Hello Everyone,
I am running my players through the end of Test of the Smoking Eye now. They are currently fighting the fire giant and the rakshasa. Does anyone have any tips or things to look out for in the remaining encounters?
Thanks,
Atavar
Hello Everyone,
I am running my players through the end of Test of the Smoking Eye now. They are currently fighting the fire giant and the rakshasa. Does anyone have any tips or things to look out for in the remaining encounters?
Thanks,
Atavar
My party dealt with that encounter pretty easily and even the stone golem ahead. Problem was the Lich heard the fight and started summoning, I guess I played him too smart, he summoned a bearded devil that checked things out and reported back. the lich then summoned a few more bearded devils and a couple dire wolves and set an ambush. I kept the lich in the hellfire or whatever its called, I also changed its contingency summon too an elemental instead of the xorn. I believe my party lost 2 to the ambush then turned there attention to the fire, the monk was talking a little trash and after a few rounds of seeing the party fight the lich new the monk could bypass its DR so the lich charged out and cast harm on the monk, he made his save but didn't have 80hp's so he died, the lich was swung on no major problems except for the swordsage sain, which the lich did a slay living on, he failed his save. now the party panicked and the last 2 escaped. So be carefull if some fights are seeming too easy don't make others too hard. Shoot I was already planning on Kauraphon doing a telekenesis on the low will save fighter in the final fight to hurl him into the plasma geyser to start that fight but we never got that far. so good luck.
My players didn't figure out the lich hiding in the unlife nexus (or whatever it was called), so I had Kaurophon point it out to them. After that, they breezed through the encounter. When they reached the final room, one of the players threw himself in the geyser first thing he did. This suited me fine, since it's the warlock of the gang. This effectively resolved the situation. =)
Our lich fight seemed to go on forever. The point of the summoner lich (according to the HC) was to give the party a bunch of easy foes to mow through, but it was just hard enough that everyone wasn't mowing through. Everyone was in danger from something, and there was just enough jeopardy that keeping track of everything was exhausting.
It probably didn't help that it was the last encounter of a 7 hour session, and the question had come up whether to quit or go for "just one more fight." The lich fight took 3 hours and we were all tired and cranky by the end of it.
That said, they eventually killed the lich by polymorphing the monk into a treeant, and he crushed the darn thing to dust in a grapple.
Both a slay living and a disintegrate did nothing much against the monk, but he was definitely in more danger than he knew while he was wrestling with the darn thing.
Oh, did I mention that grapple rules suck?
My party breezed through most of the last portion of Occipitus except for the "easy" Lich fight. Fiendish dire wolves kept tripping casters, and I had an air elemental pound guys from over head. Multiple monsters were a lot more dangerous for the party then the single ones. The funniest part for me that session was in the room with the vortex. Kaurophon easily overpowered most of the party with a blasphemy , and started to telekinesis people to the vortex, but I never actually threw them in . In a deus ex machina moment I said he had a change of heart because the party saved his life a few times during the past week, and he plane shifted away. After that, the party started to fight amongst themselves to see who would get tossed into the vortex. In the end , no one got tossed into the pit against their will ( though the gnome tried heh) , and they started this long discussion on who is the least useful to the group. About 20 minutes into this amusing discussion, the wizard said to hell with it and jumped in, therefore getting the smoking eye template. The arcane archer who witnessed this said, "cool" and jumped in as well....getting a new character! Oh well, the party needed another healer anyways heh.
Heh. IMC Kaurophon also got everyone with a blasphemy then tried to throw the halfling rogue in. The only problem was the paralyzed paladin was between the rogue and the plasma, so he had to take one round to throw the rogue a little to the right, THEN throw him into the plasma.
That was enough for the higher level party members to recover and begin counterattacking.
The paladin had planned to throw himself in all along, but decided to take his armor off first. It was good armor, and he figured "some future fighter who may join the party" might have needed it.
He never recovered from the blasphemy (he was the lowest level party member), and in the end, the bard said, "I'm doing this to give YOU rule of Occipitus!" to the cleric and threw himself in.
Of course, he got the smoking eye.
Hi,
while looking for tips about the upcoming visit to Occipitus with my group, I realized, that there might be a really bad situation coming up. What would you do, if a player is a bit unhappy with his character and sees the final test as the perfect opportunity to role-play his character's death (in order to start a new one back in Cauldron) just to suddenly become the key figure to the whole AP, who can't die anymore...
If this happens, I'm hoping that the new twist will make the character a lot more interesting to play, but what if not...
Cheers,
Nib
I thought about it. The PCs are about to play the Test of Sacrifice next Wednesday and I think I'd allow the one(s) who take the Test to reshape their characters class- and abilities-wise. Sort of extensive retraining as per PHB II rules.
Bran
Hi,
while looking for tips about the upcoming visit to Occipitus with my group, I realized, that there might be a really bad situation coming up. What would you do, if a player is a bit unhappy with his character and sees the final test as the perfect opportunity to role-play his character's death (in order to start a new one back in Cauldron) just to suddenly become the key figure to the whole AP, who can't die anymore...
If this happens, I'm hoping that the new twist will make the character a lot more interesting to play, but what if not...
Cheers,
Nib
The player who gets the Smoking Eye could also be shifted to an NPC, I suppose.
while looking for tips about the upcoming visit to Occipitus with my group, I realized, that there might be a really bad situation coming up. What would you do, if a player is a bit unhappy with his character and sees the final test as the perfect opportunity to role-play his character's death (in order to start a new one back in Cauldron) just to suddenly become the key figure to the whole AP, who can't die anymore...If this happens, I'm hoping that the new twist will make the character a lot more interesting to play, but what if not...
Actually that's what happened IMC. The player had been b@%@+ing that bards suck, so by jumping into the plasma he was hoping to suicide and roll new.
During his recent jaunt to Celestia he tried to give the smoking eye to Nidrama, only to be told, "You are the key. All hope rests on you." Becoming the key twigged with Cagewrights for him, and he now figures he's the only one who can open whatever cage the Cagewrights are making. That seemed cool to him. She also gave him a staff of abjuration which helped immensely during the battle of Redgorge, suddenly gave the player something to do during battles, and will result in her being expelled from Celestia and joining the party.
Now he's looking at a prestige class that will allow his bard to become more sorcerer-ey.
Now he's looking at a prestige class that will allow his bard to become more sorcerer-ey.
I recommend the Sublime Chord (Complete Arcane), though it has some hefty skill prerequisites. (K Arcana 13 ranks, K Spellcraft 6, Perform 10, Prof Astrologer 6, Listen 13 ranks)
It's pretty much THE PrC for Bards looking to be a little more spell-oriented and de-emphasizes the combat side of things. Specifically, it allows spell progression up to 9th lvl spells, with a wizard's BAB, half-progression for bard song, 4SP/lvl, and maintains the ability to cast in light armor without an arcane spell failure chance.
Hope that helps,
Olodrin
I'm glad to hear that other DM's had a pretty good guess about who they think will jump. I am pretty sure I know who and I think they will be dissatisified with the results (slower experience gain than the rest of the party, despite the gains from the template). Anybody run into that problem?
Dedekind
I removed the lich from the final section of encounters, as Yet Another Encounter With Random Evil Guys (as my party puts it) would have disrupted the flow of the final scene. After all, when your Shou swordsage is chasing after an invisible rakshasa, who wants to interrupt the hilarity of watching him be crushed to death by a berserk clay golem with a little thing like a lich who summons a metric ton of critters? :)
On a more serious note, If played well, Kaurophon can be a difficult fight for a party. Even my perpetually-suspicious players, who knew Kaurophon (or "Taint" as they nicknamed him) was up to /something/, didn't expect him to turn invisible as the proctor announced the final Test, nor did they expect the blasphemy to return the duskblade and the pious templar cohort to the Material Plane. :)
I suppose it didn't help that they allowed Kaurophon to animate the now-dead swordsage to make it easier to move around. It was amusing watching the skeleton of a party member disrupt all of the cleric's spellcasting...almost as amusing as when the cleric grappled Kaurophon and threw him into the flame. I know I laughed until I cried when I described the cleric's eye bursting into flames and the proctor announcing that she had passed the test - and when she realized she couldn't cast spells anymore. :)
If you keep the lich in it, have the summoned creatures written up ahead of time, otherwise you'll go crazy trying to keep track of it all. Play Kaurophon smart, and let him use up his items before casting spells; this way, he has most of his arsenal ready to combat the PCs. Remember his fiendish abilities, and try to keep him away from melee combat with the players. Do that, and it should be a challenging fight.
Kaurophon was a tough fight for my party. Turns out that invisibility + 2xcone of cold = Dead PCs.
I played Kaurophon as using Telekinesis to try pushing the nearest player in. That worked on one, until they got wise.
... which (playing rules lawyer here) shouldn't have happened. Blasphemy can dismiss creatures only if the caster is on his own plane. Since Kaurophon is "of the lower planes", but not necessarily from Occipitus, or even from the Abyss, in my campaign he didn't have the power to dismiss party members by means of blasphemy.
Cheers,
Nib
I will counter your rules lawyer-fu by extrapolating on my version of Kaurophon. He is, in fact, from Occipitus, which is why he is so eager to take control of the plane. :)
Dedekind, I did much the same, which is what triggered the cleric in my group doing unto him as he tried to do unto the party.
Now he's looking at a prestige class that will allow his bard to become more sorcerer-ey.
Exalted Arcanist (Book of Exalted Deeds), Fatespinner, Mindbender, Seeker of the Song, and Sublime Chord (Complete Arcane) are all decent choices.
Ha. Our sorcerer considered sacrificing his chameleon to the flames until his chameleon (me, the DM) told him he could go **** himself. I would have let it work, but I wanted the sorcerer to know it would have been an act performed against an unwilling victim - i.e. evil.
On a side note, my CG dwarf was willing to be sacrificed but only by the NG cleric of Pelor and LG monk, not by the CN rogue, who was more than willing to toss him in. They buffed the dwarf up so high that he didn't die when they tossed him through but landed burnt and battered on the other side. I decided that it was the act that counted, not the result and my cleric and monk got the SE template. All three, however, took penalties until they resolve an individualized divine quest. (that was my way of fixing the fact that they weren't tied closely enough to Cauldron - now they are basically forced to start interacted with the citizens more and hopefully develop an emotional attachment.)