Café de Nuit

So after working through the Grand Conjunction adventures for the past four years my group just finished up From the Shadows and are now about to start Roots of Evil.

I am just re-reading the adventure and getting it prepped to run, but I have some questions about Inajara. Basically, he is way too weak. That is, I view this module as being the players trying to tip the balance between three uber-powerful beings, with Inajara holding the balance of power. But if you look at him in 3.5, (Monster Manual II) the stats are nowhere near enough for a party of the level of mine (7 members, 1 at 13, 1 at 12, 1 at 11, 3 at 10 and 1 at 9) so what to do?

I have looked for alternate 3.5 stats for him, but maybe my Google-Fu isn't up to snuff?

What have you done?

I don't have my MMII handy, but could you slap some sort of template on him? Or simply add some Class Levels? (wizard, I guess?)

I suppose I could with some doing, but that limits the "unique monster" factor of him showing up in a big way.

It just doesn't feel satisfying. Especially after the epic dungeon crawl that was Castle Avernus ending with escalating amazing creatures such as a Zombie Golem or even the finale floors before the phylactery of a Shadow Dragon followed by a Banshee followed by a Demon.

I just am not sure there will be any wow factor unless he has something whopping and new at this stage.

Quinntonia wrote:I just am not sure there will be any wow factor unless he has something whopping and new at this stage.

Inajirra (Arcanaloths) were nerfed somewhat in MM2 3.5. The biggest difference IMHO is his 'at will' powers - specifically 'teleport without error' and 'improved phantasmal force'.

With clever use of these two powers along he can seem like a darker Q from star trek - teleporting around taunting players and doing the seemingly impossible (illusions) while tossing the occasional 'real' power to keep players on their toes. Often the illusion of power is far more terryifying than actual power.

Or if you want him to have real power - remember he is a merchant (of sorts). He could easily have made deals for a few shiny toys which help him. Given he uses a soul trap to kill an archmage which is way above his spell ability he would have to have some other way to cast it. A ring of wishes, an orb of time stop, etc.

Or another option - have him get his hooks into the players right off the bat. After appearing in the prime Barovia the PC's get in trouble, and Inajirra (in disguise or by proxy) helps them out. Of course he asks them for a favour and if they could retrieve something for him in return. And a verbal contract can be as strong as a written one - esp if backed up by a demonic pact.

I this case, keep the PC's believing Inajirra is just a somewhat powerful mortal until the reveal when he goes furry on them. Realising their 'favour' is a actually a demonic contract should have PC's going 'oh crap' and desperately searching for a way out. Which would also make them amenable to Strahd's time travel games to escape his own contract.

OK, I checked the MMII. I'm a bit confused. Your party is average level 11. It's larger than average, so it brings the ECL of the party to 13. The base arcanaloth is CR 17. So the encounter should be "overpowering," assuming CRs can be believed. (I know they can't always).

With fly, telekinesis, and magic missile at will, he can stay out of range of melee and rain death on people. If you pick a good 6th level spell for him to know (Chain Lightning, maybe?), it could be pretty scary. (he can also Empower 4th level spells. I'm not going to do the math now to see if any of those are better than a 6th level spell, and therefore worth spending a full-round action to empower.) DR 15/+3 is hard to penetrate at range and SR24 will ensure that even your 13th level PC, if he/she is a caster, will only be able to cast spells on him 50% of the time. And then there's 20 points of energy resistance to most things and immunity to acid, poison, and mind-affecting magic. He doesn't have many hp, but he's damn hard to injure.

The one thing that may be a problem is the action economy. 7 people will get to take a turn before he gets to go again. That can turn even the biggest bad into a 2-round chump. (assuming the majority of them have a way to damage him at all, of course.) But there are ways around this too.
- You could give him some minions (either real, or summoned creatures. He's got the ability innately to summon other yugoloths, plus he might have a summon monster spell on his known spells list.)
- You could give him a metamagic rod of quicken, or a belt of battle, either of which would allow him to cast 2 spells a turn (for a few rounds).
- You can cheat a little bit. On occasion I've made a big bad particularly big and bad by letting them act twice each turn. They get a full round of actions on their initiative, and another full round on their initiative-10. This is inspired by an ability from PF's Mythic Adventures book, but taken to the extreme. Really, it's not cheating that much. It's effectively similar to making them fight two of the same guy, but with half-hp each, who stand in the same square. (If you want, you could take away this ability once he hits 1/2 his hp to simulate one of them dying, or more dramatically, flip it around, and only give him that ability once he's "bloodied" at 1/2 hp.) Fighting two of the same monster is supposed to increase the CR by 2, though I'm not sure what the 1/2 hp factor would do. Overall, you might consider this "extra turn" ability to be a +1 CR template, IMHO.


Now, I see what you mean in that he doesn't have any fancy new tricks that they haven't seen before. (The poison claws aren't even going to come into play most likely.) So we're looking at a really hard to kill wizard with a dog's head. I don't think that's anything to sneeze at, though. Especially in Ravenloft, and in the GC campaign in particular, have they seen anything like a 12th level sorcerer in action? Play it up with your descriptions, as he shrugs off the most powerful blows, and rises up into the air, unleashing a torrent of magical energy the likes of which they've never seen before.

OK, maybe they had a decent magical battle with Azalin in FtS, but Az was pulling his punches to get them to kill him, right? And maybe they battled Meredoth too, but with proper spell choice and tactics, I think you can make this feel different enough. Play up the otherworldly-ness of him and his spells, the vile pall of the energy he unleashes, the crackling arcane power that surrounds him, filling the room with the smell of ozone, and causing the hairs on everyone's arms to stand up with the resulting static, etc. If you have access to the Spell Compendium, or Book of Vile Darkness, pick some unusual spells they might not have seen before that give him a bit of "WTH?" flavor.

ETA: just checked the 3.5 update to MM2, which I never realized existed before:
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp? ... /20030718a
15/good is even harder to overcome than 15/+3 unless you've got someone who can cast align weapon quickly and repeatedly.

Just add some sorcerer levels if you think your party will crush him easily. A few levels of sorcerer will give him access to some very powerful spells.

Aside from the Shapechange at will power, the MMII CR 17 of the arcanaloth is laughable. Check Dungeon 149, p. 46 for a stat block that better represents a CR 17 creature.

Alternate arcanoloth stats 1

Alternate arcanoloth stats 2