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Well, here is the recap so far. They bribed the gaurds, with Lilo the Bard hitting a 25 on his diplomacy, so the guard let them in to the Mine area. Found the elevator and headed down. As the elevator entered the light of the chamber below, I gave them spot checks to notice the Teiflings, bang, natural 20 from the Hexblade. So he jumps down the final 15 feet, suprising the Teiflings and hits, 16 points, unconcious, cleave, 15 points, unc. Well, they now explore the chamber, and fiddle with the pool. Figure out they can't do anything with it, so they put the 2 Tieflings bodies in it, and push them down until they disappear. Now they have the key, to get into the Hextor temple. They open the doors, and the skeletons animate, and the bells ring. We broke there. They will have a couple rounds before the temple is on "alert". One gaurd from the adjoining area is going to bang the gong, and the other retreat toward the "battle chamber" I will have half the fanatics attack, one run to release the beast, and the rest head to the chamber as well. I need to figure out how long it should take the rest of the temple to ready itself and get to the balconies. I plan on the 2 priests, and the puds, to be on the floor, and the remaining 3 guards + Theldrick on the balcony.
How long do you think it would take them to muster, given that they all are not probably wearing armor and such. I want to push the fight, and really challenge the PC's. Do you think that 2 minutes is too fast?
Pat
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Wouldn't you want the priests on the balcony where they can volley spells?
As far as the time it would take, I'd personally balance the amount of rest time the party gets with the level of difficulty you want them to have once the doors in the temple are locked. If they want to rest up, great. That just gives the temple defenders time to prepare.
Without knowing the particulars of your party, I don't know if scaling's in order.
I just ran this encounter Friday. I created a "Hextor Clock" that showed who did what from Round 1. I think I determined that Room 11 would be assembled in about 7 or 8 rounds, which is little more than a minute.
The fight was very tough for 4 PCs Level 5....in the end I did not include the three Trog Zombies in the fight (Theldrick called them off when the fight seemed well in hand, over-confident bad-guy style), and I made it to where at the end, the wall in front of the throne moved to form a ramp for the bad guys to reach the floor (and vice-versa) to the PCs and the real villains could go fisticuffs.
See my self-titled post for a Monologue Theldrick could give in your game....
I wonder if I deleted my own post....it was there then it disappeared. I'll post below. If I kill your thread because something about it was less than pleasing for Paizo, sorry in advance!
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Neophytes of war, the lord of all that matters most
has bestowed upon us a most pleasing gift. As
prophesized, heretics have come to violate our beloved
and sacred school.
And our faith has been rewarded; before us are filth
whose lives have been harvested for the sole purpose
of death at our hands in honor of the one…Hextor.
If you have any parting thought or last words, save
them. We care not, and they will go unheard in this
sanctuary. Do die honorably, and Hextor might accept
you into his fields of perpetual pain in the after-life.
I just ran this encounter Friday. I created a "Hextor Clock" that showed who did what from Round 1. I think I determined that Room 11 would be assembled in about 7 or 8 rounds, which is little more than a minute.
I might be a little interested in seeing that Hextor Clock of yours...
I might be a little interested in seeing that Hextor Clock of yours...
AS YOU COMMAND, MIGHTY MEGATRON!
Note that I stepped up the time table by about a round (releasing Beast call for a full-round action and I made it part of a move action) - I was a bit worried that the PCs might mosh through the skeletons and cultist too quickly. It turned out that the first battle was the quagmire the Hextorites wanted in the first place. Also, I determined how long it would take for cultists and guards to respond ahead of time. DFH stands for "Dirty Face Heroes"; this is their group name given that two of them were miners and one of them was Allustans landscapist. One of the "DFH" members refers to the group more affectionatly as DFKs, or Dirty Faced Killers!
**********************************
Rnd 1: Battle.
Rnd 2: Battle.
Rnd 3: Ten Cult members emerge from Rm3 to Rm2.
Rnd 4: Guards emerge from Rm4 to Rm2. The ten Cultists split up, five attack the DFHs and the other five run to the doors of Rm11.
Rnd5: Guards run to Rm5 and enter. Cultists that got to Rm11 open the doors, enter and close them taking battle positions (Spot DC 12).
Rnd 6: Beast is released; the guards follow beast out of the door and head to door across the way.
Rnd 7: Beast enters combat in Rm2; Guard 1 opens the door; both guards enter; and Guard 1 closes the door. Guard 2 continues on to the second door (Spot DC 15).
Rnd 8: Guard 1 bars the first door, and runs to the second door. Guard 2 enters through the door and alerts three more guards in Rm6 of the attack.
Rnd 9: Guard 5 runs to Rm8 to alert the two priests. Guard 1 enters in through the second door and bars it from the inside. Guards 1 and 2 will remain at this door just south of Rm6 in the event the DFHs try this approach. Guards 3 and 4 remain stand on the stairs, awaiting Theldrick's signal, kung-fu movie style.
Rnd 10: Guard 5 enters Rm9 to alert Thedrick. The two clerics follow and mobilize the three zombies in Rm9.
Rnd 11: Thedrick, the two clerics, Guard 5, and the three zombies walk up the stairs and open the door. Thedrick makes it to his throne and if necessary, presses the button on his throne to slam the doors shut to Rm11.
Rnd 12: Theldrick remains calm in his throne, flanked by his zombies, and speaks in manner most befitting of a leader of an evil cult. The rest of the enemies await Theldrick's signal to run in and take position kung-fu style. This is an immediate ad uninterruptible action.
Rm 11 role call:
Theldrick (balcony)
Garras (balcony)
Kendra (balcony)
Three Zombies (balcony)
Up to 5 Guards (balcony)
Up to 5 Cultists (floor)
I think it was mentioned in another thread that Theldick was the most "bland" or the three bosses. I strongly disagree; IMO I think he is one of the better bad-guys I've seen recently, and with some infusion of attitude, can be a very memorable bad-guy.
Too bad he has to bite the dust.
Great stuff IGR!! Everything that you've posted is most helpful!! Thank you very much.
I was wondering what your input on this would be: My PCs are basically sponsored and mentored by Allustan. Do you think if the PCs showed Allustan the letter to Filge from Smenk (although nobody knows its written by Smenk), Allustan will
a) believe there may be a significant threat in Dourstone mine
and more importantly b) use his familial connections with his brother to get a mining cart and gear so that the PCs can infiltrate the mine "incognito" as it were?
I think thats a great idea you've got there, GG. If I were the DM, I would absolutely let that fly (the incognito plan) as long as the players came up with that plan (in other words I wouldn't have Allustan field that idea - I'd let the players devise their own strategy).
In fact, it offers the potential for the use of skills that would otherwise go unused, and might increase the importance of the bard/rouge, assuming they can disguise/bluff, etc. Believe me, I look for EVERY opportunity to exploit the use of non-combat skills.
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My party just hit the battle chapel last night. I also had a script of round by round action by the denizens, and I'm not sure I would have gotten through the combat without it. The combat itself took at least 2 hours straight to play through, mostly because there was a long stretch of time where the bad guys were shooting fish in a barrel. It took the pcs many rounds of pain to figure out that the statue could be used, despite my repeatedly stressing how big the thing was and how it was offering them partial cover. They kept saying that they knew they were missing something. Uh, what about the 25 foot behemoth statue that dominates the room?
I placed the zombies, the two guards that survived the pcs entrance to the complex and Theldrick's fiendish ape on the combat floor and left two longbow-toting guards and all the clerics up on the balcony. The biggest problem this gave me was the half-orc's complete uselessness up there once he was out of spells and potions. I at least let him carry along the wand of Enlarge Self from his chest into combat (I hate it when bad guys leave their weapons in their dresser drawers). Once he was out of things to do, I pretty much had him do muscle-man poses each round until the pcs made it up to the balcony.
Theldrick and Kendra were a constant nuisance with the crossbows. Overall, I was pretty happy with the balance of the combat (the party has three 4th level characters). I would think that the combat might be overbalanced towards the pcs if you were to add a 4th level wizard to the party (which mine does not have). Of course I was rolling like crap too, so who knows.
One thing I realized reading ahead is that I'm really going to have to script the Erythnul encounter as well. It's pretty implausible to me that combat in the first chamber would not echo throughout the vault caves, alerting everyone to the situation. Maybe not the leaders, since their eating psychadelic mushrooms, and whatnot. But definitely everyone else. Something else I really don't like is that the Grimlocks realy have no way out of their own complex without facing the feral barbarian or the chokers. I think the barbarian's attitude is going to be deleted from my campaign, making her just another tough bad guy. I don't really get what making her 'feral' adds to things.