Monsters with ranged Attacks

[markrivett]

I'm designing an encounter where the players need to navigate a series of rope bridges. The encounter is largely open space, but with restricted movement. The main bad guys of the campaign are undead, and I was looking to put some ranged-attacking monsters amongst the rope bridges.

Much to my surprise, there appear to be very very few undead with ranged attacks.

Frankly, there aren't many monsters with ranged attacks at all.

Can anyone suggest some low-mid-high challenge monsters for a 5th level party?

I can, of course, dump some skeletons in there, and call it a day, but skeletons are basically like mosquitoes to a 5th level party.

[graystone]

NPC's. Toss in some Bounty Hunters, Archer Sentry, Hunters, Poachers, Trackers, Warden, ect in for instance.

[Mathmuse]

I searched on Archive of Nethys's Monster Filter for Undead between levels 3 and 7. Then I checked whether they had ranged attacks. I found five.

Ranged attacks
Dullahan undead 7 (thrown hatchet, range increment 10 ft)
Excorion undead 7 (20 feet)
Muse Phantom incorporeal undead 5 (60 feet)
Poltergeist incorporeal undead 5 (range increment 60 ft)
Zombie Hulk undead 6 (two thrown objects, range increment 10 ft and 30 ft)

The Zombie Hulk throws things. I suspect that other undead could throw rocks. Intelligent humanoid undead could use a bow.

Another option is that some undead had Area of Effect abilities. Those could affect the party at range.

Area of Effect
Cairn Wight undead 4 (50 feet)
Forge-Spurned undead 5 (30 feet)
Revenant undead 6 (60 feet)
Skaveling flying undead 5 (20 feet)

[NielsenE]

Its also important to figure out what's goal in this case:

1) Provide a sense of urgency for dealing with the rope bridges -- ie the opponents are launching attacks, that individually aren't strong, but provide justification for raising the DC of skill checks, and/or a timer on total rounds if they are damaging the rope bridge itself.

2) Provide the actual threat of the encounter, with the rope bridges just being interesting terrain.

In the former case, plain elite skeletons might fit best. This probably fits if its just one more obstacle to overcome before reaching a key story fight/lore discorvery, etc.

In the latter case, its feeling like something that's mean to be a very memorable set-piece battle and you'll want a mix of ranged and melee to do it justice. This makes sense if its a mini-boss/campaign boss.

[Malk_Content]

NielsenE wrote:

Its also important to figure out what's goal in this case:

1) Provide a sense of urgency for dealing with the rope bridges -- ie the opponents are launching attacks, that individually aren't strong, but provide justification for raising the DC of skill checks, and/or a timer on total rounds if they are damaging the rope bridge itself.

2) Provide the actual threat of the encounter, with the rope bridges just being interesting terrain.

In the former case, plain elite skeletons might fit best. This probably fits if its just one more obstacle to overcome before reaching a key story fight/lore discorvery, etc.

In the latter case, its feeling like something that's mean to be a very memorable set-piece battle and you'll want a mix of ranged and melee to do it justice. This makes sense if its a mini-boss/campaign boss.

Good insight. I actually think if its the latter the Zombie Hulk (or a variant there of) works really well with the rope bridge, throwing normally slow advancing foes right into the midst of your players in a space with limited traditional movement. Perhaps a player with craft might note that the bridge can only take so much weight, so tactics like shoving the zombies off or having to clear their corpses might be vital to success.

[markrivett]

Malk_Content wrote:

NielsenE wrote:

Its also important to figure out what's goal in this case:

1) Provide a sense of urgency for dealing with the rope bridges -- ie the opponents are launching attacks, that individually aren't strong, but provide justification for raising the DC of skill checks, and/or a timer on total rounds if they are damaging the rope bridge itself.

2) Provide the actual threat of the encounter, with the rope bridges just being interesting terrain.

In the former case, plain elite skeletons might fit best. This probably fits if its just one more obstacle to overcome before reaching a key story fight/lore discorvery, etc.

In the latter case, its feeling like something that's mean to be a very memorable set-piece battle and you'll want a mix of ranged and melee to do it justice. This makes sense if its a mini-boss/campaign boss.

Good insight. I actually think if its the latter the Zombie Hulk (or a variant there of) works really well with the rope bridge, throwing normally slow advancing foes right into the midst of your players in a space with limited traditional movement. Perhaps a player with craft might note that the bridge can only take so much weight, so tactics like shoving the zombies off or having to clear their corpses might be vital to success.

Excellent questions. It's probably 70% question 2, and 30% question 1.

The players are the rear guard of a retreating army. They were previously defending a road (modified chase encounter) and will likely have already taken some damage (failing certain checks during the chase encounter inflicts a hit die of damage). They arrive at the rope bridge network, which they have been instructed to cross and burn.

The bad guys have already taken the rope bridge, and there is a pursuing force. So, they need to cross quickly and burn as they go. The forces at the rope bridge want to delay the PCs and stop them from burning all the routes (there are a total of 4 rope bridge paths that cross the span).

The zombie hulk suggestion is a good one, though the bad guys want to keep the bridges intact and a zombie hulk may not be an ideal tool for that endeavor.

[Ascalaphus]

I think for a lot of monsters, the question puzzling the monster designer is "what would it attack at range with?".

Yesterday I was running a Starfinder scenario and the monsters could spit a big loogie every 1d4 rounds. So they clearly preferred melee but could at least make a few ranged attacks and convince the players that trying to finish the whole encounter at a distance wasn't gonna be a win button.

[Leitner]

I'd probably just generate some random stats for a level 5 creature and reskin it to be whatever you want. Some examples:

Small Dragon, Level 5

12 perception

Defense:
19 AC
120 HP
Fort 16, Reflex 19, Will 19

Offense:
Wings: +17, Damage 2d4+6
Special Ability: Frightful Presence

Medium Plant, Level 5

15 perception

Defense:
19 AC
70 HP
Fort 19, Reflex 10, Will 13

Offense:
Claws: +15, Damage 2d8+7
Special Ability: Knockdown

Large Animal, Level 5

12 perception

Defense:
19 AC
70 HP
Fort 16, Reflex 19, Will 10

Offense:
Tentacle: +17, Damage 2d4+6
Special Ability: Ferocity

Any of those could be reskined to undead. Small floating heads, undead vines that can reach across the chasm, or undead giant with boulder toss perhaps.

[lemeres]

graystone wrote:

NPC's. Toss in some Bounty Hunters, Archer Sentry, Hunters, Poachers, Trackers, Warden, ect in for instance.

When you have humans in an undead scenario like this, you may want to also consider why they would attack. Cultists and necromancers are simple enough to write off, but other humans might be hard to understand.

Bandits are the usual go to. In that way, they are incidental to the undead problem. Perhaps they have a safe location (an abandoned church with some protection still on it?), and they like using the cover they receive because no one wants to go near an undead infested area.

The could also be coerced by intelligent undead, but that can be a stretch- the undead has to question why it doesn't kill them yet, and the living have to question how long the undead will be contemplating that question.

[Loreguard]

Heaving Kobolds

Of course you could make them undead variants as you like.

If you want something other than undead, but have ranged unarmed attacks, Leshy's can have seedpods, so you could have an infestation of leshies attacking the characters. (or maybe undead leshies, whatever one of those is like)

Actually, what if you had a giant pseudo leshy monster that throws mini-pseudo-leshies at the people trying to cross the rope bridges. There is a flat chance that any character hit by a ranged attack, that the leshy podling will successfully grab hold of the rope nearby the struck character and begin assaulting the PC further. (misses or ones who fail the flat check fall down to their doom at the bottom, or to spawn down there potentially, off scene a year later) The podlings take bludgeoning damage similar to the character who was struck, so they start out hurt. But they flail and hit the character until they break. (which if you are looking to be mean, could have them die in a cloud of spores that could give a condition... either frightened, enfeebled, or sickened. (if enfeebled I'd have it tick down at the end of the target's round.) Of if the pods are sticky creatures, the pod could explode on death, causing a dex save or being considered Grabbed in the pods death until the end of the character's next turn.