10 Swords of Kyuss win initiative. 10 invocations of the worm, 14d6 (50 average) negative energy damage. Of 9 charactes in the party, 6 are dropped far below -10, even the ones who made all their saves (for a measly 250 damage). Only the characters with evasion survived to see the Boneyard which finished the job.
Fast forward and everyone is OK. My players want to know if anyone actually survived this encounter, and if so how did they do it? I did not bump up the encounter, despite allowing every legal feat/spell/magic item/prestige class in all WotC D&D books (excluding Forgotten Realms), 32 point buy, action points and 7 players (two of which have cohorts). Can you defeat this encounter? Is there ANY POSSIBLE WAY to defeat this "core" adventure using only the core rulebooks and a balanced party of four 16th level characters?
10 Swords of Kyuss win initiative. 10 invocations of the worm, 14d6 (50 average) negative energy damage. Of 9 charactes in the party, 6 are dropped far below -10, even the ones who made all their saves (for a measly 250 damage). Only the characters with evasion survived to see the Boneyard which finished the job.
Fast forward and everyone is OK. My players want to know if anyone actually survived this encounter, and if so how did they do it? I did not bump up the encounter, despite allowing every legal feat/spell/magic item/prestige class in all WotC D&D books (excluding Forgotten Realms), 32 point buy, action points and 7 players (two of which have cohorts). Can you defeat this encounter? Is there ANY POSSIBLE WAY to defeat this "core" adventure using only the core rulebooks and a balanced party of four 16th level characters?
Whooo, not having Improved Initiative's a bi**h, ain't it?
Actually, sounds like they just got unlucky. I haven't yet gotten this far with my group, but it occurs to me that maybe for large groups (5+) of evil baddies that are that powerful, each creature should roll initiative individually, or in groups of 2, just to prevent every one of them going before the PCs have a chance to do more than scream.
O
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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If you do a search, you should come upon a thread or two about this. Basically, your experience is not uncommon. I believe James Jacobs has suggested that this attack is too powerful and should be toned down. Some posters have suggested that the only way to handle the situation is to either have a cleric that can turn (and who gets lucky enough to get initiative) or use a combination of divinations to learn about the threat and protection from negative energy to overcome it.
My players survived. The wizard won initiative and put up a wall of force between the party and the Swords. All the invocations detonated prematurely against the wall, not hitting any of the PCs. After receiving a death ward from the cleric, the wizard then levitated above the wall and cast transmute rock to mud, hampering the Swords considerably. The Swords attempted to annihilate the wizard with more invocations, but the death ward rendered him immune. The incarnate used a soulmeld that made him immune to negative energy and tanked the Swords until the fighter received a death ward, too, then it was a simple matter of cleaning up the undead.
My players did quite well. I used the suggested tactics and had only 1/2 the Swords of Kyuss use the invocation at a time, injuring pcs and healing the meleeing Swords simultaneously. Also, the delay between the 2 waves of Swords allowed enough time for a wall of force & 2 walls of fire to hamper the reinforcements.
Throw in a well placed scroll of Mass Heal by the Warlock, tactical distancing by the mages, and the fact that there were 6 PCs and the encounter made for a challenging fight with only 1 casualty.
The key seemed to be tactical placement. As 5 of the 6 PCs use missile forms (bows, spells, arcane fire) they spread out enough that after the first round any one invocation was only catching 2 of them at best. This meant our 1/2 orc fighter/barbarian (Gak) got hit a lot. I really feel for any party consisting of mainly meleers in this encounter!
J-
My group had two clerics, who both got initative and cast earthquake in the area of the undead....who were at the edge of the cliff. The height of the cliff meant the other wave of undead were already starting up the cliff face.
One massive landslide later, both hordes of undead are buried and trying to extract themselves. The party handily defeated the boneyard before the knights could extract themselves in any numbers and make it back up the slide zone.
A successful delaying action with no party casualties.
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First off, it's rather easy to spot the swords coming a round in advance, which should allow great spells like Forceful Hand to cause a lot of problems for the climbing dead. Improved invisibility should also help. I don't know about a wall of force stopping the Invocation as its a burst based on line of sight, not a cone/ray, etc. By this level clerics should have access to a few Death Wards, especially if they played Spire. Also, the encounter is not a TPK in any event, as the party, ir I recall, 'reforms' at the end of the encounter....
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10 Swords of Kyuss win initiative. 10 invocations of the worm, 14d6 (50 average) negative energy damage. Of 9 charactes in the party, 6 are dropped far below -10, even the ones who made all their saves (for a measly 250 damage). Only the characters with evasion survived to see the Boneyard which finished the job.
That doesn't sound very fun. I'm not one to pull punches, but running the encounter like you described sounds like you went wayyy beyond providing a challenge. How could anyone survive that? If I were a player in your game, I'd be pissed because I didn't have a chance to win from square one.
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10 Swords of Kyuss win initiative. 10 invocations of the worm, 14d6 (50 average) negative energy damage. Of 9 charactes in the party, 6 are dropped far below -10, even the ones who made all their saves (for a measly 250 damage). Only the characters with evasion survived to see the Boneyard which finished the job.
Fast forward and everyone is OK. My players want to know if anyone actually survived this encounter, and if so how did they do it? I did not bump up the encounter, despite allowing every legal feat/spell/magic item/prestige class in all WotC D&D books (excluding Forgotten Realms), 32 point buy, action points and 7 players (two of which have cohorts). Can you defeat this encounter? Is there ANY POSSIBLE WAY to defeat this "core" adventure using only the core rulebooks and a balanced party of four 16th level characters?
Death Ward and Antimagic Field are both absolute protection against this attack.
This is an EL20 encounter. The party should know by now that Death Ward or Antimagic Field is an essential spell. Antimagic Field is a much better defence as it is more ecnonomical than Death Ward (though it comes with its own detractions) but either way - they ought to know by now that the power level they are facing requires this sort of preparation.
As for how you retcon it? Zosiel's Silver Diadem pulses with power and a huge antimagic field of uncertain duration and radius is channeled by the Ancient Guardians of Law to rescue the PCs in an attempt tp prevent the return of Kyuss and the onset of the Age of Worms.
The force of the Antimagic Field is so strong it *burns out* the Diadem (say adios to the +4 Circlet of Wisdom. PC Cleric's fault anyway for not having enough Death Wards up). The Invocation of the Worm is suppressed en masse... along with potentially other spells the party may wish to use in their defence.
Carry on...
Remember that in the tactics section, only half the Swords of Kyuss use their invocation of the work at a time. I had them alternate, with 5 charging in and 5 invocating (invoking? invocationing?), thus damaging the party and healing the other Swords.
Biggest difference though, is that I had the Swords spend the entire first round climbing up over the edge of the cliff. So everyone got to act once before the pain was brought. The cleric buffed, the fighter types drank potions, and the wizard put up a wall of force. Made all the difference in the world.
I think that the Darl Quethos encounter could pose more of a problem than the undead encounter, at least where my party is concerned.
I plan on adding Kyuss Mobs to this encounter.