Thrushmoor Terror villain difficulty (SPOILERS)


Strange Aeons


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I'm (hopefully) going to be starting the Thrushmoor Terror tomorrow, and after reading through, some of the fights strike me as... lackluster. Risi Nairgon and Melisenn Kororo in particular seem incredibly weak. Risi can make one good(ish) attack, throw a low-DC save or die at a PC, then poke at them for 1d6+2 per round, assuming she even survives long enough to make another attack. Since I'm not a fan of save or die attacks- or rogues in general- I've rebuilt her as a slayer. Melisenn, however, is just... completely irredeemable. No good attack spells, no real minions to buff, and one puny meat shield in her chamber. I dropped the trap and the byakhee, slapped 2 more levels of cleric on her, changed her gear and stats somewhat, and gave her the Dark Tapestry subdomain.
Note: I've used fractional bab and saves for all my NPCs, and I use a 15 point buy rather than straight elite array in my rebuilds to allow for some more flexibility.

Risi Nairgon - CR 6
Female human slayer (sniper) 7
CE medium humanoid (human)
Init +6
Senses perception +10, darkvision 60 ft.

DEFENSE
AC 21 (+5 armor, +6 dex), touch 16, flat-footed 15
hp 67
Fort +6 Ref +10 Will +2

OFFENSE
Speed 40 ft.
Reach 10 ft. with ranseur
Melee longsword +9 (1d8+3) or ranseur +9 (2d4+3)
Ranged +1 composite longbow +14/+9 (1d8+3)
Special Attacks sneak attack +3d6, studied target (+2), deadly aim (-2/+4), deadly range (+7 damage)
SQ slayer talents (combat trick x2), sniper’s eye

STATISTICS
STR 14 (+2) DEX 22 (+6) CON 14 (+2) INT 10 (+0) WIS 10 (+0) CHA 8 (-1)
Base Atk +7 CMB +9 CMD 25
Feats Expert Sniper(bonus, see above), Point-Blank Shot(bonus, see above), Rapid Shot(bonus, see above), Skill Focus (stealth), Deadly Aim, Stealthy, Acrobatic, Roof Runner
Skills perception +10, acrobatics +20 (+29 to jump), stealth +21 (+11 sniping), sleight of hand +16, climb +14, escape artist +18, bluff +9
Languages Common, Kelish
Gear +1 composite longbow (+2 str), longsword, ranseur, boots of striding and springing, +1 mithral chain shirt, 30 arrows, potion of cat’s grace, potion of darkvision

I've changed her tactics accordingly. She'll scale a house near the PCs' inn and attempt to snipe through a window. Her sniper's eye ability and potion of darkvision will allow her to sneak attack someone at night, even if they have concealment. She'll take a standard action to snipe a target (for 1d8+10 damage and 3d6 sneak attack!), starting the surprise round. In the surprise round, she'll take a move action to hide with a -10 sniping penalty. After that, she'll take full-round actions to attack with Master Sniper (if any PC is visible), or if nobody is visible, move near the entrance to the inn and hide again so she can snipe anyone leaving the inn. If she's noticed, she'll scale a house and run off across the rooftops to lose enemies. Overall, I'm playing her as very cautious and acrobatic, with all the roof-jumping and sniping.

Next is our friend Melisenn! Well, my friend. Not the PCs'.

Melisenn Kororo - CR 8
Female human cleric of Hastur 9
CE large humanoid (human)
Init +1
Senses perception +18
Aura evil

DEFENSE
AC 21 (+4 natural, +2 deflection, +5 armor, +1 dex, +1 dodge, -1 size), touch 14, flat-footed 19
hp 100
Fort +10 Ref +6 Will +12
DR 5/evil

OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft., fly 60 ft.
Melee +1 longspear +14/+9 melee (2d6+10) or melee touch +10
Space/reach 10 ft./10 ft. (20 ft. with longspear)
Cleric Spells Prepared (CL 9th, concentration +15)
5th: summon monster V, righteous might*, plane shift (DC 21)
4th: summon monster IV, terrible remorse (DC 20), divine power*, black tentacles
3rd: fly*, blindness/deafness (DC 19), dispel magic, lightning bolt (DC 19), bestow curse (DC 19)
2nd: cure moderate wounds (2), death knell (DC 18), undetectable alignment*, summon monster II, bull’s strength*
1st: shield of faith*, protection from good*, entropic shield*, feather fall, bane (2, DC 17), murderous command (DC 17)
0 (at-will): detect magic, light, read magic, message
Domains Void (dark tapestry subdomain), Rune

STATISTICS
STR 18 (+4) DEX 12 (+1) CON 17 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 22 (+6) CHA 10 (+0)
Base Atk +6 CMB +11 CMD 24
Feats Toughness, Scribe Scroll, Dodge, Spell Focus (conjuration), Augment Summons, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes, Dreamed Secrets
Skills spellcraft +11, linguistics +6, bluff +6, diplomacy +4, knowledge (arcana) +6, knowledge (planes) +4, knowledge (religion) +10
Gear headband of inspired wisdom +2, +1 chain shirt, +1 longspear, caller's feather

Melisenn comes pre-buffed with divine power, shield of faith, righteous might, fly, protection from good, entropic shield, and bull's strength (all included in her stat block). I know that's a big before-combat list, but honestly, spellcasters who waste their first few rounds buffing are pushovers. Action economy already favors the PCs- I may as well give her a fighting chance. Her caller's feather is something I gave her to allow her to summon a large void elemental, which she'll send after the PCs after they defeat Daridela (This is a throwback to an old kingmaker campaign where my wizard was assaulted by a soul eater).
Her strategy is to zap with a lightning bolt as PCs enter the hallway leading to her court, then fly up and stab at them with her crazy reach when they enter. She'll throw out an advanced babau for some more flanking longspear action. If someone comes close, she'll try to Plane Shift them (I have another side adventure prepared for exactly this circumstance).

So overall, how do these two look? Definitely more challenging, but are they too much? Tell me what you think, and if possible, share how your parties dealt with these encounters. Sorry for the giant post. :p


Two quick questions:

1) How does Melisenn know to start buffing before the PC's show up, and what happens if the PC's either stall or retreat and return after her durations have run out?

2) How does she summon a monster with the advanced template?

Otherwise they're two single character encounters so the PC's have a good chance of overwhelming them with the action economy. I'd use stealth and distance to keep Risi alive and summons for Melisenn. Maybe save the void elemental (hopefully your players don't mind its 3pp) for the boss fight?

Also, if you can give us am idea of your party it would be helpful to see if things are balanced.


Artofregicide wrote:

Two quick questions:

1) How does Melisenn know to start buffing before the PC's show up, and what happens if the PC's either stall or retreat and return after her durations have run out?

There are a few encounters in the cellar that give away the PCs- perception checks to hear battle get -10 to the DC, and kuru (and my PCs) aren't exactly quiet, stealthy combatants. As to the PCs retreating or stalling, if this happens, I plan to have her move out of her chamber after getting off her 1 round/level buffs. There's no trap to lure them into, so she has no reason to stick around in the court. It's just a convenient battleground due to her flight, reach, and the room's high ceiling.

Artofregicide wrote:
2) How does she summon a monster with the advanced template?

The dark tapestry subdomain gives the ability to summon an advanced monster 1/day.

Artofregicide wrote:
Otherwise they're two single character encounters so the PC's have a good chance of overwhelming them with the action economy. I'd use stealth and distance to keep Risi alive and summons for Melisenn. Maybe save the void elemental (hopefully your players don't mind its 3pp) for the boss fight?

The size of the encounter is something I worried about as well. Risi has the advantage of catching the PCs alone and at night (the PCs won't encounter her in Iris Manor, because 1 on 4 rogue battles are terrible in close quarters), meaning they're most likely unarmored, unbuffed, and divided. As for Melisenn, I could give her a few cultist guards in her chamber. Her encounter is only CR 8 as of now. If the hound of Tindalos from earlier hasn't joined her, I'll add a 2 or 3 of those CR 3 Hastur cultists to give her a small advantage.

I would give her the void elemental, but the entire point of that encounter is to give the PCs a hint that someone powerful is out for them, and mostly as a nod to the Kingmaker campaign. Spooky darkness monster attacking them as they sleep and all that good stuff.

Artofregicide wrote:
Also, if you can give us am idea of your party it would be helpful to see if things are balanced.

Party makeup is as follows:

Paula Deen, a human witch focused on debuffing with evil eye and then misfortune. She doesn't cast a lot of spells, just spams hexes due to her Accursed Hex feat. Her ridiculous initiative usually means she goes first and targets something with a nasty debuff which will stick around for about a thousand years due to her cackle hex.

Madness Cleric, an aptly named human cleric of Sivanah whose player did not deign to give a real title (NPCs refer to him as MC). They're a tank, and fairly optimized. They have the deception subdomain. His job is to rush into battle, take an attack of opportunity that likely misses, and bloop behind the enemy with their domain ability to set up flanking and such. Very effective, and serves as a party healbot/buffer out of combat.

Lukan, a human paladin of Sarenrae. He's got the Fey Foundling trait, which lets him heal 2 more hp per dice of healing. Between his own swift action lay on hands and the cleric's channel/cure spells, he's very hard to take down. He's a damage dealer but also has decent AC. Wields a scimitar two-handed.

A human inquisitor whose name I cannot remember for some reason. She's disgustingly optimized (ravener hunter and sanctified slayer) and her sneak attack just came on board at the end of book 1. She's a ranged attacker and somewhat of a glass cannon.

Overall, they're all fairly powerful, even if the players themselves aren't too experienced. Moreover, all of them have good will save progression, and good saves overall, making a lot of enemies in this campaign very sad. I tend to play monsters to the extent of their abilities, so I have to strike a balance between keeping the party alive and challenging them.

I love spellcasting, but sadly their saves are too high to make spells from the typical 16-18 casting stat casters worthwhile. That's why I tend to focus on letting enemy casters do physical damage rather than use offensive spells. I'm going to have Daridela use her wild shape to turn into a dire tiger, for example.


Risi's main strategy is to stay on a rooftop for as long as possible, and snipe from behind chimneys or other cover. She'll only enter melee if she's forced to, and will then try to disarm someone with her ranseur so she can get away. Her sniper archetype ability allows her to make her first sneak attack from up to 110 feet away, and since she's got darkvision and sniper's eye, she can still hit from that far away. I love the idea of waking up a PC with a sneak attack from a rooftop 100 feet away... Sounds like it would make a memorable encounter.


I had forgotten about the dark tapestry subdomain, that's very handy. Might I suggest she summon a Xill instead of a Babau? I love the little demon bastards but the Xill seems more thematic (alienness, body horror, paralysis). Plus Xills rarely get any love these days.

So, if Melisenn does get her summons off and has all her buffs going she'll be pretty tough, though with your party that may not be the case. If you add anything I'd say a cultist or two at most, especially to slow the PC's down. I think in retrospect the void elemental would be too much, though she could summon a medium version for her SMIV. Not sure what you had planned for that.

What it may come down to us how worn down your party is by the time they confront Melisenn. I don't remember there being a time constraint to the scenario, so they could feasibly rest up and return to fight the boss.

Personally I'm a big fan of your Risi encounter and may steal it if/when I start my Strange Aeons campaign back up.

From my estimation the encounters look challenging but not overwhelming unless you add other combatants or the party is very low on resources, in which case they could be brutal.


I forgot about Xills! I'll definitely have her summon one instead. If the party is worn down, I can always remove some of Melisenn's buffs to make sure she doesn't steamroll them. To be honest, the encounter I'm most worried about in this entire book is the revenant. His damage is just so high, and then they decided to add constrict, power attack, and grab on top of it... I plan on starting him pretty far off down the street, and use an enraged shriek to alert the PCs.

But I ramble! Thanks for the help with this. I don't have much experience DMing aside from an unfortunate RotRL campaign where I killed all the PCs... three times. Without making anything harder. :c


I believe I read in another thread that you've already run the revenant encounter, which is a notorious PC killer. It basically boils down to whether your PC's can destroy the revenant before it single-mindedly murders it's target.

My only other thought is that it is kind of weird that Melisenn is using a longspear when the rapier is both her deity's favored weapon and more fitting to her character as a refined, civilized person. Other than tactical reasons, why did you go with the longspear?

For the record I think there's plenty of ways to explain her new weapon choice, just wanted to hear yours.

Also, you could just give her a regular rapier as a backup weapon in case she gets disarmed.

Just some thoughts.


Artofregicide wrote:

I believe I read in another thread that you've already run the revenant encounter, which is a notorious PC killer. It basically boils down to whether your PC's can destroy the revenant before it single-mindedly murders it's target.

My only other thought is that it is kind of weird that Melisenn is using a longspear when the rapier is both her deity's favored weapon and more fitting to her character as a refined, civilized person. Other than tactical reasons, why did you go with the longspear?

For the record I think there's plenty of ways to explain her new weapon choice, just wanted to hear yours.

Also, you could just give her a regular rapier as a backup weapon in case she gets disarmed.

Just some thoughts.

It was pretty much just for the reach. I suppose a rapier would work just as well, since her base reach when enlarged is 10 feet anyways.

The revenant encounter was an odd one. I killed the paladin at first before realizing that I didn't factor in the -2 to attacks from the cleric's touch of madness. I redid that round, the revenant missed his third claw attack, the paladin stayed at 1 hp, the inquisitor fired two arrows into Klyn, and the cleric's morning star ended the affair.

It was nerve-wracking to see my favorite PC so close to death.


In regards to rapier vs. longspear, it's sort of a gamble on crits. Rapier crits more often but should the longspear crit it will be potentially deadly. I've killed PC's at that level with x3 crits. It's also a 2-handed weapon, so at least mechanically it's the superior choice. Technically a rapier is 1-handed and you can 2-hand it but that doesn't really make sense. On the other hand if Melisenn gets backed into a corner she could theoretically draw and and fight one-handed with the rapier without dropping her spear.

My concern for my own game (should I pick it back up) is that my PC's probably won't have the raw damage dealing potential of your group. And if that is the case I'm wondering how to keep the odds of possible PC death and not certain PC death?


What's your group look like? That would be good to know.

If you think the encounters will be too hard, you can always tone them down to better fit your players, or give them advantages like I did with the revenant (I included a ring from Klyn's sweetheart engraved with his initials in the PC loot stash on the dock). Presenting it to him bought them a round as he disarmed the person who had it and tried to shatter it. It did break the rules for a revenant, since he could still see his murderer, but it's a good way to give the PCs a small edge.

The hard part about encounter-building is that if it's perfectly balanced to keep a chance of death but not instantly doom the PCs, then it really comes down to dice rolls. Could go either way, even if the PCs plan well and come prepared.


My party last told was a human 10 year old girl mesmerist, a bastard sword wielding inquisitor of Ragathiel, a titan fighter 1/investigator X looking to abuse weapon size and vital strike, and a human witch with a mauler familiar. There was also a greataxe swinging slayer who dropped in and out.

The mesmerist has psychic inception but otherwise the casters have nothing to deal with undead. And with only two meaningful damage dealers that doesn't seem like it will be enough.

The ring idea is good. I may steal it. I don't like adjusting encounters on the fly.

My party tends to be 4 with the occasional added PC or NPC. I had 5 PC's plus winter vs. the tatterman (unmodified) and it was still close.


Artofregicide wrote:

My party last told was a human 10 year old girl mesmerist, a bastard sword wielding inquisitor of Ragathiel, a titan fighter 1/investigator X looking to abuse weapon size and vital strike, and a human witch with a mauler familiar. There was also a greataxe swinging slayer who dropped in and out.

The mesmerist has psychic inception but otherwise the casters have nothing to deal with undead. And with only two meaningful damage dealers that doesn't seem like it will be enough.

The ring idea is good. I may steal it. I don't like adjusting encounters on the fly.

My party tends to be 4 with the occasional added PC or NPC. I had 5 PC's plus winter vs. the tatterman (unmodified) and it was still close.

Here's my personal take on what might help according to how my fight went. Anti-undead abilities didn't factor in much, except for the paladin's doubled smite damage (which wasn't needed in the end, since the other two dropped it quite soundly in the next round). I had the revenant start off a full move away from the PCs, and it took several attacks of opportunity to get to the paladin, who was behind the others in the group. Single-minded pursuit of its target means no dodging out of the way when others are in front of it, at least in my mind.

The witch landed a misfortune hex on the revenant, but that didn't do much because his to-hit is so high. Knowledge checks are key in this fight. If they know its weaknesses, even if it's just how to get through its DR, they'll have a higher chance of success. My party only has two big hitters as well. The cleric's hit was a lucky one. Let the PCs buff up beforehand (I gave them a few minutes due to the revenant's loud shrieking and screaming the name of its killer from a while away), and give them a chance to hit it before it gets to its target, who is ideally in the back. I didn't even have the revenant target other PCs, even if they landed nasty hits on it. That means the familiar can fight without a risk of dying, and it'll be easier to move around and get flanking set up if the revenant doesn't make attacks of opportunity.

Other than that... I guess pray to Gorum for a natural 20 or two. It's a really, really nasty encounter. Every buff and preparation helps. Since you get to choose who the revenant targets, go with whoever has the highest HP and preferably some way to heal themselves. AC doesn't matter against this thing.


I found this thread at just the right time! I'm about to start preparing book 2 for my group and i was struggling with what to do to make these two encounters a little harder. So far my group is doing their best to steamroll most of my encounters. (my paladin rolled 8 natural 20's last time we played, its not all my fault) so i've been working hard to up the difficulty for them beyond what i would do just adding a 5th player.

Thank you for this, its going to help a lot!


No problem. I ran Risi yesterday, and the fight went pretty well. Her initial stealth check was ridiculous (42) and the party was surprised by her. She missed her first attack, so she lost the element of surprise, but she did some good damage before failing the save on a blindness/deafness spell. She was an easy cleanup after that.

She started behind a chimney on a roof outside of the PCs' inn, and sniped at them through the windows. Once she was found, which took several rounds and several arrows in the PCs, she jumped to a nearby rooftop and tried to hide again. That was when she failed her save. After that, she tried to blind-run her way to the star stela to escape via the teleportation effect. She ended up killing herself rather than being taken prisoner by the PCs.


My GM toned the revenant down to something lesser, as there were only three PCs.

At the end of the encounter two of them were down and the gnome wizard had 1 hp and was in a Silence. The thing came after him. He threw his last vial of holy water and *missed*--and killed it with the 1 point splash.

I don't think I've ever been in a closer fight.

I'm not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it was both. A very memorable fight, but very hard on morale, and also part of what killed the game during the next chapter--it REALLY made the point that the PCs' former selves were bad folks, and unfortunately the PCs got it in their heads in #3 that the events were conspiring to make them back into bad folks. They balked, and we had to contrive an ending and terminate the game.

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