It hasn't happened yet for my group, however, I am already planning on being unfair. There are still several Sihedron rune amulets with the party. And I fully expect my players to keep them. ( mostly on cohorts now) At no point is Karzoug going to be suprised by the party. He will be prepared and will go first. Also, he will not be alone. Already he is aware of what my group is capable of and even though he is arrogant, he has earned his position and is by no means inexperienced. There will be lackies about.
I also do not use a 4 encounter day, so my group often resource poor by the time they get to a BBEG encounter. But, I am curious how others deal with this, cuz it still is a worry for me :P I do not cheat the dice...but I do load the deck.
Greg
Oh, don't feel bad. My part killed Karzoug at the top of round 2! They are a bit of an overpowered group but I was expecting at least one person to die in the combat. Problem was that my cleric managed to successfully dispel his Mind Blank and then I rolled a 2 Will Save against Feeble Mind that the wizard cast at the top of round 2. I found it all very hilarious actually. Sometimes parties just get the jump on a boss and if they do the fight is over. They tend to struggle with other combats though, generally with a large number of monsters.
So...In our group, we have a party of 4 level 17 characters, a Barbarian, a cleric, a Alchemist, and a sorcerer. And the party just one rounded Karzoug...I get this feeling I am missing something. Karzoug rolled a 2 on his init, and then he died before he could act...so the group has agreed to rewind and let me figure this out, but how is this right? what am I doing wrong? I'm factoring his SR and stuff, but still...Any ideas?
As written, he enounters the party by himself. As a frequent player of wizards, I would consider the situation a disaster were it to happen to me.
So, I am planning on beefing up the enounter by adding a few extra mobs. Such as adding three of Advanced Iron Golems to give him a couple more rounds of spells (and keep the entire party targeting him (with their entire resources) from the start) should even things up a bit.
This would also raise the EL back to the intended EL 21.
|
1. Your characters are level 17, as opposed to level 16 the adventure finale was written for.
2. Since RotRL was written for 3.5, Karzoug's CR should be treated as a level lower, so he is CR 20. Did you restat Karzoug to PF rules (which means giving him an extra level of something)
3. How come he died in 1 round? He should begin the encounter flying (no Wizard is dumb enough to stand on the ground in such situation). So, unless the party has some sick archer (and I doubt they have, seeing their lineup), what did happen?
3. How come he died in 1 round? He should begin the encounter flying (no Wizard is dumb enough to stand on the ground in such situation). So, unless the party has some sick archer (and I doubt they have, seeing their lineup), what did happen?
I still think that a wizard would want some kind of meat shield in this stituation (in addition to being airborne). "1-vs.-4" is still bad odds, even with his extra abilities and inside information on the heroes (via the medalions).
It hasn't happened yet for my group, however, I am already planning on being unfair. There are still several Sihedron rune amulets with the party. And I fully expect my players to keep them. ( mostly on cohorts now) At no point is Karzoug going to be suprised by the party. He will be prepared and will go first. Also, he will not be alone. Already he is aware of what my group is capable of and even though he is arrogant, he has earned his position and is by no means inexperienced. There will be lackies about.
Greg
When I got to this point I had the players spend the last hour of the night planning what they would do (at this point they had cleared out the spire). Since they had amulets I listened to all their plans and picked my spells and tactics between sessions accordingly. Also since he knew when they were coming he was fully buffed and ready to go. It ended up being an 7-8 round fight that was very fun)
As a side note this was right after the APG was out and I wasn't really allowing anything to be used yet. I did however pick spells for Karzoug from the APG so it made it seem like he had some ancient magics they didn't.
As a side note this was right after the APG was out and I wasn't really allowing anything to be used yet. I did however pick spells for Karzoug from the APG so it made it seem like he had some ancient magics they didn't.
We're just wrapping up Book 3 and I have given my players access to APG spell, but Karzoug will have spells from the "101 nth Level Spells" 3pp line. I think I remember seeing one that causes the target's heart to burst from his chest and fly to the hand of the caster if the save is failed.
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
How did they kill him? I'll be running that encounter soon and I'd like to plug some loopholes if possible.
I would be very, very careful with 3PP spells. Some of them look cool when you read them, but can be very under or over-powered.
Also, old K is a master of transmutation. I'd aim for spells that fit such theme.
This is the one I was thinking of. 7th L spell from Rite Publishing's 101_____Spells series:
This spell deals 3d6 points of Constitution damage on a failed saving throw. Upon a successful save the spell deals 1d4 points of Constitution damage and the target becomes immune to the same caster's heart clutch
spells for 24 hours. If the target is slain by this spell, its heart tears free from its body and leaps into the caster’s outstretched hand.
This spell from the same book sounds singularly appropriate for the Runelord of Greed:
Blood to Gold: Target suffers Constitution and fire damage each round as blood turns to gold.
This sort of thing happens sometimes, though.
In SSM, Xanesha rolled multiple critical fumbles and several of the characters (including the raging barbarian) roleed crits on the first turn. We're using the Paizo Crit Cards, so this got nasty real quick and Xanesha died in 10 rounds.
And in BO, the heroes bumped into the Sandpoint Devil when they were only level 3. They refused to reatreat and then a series of crits and fumbles ( and two turns in a row where my damage dice couldn't roll over a "2" per die)led them to (barely) survive and kill the beast.
I can imagine that if the campaign had contiued to adventure 6, even with buffing up K and adding some minions for him (the party has 6 characters) it would still be a bloodbath. The party has already gotten good at attacking flying enemies.
A trio or duo of advanced shield guardian iron golems packing empowered make whole spells that they cast on themselves when they are reduced below half hp should do nicely. Both have absorb half hp goodies up, so the first absorbs half of KZ's damage, the second absorbs half of the remaining half. These can be his own variant that does not obey the normal rule of only one shield other at a time. Aaahh, the benefits of being older than the local dirt.
Just a suggestion.
Ah, thank you for the welcome suggestion Turin. I will be keeping that in mind plus a couple of other tricks up my sleeve. I have nine players so I have to go beyond the normal buffing up of encounters to make things challenging for them.
Ah, thank you for the welcome suggestion Turin. I will be keeping that in mind plus a couple of other tricks up my sleeve. I have nine players so I have to go beyond the normal buffing up of encounters to make things challenging for them.
Wow, I cannot immagine how that is going. I have to regularly modify everything for my Party of Five, just using PF only.
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
Greg
A trio or duo of advanced shield guardian iron golems packing empowered make whole spells that they cast on themselves when they are reduced below half hp should do nicely. Both have absorb half hp goodies up, so the first absorbs half of KZ's damage, the second absorbs half of the remaining half. These can be his own variant that does not obey the normal rule of only one shield other at a time. Aaahh, the benefits of being older than the local dirt.
Just a suggestion.
And a very good one. I would also clad the shield guardians in +5 plate armor; maybe add amulet of nat. armor +3 and ring of protection +3. AC 48 makes them much more annoying to the party. They still don't hit hard enough to be more than an annoyance at 15th level, but if the party has problems hitting them it will delay their destruction a few rounds. If you want to be nasty, replace their breath weapon with Cloudkill (do multiple Cloudkill's stack?) - maybe maximized or empowered Cloudkill; Karzoug would fly above the cloud so it wouldn't harm him, although it's ...encourage... the whole party to fly up now and ignore the Shield Guardians, so that may backfire a bit. Although I believe there were ranged Iron Golems earlier in the AP, so these could have the same abilities.
I'd add some flying creatures to the encounter as well. Maybe not high CR - a dozen Gargoyles would be well enough as speed bumbs, but I fear a single fireball would kill them all. Still, something to keep anyone from fly-charging the BBEG would be a good idea.
It might also be a good idea to swap one of his Wish spells for Suffocation, Mass (APG). Since I believe he is short a feat or more for Pathfinder, Greater Spell Focus (Necromancy) would force DC31 Fort saves from everyone... right after they took Con damage from Cloudkill spells.
It will make for a very nasty fight, especially since it has the probability of knocking all full casters out of the combat in the first round, but it will make it memorable.
Cloudkills stack, they ignore SR and you can't use a necklace of adaptation nor greater spell immunity to shrug it off.
Cloudkills stack, they ignore SR and you can't use a necklace of adaptation nor greater spell immunity to shrug it off.Okay, that means a minimum of 4 CON loss a round while they are on the ground (3 Golem Cloudkills plus one from the flying wizard - more if any Cloudkill is enhanced); that's very deadly, but since they can fly above the cloud like BBEG or gain immunity to poisons by other means they can tackle the encounter .
Opinions?
Acid Fog and/or Solid Fog atop it helps a lot too (obscures sight and massive slow down), depending on how well it can be shaped to fit.
Ideally, the cloudkills are allowed to precipitate down through the nastier fogs. A well-timed greater rod of maximize paired with a time stop in back to back rounds can give the BBEG 10 rounds of prep time - as long as the fogs are not immediately doing bad stuff to the PCs, that gives sufficient time to start the hosing process.
Heck, if the iron golems are shield guardians, there "stored" 4th level spell can be solid fogs that are instructed to be cast immediately after the cloudkills. That would be a trifecta of cloudkills immediately followed by solid fogs. Mapping out the stored solid fog's size, each individual golem's fog may well result in the bottom 60' or so of the chamber becoming a massive "barrier" to the PCs.
Only a control wind or more powerful wind effect is going to quickly dispatch this barrier. Sure, they may be able to bypass it ... but then again, maybe not.
^_^ Especially with a high-DC repulsion from KZ "pinning" them within/beneath the fogs of doom. Blocked line of sight beyond 20' or less' greatly reduced speed; multiple sources of poison damage to CON; repulsion pinning the weaker-willed members within the soup; multiple spell effects to dispel (ideally, they're all overlapping the "arrival spot") - combine that with foreknowledge of arrival means that KZ can have ordered the cloudkill + solid fog combos from the golems to have already been emplaced - plus all the nastiness from 10 rounds of time stop (9 after firing off the repulsion) ... and that's just what's already up when they step into the room.
With KZ generally VERY happy to let the heroes come to him - and they having no easy way to tell where anything is - the golems (who may well conveniently be positioned around the arrival spot) start attempting to smoosh. Although after activating the dual fogs, their primary purpose at this point is to soak hp, so he really needs them to sit there and look like statues.
Perhaps KZ has "advanced" versions of the fog cutting lenses posessed by Mokmurian ... and he targets a maximized chain lighting (or whatever) with the "left over" secondary bolts aimed at various bits of gear - such as their own set of fog cutting lenses, armor and shields on the fighters and clerics, that kind of thing. 120 points of electricity is going to wreck an awful lot of gear ^_^ - and chain lightning specifically permits targeting objects AND creatures.
Another possibility is that the "flurry of fogs" doesn't get into play until AFTER he drops a disjunction followed by a rod-quickened maximized chain lightning. With most or all magic items temporarily suppressed, they maximized chain lighting will almost certainly lay waste to numerous items of gear.
This makes KZ the Dragon VERY dangerous - I like it! And it would be VERY easy to bump his CR up all of 1 point to pick up 2 levels of Loremaster to garner 21st level spell casting... plus the VERY nice bonus to the ability score array the dragon-KZ would get for acquiring the prestige class...
