Re: what is it about angels?

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Mary K. Kuhner wrote:

> [This is a rant--feel free to ignore it.]
>
> What is it about D&D angels, anyway?

<snip>

> What is going on with these CRs?

1. Any creature of CR X should defeat a character of level X - the rule of

thumb for CR is that it's a 4-on-1 fight in favour of the PCs, so you add 
4 to the EL if it's a 1-on-1 fight. In other words, the leonal may be an 
appropriate 1-on-1 fight for a single 16th level character, because the EL

for the leonal is then 12 (for CR) + 4 = 16.

2. The CRs for good outsiders is skewed, in much the same way as the CR 
for dragons is skewed. IIRC, the designers assume the PCs should take 
greater care, do more research, and prepare specifically to take on a good

outsider. For what it's worth, 3.5 significantly bolstered the evil 
outsiders as well.

3. Is your party designed to fight good creatures? For example, one of 
your higher-level characters is a paladin: almost all their class 
abilities make them better at fighting evil creatures, depending on past 
choices their spells and magic items may be most effective against evil 
creatures, and so on. Take a paladin to a fight with a good creature, and 
what you've got is a fighter without the bonus feats - in effect, a 
sub-optimal character for their level.

4. Is your party designed to fight extra-planar creatures? For example, 
can/do any of your spellcasters prepare dismissal? I see the leonal has a 
lot of Spell Resistance - but if you're using the Spell Compendium, assay 
spell resistance would help deal with that.

5. Is your party designed to fight opponents with big attack bonuses and 
multiple attacks? for example, can/do any of your spellcasters prepare 
displacement (a flat 50% miss chance is usually better than an increase 
in AC when dealing with a big attack bonus opponent), or freedom of 
movement (looking at the leonal, I see it's a grappler)?

6. Finally, the "did you get lucky" questions. Do you have characters 
whose attacks match the leonal's weaknesses, or whose abilities negate the

leonal's strengths? For example, the leonal has a big AC but a small touch

AC - do you have characters whose attacks go against touch AC, like 
trippers, ray-users, and the like? The leonal has a relatively low 
initiative modifier, and a really effective charge manoeuvre - do you have

characters who can go before the leonal in the first round and stop it 
getting to charge? The leonal is relatively weak at ranged combat - can 
most of the PCs fly? And so on.

Just some thoughts,

Gary Johnson
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