I was thinking the same thing. Personally I vote we run, since the only hints I'm picking up is that we could pound on this thing all day and never kill it if its health matches its save.
It has to be a joke. There's no way a GM would actually use such an obvious rules abuse against his players in a serious game.
EDIT: I say we kite it to death. It can still roll a one against effects like blindness. It's also slowed and in difficult terrain. If I can land one blindness spell, it won't be able to move more than 1 square a round. We literally just ride circles around it on our horses until it dies. If it really has such a beefy Con, imagine what it's modified CR must be and the XP we will get for killing it.
Might as well make the best of a bad situation.
Ooh good idea, in the meantime I will run away.
Before you try whittling down it's hp I suggest finding the source of those shocks you are seeing it get every turn.
Before you try whittling down it's hp I suggest finding the source of those shocks you are seeing it get every turn.
How do you propose we do that? Our characters are looking right at it with their eyes, I've made all the knowledge checks as well as a Perception and Spellcraft check, and all you've said is that the electricity is emanating from the shambling mound itself.
We can't possibly know what you don't tell us.
You said we should have gotten the hint from the owlbears. What hint? All I got of what you said was that it was contentedly eating them. No mention of electric light shows or anything until we provoked it. I suppose we could have avoided the entire encounter I'm sure, but that would have left a big terrible monster in the hex. I'm getting the impression that you want us to run away, which is fine as we shouldn't be able to win every encounter, I'm just not overly fond of how you seem to be handling it.
you could make guesses and investigate them. If you get rid of the source of electricity you could win just by walking away. You have dealt enough damage already that is could not survive without it's fortitude buffs.
I personally think of this monster as a puzzle boss.
Isn't the monster itself the source?
After all those skill checks, the only thing I can think of to do for more info is to cast detect magic or something similar, and that's not really a good combat option since we have a lot of magic in the area already and not much time to concentrate on the spell. Maybe if we can immobilize the monster, then it might be an option.
Based on your description, it doesn't seem like there is an invisible creature shocking it or anything like that. You wouldn't have described it as coming from the creature if that was the case.
I could try dispel magic on the creature too, but without knowing what it is I'm dispelling, I fear the effect would be minimal.
Grasping at straws here, what little you've given us anyways.
Anyone else have any ideas?
OK I will just tell you there is a +1 spear of shocking in the mound.
I take it, it is not immediately visible then? I don't think we can go rummaging through the mound anymore than we could someone's internal organs.
Well a neat thing is is that mounds are not intelligent and really slow if you can't figure out a way to deal with it I will be sort of disappointed.
Anyone up for attempting a disarm or steal maneuver?
How fast does the mound heal after, say, we blast a hole in it? The casters could all throw damage spells at it in the opes that a large enough hole opens for Toran to grab it with mage hand. Just an idea.
Aside from the martials, the most damaging thing we have available to us are magic missiles.
Doing a steal or disarm may be tough as it's big and nobody has the feat chains, so it'll open up a lot of opportunity attacks and be hard to do. But it might be doable if we have some way to paralyze it even for a round. Ugh, for a Hold Plant spell... ;)
It would be nice if you moved your figures when do do a put saying you are moving your figures.
I always state I'm moving before moving my pawn. Or did you mean something else?
I am referring to Marten saying he is taking a withdrawal action, but his figure is still there. I have no idea where he wants to go.
If the creature has reach, sadly, I'll be eating an AoO as withdraw only prevents the attack from the first square left.
OK I will just tell you there is a +1 spear of shocking in the mound.
I suppose that's better than those infernal will-o'-wisps!
Shame I can't simply mage hand it out of there.
I thought about doing it with wisps. But wisps are intelligent enough to do this plan and make it a whole lot worse. I plan on saving that until you roll really bad on the random event table.
Well now you have a few options.
You can stay and fight which might be dangerous given it is still a huge mass of hp.
Or you can do hit and run tactics. Given how much damage you have been doing so far it might take more then an hour to wear it down.
Or you can just run you have dealt enough damage already that it should die on it's own once the charge runs out. However it will take a long time and who knows how much damage it will do.
Well now you have a few options.
You can stay and fight which might be dangerous given it is still a huge mass of hp.
Or you can do hit and run tactics. Given how much damage you have been doing so far it might take more then an hour to wear it down.
Or you can just run you have dealt enough damage already that it should die on it's own once the charge runs out. However it will take a long time and who knows how much damage it will do.
I vote we kill it now while always keeping well out of its reach. I'm just wondering what we have to work with. Spells and ammo are limited. Do we have any unlimited ranged options with which to work with guys?
I suppose we can quickly tear some clothes and grab some rocks to make slings with. We could also break branches for throwing clubs (though the range is shorter). They all cost 0gp, so it would basically be like making an instantaneous-speed Craft check to make actual weapons.
If we don't have to worry about limited resources, then victory becomes a foregone conclusion and we can maybe fast forward through it.
Any arcane caster with acid splash has an unlimited 1d3 ranged attack that bypasses SR and grants no save.
Toran has a bow, so he can do some sustained damage with 140 arrows.
Cantrips cover Riva and Valissa I guess. Toran has a ton of ammo, apparently, but if we fast-forward I'm not sure how we determine the number of arrows he ends up destroying. The GM could calculate the numerical averages I suppose?
I guess Marten and Allisar can use slings. What they lack in accuracy (vs ranged touch attacks), they will make up for in damage (especially since you can apply your strength modifier to it).
So you want to hit and run then post that on the gameplay and roll a D100.
So you want to hit and run then post that on the gameplay and roll a D100.
Er...okay.
You search I41 it is just clear grasslands.
[hex cleared]
Could you put a colored line for the trail again?
I've updated the exploration map to reflect the newly explored hexes and to show our current trail so far.
I am sorry, but I think I am going to have to bring this quest to a close. I am busy at work now and frankly this has not been fun for me for months now.
Thank you for your diligent service, DM, and I hope your work shift lightens up a bit for you soon!
Gosh darn it!
Thank you for carrying it for so long. I'm sorry it wasn't what you were hoping for it to be.
Like the others I'm sad to see it end, but thanks for an amazing game!