Ilvoresh

[Byron Zibeck]

This brain collector has a lot of Spells and Abilities. Between the new rules and not being familiar with these creatures in 1E, I am a bit unsure how to run this encounter in Part 3. Any advice on what tactics to employ?

[Laik]

I have been on the PC side in this battle, so had some experience of that survival horror.

The monster's true strength are poisonous physical attacks, and its spells are best used for buffs.

So buffs before combat: invisibility and haste. Then get into melee, using invisibility as a means to surprise; start with flying PCs if there are any.

Ideally, you have 4 actions: one to move to your (next) target,then use 2nd action to attack and 3rd for true strike, then 4th one to attack again. When having a choice between several melee targets, hit the one who is not poisoned yet, or then one that looks almost down.

Cast other spells only if unable to effectively melee for any reasons. Spells are inferior option. Well, maybe mirror image if you have time (like, 2 actions to cast mirror image+2 strikes)

A brain collector is avery strong opponent for a level 7 healer group )

[Fumarole]

Unless I am missing something, Ilvoresh doesn't have Haste.

[Anon A Mouse]

In Ilvoresh's stat block, it has the action symbol, a bite attack, and a claw attack. Does that mean for one action he gets to attack twice? Or is that a typo and the bite is one action and the claw is a separate action? There was a similar issue with Zakfah's stat block in Pale Mountain's Shadow, which I thought was a typo since it ended up being pretty dangerous, but now I'm not so sure. If it's not a typo, would the claw suffer the -5 multi-attack penalty?

[Xenocrat]

Anon A Mouse wrote:

In Ilvoresh's stat block, it has the action symbol, a bite attack, and a claw attack. Does that mean for one action he gets to attack twice? Or is that a typo and the bite is one action and the claw is a separate action? There was a similar issue with Zakfah's stat block in Pale Mountain's Shadow, which I thought was a typo since it ended up being pretty dangerous, but now I'm not so sure. If it's not a typo, would the claw suffer the -5 multi-attack penalty?

For one action he can make a Strike (as usual), and his options for a Strike are to use either his bite or claw, with the appropriate damage and traits for each one. For most monsters the claw is agile, to try to encourage a bite/claw/(claw or whatever) routine rather than bite/bite/bite.

[Mark Seifter]

Xenocrat is correct.

My first rule of having lots of Strikes is:

There must be a reason to use those other unarmed attacks, even if that reason is that the monster has a special ability involving them but they aren't that great for a normal Strike (some creatures with weaker foot attacks but that have trample come to mind).

[Anon A Mouse]

Ahh, I see now. I guess I was just expecting each of the attacks to have an individual action icon next to them instead of one action icon and then a list of possible choices. Seems like this may not be that consistent between monster entries (or else, the pattern is not obvious to me)? The Manticore has Melee (jaws) and Melee (claw) each with an action icon next to it instead of one action icon with the two attacks listed.

[Laik]

Fumarole wrote:

Unless I am missing something, Ilvoresh doesn't have Haste.

Oh right, i used bestiary stats forgetting in-adventure stats might be different. No haste then, safer life for the PCs.

[Fumarole]

Anon A Mouse wrote:

Ahh, I see now. I guess I was just expecting each of the attacks to have an individual action icon next to them instead of one action icon and then a list of possible choices. Seems like this may not be that consistent between monster entries (or else, the pattern is not obvious to me)? The Manticore has Melee (jaws) and Melee (claw) each with an action icon next to it instead of one action icon with the two attacks listed.

That's a good point. I think it would be better for the stat blocks to be consistent and show the icon for each attack, otherwise as you say it could be interpreted to mean all those things happen with one action.

[Sylvan Scott]

I'm gonna use Ilvoresh's unseen servant in a creative way ... by having the brain collector order it to "feed and tend to the humans" and, essentially, have this non-combat critter keep getting in the way ... essentially roving, annoying, difficult terrain.

[Snickersnax]

Anyone think Holy Castigation (You combine holy energy with positive energy to damage demons, devils, and their evil ilk. )

should or should not work on this guy?

Alien aberrations seem like evil ilk to me.

[MikePTFDR]

Just GMed him.

By the time he came out the big hitters were pretty worn down by debuffs from the Vamp spawns and Shadows so they were having trouble hitting him with main attacks, let alone secondaries.
His actions in combat went more or less like this for me:

Round 1
* Move
** Mirror Image
(vamps ran up the walls with climb and advanced (i described them run/crawling along the walls like The Ring chicks))

2
* Move into Combat
** Vamp Touch
(Vamps moved past the choke point and into the casters and ran down and flanked someone for sneak and started biting and follow up draining someone)

3
** Confusion
* Bite

4
** Confusion
* Bite

5
** Paralyze (then when it landed realized the Spell is just bad now)
* Bite

6
** Vamp Touch
* Bite(-5) Since the Attack from Vamp Touch would be the primary in this case.

I may have gotten one more round, which would have been a spell and a bite and then he went down.

Was fairly challenging given the fact that the group was pretty debuffed already from previous encounters.

IMO the Greater Shadow encounter before it was more deadly than this fight and could have been more deadly if i focused one person with both Shadows, but I opted to split them to wear down 2 people instead of likely killing one.