I have just finished reading howl of the carrion king and have some worries about the final encounter. Xulthos really seems to me overpowered and i am wondering if the PCs, even if they make no mistake, can beat Xulthos.
Here are my guesses, from the stats i read :
- Any full round attack from Xulthos targeting a single character results in an instant death. A buffed fighter (or any high HP class) may survive one full round, but may die too.
- Xulthos has many hit points, a good AC improved with his daze and drone features. Some elemental damage mitigations are here to deal with the wizards massive damage. All of that make the encounter a long one.
- There is an high probability to have all PCs confused since round 1. A DC 18 will save is not an easy one, especially for all the "low will save/low wisdom" character classes. Fighter and rogue will probably be useless for a few rounds. Leaving cleric and wizard alone facing the melee war machine that will kill them one at a time every two rounds : one to move, one to full attack.
- This is a one try encounter. No retry after gathering information such as "next time, come with the silence spell prepared to negate drone". If the encounter fails, it's a TPK, or an evade from Xulthos.
All of that makes me think that even with a well balanced group of 4 or 5 level 4 characters, experienced and good players, it can easily result in a TPK, even with players making no mistake.
So, first of all, am I missing something?
How did this encounter ran for you that have already finished HotCK? Did you play Xulthos as-is, and it ran just fine? or did you use any trick to make it easier?