We Can Rebuild Him - Fixing Monsters

[Cyclone Joker]

It's clear to anyone who's played D&D that many "Threatening" monsters aren't. So, in the spirit of the "What can we do with..." thread, I wanted to see what we could do to make "Threatening" monsters, well, threatening.

The most obvious example is Big T, but I think he's been both done to death, and had a perfect fix done here.


The next most egregious example is the Inevitables, or at least the strong ones. Robocop is cool, but this was an immense failure. The Marut is supposed to deal with things that thwart death, or basically casters strong enough to do massive-scale raise dead, Reincarnation-abusing Druids, Liches, and so on. The Marut has some nifty abilities and a decent stat-line, but those saves alone make its job impossible, and it has nowhere near the offensive abilities to make up for it.

An even worse example is the Varakhut, which is supposed to protect and avenge GODS. Like, you know, CR 40+ monstrousities with absurd SDAs. At CR19. Its abilities make it a pretty nasty encounter, yes, at, you know, level 19. With its Wish ability, within a week of Wish abuse, even ignoring Wish-looping, it can have answers to most of your abilities, tailor its feats, and turn itself into a caster with Scrolls/Wands, but there is no way in hell it can deal with an epic character.

The Quarut is almost as bad. It can in no way deal with a character that can cast 9s, the minimum level for time travel, or anything abusing the Save Game trick.

So, using real methods(Classes/feat optimization/templates, and tactics to make the most of its abilities, not Homebrew), how do we make threatening enemies, you know, threatening. Starting with Inevitables.

For the Inevitables, an obvious and good start is Magic in the Blood. Limited Wish, Time Stop, Force Cage, Plane Shift, and Teleport all 3/day enable the Quarut to hit-and-run, gank, and throw out some serious firepower, due to the free Metamagics on Limited Wish. Quicken SLA would also help. This applies to all of the Inevitables, really. This still can't salvage any of them, though, so we need more. Thoughts?

Remember, the intent isn't to make them stupidly overpowered, it's to boost them into being credible threats, either for their CR or fluff.

Finally, any suggestions for the next fixer-upper?

[debihuman]

Advance the darn things--that's the easiest way.  More feats, better equipment and if they gain a size, they do  more damage.

[Cyclone Joker]

Advancement doesn't help if the thing as a whole is just totally outclassed. Look at the Quarut. Advancing it would increase its statline and feats a bit, but really, unless you go the 9s fighter way, you just have some mediocre SLAs to challenge a high-level caster. Doesn't help. And, really, no amount of SLAs will let a Varakhut compete with a god, much less anything that can kill one.

Advancement could help, yes, but is in no way a solution for things bad enough to be worth fixing.

[kitep]

You could give them wealth-by-level, even NPC wealth, would go a long ways.  A standard list of things could save a lot of prep time.

[Unbeliever]

Paragon

Although if I were building a creature like a Quarut, I'd probably just build it from scratch b/c I'd want it to be a scary Hound of Tindalos situation. 

You are looking at Fiend Folio, easily one of the worst balanced monster manuals, so that may be a big part of the problem.  Also, Quaruts are numerous and implacable, so they could be annoying even for a Raistlin expy. 

The Varakhuts are pretty good, actually.  I read them as seeking to thwart those that would usurp or destabilize the gods, (e.g., Ur-Priests?) not necessarily those that are able to walk up to the deities (whose rules are dumb anyway) and punch them in the face.  Of course nothing useful in a general Monster Manual would be worthwhile in that case. 

I think the OP might be guilty of just wanting the Inevitables to live up to some massive hype.  Remember that 18th level is the end of almost every D&D game, and very few make it that far.  And, that Epic Levels are their own animal.  Although the Varakhut is a tad fragile. 

[Cyclone Joker]

My objective was not to make Inevitables super-awesome. Mostly, I was inspired by that Tarrasque thing, and the Inevitables are, IMO, one of the most egregious examples of badly-made underpowered monsters. I mean, so many monsters are just totally useless at their CR. I mean, look at the Marlith. Fine CR 13-ish encounter, but CR 17? No. The Chronotyrn, or whatever, has two actions and no real ability to abuse it. The Balor is only mildly threatening at best, and don't get me started on the Klurichir, but the Quarut and Marut are in a field of their own.

Paragon does, actually, help the Varakhut in its biggest weakness, those abysmal saves. It still suffers from the fact that the only way it can actually compete with PCs is Wish abuse.

Basically, Inevitables were my first selection because of how tough they're fluffed, how tough they're supposed to be by CR, and they how tough they actually are. Demons should probably be the next selection, though I'm not sure.

[Ithamar]

Give all Inevitables the following:

1) Magic Immunity similar to a golem so that any spell that allows SR simply fails.

2) Constant spell turning, so any targeted spell is automatically reflected back at the caster.

3) Complete immunity to any divination attempt so that casters cannot learn its weaknesses or even know it is coming for them.

Then perhaps innate Imp. Evasion and Imp. Mettle just for kicks.  All of that combined with the Paragon template of course.

[sirpercival]

Give all Inevitables the following:

1) Magic Immunity similar to a golem so that any spell that allows SR simply fails.

2) Constant spell turning, so any targeted spell is automatically reflected back at the caster.

3) Complete immunity to any divination attempt so that casters cannot learn its weaknesses or even know it is coming for them.

Then perhaps innate Imp. Evasion and Imp. Mettle just for kicks.  All of that combined with the Paragon template of course.

1) Can be done with aberration wild shape into a Will-O'-the-Wisp, but I'm not sue how else.

2) Ring of Spell Turning, check.

3) Vecna-blooded (and then lose the template), check.

[Ithamar]

Perhaps I misunderstood the OP, but I thought he wanted to homebrew these guys to be more of a challenge.  Thus I was not looking for ways to obtain those abilities, I was merely listing abilities I felt should be added on to the existing creatures to make them more viable.

So no need to wild shape into a will-o-wisp, just give the inevitable a new entry in its stat block:  Magic Immunity.  Etc.

[sirpercival]

So, using real methods(Classes/feat optimization/templates, and tactics to make the most of its abilities, not Homebrew), how do we make threatening enemies, you know, threatening. Starting with Inevitables.

Emphasis mine.

[Ithamar]

Wow, complete reading fail on my end. 

Carry on then...