Uhxbractit stats on HP1-14 BI

If you look at his statblock, he’s a Tier V character. If you look at the bestiary statblocks on how to build an Adversary, their base defences are 2 Moderate (15-16) and 1 Difficult (17-18), and they get an additional +3 at Tier I, II, and III, and +4 at Tier IV and V. This means that his BASE defences before taking size, talents, etc into account should be between 32 and 35.

Before Huge would be taken into account, he’d have A-27, F-32, D-34. His Avoidance is low and either 1) Reflects his weakened state, or 2) was artificially lowered to making him a BIT easier to fight at these tiers. Having a 30/34/34, especially with the tail and mace involved probably would have been too much at Tier I.

I would adapt the numbers on the fly based on how well the Heroes have been hitting throughout the rest of the event. If they’re consistently rolling 25+, I’d up the Avoidance to 27/28. I’d want them to hit it 25-40% of the time.

that’s actually exactly how I’ve run him. This is my third time at this (2 tables and a pbp this time) and I’ve both upped and dropped his stats accordingly about at the rate you suggested. I have also not allowed tac edge unless they have a talent because of the tail and mace. To counter, I do use Reckless and Overpower pretty frequently. the PCs have hated it…but, they start hitting.

Besides, he only has 2 Fate. . .

His AV includes the reductions from his Talents. I would have to look at the homeplay version, but I know the one at Origins made that clear.

If his avoidance is 34 then he can’t really be beat by Tier 1 or tier 1.5 heroes

Ran this last weekend, dropped 4 of the 5 characters with wounds, due to massive damage rules.

They ranged from 1.5 to 1.9

partially this happened because of a really high discipline score (one of the martial character depends on being able to hit discipline score, I nerfed the fight by dropping 15 hps from the bad guy (I justified this because of one less player than the fight was designed for)

I actually tried to kill some players but failed. I had six players, 4 close combat, 1 pure mage and 1 sarishan priest. Given the starting positions the fighters moved up close and the mages engaged at range. They raced through his HP with frequent massive exploding damages. I gave him 100 HP extra and he was still down within 16 ticks with only one character dropped. Some times it’s the luck of the dice on the day as to how hard an encounter actually is. His AC…I mean avoidance… seemed fine, they didn’t hit too often (all were tier 1.5) just that when they did things rolled high for them.

As an aside there is nothing wrong (IMO) if a PC dies in an epic fight with the likes of Uhxbractit. However in other circumstances I’m uncomfortable with it in this game system. Given that there is no way back from the grave I think its important to avoid PCs deaths where possible or reasonable.

That being said, this is at odds with the average player’s desire to engage in combat at almost every possible opportunity. How many times do people just take combat for granted and wade in? Further, I would argue that at least historically, people were more likely to get killed in small skirmishes and street fights than they were in big grand battles. First, because in a big battle, your enemy doesn’t have time to make sure you’re dead before they have to defend themselves, and second, when the stakes are higher, people will be more keyed up, aware, and engaged.

Someone mentioned once that it was absurd to be able to go toe-to-toe with Uhxbractit, and then get mauled by a shadow lion into unconsciousness in a later module. Taken at face value, that might be true, but it discounts the fact that every fight you get into could be potentially deadly (after all, it almost inevitably is for the enemies the players are fighting). A single small dog minion who gets a single critical hit, and explodes damage like nobody’s business could still drop a player, given how the system works.

To your point Eric, I would agree that it is important to avoid PC deaths where possible and reasonable (i.e. it shouldn’t happen just because the GM wants to kill someone). I would just argue that some of the onus for doing so belongs to the players and their decisions, not simply on the GM.