D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Rhakshasa scoop [Possibly spoiler for players]

[Petrosian]

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I'm guessing it's nearly impossible to work the Rakasha into the CR system properly with such a tremendious weakness. Unless you listed 2 CRs (one for a party that knows how to kill it, one for thoes that just smack it around until it's at 0HP) you couldn't give it a CR with any degree of meaning given how easy/hard it could be to kill.

My argument against this notion is one word... undead. WOTC admits that a number of the undead become ridiculously easy if the cleric makes his turn check and the remaining PCs beat the cowering undead to death. The notion of CR being subject to circumstantial swings even of very drastic sorts are there already.

instead of nerfing the legend and yanking the flavor so that the varmint fits the system, give us some sample "tactics" like for instance dispel magics vs obvious crossbows, using prot vs missiles, or even subtler ones that the rakshasa uses to eliminate the insta-kill threat.

We are all used to vampires that are not dumb enough to take people on in daylight, why would rakshasas who work to eliminate crossbows be such a problem?

I mean imagine the neat sort of adventure where the PCs enter a town and are offered 200 gold for their crossbows, or higher if they are actually magical. Then, if they refuse, thieves start trying to steal them. As the heroes move along, getting involved with the sotries and plots, sometimes people try and sunder their crossbows or maybe their good priest becomes a target.

If the crossbow is your INTELLIGENT monster's serious and major achilles heel, then you can wrap a story around that.

"So, say there, thats a nice looking piercing weapon?" just doesn't have the same ring."

"has anyone noticed there are no forks in this town? Also, there is a posted law forbiding sharpening sticks? What up d'at?"

Not quite the same. YMMV.

Personally I'd have prefered if they had done that, since a big point of the new DR system is to make monsters more like their originaly legends. But from the looks of things they just wanted the to preserve the CR system without any exceptions.

I am always pretty much opposed to making the genre fit the system. its one of the problems i have seen GENERIC systems have for years. I much prefer GENREic systems because they **usually** make the system fit the genre.

usually.

rakshasas killed by good aligned tridents doesn't work for me

ymmv

 

[Technik4]

Petrosian:

That sounds like a good adventure seed, but what about 10-11th level adventurers? They just want to kill the Rakasha servant of the BBEG. Or if the Rakasha is just a random encounter?

I'd say your way works fine under the rules, just exchange one of their feats with "Improved Damage Reduction" which limits piercing to a bolt. Imo, the 3.5 way is the best way to put it in the MM, people can always change things for important adventures/encounters, but most people will want a "base" monster with which to run random encounters and such.

Technik

 

[Petrosian]

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That sounds like a good adventure seed, but what about 10-11th level adventurers? They just want to kill the Rakasha servant of the BBEG. Or if the Rakasha is just a random encounter?

Then, if your plan for raksh=sas in your game is just introductory fodder, they meet it and beat it and kill it. That seems to me to be a waste of a varmint whose main specialty is subtlety and intelligence, there seem to be plenty of "just kill it" varmints in the MM to serve this role, but hey, that may just be me.

it seems to me there is room in the MM and DND for more than just " the thing we need to beat up next."

However, you seem to be reaching some different conclusion than I. I do not understand why leaving "blessed crossbow bolts" kill it" somehow makes the 11th level guys unable to just bull thru? I am not suggesting making it immune to everything but a blessed crossbow, but simply to leave it the way it was... with whatever they want its old DR+2 or whatever and with the special vulnerability to blessed crossbows. It has never been the case that the crossbow was NECESSARY just that it was a special weakness.

So the Dms who want to rakshasas to be just another thug in the way of the prize simply run him that way and the heros beat down the random threat.

I'd say your way works fine under the rules, just exchange one of their feats with "Improved Damage Reduction" which limits piercing to a bolt. Imo, the 3.5 way is the best way to put it in the MM, people can always change things for important adventures/encounters, but most people will want a "base" monster with which to run random encounters and such.

Technik

I tend to disagree. I think there are plenty of monsters that are "good for wandering damage... errr encounters" but that there is room in the book and in DND for monsters that are not that good as wandering monsters but better as a significant element in a story. I would not want the default design for all monsters in the MM to be "lets make a good wandering monster". I think the game has much more going for it than that.

But that may be just me.

Finally, sure, i can decide to not use the change to the rakshasa, or rewrite it, or do whatever i want, but if the standard for discussion of 3.5 is to become change what you dont like and we will discuss the rest, then these boards might become mighty quiet and reviews mighty thin.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Petrosian

rakshasas killed by good aligned tridents doesn't work for me

ymmv

But what if the Brahman had given out a holy trident?

I think "bolt" is too specific. Maybe DR 15/holy ranged weapon (although that looks really silly in a stat block) would be better.

 

[gfunk]

If it makes any difference to anybody, I am a Hindu born in India and raised on stories of gods and rakshasas.

Despite reading many, many entertaining tales on the subject I cannot recall a time where a "blessed crossbow bolt" was used to slay a rakshasa.

In fact, in the time that these legends were penned, bolts let alone the mechanical crossbow were not available in India. Rakshasa's being slain by conventional arrows were, however, far more common.

So, in a nutshell, I am not "offended" that WotC decided to go wtih 10/good and piercing.

 

[Jeremy]

I'd just like to say that I know nothing about the culture or backstory behind it, but the whole 1-shot-kill thing made a great little side adventure for my pc's when one of them had been abducted and was being turned into a sociopath by a clan of them.

The pc's were quite above the CR of them, but their beefy resistances and unknown capabilities (if it speaks in my game, it's got class levels, so they are wary) made the rescue quite a daunting task even once they figured out where he was being held.

Then with freshly bought crossbows (some still trying to figure out how to work them), they did a couple of greater magic weapon spells and went on a raid.

It had a great Buffy vibe to it as they moved in dusting their opponents one by one, terrified that one might escape their notice and go alert the others (so of course several broke and ran leading to fun chase scenes).

All in all it was spectacular fun in a place that D&D rarely goes. When you think of running someone through with a sword, burying an axe in their chest, or shooting them with a crossbow in real life, you expect death. Knowing that every opponent is a tree to be hacked down in D&D sometimes takes away the tension.

The one shot kill feature of these creatures made a great little side adventure that to them felt very justified within the rule set.

 

[IanB]

Gfunk beat me to it. The 'blessed crossbow bolt' has as much to do with Senor Gygax as it does with actual rakshasa legends. There are dozens of stories that feature rakshasas, and what, one of them has the blessed bolt thing?

Personally I found the old '1 bolt kills it' thing to be really anti-climactic anyway. Kind of like when the hold person sticks on the big bad guy in round one. 3.5 is methodically getting rid of most of that stuff (some save or die still lingering, but oh well.)

 

[Mike Sullivan]

This Rakshasa I'm not even sure why they gave him a CR 10; a 6th level Archer is going to take him out by himself. Admittedly, he'll still have the problem with a first level cleric with a crossbow, but he's far weaker in his defense.

How d'ya figure?

The DR is 15/good and piercing, right? That is, a good slashing weapon and a non-good piercing weapon still get affected by the DR. That means that unless your archer is totin' around a good bow or good arrows, he's going to have to overcome a DR of 15.

In the mean-time, the fighter who had a +3 sword and could penetrate the thing's DR in 3.0 is out in the cold -- even if his sword happens to be good, he gets nowhere fast.

The Wizard is a little happier, since he has a chance to do some harm, but not a LOT of chance. He's looking at probably failing 75%+ of the spell penetration rolls, unless he's got a PrC of some kind.

Seems like the Rakshasa is pretty harsh, still.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Frankly, even if the rakshasa in the stories was slain by a "blessed bolt", I doubt that "blessed bolts" were a particularly common thing.

What precisely stops it from being a divinely granted "bolt of rakshasa slaying"? And of course in order to deliver it's effects correctly, it would have to deal some damage - so it needs to get past DR. Unless the weapon is good and piercing, it won't.

People get far too tied down to making the mechanics fit the story in a literal way, translating words from the story into game-mechanic words, like blessed etc.

I'm all for the rakshasa being a creature which you can't kill with a single shot, unless you go to extremes as those given above. 3e was so full of paper tigers it was ridiculous. I only hope more of them were addressed in 3.5

 

[MarauderX]

...can you keep a secret?

I am building a Rakshasa for an adventure, and it revolves around the critter as it misleads the PCs every step of the way with Alter-self and all sorts of tricky plot twists.

Anyway, based on what I learned above I think I am going to go with all of the 3.5 changes except he will keep the 1st level cleric spells. Not sure about the CR either, but the whole CR system is too subjective to be debateable IMO.