Greenhouse encounter [Minor Ash at Dawn spoilers]

[Mathius]

The party will soon be attempting to enter the underground portion of this adventure. The foes in this area know that negotiating with the party will be difficult but would very much like to so they intend to weaken them at the main entrance. This is my redesigned version of the green house encounter and it is designed for 5 PCs.

This encounter is designed to showcase the power of druids, and plants in particular. To that end Merrick has been redesigned significantly and the greenhouse has been redone with magic to give her and her allies a large advantage. Most of what they have done can be worked around with either forest friend or freedom of movement.

foes:

Once the party arrives at the greenhouse they will engage with the following foes. Marrick Sais, an 11th level vampire druid modeled after poison ivy; 3 quickwoods; 8 enslaved spawn, 3 are free willed; a 4th level undine druid, and a 4th level cleric of Caiden. The is a EL of 14 for 5 11th level PCs. If you want to run this for 4 I recommend removing 1 quickwood and 3 enslaved spawn.

the battlefield:

The green house is a rectangle 70 feet wide by 160 feet long. The structure is made a massive work of iron and glass. Though the windows can be broken quite easily, massive canvas curtains will block all windows. The entire greenhouse has been treated with plant growth but I am modifying the spell to create a new classification of undergrowth that acts just like heavy undergrowth but requires 6 squares of movement to enter instead of 4. The ground within 20 feet of the wall plus an area at the north and south end have been treated with spike growth (DC 24). If they foes get any warning (most likely) the entire greenhouse will also be entangled (DC 21) and an obscuring mist will float in the center. With the exception of the fog none of these effects occur on the paths. The undergrowth and entangle spells extend 15 feet from the ground everywhere, and 30 feet from the ground adjacent to a massive tree. The top ten feet of the greenhouse has been pruned and trimmed so that no undergrowth is in this space.

Sunlight is not a major concern due to two beacons hanging form the ceiling the act as if they have had lunar veil cast upon them. Either one is enough to bathe the entire greenhouse in darkness. If they are covered, suppressed, broken, or deactivated and a curtain is opened, sunlight may enter the greenhouse. Sunlight fills 60 foot radius circle centered on the open window but may be avoided each round with a DC 15 reflex save as long as you have cover or are in undergrowth. The sunlight may not be avoided in 30 foot cone from the open window or door. Unseen servants stand ready to close the door or curtain as needed but can do little if either is broken.

the setup:

Between Merrick and the main BBEG they have conspired to create a spy and they intend to use it on the party. The reason they are willing to invest so much in tracking the party is that through the use of divination magic they know that negotiating with the party is unlikely but will be more possible if they are substantially weakened. Even if the gatekeepers in the greenhouse are defeated the spy will still report to main BBEG. ]1st level expert with 1 rank in stealth as class skill with the feats stealthy and skill focus stealth baleful polymorphed into a bat and given a ring of invisibility and clock of elvenkind. That gives us total stealth of +46. Add in telepathic bond and permanency for reporting back the spy is in good shape. A ring of sustenance takes care of resting.

Magic has been used to know in what hour the party will show up so any spell with duration of 10 min/level will be precast. The spy should be able to report the moment they are on the way so that they can cast all of thier buff spells. This process takes 10 rounds and several of the spell Merrick intends to use only last a few rounds so creative ideas have been implemented time the party's arrive carefully.

The first delay is a warning and threat delivered by a single enslaved spawn. This will end with the spawn attempts to dominate a PC and is promptly dispatched. The second is three dominated criminals robbing a dominated lady. When the signal is given she will scream for she is worth and the PCs will hopefully swoop in and save her. These delays should hopefully give the foes 10 rounds to prepare for combat. If party acts in a way to cause the start of prep spells but veers of course a threat on the life of the dominated druid and cleric will be delivered to hasten them along. Each one of these tactics will remove a single enslaved spawn from the combat.

tactics:

The dominated cleric will announce his presence as he stands in the middle of the obscuring mist to deter AoE spells from being used on the quick roots. Before combat he will cast obscuring mist on the green house; shield of faith, bull's strength, and shield other on Merrick; and owl's wisdom and sanctuary on himself. Bless will not be cast until the manticores are summoned. He will also do his best to cast silence on one the spawn who will try to stay in range of a caster. If the fog is removed he will replace it if he can. Lastly he will heal the quickwoods to the best of his ability.

The dominated druid will cast entangle on the 4 corners of the greenhouse, owl's wisdom and cat's grace on himself, and use produce flame and wilderness solders to attack the party. His preferred form is the eagle. If time runs out on his spells she shift back to her normal form and attack with a sling.

The enslaved spawn will use their spider climb ability to walk in the ceiling and use their dominate ability to try and control the party. If silence is cast on one of them, it will attempt to stay close to a caster even if that means leaving the ceiling. Any PC near the ceiling will be engaged in melee if possible.

The quickwoods will drink 3 potions each of magic fang, and 1 each of bull's strength, forest friend, and feather step. Even though they will be entangled, they will still be able to take 5 foot step since they ignore difficult terrain and undergrowth. Any attack made against a target standing on the path benefits from cover. Roots may not attack more 15 feet from the earth. They will full attack every round will use a 5 step and the lunge feat to bring creatures at the edge within range. Even though they are hidden inside the mist they should have no trouble attacking by using their oak sight ability. Even while entangled they will have a net +2 to hit and +3 to damage from buff spells. CMB and CMD are raised by 2 as well.

Marrick has many spells to cast in preparation for battle. Call lightning storm, owl's wisdom, cat's grace, and bristle all last for 11min so these spells might be lit of a little early. Next he will cast SNA 4 to call a salt Mephit whose will search for invisible foes and glitterdust them. Beyond that he will try to use his breath weapon. SNA 6 is cast next to call forth 2-4 augmented manticores directly over the clerics head at the roof. Once blessed they will fan out through the greenhouse. Once in combat they be instructed to ready actions to cast spikes at casting and to engage any foes at the roof in melee. ball Lightning, wilderness soldiers, and vengeful comets round out his list of spells. If combat begins before he cast all of his spells he will still cast ball lightning and SNA 6 but will drop the rest. On the first round of combat he will attempt to use baleful polymorph on a PC then hide in the undergrowth. Once hidden he will use, Lightning storm, ball lightning, and wilderness solders to attack the party. If worse comes to worse he will transform into a huge animal and enter melee. If the party show an ability to actually destroy an vampire she will use tree stride to flee.

If the PCs spend the time create a fire in the greenhouse she will use quench to put it out. If they persist she she will sue for terms. Bluff can be used in conjunction with damaging a plant to trick her into breaking stealth. Most of her time is spent as a bat.

Please critique my encounter every witch way from Sunday and feel free to use it for yourself.

Would it be better to cast wall thorns defensively before the battle or cast it during battle to catch PCs in it.

What would be Merrick's best battle form?

Is their better diminutive flying animal then the bat?

Did I make all of the sheets correctly? NPCs are 15 point buy.

Thanks

[Joey Virtue]

I like this encounter you should of put it on the Carrion Crown Board

[MurphysParadox]

That is impressive. I'd love to use it against my party (they just finished part one of book 5) but it would kill them. They don't know what pre-combat buffing means (all the wizard and druid do are a few hour per level buffs like magic fang and mage armor) and flight is just something the wizard uses to scout when I've made it very very clear that there's something very bad ahead.

This kind of encounter would destroy them, though it would be so much fun. I especially like the silenced enslaved spawns trying to play tag with the casters.

I may try it without the summoned natures ally or spider-climbing on the spawns. That would keep things on the ground and less likely to see my party destroyed by creatures so far out of reach.

[Mathius]

@Joey Thanks, I will put a link there but I put it in advice so it would get more traction and I think that this could be use in other places. Besides I want feedback on this from as many posters as possible.

My party does not do much pre-combat buffing with spells that last either min or rounds but when the do they go whole hog. We generally have two way things go, they either take everything on at once or train through many many small encounters.

They did entire dungeon at the end on book 2 with only 1 rest. Day 1 took 15 encounters. Day 2 had 7 with one being the AB.

Now I tend to rewrite encounters with NPCs as op as they are and they still win. In our game even the players think it is hardly worth game time unless the encounter is APL+3 or more. This on is only APL+3 but I plan on them having at least 2 more encounters along the this line before they can rest.

To make it easier remove the spy and just go with a huge wild shaped melee druid. The cleric would then cast bless followed by buffing the BBEG. The druid would cast wilderness solders and produce flame then take to attack the party. With no entangle and all foes on the ground things will be much easier.

[MurphysParadox]

My party did the book 2 dungeon in two days as well. They rested in the museum after clearing it out.

Spoiler:

Of course, they also stormed the final tower and killed everything inside on one casting of haste. They ignored the chalk drawings and were gone before the clockwork familiar guy could ask for help. They simply blew up the AP with a swarm of Lantern Archons and some fire spells. I was appalled at the ease by which they killed stuff. In fact, the most dangerous fight in CC so far was the tick swarm in book 4. I almost killed two characters with it.

I'll have to walk through your proposed fight to feel how it would go over. It may behoove me to actually challenge the players given what they have done in recent fights. Especially since everyone but the wizard is going to have holy or undead-bane weapons by the time they start this bit.

So in your plan, there's a whole lot of attention and readied actions directed at the caster. It seems that would be a pile of damage (2-4 manticore spikes plus, if you're mean, the quickwoods) and basically prevent a caster from doing anything for a few rounds. Of course, I guess that's the point and I guess the manticores won't kill the hapless caster. Still seems almost mean, heh. Almost.

I also noticed you got rid of the flytrap. Perhaps use that to guard the entrance to the downstairs? Since it can't move, it won't really be part of the encounter; more like a living trap to ensure the players stay locked in the kill zone. Use the wall of thorns to block the way the players came in. While it can be bypassed, it will make them less inclined to run off.

Bat is probably your best bet for tiny animal. An owl or raven may also be valid and interesting. Especially if she got her hands on a dozen ravens and releases them at the start. It will make it hard to differentiate which one is her (between castings, of course, as throwing lightning bolts is not a usual raven quality).

As for battle form, you don't have a huge (heh) number of options unless you play with Dinosaurs (which I don't). The Behemoth Hippopotamus is the scariest. It has a hell of a bite and can trample up and down the paths. Re-brand the Mastodon as a Dire Elephant and you get more attacks with less damage while keeping the trample. I'd suggest the hippo and to just trample around the field without stopping long enough for full attack actions.

[Mathius]

Thank god my druid thinks summons are weak an pretty much only uses them as mine detectors.

The Quickwoods are not going after casters, their job is to attempt to take down the melee guys. Yes I am trying to slow down caster but all three took feats to help with concentration and 2 of them have a good AC so spikes might miss.

Bat is diminutive but I love the idea. Since he has children of the night I can call on several swarms and that will make a casters life even more fun. Those will not last more then 1 fireball but I can have 1 dispersed instead of killed and that will be good cover for her.

That hippo is nasty, might make vital strike nice.

I like the idea of covering the exits with the wall instead of surrounding the quickwoods.

Thanks

[MurphysParadox]

Have you had a chance to run the encounter as of yet? My next game will be the 28th and I'll be doing a modified version.

After seeing what the inquisitor does with the longbow (and he's just about to get a Holy one), I'm leaving the manticores in the fight. I don't think I'll have the spawns using spider climb, but the rest should be fun! Can't imagine what will happen if I succeed in a domination or two; especially if I get the wizard and have him start dropping black tentacles or fireballs. So many fireballs (staff of fire will become a regrettable acquisition).

[MurphysParadox]

This encounter went quite well. Thank you for the great fight; my party had a great time even if I did manage to kill two of them, heh.

[Sallin]

Very good stuff. Thanks for sharing!