Okay, I'm working on a conversion for Temple of Elemental Evil, I decided on doing three little subquests for getting them up to level 2 before going to the Moathouse, I'm taking material from the computer game, the module, its sequel, and other things. One subquest involves a skeletal champion, and I wanted to get people's opinions. 3rd level wizard, Necromancy specialist, enchantment and abjuration opposition schools. I'm a little worried he might be too powerful for a 1st level party, His 2nd level spells are Scorching Ray and Shared Suffering,with Spell Specialization in Shared Suffering, bringing his caster level up to 5 with it. It seemed like a good spell for him, a devotee to the god of madness and entropy, but I worry that a 4d6 Scorching Ray might be a bit much for the party to take, and Shared Suffering deals 3d6+4, while also healing him 3d6. He's meant to be the boss of that subquest, but I don't want him to be a tpk.
Also, how does a template modify the treasure? As a 3rd level Heroic, he should have 1650 for gold, but skeletal champion increases the CR, and I'm not sure how it affects treasure.
I would not adjust the treasure.
I don't typically increase wealth for templates, and giving the party too much wealth can cause issues in the long run.
As an aside, wizards only get nominal benefit from the skeletal champion template. At most it will extend combat 1 round.
Volkard Abendroth wrote: ....
As an aside, wizards only get nominal benefit from the skeletal champion template. At most it will extend combat 1 round.
At low level (note, this boss monster is only 3ed level, and the party is either 2nd, or more likely 1st), I would thoroughly disagree with this idea. The template will make him a LOT less squishy: DR 5/bludgeoning, 2 extra HD, HD > D8, Natural Armor, Dex bonus, can dump con if you build the mage with intent (for CHA for more HP or Dex for AC)... If his tactical set up is good, he can hammer on them. Shared suffering should put a single PC unconscious - expected damage is 14, no save, no to-hit.
pad300 wrote: Volkard Abendroth wrote: ....
As an aside, wizards only get nominal benefit from the skeletal champion template. At most it will extend combat 1 round.
At low level (note, this boss monster is only 3ed level, and the party is either 2nd, or more likely 1st), I would thoroughly disagree with this idea. The template will make him a LOT less squishy: DR 5/bludgeoning, 2 extra HD, HD > D8, Natural Armor, Dex bonus, can dump con if you build the mage with intent (for CHA for more HP or Dex for AC)... If his tactical set up is good, he can hammer on them. Shared suffering should put a single PC unconscious - expected damage is 14, no save, no to-hit. Against a full party he should never have more than 1 round to freely cast. After they he should be forced into casting defensively for everything. A non-trivial task at this level without combat casting.
If the party is at all balanced, DR 5/bludgeoning should be bypassed by at least half the group.
Dumping CON on an undead is no different than dumping CHA on any other character. You've not saved any points - you've merely reallocated them to a different stat.
You're looking at ~41 hp instead of the original 17.
17 hp is simply to low for a boss encounter, at any level. With 17 HP, a barbarian with an earthbreaker one-shots your boss, without rolling her damage dice. Having 41 hp means the boss survives the first hit from the barbarian (assuming no critical) and takes a few hits from the rest of the group before the barbarian gets in a second hit.
If the party wins initiative, he may not even get that initial round of free casting. A couple of people charging and he's got nowhere to move. Flanking ensues.
Never underestimate action economy. The party is going to win hands down just on this if they are even close to the same level of optimization as the NPC.
Volkard Abendroth wrote: If the party wins initiative, he may not even get that initial round of free casting. A couple of people charging and he's got nowhere to move. Flanking ensues.
Never underestimate action economy. The party is going to win hands down just on this if they are even close to the same level of optimization as the NPC.
I don't entirely disagree, but you have to look at it the other way too. If our undead necromancer wins initiative their first spell has a fair chance of taking down a party member. If it takes more than a single round to close, they could well lose another. Now the planned flankers are both down and it could well end up a TPK.
Beyond the difficulty of making a solo guy tough enough to challenge a full party, is the fact that often doing that makes it easy for the big bad to kill a party member even if they lose.
I'd look at making the champion a second level necromancer, and adding in a couple of regular skeletons as mooks. I think it would be a better, and more predictable fight.
Skeletal Mage is already a creature that has been printed in a module. It is very close to what you were going for already(Necromancer 3), though likely different spell choices and is actually a CR 5.
I personally would probably go Sorcerer for the focus on Cha, but that would likely bump the CR up to 6 if you wanted to keep Scorching Ray and Shared Suffering in the build.
Or, if you didn't want to deal with the crappy free 2 HD from Skeletal Champion, consider Mummified Creature from Bestiary 4. Its not as annoying as a full mummy (because its aura is panic not paralyze, and no mummy rot). It should be something like a CR 4 if you go Sorcerer 4. Probably end up around the same HP, since a higher Cha, but fewer HD. Then add in 2-3 regular skeletons (up to your XP budget) to round out the fight.
Volkard Abendroth wrote: Against a full party he should never have more than 1 round to freely cast. After they he should be forced into casting defensively for everything. A non-trivial task at this level without combat casting.
If the party is at all balanced, DR 5/bludgeoning should be bypassed by at least half the group.
Dumping CON on an undead is no different than dumping CHA on any other character. You've not saved any points - you've merely reallocated them to a different stat.
You're looking at ~41 hp instead of the original 17.
17 hp is simply to low for a boss encounter, at any level. With 17 HP, a barbarian with an earthbreaker one-shots your boss, without rolling her damage dice. Having 41 hp means the boss survives the first hit from the barbarian (assuming no critical) and takes a few hits from the rest of the group before the barbarian gets in a second hit.
If the party wins initiative, he may not even get that initial round of free casting. A couple of people charging and he's got nowhere to move. Flanking ensues.
Never underestimate action economy. The party is going to win hands down just on this if they are even close to the same level of optimization as the NPC.
I didn't see anything saying the tactical set up was that he was a) alone, or b) functionally chargeable. On the other side of a 3' deep, 10' wide stream, with caltrops scattered on the bottom of the stream is going to make the party unhappy. A narrow deep niche in the wall
''X
''C
XXXXXX
SSSSSS
SSSSSS
XXXXXX
''D
(where X's are open spaces, S is the stream, D is the door into the room, and C is our champion), pretty much guarantees 2 casts. First when they get caught up crossing the stream and then a 5' step and cast with without a concentration check at this level. A mauler familiar or a couple of skeletons with him (heck, they could be hiding in the stream itself...
Or be simple, a bigger room with caltrops all over the floor - they don't bug him - DR5/bludgeoning vs 1 pt piercing...
As far as defensive toughness, you've selected the worst case PC for the champion. What if the melee combatant is a fighter with a 2 handed sword, a sword and board paladin or worse, a swashbuckler, or a 2 weapons fighting ranger? Against them the DR exists, and as classes
they are less focused on explosive damage.
Not to mention you've neglected what the template does to his AC - 2 pts of natural armor, and a further +1 from dex. Assuming mage armor and a 14 dex initally, he's gone from AC 16 to 19. Even with a +7 to hit that (barb raging = 22 str) that's gone from hitting on a 9 = 60%, to hitting on a 12 = 45%, that's a quarter of his damage potential gone...
PS He's got really good odds of winning initiative: +2 to dex from the template and free improved initiative.
The planned tactic was for him to cast Mage's Crawl Space and wait to ambush the party, getting a surprise round initially planned as Chill Touch. Either an Alarm spell or a telepathic minion would alert him to the time to strike.
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