| Xoyansprite |
After one TPK at the temple of Hextor (3 faces of evil) the party who retook the adventure was composed by 13 characters and only 7 survived (nº eight was later raised). So I thought the assault to the keep needed not to be hardened, as a change of pace.
But I also like big battles, so I threw all the action at once, letting the player (yes it's one player and me; else, I would play just once a month, had I to wait for everybody been avalaible) control the soldiers.
The point was not to kill the PCs, but to take the keep and to kill the soldiers. The 8 PCs were levels 3-5 for a total of 32 party levels. I sent 20 lizardmen to them (including the leading warrior). When the PCs finished them, the other 10 (including the druidess) were inside the tower and every soldier was down at negative points.
The player was shocked with horror when the lizardmen cared little for the PCs arriving at the tower and started coup of grace-ing fallen soldiers.
Actually the lizardmen did not even guard the door, but went uptairs to do the killing. The PCs just saved the life of 4 soldiers out of 14.
Two of the PCs had difficulties for trying to get to the tower ahead of their companions and had to fall back. Some blood for the PCs, but the impact of the encounter was the brutality of the lizardmen against the soldiers.
As the lizardmen were inside the keep, they did not retreat when their boss died. It was a 9 hours of gaming. Unforgettable.