The Gaming Den

Details: 3 level 4 characters burn nearly 100% of resources. Kill Carcass Crab in Eberron.

Grisly details:

Round 1:
Carcass crab spots cleric (myself) encroaching upon domain (a pile of bodies, stocked with magic, including at least 1 sentient item). Light of X spell cast in preparation (lasts 40 minutes). Begins dragging bodies away for proper burial/looting/last rites.
Crab charges cleric in the surprise round (40 ft), misses, and gets blasted with a readied/prepared Light of Venya (or whatever the level 2 spell is) for 9.

Round 2:
Rogue (halfling hurler/TWFer (darts/daggers)): moves into dart range, climbs out of earthcart, hides.

Beguiler (social elf, party face): fails to blind crab with a Blinding Color Surge (Beguiler is now invisible)

Cleric of the Silver Flame (human, archer...ish): 5' step back, Defensive Casting of Summon Monster I (Celestial Badger, I choose you!) with modified rules of that the monster appears but does not act until next round.

Crab: Hits and kills badger, advances 5', misses cleric.

Round 3:
Beguiler: Casts Glitterdust (crab makes save), moves to within Close range of the crab, hiding behind carcasses to the left.

Rogue (delayed until after beguiler): throws 2 darts, 1 hit (w/SA) for 7.

Cleric: sucking at concentration checks, not having bow out, melee and tactical retreat 5'.

Crab: hit/miss cleric for total of 9 (of 21).

Round 4:
Beguiler: Casts Glitterdust (crab makes save)

Rogue: throws 2 darts for 4.

Cleric: melee, retreat 5'.

Crab: miss/miss

Round 5:
Beguiler: Casts Glitterdust (crab makes save)

Rogue: hit/miss for 3.

Cleric: melee, retreat 5' (crab is now in the open and set up for a rogue flank)

crab: Kills cleric (hit/hit for 17).

Round 6:
Beguiler: Uses last level 2 spell for the day (has now used 5), Glitterdust, crab fails save, Woo!

Rogue: hit/hit (no dex AND -2 to AC is awesome) for something like 13.

Cleric: stabilizes (luck!)

Crab: takes a move action towards the rogue, finds rogue by virtue of moving into the rogue square and taking a sneak attack (7?), attacks rogue and hits for 7 (total hp is 18).

Round 7:
Beguiler: Whelm crab (fails save) for 2 (2d6, boo!).

Rogue: hit for something like 6, move action (silently) behind earthcart

Cleric: still dead

Crab: moves erratically back to home

Round 8:
Beguiler: heals cleric (potion on cleric)

Cleric: Spiritual Weapon (Bow of the Silver Flame) for 9.

Rogue: hit/hit for 12?

Crab: moves towards cleric/rogue, suffers AoO from cleric (2), misses cleric.

Round NINE (0 rounds left for Glitterdust)
Beguiler: move/Whelm (crab makes save)

Cleric: Spiritual Weapon (5), Rapid Shot for 14.

Rogue: hit/hit for 20. Kills crab.


------------------

I don't know if the numbers add up right, but we busted out something like 60 damage between 2 level 4 characters in 4 rounds. Something like 40 from the rogue alone. Yes, we found the weak spot for Massive Damage.

Side notes:
1 - Glitterdust is awesome
2 - if your Beguiler uses Whelm, he is Doing It Wrong.
3 - if your archer is your party tank, you also have problems.
4 - Small sized rogues don't matter without sneak attack.

Also, I don't know the Carcass Crab stats offhand, but I don't think it ever did less than 8 damage to a party where average hp is somewhere around 16.

Glitterdust is probably the greatest level two spell.

CRAB BATTLE~!

With this and other harrowing crab tales, I think they've earned the low level [Awesome] subtype. En Garde bitches.

Is this it?

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040511a

I thought the Giant Enemy Crab was level 3. This fucker is 8.

Roy wrote:Is this it?

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040511a

I thought the Giant Enemy Crab was level 3. This fucker is 8.

Monstrous crab

CR 3, faster than you, stronger than you, more attacks than you, more damage than you, and improved grab.

Don't forget constrict. It has a terrible will save though. Glitterdust wrecks its shit.

Then they said the wrong name. And had terrible luck with Glitterdust.

Looking up the monster, we apparently fought the CR 8 can-auto-kill-you-in-one-hit-and-gets-2-attacks crab. The DM must have rolled a few 2s (or fudged) on the to-hit rolls in order for me to stand there a few rounds and not get offed.

The DM specifically said that it shot a spine (round 1, it didn't charge, it did me some Dex damage and moved, sorry, bad memory), had Spiny Defense, and Adhesive.

Also, holy shit(!), our 3 lvl4 characters took out a CR 8. We should have a decently hard time enough with a CR 4 (in theory).

Seriously, facing this monster at level 8 adds laser beams, flight, and Salt Mephits into the mix from myself alone.

It is possible, just the success rate is really low and it's meant to be a boss type deal.

Also, that crab has a lot more HP. You had really bad luck on the Glitterdust, got them all though.

I wonder if it was a slightly nerfed Carcass Crab. It can't do less than 10 damage on a hit and I note the cleric taking 9 damage. Also don't see how the cleric got away since it has Improved Grab on dem claws.

If you busted out 94 damage to kill it (I think I added that up right) and it has 126 hp... that doesn't seem right either.

As far as CR 8's go, the Carcass Crab is pretty weak sauce. I'd rather face it than aaaaaany other CR 8 critter in the monster manual. That said, even still realistically that CR 8 specimen should kill your party a lot all day every day.

If that was a full on Carcass Crab then here's how things should have gone:

Cleric ought have been outright dead by round 3 (grappled from round 2, claw+bite grapple checks seal the deal). After it hit the rogue, improved grab once again should have been the end of his life. Then the beguiler is forced to run away.

clikml wrote:I wonder if it was a slightly nerfed Carcass Crab. It can't do less than 10 damage on a hit and I note the cleric taking 9 damage. Also don't see how the cleric got away since it has Improved Grab on dem claws.

If you busted out 94 damage to kill it (I think I added that up right) and it has 126 hp... that doesn't seem right either.

As far as CR 8's go, the Carcass Crab is pretty weak sauce. I'd rather face it than aaaaaany other CR 8 critter in the monster manual. That said, even still realistically that CR 8 specimen should kill your party a lot all day every day.

If that was a full on Carcass Crab then here's how things should have gone:

Cleric ought have been outright dead by round 3 (grappled from round 2, claw+bite grapple checks seal the deal). After it hit the rogue, improved grab once again should have been the end of his life. Then the beguiler is forced to run away.

Probably was. Most of the people that only know how to make encounters hard via jacking the level up then turn around and frequently nerf the enemy when it proves overkill... this naturally trivializes anything you've accomplished and just makes you feel like a mook. It's different if they do know other ways and are just choosing to do a high level encounter though this is reserved for competent parties as retreat is near impossible in D&D, therefore if the PCs bite off more than they can chew the only non cheating way for them to get out of it on a reliable basis is to fight their way out as running won't accomplish anything except making them die tired.

Yea, after looking at the stats we were probably fighting a slightly nerfed version. The DM made a comment of "what?! it doesn't have Improved Grab as a clawed creature?!".

94 hp seems about what we did (total may have been 105 or 89, but not 130).

9 damage to the cleric is estimated (I can't recall correctly... not that it matters, any 2 hits kill).

This was out of an Eberron module, so it may have been nerfed in the module without the DMs knowledge, or he may have nerfed it and pretend that he didn't. Toss up.