Tales of the Manticore? Share yours.

[The Once and Future Kai]

The boards have been full of dreadful tales of the Manticore so, as GM, I was bracing myself for a near TPK when one of my groups went up against this terror. Instead, it was a hard encounter but hardly an extreme one?

Here's the group.
--o Ranger with Longbow
--o Primal Sorcerer with Shortbow
--o Alchemist
--o Barbarian
--o Occult Sorcerer with Sling

I used hit & run (or hit & fly rather) tactics as well as plenty of ranged spike attacks. Because of this they only landed a single melee strike when the Manticore went all in to kill the troublesome Ranger. The Alchemist did use smokebombs to create artificial cover for the squishier members of the group. We were also running update 1.3 with Treat Wounds and Hunted Shot? The Barbarian was essentially useless - except for that single melee strike - but everyone else had ranged options (Alchemist threw a few bombs but focused on utility) and were relatively effective. The Ranger was MVP whittling down the Manticore's health using Hunted Shot which gave him enough actions to attack and take advantage of the smoke cover.

Anyway, how did your group fare? What is your Tale of the Manticore?

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Gonna copy-paste my results from one of my previous threads. Party was ran with a Gnome Sorcerer (Imperial Bloodline), Goblin Paladin, Human Barbarian (Dragon Totem), Half-Elf Cleric (Erastil), and Elf Wizard (Evocation). Manticore was made Elite to compensate for a 5th player.

This encounter was fun and just the right amount of deadly, but it did take a while due to the monster's attributes being higher than normal to compensate for the 5th player. About a half-dozen failures were because of the increased +2 (which could have cut the fight duration down by about an hour). If it was cut down, it would make for one of the better encounters.

The only other bad thing was that the directions for drawing the map wasn't clear on aspects other than what the PCs could travel. Outside of the 20 foot winding trail, I didn't know precisely what to make the sides out of, and for simplicity and tactical reasons I ruled that it was a concave "cliff" that the PCs could climb up with a DC 15 Athletics check (and they tried to utilize the Nimble feat to bypass that difficult terrain, which I disallowed due to it requiring an Athletics check; not sure if this was the right call or not).

I followed the Manticore's tactics down pretty well, sneaking up behind towards the Sorcerer and Cleric and utilizing its Double Spike attack numerous times, circling the PCs with their minor ranged comebacks (though a couple of them were painful due to some lucky rolls, such as by the Cleric Archer). The Barbarian got dangerously close to the Manticore and ran out of rage (becoming fatigued); the Manticore had an opportunity to strike and almost took down the Barbarian with two hits (one of them being a Critical Bite). The Barbarian had 4 HP left, but the Cleric with his channels was able to bring him back in the fight. Eventually, by being in melee, the Manticore took some significant damage, and I tried having it do some guerrilla tactics, by diving towards the cliffside and covering itself with the rocks there. Due to its extreme stealth score, the odds of the PCs finding it before it was too late was slim, but a Natural 1 at the worst possible time warranted a critical failure and exposed his position at a bad time, with him shouting some obscenities at stepping on a rock it didn't see, and taking 1D4 damage (houseruled, I know, but it didn't really impact tactics or the outcome any more than if I didn't have it work, and the whole hillside was technically houseruled anyway). The Sorcerer then followed up with a Web spell (which it couldn't break due to rolling a 3 and not being higher than a DC 18 result, making it extremely slow for a round), but due to the Cleric keeping everyone else alive, the Manticore had only one hope of defeating the players, which was by getting into the Cleric's face, thereby making it more difficult for the Cleric to hit back (he's using a Longbow), and also cut off their potential healing supply. While his divebomb was successful in dropping the Cleric to Dying 1, the Paladin managed to get in range, deliver a killing blow that brutally maimed the Manticore's skull (which plays a part later in the next encounter, as I ruled based on how well he rolled), and saved the Cleric's life with a timely Lay On Hands.

The Paladin didn't have much ranged options, and mostly tried to utilize his auxiliary tactics, such as Intimidate, to contribute when the Manticore wasn't down on the ground fighting. About his second intimidate check in, he critically failed and bolstered the Manticore to his checks, so the Paladin had to hand over his bow and arrows to someone else for contribution while he went on healing duty as well through the Channel Life feat while the Manticore was not in melee range. He is responsible for the killing blow thanks to his +1 Warhammer.

The Sorcerer had some interesting contributions because they were largely self-propelled (which was the player's playstyle). Initially, due to it getting slaughtered by the Manticore's Tail Spikes, it tried feigning allegiance. With a successful roll, I simply had the Manticore no longer treat the Sorcerer as a threat, since the Manticore was baffled by his Diplomacy request (initially trying to say it was on the Manticore's side). It also made use of Invisibility (which did save him from getting swiped up by the Manticore later in the fight), and contributed towards the end with Magic Missiles.

The Cleric was the MVP of this fight, due to his plentiful healing and ability to utilize numerous ranged attacks. Several of them were hits dealing significant damage (thanks to some lucky rolling of course), and anyone getting down could be saved with the two-action Channel. The Bless benefit at the start of the fight also guaranteed a few hits as well, though the fight did last longer than the duration of the spell due to the Manticore's tactics, and as such was able to contribute quite well.

The Wizard mostly utilized his cantrips. The Mirror Images were cast once, which made the Manticore not waste spikes on him until the very end (which I actually forgot the Wizard had Mirror Images active). Due to a Natural 20 and actually hitting the Wizard on a random die roll between it and the images, the Mirror Images really only delayed whatever pain the Manticore could deal. Realistically, the Images would have saved a few hits, but in this result of actual play, it really only altered the Manticore's tactics slightly, and didn't actually warrant being cast due to its lack of relevant results. The Wizard did all kinds of tactics, such as utilizing cantrips (Telekinetic Object, Ray of Frost, etc.), shooting with his Bow, and so on, and was successful more with his Cantrips than his bow. He did take the Fighter Dedication feat for proficiency, and did have some +1 Medium armor as a result.

The Barbarian was a wild card and did all kinds of things in the encounter. He would try Intimidation tactics, he would try throwing Javelins. He even brought a couple Magic Weapon Oils to utilize, this time with the Paladin's Bow (though it was wasted because of the Manticore tactics and obtuse rolling). We did have an issue as to how the Oil is applied to an object, though and it did slow down the game more than necessary. According to the rules, it takes two hands to put an oil onto an object, but I was under the impression that you could pour the oil with one hand and hold the object in the other, though it appears you have to have two hands free, holding nothing (other than the oil, obviously) to apply it. So it created an awkward situation where the Barbarian had to draw the oil, drop the weapon, apply the oil, then pick it back up, thereby wasting 2 actions (and/or a reaction, in hindsight). I rolled with it because the Barbarian wasn't in any apparent danger, but I think these rules need to be clarified and/or fixed for ease of play, because it was a bit of a headache and clunky, and since the Barbarian has one more that I expect him to utilize for the final fight on his Lance, getting this explained properly would help for the remainder of the playtest.

Overall, the players enjoyed the encounter other than the fight taking a little long due to tactics employed by the Manticore (and it having stronger than normal statistics), but it was the right amount of deadly and difficult, all things considered.

[PCScipio]

Our party was a half-elven ranger, a half-elven sorcerer, a gnome sorcerer, a goblin monk, and a half-orc bard/fighter multiclass (me).

When we found the gnolls bodies with the quills sticking out of them, no-one came close to making the knowledge check. We all agreed that this must be the work of some sort of giant porcupine. We continued on our way, watching out for a POUS (Porcupine Of Unusual Size).

When the manticore attacked us, there were cries of "that's not a POUS!", as we engaged it with ranged weapons and spells. Naturally, the manticore started by pinning the gnome to the ground with a critical hit.

My bard cast magic weapon on the ranger's bow, and then launched a couple of 3-action magic missiles; one of the sorcerers read the scroll of fly, sending the goblin up towards the strange beast (stopping to free the gnome); the other sorcerer hit the manticore with an acid arrow, which ended up doing a lot of persistent damage. I think we got the persistent damage rules wrong — the manticore ended up taking damage from 3 separate acid arrows, and that, along with bow fire and magic missiles, was enough to kill the monster.

I think we took a total of 69 damage, which used up most of our healing.

[Sebastian Hirsch]

My party had a couple of ranged option and a couple of lucky crits, they went the easy route, but it wasn't even a tough combat, to be honest.

I suspect a lot of GMs forgot how the ability to shoot spikes interacts with multiple attack penalty, and that you need to spend an action to fly each turn.

[DerNils]

My manticore got Dragon-kicked out of the sky by a Monk with a Magic weapon and hot dice. I was also a bit too fiddly with trying to grapple the Monk and drag him out of heal range, just multiattacking could have been more effective, on the poor AC of a Dragon Monk. Or I could have remembered that tripping the Monk would have sent him right back to the ground. But in the end, it was a harsh, but not too hard fight.
But this was really due to the Party having more healing than needed and the perfect Combo for this fight, a difficult Terrain ignoring Monk with Magic weapon and a scroll of Fly. The barbarian would have been unable to ever catch up with the manticore while flying.
The Elf Barbarian was happy to use his Longbow without the Volley for once, and the cleric and leaf druid took turns in overhealing the Monk and handling the camel Train.

[Asurasan]

Our party was a Druid, Ranger, Alchemist, and Barbarian. The manticore essentially spent it's entire 'life' of its encounter doing flying spike attacks from well out of range of most of the PC's. This made the fight take a bit longer, but the eventual outcome was satisfying.

The fight opened with the druid eating a crit from the tail spikes during the manticore's first attack, pinning her to the ground. The alchemist wobbled forward near the druid on the incline to position itself to bomb the manticore when it approached within a ranged increment for his bombs. The Ranger drew her bow, hunters marked, and sent out a volley of arrows, hitting with one and dealing moderate damage. The Barbarian grabbed his shortbow and missed with two arrows due to poor-ish rolls. Druid breaks free of the spikes, grabs her staff of healing and heals herself.

Second round the manticore makes another flyby pass from the distance, lobbing spikes at the druid and alchemist combo this time. Missing the alchemist but hitting the druid once more, dropping her into the single digits. Ranger attempted to move on the incline but lost her footing and had to stay still. She decided to take out her oil of magic weapon and apply it to her bow from there. Alchemist turn rolls back around, he decides to create a smoke bomb and spike it at his own feet, granting the party some concealment, hoping it will hurt the manticore worse than it hurt the party. Barbarian fired arrows, landing a decent hit, and druid tried to move, lost her balance, then healed herself with the last two charges on her staff.

Third round the manticore continues it's lazy circle around the party, coming closer than usual, content with its range, moving and throwing a pair of spikes followed by a single spike at the druid/alchemist. Fortunately the concealment actually negates an attack that would have otherwise been a crit on the druid, the alchemist takes a hit. The Ranger realizes the sleep arrow they are carrying, might end the fight in a single shot, proceeds to fire it off, missing by entirely, much to everyone disappointment. She makes up for it with a crit on a secondary attack with her now +1 weapon longbow, dealing a mighty 4d8+2 and 1d10 from the deadly trait. Alchemist drinks a healing potion and the druid uses storm surge, dealing a bit of damage and dropping the creatures AC. Barb gets a plink in with his shortbow.

The 4th round sees much the same happening with the manticore starting to run low on spikes, but the concealment from the smoke bomb miraculously comes through again for the party. Seeing the writing on the wall, the druid decides to use the scroll of fly on the barbarian who moves out over the cliff face and within striking distance of the manticore, landing an attack with his +1 weapon.

The manticore proceeds to bite on the barbarian for a bit, before using its mandatory fly action to move away from the Barb who uses the no-escape reaction to close the gap as best he can. Barb rages, moves and attacks, landing a crit that manages to finish the manticore, sending it's body tumbling down the cliff face.

The tactics and terrain really caused the fight to drag a bit, without two big crits from the party, things would have potentially carried on for a few more rounds most likely. Ultimately it was a 'tough' encounter but one I felt like the party could handle at the level they were at. Also, the party was particularly capable of making the acrobatics checks to move, but unfortunately just couldn't manage to roll above about a 3 on the dice to actually manage it, leaving them largely stationary for the whole fight.

[Fumarole]

PCScipio wrote:

When we found the gnolls bodies with the quills sticking out of them, no-one came close to making the knowledge check. We all agreed that this must be the work of some sort of giant porcupine. We continued on our way, watching out for a POUS (Porcupine Of Unusual Size).

My party found the gnoll bodies last night. They also failed their rolls spectacularly are were subsequently worried about a Dire Porcupine somewhere on the mountain. We ended the session with me playing the manticore roar from the Syrinscape soundset and the beast diving out of the sky to attack them. That's two sessions in a row we ended right as combat was about to start. I find that gives them something to think about until our next session and they seem to enjoy the cliffhangers.

[Thebazilly]

My party included a Monk and an Animal Totem Barbarian before the errata, so they were very short on ranged options. The manticore kept critting with the tail spikes, and the party knew they wouldn't make it until the manticore ran out of quills.

One Druid had an animal companion with a climb speed, however, and the other had prepared Gust of Wind. The manticore flubbed its save on the Gust of Wind and being prone in reach of the Barbarian and Monk meant the fight was over at that point.

[Quandary]

I like that it sounds like using smoke on your own self/allies is a tactic finding good use with new system.

DerNils wrote:

Or I could have remembered that tripping the Monk would have sent him right back to the ground.

Which reminds me, would Grab Edge Reaction be relevant here? S

hould it use Grapple check vs Creatures? Would using Grapple like this not be under Grab Edge, but would be available via Attack of Opportunity?
This is the type of cinematic action I would love to see new system handle well, and it doesn't seem that far-off current wording.

[StratoNexus]

My GM experience for this encounter was pretty good.
My players were a dwarf fighter, human paladin of Torag, halfling Fey Sorcerer with Fighter Dedication, a goblin alchemist, and a gnome barbarian. The fighter had a magical flail.

The party had been climbing with their armor off to avoid the acp. Upon finding dead knolls killed by giant porcupines (failed to identify Manticore spines) they opted to re-armor.

My map was a shallow s shaped path roughly 20 feet wide. The one side was a cliff up, the other a cliff down (drop was 50-100 foot). The path also was slightly sloped, being 40 foot lower on the side the pcs started on. Players were not stealthing, but a few folks successfully perceived the Manticore, so I started it a bit further out on the map (although in the end not actually far enough to change much, although I was not able to attack the softer rear targets immediately). I used the same perception roll for initiative, and therefore a couple PCs act before the Manticore.

Most players were melee focused, but the fighter, sorcerer, and paladin had short bows, the alchemist had a crossbow, and the barbarian had ray of frost from Ancestry. The paladin moved forward, drew out bow, and raised shield. The gnome moved forward and readied to ray of frost if it got in range. It moved twice and threw two spikes at the barbarian and paladin, hitting both, denting the paladin’s shield. The readied ray of frost had missed. Alchemist moved forward once, drew out crossbow and loaded it. Fighter moved forward twice and readied shield. The sorcerer moved, drew out bow, and shot once, hitting.

Paladin moved forward, stowed bow, and readied shield. Barbarian hit with Ray of frost and moved. Manticore threw 2 spikes again hitting barb but missing paladin, paladin used Divine ward to take 8 of the damage. Manticore used two actions to fly up and away. Alchemist moved, fired and hit despite the range penalty, reloaded. Fighter moves forward twice and readied shield. Sorcerer moved up and cast heal on barbarian. Group is fairly gathered together at this point, only the Alchemist choosing to stay back from the other four. All of them are keeping at least 10 feet from the cliff edge, with the Alchemist tight against the cliff up.

Paladin moves and readies shield. Barbarian readied ray of frost and makes slight move. Manticore flies down. Attacks barb and sorcerer, hits both, then flies back up (not as far since double cost to fly up). Readied ray misses, divine ward directs 8 damage from sorcerer to paladin. Alchemist shoots misses, reloads. Fighter stows shield, pulls out bow, fires missing. Sorcerer casts reach Hideous Laughter, Manticore fails save (this turns out to be a huge debuff).

Paladin stows Shield, draws bow, fires and hits despite range penalty. Barbarian hits with Ray of frost. Manticore flies to 40 feet and 2 more spikes. Crit on barbarian but misses sorcerer. Divine ward moves 8 damage from barb to pally. Manticore cannot fly away, laughing too much. Alchemist moves forward, retrieves bomb, throws, misses. Fighter fires twice, hits once and moves to a better position. Sorcerer concentrates on laughter, one action heal on barbarian (they were right next to each other) and backs away.

Paladin 3 action heals. Barbarian misses with Ray and draws greatsword. Manticore tried to pin the paladin but misses, then flies away. Alchemist retrieves and throws bomb, missing. Fires crossbow, miss. At this point the group remembers they have a fly scroll. Fighter shoots once, missing, moves toward sorcerer, stows bow. Sorcerer moves toward fighter, concentrates, shoots bow, missing. There was a point where the Manticore was further than 60 feet from the sorcerer. I am not sure if that should have broken Laughter, but the sorcerer did get back in range for the concentrate action, so I allowed the spell to continue. Party is also aware that the Manticore is looking low on quills.

Paladin shoots twice, hits once, moves to keep himself closest to Manticore. Barbarian moves next to paladin and misses with Ray. Manticore drops to 20 feet above paladin and barbarian (and still 20 feet from edge of cliff). Shoots paladin and barbarian again, hitting both, paladin saves last spell point. Manticore laughs at his prey. Alchemist draws and throws bomb. Manticore now on Fire, Alchemist loads crossbow. Fighter draws shield, draws flail readies to move towards Manticore once fly is active. Sorcerer draws scroll, then realizes they don’t have enough actions to both cast it and keep up laughter. Chooses to concentrate.

Paladin shoots once, misses. Draw shield and raise. The closest space on the map and still on land to the Manticore has just a piece of land in it. The Barbarian asks if she can move into that space. I tell the player it will require an Acro check, failure could be bad. She moves in, and rolls very well, I allow her to stand there with no penalty. Rage and ready if it gets in greatsword range. Manticore burns a little but comes in melee. Barbarian swing and miss. Manticore hits bite hurts Barbarian. Alchemist double draws bombs and throws acid, hits. Throws tangle foot, hits. Manticore still has more than half health, but is on fire, melting, laughing, and hampered 10. Fighter delays. Sorcerer casts fly and concentrates. Fighter just barely has to sudden charge to get there. Hits. Second strike miss.

Manticore is now right about half hit points. Paladin drops bow, steps behind Barbarian, grabs back of gnome to make sure she doesn’t fall off cliff, raises shield. Barbarian tried to demoralize and fails, two strikes with greatsword, one hit. Manticore bites fighter, crit. Eww. Laughingly steps away from cliff edge to be out of range of gnomish greatsword. Burns a bit more. Alchemist draws bottled lightning. Throws, hits. Now it’s on fire, melting, hampered, laughing, and flat-footed. Alchemist shoots crossbow, misses. Sorcerer concentrates, two action heal on fighter (exactly 30 feet away). Fighter tries to demoralize, fails despite the circumstance bonus I had granted. Strikes. So close to the knocks prone crit, but just a regular hit. Raise shield.

Manticore has 29 hit points. Paladin delays. Barbarian leaps onto the back of the Manticore (jump was auto with powerful leap) but I require a dc 19 Acrobatics to not plummet off its back. She gets a 21 and hits once with greatsword. Manticore bucks gnome off back, gnome fails dc 21 acro check to stay on. Grab edge dc 19 to catch cliff before plummeting. A good roll and she is dangling 10 feet below the edge, one hand holding her sword, the other on the cliff. Manticore second action bite fighter, 22 damage on regular hit, mean gm dice, but shield absorbs a little and takes dent. Paladin comes out of delay. 2 action heal on fighter. Aid barbarian to climb. Manticore burns and melts (I also had the gnome take the fire damage which actually occurred at the beginning of creature turn). Under 15 hit points. Alchemist throws lightning, but misses. Loads and shoots Xbox, hits (looks like we messed up and allowed an extra action). Sorcerer concentrates, shoots twice, hits once. Fighter puts the final smack on it and it plummets past the dangling gnome. Paladin succeeds on aid check. Gnome easily makes dc 14 Athletics check to clamber back to ledge.

[Zamfield]

Our party's cleric got pined by the spikes, but the druid cast obscuring mist which concealed us and caused the manticore to have to hover closer. The 5 flat DC miss chance saved us a lot of damage and we eventually used the gnolls short bows and a spiritual weapon to knock it out of the sky.