So I have a party of six level 9 characters, a tiger tribe NPC, and Vellynne and the party is in Ythryn. The Auril fight is about to happen and I was wondering what modifications I may need to do because Auril has 3 forms, CR 9, 10, and 11 respectively, but I don't know how that math adds up to the CR of the actual encounter due to the fact that it's back-to-back, so I don't know if this would actually be too easy for them or too difficult. If someone could help me in working that out, I would appreciate it. I just really don't want to screw up the boss fight you know lol
You just compute the xp value of each stage by itself and add them together. Which, for 6 characters, probably winds up as a Medium difficulty fight because of the adjustment for number of PCs.
My fairly underpowered party of 4 level 10s wailed on Auril, and we were also dealing with some kobold vampires, a vampire mage, and some snow creatures. We were, however, fresh and had the benefit of range which avoided a lot of Auril's bigger hits. If your players are stuck in a smaller part of the caves where they can't run or avoid Auril's AoE, it's going to be a much harder fight.
My fairly underpowered party of 4 level 10s wailed on Auril, and we were also dealing with some kobold vampires, a vampire mage, and some snow creatures. We were, however, fresh and had the benefit of range which avoided a lot of Auril's bigger hits. If your players are stuck in a smaller part of the caves where they can't run or avoid Auril's AoE, it's going to be a much harder fight.
As far as AC, hit points, and damage output, everything of that nature was fine? Only thing you'd recommend would be picking a more close quarters battleground?
Considering three of us weren't in range to get hit nearly at all (our warlock took zero damage versus all three of her forms, and my archer only got tagged once), Auril's damage output was almost irrelevant. She had our paladin on the ropes, though, and our bard got beat up a bit trying to heal him. If we hadn't had an NPC cleric there to supplement the bard's healing, it would have probably been a lot scarier.
Not sure what your party makeup is, but six tier 2 PCs against a single baddie are going to wallop it just from action economy alone. Sure, Auril has some legendary actions, but the party will be attacking her far more than she'll be attacking them. I think my party went through Auril's second form in literally one round. Granted, the pally got in a critical smite, but even the first form was destroyed in like three rounds tops.
Terrain is crucial in any encounter. The flame skulls in the entrance to the caves nearly TPK'd us because we were caught in multiple Fireball radii every single time. Against Auril, the ranged fighters/casters stayed about 100ft away from her because...we could. The pally who couldn't had like 100hp. Our squishy had maybe 65hp, but she was the only one with cold resistance and she could Dimension Door to safety.
So yeah, aside from terrain, consider action economy and how much your players can tank hits. Also, CR doesn't really mean much. Most parties can punch way above their weight class if they're fresh, and the right conditions can make even a low-CR creature a deadly threat.
Considering three of us weren't in range to get hit nearly at all (our warlock took zero damage versus all three of her forms, and my archer only got tagged once), Auril's damage output was almost irrelevant. She had our paladin on the ropes, though, and our bard got beat up a bit trying to heal him. If we hadn't had an NPC cleric there to supplement the bard's healing, it would have probably been a lot scarier.
Not sure what your party makeup is, but six tier 2 PCs against a single baddie are going to wallop it just from action economy alone. Sure, Auril has some legendary actions, but the party will be attacking her far more than she'll be attacking them. I think my party went through Auril's second form in literally one round. Granted, the pally got in a critical smite, but even the first form was destroyed in like three rounds tops.
Terrain is crucial in any encounter. The flame skulls in the entrance to the caves nearly TPK'd us because we were caught in multiple Fireball radii every single time. Against Auril, the ranged fighters/casters stayed about 100ft away from her because...we could. The pally who couldn't had like 100hp. Our squishy had maybe 65hp, but she was the only one with cold resistance and she could Dimension Door to safety.
So yeah, aside from terrain, consider action economy and how much your players can tank hits. Also, CR doesn't really mean much. Most parties can punch way above their weight class if they're fresh, and the right conditions can make even a low-CR creature a deadly threat.
Gotcha, that does make sense. I have 2 fighters, a bard, a rogue, a monk, and cleric. They also have a tiger tribe fighter and Vellynne. I think I may add a legendary action to create/rearrange pillars of ice or slopes or walls because they are sort of in an open are now and maybe some upgraded version of cone of cold that hits the entirety of the room. Because I definitely want this fight to be one to remember. I may give her an extra legendary action or two per round as well because 8 vs 1 isn't that great lol
You might just take some abilities that are currently actions and make them triggered -- I would only expect Auril to last one round per form if the PCs are able to engage, so a bunch of actions just won't ever get used.
Alternately, give Auril duplication; two at once should be a decent fight.
You might just take some abilities that are currently actions and make them triggered -- I would only expect Auril to last one round per form if the PCs are able to engage, so a bunch of actions just won't ever get used.
Alternately, give Auril duplication; two at once should be a decent fight.
OOOOOOOO I like that!!!!!! Except I only have 1 copy of her mini that I painted, so the 2nd one the players would see as a "copy" and probably not even hit. Too meta lol but I love that idea.
I don't know what the snow creatures we fought were, but they gave us something else on the battlefield to contend with and let Auril last a bit longer. I like your idea of ice columns; plus, a changing terrain is always memorable.
You might also consider lair actions. Ythryn isn't strictly speaking Auril's home turf, but she did seal the glacier and she's the goddess of winter, so it makes sense thematically that frozen caves would respond to her power. Maybe on initiative count 20 everyone needs to make a CON save versus some creeping ice. A failure and they take cold damage and have their movement halved (or are restrained, if you wanna be tough) as ice climbs over their boots.
I think the module says she shows up with snow golems, which I did print minis of, so I may as well use them lol but I also have a BBEG planned after Auril from something that came up in the first chapter that pretty much derailed the whole campaign and I do have rearranging terrain as one of his legendary actions, so it may just be creation of ice pillars, so that I don't reuse the same maneuver and then maybe each round the enclosure gets smaller and smaller until the whole thing is covered in ice or something. I like your idea of a Con save and if they fail I'll do half movement, and if they fail by 5 or more maybe then take all their movement. That would also help since it's 6 on 1 and her first form can keep teleporting
So I have a party of six level 9 characters, a tiger tribe NPC, and Vellynne and the party is in Ythryn. The Auril fight is about to happen and I was wondering what modifications I may need to do because Auril has 3 forms, CR 9, 10, and 11 respectively, but I don't know how that math adds up to the CR of the actual encounter due to the fact that it's back-to-back, so I don't know if this would actually be too easy for them or too difficult. If someone could help me in working that out, I would appreciate it. I just really don't want to screw up the boss fight you know lol
Published Subclasses
You just compute the xp value of each stage by itself and add them together. Which, for 6 characters, probably winds up as a Medium difficulty fight because of the adjustment for number of PCs.
My fairly underpowered party of 4 level 10s wailed on Auril, and we were also dealing with some kobold vampires, a vampire mage, and some snow creatures. We were, however, fresh and had the benefit of range which avoided a lot of Auril's bigger hits. If your players are stuck in a smaller part of the caves where they can't run or avoid Auril's AoE, it's going to be a much harder fight.
As far as AC, hit points, and damage output, everything of that nature was fine? Only thing you'd recommend would be picking a more close quarters battleground?
Published Subclasses
Considering three of us weren't in range to get hit nearly at all (our warlock took zero damage versus all three of her forms, and my archer only got tagged once), Auril's damage output was almost irrelevant. She had our paladin on the ropes, though, and our bard got beat up a bit trying to heal him. If we hadn't had an NPC cleric there to supplement the bard's healing, it would have probably been a lot scarier.
Not sure what your party makeup is, but six tier 2 PCs against a single baddie are going to wallop it just from action economy alone. Sure, Auril has some legendary actions, but the party will be attacking her far more than she'll be attacking them. I think my party went through Auril's second form in literally one round. Granted, the pally got in a critical smite, but even the first form was destroyed in like three rounds tops.
Terrain is crucial in any encounter. The flame skulls in the entrance to the caves nearly TPK'd us because we were caught in multiple Fireball radii every single time. Against Auril, the ranged fighters/casters stayed about 100ft away from her because...we could. The pally who couldn't had like 100hp. Our squishy had maybe 65hp, but she was the only one with cold resistance and she could Dimension Door to safety.
So yeah, aside from terrain, consider action economy and how much your players can tank hits. Also, CR doesn't really mean much. Most parties can punch way above their weight class if they're fresh, and the right conditions can make even a low-CR creature a deadly threat.
Gotcha, that does make sense. I have 2 fighters, a bard, a rogue, a monk, and cleric. They also have a tiger tribe fighter and Vellynne. I think I may add a legendary action to create/rearrange pillars of ice or slopes or walls because they are sort of in an open are now and maybe some upgraded version of cone of cold that hits the entirety of the room. Because I definitely want this fight to be one to remember. I may give her an extra legendary action or two per round as well because 8 vs 1 isn't that great lol
Published Subclasses
You might just take some abilities that are currently actions and make them triggered -- I would only expect Auril to last one round per form if the PCs are able to engage, so a bunch of actions just won't ever get used.
Alternately, give Auril duplication; two at once should be a decent fight.
OOOOOOOO I like that!!!!!! Except I only have 1 copy of her mini that I painted, so the 2nd one the players would see as a "copy" and probably not even hit. Too meta lol but I love that idea.
Published Subclasses
I don't know what the snow creatures we fought were, but they gave us something else on the battlefield to contend with and let Auril last a bit longer. I like your idea of ice columns; plus, a changing terrain is always memorable.
You might also consider lair actions. Ythryn isn't strictly speaking Auril's home turf, but she did seal the glacier and she's the goddess of winter, so it makes sense thematically that frozen caves would respond to her power. Maybe on initiative count 20 everyone needs to make a CON save versus some creeping ice. A failure and they take cold damage and have their movement halved (or are restrained, if you wanna be tough) as ice climbs over their boots.
I think the module says she shows up with snow golems, which I did print minis of, so I may as well use them lol but I also have a BBEG planned after Auril from something that came up in the first chapter that pretty much derailed the whole campaign and I do have rearranging terrain as one of his legendary actions, so it may just be creation of ice pillars, so that I don't reuse the same maneuver and then maybe each round the enclosure gets smaller and smaller until the whole thing is covered in ice or something. I like your idea of a Con save and if they fail I'll do half movement, and if they fail by 5 or more maybe then take all their movement. That would also help since it's 6 on 1 and her first form can keep teleporting
Published Subclasses