confined area ... no sweat :).

Imagine the party's disappointment when the response to the Gate request is "No,"

Guess it's time to go back to Skull Mountain for the drawing board and some drinks.


Cuup wrote:
One thing people seem to forget about the Daylight tactic vs. Black Butterfly is that her weapon has a 120' range increment, and Daylight is range touch. With a 150' "free" action move, she's never going to put herself within 60' of someone she even remotely suspects will have a Daylight on deck.

So cast daylight on a grappling arrow, shoot her with the arrow in response. Also need someone to teleport several flying people to her location in response to her attack so they can get to her. Probably more than 1 teleporter because she's bound to target one of them.


Honestly the most 'difficult' monsters in Pathfinder have full caster abilities. If you look at any of the APs every end boss has enough buffs on them at the beginning of a fight to make you question how many rounds are left on the short duration stuff.

And facing off against something that can Time Stop makes you go through a lot of wasted effort. Nothing quite like having the big boss on the ropes then he suddenly appears in the worst place, fully healed and with a Symbol of Death drawn where he use to be.


What about throwing a big giant bug zapper into the void? ;)

I believe it was James who said that this thing
McNasty Pants... is the most powerful monster that Paizo has released.

Not sure which is harder for a party to fight and defeat or how they would do fighting each other but there is it.

One thing of note is that most of these monsters are at demi-god level intellects. So they should be using extremely advanced strategies and tactics. Which a DM can simulate by planning out the battle for a few weeks before hand and putting a lot of odds, environment etc. in the creature's favour.

Ideally most of them aren't going to keep slugging it out until they die if the battle isn't going well. They will escape and plan their revenge. :)


I'm always going to say that the Danava Titan is the worst enemy that a party can encounter.


Baalzebul, Varklops, Vorgozen, the Oliphaunt, Black Butterfly, and possibly Tawil at’Umr can all be incapacitated as a swift action by a decent Bewildering Koan build. A davana titan, meanwhile, just sits back and laughs.


There are always questions even demigods must stop to ponder.


Actually BB no sells the Koan thing thanks to her aura. I doubt many GMs are going to let you pantomime a question.


Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Actually BB no sells the Koan thing thanks to her aura. I doubt many GMs are going to let you pantomime a question.

Not pantomime, actual sign language. Black Butterfly has truespeech, so she automatically understands you.


For some reason I thought electricity resist 20 was a standard trait of the devil subtype. Apparently I've been wrong all this time?


BB has +50 sense motive so she can probably win the check


Yqatuba wrote:
BB has +50 sense motive so she can probably win the check

A Bewildering Koan build will have a very heavily optimized bluff check. With that level of dedication, even something as impressive as a +50 sense motive won't be sufficient. Presuming something like a Ninja 2 / Sorcerer 18:

20 ranks
+ 3 class skill
+ 13 charisma (18 base +2 racial +6 enhancement +5 level-up +5 inherent)
+ 1 racial
+ 6 skill focus
+ 4 deceitful
+ 5 competence bonus (mulberry pentacle ioun stone)
+ 3 familiar
+ 2 aid another (familiar can do this)
+ 4 greater heroism
= +61

That gives a 91% chance to succeed against BB. There are probably a few more bonuses you could pile on there, that was just off the top of my head.


Is the koan mind-affecting? It doesn't say but I would think it is.


Dasrak wrote:
A Bewildering Koan build will have a very heavily optimized bluff check. With that level of dedication, even something as impressive as a +50 sense motive won't be sufficient. Presuming something like a Ninja 2 / Sorcerer 18:

The Bewildering Koan build I had in mind has a +85 Bluff bonus before pageant of the peacock, with a cyclops helm for emergencies.

Yqatuba wrote:
Is the koan mind-affecting? It doesn't say but I would think it is.

Nope, not any more mind-affecting than any other use of the Bluff skill.


May I have a link to the Bewildering Koan ability and or a build?

Edit: Hehe, off looking at other things and Thanks!


For further reference, here's a koaner pitted against Ancalagon, Pazuzu, and Cthulhu. As for this new set of foes, several of them will fall to the globe of tranquil water trick, while Vorgozen will take about twelve days of koaning before she collapses from thirst, and Tawil at'Umr and Black Butterfly will probably require some outside assistance to finish them off. But Bewildering Koan still does the heavy lifting, it just needs someone to mop up with the killing blow.

Anyway, this is all a little bit off-topic. My main point was to demonstrate that the complex layered defenses of many of these enemies remain vulnerable to niche forms of attack, while all-purpose counters like the davana titan's dual initiative and iron resilience provide a much more thorough form of security.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Yqatuba wrote:
For some reason I thought electricity resist 20 was a standard trait of the devil subtype. Apparently I've been wrong all this time?

You were.


Avoron wrote:
Anyway, this is all a little bit off-topic. My main point was to demonstrate that the complex layered defenses of many of these enemies remain vulnerable to niche forms of attack, while all-purpose counters like the davana titan's dual initiative and iron resilience provide a much more thorough form of security.

And is also an example of why 'most powerful' remains highly subjective to the circumstances of the encounter, campaign rulings and judgements, and the strength and weaknesses of the PCs (and players) engaged in the encounter.

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