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Hi all,
So, last night we continued to play Flood Season (in our FR/Wizard's Reach campaign), and my diligent players ventured into the Pit of the Seven Jaws to find Bhal-Hamatugn.
They fought giant cockroaches in the tunnels of the underdark, and found the rift overlooking Bhal-Hamatugn. They peacably negotiated passage to the temple.
After the boat retreated into the mist, they were attacked by the kuo-toa in the "eyes". They were a bit noisy, one PC firing a pistol. They then explored the barracks area, and fought more kuo-toa, and blew up the glyph of warding on the door.
The biggest fight of the evening was Aushanna ... she was unstoppable. I actually had to play a bit soft, not casting unholy blight every other round to keep the PCs from being gakked. Her three arrows a round hurt a lot. And the charm monster on two PCs didn't help either. They maybe caused her to lose 25% of her hit points before retreating from the temple (which was problematic with no boat).
The Bad: they didn't clue in to her DR 5/good, they didn't dispel magic on their charmed friend (who had a rough time, being charmed to protect the erinyes and suggestioned to stay out of the PCs way).
The Good: two PCs were enlarged, and another had slippers of spider climb, so she couldn't hover at the ceiling 15 ft up with impunity.
Now they are regrouping and replanning ...
Aushanna went down a lot faster than I expected in my group, mostly because of a enlarged, flying grapple monk (yes, the same monk who coup de graced Zenith, for those keeping score at home).
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Oh, man, the Aushanna fight was one of my favorites, ever.
My group had torn through almost every potential enemy before this point- the supposedly TPK-worthy cryohydra had been beaten in one round- and I suppose they were a little bit cocky. After talking the the kuo-toa ferryman into taking them to the temple and killing the initial onslaught of kuo-toa fanatics, the group arrives at the main doors... and knocks.
A kuo-toa cleric answers, confused by the idea of someone knocking. I mean, who would? The group asks for an audience with their leader. The kuo-toa cleric tells them he'll see what he can do to get them an audience with the Eye in Darkness. Of course, Zenith prophesized their doom, so the high priest asks for the aid of Aushanna (DM fiat decision) to dispose of these interlopers.
The main room is about 20' by 30', right? Riiight. A flying devil with an amazingly deadly bow, and she can attack over half the group each round. This was, aside from some dubious 2nd edition encounters I cooked up when I was fifteen, the closest i'd come to a true TPK. Within a few rounds, the entire group was one shot away from death. The main damage dealers- mostly melee types- were ineffectual. The archery specialist ranger's bow wasn't able to effectively harm Aushanna, thanks to damage reduction. The single cleric, also one of the primary damage dealers, couldn't keep up healing-wise with the punishment Aushanna was dishing out.
Eventually, half the group fled, promising to return with as many raise dead scrolls as they could afford (which was maybe half of one), while the cleic and wizard were left fighting the devil. The wizard agreed to sell her soul to Aushanna in return for sparing the rest of the group. After some intense role-playing and a surprisingly good Diplomacy check, Aushanna agreed, taking the character to the Nine Hells.
The cleric, who had become close to the wizard, was devastated. He/she/it (half-doppelganger, don't ask) swore revenge, spending all his/her/its money on various divine scrolls to seek vengeance. The battle in the main room took the whole gaming session, cost at least one PC their life fighting the high priest in his flooded chamber, and resulted in the return of the wizard, now an acolyte of the skin thanks to Aushanna. It was one of the best moments the group had.
Man, I love this game.
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My players made the mistake of casting a web spell in the center of the room. The Kua-toans were unaffected due to their slipperiness, and ashuanna just flew above it after breaking free.
One of the Rangers Three uses his boots of striding and springing well though and managed to jump from the balcony and grapple the devil before she could massacre the entire group. They only managed this on the third attempt. Only the soft mattress of webbing on the floor prevented him from dying in the two previous attempts.
I loved it when the entire group was stuck in the webbing, and ashuanna let it on fire with her flaming long bow.
tam
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Now here's a question ... the ferryman kuo-toa let them arrive peacably, but now they've caused death and mayhem ... how are they supposed to get across the 'lake' as they strike and recover?
I'm tempted to make it a PC problem, and not facilitate their crossing (in fact, have the boatman jump them at some point) but it might be beyond my group's characters.
I had fun when one of the party's rogues tried to bluff Aushanna, who told them in 4000 years she had never heard a lie so feeble ...
Heh. I'm not looking forward to this particular fight for my players either. They've got a good mix of characters:
Human Female Rogue 3/Diviner 3
Human Male Cleric 4/Fighter 3
Human Male Druid 7
Human Male Wizard 6
Elf Female Ranger 6
But of them, pretty much only the Wiz6, Druid7 and the Ranger6 will be able to do much to Aushanna - by the time they get to her, the Diviner will have (if she's as quick with magic as she usually is) exhausted her supply of spells, the cleric never seems to memorize anything more than buffery type spells. The Druid could summon some flying things to maybe take some of the arrowy death from above slow down (or at least subject Aushanna to attacks of opportunity from a Hippogriff if she doesn't move before shooting) and the Ranger is an archery specialist that is usually buffed by the Wizard's "Flame Arrow" spell. Usually followed by "Haste." (He's the most giving wizard I've ever had in a playing group, actually - he rarely does direct damage spells, he's usually making the rest of the team more effective instead). Though I'm sure the wand of magic missiles will eventually get used up.
It sounds like your group is magic heavy -- Aushanna's Spell Resistance of 20 will cut into their action pretty heavily, I'd bet.
Definitely. And they lack the high level magics they could really use sometimes (ie: no high-level cleric spells). Druid spells make up some of the lack, but not all of it.
As soon as they start hitting the spell-resistance critters, things will get ugly, fast.
That said, the players of the Ranger and the Wizard got married yesterday, and are moving to Halifax, so we're working on two replacement players, one of whom wants to be a plain ol' fighter (which rocks) and the other of whom we think will be a Sorcerer. Of course, they'll probably end up marrying and moving away, too - since that happens to all my players (I'm like the curse of eternal happiness DM or something)...
My first group of PC's tore through the entire shrine room with ease. They came in through the secret door in the back. They moved silently enough that the Kuo-toan clerics didn't here the door open. They took a quick assesment of the situation and decided the statue had to come down.
The cleric cast stone shape on the blipdoolploop (sp?) statue and caused it to crash down and take out half the upper causeways and Kuo-toans with it. They were then able to rush into the high clerics room as he was still trying to get his full plate on. By the time Aushanna showed up they were in total control of the battlefield and hid inside the high clerics room. They all had oils of bless weapon for their bows so Aushanna went down quick.
My guys decided to take on the high priest just as Aushanna started to materialise! I thought they were done for with the Scooby Doo "let's split up" thing. However, Aushanna had some amazingly poor luck initially with her shots hardly hitting at all (rolls of 2 and 3 came up with depressing regularity!) and of course Mangh didn't have his armour on properly. Helped by his worse AC, they managed to take him out and then wisely holed up in his shrine. Aushanna couldn't shoot them from a distance and couldn't wait them out due to her limited time on the material plane. When she swept into the shrine, her distracting illusion failed and they surrounded her and chopped her apart in melee in the constricted space. The only thing I wasn't sure of was whether she could flee if she knew she was in trouble- I ruled not as she was compelled to serve by the statue's binding.
However, the combination of the 3 EL9 encounters in one go has certainly drained their stocks of cure moderate wounds potions looted from all those hillfolk in Storm Season ;-)))
Your stories are nothing compared to what my group did... they used a amazing set of disguise checks and illusion spells to make themselves look amphibian. They then went in and claimed to avatars of the Kuo-toan god. Two well placed rolls of 20 later on a insane diplomacy/bluff check, the Kuo-toans actually believed them. They waltzed through the temple, casually grabbed Zenith, then demanded that the entire temple gather in the main room. They gave them a "holy scroll from god" (read scroll with exploding runes), had them all gather as close together as possible (including at this point a very confused Aushanna), and when they read the scroll, as soon as the explosion went off they rained fiery death from above into the crowd, including arrows, fireballs, and beads from their necklace of fireballs. 2 rounds later, they'd killed almost every living creature inside the temple. I just sort of gawked at them for a bit. I mean, seriously, who'd ever have thought something like that would happen in a million years?
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She is a memorable opponent. My party entered the main temple and alerted those inside by setting off the glyph (no rogue). Countdown for Aushanna began :)
They took out Mangh-Mictho but he did knock the templar into negatives twice and had the paladin below 10 hp most of the time. Fortunately the mystic theurge had a spectral hand floating around and could use what little healing he had left. Also Mangh got touched of idiocy twice and with Int 1 playing him with any kind of tactics would have been unreasonable. The party retreated to the 10 by 20 space between the two sets of double doors and drank all their cure mods (still had plenty of potions from Flood Season) and emptied the wand of curse serious from Triel. Then Aushanna arrived.
Eventually they took out Aushanna but not until she had shot and nearly killed the mystic theurge twice. Once was through his ear when he peered through the crack in the doors which the templar was holding open slightly. She did 1d8+6+1d6 with her bow, which meant she could shoot down the hardness 8 hp 60 doors in two rounds (party delayed this with a make whole) with Rapid Shot and full attack. She kept teleporting from the north side to the south side as well and back again.
They took her out with sacred weapons and an inflict serious in the end (which critically hit with a spectral hand, very messy). Excellent fight, very tense, but they accept they are lucky to be alive (the paladin having cast bless weapon and divine sacrifice and rolling 19s to hit when needed is what turned it).
They retreated to the armoury, locked themselves in with Mangh's keys and used arcane lock. Oddly enough a kuo-toan shrine full of kuo-toan rogues and not one hads Open Locks :)
My party is going to get to this on Sunday. They've already opened the door to the shrine and gotten a lightning bolt in the face, but then immediately retreated from Bal-Hamatugn entirely. They know of the mummy torturer from the prisoners, so they've got the choice of going to fight a sodden mummy, or opening those doors again for another lightning bolt (but no Aushanna yet).
I hesitate to put more Kuo-Tuoan mooks in the eyes. Maybe 2 just to sound the alarm as they approach but without another pain in the ass fight to wear them down. Which means they can actually enter the shrine pretty fresh.
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I had put up a really long winded post on this subject, but after I hit submit it didn't go up so I hadn't bothered to retype it all
Basically we had one of the best fights in memory for this part of the game. My party had been steadily pushing on through the prison and torture chamber of the dungeon, and after the fight with the mummy they had strongly considered turning back to rest.
When they opened the door into the shrin and saw all the kua-toa it was a panicky moment for them, but they fought smart, making the enemies come to them and staying out of line of lightning from the statue. The bad part of this was that the battle dragged on until they were just finishing up all but a few whips when aushanna appeared above them.
The first round with a hail of arrows and those whips who remained buffing aushanna rather completely left the party fleeing as fast as they could, sealing and jamming the secret door behind them.
We had a very cinematic moment where the party burst out the front of the temple just as Aushanna took flight out of one of the eyeholes above them. They party sprinted down the stairs(with the aid of some lucky balance checks) while Aushanna took a single shot at each of them, most of whom were close enough to death that a lucky shot could have brought them down at this point.
As they ran for the water they realized that one of the released prisoners from before had taken the canoe and they didn't have a way across, then one of them had a brilliant insight and yelled 'Drink your potions of water breathing!' One of the characters had, as an off thought some time before thought 'They are frog people? They might live under water or something' and picked up a potion of water breathing for each member of the group.
They gulped these down as they reached the bottom of the stairs, diving into the water and hiding on the lake bed while aushanna cursed and rained arrows down into the water above them. After a few minutes a character with ebon eyes cast upon him saw her just vanish and they decided it was safe enough to sneak out the other side and find a spot to sleep.
That run down the stairs had an actual death defying feel to it. It was very exciting for the players and I could see their sense of victory when they figured out a way to be safe. All in all a great session.
She did 1d8+6+1d6 with her bow, which meant she could shoot down the hardness 8 hp 60 doors in two rounds (party delayed this with a make whole) with Rapid Shot and full attack.
Can you really picture someone shooting down a door with a bow? Just so you know, the rules actually state that most objects can only be smashed by slashing or bludgeoning weapons (i.e. not piercing).
Actually, the rules say...
Ranged Weapon Damage
Objects take half damage from ranged weapons (unless the weapon is a siege engine or something similar). Divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the object’s hardness.
And as far as the that 1d6 fire damage...
Energy Attacks
Acid and sonic attacks deal damage to most objects just as they do to creatures; roll damage and apply it normally after a successful hit. Electricity and fire attacks deal half damage to most objects; divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the hardness. Cold attacks deal one-quarter damage to most objects; divide the damage dealt by 4 before applying the hardness.
Oil of bless weapon.
That simple, inexpensive oil may be the most overlooked item in the entire game.
Beacuse no one reads that little last sentence in the spell description: any crit agaist an evil foe is automatically confirmed.
So go get big fat weapons for your studs and slather them with oil of bless weapon and start criting like a freak! In fact, get a falchion that you power attack with and all of a sudden you are dealing a sick amount of damage. Better yet, as you get higher level and you get the Improved Crit feat (sadly the oil does not help a keen weapon, you have to improve your threat range by feats), you can have a crit range of 15-20 with a falchion and the Improved Crit feat. Just make sure to oil up before combat! it lasts one minute per level. that should get you through combat no problem.
If you really want to get freaky, a simple feat and a first level spell make all the difference: monkey grip and enlarge. First, monkey grip that Large falchion which is now 2d6 instead of 2d4. Now enlarge yourself and you (and your weapon) increase a size category--you from M to L and the weapon from L to H, meaning the falchion now does 3d6. So you take Improved Crit with that 8th level Fighter bonus feat and voila! Threat range 15-20, automatic confirmed crit on a falchion that is doing 3d6 plus damage from power attack--all doubled. And, if you can afford it, a thundering quality (relatively cheap because it only works on crits but for you that is almost all the time!) which adds 1d8 on top of all that. you are probably bumping 4 points into power attack, which means +8 damage. So your +1 thundering Large falchion is now doing 3d6 +3 (Str) +8 (PA) +1 (weapon) = 3d6+12 plus 3d6+12 (confirmed crit) + 1d8 for thundering. OUCH!!! And if you really have the loot, you might as well make it a bane (outsiders, evil).
But back to my basic comment: Oil of Bless Weapon is the most overlooked item in the game.
Clark
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It was more thematic, to make them feel hemmed in and trapped, essentially pinned down. Make whole made it a moot point regardless, they sallied forth quite quickly. I did know about ranged, forgot about energy having different effects on objects. I counted it as siege at the time as a +5 Str bonus bow is unusual and would have to be made from metal composites etc as it is off the chart as far as normal bows are concerned. With hindsight if my players had kept the bow I would have possibly come to regret that :) Regardless doing the sums it would take a long time rolling max damage to start cracking the doors, even with +1 damage from Point Blank Shot that I forgot :)
As for bows, or peircing weapons shooting down stone doors? No, of course not. Shooting it with enough impact damage to create large holes in it to shoot through, of course. I believe guns do something similar, and bullets are peircing weapons. However, still pays to not apply to much real world logic or physics to high fantasy RPGs :)
It does raise what quailfies as similar to a siege weapon. As ballistas are Huge crossbows doing 3d8 damage I suppose any increased size weapon, that does base damage of 3d8 or greater, would count as a siege weapon. Just thinking of giants here, and similar size creatures or larger using weapons. It does indicate that Aushanna's bow, no matter how damaging or special it was, would not count as a siege weapon :) The joys of getting carried away.
The Good: two PCs were enlarged, and another had slippers of spider climb, so she couldn't hover at the ceiling 15 ft up with impunity.
You know the ceiling is like 70feet+ not 15ft?
My players found her more an annoyance than anything else. They had a much tougher time with the dragon, hydra and Mangh Micto. My party is very melee heavy so all their big hitters were all but useless in the fight. The two range specialists were the ranger, who had lost her bow the previous fight and the sorcerers who was low on spells. They bypassed her DR pretty much instantly using the feat that lets you convert turn checks into bless weapon AOE. But they were barely scratching her in the war of attrition which resulted Aushana would eventually win. Which they realised..
Eventually the sorceress (my wife) got pissed off as Aushana had charm monstered her familiar fairy-dragon. But all her remaining potent spells were short ranged (which I didn’t know actually). So she was just using magic missile and her crossbow. Aushana was pissed off at the sorceress because her MM + pet were annoying and the only thing doing any consistent and significant damage to her. So she struck with all her arrows dropping the sorceress from 40 something hps to 2. The sorceress decided to use the statue as cover to lure Aushana in – and it worked – she even managed to trick the DM!
Aushana had to manoeuvre within 20 or so feet to get a clear shot at the sorceress and that’s when she unleashed her 3 rays of fire. All 3 hit and did above average damage. Aushana was barbequed.
Aushana had to manoeuvre within 20 or so feet to get a clear shot at the sorceress and that’s when she unleashed her 3 rays of fire. All 3 hit and did above average damage. Aushana was barbequed.
It sounds like a great tactical ploy! Did you realize that Erinyes are immune to fire?
This was one grinding fight for us - 4 hours to finish. The players didn't have anything to negate the DR, ketp missing on Spell Resistance checks, and Aushanna kept moving around: Result = Very little damage dished out each round by both sides.
What turned the tide for us is that Aushanna eventually ran out of arrows and had to close for some melee.
(And I had to under-tactic Aushanna. I see her bow and sword as useless. Why wouldn't she just Unholy Blight every round? Tactics wise I had her Unholy Blight only if she could catch 2 or more PCs together. Otherwise, she'd use her bow.)
(Side Note: Aushanna is a "good" flyer, which means she can't hover. Which means no full round attack while flying. So our battle was Aushanna flying with a shot on the run. Landing somewhere, getting a full round attack or two, and then flying away once anybody closed with her.)
In the end, 3 of six PCs taken deep in the negatives, one PC killed.
As Aushanna is a conjured criature, my player simply cast Dispell Magic to her to negate the conjuration effect (I ruled that she would last an hour before coming back again).
Q
>> As Aushanna is a conjured criature, my player simply cast Dispell Magic to her to negate the conjuration effect (I ruled that she would last an hour before coming back again).
We can't say for sure since this is a "variant" planar ally spell, but a normal planar ally spell has a duration of instantaneous, thus not an ongoing spell, thus Dispel Magic does not work. Also discussed in the Billboloopoy-whap-bam-boo thread.
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The players of the Ranger and the Wizard got married yesterday, and are moving to Halifax, so we're working on two replacement players,
Is that Halifax, Yorkshire, UK?
If so, point them in my direction, and I could fix them up with a new group.
I'm the treasurer of the local wargames club, and know of several gaming groups in the area, different styles, different systems.
E-mail me at:
robert.feather@blueyonder.co.uk
Cheers,
Snorter
(Side Note: Aushanna is a "good" flyer, which means she can't hover. Which means no full round attack while flying. So our battle was Aushanna flying with a shot on the run. Landing somewhere, getting a full round attack or two, and then flying away once anybody closed with her.)
Just FYI, a maneuverability of "good" does allow you to hover. I know this well, because my warlock with Fell Flight does it all the time.
Aushana had to manoeuvre within 20 or so feet to get a clear shot at the sorceress and that’s when she unleashed her 3 rays of fire. All 3 hit and did above average damage. Aushana was barbequed.It sounds like a great tactical ploy! Did you realize that Erinyes are immune to fire?
Woops! You are right. Not sure how I missed that. Doesnt matter. Was too fun and satisfying for the players to take that from them. They all cheered when she went down.
as for me, when we played that encounter, the sorcerer just sent the Ranger (sworn enemy outsiders) and the super powerplayer monk (wow of poverty anyone?) flying; Aushanna's only tactic was to try not to get slaugherd too fast.
Not mentionig that her 20SR was often bested by the poor sosrcere ("poor" like the monk...)
>> Just FYI, a maneuverability of "good" does allow you to hover.
Ah, crap. You're right. Somehow I was looking at average flying when Erinyes are good. Just as well, with 4 shots each round it would have been a TPK for my players.
In my game, everyone fled from Aushanna into the flooded room of the kuo-toa high priest. They were so buffed the killed the high priest really quickly, but they were still running scared of Aushanna. They sealed themselves into that room. The rogue even used his Open Lock skill to jam the door closed. Then Aushanna teleported into the room. It was a lot of fun to see the terror in the player's eyes. But they managed to kill Aushanna with only a couple of player characters bleeding into the negatives.
>> As Aushanna is a conjured criature, my player simply cast Dispell Magic to her to negate the conjuration effect (I ruled that she would last an hour before coming back again).
We can't say for sure since this is a "variant" planar ally spell, but a normal planar ally spell has a duration of instantaneous, thus not an ongoing spell, thus Dispel Magic does not work. Also discussed in the Billboloopoy-whap-bam-boo thread.
Ups! You're right. I missed that. Anyway, they were so injured and low morale for the dificulty of the dungeon that the victory over Aushanna made them release the tension. Players were really happy about it, so it's fine with me.
Q. (sorry for my bad english)
I have powergaming bunch of players myself, and of all the encounters so far, this was the only one to challenge them without advancing the monsters.
Aushanna would fly up high and rapidshot whoever took her fancy; they would retreat down the hallway; she would teleport behind them and rapidshot; and repeat. They were all but helpless versus this tactic, until some genius threw up a Wind Wall to stop the arrows and forced her to close into the range of the Enlarged Greatsword specialist.
In a campaign where most of the stock encounters had all the jeapordy of clubbing baby seals, this one had them on the ropes wetting their pants. If they hadn't have two clerics it would have been a TPK for sure.
Someday soon they will run into a gaggle of her sisters...;)
My group faced Aushanna last night.
Last session they had driven off Gottrod, hitting him way to hard up front and using mass energy resistance to take away much of his thunder. He's now plotting his revenge for later, but that's another matter.
So the PCs pushed on and dealt with the Pit of Seven Jaws before resting. They assumed that they would be facing Gottrod again, so prepped for fighting dragons (spell wise).
When Gottrod didn't return (he wanted to be at full health before laying into the heroes), they pushed into the Underdark.
The ferry ride was humorous, in that they convinced the ferryman that they were offering the party's paladin as food for the kuo-tua tribe. Of course, the paladin acted strongly when the ferryman tasted him halfway through the boat ride across. Combat started on the ferry, alerting the place but leaving the ferryman dead.
The PCs then stormed the base, taking out the first wave of toughs. While fighting the soldiers, the party rogue simply went in and freed the two prisoners without question (despite their "don't free him, he's a traitor line"). The prisoners helped with the soldier fight (mainly freeing weapons stuck to shields), then retreated out of the complex.
The PCs then managed to find and set off the glyph, but no worries due to evasion.
They then went into the big room, sending their scout first. Thus the timer for Aushanna starts.
The fight in the big room took some time, as they were hesitant to get down into the thick of things--instead using a lot of ranged attacks on the whips below. They also had a horrible time vs. the adhesive of the shields on the soldiers (hehehe). This whole time Mangto Mickto (or whatever his name is) is buffing and armoring up in his room--having started when the general alarm went off.
Soon the summoning time has elapsed and there are still three kuo-tua whips causing problems. Poof, Aushanna arrives and begins wreaking havok in the way that you all know.
Fortunately in his kit of dragon-fighting, the wizard has the earthbind spell (to bring the flying red dragon to the ground). Aushaunna fails her save to it (I rolled a 3), and thus the fight was joined in earnest. Just as she teleported away from the herd of melee types now on the platform with the blipdoolpoolp statue, Mango Milko (hehe) comes out ready to roll.
Netting and fatiguing mango, he was stuck and easily overwhelmed despite his buffs and high AC. Using an insane use rope (to tie the controlling end of the net to the statue's base) followed by a bull rush, he was suspended handing from the platform/statue unable to get out of the entangle (strength drain and fatigue) and not within touch range of anyone (to actually use his spells). Thus, the kuo-tua pinata was born... and died full of arrows.
Meanwhile the clerical team was playing a mad healing race against aushanna. They've focused on wands of healing, and good thing... The cure serious wand recovered earlier saw every charge used, as was about 25 charges from the two cure light wands and about 10 charges from a lessor vigor wand.
Everyone survived, mainly because there was one PC with mobility who picked up any fallen allies and moved them to safe places to be healed (so that they wouldn't get caught in her frequent unholy blights... I did one every 3 rounds or so).
Fun and memorable. It was all set up due to the sticky adhesive on the shields, in my opinion--forcing the PCs to use their offensive spells early and leaving them to be plenty creative later.
Oh, and special mention to the PC ranger/wizard who used swift fly to charge aushanna and try to grapple her in the air (prior to her being grounded by the spell). The character failed to grapple, and then fell as swift fly ended. But it was an impressive attempt! That was the same PC who got creative with the net and the bull rush--it makes for fun stuff!
Anyhow, that's our little bit of Aushanna lore.
Cheers,
Andrew
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Our fight got off to a bad start. When the mummy appeared, I assume the idea was for the party to club it to death in the pool, since it would be unlikely to be turned.
However, the scenario writers failed to take account of Kaile, the Cleric/Paladin of Glory, who forced the creature to s~*@ its pants and blunder off.
All the party bar my wizard and our new recruit (a goliath barbarian from the cells) were either still coming downstairs, or stuck in the water, getting nowhere fast. I failed my save vs its despair aura so it was one PC who chased it into the main temple....
The mummy has hacked to death, no problem, but the goliath (being a rescued prisoner and all) didn't yet have his armour on, so came belting out yelling for help, and tried to get dressed, while the whips buffed themselves up...
The party eventually got out of the pool, I snapped out of my daze, told him not to bother with his armour, gave him a mage armour, and told him to get back in.
The fight in the temple was hard; the difficult terrain, balconies, archers, sticky shields, lightning bolts, several buff spells prepared...I was able to walk up the walls to come down on the whips with a burning hands wand, and heard the high priest preparing. I locked him in his room with arcane lock and hold portal, while we finished the kuo-toa.
We all saw the devil forming, but we were unsure how long we had, and didn't want to start a fight with the high priest that we couldn't finish.
When she did appear, it was brutal. Coda (half-orc tank)was hovering ready to attack, and everyone had spells or shots readied. I climbed above the door as I heard the high priest fumbling with it.
He dispelled the arcane lock, and came out, just as the devil appeared. I shot him in the back for little damage, got hit in return and the goliath went for him, but missed.
The next round, he dropped the goliath with a flurry of 3 attacks that did over 60 damage. Coda failed to hit the devil, who impaled him with 4 arrows.
The next round, the priest stepped back and locked his door, more shots were exchanged, dropping Coda, and wounding others, but we could not scratch the devil. I walked down the wall to the other door, which opened at my command, swung in, and dispelled most of the high priest's spells. He threw a lightning bolt back at me, which failed to breach my energy resistance. Hah!
2 of the party followed me in (Badvock the Dwarf Rogue/Fighter, and Lia the Elf Ranger/Cleric).
Kaile was still on the floor level trying to rejoin us (he had had to chase a kuo-toa halfway round the temple to get his sword back...).
He saw it was impossible to reach us, so taunted the devil, and ran out the secret door, with her at his heels.
There followed a long fight with the high priest, who, even with only half his spells, was still a tough nut to crack.
Magic missiles, and flanking attacks from the dwarf and elf finally brought him down, just as I had cast haste...
I was frantically searching his rooms for something I could use against him, when I set of the trap, which would have killed me, had I not saved, which I only did due to cat's grace.
Meanwhile, Kaile had run back to the mummy's pool, where he dove under the water for protection. There followed an inconclusive fight, as the devil fired volleys into the water, which put out the flames, and distorted her aim. Some blows were exchanged round the twisting staircase, but she was unable to fly or use her bow. Kaile eventually stayed out of view long enough to hurl himself into a cell, where he expected to be cornered. However, she must have heard the priest's telepathic calls for help, as she gave up the chase inside the mouth of the fish-head entrance.
As to the main fight;
We had just dropped the kuo-toa priest (still under the effects of haste), and heard the eryines in the next room. I put my cloak of arachnidia (from the slaad) on Badvock and hid in the next room, holding my action.
My idea was that if she were trapped, Badvock and Lia could just walk through the web (under the effects of spider climb from the cloak and her boots) and coup-de-grace for automatic (3d10+2d6+15) + (2d8+14) every round, which, even if she made the saves vs the damage (and possibly a save vs massive damage), should kill her quickly.
The devil then teleported into our room, and Badvock webbed virtually the whole room, but could not break her spell resistance, so she wasn't entangled, but was trapped, so he ran to join me, as did Lia (both of them unhindered by the webs).
She then teleported into my room, so I hit her with a lightning ball (again, failing to beat SR), before she shot me.
Badvock again webbed her, again failed to beat SR, so again, she was unentangled, but now the battlefield was a thin L-shape, in which she couldn't fly or shoot through, and which both our hasted warriors had free reign.
I tumbled into the next room and cast resist fire on myself, as one arrow from her bow could now kill me.
There followed several rounds of combat, in which she was flanked and battered by both, while she attempted to charm Badvock, who resisted both times (phew!)
I hit her with a phantasmal assailant, which partially affected her, dropping her Wis and Dex by 4 each. Lia then critted her, plus a further 2 hits for over 40hp damage; Badvock threated her, but failed to confirm, and she was on the run.
She stepped back, and (after Badvock missed with his AoO) let loose with all 4 arrows into Lia, who was hit by 2 and dropped (saved from certain death by protection from evil). Now she could concentrate on Badvock, who could no longer sneak attack her....!
It was then that I unleashed the ace in our armoury, that I had been building up over the preceding round, to swing the tide of battle with the awesome power of....(dum, dum, DAH!)........the Summon Monster 1 scroll!
Witness the fearsome vengeance of ....the Celestial Badger!
This appeared behind the devil, and lashed out with all attacks, hitting with all 3, and even critting. It's damage was minimal, but I had to laugh as its holy claws and teeth bypassed all her damage reduction, and it clamped itself onto her backside, gnawing away at her rump.
Badvock seized his chance, and hacked her twice, both dealing sneak damage, and dropping her to one knee, before she teleported from the room, fading from view along with the badger.
I like to think it went with her, tearing apart her loins as she screamed for a mercy I would never allow her despicable kind.
Or maybe the spell ran out after a round....I like my version best!
The DM had Kaile heal up, listen, then start back through the pool. By the time he got back to the main temple, we were clearing up the mess and searching the bodies. I used a mage hand to shuffle all the pots in the side room, and expend the trap in a controlled explosion, so we could get at the stash of coins and jewellery. We also met up with a pair of samurai
(human and dwarf, replacement PCs to make up for Coda and Morgo), who were searching for Zenith Splintershield too, and blew the (trapped) main temple doors off their hinges while walking in, which was good play by them, since the players were well aware of the trap (discovered by me the session before), but their characters weren't.
We bagged what we could carry, high-tailed out of the temple, and hitched a ride with the ferryman, who could only understand me. We had chatted on the way in, enough to know all was not as it seemed, so I fed him some bull about seeing Zenith, staring into the Dark, and the corpses were of those of us not deemed worthy...
Methinks Mr Z Splintershield may not want rescuing...
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Where are you, you cowardly skank!
I go to all the trouble of breaking back into the temple, kill your stupid dwarf-prophet (so much for our reward), banish his pet elemental, learn to break your spell resistance, cover the party in fire-resistance, we wait for you , and what happens?
You never showed up!
Well screw you!
Where are you, you cowardly skank!
I go to all the trouble of breaking back into the temple, kill your stupid dwarf-prophet (so much for our reward), banish his pet elemental, learn to break your spell resistance, cover the party in fire-resistance, we wait for you , and what happens?
You never showed up!
Well screw you!
i,m sure if your determined to gain a swift and painful death i can oblige you! heads up next game session:)
Last week had my party go up against her.
Party took out the Cryohydra without a problem beyond that first blast that almost killed the party's ranger. The party's warmage hit it twice with scorching ray and that was enough to kill it.
The kuo-toans all died like flies, never presenting much of a challenge to the party. They marched right up to the temple and just opened the doors. From that point on, I kept careful track of how many rounds had passed.
The archers opened fire on the party from above, and the clerics started charging lightning bolts. The party was at first concerned that the clerics were impossible to hit, and after a summoned troll skeleton got turned back onto the party, everyone lost hope except the warmage, who again came through with some massive spell usage (exhausting all of them, making the rest of the fight hell for him).
The party's second ranger rushed two of the kuo-toan soldiers and was making easy work of them until his badger failed a reflex save and managed to get himself grappled with a shield. Everyone started shouting at me that the shield was now useless to the kou-toan, and I agree, so I threw the shield, badger still attached, over the side. This prompted the ranger to decide what his new favorite enemy was.
When Aushanna showed up, the entire party were cleaning up loot from the clerics on the bottom floor. The rogue rushed her, and she flew into the air, opening up with her arrows. In one round she took out the party's dwarven fighter, and in the second round that rogue died as well. The party then decided that there was nothing they could do to her up there, so they ran under the balcony to hide, all except the party's second ranger (still pissed over the badger thing). She used her potion of levitate, in conjunction with a smoke stick, to hover up near her, and then he dropped the smokestick and threw a tanglefoot bag at her. Fearing the loss of her wings, and not being able to hit anything where she was, she came down to fight on the PCs level. The party of course instantly surrounded her. First round she killed the party druid with a crit to the throat. Next round she knocked out the party's melee fighter, the first ranger (favored enemy evil outsider) and the bard spent the rest of combat trying to keep him on his feet. Luckily, before too long, the ranger scored a successful crit on her and skewered her.
The fight with the priest immediately following that was also tough. He managed to lure the entire party into the back room (after cursing the warblade) and managed to fill the room with water. The warblade had taken a maneuver that allowed him to attack the kuo-toan's touch AC, and was the only damage being done. The party managed to force the door open, but I ruled that so much water would carry the party out with it, and had them make reflex saves. Those that failed were swept over the edge of the platform and took falling damage. The kuo-toan priest failed his save, and the fall killed him. The jars with glyphs of warning on them also were swept out, and were shattered as they hit the ground, setting off the trap. Surprised all the PC's made it through that (the trap, Aushanna did claim three lives).
Aushanna obliterated my wizard a few rounds into the Kuo-toan battle with her fire arrows and that left the party with three members: a half orc barbarian, a dwarf fighter/cleric, and then a drow paladin/sentinel. But before the wizard bought the farm he was able to snuff two of the eight Kuo-toans with a fireball.
Thankfully Aushanna departed after 10 rounds because she had my party on the ropes. The kuo-toans are all dead. My party is severely battered and methinks it would be nice to head back to Cauldron for a little r & r IF we can get out of the city first.
My question is this: did any have their party re-group and head back to Cauldron only to return to the Kuo-toan city with a better plan ? Or did you trudge onward despite dead party members ?
My party had had advance warning of the erinys' presence, as otherwise the GM expected a TPK. Unfortunately I made a bad tactical decision, feeling that the Charm Monster was a major problem compared to the archery and that therefore it would be essential to keep the party together and inside Magic Circle Vs. Evil. This led to not investing heavily in flight, which turned out to be a disaster.
The PCs (fighter, paladin, wizard, rogue, dervish, cleric, plus Shensen) took out the early kuo-toa with moderate difficulty and took out all the priests in the central chamber just in time for Aushanna to appear. They had spent nearly all their money on Stoneskin scrolls, which saved the wizard's life on the first round. The wizard cast Haste and everyone ran like hell, because it was immediately apparent that fighting Aushanna in that room would be fatal.
The rest of the fight was seventy rounds of cat and mouse through the complex. We use a Star-Trek-transporter delay system for Teleport so the PCs could see Aushanna coming, but she'd teleport outside and then take potshots down the long hall or through the eye sockets. The dervish got one glorious attempt to grapple her but failed. Almost none of the PCs' spells worked (the wizard and rogue got in one successful Magic Missile each) and the erinys' DR bounced or nearly bounced everyone's missile attacks as the group lacked a dedicated archer. Basically all the PCs could do was move around, watch for her, and trade shots, with Aushanna doing far more damage than they were. (And knowing that there were more kuo-toa unaccounted for who might be healing her, though in fact they weren't.) They used up their entire stockpile of healing magic, and all of their arrows, at which point they were pretty much in despair.
Why didn't they use Oil of Bless Weapon? Because the spell description for Bless Weapon says that it does not work on bows, only on single arrows, which is nearly useless.
Why didn't they summon a celestial creature which could hurt Aushanna? Because celestial creatures are DR/magic, not DR/good, and can't hurt Aushanna any more than the PCs can.
Eventually the High Priest got his armor on, and insisted that Aushanna help him kill the PCs rather than continuing her cat-and-mouse. The PCs won that, losing the paladin and putting everyone else in single digits. This felt a bit like a GM fudge to save the situation, though he swears it wasn't.
This was supposed to be a memorable climactic fight, and it was indeed memorable, but it basically convinced the PCs (and player) that they were not up to the Adventure Path and should just abandon it. The fight took seven hours to play out and was absolutely gruelling, as the PCs had next to nothing they could effectively do. And it was clear that without the pre-warning about the erinys, and without having spent a lot of money bribing the dragon to stay away, they'd have lost. They couldn't run, as Aushanna would easily have killed them in the open. (Yes, they should have had Water Breathing, but their pre-planning hurt them there; they knew the Temple was dry, so they didn't spend precious money on it.)
Afterwards we agreed that a large part of the problem was that the PCs had advanced too fast and the player didn't know how to use their abilities well, so we slowed down advancement drastically and put in a whole bunch of side adventures. Managed to save the campaign that way--it just had too much good stuff to die.
My impression of this fight is that a lot of GMs instinctively "make mistakes" to make it winnable: they play Aushanna's tactics poorly, or forget a rule or two at a critical moment. I don't blame them, either, as having the PCs slaughtered by something they basically cannot hurt is not a lot of fun for anyone. Some parties, of course, will do fine--flying fighters or heavily optimized archers have no trouble, especially if they are not mostly Good in alignment so the Unholy Blight doesn't hurt as much. But parties with strengths in melee who lack flight, or parties with strengths in casting, are likely to have a very bad time here.
(To end on a more upbeat note: much later, the dervish was turned permanently into an outsider on Occipitus. The GM gave the player carte blanche to decide what the result looked like, and when the rest of the PCs saw her, they immediately said "My gods, it's Aushanna!" So I guess she did make an impression beyond just "We're not up to this.")
Mary
My DM ran Aushanna straight as an arrow ( no pun intended ) and she lived up to her billing as a bad a$$ devil wench from hell. I ran out of a lot of my options when my wizard bought the farm from all her arrows.
I think what I may have to do is flee the Kuo Toan city ( I can put the wizard in a bag of holding and I believe there is a spell called "gentle repose" that will preserve the wizard's corpse ) so that once we get back to Cauldron we can pay for a ressurection on him.
My DM said that three adventurers just won't be able to make it through the rest of the adventure. Especially now that we lack a wizard. I guess we will be paying through the nose to bring the wizard back to life. Sigh. Oh well, that is what all that good loot is for anyway no ?
Go Brewers!