Gestalting a Hellfire Wyrm to make it worth the CR 26 label

[ksbsnowowl]

I'm looking long into the future on my game plans right now, but one of the Epic-level bad guys I plan to have my PC's fight is a Hellfire Wyrm.  I think it is pretty well accepted that the CR's for a lot of the higher-level monsters in the MMII are crap, and the designers were sort of using a dart board in determining the CR values for that book.

At 23 HD, Huge size, and 333 hp's, the Hellfire Wyrm doesn't really hold up to the CR 26 that it is labelled at.  Compare to the CR 26 Great Wyrm Red Dragon, which has 40 HD, 660 hp's, is Colossal (and has Str 45 compared to the HfW's 29), and has 19th level Sorcerer casting... even the Hellfire Wyrm's bevy of at will SLA's can't redeem its CR label.  Most of them have HD caps anyway, and would be useless against 26th level PC's (or even 21st level PC's).

Since I'm running a gestalt game anyway, it would be simple to just gestalt on some sorcerer levels (or some other primary caster, though Cha is its best mental stat at 28), which wouldn't alter its base numbers at all, and would just grant casting.  Tack on 23 levels of Sorcerer, and it might actually be worth the CR 26 label.

Thoughts on this?

The other thing I'll likely do is increase its Racial HD by one to 24, which increases its size to Gargantuan, gets it a stat-boost point to assign, and gets it a feat.

Edit: Crud, I should have put this in the game advice section.... mea culpa.

[sirpercival]

Are you willing to use homebrew?  Because a Dragonmage or Wyrm Warrior would be a perfect fit for a Hellfire Wyrm that wishes it was a true dragon. 

[zioth]

This might sound silly to many of the optimizers here, but add some strength, give it 23 levels of monk, Perfect Two Weapon Fighting and the Greater Mighty Wallop spell. It will save you a lot of time designing a build, and the players will be scared the first time it gets a full attack. It will get 4 base attacks, 2 flurry attacks, 4 or 6 TWF attacks (depending on whether you read Perfect TWF as doubling flurry) all at 12d8+STR damage, plus all its natural attacks that don't use its TWF limbs. Add in Quicken Spell Like Ability for Abundant Step, plus some of those free movement magic items, and it will get a full attack every round. Add some of those Stunning Fist feats if you like, to have multiple chances per round to stun or nauseate.

Numbers:
Average damage is 54+STR. At the base 29 STR, that's 63x12 = up to 756 damage per round, before any of the natural attacks or quickened spell-like abilities. That's not the most powerful build in the world, but it will certainly surprise the players.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Dragon rhd // Monk = mid to high tier 3, sure.


Dragons of Eberron has Sovereign Archetypes.
Get some Cleric spells on the list, or go for the
one that has the ToB subs for spells.

UrPriest 10 + Ardent 10 + a psiotheurgist feat or two.

[ksbsnowowl]

Hmmm.... Ur-priest would be an evil option...  Sorcerer 10/Ur-Priest 13...

It would eat some feats, though.  I really want to give this guy the Mark of... Minoros feat from FC2.  Flying charge from 500 feet away for +100 to attack?  Yes, please!

Do note that the Hellfire Wyrm isn't a True Dragon, so I don't think he qualifies for sovereign archetypes.

[SorO_Lost]

Hellfire Wyrm?
Meet Hellfire Warlock.

Give it a "hellfire" Legacy and Champion it.

[JohnnyMayHymn]

+1 @ Hellfire warlock, be sure to throw in bloodlines, binder and anima mage, gotta love the epic vestiges

Whatever you do, the last three levels should be crusader, warblade, swordsage.

WAIT!  Go druid and be a little white bunny... 'with big gnashing teeth'

[ksbsnowowl]

I think I'm going to go with Ur-Priest.  Here are a few thoughts I jotted down; if I went with Wizard over Sorcerer, I'd get some more feats to use for metamagic feats.  I don't plan on using epic spellcasting, so slots above 9th with metamagic are as good as it gets.

I might advance him to 31 HD, as that gets his HD to equal his CR, and could get him full casting for two classes.

Advancing a Hellfire Wyrm

23 HD = cr 26
24 HD = cr 27 (size increase)
25 HD = cr 28
27 HD = cr 29
29 HD = cr 30
31 HD = cr 31

Tack on 10 levels of Sorcerer and 21 levels of Ur-priest as a gestalt pairing...
But advancing sorcerer has the advantage of also increasing his UP caster level...
Sorcerer 20/Ur-Priest 11 would have caster levels of 20 and 21...


Feats:
Flyby Attack, Hover, Improved Initiative, Power
Attack, Quicken Spell-Like Ability, Snatch

Cleave, Flyby Attack, Hover, Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Quicken Spell-Like Ability, Snatch, Wingover

Change feats to:
Brand of the Nine Hells (Mammon), Mark of Minouros, iron will, spell focus (evil), flyby attack, hover, power attack, wingover
24- improved spell capacity (Ur-Priest), 27- practiced spellcaster, 30-practiced spellcaster

[zioth]

Unless battles in your game last a long time, or this will be a recurring villain, dual-casting might not be worth it. Your dragon probably isn't going to have time to use up his 8th-9th level slots in one class, let alone two, before he's killed. Cleric with a few carefully-selected domains might actually be superior to wizard/ur-priest, because of the higher caster level.