Just fought phase spiders again. Ugh. It bugs me a lot. They are probably one of the biggest ones, them and intellect devourers.
It's insane.
Here's how the Whispering Depths should go:
You enter. You roam up to Eliette's old lab. It's dark because, you know, spiders don't need lights, so why is it lit as if someone's been there recently burning torches. You maybe light some torches and such. You read things. You start exploring more.
Bam! Phase spiders pop out of the Ethereal Plan and attack you up close and personal. Surprise Round. They attack you. Next round. If they go before you, they attack again and vanish back into the Ethereal Plane. If you get to go first, you may get a hit on them before they attack again and vanish. Battle ends.
You roam some more, now a bit more cautiously. You run into the Ettercaps. During the fight, the same two phase spiders suddenly pop out of the Ethereal Plane and attack you. Same tactic except now you have two Ettercaps to face as well. During the fight, they bounce in and out of the Ethereal Plane but this time they stay in the battle.
You kill them all. You maybe even rest. You continue. You find the heart of the lair. There's the keygem. You make your way down to it.
Bam!
Matriarch and her two phase spider minions attack. Debuff her because 125 HP is WAY too many HP, and take away her Supreme Misty Step so she doesn't teleport across the board everywhere. The three gang up on your party near the keygem and attack at melee range. Maybe Matriarch has 60-80 HP and like +7 attack bonus and multiattack and her bite does 1d extra damage because she's special.
Tactics: Just like the other Phase Spiders. They attack and phase. Phase then attack. All at melee range. Spider matriarch using arachnomancy to hatch her young is fine. That makes sense. She is an arachnomancer after all. They could even have her use some sort of spellcasting or even the teleporting thing because she's a spellcaster. Just not her minions and babies.
And please put back the skeleton fight in the Necromancer's lair. That was a good fight. Hard, but good. Now, two skeletons? That's super weak. I loved how they used to pop out of one casket, run to another and free a second. Run to another and free a third. Man! There were like maybe 6 of them by the time it was done, and it was hard, but it wasn't too hard. Made a good fight and it made a lot more sense with the journal that says if the zulkirs show up they'll have to face his guardians.
