I'm wondering what people consider to be the deadliest encounter they've ran for the Age of Worms, including TPKs (hate that term, sounds like a grisly trophy for sadistic DMS)against specific foes. I haven't had any TPKs myself, which is good for continuity of the campaign since it's about playing characters, not me killing them.
Nonetheless, The worst for my PCs were the corrupted celestials in SoLS. A few freakish rolls of a first-turn Prismatic Spray from Kelvos killed two PCs with the green ray(poison) and sent the party cleric to the plane of Carceri(randomly),leaving two PCs and a cohort to fight a six-turn-spell-prepared Eladrin with a 41 AC and his friends. Didn't even need to mash them against the glass walls with the Swords... Good Times! (Can't believe they won!)
I'm just about to start running the Spire, and so far the most deadly piece has been the Grimlock caverns, in particular the last fight against Grellek. Mainly because of circumstance, the PC's knocked off all his minions first and had trouble getting to him due to terrain etc, so he was buffed and tough, plus he got lucky with a critical and killed one PC then the others really struggled to get through all his HP. One PC died there, and two others were taken out in various ways.
Next toughest would be Illthane, party because the main Fighter wasn't there; an animal companion died but it was looking grim for at least one other character and like the grimlock case, once one falls it can easily become like dominoes.
Apart from those, I don't remember any other times when I was too fearful of the party all ending up dead, but I might have forgotten one or two by now... p.s. I roll everything in the open, so it's high stakes when the group gets into deep water!
I cant remember the last time my mates and i didnt almost die!!
Gee every bloody "big" fight we take a hammering and normaly come away with a win but only just!!
Maybe is our characters im not sure, two of us are making a 2nd character each tonight so that might help out a bit=)
Invisible stalkers in Hall of Harsh Reflections, and the Oculus Demon in A Gathering of Winds. Both encounters nearly TPKed us.
My group is not very far into the campaign but of what we HAVE encountered ...
Our first near death experience was in 3FoE in the Hextor arena. The group DID TPK in Hall of Harsh Reflections and we had to do an awkward campaign restart. Since then I'm with the previous poster - nearly every "big" fight has resulted in a "whew!" barely survived, panting but victorious end (1-3 characters down and bleeding).
Hastur, I'm surprised to hear you had difficulty with the grimlock caves. Others have complained in various posts about the lizardfolk EBK module but those grimlock caves were the biggest cakewalk my players ever had - they actually were beginning to yawn! Must've been some nasty dice rolls for you on that one.
Anyway, this is a great thread. I'm anxious to hear others' opinions (I've heard SoLS is a real killer!).
Maybe is our characters im not sure, two of us are making a 2nd character each tonight so that might help out a bit=)
This will sound slightly ridiculous, but once my PCs started taking Leadership, the amount of deaths and near-deaths each adventure was cut almost in half. Sometimes, all the PCs need is their own fodder to trade blows and give them time to prepare.
I like this topic. When did my players feel their hearts ready to pop from their chests the most potently in the AoW campaign? IMO, although they are just about to start SoLS, (and personally, I can't wait,) the singularly most exciting encounter was with the Ebon Aspect in TFoE. They convinced one of the acolytes of Vecna to surrender (whom has since become a reoccuring NPC ally), and with his limited knowledge and the "sense of evil" emanating from the frigid pool in the Dark Cathedral, they buffed as well as any group of 4th level heroes could...as it dropped half their crew! They only fell to unconscious, but the terror-inducing shock when the aspect went into the bloodthirst of Erythnul was great. (We would use this encounter as the first founding ritual for our elven fighter/wizard's legacy weapon.)
The Faceless One in TFoE. Died real fast.
Just out of curiousity... how did you run this one so that The Faceless One almost TPK's your PCs? Mine gave it to him up the pooper, damn silence spell *shakes fist at spell*
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
|
The Faceless One in TFoE. Died real fast.Just out of curiousity... how did you run this one so that The Faceless One almost TPK's your PCs? Mine gave it to him up the pooper, damn silence spell *shakes fist at spell*
Yeah, TF1 lasted a total of 2 rounds in my campaign before getting surrounded and thrashed. I'm also surprised to hear that lizardfolk posed any sort of threat whatsoever. My players found the lizardfolk to be so non-threatening that they entered their lair screaming out "please surrender, we don't want to slaughter you all."
Hastur, I'm surprised to hear you had difficulty with the grimlock caves [...] those [...] were the biggest cakewalk my players ever had - they actually were beginning to yawn! Must've been some nasty dice rolls for you on that one.
Heh heh, to each their own, my players have found a lot of the parts where others have struggled, to be quite easy for them. Sometimes it's luck, sometimes it's good tactics on their part.
So here's what happened in the grimlock caves, as best as I can remember (it was a long time ago now)... ah... the memories!
To start with, my group was a level or so above the recommended level, so I beefed it up, roughly according to the suggested guidelines (but not quite, I think I might have trimmed it a bit).
The group actually did quite well through most of the caves - not a cake-walk, but they negotiated the tricky terrain well, and only got surprised once by the dual-wielding female barbarian who crept up behind them at some point and got in some heavy hits to the rear of the party (first time that ever happened to them). They had to leave the wolf animal companion behind early on, but they still had four PC's. Basically, I fired every shot available, and they coped fine. Things like Otyughs, which I thought would be difficult, were dealt with surprisingly easily.
When they got to the last chambers, they took out the mook guards and the single tough barbarian dude with amazing ease, barely a shot taken in return. Maybe that made them complacent, I dunno; I think they were nearly out of spells too, which made it hard. The very last chamber was the "boss man" and his minions, and it just started to unravel faster than my group realised. Tactics that had worked earlier just seemed to trip them up, like say grappling worked well against a single strong opponent, but just wasted valuable time when used against fodder....
First round, I took out one PC with Blindness. Now, the player decided that his character would just retreat, take no further part in the fight - arguable whether that's in character or not, but stupid from a group survival point of view. The party fighter-type took on the boss man's fodder, leaving the boss to continue his spell casting at will; a few rounds of buffs and offensive spells were used - no-one was engaging the cleric, so he let them have it. The group didn't cope with the terrain in this room too well, just accepting their cramped positions by the entrance rather than getting out and into it, no-one got near the boss for a long time until the weakest party member used enlarge person to go toe to toe with him (the others were still finishing off the fodder). The boss man actually got hit with a nasty critical; with my house rules, one arm was damaged so he got -2 to hit. The PC's cheered, they thought they were winning again. But a couple of rounds later, I also criticalled, and the weakest PC just didn't have enough hit points (was already damaged by spiritual hammer from memory), and she was dead with one blow - quite a shock, but that's the way we play, maybe big fights at the end of the night means we're all tired and things can get missed (like how many hp am I on). The party druid was out of spells, so he and the fighter were left to duke it out hand to hand with the boss man. Thing is, the boss had superior AC and to hit, so two against one was still not good odds for the PC's. At this point, after some prompting from me, the group finally convinced the blind PC to do something to assist her comrades - she pulled out a potion or two, shuffled towards their voices, and held them out to heal the rapidly fading surviving party members. I can't remember, but I think the druid also fell at this point, still alive, but in the negatives. A lot of rolls ensued, with a lot of misses and a couple of hits. Finally, the last sighted PC's player got lucky, hit the boss man hard, and he fell down dead. We were all very relieved!
As I said earlier, I roll everything in the open, so my heart was certainly in my mouth for an extended period of time (I actually hate to see PC's get killed, but roll openly so we are all on the same playing field and the players are kept on their toes). This was the first time anyone died in my campaign, and we all knew it was very close to ending with everyone dead. It certainly hit home the danger level of some parts of the campaign, and in the long run helped the players lift their game a bit more (one guy is a natural power gamer, but he's also naturally a bit selfish, so he's learned to be more of a team player). It also lead to some great role-playing opportunities, as the players tried to work out how to get the dead PC back to life - they ended up with various ties to the Church of St Cuthbert, which they all found very distasteful and now they try hard to keep themselves as far away from that Church as possible.
Since this point, a lot of combats have been quite simple for my group, especially as their levels have increased and they are getting more and more powerful spells: haste, fly, see invisibility, evard's black tentacles, freedom of movement, greater invisibility - these are the stock spells my group uses to great effect; even grease has undone various big tough opponents! Sure, they use magic missile, searing light, spiritual hammer, scorching ray, scintillating sphere and wall of fire from time to time, but these tend to be "the spells to use when you don't have anything really useful in mind", no the spells of first choice. So I think that mentality, of buffing themselves first, and neutralising their opponents where they can (tentacles / grease), and *then* dealing the damage, is what's made a lot of the more recent encounters in the age of worms relatively easy for them. Not that all combats now last two rounds - but a surprising number have.
how did you run this one so that The Faceless One almost TPK's your PCs? Mine gave it to him up the pooper, damn silence spell *shakes fist at spell*
I know you weren't asking me personally, but anyway... I managed the Faceless One in a cunning way that helped him survive considerably longer... since I'd bumped him up a level or two (my PC's were a level or so higher than recommended), I gave him Illusory Wall as a spell. So he hid behind an illusion-wall in the main laboratory, taunting them, and casting spells etc. (a lightning bolt "from the wall" was a classic), while his acolytes (and undead, I think) ran around trying to cast spells and generally getting slaughtered. My players knew something was up, but took some time to realise exactly what - a fake wall was just not something they thought of at the time. It was only when the druid commanded his wolf companion to attack something that it used its scent ability to sniff him out from behind the wall, and it started to scratch at the wall (failed its save vs illusion). Then I think one or more PC's twigged, searched the wall and made their save, then cornered him. Of course, once they found him, it was over pretty quick, but we all expect that with mages really.
I know you weren't asking me personally, but anyway... I managed the Faceless One in a cunning way that helped him survive considerably longer... since I'd bumped him up a level or two (my PC's were a level or so higher than recommended), I gave him Illusory Wall as a spell. So he hid behind an illusion-wall in the main laboratory, taunting them, and casting spells etc. (a lightning bolt "from the wall" was a classic), while his acolytes (and undead, I think) ran around trying to cast spells and generally getting slaughtered. My players knew something was up, but took some time to realise exactly what - a fake wall was just not something they thought of at the time. It was only when the druid commanded his wolf companion to attack something that it used its scent ability to sniff him out from behind the wall, and it started to scratch at the wall (failed its save vs illusion). Then I think one or more PC's twigged, searched the wall and made their save, then cornered him. Of course, once they found him, it was over pretty quick, but we all expect that with mages really.
Nice I like how you did that
I just ran this on Friday. I had such high hopes for The Faceless One to be a memorable and difficult opponent. I made a number of mistakes (late night/too excited) and he managed to get off a summon monster scroll and then he got grappled. Hmmm. Wizard vs. half-orc barbarian in a grapple... He lasted for several rounds because he'd buffed with false life and the half-orc was dealing 1d3+6 dmg. He even finally managed to get away at the end only to be nailed by the barb's great axe. Sigh.
All I can hear is Airwalkrr telling me that mages just need tactics. See the Harbringer thread for a scolding about running mages. Sorry Airwalkrr, I failed.
So, our worst encounters so close to the beginning of it all: Face trap (killed 2); temple of Hextor - it had TPK written all over it, but obscuring mist is the trapped party's best friend.
I have lots of time to think about tactics during campaign hiatuses--and I hate losing a great villain in less than 10 rounds of combat. My party hasn't used silence spells much in combat, which probably helps. My party tends to pack less offensive punch but more staying power with three healers (cleric, paladin, and bard) and a policy of "a cure wand on every caster's belt" as well. So I've had about a dozen encounters where two or more party members were hors de combat--the usual point where things start to look extremely grim--up to halfway through HOHR. Only one party death so far, though. TFO and company lasted about 20 rounds, because I made serious use of webs and summoned creatures to keep the party from getting to them.
Details in my campaign log for those interested.
Nearest TPK for my group was in, of all places, Filge's lab. They recklessly charged in, got surrounded by the undead, and were unable to get at Filge. The bugbear zombie laid out two of them quickly and, when the third one went down, it was all but over. The survivor, a wizard, ran down and grabbed Filge's spellbook and tried to negotiate with it.
I let him talk his way through it and he departed with the one breathing party member. Of course, later they had to deal with zombie versions of their dead characters (along with zombie Kullen - boy did he have a bad day).
The toughest encounter in my AoW campaing...Bozal and the Apostle of Kyuss.
I changed Bozal's Antilife shell for Blade Barrier...nasty! The Barbarian was getting ripped to shreds so he decided to grapple him and won. Bard (finally) dispels the Blade Barrier and it's academic from there for Bozal. He releases the Apostle of Kyuss.
My players are low on spells (let's say none for the druids and only 1st level for the cleric), but still buffed and healed. I rolled horribly for the first 2 rounds for the Apostle and the druid, cleric, rogue, and particularly the raging, bull strenghted, enlarged power attacking half-orc barbarian, go balls to the wall on him...then it happens! Swallow the barbarian, swallow the druid, swallow the cleric and I'm getting really scared of a TPK.
I don't want to fudge the dices to make it easier...they'll know and their victory will be lessend. Finally the rogue gets a haste from the bard and hits max damage from is 3 attacks and puts the Apostle out of combat.
The rogue had 5 hp, the bard 16, the barbarian has 3 hp and 5 Con now, the druid and cleric are in singe dgits too...The players were out of breath after the combat...some actualy cheered and jumped when I said the Apostle went down.
That was my toughess encounter to date.
|
|
I actually think some of the toughest encounters in the AoW are relatively early on. The large number of cultists in TFoE can be a real meat grinder for characters in the 4-5 range. The Faceless one is a similarly deadly opponent for that reason. The sheer number of Lizardfolk at Blackwall keep is almost a guaranteed TPK unless the group handles it properly. Thirty CR 3 creatures is unreal for a party of 5th-6th level characters.
Later on, I think the Harbinger of the Worm can be a real tough one if you have some of the other minions in the Spire fight alongside him. As the characters gain in levels, their resources become such that comparitively strong encounters just aren't as deadly. I think Dragotha has a lot of potential to be really tough for most groups, but the Dragotha thread seems to imply that several have had problems with folks cake walking through him.
Another one I thought was really tough is Balakarde's sister, the advanced Kyuss Knight. She had some wicked damage dealing capacity. As I recall, her highest attack bonus was +40 after power attacking her damage up to a bonus of +40 some odd. I think having her along with a few Broodfiends at Kyuss's side, can make the battle with the Wormgod all but impossible. Kyuss suprisingly enough, didn't seem as tough to me as some of the other challenges in the campaign, but that may just be that by that point everyone was 21st level and his powers are severely stunted if you complete the 3 tasks to weaken him.
My group just finished Return to the Whispering Cairn, and I would have to say that Augerric was defenitely one of the toughest foes they encountered.
My group is weak on spell casters so the melee guys were having a hard time dishing out damage on the demon while trying to avoid his paralyzing gaze. This gave him plenty of time to knock three of the four players unconscious with his eye rays; leaving only the druid to fight.
Fortunately the fighters had managed to whittle down the demon and the druid got lucky on two hits and managed to drop him before he got his next attacks or it would have been over for my group.
God I loved that guy!
Theldrick's temple in 3FoE did a total TPK on our guys.
The Grimlocks weren't too bad, namely because I didn't read it all the way through.
The Vecna labyrinth was a breeze.
The Vecna wizards though... That was a bit tougher on them - The scorching ray scrolls did a lot of damage when people started coming out of the woodwork.
But so far, Theldrick's temple was the killer.
|
Well personally I am a player in the campaign not the DM. But I would have to say the deadliest encounter is well....,not to brag, none. We have the following characters in this group. And yes the DM does add more monsters to counter balance the number of players there are to keep it equal and fair.
But anyways we have : me a human cleric of kord 7 fighter 2 warpriest of kord 4. A straight human 13th level druid. A halfling arcane trickster 4 (I forgot what his other levels were). A human ranger 13(Abberation hater) A human warmage 10 Blood mage 3, A human vow of Poverty fighter 13,
a dragonborn bard 10 dragonsong lyrist 2, and a female human barbarian 14. So um yay, we kind got everything covered, especially healing, meat shields, trapfinding, and arcane knowledge. If they throw in psionics we are screwed however.
We killed the harbringer that was a cr 17 in 3 hits. One from a maximized searing light (me) a 35 point warmace smack (me again) and 36 points of quaterstaff damage from the vow of poverty fighter.
|
Tough encounters so far...
Stepping into Theldrick's temple. Bad crowd control by the party resulted in them facing all the cultists, the skeletons, the tieflings and the dire boar in a single pro-longed battle. As cultists ran low on HP, they ran off to get help and were successful in doing so. Our 4-man party was down to a single member squaring off against the last tiefling, narrowly avoiding a TPK.
The grimlock cavern with the cliff. Again, bad crowd control in the first grimlock room sent a grimlock running for help from the krenshar-master grimlock, and the party split into 2 pairs. One finishing off the grimlocks in the first room, and the other pair facing the krenshars and houndmaster. A failed save vs fear from the krenshar sent one of the party members climbing down the cliff to escape (since the grimlock was blocking the other exit), bringing the archers into the fray as well. Once again, near TPK.
The encounter with the invisible stalkers (we just finished that last weekend) was also a tough one, especially since they were down to 3 members actively trying to fight them off (with the 4th member being Ixiaxian speaking the password). They ended up fleeing the encounter completely, and avoided some deaths since the cleric took the spell 'Close Wounds' and used his immediate actions to stop a few killing blows. I had the stalkers not pursue them as they followed their instructions to the letter (versus if they pursued, it would have been a TPK for certain).
Everything else, WC and Blackwall were pretty easy going. Shukak was a good battle, but noone dropped in it.
Dealing with the negative energy fireball throwing undead in SoLS. Those guys put out a ridiculous amount of hurt.
One touch of HoHR that I'd nearly forgotten about was something that almost TPK'd the entire party (which hasn't happened yet).. Zyrzog's stone brain statue. Due to depleted resources, half the party was fighting the other half, and nobody had adamantine weapons :( I think it went on for seven rounds, dropping one party member, the spirit shaman, by the blows of the fighter/bard. Nasty trap, possibly deadly if party is unprepared and rolls poorly. Suprisingly, Zyrzog was less deadly, with only half of the party stunned, but the rest (spellcasters) repeatidly overcoming SR. Even with his diverse spells and horrendous magic items, they were rolling hot and I was not. A critical hit on a dagger throw finished him off (Out of spells, and wands generally bite against SR if not self-made)
|
My group is about halfway through 3FoE. So far, the wind warriors at the end of WC were the biggest challenge. It took three attempts for the party to defeat them, and two characters died in the process.
The Temple of Hextor ran a close second, some of my players began griping that it was a killer dungeon. They made it through, but just barely. No deaths, but lots of close-calls.
We had deaths/near deaths at each of the following: Acid Beetles, Grimlock Caverns, Apostle of Kyuss, Ilthane. There was an obvious stretch of easier stuff there during EBK and HOHR for our group. Glad we're back to putting the fear of god in them.
The toughest fights for my PCs have been, so far:
1. WC: the acid beetle swarm
2. 3FoE: the Faceless One
3. EaBK: Shukak (not really that tough a fight, even though a PC died)
4. HoHR: Zyrxog
5. CB: Auric & Khellek
The last two were probably the toughest fights overall. I didn't change Zyrxog much, but I did tweak Auric & Khellek a bit for the CB.
My group had 5 PCs, a cohort, an animal companion, & the paladin's mount. I gave A&K each a level increase, but probably the biggest change I made was changing out some of Khellek's spells--I replaced all his 3rd level spells with Dispel Magics to counterspell the party's mage invoker (certainly more firepower than Khellek, but not as sneaky or calculating). I figured by now he'd have a chance to watch the PCs in the previous fights, & thus be able to prepare for whatever they could throw at him.
Most of the party, including the invoker, failed to save against K's opening assault with a Confusion spell, which would've ended in a TPK (okay, maybe not "kill") did I not have a house rule allowing non-confused PCs to spend a full-round action "shaking" another PC out of confusion. Once the mage was back in the game, he was consistantly frusrated by Khellek delaying his action & counterspelling with Dispel Magic while Auric & the Leatherworks tore into the rest of the party (for Greyhawk flavor, I made one of the flesh golems "Number Nine" from White Plume Mountain). The PCs eventually won, but it was a tough fight.
The avolakia clerics in the Tabernacle of Worms-- no, really, I'm serious! They spotted us through the guardian overworm thingies outside and were all waiting inside with readied flame strikes, all of which ended up directed at my wizard. Six 10d6 damage spells against a guy with d4 HD, poor Reflex saves, and no evasion are hard to take, especially when 5's and 6's keep coming up on the dice. Payback for my excessive use of his wand of fireballs at lower levels, I'm sure. In comparison, Dragotha himself was a pushover--but by that point, we had Balakarde's advice to help us plan tactics. That whole adventure was one of the coolest I've ever played.
what made brazzemal so difficult? what made dragotha easier?
|
|
They were pretty depleted getting to Brazzemal, having fought their way through the citadel. Brazzemal also was unexpected, so conserving power wasn't much of a thought. They knew they were going to fight Dragotha, so they conserved alot.
"Begin Rant"
I encourage them to push on, not rest after every fight. I notice, when reading on the boards here and other places, that alot of people are playing DnD as a strategy game, or computer game, where the players rest after each fight, and go into everyone with full power. That doesn't happen in novels and sotries. you don't adventure for 20 minutes, then rest for 8 hours, then fight a few monsters, then rest again..it's ridiculous. I blame it on computer games, and video games. In BGII, you could rest and restore after every fight. That to me is not DnD.
"end rant"
So I may be a little tough as a GM, but I tend to put in more potions and wands than are in the adventures.
Thanks for asking man,
Pat
The corrupted angel in Spire of long shadows should almost always be a TPK since someone made a pretty big booboo making him. He's quite capable of kicking someones hind end without casting a single spell, especially if the party is good aligned. Not to mention his two archon buddies, save or die time.
But then, most of Spire of Long Shadows is extremely lethal. 3 rounds of triple negative energy fireballing should be enough to outright kill any party I've ever heard of. As the DM you just chose not to TPK the party in that encounter.
The underwater encounter in the whispering cairn is lethal in the extreme for the level.
And of course the Library of Last resort has the encounter with Darl which should be a very dangerous moment, and then at the end there's the dream sequence, if that fight doesn't kill someone, you're doing something wrong. If the party doesn't cast the exact right spell, some, or most of the party should be dead by the end of the first round of combat for that matter. (15d6 multiplied by 5 = 225 save for half...) God help them on round two.
Frankly, my group has the most trouble no matter what the opponent whenever they are caught by surprise. They've had some nasty encounters when they have pushed on while low on spells and wounded, and have lost half a dozen characters so far (but no TPKs). Give them time to prepare for a fight and they can take just about anything, but if they are ambushed and have to scramble and react, it's much tougher.
That said, my top five hits so far (and we're just starting the Spire) are:
1) Mindflayer boss in HOHR (frankly I had mercy on them or would have been a TPK in first encounter with him)
2) Temple of Hextor in TFoE (one character dead and three others down before last two forced the priest to surrender)
3) Improved Wind Warriors in GoW (one character dead and the rest pushed to the limit)
4) Ilthane (best fighter acid-burned and munched quickly, everyone injured)
5) Devil ambush at beginning of Spire (just played it this week, and gave my players fits - no one died, but they all were in danger of it at least once during the fight)
My players just found the tomb in aGoW--the oculus demon was quite likely their most difficult encounter yet. I just read a post by Wolfgang Baur where he said the creature's free actions will likely be changed to swift ones. Of course, i didn't read it until after the encounter, so I gave the party a larger xp award for their victory.
My Campaigns Deadliest Fights:
Acid Beetle Swarms - TPK
The Faceless One and Minions (esp. the allip) - TPK
Telakin - Near TPK
Zyrxog - TPK due to his mind blast
Froghemoth - Half of the party dead.
We're just about to hit the Occulus Demon in A Gathering of Winds, so we'll see how that goes.
Last weekend...Dawn of a New Age, ground floor of the Spire. Blessed Angel rolls nat 20 with vorpal blade, confirms, dead psion who subsequently becomes Favored Spawn psion. In rapid succession, two dead goliaths, one cleric, and one a favored soul. Death by INT drain by Kyuss Knights and broodfiends. They join the ranks of the Favored Spawn. This leaves only warlock and paladin standing. Paladin's INT gets drained to 4...forced to flee. Warlock has Sphere of Annihilation. Starts kicking a** and taking names. In the end it's down to him and two broodfiends. BF's charge, both hit, drain 14 points of INT. Warlock has INT of 2. Takes out remaining BF's with Sphere, and eldritch blast combo.
I ran part of the Age of Worms (as DM, of course). I have noticed that any battle can be a near TPK or a very easy one. Factors that go into whether it is a TPK or cake walk are: Luck, player tactics, player teamwork, and how well the DM runs the monsters. I have had encounters that should have been easy but were near TPK because a player accidentially fireballed his own party in trying to get the bad guys. What should have been a hard fight with the six arm aspect of Hextor creature in the mines was rather easy because my wife playing the half-orc barbarian critted on both her attacks and caused 96 points of damage in one round (with a great axe).
Of course, I also had to adjust a little bit because my group was sweeping through things a little too easy and weren't feeling challenged. In the gladitorial arena, I changed one of the groups to be two dwarves that were rogue/barbarians with flaming mauls. This with their ability to do improved sunder made a very tought fight for the party. The party did win but not before I literally destroyed every weapon they had. The Order of the Bow Initiate was particularly bummed when I took out his bow on the 2nd round of combat. Hehe.
What made us quit the adventure was me moving, unfortunately.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The descent into dream in the library of Last Resort. It was this fight that really scared the pants off the characters.
Round 1) 1 out of 9 PCs (including cohorts) casts death ward. 5 Swords unleash invocations and kill Drow Hexblade/Rogue outright. Other 5 swords move into position against crippled party.
Round 2) Swords of Kyuss surround party. Some make full attacks while others move and unleash a second wave of invocations. Two death wards and a heal are cast, while the Fighter/Bard and Paladin are able to destroy one a piece per round. Ranger/Fighter falls to invocations (2 dead).
Round 3)Ranger/Deepwood Sniper gets seperated trying to get range, getting pinned down by two swords. Dragon Shaman dies to negative energy bursts (3 dead). Everyone is protected by death ward who is still alive except Ranger. Two more swords fall, leaving six..
Round 4) Ten more swords appear, unleashing invocations and closing. Ranger/Sniper gets severely wounded, and Swords not evocating surround Paladin completely. Paladin only slightly hurt..
Round 5) Paladin near death as he is attacked 12 times and brought low. Boneyard of Kyuss appears and flies toward seperated ranger. Kills with drain from bite (4 dead). Invocations prevent any low damage attacks or effects from sticking, and the Cleric and Spirit Shaman can only heal themselves, getting only a pair of Maximized Holy Storms(SC) to cover the area. Nerfed by invocations.
Round 6) Paladin finally killed by multiple Sword attacks (5 dead)11 swords remain, and invocations continue to rain down. Life's Grace (SC) prevents Boneyard from hurting Cleric severely, and Cleric rolls nat 20 on grapple. Spirit Shaman casts Fire Seeds and turns incorporeal.
Round 7) Spwords destroyed by Holy Storm and Fire Seed Combo. Fighter/Bard continues killing Swords, bringing the number down to 6. Boneyard finishes off injured fighter bard. (6 dead)
Round 7) Druid in wild shape finally finishes casting protection spells or healing and unleashes flamestrikes. Cleric does the same and spirit shaman unleashes Firestorm, reducing the Swords to 3. Boneyard bites and succeeds in grapple against Cleric.
Round 8) Divine magic finishes off Swords (combined with Holy Storm) Boneyard starts taking serious damage (48 a turn), but succeeds in pinning Cleric.
Round 9) Incorporeal spirit shaman rolls 1 on concentration check. Boneyard makes Incorporeal check and hits, disrupting Heal spell. Druid fails SR check on boneyard. Cleric, near death, suceeds in concentration and flamestrikes himself and Boneyard, killing both. Dream ends....
The toughest fight my players have had so far was against Shukak in Blackwall Keep. The party had him dead to rights, but I did not roll under 18 for any of his attacks. He dropped the warforged fighter and baddly wounded the battle dancer and marshal, despite their incredibly high ACs. It was looking like it might be heading for a TPK before the Marshal dropped him and Hiska called off the rest of the Lizardfolk.
I had been toying around with using Weapons of Legacy, so I let this count as a founding event.
Brazzemal also was unexpected, so conserving power wasn't much of a thought. They knew they were going to fight Dragotha, so they conserved alot.
Brazz is a tough customer indeed; this Friday my PCs will face off against him, the Fang dragon, and Gigantus (recent dungeon adventure) at the SAME TIME. Sucks to be the PCs!
Hall of Harsh Reflections: The fight against the Doppelgangers in the prison proved to be tough due to sneak attack damage and mobility problems.
Champions Belt: TPK in the Ceonoby by the hands of Pitchblade where once again limited mobility was the end of the adventurers.
They have three more tough fights ahead in the last two magazines: Dragotha, Lashanna, and Kyuss.
The closer we get to the climax, the more I start to appreciate Lashonna and what she really is in the story. Ultimately, she is the main antagonist, not Kyuss. Kyuss is like that doomsday device that the PCs must disarm when the criminal mastermind (Lashanna) activates it as a dying action.
My group has finished the Hextor and Vecna temples in 3FoE and are in the midst of Erythnul.
Kullen, by himself, almost TPKd 3 of 4 of the group (1 party member wasn't present) when they drew him out of the Feral Dog.
Filge wasn't particularly deadly, but was a long drawn out fight that used up a lot of resources.
The Hextor temple was a cakewalk, but Vecna, not so much. The maze/knekus got them to split up chasing after the kenkus, which was nearly their doom. Then the allip managed to drain a good deal of wisdom from everyone, including dropping the cleric to Wisdom of 2. When they returned, the Faceless One and his cronies were ready for them. Webs, magic missiles, lightning bolts and summoned monsters whittled the party down, outright killing the rogue, until round 52(!) when the Faceless One used his last spell, Hold Portal, to escape from the final two standing PCs, all three of them had less than 10 hps between them.
Now with the Erythnul temple, the barbarian kept dropping everyone that entered the tunnel she was in. Half-dead from that fight, one PC had fallen to the floor, and decided he'd better make sure the tunnel was safe. So then he gets attacked by the chokers, and the badly hurtin' party needs to get down and help him as fast as they can.
So yeah, aside from the 1st half of WC and the Hextor temple, it's been rough. It won't get any less rougher, as the Faceless One will be present, summoning the Ebon Aspect when they go to leave.
The Ulgurstasta under the arena in Champion's Belt just about destroyed my campaign. Huge monster that causes damage just by being close to you, insane damage on a normal hit and a party of players that don't grasp the idea of ranged combat, purchasing magic items during their downtime or changing spell selection/doing research do not combine well. Hopefully this taught them the value of teamwork and preparation. But probably not.
Ohh Zyxanth, what a beautfiul monster you are... After killing Necrozyte in 3 rounds and killing 8 out of 9 dragons in a subsequent dragon strike, my PC's have been prancing around through Kings of the Rift, windwalking everywhere, avoiding all of the encounters I want to throw at them. Good ol' Zyxanth... The crafty Fang dragon tracked them to their resting place in the undercity and attacked them in their sleep. Mean tactics? Hardly. Challenging to the point of TPK? Yes. He managed to kill two cohorts, brought three PC's in the negtives, and snatched one of the fallen's bodies before teleporting away, all while fighting in a tiny room that gave him no flight options. Whoever designed Zyxanth: Excellent work! My PC's haven't been this afraid of a single monster since the Ugly in the Champion's Belt. To others running this beastie: Beware! There is potential to kill the whole party. My favorite moment was watching a Finger of Death reflect back at the caster due to innate Spell Turning ability.. Keep in mind also that no spell short of Iron Body will stop its deadly bite...Good ol' non-necromatic ability drain...I might have killed everyone had I not rolled snake-eyes on the Con-drain a few times...
Yeah, in an earlier post I hinted to Zyxanth the fang dragon (I forgot his name - shame on me!)
Well, Brazz and Gigantus were killed in the attack, but Zyxanth killed a PC and never got touched the entire fight (51 AC, mirror imaged AND displaced if I recall correctly).
I determined that Zyxanth was less loyal than the rest of the bunch (based on how he was recruited) and simply teleported out of the fight when Brazz went down.
Particularly difficult battles for our crew were:
- Kenku maze & Faceless One
- Greyhawk; they failed to stop the Ulgurstasta in time and flooded the city with wights(Champion's Belt)
- First level of Spire of Long Shadows; negative energy blasts caught them unawares (and defenseless to them).
- The Mother Worm (KotR; multiple deaths & sprung Warduke on them immediately after)
- Dragotha. Had it not been for the Warlock pumping out a steady stream of Mass Heals, it could've gone very badly. Also, had Mahudril (sp?), Venk, and 6 Avolokia clerics there for back up.
Ah...memories ;-) They begin Dawn of a New Age next week, so hopefully Kyuss will be memorable for them.
J-
We just finished round one of the Champion's belt and the toughest encounters have been:
The acid beetles in whispering cairn
Mimics and Octopus in HoHR
SPOILER
Interesting: Both encounters are cakewalks for my group. The mimica were dispatched quickly and the octopus has ben cirumvented: they figured out that the lower level lies under the upper level (well, obviously) so they used their Dungeneering skills to guess which rooms lay above each other. They then used the pit in the mimics room to dig through the floor which was a cool idea as the ceiling could only be a few inches thick (due to the pit). So it was a cakewalk through investigation and proper thinking, which I like most.
Deadliest encounters up to 3foe, when I ran this as AOW campaign.
Bombardier beetle, somehow managed to kill the party rogue in a terrible way, and he was covered in poison, aclehmical substances, he turned into a miniature half-goblin bomb, killing the beetle in the blast as well as two other party memebers! Setting the nests on fire, another party member choked on the smoke.
The rest dragged the dead and dying to safety.
The acid beetle swarm had given them a previous beating as the party fighter, was carrying a dead wolf, to be skinned later, he was encoumbered and suffered, and through some bad dice rolling and good rolls from the madslasher the party, where pretty beat up.
After gathering up some more rebscallions from diamond lake the party with replacements returned, to the cairn, and almost TPK to the water elemental as the full plate wearign cleric, thought it would be heroic to jump in the water and rescue a drowning companion, "nobody" rescued him, arrows and fire and other ranged malarky ensued, eventually the water elemental succumbed and died.
The party bolstered by thier win, but distrught at another two deaths, proceeded into the water and where set upon by the undead fellow, 2 more deaths and a retreat, left the party haggard and disheaterned.
I gave the party members that died to the ghast, the ability to come back as undead, from liber mortis, level advancement as ghouls! two of them took it, meeting up with the party, it was tense, and distrust became fairly rampant!
A nice nights rest in the lantern room and The seekers adventuring group turned up, after hearing rumours that the party had found treasure! A argument started, people drew weapons and a fight broke out! 20 odd rounds later, the seekers where all dead, one of the ghouls had turned on the party and fled, and of the 3 surviving out of 7 members 2, were blinded!
That was a fun adventure for sure. We ended it there as none were preapred to return to the whispering cairn and its almost certain death trap nature! no wonder the locals avoided the place!
My inital amusement, slowly turned to despiar and finally horror, after player after player succumbed!
|
Deadliest encounters? The group I'm running is only on the 3rd temple of 3FoE and we've had a 1/2 PK and and a (reset inducing)TPK.
The Temple of Hextor was vicious. The party dealt with the first line defenders fine (including the boar) but ran straight for the main temple. As they charged the temple, I did everything but put up a neon sign saying "this is a trap". In response, they buffed as much as possible before half the party ran into the temple proper. The other half hovered in hallway sniping at the defenders with spells and arrows. After three rounds of this, the high priest shut the doors, effectively cutting the party in half. By the time the rest of the party was able to force their way in, the fighter and druid were dead. (Of course, the fighter had the absolute worst dice rolls I've ever seen in a melee. He rolled 6, count them 6, natural 1's in a row.)
The caves with the grimlocks were no where near as bad, except for the final encounter. As the ex-fighter's new wizard found out, low hit points + enemy cleric's spiritual hammer = lots of time spent unconcious. Tied the cleric up too. He had to stand there healing the wizard to positive hit points every round, only to be knocked to negative hp later in the round. (He's up! Wham! Never mind.)
The maze proved to be a problem as well. When the highest PC search check is +3, finding DC 20 doors is mighty hard. The kenku with the necklace of fireballs made there life miserable as well.
For the final encounter, they chase the Faceless One and his appretices to the lab. Right outside the door, one of the PC's gets the idea to "hang outside the door for a few minutes until the bad guys buff spells where off". While they PC's stand outside the door loudly discussing this, the Faceless One lghtning bolts the half the party through the door (gave them the cover save bonus). After assessing the highly damaged party's chances, I hit the reset button (I know a TPK when I see one). We're going to pick up with a slightly retooled party.
Still, everyone has been enjoying the campaign's challenge so far. It's a new group for me to run for, so we still have a few kinks to work out. Still, having a fun bunch of players make it all worthwhile.