I seriously thought another PC would die last night, but my player pleasantly surprised me.
They had cleaned out the Citadel of Hextor & Caves of Erythnul (taking time to rest after each temple) before moving on to the Labyrinth of Vecna. The kenku & weasels gave them a hard time & used up some resources, with one PC one point from bleeding out, but ultimately triumphed.
The party wanted to rest again, but I trapped them in the labyrinth & insinuated that the Faceless One likely had already been warned, so they decided to press on. Then they faced the 1st 2 acolytes & the allip, which drained the fighter down to Wisdom 3, but they ultimately triumphed.
I decided the Faceless One, having been warned, he & his acoltes would spend time buffing themselves to the max. The group enters the lab, the ranger acts first, charges the FO & misses. The FO summons the centipede & flees into the next room (I added a bedchamber for the FO right next to the lab). The ranger yells, first for help, then to tell the others the FO is escaping. The evoker tries a burning hands on the centipede but doesn't make it past the fire resistance. The fighter then enters the room & takes on the centipede, scoring a 60+ pt critical hit, devestating it.
Meanwhile, the rogue, bard, evoker, & paladin try to enter through the door in the inner sanctum, trying to cut the FO off, only to find the door locked--the rogue tries to pick the lock but fails. The FO has meanwhile circled around via the Outer Sanctum, & summons another centipede into the inner sanctum. The centipede drops the evoker & the rogue, paladin & bard advance on the FO, who summons an ape.
The ranger goes through the door that the FO fled through, only to face the other 2 acolytes. Soon she's joined by the fighter & the priest--they eventually triumph (even though the fighter rolls a fumble & drops the priest by mistake), but are delayed long enough for the FO to seriously smack the others around.
Filge's zombie, meanwhile, occupies the centipede, while the ape assaults the bard & paladin, & the rogue tries in vain to hit the FO. The paladin is downed by a lightning bolt & the severely wounded bard revives him, before the ape takes out the paladin again. Eventually, the fighter & ranger get in on the action, everyone gets back on their feet, the ape is slain & the FO if finally killed (& his centipede).
After that, everyone heals up once more (wands of CLW are good to have), & they hear the Ebon Aspect roar. They prepare themselves & make their way to the Black Cathedral. The evoker uses the Wand of Englarge person on the fighter, paladin, & ranger before entering the room & the 3 go toe to toe with it.
It drops the ranger to half hp in rd 1, though it is wounded for about 17 pts. Rd 2, it uses the blood fury power, w/ the DR & fast healing, & drops the ranger, who is quickly revived by the bard. Rd 3, after the blood fury is used up, the EA wounds the fighter, who then scores another critical hit, doing 46 pts of damage. The ranger then follows, delivering the killing blow.
I was rather surprised, considering how much trouble they had w/ the FO (which was more bad tactics on their part than anything else), but still happy with the result nonetheless.
My party was similar. They had more difficulty with the Faceless One than with the Ebon Aspect. The EA is a fairly straightforward fight, however, and not one you are likely to run away from, which is clear from the start. The Faceless One is a cunning opponent with a wide variety of tricks. It took two forays to kill the Faceless One. He TPKed the first party, wiz4, spellthief4, clr4, drd4, and psiwarrior4. They were all very good characters, but a combination of bad luck and a few crucial mistakes spelled their doom.
I repopulated the dungeon and a new party showed up in Diamond Lake a week later to finish in their stead. This time they mopped the floor with the Faceless One.
Now my group did things in a different order than the layout of the mod. They started with Hextor, then Vecna, and finished with Erythnul. Hence, they already had information about the Ebon Aspect and had theorized the black pool had something to do with it beforehand. Before they entered the final chamber where Grallak lay, they decided they were low on spells and hp and retreated to the surface. I gave Grallak the advantage of preparation and he set up some minor traps and offered a sacrifice to Erythnul (via book of vile darkness) to gain a bull's strength for 24 hours. He also examined his fallen grimlocks and deduced what kinds of weapons and abilities they had used and rememorized his spells accordingly.
When the party returned for a showdown with Grallak, he gave them a run for their money, but his doom was never truly in doubt. Because they were relatively fresh, they had little difficulty with the EA. For one, they had solid damage-dealers in melee and a dwarf in a can to soak up AoOs to increase mobility. Second, they were prepared to fight something nasty as they left based on their readings of Theldrick and the Faceless One's notes. The rogue and the ranger were knocked unconscious once each, but not by much. I thought they acted very intelligently.
While its not the Three Faces of Evil, I had a session with my players last time that I thought was going to be challenging for them, and it was, but not in the manner I expected. They ran into a vampire trying to have its master killed off, and they snuck into the vampire's lair. They managed to kill the minions without waking up, but then proceeded to get nailed by the traps on the doors, and were nearly killed by a bloodmote cloud. They managed to kill the master vampire when the rogue/druid managed to detect and disarm the alarm and traps on his coffin, and the cleric managed to "cure" the mist that the vampire turned into.
While the players still felt beat up and talked about almost dying, I thought for sure the actual vampires would have been a bigger threat.
It all goes to show that one of the great things about this game of ours is that stats aren't everything. Player actions and random chance can conspire to make the unexpected happen.