Oh, yeah. The whole Xanesha combat is a complete world of difference in the two books as well, mainly because of a significantly-lowered AC.
I still killed a PC with the AE Xanesha. I was happy.
The recent release of the Demon Hunter’s Handbook has given ranged attackers a new option for dealing with DR-equipped opponents like Erylium. That said, at 10gp a shot I don’t know how many PCs at that level are going to have the finances or nouse to invest in angel-quill arrowheads, even if they realise what they’ll be facing. :-S
@Mister Bushido, haha that's even funnier than when I fought her.
My Erylium encounter actually went comparatively well.
I was dealing with a few more players than expected (I think it might have been 5 or 6), so I upped the sinspawn numbers a bit. That, combined with Erylium summoning a couple of extra obstacles, made sure that she was able to keep her distance very effectively. One of the sinspawn scored a crit on the party rogue while the party barbarian was restrained via hold person and the rogue went into negatives, so things were looking pretty grim for a while there. Enough that the group were debating turning tail and running. But after the rogue died and the barbarian busted out of her will save they finally managed to get through the front lines and pin Erylium down with a series of jumping power attacks from the fountain. Once they surrounded her, a couple of swings from the barbarian's earthbreaker suddenly made very short work of her damage reduction. Sure, she's a pain in the ass when she's prepared, but get her cornered and she's really got no answers.
The party still hasn't buried the thief. Right after the fight was finished, they turned around and barred the doors to prevent any more sinspawn from crawling out.
Epic fight, part 1
Party (all lvl 2, rolled stats ~30 point-buy):
cleric of Sarenrae, fighter, rouge (scout), alchemist, ranger (switch hitter)
I added another sinspawn to the encounter (since the group steamrolled the rest of the complex and I had them both ready at the start of the encounter) and 1 mythic rank to Erylium (Archmage path: wild arcana as archmage arcana, Arcane Endurance, mythic Weapon Finesse).
The cathedral with the minor runewell is 40 feet high in my game to add to the grandeur of the room and have spooky shadows playing on the ceiling which is supported by rib cage-like beams similar to what you have in gothic cathedrals.
Enter the PCs. 2 were equipped with lanterns, ranger (half-orc) has darkvision, fighter had a light cast on his guisearme.
Erylium turns invisible when she hears the doors opening and flies upwards to hide in the shadows.
Next round after spotting the PCs she starts casting SM II. 3 PCs pass their Perception check and realize somebody flying/hovering near the ceiling is casting and its SM. All ready themselves for combat, but no buffing takes place. The sinspawn move down the stairs to engage in melee combat.
Next round a small fire elemental appears behind the cleric, sinspawn in melee, one engages the rogue, the other moves onward to the fighter.
Erylium casts hold person on the fighter, he fails his save, Erylium becomes visible.
Gasps by the players: a DEVIL!
During the whole fight nobody inquired further about the monster (type) and no Knowledge checks were rolled, being all experienced players I left it at that.
The sinspawn is quickly dealt with but not before being able to affect the rogue with their sinful bite.
Meanwhile, Erylium casts SM I and a dire rat engages the alchmist--keeping him and the fighter busy for 3 rounds!
She stays visible for the remaining fight.
Erylium moves and starts hovering above the spiky well in the middle of the room to cast cause fear. Everybody saves. One round later she fails her ranged attack to affect the fighter with ray of enfeeblement.
Finally uses her hex of sleep and the rogue and ranger drop to the ground.
After running out of spells, she starts to attack by throwing her dagger--with mythic Weapon Finesse this still hurts! This phase of the encounter is opened by a crit against the alchemist who decides to leave the room (3 hp remaining) and closes to double doors and taking her dagger with him!
Half the PCs had decided to investigate the trinangular (minor rune) well atop the dias while the other half pelts the DEVIL with arrows. Since they did not invest in special ammo DR and fh take care of that.
Erylium, being annoyed by the leave of the alchemist, turns invisible, flies towards the double doors and transforms into a centipede. She manages to wiggle her way through a crack under/between the double doors and pops visible behind the alchemist who still holds the doors shut.
I described the minor rune well as having a triangular metal lining inscribed with runes and being filled with a translucent, highly viscous liquid, giving off an orange-red light and looking similar to lava. On its bottom a rune (of wrath) was visible, but the depth of the well was unfathomable. The ranger decides to attack the well/the rune with his falchion without realizing that the well is water-filled and deep. I decided for a DEX check to counter-balance the force put behind the swing--he fails it and plunges into the well, saves though.
Then the group rushes to the doors where Erylium is busy getting her dagger back (I ruled it would still try to fly back to her but stopped stuck and quivering in the double doors [forgot they were made out of stone...]).
The ranger attacks her with a lasso and successfully entangles her. She can't break free and is pulled towards him the next round. Victory! or so the PCs thought... The fighter grapples her next round but is then dazed by Erylium (CL check with nat 20 ), the bomb thrown by the alchemist is a natural 1 and damages the fighter...
Some damage is dealt to her, nothing serious. She cuts the lasso and flies up.
Next round she goes first (we roll initiative each round anew) and turns invisible, moving back into the cathedral.
PCs retreat as well.
They leveled up to level 3 and plan to report back to Kendra and will return the next day (or so it is planned...).
Ruyan.
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So, I ran this encounter yesterday. Here's what happened:
The party punked the sinpsawn easily. The paladin had not used his Smite Evil ability yet, so he activated it for this fight. The rogue kept shooting Eyrlium with a crossbow, but either did no damage, or minimal damage, which was generally healed quickly.
So, the druid (who has a velociraptor as an animal companion) decided to spontaneously cast "Summon Nature's Ally" to summon a stirge. The stirge attached, and began drinking constitution. He summoned them 3 rounds in a row - 3 stirges, and then as one wind wink out, another took its place.
A few rounds of Con damage, reduced Erylium's maximum hit points low enough that she new she couldn't survive.
The paladin threw his morning star at her, and hit, taking her to 0 hit points. So, on her turn, her fast healing got her to 1 hit point, she turned invisible and fled. I decided against having her come back until the con damage is healed, so they'll see her at Thistletop!
I had a LOT of fun running this encounter.
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Yes, it didn't help Erylium in the least that the paladin couldn't roll under a 17, and turned her into a pincushion. Then took the dress and had it made into a monogrammed hankie.Y'know that means your paladin stripped a tiny dead female demon naked? I am surprised he hasn't fallen! :D
So in your game, paladins aren't allowed to loot defeated foes? Makes for a very, VERY different game than the APs intend. And I know of not a single paladin credo in Pathfinder that includes "do not loot the dead".
I know it was meant tongue-in-cheek, but even tongue-in-cheek, those are the kinds of comments that convince people never to play paladins at all.(Btw, I am still at a loss at to why in Pathfinder, demons and devils don't just "respawn" on their home plane when killed on the Material plane... it gave them an extra threat level, you can kill or banish them but they will be back for a vengeance -sometimes on your ancestors, 100 years later)
They split that up into "summoned" creatures who DO return to their plane of origin, and "called" creatures who don't, but instead are permanently dead. With that change, I agree I'd like to see Summons that lasted more than a few rounds, and FAR more hesitation on the part of called creatures to do anything remotely dangerous.
Having a paladin was also a huge difference. With 2 points of fast healing, at-will invisibility, and DR 5, I can see a group taking forever to whittle away her hit points, only to watch her vanish and come back later. The smite evil/composite bow/high rolls combo was just too much for her quick healing to keep up with, and the paladin rolled max damage on the final shot, so she never got a chance to turn invisible and flee.So, smite can work with bows too? That's... not very noble or paladin-like. Bravely shooting evil in the back! :D
At this point, smiley or not, you're trolling. In the PRD paladins are proficient will all simple and martial weapons, bows included, and Ultimate Combat even introduces a paladin archetype whose primary weapon is the bow. To disallow paladins from using bows is just... wow.
But to answer the technical question, yes, Smite works through bows. And she shot her in the chest, not in the back.I often bring up the topic that with the concept of DR, a sickly 90-year-old beggar could eventually poke a sleeping ancient red dragon to death with a cane, since he is bound to roll a 20 every now and then and do enough damage to go over the DR10... :D
A 90-year-old beggar with a cane does at most 1d6 if you treat the cane as a club. At venerable age, he's -3 to STR, so he's doing 1d6-2. Even on two consecutive 20's, he's doing 2d6-4, maxing out at 8 points of damage, never waking the dragon.
I agree DR is flawed, and I prefer immunity in certain cases (lycanthrope). DR works well at lower levels, but by 5th or 6th level run-of-the-mill fighters and barbarians cut through it as if it doesn't exist. A mix would be nicer: Some creatures have immunity to physical damage except to certain weapon types, others have DR. (Fey is a good example: DR/cold iron fits my classic notion of fey.)
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Dang it Dragon!! Gimme back my Teeth!!
You know Mrs McGregor won't give me no Whiskey shillin's if'n I can't give her a smile ta brighten up her day
Surprisingly thats the closest I have to a 90 year old beggar, I might remedy that later, we'll see :-)
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Surprisingly thats the closest I have to a 90 year old beggar, I might remedy that later, we'll see :-)
If you're talking avatars, I'm afraid I like the chameleon better as a "90-year-old beggar". Just stare at those beady, independently-moving eyes, and imagine hearing, "Get out of my onions, you young whippersnappers!" and you'll see. Even the little beard thingy is perfect. (And that's a technical biological term, you know.)
If you're talking about your impression, er... well... I think all you need is a bit of aging and you'll do just fine!
I have a friend whose life goal is to buy a wretched house in Fresno, salt the front yard so it's nothing but hard-packed dirt, rototill it every month or two, put up wooden signs that say, "Onions", sit in his rocking chair on the porch, and yell at kids to get out of his onions.
I don't have the heart to point out:
(1) He'd be in Fresno,
(2) What kid in his or her right mind would walk down the street in Fresno?
(3) He'd be in Fresno.
My favorite part about that argument is the assumption that the Dragon will let the 90 year old beggar beat him with his cane long enough to kill it
Seriously what Dragon does this:-D
The eyes are the direct result of parental evolution of all around vision, the rest I suspect might have more to do with the Oscar-Meyer plant across the lake, we'll see what the courts decide :-D
Edit: fixed it, i did make an avatar for it, couldn't hold out any longer, i might have a problem:-)
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At this point you've just taken us into, "Chris is going to yell at us and delete our posts" territory.
I'm going to go hide.
I assure you my boy, I haven't even begun to derail this thread :-)
edit: 53 aliases, only 68 more to pass Orthos:-)
Hulk smash Tiny Demon with big Club....
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The thing about summoned things gave me a mental picture of an Angel Farmer tending his Celestial Goats, when one occasionally disappears for 18-30 seconds then reappears bruised with singed fur :-)
Why yes my party loves summoning celestial farm animals:-)
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Ahem.
Back to the topic of the thread...
In my Runelords PbP, the combat is technically still going on, but the party is pretty close to winning.
The party consists of five second-level characters: Fighter (sword & shield), Rogue (no archetype, but archery-focused), Oracle of Flame, Sorcerer (arcane bloodline, enchantment/pattern focused), and an aasimar (gnome stock) druid of Gozreh. All of them are pretty much generalists, and none have any weird ability combos.
The fight is currently in Round 15, and will probably keep going another few rounds.
In my version, I had 10-foot-tall stone double doors separate the Cathedral of Wrath from the Shrine to Lamashtu, locked with a Superior lock (DC 40 Disable Device to open.) That's pretty much beyond the capabilities of a level-2 party, because I wanted the fight with Eryllium to be the the boss fight of the Catacombs. A set of keys to all locks in the complex could be found floating in the Meditation Chamber; Eryllium herself had a duplicate set.
Anyway, the party took their time checking the doors for traps, and Eryllium noticed them there-- and that they weren't using the "secret knock" that she had previously established with Nualia and Tsuto.
I decided that the Cathedral of Wrath would be lit with four continual flame orbs suspended from the ceiling on chains, so that the party could observe what the quasit was up to.
Also: the party had been warned via Tsuto's journal that there was a quasit down there, and they had also gone shopping. But none of them thought to buy cold iron weapons.
Round 2: The demon became invisible, and a sinspawn erupted from the summoning pool, attacking the druid. The PCs then focused their attention on the sinspawn.
Round 3: The quasit began casting summon monster II, intending to summon a fiendish giant centipede. Since she was making noise while casting, I let the PCs pinpoint her square with a DC 20 Perception check. Both the rogue and fighter pinpointed her, firing an arrow and crossbow bolt, and both successfully hit their targets, but neither weapon penetrated her DR 10. The rest of the party dropped the sinspawn.
Round 4: The quasit's summon monster went off, and a centipede appeared adjacent to the sorcerer. The two would fight in melee combat for the next few rounds, with the sorcerer using the wand of shocking grasp recovered from the Meditation Chamber. At the same time, the quasit cast hold person on the fighter, who failed his save. The party then attacked the now-visible quasit. Everyone blew their Knowledge (planes) checks, and no one knew that the demon was resistant to fire. Both the oracle and the druid wasted fire spells on her that couldn't get through her energy resistance.
Round 5: The quasit cut herself again, causing the summoning pool to bubble violently again. That's when the magic of the runewell began to diminish. (On subsequent attempts to use the runewell, I was going to have it create a fleshdreg twice, then a fleshdreg swarm before running out of Wrath Points.) The fighter remained paralyzed. The druid then started to cast summon nature's ally i to bring in a celestial eagle. [Note: At the time, both the player and I confused summon monster with summon nature's ally. The eagle shouldn't have had the celestial template, but it turned out to be the only truly effective attack they had; I just let it go when I realized this a day later.]
Round 6: Another sinspawn rose out of the summoning pool, biting the oracle and causing her to succumb to its sinful bite. The summoned centipede also bit the sorceress, poisoning her. The fighter finally saved vs. the hold person. The demon then became invisible while the rogue and oracle fought the second sinspawn.
Round 7: The quasit began casting summon monster i as the druid's summoned celestial eagle appeared. The eagle made its DC 20 Perception check, and attacked the quasit, hitting it rather severely. Since it had the celestial template, its natural attacks bypassed the quasit's DR. The quasit lost its spell while defending itself.
Round 8: The quasit fought the celestial eagle with its natural attacks, doing all of 3 hp damage. The eagle did considerable damage to the quasit, but then disappeared at the end of the round. The rest of the party dispatched both the sinspawn and the fiendish centipede.
Round 9: The demon used its Misfortune hex on the druid, but he saved. The sorceress hit the quasit with color spray, stunning it for 1 round, while the rest of the party missed.
Round 10: The rogue hit the stunned demon with a crit, plus sneak attack, and the demon went below 10 hp for the first time. (Alas, that would be as low as its hp would go.) Everyone else's attacks failed to penetrate her DR or energy resistance.
Round 11: The demon used her cause fear spell-like ability, and the fighter and sorceress both failed their saves, running out of the room. The druid cast some healing and the oracle climbed the pulpit to get a better angle on the quasit.
Round 12: Eryllium used her fetish to cast touch of fatigue on the oracle at range, but the oracle made her saving throw. The sorceress shook off the fear effect and returned to the room, but the fighter kept running. The druid cast more healing, and the rogue continued to hit her with arrows that failed to bypass her DR.
Round 13: Out of spells, I decided that hexing the PCs would only serve to prolong this fight, so I had her throw her returning dagger. She missed. The sorceress hit her with color spray again, stunning the demon again while it was hovering over the summoning pool. The oracle then decided to take a running jump at the demon, intending to grab it out of the air and drown it in the pool! She rolled a 24 on her Acrobatics check, and successfully grappled the stunned demon, and the two fell into the five-foot-deep summoning pool! I decided that the pool was so cold that it would do 1d3 nonlethal cold damage per round. I also decided that a stunned creature would not be able to hold its breath before being submerged, so it would have to start making Con checks immediately.
Round 14: The demon wakes up, and tries to escape the pin, but the oracle holds fast. The druid also enters the pool to assist the grapple; and the rogue does too, stabbing the demon with a sneak attack. The quasit makes its Con check.
Round 15: The demon fails to escape the pin, but makes its Con check. The rogue sneak attacks again but doesn't get past its DR. The oracle holds fast. The fighter gets to the edge of the pool, intending to attack the quasit with his masterwork mithril ranseur (from the statue of Alaznist) next round.
At this point, the quasit is probably dead, but I want to keep playing it out to see what happens.
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Ahem.
Back to the topic of the thread...
In my Runelords PbP, the combat is technically still going on, but the party is pretty close to winning.
The party consists of five second-level characters: Fighter (sword & shield), Rogue (no archetype, but archery-focused), Oracle of Flame, Sorcerer (arcane bloodline, enchantment/pattern focused), and an aasimar (gnome stock) druid of Gozreh. All of them are pretty much generalists, and none have any weird ability combos.
The fight is currently in Round 15, and will probably keep going another few rounds.
** spoiler omitted **
Wow... now THAT is an absolutely classic Erylium fight! You could script that one up as, "How it's supposed to run."
I'm still consistently surprised at the sheer number of groups in this thread that read the note, note that there's a quasit down there, do no research, and get no cold iron. (My group was the same, but it wasn't as catastrophic a failure because of the paladin.)
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My group didn't do any research either and they're very experienced. And I think that history may have been part of the problem - they assumed a quasit would be a familiar or minion. And it would be the quasit's master they would have to deal with. It never occurred to them that the quasit would be the BBEG. Tsuto's journal suggests the opposite but I think many groups might not read it that way.
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Both my groups had problems with the quasit.
The only thing that really saved the first group was having a Paladin along, plus the archery-focused Oracle had the Magic Weapon spell. Although they were forced to retreat, they had done enough damage (and she had depleted the runewell) that she decided to retreat to Thistletop where she made their lives hell on Golarion. (Nualia assisted by a flying, invisible, stealthy sentry/scout = trouble.) Eventually they cornered her in a small room in Thistletop, and while one PC tossed flour in the air to negate her invisibility a bit (not a perfect solution, but I ruled that it was good enough), the Oracle readied her cold iron arrows.
The second group had been forced to retreat from the Catacombs of Wrath in search of a Cure Disease scroll (the vargouille had managed to bite the ratatosk Druid), but had made enough noise that Erylium arranged to get the zombies out of their pits in order to bolster her forces in the actual temple. That party was forced to attack the temple three times before they managed to kill the quasit. (As they didn't do enough damage to her forces the first two times, she was not inclined to flee yet to Thistletop.) It didn't help that the primary damage dealer - the Barbarian - succumbed to her Fear spell _each time_ on all three visits. (IIRC, the player took a Flaw or Drawback which gave his PC a penalty to saves vs. mind-affecting effects. I freely admit that I cackled mentally when I first saw the build.)
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Dang it Dragon!! Gimme back my Teeth!!
You know Mrs McGregor won't give me no Whiskey shillin's if'n I can't give her a smile ta brighten up her day
LOL! Now I have done it and awakaned the beggar! Sorry! :D
Oh, geez! Don't encourage the man! He'll just make 3 more aliases in his neverending quest to catch up with Orthos!
And yeah, I was just kidding about that, still unless she was wearing teeny-tiny underwear, I'd think the paladin would have to proclaim that his faith doesn't allow him to see naked demons and ask the rogue to loot Erylium's body while he turns away bashfully. :D (Kidding)
I tried to subtly use "she" in the previous post, but I'll be more explicit -- it was a female paladin.
I meant it more for the "style" of the game, not the actual mechanics. I do know paladins are allowed to use ranged weapons. I just feel it fits them better to be the front-line fighters (and yes, if a player wants to play them like that) sometimes even sticking to melee due to "honor" because of their beliefs, even if it's stupid.
Here we can agree to disagree. If I had a player who told me he/she was going to play a paladin, and would NEVER use ranged weapons because of his/her code, I would ask the player to please consider a different class. Ranged combat is so critical in many APs, and in the Erylium encounter in particular, I feel hamstringing yourself for roleplaying purposes is doing a severe disservice to the other members of your party.
But it's a friendly disagreement.
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I dunno he seems like a good guy to work for, pays well, gives me nice red shirts with big black circles, super generous retirement plan, always let's me go firs....
... Casual Fridays, signing bonus after 30 days, always gets the door for you... wait.. is..is that fresh bloo...
I'm prepping a Gestalt RotR campaign. In trying to convert Erylium (I lack the anniversary edition) I couldn't find thaumaturge stats *anywhere*; not even in D&D 3.5 wikis. So I made her a Witch/Summoner. I like the idea of the Bouda Witch archetype that Haladir used, so I'll probably integrate that.
I'm a little concerned the Demon Eidolon I put together will make the fight too tough, BUT the Eidolon won't have the same resistances and stealth that she does, so although she can be an HP battery for it to a small degree, their own Gestalt abilities should probably make up for it.
AE Erylium is a quasit Witch 3 (Shadow patron), with a wren familiar/spellbook.
I meant it more for the "style" of the game, not the actual mechanics. I do know paladins are allowed to use ranged weapons. I just feel it fits them better to be the front-line fighters (and yes, if a player wants to play them like that) sometimes even sticking to melee due to "honor" because of their beliefs, even if it's stupid.
But that's because you are restricting yourself to the JRR Tolkien/Camelot/Dragonlance paradigm, where halflings are rogues, dwarves use axes, and elves are rangers with a bow. Also, the whole "we only fight in melee because bows/crossbows are not honorable" is something that is explicitly used in real world christian european middle age. Any paladin in, say, Feudal Japan, would use the bow, because that's what samurais do, fight with bow, horse and sword. Although we don't have a real world comparison, I'm pretty sure that elven paladins from elvish nations would also use bows, especially paladins of Erastil.
There's a whole serie of books, The Dark Tower of Stephen King, where the paladin is a gun fighter from a "order" of gunslinging paladins. Pathfinder even have the proper archetype to play him, the Holy Gun.
In short, *LANCELOT* wouldn't use a bow, I guess. But Lancelot is NOT the only paladin out there.
My group had a hell of a time defeating Erylium; it took three tries (each consuming most of a session) and one PC death before they finally managed a win. Up until encountering her, they had steamrolled through all of the opposition, so she was a bit of a rude awakening!
In the first session, the PCs encountered the catacombs, made short work of the first sinspawn guard, and found their way directly to the cathedral. Erylium did her schtick and summoned another sinspawn, but it didn't last long. Like almost everyone else in this thread, the resulting battle between Erylium and the group was long and frustrating. Her flight+invisibility+DR+fast healing meant they could not deal enough consistent damage to kill her, but she had no direct damage spells and a 1d2 dagger wasn't going to get it done. After the party's wizard used the pool to summon a sinspawn (thinking he could control it!) and it knocked him to negatives (though he stabilized on his own), Erylium threatened to kill him unless the PCs fled. They refused, so she used Bleed to reopen his wounds. The character again made a stabilization check, so a couple of rounds later Erylium appear with a knife to the helpless fellow's throat, again threatening to kill him unless the others left her "empire" alone. I think the other players either forgot or didn't know about coups de grace, because they didn't take the threat seriously. I rolled the crit damage on the dagger (2!), which wasn't enough to kill the character, but he failed the DC 12 Fort save and died. The party's brawler then did the smart thing and caught Erylium in a grapple; they managed to get her down to (literally) 1 hp before she finally succeeded on the difficult check to escape the grapple. She flew away invisibly, shouting for help from her minions. The group retreated to the basement of the Glassworks for a couple of hours and then went back in.
The second session had them lured by Erylium into fighting the two sinspawn in the ancient prison and then Koruvus, but the party had little trouble with them (Koruvus barely got an attack off!). Erylium fled to the room with the zombie pits and cunningly used her Slumber hex to make the party's oracle fall asleep, and she then pushed the oracle into a pit! The oracle barely managed to climb out alive. Once again, a long, frustrating battle almost ended when Erylium was grappled by the brawler. This time, she was down to something like 6 hp when she managed to break free, took a 5' step to fall into a pit, and then survived the zombie attack to turn invisible and escape again.
The third and final battle saw the group retreat to Sandpoint for a few days of healing and some research into quasits which led them to realize cold iron weapons were needed. When they stormed into the cathedral again, Erylium had her full complement of spells back. She tricked the party's bloodrager (the replacement for the dead wizard) into immersing himself into the runewell and turning on his allies; he had to be put down by the party's ranger, but lived. After about 20 rounds of combat, the brawler finally got in position for another grapple, and this time, he held on long enough for the ranger's cold iron greatsword to finish Erylium off.
I've played a lot of Pathfinder & D&D, and I've never had an enemy pester and frustrate the party as much as Erylium did! The main issue, obviously, is she has little damage output but suffers little damage, and spending almost three full sessions fighting her was a speedbump. Fortunately, she's dead and now the campaign can get back on track.
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So since I'm not good at after action reports, here is the short version:
First encounter: Most of the party can't even reach her while she is flying, the ranged weapons people either miss or don't do enough damage because of DR. They eventually figure out how to shut off runewell(since she run out of spells and that tiny dagger wasn't really dangerous for them) and she escapes swearing off revenge.
Second encounter: At Thistletop during weekly Lamashtu ceremony with EVERYONE in Thistletop in the altar room: The party threw stinking cloud from wand into the room and she was nauseated for most of the fight and then escaped once Nualia died.
Third encounter: At Turandarok Academy's basement with attic whisperer. Party ended up trapping her in a jar.
Now they carry her with them for funzies. She ended up taunting them about Black Magga only to be disappointed that (since party realized someone is trying to break the dam before Black Magga arrived) Magga didn't bother taking care of them after feeding on ogre/trolls they threw over the dam.
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I'm running this campaign as a first time GM for Pathfinder for a group of first time players of anything and they just defeated Erylium last night on their 2nd attempt. The party had just hit level 3 and consisted of an Elvish Evocation Wizard, Gnomish Druid and her panther pet, and a half-Elvish Magus.
On her turn she did the sinspawn thing. The wizard hit her with his force missile doing normal damage. She started summoning a monster but got hit again with a force missile and lost the spell. By now the panther was on her and managed to knock her down with a bite attack. She went invisible. The druid summoned a swarm to fight the sinspawn and the magus broke free from his spell. About this time they decided to roll to see what they knew about quasits and the wizard rolled very high so they learned about all her resistances and then got upset because they had nothing that could hurt her (besides force missile). She reappeared and tried to fear the magus but he saved. The wizard ran up and tried to color spray her but she saved. She got pinned again disappeared. The sinspawn was killed by the swarm then chased after the wizard for the next 2 rounds. Erylium reappeared and tried to cast another summon monster but the magus hit the wall next to her with a thunderstone and rolled high enough that it actually knocked her to the ground. They all rushed her but she went invisible and ran away. It took a couple of rounds for them to realize it and by then it was late and we had to end the game which everyone was disappointed and frustrated about.
The next game I thought they were going to leave to rest so I had planned on Erylium getting mad, making one more sinspawn and using it to get the zombies out of the pits then using the Water of Lamashtu to mutate a couple of them to fast/plague zombies. However the party sealed the door when they left and took the key, then told guards at the Glassworks that there was an invisible bat demon in the tunnels so watch out which caused the guards to super barricade the door. So instead of her having a small army of zombies to fight she got frustrated and went to sleep in the meditation chamber.
Meanwhile the party rested, the druid prepared fairy fire, they bought some fishing nets, and then talked to Das Korvut about cold iron weapons. He happened to have some bolts available from a few years ago when a crazy noble decided to go on a fae hunt. He sold these at a huge markup. He also had some scrap cold iron pellets he gave them. He had enough cold iron to make a weapon but he wanted them to help him find his son's body (Chopper's Isle sidequest). They took the ammo and did the sidequest later.
So this time when they found Erylium asleep in the Meditation Chamber, she really didn't have a chance. First thing they did was net her, then hit her with color spray and fairy fire. The wizard had to go into the room to use color spray so he got to do some fun Ender's Game maneuvers. The Magus pulled her in with the net and hit her with a critical with his magic sword. She woke up and cut her way out of the net but the wizard threw his net and got her with it. They all got some hits in but finally the magus finished her off with a point blank magic missle and sword thrust combo. Afterwards they tried cutting off her head with a sickle but then realized they couldn't and used her dagger to do it. Now the wizard has a quasit head he likes to scare people with and the druid has a tiara she's happy with.
All in all I had fun with it and it was a good mix of frustration and then accomplishment for my players.
Was more frustrating than hard for my group of bard, druid, figher, barbarian and cleric for a few reasons.
Being quite new GM with this being the first adventure path for me:
1) I was not sure if the summons reacted imidiatly or neede time to appear, so I did the last part
2) I forgot about the sinful bite
3) I forgot about the DR against anything that was not cold iron (not sure how DR /good works)
4) I've cast invisibility only once. Untill all her summons were gone.Eventually she was flying invisible in the corner, but bard was detecing magic in another corner and barbarian had quite a lot of sand in his pockets so he threw it in another corner to settle and check if ther was anything invisible.
Elyrium was flying in a high corner and I said the party can't reach her with reach weapons. They were slowly shooting for low damage with crossbow and two shortbows, while she was attacking the druid who kept failing to hit her with acid darts. two or three crits from the clerics shortbow got her down to 4 HP. Druid tried to use grappling hook on Elyrium, but failed. Elyrium transformed into a crow and started flying to the small window in the cealing but did not reach it in time. Eventually, everyone was out of all arrows and bolts say but two. So, the barbarian tried to climp the walls and rolled really high, pushed himself from the wall and while falling down tried to rech the crow with his reach weapon. And he succeeded.. Druid was unconcious at some point, but bard got him back.
This fight is tough to run, even for experienced GMs. As long as you had fun, that's all that really counts!
1: As written, the summon monster spells have a one-round casting time. This means that the character begins casting a spell on their turn, then continues to cast until the start of their next turn; the monster appears immediately before their next turn, and goes on the same initiaitve order as the caster. So... Round 1:"I cast summon monster! (Everyone else goes. Note that if the caster takes damage any time during the rest of the round, she must make a Concentration check or lose the spell); Round 2: "I finish casting! A celestial badger appears! (PC and th summoned monster then both take their actions.)
3: "DR 5/cold iron or good" means that weapons made of that material OR that have the appropriate alignment property bypass the DR. The alignment property of weapons is not particularly common: A Good alignment on a weapon could be from the holy weapon enhancement, or from the bless weapon spell. Also, some character classes have an ability to give their weapon an aligned weapon property (e.g. the paladin).
5: Detect magic can work to locate invisible creatures, but it takes time and is not very good at it. First, it only works on creatures that use magic to turn invisible (i.e. it's a spell, magic item, or spell-like ability). When creatures with natural invisibility vanish, they do not radiate a magical aura. Also: It's only on the third round of detect magic that the caster can determine the exact location of the aura (i.e. the specific square), and the creature still has 100% concealment.
Fight was annoying for my PCs until the Bard cast his last spell slot with Hideous Laughter. Erylium failed her save while flying above the pool of water in the middle of the room, which was just deep enough for her to immediately start drowning in, because she couldn't stop laughing.
My group had an interesting time of the Erylium fight, of course, I am also heavily editing the RotRL campaign in many ways as we decided to play a more RP focused game to allow for exploration of character backstories.
Raiez: Tielfing Alchemist(3), A former slave soldier from Cheliax.
Lyle: Halfling Rogue(3), A former household slave from the same house as Raiez and hero worships her.
Lasair: Peri-Blooded Aasimar Witch(3), Apprentice Healer with a penchant for gathering knowledge.
Jameson: Human Ranger(3), Childhood friend of Lasair, both of whom are from Nirmathas.
Orthello: Half Elf Paladin of Torag(2) Fighter(1), Originally from Sandpoint, but ended up studying metalworking with a group of dwarves and began to follow Torag before returning after being gone for almost 8 years.
My little group of intrepid adventurers made fairly quick work of the Sinspawn patrolling the entrance and had no issue passing their Will saves versus the effect of the Sinful Bite. This left them not knowing exactly what was going on with these creatures as none of them could roll high enough to figure out what they were.
I ended up moving Koruvus and an extra Sinspawn into the alcove outside of the temple, my reasoning being that while Erylium may be annoyed by Koruvus, she would also see his usefulness at the very least as an early warning of intruders.
After dealing with Koruvus, they entered the Temple and began the fight.
Erylium summoned a Sinspawn and flew up above the group, beginning to throw Hexes as the Spawn charged into the fray. She was able to knock out the Tiefling Alchemist with her Slumber hex before the Aasimar Witch passed a pretty high Perception check to notice the small little bird hanging about in the dark recesses of the room. One well-placed crossbow bolt later found Erylium lacking her Witch repertoire which pissed her off to no end.
The one change I made to her abilities was I gave her an ability I called the Choir of Chaos. Once per day, she can shriek, calling on Lamashtu to bewilder her foes in an area around her for a DC 12 Will save. Failure placed the Confusion effect on the affected target with a new Will save at the end of every round to shrug off the effect.
I did not expect this to have too great of an effect, as the DC was fairly low, but the rogue's player proceeded to fail his save every round for the entire fight. (Humorously enough the Paladin was the only other PC to not pass the save the first round, although he did pass after the first round.)
The fight quickly turned against Erylium though and she used her Invisibility to bolt, as the party had forgotten to close the Temple doors behind them and now they find themselves, especially the Aasimar witch who killed her familiar, paranoid and worrying when the little demon will show up again to exact revenge.
We had to end our session today with her still at full health, 17 rounds into combat. She's burned all her spell slots, and her sin spawn and summons have pushed the party to their limits, but the party has survived. (OK, I had to give them a do over for one round because they are new players and didn't understand Coup DE Grace mechanics. "Wait, so the a 16 didn't pass that fortitude save? So the fighter takes 15 damage?" No, the fighter dies. "Oooooooh...")
At this point, they have summoned a second sin spawn and were about to bring out another, but the Quasit has come down from the ceiling and us negotiating with them to leave it alone. Not sure where it will go from here yet.
Not to necro an old thread, but as it fits best in this one, my party dealt with Elyrium last night and it was painful. To echo the sentiments of so many others, it not only consumed most of a 3-hour session, but it also reached the tipping point from fun into frustrating.
The group consists of a barbarian, paladin, druid and sorcerer.
Her flight+invisibility+DR+fast healing meant they could not deal enough consistent damage to kill her, but she had no direct damage spells and a 1d2 dagger wasn't going to get it done.
I could not agree with this more. When they could see her, she was immune to the damage-dealing spells of the sorcerer and hard to hit with ranged weapons. When they did deal damage, her fast healing/DR meant she avoided almost all of it. Most of the party ran away in fear at the beginning or spent a chunk of the battle held in place.
The finally managed to whittle her down and kill her through a very lucky and powerful crit, but at this point they were all clearly over the encounter. The session was salvaged as they were able to explore more of the Catacombs and battle more Sinspawn, ending as they entered the room with Koruvus.
If I had to run this again, I would dial her back even more in order to make it more engaging for the party or at least limit her invisibility.
We'll find out first week of September! Assuming the players don't drag their heels too much in the Catacombs....
I suspect it'll either be a total stomp (due to having six 2nd-level party members, five of which are martially focused) or a total rout (due to the party having difficulty dealing with enemies at range and having no experience fighting flyers or invisible foes). I'm tempted to tack on one more level and give her Improved familiar (quasit). } : D
I suspect it'll either be a total stomp (due to having six 2nd-level party members, five of which are martially focused) or a total rout (due to the party having difficulty dealing with enemies at range and having no experience fighting flyers or invisible foes).
What is your party make-up? I would love to hear how it ends up going for you. My group is comfortable dealing with enemies at range, but her AC of 19 meant that they struggled to connect with her when she was visible.
One advantage the sorcerer had was the use of AoE spells like Burning Hands. He managed to figure out her general location and then set her on fire. I removed her resistances to give them a chance, otherwise he would have been completely useless (hard for him to get more than 10 points of damage rolling 2d4 + 1...).
I suspect it'll either be a total stomp (due to having six 2nd-level party members, five of which are martially focused) or a total rout (due to the party having difficulty dealing with enemies at range and having no experience fighting flyers or invisible foes).What is your party make-up? I would love to hear how it ends up going for you. My group is comfortable dealing with enemies at range, but her AC of 19 meant that they struggled to connect with her when she was visible.
Gnome fighter with greataxe
Half-orc warpriest of Anubis with falchionDwarf skald with dorn-dergar and throwing axe
Half-elf low-Strength falconer with long bow (bird might get in most of the hits!)
Grippli inspired blade with rapier with regular riding dog mount ("giant Corgi")
Gnome druid/wizard. No idea what spells she picked yet.
I expect the melee types to make quick work of the sinspawn, but Elyrium isn't stupid. If she keeps her distance, it'll be a bow, an axe that requires retrieval, and a bird against AC 19, spells notwithstanding.
One advantage the sorcerer had was the use of AoE spells like Burning Hands. He managed to figure out her general location and then set her on fire. I removed her resistances to give them a chance, otherwise he would have been completely useless (hard for him to get more than 10 points of damage rolling 2d4 + 1...).
Yeah, the resistances along with fast healing will make keeping her damaged difficult.
... but Elyrium isn't stupid.
If you were feeling particularly devious, you could have her hover over the pool so when she does get wounded the blood drops down to create more Sinspawn. Your players will love you.
I sadly have forgotten most of the details of my group's Eryllium encounter (they are currently in the middle of fighting Mokmurian). The highpoint was the the flying bullrush from the invisible quasit that sent the gnome wizard into the Runewell.