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Wow…what a fight; moreover, what a miscalculation of how long a fight would take.
Last session, my players took on the TFoE. I whipped up a mine level that they took several hours penetrating it and beating up the dwarven guards.
They went below finally – some before the others on the elevator - and dealt with the Tiefling guards.
The rest of that session unwound pretty quickly. The skeletons disintegrated on a particularly good roll by the cleric of St. Cuthbert. The petitioners got the drop on the looting party but that went fast too.
Then three more Tiefling guards and the Dire Boar left the party pretty beat up with more than a few spells down. That was a good knock down slug fest and the dire boar tested the party’s tank. Luckily for the party, they had sold off a fair bit of their loot from the Whispering Cairn and bought a wand of cure light wounds – easily the bet investment known to an adventurer.
Tonight they used the cure light wounds wand again and again and again. 25 charges in total were spent off of one wand alone.
So I had hoped to get them through Theldrick and the Grimlocks and hopefully at least into the lair of the Faceless one. :rolls eyes:
Not a chance in hell of that.
The fight with Theldrick and his cohort of two Tiefling archers, his two priests and the two trog zombies went on for nearly three hours!
What a battle! All the stops got pulled out from friends and foe alike and it was just nasty tactical maneuvering, buffs and spells flying fast and furious. The problem of getting trapped below the balcony was never solved by rocking the statue until the end-game part of the battle. By that time, two party members were enlarged and lifted up the rogue and the fighter up to the balcony.
But before that ultimately emerged as the saver – the enlarged party members were taking it on the chin. The party’s warmage was split off and sent packing with a fear spell and a failed save from the get go and … well…it just kind of got worse from there on in. I was merciless and concentrated fire on one PC at a time. My players’ eyes were narrowing in frustration as the comp bows were hitting, two at a time.
No actual deaths – but three party members were knocked into the negs on six separate occasions. The wand of cure light wounds would bring one up – and down they’d go again.
Epic battle – just epic. Just goes to show you, sometimes things don’t unfold as you think they will.
My PCs were contacted by Smenk, who arranged to have them snuck in hidden in crates of supplies for the cult. All of them were disguised as Smenk's thugs. Two of them worked the elevator up and down while the other three were taken down in crates (the lids loose). The Tiefling guards, who were somewhat lax as they are used to these shipments (as described in the adventure) and were taken by surprise by the PCs when they jumped up out of the crates and attacked.
The PCs stowed the tiefling bodies in the crates, and are preparing to make their next move.
What they don't realize is that the guards may be in the negs, but aren't necessarily dead. i am going to make stabilization rolls for them, so it is possible they will escape the crates and go for help at some point.
Now I just need to get the PCs to go into the temple or hextor first!
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Our party seriously lucked out here. We had a silenced crossbow bolt, which was fired after the retreating guards, as a result the alarm wasn't raised. Well it was, but nobody heard it...
So we fought our way through the opeing room without alerting the rest of the temple (and importantly without having to face the Beast.)
My character, an over ambitious Changeling Wizard, used his disguise self ability to appear as one of the tiefling guards, and simply walked in. He avoided the main door, and found himself on the balcony level, looking at the high cleric in a quick meeting with his subordinates... "An easy kill" I said to myself, and started the engagement, without bothering to tell my party. Much fighting ensued, and we were victorious because of one silenced bolt, and almost not because of my ambitious but stupid plan, (high int, low wis)...
I think this fight was really hard as written, as it should be, this is a real martial order you are going after. The characters need to act like elite commandos, or it is going to be tough all the way through.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that character will be coming up with any more plans, since he tried the same trick with the lizardfolk at the keep, and well, he made a good javelin holder... (hoping the DM will recant only giving me the +4 AC for cover, and not the concealment 50% miss chance...)
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Most cetainly thread jacking but since you asked...
My cahracter had shape shifted into a wounded Lizard man, and came in running in yelling they're coming, and then I collapsed to the roadway. They dragged me to the leader (not part of my plan) and I went with it, same story.
The leader declared me too wounded to travel, and ordered me killed, so I cast the fireball I had prepared, but optimum placement had me in the area of effect.
So anyway, after that, they really thought I was dead, and tossed me in a pyre pile with the dead. When the fire came up I tried to get out, which they saw as a sure sign I was evil undead and they pummeled me with javelins.
So what is the AC bonnus/miss chance of being inside a pile of 16 dead lizards? My contention was that it should be better than the +4 AC for the cover, since they would individually have a hard time picking out which lizrd to toss at, as well as trouble actually hitting me when they did.
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Most cetainly thread jacking but since you asked...
My cahracter had shape shifted into a wounded Lizard man, and came in running in yelling they're coming, and then I collapsed to the roadway. They dragged me to the leader (not part of my plan) and I went with it, same story.
The leader declared me too wounded to travel, and ordered me killed, so I cast the fireball I had prepared, but optimum placement had me in the area of effect.
So anyway, after that, they really thought I was dead, and tossed me in a pyre pile with the dead. When the fire came up I tried to get out, which they saw as a sure sign I was evil undead and they pummeled me with javelins.
So what is the AC bonnus/miss chance of being inside a pile of 16 dead lizards? My contention was that it should be better than the +4 AC for the cover, since they would individually have a hard time picking out which lizrd to toss at, as well as trouble actually hitting me when they did.
Well, the DM was correct on the cover call. Unfortunately, cover isn't as diversifed as it used to be. It's either +0, +4, or full (so impossible to hit). Full implies you have no line of effect, which you did. I would be inclined to give you +6, but consider you flat-footed (no dex, etc.). After all, you're piled inside a pyre of dead bodies, you aren't going to be able to move effectively.
Concealment is a thing of visibility, lighting, and such. I wouldn't have used that.
Sorry for thread jacking though, just was curious on the event. :)
My group is going to be going into TFoE soon. I hope it's as exciting as I keep seeing stories about. The most stories I see involve the Temple of Hextor. :)
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You would argue perfect visibility for picking one body out of 17 in a burning pile, because the one body twitched a bit?
Grr... still bitter about character death... I think I would have at least tacked on the -4 to hit for firing into "close combat" maybe more since it was effectively firing into a grapple.
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I'm not arguing that they should have fired, but rather, if they spotted you the modifiers they would get. It would be a Spot check vs your Hide to see you in the first place (with a bonus to your Hide due to surroundings), but if they saw you, then it would only be cover. Concealment is for effects where there's darkness, invisibility effects, blurring effects, etc. Spot/Hide is for seeing you initially. :) Also, the 'firing into close combat' would be represented by your cover bonus. You only get one or the other, not a bonus for you and a penalty for them. :)
Again though, I don't want to blur up this thread with a rules argument, so onto more stories about Theldrick!