With Blasphemy at will as a 30th level caster (modified to 20 for logical reason) Adimarchus is a tough opponent.
You say that you play in one game and master another, I think you knew about him too much in advance for a fair fight, no?
Don't forget that you have to kill him twice on 2 different planes, he can also change shape during the battle if his physical powers are not right.
Sometimes it's the way, a group is well prepared and everything goes easily.
only the fighter died on a first turn implosion and she was raised back by nidrama
Not trying to challenge anything here, I am simply curious:
1 - Can you raise someone killed by an implosion? Seems to me like the body would be damaged beyond the reach of a simple raise dead.
2 - Does she have raise dead as a spell or spell-like ability? (I haven't read my SCAP HC that far yet) How much time does it take her to cast it? More than a round, right? Adimarchus would have plenty of time trying to disrupt the casting. Has she good ranks in Concentration??
Just asking because I discovered the hard way that trying to "raise dead" someone in the middle of a battle is not an easy task...
Bocklin
|
I think what they were getting at is that raise dead takes a minute to cast, so that means the rest of the party is going at it with admimarchus for 12 rounds(plane shift there and back also) without having their primary fighter, and the one with the smoking eye. Plus for those 12 rounds they've lost nidimara(?) as their back up.
Not to mention that planeshift puts you anywhere from 5 to 500 miles off-target on the plane in question, which means some serious travel time without benefit of Greater Teleport (and even then, that's two more rounds of time at bare minimum).
|
Also, planeshift is amazingly inaccurate (off by 5-500 miles both ways) unless Nidrama was using the very powerful and very expensive amulet of the planes to go both ways? Also, does an individual immediately appear in Occipitus when they die, or is there a 10 rd delay? I seem to recall the use of dimensional anchor/lock being mentioned in order to keep your friend's corpse on the Material Plane...
Edit: Drat, second place :)
It was certainly NOT an easy fight for us. Adimarkus had to be fought twice, we had to sacrificed ourselves to kill him once. He could dispel our Death Wards, and other buffs.
It was a hopeless, yet epic battle for us. (I don't think your Adimarkus was portrayed as using his abilities to their max.)
As the DM for the SCAP:
The group fought well, but Adimarchus first killed Nidrama, then the Paladin fell to Maze, then killed the archmage with the smoking eye.
The fighter/ranger took enough negative levels to affect his BAB and HP, so had to back out of melee. The warmage was dropped to -something, but stablized. The rogue ended up knocked down to the bottom of the tower and had to make her way back up.
In the end, it was the druid and the crossbow dervish (homebrewed PrC... think: gunslinger) took down Adimarchus. From that point, it was a race back to Occiptus to find the archmage and then kill Adimarchus.
I rolled separately when each would revive, and the archmage won out. They used divination magic to locate Adimarchus' dead body and killed him before he could rise.
As for Ares' situation... maybe if it were done "by the book" it would not have been disappointing, as you say. My guys didn't know if they would live or die. The fight was so thrilling, we didn't erase the battlemap for 6 months... we started using another one.
Hmm. .. you know what? All of your parties at least managed to kill Adimarchus. My party when faced with the battle ran like hell. . .
They stayed to fight for a few rounds, until one got hit with an imploding strike and died. At that point, they just booted it. . .
I really wanted them to get through it too. . .
Needless to say, my group runs at the first sign of danger. . .
|
My party consisted of 8 players levels 17-20. Due to the fact that the paladin who'd gotten the "smoking eye" template was killed by Kazmojen (the party had never killed him, and he becaming a viscious reoccuring villian), I ended up having to bring in Karophon.
Party got to the top, saw the angel in the cage, couldn't help him, decided to leave (they didn't even come close to getting help from Nidrama). As they crossed the foyer to leave, Karophon destroyed the chain holding the cage in place, causing it to plummet to the floor below, freeing Adimarchus. I wiped the floor with the party for about 5 rounds before they fled. I don't think they did more than about 40 points of damage to him. His fast healing (I remember him having fast healing or regen) kept him almost completely healed.
Adimarchus was deadly. Plain and simple. And you had to kill two of him (good and evil). I honestly have to wonder how you were able to do this. Even fully prepped and knowing what they were dealing with, my party couldn't have handle him at their levels, and they are veteran players.
Adimarchus = death
Plain and simple, at least IMHO.
If ya'll got him, GREAT JOB on ya.
|
|
Hmm. .. you know what? All of your parties at least managed to kill Adimarchus.
My party actually didn't. They managed to kill one aspect of him but only 1 party member was left. The cleric's sacrifice saved the party but they didn't necessarily win.
To he honest, after the second fight with Adimarchus, none of the players were up to resurecting the 3 dead characters, re-arming, returning to Occitpitus for round 3. I would have been a DM without any players. I know this is a cop out and cheap, but I used divine intervention to bring about a conclusion of the game that everyone was happy with. I didn't like it all that much but I think the players would have rebelled otherwise. As a DM, I believe that the main role of the DM is make the game fun for the players. If you can't do that, then you should be a DM. By the second fight with Adimarchus, the players weren't having fun anymore so I just ended it.
|
|
Adimarchus was deadly. Plain and simple. And you had to kill two of him (good and evil). I honestly have to wonder how you were able to do this. Even fully prepped and knowing what they were dealing with, my party couldn't have handle him at their levels, and they are veteran players.Adimarchus = death
Plain and simple, at least IMHO.
I agree completely.
Have not run this battle yet but on paper it looks damn tough. You have to fight two epic level characters back to back.
Either you guys were uber (3 amulets of the planes?!) or the DM didnt run him right.
|
|
read no further if you dont want to know what happens.
I am playing this campaign in one game and running it in another and I just wanted to comment on how disappointing and easy the final batle with adimarchus was. First, the presence of Nidrama seriously altered the battle. She gave all the bonuses from prayer and aid at will, she could raise dead, and she could give the party death ward which makes adimarchus's tentacles completley useless and she can bless weapons making it easier to pass the dr.
Adimarchus also doesn't have true seeing which made spells like mirror image and displacement priceless and gave us a major advantage.
we entered this combat with an
18th level theif/cleric
18th level rage mage
18th level archmage/paladin
17th level fighter
18th level shapechanging something or other (not really sure)
nidramaonly the fighter died on a first turn implosion and she was raised back by nidrama, no one else during the fight was truly ever threatened and all in all, we made short work for him (or at least as short of work as can be for a guy with over 1000 hp.
disappointing for an el 27
Bear in mind that the EL assumes there will be four characters - you turned up with six, including the NPC. That will help a lot. Pluss, of course, you did cheat with the Raise Dead and Planeshifting.......
Bear in mind that the EL assumes there will be four characters - you turned up with six, including the NPC. That will help a lot. Pluss, of course, you did cheat with the Raise Dead and Planeshifting.......
Thought the HC was balanced for a party of 6 not 4. Yes the EL is balanced for 4 people but thats why its extreme since 4 level 18/19 characters would have an extremely tough time beating an EL 27 encounter.
Having said that numbers skew the EL significantly in my experience.
Hey all
I had a question about the aura shroud ability (or whatever its called)...It means that Adimarchus is both good and evil for determining and thus spells with the good or evil descriptor don't work on him...Does this mean that detect evil won't work? What about smite evil?
Also, how necessary is Nidrama to defeating Adimarchus? I only have two players now, each running three characters (see Campaign ending early thread) and adding a fourth for them to run would be a little much. I suppose I could run her.
Also, for the battle with Dark Myrakul, I'm going to have him have already cast create greater undead, and create undead making a mhorg and a spectre respectively. He will also use his summon monster scrolls first while in his antilife shell. With the demonflesh golem, is this going to be too much of a resource wasting fight in your opinion?
One more thing:
One of the players lost his uber-axe to a Nightwalker in a sidequest adventure. When he returned, he woke up one morning to find the ax by his side. Of course, this ax was put there through the madness of Adimarchus and was a cursed item...tainted etc. The other player (or characters) don't know about this. But I've been using the taint rules from Heroes of Horror. Right now he's mid level mental degradation and is aggressive and distracted (hearing voices). I'm thinking that the madness will truly begin after they have defeated Adimarchus, cackling madly and then plane shifting away...but I was also thinking, what if he turns before and goes nuts on the party...this could easily swing the encounter into a TPK but it would be a great end to the campaign.
I've been reading the watchmen and came across this Nietzche quote which will definetly figure into either Dark Myrakul or Adimarchus' final monologue (Paraphrase):
"Battle not with monsters, Lest ye become a monster yourself. And if you gaze into the abyss, know that the abyss gazes back."
Hey there... Just thought I'd chime in.
I actually played in Ares group (I played the Archmage). I did not find the encounter as disappointing however. Two of our PC's were Uber, and to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised at them handling any situation that was thrown at them.
One of Adimarchus's forms was blinded for the entire fight. What really screwed Adimarchus was a spell (not sure the real name of it) where are rogue/druid hit him with blinding spittle. I'm really surprised they didn't give him something to remove status effects. (or did they and they just weren't used???)
We did completely botch the raise dead thing, but still, I'm was surprised that he had no way of countering somebody using status effects and especially using effects like Mirror Image, Project Image, Invisibility, etc..
Actually for the invisibility there is a Unhallow with a linked Invisibility Purge throughout Skullrot.
Then there is also a Dimensional Anchor effect throughout Skullrot.
And for blinding one of his forms he does have SR 35, and good saves. If you got lucky, then good for you.
Oh and I believe he has a quickened True Seeing power. But I would have to check the HC for that one.