Or cast spells.
Seriously. The biggest thing in the Epic Level Handbook which determines whether your party will have a cakewalk (or, in the case of colossi, a massive logistical workout which you will still win) is whether it flies or not.
20th level rangers, even though by all measures they suck, can single-handedly own the tarrasque as long as they got their +1 magic beast bane bow pumped by Greater Magic Weapon and they fly. That's a problem. Golems take a huge nose dive in challenge once your gets airborne.
Do you think this has anything to do with Andy Collins stating way back when he excused Gate cheese and said that the half-orc was designed for beginners that DMs should try to gear their players for a ground-based campaign?
All high level monsters need to fly.
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Josh_Kablack
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Re: All high level monsters need to fly.
Or just have decent ranged attacks.
And I can't lay the blame on Andy for this neither - 3.5 actually has MORE high level fliers and archers than 3.0 did.
And I can't lay the blame on Andy for this neither - 3.5 actually has MORE high level fliers and archers than 3.0 did.
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Re: All high level monsters need to fly.
Yeah, there gets to be a point around character level 12 or so when it becomes completely feasible for most encounters per day to habve your entire party airborne (via spells and/or items). By later levels, it should be happening all the time.
I dont know if this is common in the metagame or not, but the higher level our adventures, the more spacious the "fighting areas" become as well. i.e. less dungeon crawling and rooting through thick forests.
I dont know if this is common in the metagame or not, but the higher level our adventures, the more spacious the "fighting areas" become as well. i.e. less dungeon crawling and rooting through thick forests.
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Username17
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Re: All high level monsters need to fly.
To a limited extent you can have epic challenges from non-flying melee creatures, provided that the space you encounter them in is very small compared to their size.
A Lavawight does not fly, but if you encounter one while crawling through a steam tunnel looking for a piece of a non-magical puzzle map - you can still end up expending 20% of your 23rd level party's ass whupping for the day even so.
A Stone Colossus can be a formiddable challenge if it happens to be standing on the plot device in an air pocket of the elemental plane of earth which is small enough in every direction for it to reach each corner on foot.
And so on. But these are all contrived encounters. "standard" encounters simply do not work at Epic or even near-epic levels unless the monster has a method of attack a flying creature or tricking said creature into walking into its grasp.
-Username17
A Lavawight does not fly, but if you encounter one while crawling through a steam tunnel looking for a piece of a non-magical puzzle map - you can still end up expending 20% of your 23rd level party's ass whupping for the day even so.
A Stone Colossus can be a formiddable challenge if it happens to be standing on the plot device in an air pocket of the elemental plane of earth which is small enough in every direction for it to reach each corner on foot.
And so on. But these are all contrived encounters. "standard" encounters simply do not work at Epic or even near-epic levels unless the monster has a method of attack a flying creature or tricking said creature into walking into its grasp.
-Username17