Demonskar Legacy suggests (rightly) that the PCs face Nabthatoron at full strength. Unfortunately, he is placed at the end of a dungeon, beyond the hag encounter (which has an EL two or three above party level).
My PCs will enter Vaprak's Voice next session, and I'm concerned they will fight the hill giants, ettins, and hags (avoiding Dugobras) but not be worn down enough to think to rest before entering the Starry Mirror. They'd then meet Nabthatoron at significantly reduced strength. I don't want to have to rescue them using Nidrama.
Anyone else who has already run Demonskar Legacy have ideas on how to plan for this? Thanks.
Do the hags have Dispel? If so, have them debuff as many people as possible. They'll want to rest up before going on.
Granted, that makes the hags a tougher fight...
Perhaps they spot Nab within the mirror the same way they spot Alex?
Or just delay Nab's appearance once they get to the far side. They meet Alex, talk, try to decide how to get home, rest, and then Nab appears.
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Wow, your PCs aren't in the habbit of rejuvinating every time they catch their breath's? Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to teach them this survival technique.
Have them walk out into the sand with Alek, even at half strength, thinking the fights are over. Then when they see they're stranded have Nab appear and start kicking the ever luvin s*@# out of 'em. They run back into the room with the mirror and close the door. Now, you'll have to make the door with some kind of still functioning magical lock -- no need to explain it to the PCs (shouldn't be too hard this was the entrance to a treasure vault -- locks from the inside are important). Then as they lay there bleeding have Nab start pounding the door to smitherings (little pig, little pig, let me...). The PCs will know he's coming through soon and will start preparing. Allow them to hear Nab's curses of frustration and then, after a pause, the incantations to some powerful spell of opening. They'll prepare faster. If they need more time to prepare then have Nab's first spell not do the whole trick. Anyway, you get the idea.
And your PCs will (rightly) never think a dungeon is over again and rejuvenate whenever they get a chance.
This will also really help at the end of Test of Smoking eye. Rakshasa, fire giant, insane clay golemn, Lich, betraying demon, all in a few minutes.
First off, Nab's got teleport at will, so he can just jump into the room any time he wants. I'd suggest that Nab just waits. He spends the time while they're resting trying to figure out where the party went to. Then, poof, he finds them and attacks. My party was fully rested and had to buff during the fight. We lost one member, and almost two. If you're really worried, make Nab a standard Glabrezu and get rid of his utterly-broken improved trip feat. With that, and not much range combat (like my party), he's likely to wipe them.
W E Ray, I thought my party would have a tough time with the Rakshasa and the giant, but they didn't. Litteraly took them two rounds to wipe the monsters. Sure, rak's are scary with 27 SR, but throw a war mage at him with those painful orb spells (no SR!), he dies in a round.
Preparing for the session, I just noticed that the hags can cast forcecage, which would last for 22 hours:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forcecage.htm
If they can get this spell off (which allows no save or SR) on one of the PCs, the party will be forced to wait out the duration of the cage before moving through the mirror.
How did the battle with the hags work for those who have already run it?
How did the battle with the hags work for those who have already run it?
My battle with hags was not difficult at all. Honestly, the hags were more of an irritation than an actualy threat. I even threw in the nerra and skeletons later to make it a bit more challenging.
Evard's Black Tentacles really changes a combat in that small room. :-\
The eastiest way is to impose that time passes as the party trys to escape from the mirror maze. As it is a pocket dimention you can easyly alter time while in it....The party becomes very tired and hungery....poof...all healed up.
Preparing for the session, I just noticed that the hags can cast forcecage, which would last for 22 hours:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forcecage.htmIf they can get this spell off (which allows no save or SR) on one of the PCs, the party will be forced to wait out the duration of the cage before moving through the mirror.
How did the battle with the hags work for those who have already run it?
It was almost a TPK. Maybe because I gave the hags a surprise round in which they were able to cast confusion, domination and eyebite. The next round they flew up and started to cast forcecage, which the PC's were unable to disturb (SR and good reflex saves). After the fighter was caught in the cage and the group partially confused, I thought the end was near. I decided to let the hags attack with their strength reducing claws, instead of waiting until the party had killed its own members. Some lucky dice for the confused ones eventually saved the day.
So indeed they had to sit out the 22 hrs, could sleep and relearn spells. Not that it mattered much during the battle against Nabthatoron. The only thing the demon had to do was to kill Alec, which proved very easy (impossible to miss the poor paladin). I didn't use his stun ability, nor reverse gravity and he teleported away (after he bit off the head of Alec) with 50 Hp's left.
It was a pretty predictable battle, contrary to the hags encounter, there every outcome was possible (oh those dice)