In my last DnD session we had a showdown to see whose ridiculous bullshit abilities would carry the day. As you level up in the game you get more health, more attacks, and more damage. Those abilities aren't bullshit. Bullshit abilities are ones that let you defeat opponents by denying them any chance to act, and rendering their abilities and stats irrelevant.
For example, we went into a room that had a weird shadow spider thing in it. Its stats were based off of a shadow dragon, but it had at least one extremely important additional ability. Shadow dragons are CR 13, and this one was located in a deep dungeon so its extra powers related to being in shadow were all in effect. With us being level 9 it was extremely deadly, as it had a breath weapon AOE that hit for 60% of our health and the ability to hide for free on its turn and then run away so we couldn't target it.
All of this is nasty. We started up the fight, it went first, and it breathed on us, taking off 40% of the party's health. Then it zoomed back into its lair. We ran in but couldn't see it, so we summoned some bats to use their echolocation to hunt it down. I was impressed with its bullshit hiding ability, but we had a trick in mind: As soon as it appeared, one of us would cast insect plague, an AOE that does damage every round, and then I would cast a spherical wall of force around it. The plan was that it would sit there in the wall, unable to leave, and slowly die to the insects.
That is some bullshit right there. I am going to use that combo on other nasty creatures, have no doubt of that. We set up our combo and waited for it to die.
Except it had another whole level of bullshit. In addition to all the normal shadow dragon stuff, it got to plane shift at will. So every turn it can hide for free, move away, and then *teleport to another plane*. Then it can teleport back wherever it wants, whenever it wants. If it felt like it, it could just plane shift back as soon as its breath weapon was ready again and roast us. Of course, it plane shifted out of the Wall of Force, and fortunately it didn't come back right away because if it had we would have flat out died. What are we supposed to do against a monster that is never visible except during its turn, and can leave the fracking plane any time things go against it?
Level up our bullshit, obviously.
Our monk has the ability to stun monsters. He can fire off four stuns a round when need be, so when the shadow spider came back to finish the job an hour later, having conveniently given us time to rest and heal up, the monk went first, ran up to it, and stunned it over and over. It finally failed on the third try, so we got to spend a round unloading on it. On his next turn he stunned it again, and then again on his turn after that. Before it got even a single action we plowed through nearly 200 hit points even though it was resistant or immune to everything except psychic, radiant, and force damage.
I don't know about high level play against such creatures. It seems like a silly contest of looking up in the rulebook to see whose bullshit abilities trump whose and the loser doesn't get to do anything on their turn. Winning is its own kind of fun, clearly, but it doesn't actually feel that great to cast Magic Missile over and over against a helpless opponent until it finally keels over.
It also must feel absurd to be the GM and to have to stare down Insect Plague / Wall of Force or endless stuns. What is an enemy with powerful abilities but without teleportation supposed to do? Stand there and die, I guess.
Of course if you add 'plane shift at will' to a powerful monster, it ought to be considered several CR higher than listed to account for the extra power. I wonder if we will get experience for a standard CR 13, or a full and proper CR 15 reward? I learned a lot from that encounter, after all, since I cast a level 1 spell 3 times. But a bigger and badder target for that level 1 spell changes how much I learn about magic! (XP systems are stupid).
No comments:
Post a Comment