Okay, so my party encountered the mindflayer, Zyrxog. I'll get to how it went, but I'm curious to know how other DMs are handling the killing force we all love, Zyrxog?
So, the first time the PCs meet Zyrxog, and I'm not talking about the little mini-encounter when they're leaving Telekin's lair, they had all crowded into the scrying room. They were looking at Telekin's lair, and then they decided to try and use the device to scry on ol' Zyrxog himself. I thought that was pretty good thinking, so I say sure, you see him hiding in a shadowy area (he's in the nest room levitating up near the ceiling waiting for the party - love that Alarm spell). Of course Zyrxog gets a check to determine if he's being scryed - makes it! So, he turns and there's the party at his scrying pool. Lightning bolt. I get about half the party. Now the problem with them fighting Zyrxog where they are is that they have to line up the see and attack him. The monk jumps down to the floor - where the octopin are moving to climb up the wall from their starting position. From there is just went downhill. More lightning bolts, fireballs from the necklace, ray of enfeebelment (love that spell now), and so one. Eventually the party runs away with major damage but no deaths.
So they have time to heal and plan - our group has a forum set up for discussions, some role-playing of shopping and such (dice roller is great on a forum), and they set up a thread for party members only, no DM, to talk strategy. No problem there, only it doesn't go so well. They figure that they'll let Zyrxog know they're there, but then lock themselves away to let his defensive spells run out. Good plan, except for plane shifting. He sneaks up behind them (after recasting his spells that had run out) and lets them have it with mind blast. He is eventually defeated, but it was a tough one.
So, how did your party fair? Also, I'm wondering about what you thought of the encounter itself. With a SR of 32, mindblast DC of 23, you've taken out the fighters and the wizards from the fight. What's left, the rogue and cleric??? I'm still confused as to how this is a CR 11 monster (not to mention the inclusion of two CR 6 critters). My party has six members and they all managed to make it to the game for the mindflayer encounter, and still it was a tough fight - almost too tough. But for the roll of a dice or two it could have been a TPK. Thoughts?
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3 letters: TPK.
One of the PC's had joined the Thieves Guild though, so they came in and took the bodies, and had them ressurected. It cost a ton, and one PC retired.
He just kept Mind Blasting them, then ate their little brains. So the TG chased him off, but he'll be back later in the campaign, albeit even tougher.
My party roasted him. They nearly lost the whole party to one mind blast and the two feeble drow and so they made preparations. The cleric memorized a pair of Spell immunity spells which she cast on herself and the Warmage. The warweaver cast a big pile of buffs on the whole party (cause, you know, that's what the class does) and when the party had worked the way to the big ivory doors he cast gaseous form through the weave. The whole party made it to Zyrzog with only a lost point of wisdom, and a few spells lost from the early encounters (an Evard's Tenticles killed ALL of the drow except the preistess).
The party came upon Zyrzog with a few rounds left on Bulls Strength, Cats Grace, Bears Endurance, and Owls Wisdom. The first Mind Blast stalled a few members of the party, and the unstunned chartacters were content to smush Octopins and throw excessively damaging orbs at Zyrzog. (Conjuration seplls, they disallow SR) They took some damage, but eventually the Warweaver got unstunned, polymorphed himself into a Treant (8HD, just to ruin my day) which is immune to all but Big Z's damaging attacks, cast fly and grappled for the win.
I ruled that due to psionic nature (and being an annoyed DM)the Mind Flayer could still psionically plane shift while grappling (not true, I know) and might return after a while. Fortunately the rest of Big Z's stuff did kill a party member and nearly killed everyone else. One summoned Celestial Animal was all that kept the Vrock from pounding the rest of the drained party to dust.
I have not yet run the mindlfayer encounter (my party is incredibly slow), but I have found that, in general, the AoW path is too hard. I imagine that in an effort to make it interesting and unique, challenges were chosen that are too much for the average party of 4 disparate characters.
Thus, I have been routinely easing up on the encounters. Thus far (through 3FoE), I have done this primarily by reducing the NUMBER of encounters. I dropped the mad slasher and flying ray thingie from the Whispering Cairn and took out a couple of the grimlocks, the dire boar, and dire weasels from the Evil Faces. It turns out, also, that I find those encounters to be the weirdest, least appropriate encounters in the adventurs. I still don't buy that the Faceless One just happened to be sending aberrations into the Whispering Cairn to poke around (and where did he find and how does he control these things?).
I suggest that you be ready to drop some stuff in future adventures, both to make them survivable and to keep them from being silly.
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I have not yet run the mindlfayer encounter (my party is incredibly slow), but I have found that, in general, the AoW path is too hard. I imagine that in an effort to make it interesting and unique, challenges were chosen that are too much for the average party of 4 disparate characters.
Did you ever take a look at SCAP? I can remember my party of 7 with their cohorts having trouble surviving parts of that. I consider it a trademark of the APs and I personally enjoy the difficult encounters.
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I have not yet run the mindlfayer encounter (my party is incredibly slow), but I have found that, in general, the AoW path is too hard. I imagine that in an effort to make it interesting and unique, challenges were chosen that are too much for the average party of 4 disparate characters. ...
Difficult? Yes! But when I DMed the SCAP, I took great care that my players had a good rest before the tough encounters. Normally, this time is given in the SCAP, but when not, I gave it to them, especially on Occipitus. Players get a feeling to have something accomplished, if they manage to survive the tough ones - even the ones whoes characters died in those encounters had fun afterwards and felt good!
I have only glimpsed parts of the Shackled City AP, but I still feel that, while it's fun to overcome significant challenges, this fun is secondary to the feelings of frustration that my players develop after losing character after character. If we were talking about a board game, I could more easily say, "You win some, you lose some," but a RPG is only fun when the characters live long enough to develop a history and play out their specific character, achieve some goals, etc. As it stands now, it is too difficult to run without major modifications. For example, I have no problem with the PCs resting before the big fight, but it sometimes makes no sense for them to do so. I had to modify 3FoE considerably to provide a logical pause between sections of dungeon.
My point is, that the CR system has been developed to provide a reasonably straightforward system of determining appropriately challenging encounters over the period of time between PCs' rest. Why are the writers ignoring this system?
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I have only glimpsed parts of the Shackled City AP, but I still feel that, while it's fun to overcome significant challenges, this fun is secondary to the feelings of frustration that my players develop after losing character after character. If we were talking about a board game, I could more easily say, "You win some, you lose some," but a RPG is only fun when the characters live long enough to develop a history and play out their specific character, achieve some goals, etc. As it stands now, it is too difficult to run without major modifications. For example, I have no problem with the PCs resting before the big fight, but it sometimes makes no sense for them to do so. I had to modify 3FoE considerably to provide a logical pause between sections of dungeon.
My point is, that the CR system has been developed to provide a reasonably straightforward system of determining appropriately challenging encounters over the period of time between PCs' rest. Why are the writers ignoring this system?
O
I don't think they're ignoring it so much as forced to work around it, at least in the APs. For a campaign to go from 1st to 20th level in the course of 12 adventures, you either have to have LONG adventures with high word counts that will exclude other adventures being included in an issue, or else you have to make all the encounters dangerous and high-powered in order to ensure that the PCs level up at the appropriate rate throughout the campaign. So, as I see it, no one's ignoring the system; they just don't have the room within the word-count limits to stretch each adventure out as long as it should theoretically be.
What's with the red-hot staff, anyways? It doesn't even have a staff listed anywhere in his stat block. Is that supposed to be an overly large, red glowing metamagic rod?
I have not yet run the mindlfayer encounter (my party is incredibly slow), but I have found that, in general, the AoW path is too hard. I imagine that in an effort to make it interesting and unique, challenges were chosen that are too much for the average party of 4 disparate characters.
...
I suggest that you be ready to drop some stuff in future adventures, both to make them survivable and to keep them from being silly.
Is it tough? Ohhh hell yes. My party's just about to complete 3FoE, and they've just had their first death after way too many near misses to count (the battleground in the LE temple).
And you know what? They're absolutely loving it. At least two of the players, including the casualty, are RELISHING the challenge. The grand melee that they found themselves in in the LE temple is something they're still talking about.
I'd like to know what you found silly about any of the encounters, although I will agree that the AP is beyond the capabilities of a four-man team. I've got six with an NPC, and its still a slog.
Is it tough? Ohhh hell yes. My party's just about to complete 3FoE, and they've just had their first death after way too many near misses to count (the battleground in the LE temple).
And you know what? They're absolutely loving it. At least two of the players, including the casualty, are RELISHING the challenge. The grand melee that they found themselves in in the LE temple is something they're still talking about.
I'd like to know what you found silly about any of the encounters, although I will agree that the AP is beyond the capabilities of a four-man team. I've got six with an NPC, and its still a slog.
Yeah, I've got a six player group and we've had a few deaths already. I've got to say that my players did not like the fact that I backed off a little bit on the mindflayer encounter, so it's full steam ahead for the rest of the adventure path.
I also must say that it never occurred to me that cramming 1st to 20th level in just 12 adventures would require really tough challenges - but it makes sense. And with a little more planning and forthought I think the encounters can be overcome without player deaths. But, the planning and working together is a must.
AoW is extremely challenging, and like Hangfire, my group is loving it. All experianced, the three main players have found greater depth in this champaign then in any other.
With the encounters, they've come up with extremely creative ways to handle problems, like retreating. Yes, this is the first time my group has every retreated. Besides that, they've pumped out the water in the flooded room in WC, manipulated tensor's floating disk to remove the brown mold, and used charm spells to parley themselves a magic cloak from a party of trolls, avoiding combat.
What became apparent during HoHR is that playing style really can affect the deadliness and challenge of Aow. One of our friends who has been away from collage joined the group right before Zyrog's lair, as a rogue which the party badly needed.
He never knew what hit him.
His first surprise was the parade encounter, where he found not only the paladin (which has been succesfully role-played, as well has having a moral challenge (both firsts)) and himself trying to rescue and save commoners. He was used to kill now, ask for directions to the next hoard later, style of play.
Then the three drow assasians took him down a notch. (This encounter replaced the dopplaganer bar fight due to plot line considerations). When he burst trough his bed room door and charged the unknown intruder, he never expected a quitly drawn x-bow to palalyze him for the whole encounter. The assasins know the group included two elves as well as the human paladin and took precautions.
The real kicker was the naga encounter. After creativly taking out the three drow ambushers with stealth and planning, the rogue boldly walked into the pool room, intreaged by the green glow. He was kind enough to hold back the pladin and elves for his new found friend, the charming naga. No blows were exchanged, but it gave Fassash time to buff and slither along the far wall.
After being blasted from a fireball from his new found friend, he ran head long around the rocks to find revenge. What he found instead was an attack of oppurtuity.
Poor Dethaniel, he didn't stand a chance. The poison raced through him faster then water off a waterfall. The pain and suffering was ended when he hit -28.
When the naga lay dead, the effects of Dethaniels hack and slash playing on the rest of the group was apparent. Sir Gabriel calmly said, "We'll pitch camp here, I need to rest up and see to our wounds", standing over the pair of corpses, near the spirit pool, in front of the Drow Enclave, were a group of eight drow calmly watched him draw out his beroll.
If a group can think ahead and the DM gives them enough foreshadowing to provided clues into what to prepare for, the party will come out battered, beaten, blooded, but alive (at least most of them). If they make stupid mistakes, they will be punished, harshly, by AoW.
I just have one question about Zyrxog. How the spork is 7th level Illithid Sorceror a CR 11? Isn't it about a 15?
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This has been addressed before, but the sorceror levels are non-associated- several creatures in the Monstrous Manual (mummy lord, aboleth, elestial charger) also suffer this issue... quite simply, a mind flayer hurling scorching rays or magic missiles is simply not that impressive and certainly not a CR 11.
This has been addressed before, but the sorceror levels are non-associated- several creatures in the Monstrous Manual (mummy lord, aboleth, elestial charger) also suffer this issue... quite simply, a mind flayer hurling scorching rays or magic missiles is simply not that impressive and certainly not a CR 11.
WTF? The 9th Level Squid-head Sorc in the MM is listed as a 17, and Zyrxog has two CR 6s with him to boot. To say nothing of the fact that his SR is so high that he's near invulnerable to the party's casters, and knows the PCs are coming.
And to top it all of, Squiddies have a favoured class of Wizard and a bonus to CHA. I fail to see how Sorc is non-associated.
Creative Director
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WTF? The 9th Level Squid-head Sorc in the MM is listed as a 17, and Zyrxog has two CR 6s with him to boot. To say nothing of the fact that his SR is so high that he's near invulnerable to the party's casters, and knows the PCs are coming.
And to top it all of, Squiddies have a favoured class of Wizard and a bonus to CHA. I fail to see how Sorc is non-associated.
The CR for the mind flayer sorcerer in the MM is wrong; the CR for Zyrxog is right.
Sorcerer levels simply don't add much to a mind flayer's power. A fighter level, ironically, is better for a mind flayer; adding the ability to cast a few 1st level spells in comparasion, since his spell like abilities and mind blast and extract abilities are so much more powerful. This is why levels in sorcerer are not associated levels, and count as 1/2 a CR each until the total sorcerer levels gained equals his base racial hit dice. Now, if the mind flayer actually had the ability to cast spells as a sorcerer as part of his racial abilities (like a naga or dragon does), then additional sorcerer levels would add to his natural spellcasating ability, at which point those sorcerer levels do become associated.
Again, this last battle is tough, especially if the spellcasters in the party don't adjust to the fact that Zyrxog has a high SR. Most conjuration spells ignore SR, and there are plenty of other things spellcasters can do to remain useful in a fight against a mind flayer (summon mosnters, cast spells to buff the fighters, etc.).
It's a tough battle, but based on evidence I've read on this board and elsewhere, it's by no means impossible.
WTF? The 9th Level Squid-head Sorc in the MM is listed as a 17, and Zyrxog has two CR 6s with him to boot. To say nothing of the fact that his SR is so high that he's near invulnerable to the party's casters, and knows the PCs are coming.
And to top it all of, Squiddies have a favoured class of Wizard and a bonus to CHA. I fail to see how Sorc is non-associated.
The CR for the mind flayer sorcerer in the MM is wrong; the CR for Zyrxog is right.
Sorcerer levels simply don't add much to a mind flayer's power. A fighter level, ironically, is better for a mind flayer; adding the ability to cast a few 1st level spells in comparasion, since his spell like abilities and mind blast and extract abilities are so much more powerful. This is why levels in sorcerer are not associated levels, and count as 1/2 a CR each until the total sorcerer levels gained equals his base racial hit dice. Now, if the mind flayer actually had the ability to cast spells as a sorcerer as part of his racial abilities (like a naga or dragon does), then additional sorcerer levels would add to his natural spellcasating ability, at which point those sorcerer levels do become associated.
Again, this last battle is tough, especially if the spellcasters in the party don't adjust to the fact that Zyrxog has a high SR. Most conjuration spells ignore SR, and there are plenty of other things spellcasters can do to remain useful in a fight against a mind flayer (summon mosnters, cast spells to buff the fighters, etc.).
It's a tough battle, but based on evidence I've read on this board and elsewhere, it's by no means impossible.
Also, as mentioned in a post I made earlier, Zyrxog's mindblast DC should only be 20 (10+ 4th level spell effect +6 Cha mod). That evens the odds a bit.
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Hmm, intriguingly, a ulitharid's (Lords of Madness- super mind flayer) mind blast is based on half its HD plus Cha, and is still listed as a being like a 4th lvl sp-like ability. Curse the fact that a mind flayer's 8 HD only confounds the matter! ;)Either way, whether the DC is based on a Supernatural or Spell-like ability factor, it's not going to count the class levels in, as the poster above me {that's quite the name} has mentioned.
On a side note, I highly warn against converting mind flayers to the Expanded Psionic Handbook's psionic version (an idea bandied about by those looking to avoid giving Zherog so many class levels)- I must confess that giving a CR 8 creature the powers of a CR 9 NPC (9th level psion) while also contributing enhanced stats, better HD, natural armor, the dreaded tentacle attack (brutal w/ iron grip), and mind blast all for perhaps the apparent cost of losing 1-2 psionic feats and the equipment such an NPC would wield {which has been suggested by the DMG would not greatly augment the creature's CR) just seems careless.
Personally, I believe if one still wishes to use the mind flayer in a psionic version, drop it to a psion level equal to HD-1 (i.e. 7th level psion mind flayer). Thus, you don't replace the value of a base race psion (who will actually have more powers/power points than the mind flayer) and can still replicate the non-psionic flayer's use of charm monster and suggestion. If they were worried about preserving plane shift, they should just keep it as a spell-like ability.
Anyways, sorry for a derailing rant post- I'm interested if any other GMS or Game designers have come to similar conclusions, or can point out where my thinking may have gone awry?
(I know you have shared some distaste for psionics in the past, James, but have also contributed to monster creation and playtesting, so I'd be interested in your thoughts in particular.)
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Creative Director
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I don't dislike psionics, per se. What I don't like is how they change the nature of the game if you try to incorperate them into a non-psionic campaign.
As for using the psionic version of the mind flayer; psion levels certainly ARE associated for that class. A psion version of Zyrxog is going to be MUCH tougher than the sorcerer version given in the magazine, and if your campaign doesn't already have psionic PCs who are prepared to deal with this alternate Zyrxog, you shouldn't make the change. Since psionics favors the "Blow all your powers in one combat as quick as you can and don't save any points for later" tactic, monsters with psion levels are MUCH more dangerous than those without, since they're only "on screen" for a few rounds of combat. They don't have to worry about saving their resources.
As an aside... the same goes for giving monsters and NPCs action points. Action points and psionics are much more powerful if the person using them doesn't have to resource manage, since there's no other limit on how much he can use them (such as is the case for spellcasters, who have a limited number of spell slots per day for each level).
As for using the psionic version of the mind flayer; psion levels certainly ARE associated for that class.
Do you mean that the mind flayer from the MM plus a few levels of psion are associated levels, or the mind flayer from XPH (which manifests as a 9th level psion) plus a few levels of psion are associated levels? I can't see that (per the MM) a mind flayer psion 2 would be any more powerful than a mind flayer sorceror 2.
Of course, per the XPH, which presents a mind flayer with the abilities of a 9th level psion as a CR8, any levels of psion raise its psionic manifestation capabilities. But the levels of psion don't enhance its innate psionic attacks, which don't even draw from its power point pool.
I haven't run this encounter yet, but I don't see a mind flayer sorceror all that much more powerful than an equivalent level human sorceror with a powerful wand of mass hold person. At least as a sorceror, the mind flayer gets extra HD, and won't go down like a spell-casting chump in one round. As written in the XPH, the mind flayer still only has 8HD and a hittable AC. Well within the capabilities of an 8th level party.
Well, the encounters turned out pretty good.
As the party left Sodden Hold, they encountered the mind flayer and the two drow. Some of the players survived the mind blast (and the others were out for 4 rounds), and some weren't in the blast area. The next round Zyrxog used a lightning bolt, and all seemed to be going well.
The Shadow Dancer went into melee with the mind flayer, and nearly got his brain sucked out. After the druid came to, he summoned an earth elemental which grappled the mind flayer, trying to pull him off the shadow dancer. Over several rounds, Zyrxog took quite a bit of damage, then plane shifted away.
The party took their findings to an official that Eligos said they could trust (and wasn't on the list of doppleganger replacements). They asked for a cleric to cast Spell Immunity to help them with their upcoming fight. So, each of them went in with Spell Immunity to Mind Blast, and some choose Lightning Bolt (since they saw it used) and others chose Hold Person or whatnot.
I thought it was a very good plan, and it worked like a charm. The bard used dispel magic on Zyrxog, taking away all of his buffs, and he fell shortly after. But it was cool.
The party had a much harder time with the Vrock, which followed them into the final hall, and flew the entire time. No one could overcome the DR until the druid summoned a unicorn, then cast airwalk, and then it was nickled and dimed to death.
"When the naga lay dead, the effects of Dethaniels hack and slash playing on the rest of the group was apparent. Sir Gabriel calmly said, "We'll pitch camp here, I need to rest up and see to our wounds", standing over the pair of corpses, near the spirit pool, in front of the Drow Enclave, were a group of eight drow calmly watched him draw out his beroll."
Too. Funny.
I'm eagerly anticipating this Friday, when my group will take on Zyrxog. They made it to the stone brain, which I thought was a doozy of a challenge, especially for our group. Picture this:
-Halfling Wizard and Shifter Barbarian take a Dimension Door through the barred door to Zyrxog's domain.
-Shifter spectacularly fails the stone brain's Will save, tries to grapple the wizard; wiz gets Initiative, flies to cieling and opens the door with a spell.
-Other members of the party (druid, shifter monk, rogue/fighter) make their Will saves, but not their opposed grapple checks.
-Rogue slips away and starts trying to Disable the brain...makes it two rounds before failing a save, at which point he shackles himself to a bench and breaks one of his tools off in the lock.
-Wiz fails save after almost demolishing the brain with acid spells; Druid fails save; monk almost passes out. Barbarian finally shakes the domination off, and crushes the stone brain with her greataxe.
VERY long encounter by our standards, but fun as anything.
Of course by this point the mage is almost out of spells, and everyone's planning on leaving. The only thing keeping them from retreating for a night is what ol' Zyrxie can replace by morning. That, and half the party is having trouble sleeping after the past few dolgaunt ninja night encounters I've thrown at them :)
My bet; probably not a TPK, especially if the mage is conservative with his spells.
The secret of our success in the AoW: good items. The party's salvaged an incredible amount of loot, mostly by hitting groups of enemies on the surprise round. The Heward's Handy Haversack from the TFoE was a godsend, since they could now fit all the potions they were hoarding in it. That, and the party has three legacy items in it now, including one that pinpoints locations of aberrations in 60' and bypasses their DR. That's made life a whole lot easier for them.
I just ran the mind flayer encounter last night. Wow.
I used the psion telepath someone suggested in a now archived thread:
Chyraask CR 11
Male mind flayer psion telepath 3
NE Medium aberration
Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft., telepathy 100ft, Listen +12, Spot +12
Speaks Common, Undercommon, Daelkyr, Dwarven, Elven
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AC 17, touch 14, flat-footed 13 (+4 dex, +3 natural, with possible +9 armor, +6 shield, +4 deflection, +4 insight)
hp 76 (11 HD)
Power Resistance 28, Spell Resistance 28
Fort +7, Ref +9, Will +15
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Spd 30 ft.
Melee 4 tentacles +11 (1d4)
Base Atk +7; Grp +7
Special Attacks extract, improved grab, mind blast (60' cone, stun 3d4 rounds, DC 22)
Powers Known (ML 12, Power Points 150)
6th (11) - mind switch (DC 21), temporal acceleration
5th (9) - mind probe (DC 20), psionic plane shift
4th (7) - energy adaptation, intellect fortress, psionic dimension door, psionic dominate (DC 19)
3rd (5) - body adjustment, dispel psionics, energy bolt (DC 17), mental barrier
2nd (3) - body equilibrium, ego whip (DC 17), id insinuation (DC 17), psionic levitate, psionic suggestion (DC 17), read thoughts (DC 17)
1st (1) - defensive precognition (augmented 10 pt), inertial armor (augmented 11 pt), force screen (augmented 9 pt), mind thrust (DC 16), psionic charm (DC 16), vigor
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Abilities Str 10, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 19, Wis 19, Cha 21
SQ darkvision, power resistance 28, spell resistance 28, telepathy 100 ft
Feats Combat Manifestation, Craft Universal Item, Improved Initiative, Improved Toughness, Weapon Finesse
Skills Bluff +16, Concentration +15, Hide +12, Knowledge (psionics) +15, Listen +12, Move Silently +17, Psicraft +15, Sense Motive +8, Spot +12, Use Psionic Device +9
Possessions: boots of elvenkind, cloak of resistance +2, ring of counterspells (dispel magic), 2 tattoos of body purification, psionatrix of telepathy, necklace of fireballs type III
This is the uber-flayer from Sharn and the City of Towers novel. Almost all of my players have read the novel, so they were familiar with the character.
We have a party of 7 with cohorts, action points, 32 point buy, warforged, kalashtar, psionics, artificers and a liberal amount of magic items.
The party managed to make it through the entire Dolgaunt (Drow) cavern without resting, and decided to bypass the Grey Slaad (Vrock).
They began their attack at the balcony, jumping in with feather fall tokens. The octopins surprised them by hiding above the balcony, hitting the first few with AoOs.
The cleric summoned monsters into the chamber and was surprised when it failed (due to the octogonal column). The wizard summoned within the scrying room, allowing his creatures to fly to the levitating flayer.
The warforged paladin popped a potion of fly and headed into the room.
The mind flayer used temporal acceleration every round. In the first round he used vigor, then mind blasted the swashbuckler (who saved) and the summoned creatures (who didn't). If I pulled any punches, it was the fact that the flayer wasn't "buffed" when the party entered. He used temporal acceleration to do these buffs (usually vigor...most broken...healing...ever!) which he had plenty of points to do this.
In the next round things were looking grim for the party. The octopins got a rend on the cleric, knocking him down. The flayer got a good energy bolt off, but amazingly the low reflex warforged managed to shake some off, avoiding going down. The forged charged in for a mid-air grapple, but the flayer hit and prevented it.
The next round was a major turning point for the party. The ranger used a wand to heal the cleric. The cleric then shot off a dimensional anchor. Natural 20, which was enough, but he also through in an action point.
The artificer then turned the tables on the flayer with a great anti-illithid spell: stinking cloud. The wizard followed with another stinking cloud. The flayer could no longer levitate up nor down in the 80 foot chamber without avoiding the stinking cloud, and could not dimension door out.
The forged paladin, using racial substitution levels from Races of Eberron, is immune stunning. He is also immune to extract and nausea. With fly and a great grapple score he was able to hold onto the flayer. He had smite evil and aberration bane (thanks to the artificer) on his slam attack.
In a last ditch effort, the mind flayer attempted to mind switch with the warforged. After a successful concentration check by the flayer the forged needed to do a will save, DC 21. He ended up with a 24, but only because he has a few levels of "Exorcist of the Silver Flame", giving him a +4 on saves against possession.
The flayer fumbled on his fort save in the cloud. Two rounds later and he was dead.
Surprisingly, even with 3 octopins only 2 party members were slowed.
Almost every single action point was used. The party had saved them for this encounter, so we had an action point on almost every roll. It was difficult, and could easily have been a TPK.
Everyone had a great time. Best module so far.
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See, I read a lot about this encounter, and was really worried of a TPK. But I ran it as written anyway, and well, no one died.
The group all saved against the mind blast that nailed all of them (with the fighter CRITING so it doesn't do anything to him for 24 hours). The mind flayer continued to shoot lightening bolts, which they used the potions of resist lightening 20 that they got earlier.
The octopins were old hat by that point, so they targeted them right away. Meanwhile, the kinetiscist used a held action to attack the mind flayer with a crossbow every time he went to cast a spell... The cleric kept people alive.
Then he used levitate on the fighter, who yet again passed a will save from the mindflayer telling him to land...
+1 impact Goliath warhammer large sized... on a sucessful attack, he does 3d6 + 10... and well, he crit, doing 12d6 + 40
The mind flayer Zyrzog was frankly destroyed. Oh, and his fireball was taken by the group as well, who survived it.
Nice to see someone used my psionic mind flayer, Takasi. Given the powers I gave him, I don't regard him to be a particularly overpowering CR 11, although defintiely on the high end of his CR.
My party doesn't have any psionicists among them (anymore), but I still plan to use the psionic mind flayer for a number of reasons. First, I left his ability scores where they were so his save DCs are lower as a psion than they are as a sorcerer. Second, I believe a psion more closely simulates the creature described as a mind flayer. Third, I also kept my psion as close as possible to the Zyrxog design, choosing powers that were similar to his sorcerer powers. He actually ended up with less versatility. Finally, the idea of blowing all your power points at once and saving none for later is first of all not practical, and second of all fairly analogous to simply using all your high level spells and consumable items anyway (which also isn't practical) and you can do that without psionics. Need I also mention things like metamagic rods and one-shot necklaces of exploding beads, items which are also overpowered in an NPC's hands?
While it is true I could have tweaked Zyrxog the psion to gross levels of power by abusing and min/maxing the rules to obliterate my PCs, the same could have been done for Zyrxog the sorcerer. However the writers decided that sending a CR 11 against an 8th level party was challenge enough and therefore designed Zyrxog with moderation in mind. He's optimally built, but not designed specifically to kill my party. He has abilities and items that he rationally would have developed and chosen in the context of his world, which is more important than fruitless exercises in min/maxing which only frustrate and anger players.
The encounter will be tough for most groups. Some groups (like the one with the warforged) will be optimally designed to deal with this challenge and others will get a bit lucky, but a lot of groups will suffer a character death or two, and maybe a TPK. This is all to be expected. It's a "boss" encounter and this particular boss is not a monster protecting his loot against hostile invaders, he is an assassin hired to kill the party. The Age of Worms isn't Child's Play or Puppets. It's hardcore stuff and it should threaten to take PC lives at every turn. But don't go out of your way to destroy the characters. A DM's job, as always, is to challenge his players, not to defeat them.
One other note, if you feel the AoW is too challenging for a typical group of heroes here are a couple things you can do.
1) Let them use the ability score generation method described in the Shackled City Hardcover. Roll three sets of ability scores and choose the one that is best.
2) Allow them unrequited access to supplementary material like the Complete series and Races series. This material provides the PCs with evermore options to empower their characters and optimize their builds. Prestige classes like the Radiant Servant of Pelor will help them fear undead no more. Spells like orb of force will help them to overcome monsters with spell resistance and energy resistance. Equipment like stone plate will harden their shells against the high attack bonuses.
These suggestions can be a bit unbalancing if allowed without limitation in a typical campaign. But in a difficult campaign like the Age of Worms, they just might give your PCs the edge they need to survive.