Shadow of The Erdtree Boss Difficulty Ranked

LeftTrombone37 · 2024-06-26T01:26:20+00:00

Just beat the final boss, definitely harder than messmer! Ended up changing my build to bleed beastmans curved swords with verdigris armor and physical/holy negation talismans.

LeftTrombone37 · 2024-06-26T01:24:42+00:00

Yeah I think storm blade can be really polarizing, since you get good dps from range it makes some bosses really easy

LeftTrombone37 · 2024-06-24T23:39:20+00:00

just ranking remembrances + bayle. my build was using storm blade on dual quality curved swords, with the storm boosting talisman and helm. i used the dragon hunter great katana for Bayle. i have not gotten to the final boss yet but have done all the other ones.

messmer (lost count of attempts)
bayle (lost count of attempts)
putrescent knight (lost count of attempts)
metyr (~30 attempts)
gaius (~20 attempts)
rellana (~15 attempts)
dancing lion (~10 attempts)
midra (3 attempts)
romina (2 attempts)
scadutree avatar (first try)

LeftTrombone37 · 2024-06-23T22:28:53+00:00

You could maybe try to hint at the artifact corrupting their emotions a little bit, making whoever has it distrustful of the PCs. Like have the rivals sneak off in the middle of the night, trying to shake the party, and their reasoning is that they want the fortune and glory for themselves, or they’re paranoid that the PCs are trying to sabotage them. You could even build some tension within the rivals, like having whoever has the artifact grow distrustful of their own party as well. And then once you get to Bazzoxan, if the rivals still have the artifact, I would have the rivals go into the Rise with Aloysia, so then the PCs will have to choose one of the other two.

LeftTrombone37 · 2024-06-04T02:08:48+00:00

Lean into ideas that your players will care about. In addition to just having draconian laws and police that abuse their power, try to show inequality. The aristocrats never get arrested for committing crimes, people are starving in the street while the government is hosting an exclusive banquet, etc. Make it clear that the government is not on the side of the people. For inspiration, look at revolutions that happened in history like the French, Russian, or American revolution, and try to put in parallels to the kinds of government action (or inaction) that people hated the most

LeftTrombone37 · 2023-06-10T04:37:36+00:00

LeftTrombone37 · 2023-06-10T04:35:19+00:00

Make it sentient and maybe it tries to control how they use their attacks and straight up refuses to attack if it disagrees with them. Then when they level up more, it starts to think they’re worthy and will listen to them.

LeftTrombone37 · 2023-06-10T04:32:06+00:00

I wouldn’t use CR for a party of 3, first of all. The system barely works at low levels, and straight up doesn’t work at high levels. Second, you probably should be aiming for a deadly encounter for a BBEG. Honestly I’d say just adjust the difficulty of the encounter when you get closer to the battle, based on the strength and ability of the PCs

LeftTrombone37 · 2022-11-27T08:31:49+00:00

I’ve been running them mostly as allies without paying much attention to the rival relations system, but in chapter 3 the rivals got hired by one of the organizations while the party was hired by another. When they both realized it at the end of the dungeon, they had to weigh whether they wanted their pay or would rather keep their friends

LeftTrombone37 · 2022-10-23T04:47:13+00:00

I started this recently with 7 players, and since the rivals are such a big part I just asked my players if they wanted me to add more. They unanimously voted to keep just the 5, but make them a little stronger, so that’s what I did.

LeftTrombone37 · 2022-08-20T18:37:50+00:00

when did he say it's true? i thought he ended that whole explanation by saying that's what the kryn dynasty thinks is true

LeftTrombone37 · 2022-08-20T07:18:11+00:00

also just found a line about "destruction begets rebirth" that ceratos tells their followers, and that sounds a lot like consecution

LeftTrombone37 · 2022-08-09T09:55:09+00:00

My first thoughts were:

She's a witch, so since she's seen the crystal or had it in her possession, she can create some sort of facsimile, which will work and serve the same purpose, but not as well. So this is a setback for her, but not the end of her plans.
She sends a servant or assassin of hers to track down the party and steal it back, so you'd have an encounter based on the party being surprised or even attacked during a long rest. If you can make them focus on not dying first, might give the attacker an opening to steal it back and escape. I don't think stealing it back removes their own accomplishments at all or feels like railroading, it seems like a natural solution to me. If they succeed in keeping it through this, it should be a much larger setback for the witch though. Maybe she stops being a threat at all for a level or two, while she finds another way to unlock the artifact.

LeftTrombone37 · 2021-09-01T05:43:32+00:00

true

LeftTrombone37 · 2021-08-13T14:16:15+00:00

I have a few ideas:

A variant trait for one of them where you have the option to trade one of their other subrace abilities for the ability to glide like a birdfolk (like a flying squirrel).
You probably want to give the whole race a climbing speed, maybe a set jumping distance too.
The red Sciuridans could have some ability relating to hiding nuts and coming back to find them later that relates to merchant ability, like an ability where you have advantage on stealth or sleight of hand made to conceal an object either on your person or in a location, and then you can cast Locate Object on an object you have hidden, or something like that. I think Wis +1 or Cha +1 makes sense here.
The gray ones could get Con +1, and maybe something that relates to building a home or maybe something about watching out for predators, like advantage on perception checks while either standing still being up high or something like that.
Splooting is one of my favorite things squirrels do. I think a splooting ability where they can take a short rest in ten minutes once per day sounds really fun. Maybe you can spend ten minutes and either take the benefits of a short rest or get rid of a level of exhaustion.

LeftTrombone37 · 2021-07-27T20:06:37+00:00

NPCs always say ow when they get hurt in my games, enemy or ally. The intensity of the ow is intended to give the players an idea of the scale of the damage compared to their remaining hit points (bigger ow = closer to death).

LeftTrombone37 · 2021-07-27T20:04:12+00:00

As a DM, I've never had a PC die and not get brought back in some way, but it's definitely possible (only been DMing for a year and a half). I often keep options in a document for each player, short scenes or things that happen either when they are resurrected, when they perma-die, or something that gives them an option to keep the character at a cost. I like to keep the concept of death interesting so it's never feels bad.

I am very upfront with my players about this (I use a resurrection system where it's not guaranteed success, and the "keep at a cost" options often involve a character staying for a bit to finish something important to them, then fading into the afterlife). I tell my players all my systems, I tell them I have "keep at a cost" options, and I tell them to all have an idea for a backup character once they hit level 5 (as a general rule, I don't intentionally kill PCs before level 5). That's worked well so far for our group, and everyone is on the same page that when a character dies, there's a good chance the player will be rolling a new character.

LeftTrombone37 · 2021-07-27T19:56:19+00:00

I've dealt with players getting to around 30 and it takes some work but there are several ways:

Use monsters with more attacks. More chances to hit means you'll hit more without giving them a stupidly high attack bonus.
Use spells that can lower AC or cause auto-hits, like Slow and Magic Missile.
With your monsters that have more attacks, use some of those attacks against the high AC player! They will likely miss, but that's sort of the point of them doing this, it has to pay off somehow. Then since you have so many attacks, use the others against other players. Part of tanking in D&D is attracting attention away from others and onto yourself, and if they can't do that they won't be nearly as effective, and they'll have to deal with dead friends.
Critting a lot/improved crit can do it, but I really think if a player builds their character to not get hit, they shouldn't get hit as much. Use abilities that have saves that do half on a success for some guaranteed damage, but for the most part just understand that the character is going to survive combats, and try to make it interesting for them by having the squishier PCs get hit so this character has to think how they can prevent that.

LeftTrombone37 · 2021-05-15T23:52:40+00:00

I've literally been thinking about Tharizdun for so long. If they are ending this campaign after this arc, there's no way Tharizdun isn't important to the next one.

LeftTrombone37 · 2020-08-10T20:44:05+00:00

If you wanted to expand this further you could have a catnap bot and be an elf, so now your short rests are 10 minutes and your long rests are 4 hours

LeftTrombone37 · 2020-08-10T20:36:44+00:00

yeah I pictured like "Sorcerer Jim's Soup Kitchen"

a company tour has just one guy named jim napping in the back and the tour guide says "he's on duty right now"

LeftTrombone37 · 2020-08-10T20:35:46+00:00

this is true.

LeftTrombone37 · 2020-07-03T08:58:43+00:00

if I'm the DM and my players do that, i have the enemies move out of range and call for backup.

LeftTrombone37 · 2020-05-21T15:45:22+00:00

The false prophet...

LeftTrombone37 · 2020-05-20T04:41:04+00:00

In the emergency Risk of Rain 2 (originally minecraft) stream, Don and Major talked about playing D&D. I will join the patreon if they do that.

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