Neethanial,Aug 17 2016 wrote: The salamanders are the only things calculated into the level range of the zone as listed. The giants were altered much later, and info wasn't updated to reflect that. The elemental, as was mentioned, is a boss.
The biggest issues of the ice plane are A) Spawn timers are hellacious. B) The Chief summons a battlemage that can one shot anyone with less than 100 hp. C) Half the lizards are rogues, and half the rogues are spellcasters with polar ray lol.
I think the spawns of the plane in general may need reworked, because even at lvl 10, you get garbage XP unless you go after the chief. Challenge rating wise, it's on par.
Look at it like this.
12 level 1 rogues are much more devastating than 12 level 1 clerics. Same CR. Challenge rating shouldn't be the only factor that goes into spawn design.
Honestly there needs to be a general consideration of what areas to use as basis for challenge/reward ratio. And it's much less easy question than most people might like, because it doesn't mean the most optimal areas are the correct answer, it's quite possible the reward in those is in fact too high.
I am curious what changes exactly were made for the frost giants and when though? Because last I knew they're still the same ones I made aeons ago. Back then I made sure the low will save was a common knowledge too so it seemed to deal with them being a threat part as well. The one thing I dislike in the frost giants is how their shamans have moonbolt, that's something which just goes right past SR and generally serves as nothing more than a nuisance.
Also none of the salamanders are rogues, they are infact rangers. Majority of them are rangers, minority are disable orientated wizards. This was made with the idea to shut down casters more with their dispels, the issue is really that they have too much offensive spells to hurt non-casters way more than was intended. Also normal hide and MS can do wonders there, get next to the casters and kill them before they cast spells, and the normal rangers aren't that huge of a threat.
The summons are side-effect since summons were updated several years later. They were never meant to have that powerful summons, same issue was faced in several other planes actually. Because they just used the old summons which were a ton less potent and was perfectly fine at the time. I'd either give them a much weaker summon, or no summon at all.
