So, struggling through the rat swarms, the group valiantly manages to slaughter goblins while getting peppered with crossbow bolts and suffering the little magics of the adept during area 19 of "Drathkar's Way."
They're doing fairly well, so I decided to toss Drathkar's first appearance in his hit-and-run style (he's supposed to pop up, deal a bit of damage or dominate someone, then run off to fast-heal, and repeat ad nauseum, right?)
Except the cleric of Pelor raised his holy symbol, used his greater turning ability, rolled well, and blasted Drathkar into destroyed bits. It's amazing what five ranks of Knowledge (religion), the Sun domain, and a nice Charisma will do, even to a vampire bugbear with his turn resistance.
Moment of silence for the bad-guy who didn't even get to swing a morningstar.
Even if I decide to get creative with the rules and consider "destroyed" as "reduced to 0 hit points" and let Drathkar gaseous form himself back to his coffin, it's over - as the PCs have an hour to stake him...
Is there actually anything anywhere saying that a Vampire that is destroyed by turning goes gaseous, or is he just destroyed? Destroyed isn't the same as "reduced to 0 hit points" really, so I'm figuring he's just toasted, but at least the PCs will go hunting his coffin if I have him wisp away...
Creative Director
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Drakthar should stay destroyed. As you say, even if it just reduced him to 0 hit points, he's still good as dead anyway, and in this case it's much better to let the PCs have the glory. After all, sounds like that particular PC was pretty much built to ruin vampires. You don't want to establish a "DM versus the players" vibe early in the campaign by taking away that character's triumph.
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Creative Director
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In my Every-Other-Saturday campaign (which is right now pretty high-level), the 17th-level party got jumped by a CR 21 blue dragon. The paladin dragonslayer in the group (a PC who was numbercrunched to do a LOT of damage against dragons) hit the blue dragon for 110 points of damage. The blue dragon still had several hundred hit points, but he promptly rolled a 1 on his Fortitude save to avoid death from massive damage. I described the hit as a sudden and cinematic decapitation, and as the dragon's beheaded body spirald down into the chasm below, its long neck stump spurting blood and lightning the whole way down. The group cheered and high-fived, even as I quietly put away the giant stat block of Draconomicon-infused goodness that was my pet blue dragon.
In other words, it was great! It's important now and then for the PCs to have sudden unexpected triumphs, even if that robs the DM of a pet NPC or a favorite monster. And of course, the sneaky secret is that you can use those stats again later on, and the PCs will never know!
It's important now and then for the PCs to have sudden unexpected triumphs, even if that robs the DM of a pet NPC or a favorite monster. And of course, the sneaky secret is that you can use those stats again later on, and the PCs will never know!
Truer words have rarely been spoken.
I do have to say that when Drakthar is listed as an <B>underpowered bugbear vampire</b>, the statblock really doesn't lie. He's tough if the PCs don't get lucky, but it really only took one solid combat to take him down IMC.
That would be the reason, understandably, why his tactics are hit-and-run, not stand-up-and-fight.
I have to say, though, that it was amusing watching the party IMC start trying to use anti-vampire tactics on the dire bat =)
Drakthar should stay destroyed. As you say, even if it just reduced him to 0 hit points, he's still good as dead anyway, and in this case it's much better to let the PCs have the glory. After all, sounds like that particular PC was pretty much built to ruin vampires. You don't want to establish a "DM versus the players" vibe early in the campaign by taking away that character's triumph.
Oh, I'm not complaining, it was just funny/sad. I described the motes of golden light tearing the screaming vampire apart, and the *very* chaotic neutral rogue turned to the cleric of Pelor and quipped, "When we get back to Cauldron, can I come to mass with you?"
Classic moment.
I'm just re-working the rest of the dungeon crawl now - the goblins are going to be running around disorganized (no longer dominated), Kallev will admit to Chorlyndyr that she was dominated, and that something *bad* has happened, and Xoden and his half-orcs will have no idea what's going on until Xoden tries to find the others...
It made for a really good moment. The player of the cleric kept repeating "All Hail Pelor!" over and over, and the other players had their characters responding, "Hail! Hail!" over and over and over... it was funny.
In my game, I tried to swarm them with sixteen wolves in the storage room (#6) but the wolves came through the goblin post (16a) and the players were able to block them from coming into the room while they beat on them one at a time. They are working through them slowly, as they keep missing and being tripped. I mentioned to the player that could see it that several more wolves were moving across the hallway further up. So, they smartly close the door and one PC secures it. So, it looks like they have this thing solved and proceed to slowly hack away at the wolves. Then the other door opens, and a "fuzzy humanoid" (as I put out a bugbear minature) walks across the room and opens the door, winning the strength check to do so. In comes the rest of the wolves in the room and takes all of the available spaces. The PCs are generally seperated, in bad tactical positions, and their dice are hating them. The rogue cannot get into a sneak attack position and they cannot maneuver around. So, I start attacking the fighter with the bugbear and he's doing big damage against her, while she is unable to hit his high AC. And she is taking negative levels (although I take two back when I realized that they only come from the slams and not the morningstar). The fighter gets frustrated and starts to grapple with the bugbear. Things are looking bad. The wolves have dropped a couple of PCs, the cleric can't reach them, and she finally tries to determine what this guy is. After a good Religion roll, I reveal that the creature that the fighter is grappling is a vampire! This increases their sense of jepoardy, but the cleric of Pelor tries to turn it using the Sun domain...and botches the roll. Everyone feels doomed when the player then redeems a "Christmas Roll" certificate that I distributed to each player during the game session around Christmas to change the die roll to whatever he wants, and is able to destroy the vampire with his turn. The rest of the wolves, no longer controlled, leave. The players are releived that no one is going to die, but they feel mentally exhausted as they really expected to TPK that night from bad dice rolls.
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The cleric in my game hit Drakthar with both beams from Light of Venya, Mercuria, whatever the 2nd level one is. I hadn't known how powerful those spells are. Drakthar exploded in a nova from 4d8 damage, heh. Triel last weekend was a whole other ballgame though. She dropped 2 players and only a last minute crit from the archer dropped her. Later however, we realised the ranger had been forgetting to add her +4 damage versus huamns for favored enemy. Would have made that fight so much easier lol.
Moment of silence for the bad-guy who didn't even get to swing a morningstar.
I passed for the same experience with Datkthar. My players do knew what they wete fighting against, so there were fully prepared. Darkthar couldn't resist 2 round of full attacks againts fighter armed with silver weapons. Another dissapointment came last weekend with Triel Endurast in the Kopru Ruins. Althought he was fully aware of PC incoming attack, I didn't play it properly and PC face her alone in her room. She could only swing a pair of hits before falling. Another very good NPC how dies too easely...I hope Skaven and the Harpoon Spider will be a better challenge for them.
Drakthar... poor Drakthar. My group did exhaustive research on vampires the moment they found out what they would be up against (they took a goblin vandal prisoner, placed a Pro Vs. Evil on him to neutralize the domination, and then interrogated him). They were incredibly nervous as they made their way through the goblin tunnels, and after squashing the ambush in area 19 they were busy looting corpses when Drakthar emerged. One character had climbed to the ledge where the Sneaks had been sniping at them, intent on scrounging up any healing potions they might have, while the other four searched the peons on the cavern floor. Drakthar figured his would be a perfect opportunity for a quick hit-and-fade. He took solid shape and stepped out to confront her, eyes glowing with power as he commanded her to do his bidding. What he hadn't counted on was that she was a sorcerer, descended from one of Dhorlot the Dragon-Father's breeding experiments. After letting out a terrified scream, she reacted with instinctive fury, converting the essence of one of her most potent spells into the raw power she needed to spew forth a gout of searing acid, bathing the vampire in caustic sludge and sending him fleeing, barely alive, running horizontally across a wall in the hopes that he couldn't be followed. A few moments later, and the half-drow bard rushed around a corner and pelted him full in the face with a vial of holy water from 30 feet away, and he collapsed into a cloud of mist. A harrowing chase and four perilous battles later (fighting past the goblin adept & two shocker lizards, then the three goblin sneaks, then Drakthar's Throne, and finally the dire bat), and the mighty adventurers uncovered Drakthar's coffin and beheaded him with silver-sheen & magic weapon enhanced greataxe. Poor Drakthar... we barely knew ye.
[SPOILERS BELOW]
IMC, the party had /no/ idea he was a vampire until he showed up in the first battle.
One of the PC's is an underpowered bugbear, and when the goblins started vandalizing things, I tipped him off that Drakthar was a former member of his tribe who was outcast for blasphemy (none of the tribe would talk about it, of course, since it was taboo). He was quite determined on finding Drakthar and bringing his head back to the tribe to get kudos from the elders - all quite amusing, from behind the DM's screen.
The cleric was convinced that the goblins were idiots, due to the scrawled messages on the various buildings - I remember the bugbear actually trying to rationalize "Drakthar is dead! Long live Drakthar!" as a goblinoid lionization of their rulers. =)
The party broke into the Bathhouse and rolled Orak, then the bugbear moved down the stairs without the rest of the party. He tripped the alarm, and all the goblins started to pour out. After several rounds of ducking up the stairs and cleaving here and there, the party joined him and began succeeding on their Will saves on the <I>sleep</I> spells that the adepts cast.
At that point, the goblins starting chanting "Drak-thar! Drak-thar!" as a mist filled the room. The party thought it was a <I>concealing mist</I> from the adepts, when Drakthar formed behind them and started in on the party. He began pounding away at the cleric with his morningstar as the goblins began chanting "Crush the body! Crush the body! Drak-thar!"
It was only after she made her Knowledge (religion) check and turned him that the party realized what was going on. They returned to the surface, enlisted Alek Tercival's aid, and returned to the depths. Overall, the encounters were challenging, but not too challenging, which I liked - Kazmojen's boys were a bit too much for my party the first time through.
Since my party only has three PCs, I allow them to enlist some of the NPCs in the area to aid them. My favorite moment was having Rufus using a <I>wand of protection vs evil</I> on the bugbear every few minutes to prevent Drakthar from using his <I>dominate</I> power on the PC - anytime the CN bugbear fighter did anything morally questionable, Rufus would tap him with the wand just to make sure.
I /really/ enjoyed this adventure as a DM. I can definitely see where going straight to Flood Season would have my party TPK'd by now. Next stop... Tongueeater!
Another dissapointment came last weekend with Triel Endurast in the Kopru Ruins. Althought he was fully aware of PC incoming attack, I didn't play it properly and PC face her alone in her room. She could only swing a pair of hits before falling. Another very good NPC how dies too easely.
Two things made Triel challenging after they went directly to her room without alerting the complex. The first was a strategically placed silence spell which covered the entire room and the hallway, except for one corner where Triel was, and spontaneously giving her the Improved Trip feat to use with her morningstar. So even though she didn't have her full plate on, she only had to face the fighter and halfling cleric while the others fought some hillfolk in another room (the wizard closed the door to block the silence emanation). With improved trip, her poor AC was bolsted by her opponents being prone, while finding that they were much easier to it when they are prone. Plus getting a lot of free attacks from the feat and characters standing up. It was a close hard fight.
>> spontaneously giving her the Improved Trip feat to use with her morningstar
You can't trip with a morningstar.
>> spontaneously giving her the Improved Trip feat to use with her morningstar
You can't trip with a morningstar.
You can, however, trip with a flail or heavy flail, which is actually Triel's preferred weapon. I believe the use of "morningstar" in the other post was probably a simple mistake.
Yep. I meant to say heavy flail. Sorry about that.
Oh, in that case, GREAT SUGGESTION! My party will be facing Triel in the next couple weeks and it will be nice to give my flail-weilding paladin a taste of his own medicine.
(One of) my groups just finished up this adventure last weekend. Amazingly, though they knew there was a vampire around, the party of Cleric/Sorceror of Wee Jas, Cleric/Fighter of Kord, Cleric of Cuthbert, Paladin/Fighter of Pelor and Paladin/Bard of Myrrhis didn't even attempt a turning. First contact resulted in a misting after a goodly number of rounds, though Drakthar found he couldn't dominate these folk. Second contact was much for satisfying, though much boring. Having ruled that since these were natural caverns there would be suitable small cracks in walls for misting to go through, Drakthar did a hit and run back and forth between a number of rooms. Eventually, they cornered him at his lair, to which he jumped to the floor below. Then, the Kordite enlarged himself and jumped down on the hapless vampire below.
Insisting on using the falling object rules (and agreeing to take the same damage himself), the vampire was history. And they easily figured out where his coffin was.
But, (and the point I was trying to make) it certainly took them much longer than 1 hour in game time to find his coffin. Perhaps the natural cracks and crevices was a bit of a fiat, but it made sense to me.
Hmm, makes me wonder how my group will fare against Drakthar. There is no cleric in the group so far. And they are currently going through their Potions that Jenya gave them while going through Jzadirune. Just last session, I knocked one of the Fighters into the negatives with a Critical hit + sneak attack from Yrthub(sp?).
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Wow my players had a very different time in their fight against drakthar then most of you it seems. Their first encounter with him was rather amusing. They had left the parties monk and barbarian in the bathhouse while the rest of the party was taking Orak to jail after he had been captured, and between the two of them they had decided that they wanted to at least see what was at the bottom of the stairs so they threw a sunrod down there. This of course alerted the goblins down below, and while they weren't going to come up stairs I figured it gave the dungeon a bit of time to ready itself. I rolled to see if anything else might have wandered by on the wandering monster chart, and low and behold I then rolled drakthar. So I figured during one of his psychic communications with the goblins he realized something was up and came to investigate.
At the time of the campaign I was running a freakishly large group and had two players who were bowing out after that session to give the rest of us a little breathing room so I figured that would be a perfect opportunity to give them a memorable exit. The group entered the dungeon and started after a couple of the goblins in the left corridor when drakthar came from the right and hit the party like a ton of bricks. His first action had one of the soon to be ex-adventurers(a greatsword fighter) dominated and holding back the rest of the party in the small corridor while he pounced on the other(ironically a cleric of pelor) who managed a horrible turn check and finished him off within a couple of rounds. By this point the groups paladin was trying to subdue the other fighter, and when he finally succeeded Drakthar had summoned a horde of wolves, one of which neatly coup detat-ed her and they charged the party. Just for dramatic purposes and to give the players IC reasons for their characters not to come back I sped up drakthars power that causes bodies to rot, and let the party see their teammates bodies fall apart before them.
You would think this would have made for the next session and subsequent attempt to be wrathful and prepared. But instead while the party went in knowing it was a vampire and having done minimar research they again went for the same tactic. They tried to block in the goblins in the barracks and engaged in a rather noisy fight. Several rounds of battle and a thunderstone(ugh) later I rolled to see if any random monsters may have heard the scuffle. Low and behold it was not meant to be the players lucky day and again I rolled under the random monster chance, and hit the small percentage of drakthar.
This time his wolves came first, charging in from the side hallway through the storage rooms to attack the party from the flank while he simply misted through them, posistioning himself at the back of the party between a cleric/wizard and a bard, their only rear defense. The cleric took a step back after a hard blow and let the paladin replace him as the front line. Sadly the paladin made an abysmal will save and quickly decided that it didn't go against his code to 'keep the party from rushing to their deaths', and again the party found themselves in a situation of having one of their own holding them back while drakthar cornered one of them individually. Only this time they also were facing an assault of wolves from one side and the few remaining goblins on the other. Sadly the paladins best chance at another immediate will save turned and fled out of sight and mind into the dead end room at the opposite end of the corridor. Drakthar followed, and within a few rounds the bard was no longer to be. By the time the party managed to finish off the goblins and snap the paladin out of it all they found was the bards corpse and no drakthar.
It took the party a third attempt, which was essentially non-combative(they had managed to find the back entrance to the passage through alot of RP, and had a half orc in the party who went in and acted like he was supposed to be one of the mercenaries, got them drunk and passed out, then snuck the party in) for them to kill drakthar and that was still close. They hadn't been expecting his throne and left themselves quite vulnerable when it first stood up.
All in all I think this dungeon did a great deal to help my party focus a bit on their planning. Kazmogen nearly did them in at one point but that was still just a straight fight, there wasn't all the fore thought that was involved in their finally sucessful excursion into drakthars way.
Darkthar couldn't resist 2 round of full attacks againts fighter armed with silver weapons.
Needs to be magic AND silver FYI.
I had a lot of fun with Drak. Was cool psyching the players out when they figured out they were facing a vampire. I even had him invade their home ala some bad vampire movie.
I think every DM has this happen to them - where a pet NPC who you are planning to use long-term gets whacked due to luck. I remember running Maure's Castle last year and having the group fight the gnoll cleric. Was planning on using her as a
reoccurring villain. She was fully buffed up and wailing on the party and I had it in my head that when she dropped to 100hps (or maybe less can't recall her total now) she would use word of recall to get away. She hit 100hps and there were two non-melee players left to have a go at her before she would teleport.
The arcane archer rolled her 6+ arrow shots and got critical hits on 4 of them. She whacked the gnoll for 90+ damage in one round. Then the remaining sorcerer who was out of spells by this stage used her longbow and managed to kill her.
The agony! But it was fun. The best laid plans and all that jazz.
I also had triel fight the party in nothing but a bathrobe. They thought they had suprised her when on the first hit an armour contingency spell went off and she was fully armoured decking the players with her crazy swings. She was a good battle. Once the armour materialised and the trapped door went off seperating the barbarian from the rest of the party the barbarian was scared as hell. As was Skaven. Poor Tongueater was a walk over in comparison.
I also had triel fight the party in nothing but a bathrobe. They thought they had suprised her when on the first hit an armour contingency spell went off and she was fully armoured decking the players with her crazy swings. She was a good battle.
How did you go about this armour contigency spell?
Its a spell from the Malhavoc book about clerics (Hallowed Might?). She also had divert charge active. But no one charged her. Which was a shame. Would of been fun redirecting the character into a wall :)
Interesting. My players just beat Drakthar last night. However, I had to cheat and let them damage him by the cleric touch attacking (AC13 or something) with his holy symbol (after all Drakthar is, um, weak as vampires go, yeah that's it).
They had retreated before facing Big D so I had him dominate the town guards blocking the exit and they locked the party into the dungeon when they returned (its an iron door so they couldn't get out). All they knew so far was that something had mind control. After a reasonable fight with the goblin ambush, they got hit by bat swarms and took a beating. After dispersing these, D appeared. 2 of the party clmbed to his ledge and the first up rolled a hit against AC23. The look on his face was priceless when I told him the "bugbear" did a fast head dodge (as in the Matrix) and he missed. It was even better when D grabbed him with his slam attack and hurled the PC from the ledge one handed, before laughing mockingly and turning gaseous-leaving the party with an unconscious, gangrene infected fighter.
After this, though, my problem was more how NOT to kill them all, contrary to most of you. They are mainly fighter types with 1 sorceror/cleric who had used all his spells and were unprepared for a vampire. No silver AND magic weapons, no holy water. Luckily we use an action point system, so the cleric summoned up his reserves (burned 2 AP) and magic weaponed a silver dagger for someone. Without letting the same cleric use touch attacks with his symbol, though, they were toast. I even had to have D get carried away with the fight, when he should probably have retreated before going too low on hit points.
It seems most who triumphed easily did so through clerics, spells or anti-vampire kit bought in preparation. Fair analysis?
It seems most who triumphed easily did so through clerics, spells or anti-vampire kit bought in preparation. Fair analysis?
That was my experience. My party's cleric was useless due to a low charisma. And it took two encounters before they figured out they need silver and blessed weapons. Once they did and took the fight to him armed with garlic, mirrors and holy symbols they were able to take him apart. Which was fine as I like rewarding good play. And I had my fun with him already :)
Once they did and took the fight to him armed with garlic, mirrors and holy symbols they were able to take him apart. Which was fine as I like rewarding good play. And I had my fun with him already :)
Yes, my group did the same, plus an Searing Light scroll from Pelor's shrine ;D
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