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So, after much agonizing and distractions, my party found Kurran-Karal.
The party is 7 players, and most of them are 11th level (despite my efforts to side track them into a juicy side adventure with XP to bring them up to snuff). I'm slightly worried for their survival, but I think they might be fine.
They bought a scroll of find the path and wind walk, and after much scouting, they teleported the party into the tubes up to the submerged part.
What I thought was ingenious is to explore the watery tubes with their own obstacles, they took the wizard and the cleric, using a buddy system and switching off with a necklace of adaptation they had, dimension dooring over the obstacles, and once they found the gate into the ruins, they teleported back and fetched the rest of the party.
Very enjoyable!
My party is of 6 will assult the temple of wee jas this evening, they are 3 at 11th and 3 at 12th and I to am worried for there survival in kurran kural. Especially vs the dracolich. How did things go with your parties assult on the temple?
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Hi!
My group is 7 players, and at the time of the assault on the Cathedral, 4 were 11th, 2 were 10th, and 1 was 9th. I changed a lot of the encounters with matching CR items (I changed the stone giants for minotaurs with levels of fighter, the half-orc fighters for gnoll fighters).
The final fight I didn't change much, except to rebuilt Ike with some different spells and metamagic feats (see Lilith's Stat Bank for my Ike, who is Enkur).
The fight in the great hall was a cake walk. They joined up on the goons, and Calmus was absolutely useless. Three rounds and it was over with minor scrapes and scratches.
Upstairs, the fight with Ike would have gone very very badly if they hadn't cast death ward and heroes' feast before going in. The dread wraith would have wiped out the party, as would Ike, if their attacks hadn't fizzled three or four times in a row.
I actually enjoyed playing my creatures dumb in this case, since Ike had scryed the PCs on a regular basis, but not that morning, and not just before they entered the temple. He *thought* he knew their weaknesses ...
I highly recommend to harsh, nasty DM's to have Ike blast a character with Harm, then follow up with a flame strike (just to make sure).
Did yours go throught he front door. I kind of expect mine to teleport in. They never cast death ward and I know a few are going to go down to death attacks. My players suck at buffing!
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Mine first thought to infiltrate through a window. After looking at the map of the Cathedral, and the descriptions of the various rooms, I realized there are no windows!
So yep, after muttering about stone shaping their way in, they settled on frontal assault as the best method.
If your group sucks at buffing, and aren't good at tactical coordination, or don't know when to run, they may very well suffer a TPK to Ike. Let us know how it goes tonight ...
You know it's amazing. Sometimes they are tacticly sound, other times a gang of zombies fight with more sense than these guys. They put the smack down on Toungeter and his gang yet got smeared vs the Kua Toa. In that fight at the end of 20 rounds there were still ftr/rogues in the mix? Actually, I have given them the a good trail of clues to interact with NPC and gain some good intel on the temple's defenses (they would never think of casting divinations!). One party member, a follower of Wee Jas, has a relationship with one of the lower level priestess. Artumus has some good info for them, and if they think of the Map vendor they will be able to get a pretty good map of the interior. I guarantee you they will go in the front door and get hammered by Calmus Vel and his nuggets.
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Sounds like my group, before I engaged in correctional therapy ...
To fix my group, and their lack of tactics, over the last two years, I've done the following
- shamelessly let them stumble into a few TPK's.
- engage the most tactically minded players between game sessions, and ask them what they were planning for the upcoming week, pointing out some useful spells like speak with dead, divination, and augury. We are now to the point that the party wizard tells the party cleric to memorize divination, and *he* tells the cleric what to ask (it's a start)
- have a couple of mustache-twirling NPC villains exlaim how they used divination and speak with dead to learn more about the PCs, right before nailing at least one of them to the wall ...
- occassionally, making a tactical suggestion behind the screen like "boy, are you guys thinking of retreating?" or complimenting them when they figure something out "getting a sneak attack after blinding your opponent - smart!"
There ought to be a 12-step program for this sort of thing ...
Well, like you I have been considering what to do to teach my guys how to work together and the importance of buffing. Like you I engaged a player last night prior to the game and said hey if you all dont start playing smart we mide as well quit because you wont survive much longer. A timely phone call from work gave the entire party a few minutes to themselves (maybe they are intimidated when Im at the table) to come up with a plan. They argued, fussed and squabbled but managed to at least buff, the rogue picked the locks, the enlarged rage mage opened the doors, and then they just all stood there, and waisted some very high initiatives. Calmus Vel et all had inits less than 10. And all made the first move, the giants through rocks and moved up, the orcs readied actions against the incoming attacks, and Calmus cast his last buff spell. I really thought I was going to shallack them, but then the cleric d-doored (travel domain) with the rage mage to the center of the temple and on the ragemage's next action he used the disintigrate scroll they took from Kaupharon (monk beat him on init and kicked his ass before he knew what hit him) and Calmus Vel failed the save and was dust.
They then spent like 12 minutes searching the lower level. I am going to have Ike go on the offensive, next Tuesday.
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Sounds like they are learning!
Another thing to add is avoid the players saying 'we don't want you to know our cunning plan' -- encourage them to share it with you, and point out any glaring issues where they've forgotten a rule or something obvious. Compliment them when they come up with a cunning plan, and then allow their cunning plan to work (just because you know the plan, it doesn't mean the NPCs do ...)/
Tell us how Ike goes!
My players are now in Kurran-Kurral, and they are about to fight the ice devil in the lattice chamber ...
I had a long drive to and back from Tampa last night and I was thinking about the game. I think I am going to have Ike start hunting the party down. They wasted 10 good minutes searching the lower rooms, not wanting to leave something behind them (but neither of the two bedrooms?)they are currently at the bottom of the staircase, and the rogue failed miserably trying to sneak up and scout the upper chamber. Some of Ike's prepspells are nearing there duration so I think a spoiling attack will be just the thing.
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Remember, Ike is scared of the party -- he's holed up in the Cathedral (likely hoping & praying that Embril returns to bail him out). The PCs are downstairs, tearing things up.
It might be a better idea to have Ike summon some monsters he can communicate with, and send them downstairs to harry the party.
Or, if Ike has some communication spells prepared, he might call Vhalantru for aid, and some elite orc fighters show up to harrass the pcs (just enough to be a strong challenge for the PCs).