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After four years and 103 sessions, the end of the Runelord of Greed has come. Pretty brutal end actually.
Karzoug's (GM's) fatal error: staying in one place 1 round too long, assuming 270 hit points would be enough to get to his next action. Being next to the 18th level hasted, flying dwarven fighter armed with a dominant weapon was a very bad place to be. He might have made it but the party sensed they had him on the ropes and that they might not get as good a chance again, so after the fighter did a full attack action, he spent a hero point for another attack and then the bard spent one as well, used his action to cast heroic finale on the fighter and after yet one more attack, Karzoug was down. 7 attacks were too much, even with the fighter missing once. The dwarf was kicking out 40-50 hp a clip (including the bane damage) and bypassing the stoneskin DR (penetrating strike greater.) My goal had been to keep Karzoug alive for 10 rounds. Didn't make it to 7. Karzoug knew the fighter would a problem - tried his best to kill him, but every time he got the fighter dangerously low on hit points, someone would hit him with a Heal spell. Happened at least three times.
Key Karzoug tactics I used:
- fiery body (intended to use the lava and glaive fireball feature for healing but didn't quite get there)
- Spellbane - block: mage's disjunction, anti-magic field, gr dispel magic, dispel magic. Nearly broke the table when the pc's tried disjunction and dispel magic one after each other for no affect.
- Mind Blank
- Permanent Prismatic Sphere at the base of the stairs to the Runewell
- Pouring a lot of buffs into his minions - protection from spells, protection from energy, communal, mass bull's strength, mass bear's endurance, haste, stoneskin - communal, magic army, heart of the metal (giving them all adamantine weapons to bypass the pc's likely stoneskin.) He needed some use out his transmutation spell slots - all of the pc's had dominant weapons.
- Caustic Blood - dwarf took a lot of acid damage but not enough to deter him
- Clashing Rocks - simply a devastating spell
- Wail of the Banshee - ditto
- Wreath of Blades
-Rain of Arrows (w/adamantine arrows to bypass stoneskin) - didn't get to use this one
Note: the pc's rested overnight in the room of the Anima Focus (because everything else in the Pinnacle was dead) and they all were wearing sihedron items. So Karzoug knew when they were coming and I let him buff for as many rounds as the pc's buffed (which was a lot.)
Key PC Tactics
- opened a gate to the Eye by hitting the anima focus with a dominant weapon - no chance to arrive stunned (though they didn't know that)
- summoning monadic deva's. able to spam holy smite, not bad attacks and they all come with 1 Heal spell a day. And flight. And holy aura.
- boosting actions - not just for the final blow to Karzoug - earlier in the battle the bard had given an extra action to the wizard, who cast time stop and then cast two summoning spells. At one point, between the time stop castings and others, there were 9 monadic deva's on the field. (Conjuration wizard had Summon Good Monster feat.)
- Taking out Rune Giant right away, turning the Storm Giants to their side
- Putting a larger diameter, hemispherical Wall of Ice over the prismatic sphere to keep Karzoug from running in and out of it easily
Congrats! Sounds like a worthy epic battle to finish the AP.
This sounds awesome and amazing and epic, and very much the reason to play an AP.
That sounds pretty epic! Congratulations! :)
I hope that I can get both of my groups to the grand finale. Currently, one group has just finished Book 4 and the other group has just started Book 5.
Congratulations on reaching the end!!! that fight really sounds something epic!
Also, personally, i really like the fact that the mighty karzoug was beaten down to a pulp by a dwarf fighter...
So many spells in the game too, i would have to prepare myself for the reading when my group approach to that part!
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What's next, Latrecis?
-Skeld
Hell's Rebels. Very different sort of campaign than Runelords.
how long did that fight take? (real time)
how long did that fight take? (real time)
Hmmm, we had to split it over two sessions (somewhat inconvenient but our windows for play are driven by real life.) If we include the pc's planning a spell memorization for two 18th level casters and buffing themselves, somewhere around 6-7 hours. We're not the fastest moving group and, umm, sometimes drift off into tangential conversations. And the wizard player, with quickened spells and summoned monsters to control/run could be... ponderous in his speed. Thank goodness he didn't have access to time stop for the vast majority of the campaign. :) The fact that a majority of the combatants (on both sides) had access to flight and the associated 3-dimensional complications didn't help either.
Awesome- thank you for posting this!
Awesome. And thanks for all the forum activity too: plenty of your stuff influenced my campaign which was pretty much in parallel for the last chapters.
Hell's Rebels I'm about to start, but as a PC. And I'll be GM'ing Crimson Throne at the same time.
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Awesome. And thanks for all the forum activity too: plenty of your stuff influenced my campaign which was pretty much in parallel for the last chapters.
So much this! My players are about to enter Jorgenfist, so I've been going back through the FOSG GM thread and reread your account of your group's third (IIRC) and final assault on Mokmurian's stronghold. I can only hope our next session goes as well.