My players heard about a Wendigo (https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=409) terrorizing a nearby section of the world. The party consists of six level 15 characters.
Unfortunately, they didn't do the research necessary to determine it has Regeneration that is only deactivated by Cold Iron. And none of them have Cold Iron weapons. So when they caught up to it, they quickly realized they couldn't kill it (it tried to do hit and run attacks but with six characters and a few good rolls the Wendigo eventually went down in one round and couldn't escape easily -- was trying to do grab and abducts rather than stride + strike + stride).
At this point, I figured there were two main outcomes.
1, they try to retreat but slowly get picked apart and all are exposed to Wendigo Torment. The new problem becomes "How do we not turn into Wendigos before we regroup and return?" They have a level 15 caster who's already removed the Wendigo curse on a random person so they know they do have the means to cure it, but it might be dicey and they might need to take extra precautions. I understand that the group doesn't want this to happen, but I think it's the most realistic and reasonable outcome at this point unless they do something special and very on point. Also, I'd just hand wave this happening because I don't think they want to run a hundred individual hit and run combats or whatever.
2, they cast Interplanetary Teleport and get out of there and return later. This has a 10 minute casting time but AFAIK if they protect the actual spellcaster they can just grab his hand at the end of the 10 minutes, it's not a ritual where they all need to be participating the whole time or something. They realized this was a potential option near the end of the session. So the Wendigo could probably attack like 3-4 times in that window but if they all stay there and if the caster doesn't get interrupted then they're safe.
In the meantime, they were trying to control the Wendigo that was unconscious but that they couldn't kill and which was popping up every round. Their idea was to keep readying attacks to hit the Wendigo as soon as it wakes up. They wanted to be doing this while also trying to find the Wendigo's lair and see if there's anything there. Their tracker also failed two Survival tracks and had to sit there for two hours. While every six seconds the Wendigo keeps waking up.
They also tried to tie the Wendigo up with some rope but unfortunately the Wendigo has an extremely good Athletics score to use to Escape.
Even with the Wendigo prone, the Fighter only has a 70% chance to hit I believe. And everyone else has less. But even using the Fighter's hit chance that's a 2.7% chance per round for THREE people to miss their readied attacks (0.3 * 0.3 * 0.3) ...and they claimed they wanted to do this for over two hours, which is 1,200+ rounds, which means the Wendigo would escape 32.4 times over, statistically speaking.
I don't see a reasonable way the Wendigo could be held captive in this matter for that long. Not to mention the questionable result of making a strike every 6 seconds for 2 hours in terms of stamina/focus.
On another topic, the party also discussed trying to drown the Wendigo. They tried cutting off its head earlier and I just had the body regenerate (the hydra regrows heads, but I figured the Wendigo's seat would be the brain because of the fear/torment focus), and that might have been a mistake on my part to let that happen. It definitely wasn't realistic that the 10 strength rogue with a spear could cut off a large creature's head in <6 seconds, but I didn't argue about that because I figured it wouldn't matter.
But given that I (perhaps mistakenly) established that as being canon, it seems odd to say you can drown something that can survive without a heart or lungs.
TL;DR: I think the Wendigo should have realistically/reasonably escaped, I don't know if drowned makes any sense in this context, and I'm trying to not frustrate the players with 1,200 rounds of checks or something else ridiculous.
I would appreciate any insight/suggestions/advice.
I'd probably just tell them that trying to do anything else while also keeping this thing from getting back up constantly can only go on for ~10 minutes before Fatigued sets in, at which point they just can't do anything EXCEPT that. I'd tell them this upfront, so they can make decisions accordingly.
I wouldn't make them roll every round because that's just a waste of time. Handwave it for the 10 minutes so they can escape or such, then roll percentile for how many rounds they get before that 2.7% chance happens.
I would certainly not let them do it for 2 hours. They ultimately can't keep it from regeneration, which it can do forever until they stop it. That means they'll need to retreat. Course if I was the creature and had no body, it would take some time to recover before I go after them, so let them run.
If the wendigo is brought below 0 repeatedly,it's unconscious ,at least for a moment.
Strangely,being unconscious seems to have a minimal effect on AC, a flat -4 status and a -2 circumstance for being off guard.
It's also blinded...
The players should build a fire on top of the beast.
It's weak to fire, and I would let a roaring bonfire to keep it down till they could figure something out, with teleporting away and coming back with cold iron being the most likely plan.
Putting a huge weight on it should also work...
On the other hand,a smart creature(and it is smart) would play dead, so it could escape.
Deception score is +29.
It could even leave them alone rather than pursuing them.
After lulling them into a false sense security, it could come back with a vengeance, bringing an army of newly minted wendigo with it.
With Windwalk and a +30 Stealth, they should be able to find out the names of everyone in the party and attack via Nightmare.
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I'm pretty surprised that a level 15 party has no access at all to Cold Iron, via a backup weapon or a spell or effect that gives it to them temporarily. It tends to be the first special material a party learns about since there are so many low-level Fey.
As The Ronyon said, Weak to Fire should allow them to keep it down long enough for them to escape.
What's the party comp? That might help us come up with ways to help your group out. We know that there is a rogue and a fighter as well as a caster. What sort of Caster? What are the other characters?
Tridus wrote: I'd probably just tell them that trying to do anything else while also keeping this thing from getting back up constantly can only go on for ~10 minutes before Fatigued sets in, at which point they just can't do anything EXCEPT that. That's an interesting point about Fatigued.
Tridus wrote: Course if I was the creature and had no body, it would take some time to recover before I go after them, so let them run. Yeah, by the rules the Wendigo is in fighting shape and at 30 HP at the start of each turn, no matter what happened prior in terms of getting hit by damage. Arguably you shouldn't even be able to cut its head off and instead the flesh just knits together so fast it's impossible or something.
But the Hydra CAN have heads cut off and just instantly regrow them so I wasn't sure.
The Ronyon wrote: Strangely,being unconscious seems to have a minimal effect on AC, a flat -4 status and a -2 circumstance for being off guard. Correct, it's -6 AC. But also as soon as it wakes up and the readied attacks trigger, it's now conscious so only -2 AC.
The Ronyon wrote: The players should build a fire on top of the beast.
It's weak to fire, and I would let a roaring bonfire to keep it down till they could figure something out, with teleporting away and coming back with cold iron being the most likely plan.
Putting a huge weight on it should also work...
An interesting point. Something I forgot to mention earlier is the barbarian wanted to impale the Wendigo with his flaming halberd and hope that effectively did damage as soon as the Wendigo woke up or something. But at a maximum I figured that would count as persistent damage which triggers at the end of the Wendigo's turn.
The Ronyon wrote: With Windwalk and a +30 Stealth, they should be able to find out the names of everyone in the party and attack via Nightmare.
It definitely has some plans after the party escapes, one way or the other (again, the party is still guaranteed to escape, it is not a TPK not matter what).
Lia Wynn wrote: I'm pretty surprised that a level 15 party has no access at all to Cold Iron, via a backup weapon or a spell or effect that gives it to them temporarily. It tends to be the first special material a party learns about since there are so many low-level Fey. The main antagonists are demons, so I was also surprised.
Lia Wynn wrote: What's the party comp? That might help us come up with ways to help your group out. We know that there is a rogue and a fighter as well as a caster. What sort of Caster? What are the other characters? Dragon Instinct (Brass) Barbarian using a Halberd
Bard
2H Maul Fighter
Life Oracle
Flurry Ranger using a Longbow and animal companion (not optimal, I know, new player)
Thief Rogue with Elven Branched Spear
Really, keeping the body over an open fire is the best course of action to buy time so you can teleport to a source of Cold Iron, harvest it, teleport back, and then just touch it with Cold Iron, and it dies permanently.
If this is the AP I think it is from, then they definitely know some areas with access to Cold Iron on a regular basis, so this is ultimately a case of poor preparation/planning on the party's behalf, and not that they couldn't get any.
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I don't have anything useful to add here, but the title did make me laugh from shared experience.
Way back in the days when Pathfinder wasn't pathfinder yet(one of the 3.5 edition APs) my party ran into a wendigo they were completely unprepared for. They ended up casting Force Cage on it, which in 3.5 lasted 2 hours a level, so they literally slept while it was in the cage and came back prepped specifically for it.
Darksol the Painbringer wrote: If this is the AP I think it is from, then they definitely know some areas with access to Cold Iron on a regular basis, so this is ultimately a case of poor preparation/planning on the party's behalf, and not that they couldn't get any. It's a homebrew campaign, but they definitely had/have access to Cold Iron, yes.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
The real boss in Beowulf was Grendel's Mother.
Wendigos gotta come from somewhere.... just sayin'
Personally I'd consider letting tying it up work, at least for a while, after demonstrating that they could keep it down.
Yeah, rules wise it is very capable of breaking free from that, but I don't think it's reasonable for tying someone up to be impossible unless you are so much higher level than them that you got a theivery modifier 20 higher than the best of their athletics/acrobatics/unarmed attack.
I'd also remember that it isn't a mindless creature, it too will get tired of both the physical exhaustion and the pain.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Hm, I guess drowning doesn't work anymore against regeneration, like it did in 1E?
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magnuskn wrote: Hm, I guess drowning doesn't work anymore against regeneration, like it did in 1E? Now that you mention it, by a strict reading of the rules I think it still does.
Regeneration says that:
Quote: This monster regains the listed number of Hit Points each round at the beginning of its turn. Its dying condition never increases beyond dying 3 as long as its regeneration is active. However, if it takes damage of a type listed in the regeneration entry, its regeneration deactivates until the end of its next turn. Deactivate the regeneration before applying any damage of a listed type, since that damage might kill the monster by bringing it to dying 4. While the drowning and suffocation rules says that:
Quote: When you run out of air, you fall unconscious and start suffocating. You can't recover from being unconscious and must attempt a DC 20 Fortitude save at the end of each of your turns. On a failure, you take 1d10 damage, and on a critical failure, you die. On each check after the first, the DC increases by 5 and the damage by 1d10; these increases are cumulative. Once your access to air is restored, you stop suffocating and are no longer unconscious (unless you're at 0 Hit Points). So strictly speaking regeneration doesn't protect against things that kills you without involving the dying condition.
The increasing damage wouldn't matter, but before too long the regenerator is going to crit-fail a save and just die.
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Don't put it on top of one big fire. Spread it out over multiple smaller fires so each one triggers the weakness.
Does the Oracle have any death effect spells? Those kill regenerating things if they reduce them to 0HP. There's half a dozen on the divine list, including Execute/Finger of Death (maybe a common rank 7 choice by some level 15 casters), Death Knell, Rip the Spirit, and the various Vampiric X spells.
Any 15th level party that lacks universal access by all players, let alone any, to cold iron, silver, fire, and acid deserves a TPK in my opinion. I'll allow only one or two to have holy runes and death effect spells, but you need to have those covered as well.
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Man, I feel like you/your players aren't creative. Or maybe my group is sadistic.
Because this immediately becomes a question of "how many stakes do we have/can we make" and "how much rope do we have" and "how many big rocks are nearby". Like sure the wendigo has a good atheltics score, but what if we drove a stake through it's hands, forearms, upper arms, shoulders, head, chest, gut, upper thigh, legs, feet....you get the idea. And then tie rope between all those stakes, and then put heavy weights on top of the thing. As a GM at that point, I just say the creature can't move well enough to free itself. Sure it might be regenerating, and I don't know how regeneration should interact with something being physically stuck in the creature...my answer is the creature doesn't die but regeneration doesn't remove the object either. Which will give the party enough time to go get some cold iron and kill it for good.
I know regeneration keeps a thing from dying, but if I've driven stakes (think like 10" nails with a big head) through a creatures eyes, mouth, forehead into the ground I think it should probably be incapacitated until someone removes those. But the game (understandably) doesn't really touch on this gruesome act.
Less gruesomely...if they were to tie each limb (legs and arms) with rope that then went over different tree limbs and then attached to some heavy rock/objects I'm imagining you could suspend the wendigo in mid air and if done correctly the heavy object isn't attached to the ground so if even the wendigo pulls strongly with that limb all they do is lift the heavy object off the ground, not break the rope.
So yeah...there are probably means of restraining the wendigo that it probably shouldn't be able to overcome. But it does take buy in from you as a GM.
Coming back from the weekend on this and want to say, as a player I still stand by this line of thought of "how extreme do I need to go to restrain this creature and can we keep it unconscious long enough to do so".
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