My party have finally come to Lords of Oblivion, and after rescuing Fario at the Brass Trumpet they decided to scry upon Adrick Garthûn to get some idea what was going on at House Rhiavadi. Naturally I thought this would be an excellent time to run the ballroom scene. After seeing Thifirane's speech they considered their options, but finally decided to teleport right into the middle of the crowd in the ballroom, buffed up beyond their ears and with spells ready.
The first round was of course a surprise round, so the wizard and cleric got of an empowered fireball (74 points) and an empowered flame strike (75 points) respectively. After that half of the opponents in the room, including Thifirane, was down in the massive negatives. Good initiative on most of the party made sure that after the first ordinary combat round about the only ones left standing was Vervil Ashmantle with his babau bodyguards and Velior Thazo. They went down the next round.
Has anyone else had their party run over this encounter this way?
Has anyone else had their party run over this encounter this way?
Not me. Mine actually went the opposite way. They hid in Thifirane's bedroom, waiting for people to come in one by one. Eventually the villains all finished their evil dinner and made their evil plans, and went home, with their loot and XP.
The sentiment expressed by the PCs was, "I feel like my greed has just been kicked in the groin."Out of curiosity, did they kill Mhad too?
The sentiment expressed by the PCs was, "I feel like my greed has just been kicked in the groin."
it must have been one memorable scene :-)
I saw it coming that this encounter as written was extremely likely to be a major let down in that it would present no challenge to a prepared party. I had spent some time building up the enmity for the Blue Duke, Lord Ashmantle, Velior Thazo, Thifirane, Mhad, and Garthun through various hints and foreshadowing since first level. I did not want so many hated and memorable villains to get wiped out in a single round. The way I made the fight more interesting was to decide that the villains had cast divination which had hinted they may be attacked the day of their meeting. Further, since some of these villains don't trust each other, I figured that they would fear betrayal at the meeting, so they all came buffed with all buff spells that lasted 1 minute per level or longer to the banquet. The party of PCs still beat them even though they were down two players for the evening (though given the missing players I let Shensen and Fellian accompany them). At least the buffs made fight more interesting and it lasted longer, with a few moments when the tide turned one way and then the other.
Out of curiosity, did they kill Mhad too?
No, she managed to sneak away.
I saw it coming that this encounter as written was extremely likely to be a major let down in that it would present no challenge to a prepared party.
Actually, my players didn't think it was a let down, on the contrary they thought it was extremely satisfying. What they feel now is that they got something for being clever, something I don't think they would have felt if I would have let the opponents be prepared for them. Now, if they had kicked in the door instead...
I didn't mean to say it would be a major let down for any group. I'm sure your players had fun massacaring the bad guys. Mine just had a lot of fun massacaring the merceneraries camped outside Cauldron in about two rounds. But for my group (or at least for me) this parcticular encounter would have been a let down if it wasn't tougher than as presented, because I had spent so much effort building up each one of these villains to be a major enemy over the course of several adventures, and this was finally the chance for the PCs in my campaign to face any of them, let alone a bunch of them at once.
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Has anyone else had their party run over this encounter this way?
May party ran over this encounter much like yours did. It has been the better part of 2 years since my players crashed "evil con" so I am a little hazy on the details but I do remember that the major factors were the holy word that the party unleashed and the fact the party's main cleric took out Lady Rhiavadi with a reverse resurrection very early in the encounter. After that, it was moping up. The party came in buffed and prepared and they kicked the crap out of the bad guys. In the past, I had always done the apposite to them and this time they turned the tables on me. I was actually very proud of them.
My guys bulldozed them as well. Though the fight went much longer. It went like so:
They bluffed past the guards downstairs, listened at the door of the ballroom and heard the speech. Retreated to the bathroom near there. Buffed themselves up to their eyeballs. Kicked the door down and blasted away. Fight went for about 10 rounds (and 2 hours in real life) and the initial 3 rounds it could have gone either way but it eventually went the players way. The warlock guy and one of the babau’s died in the surprise round. They made the mistake of targeting the vampire considering her (rightly) the most dangerous threat. She then dismembered one of the party members and they turned everything had on her – she went down round 3. In the end only Vervil was left and he surrendered after his invis was dispelled.
The paladin in my party has taken him to Elysium to try and convert him to the side of good. The same character who has the mark of the smoking eye and dual wields a holy and unholy bastard sword to reflect his dual-nature.
In retrospect the group did the exact right thing. They were debating retreating and coming back later or letting them come for them but I suspect that would have been suicide. Attacking when they did gave them surprise, the enemy was disorganised and unbuffed and they also didn’t trust each other.
...the party's main cleric took out Lady Rhiavadi with a reverse resurrection very early in the encounter.
Has anyone else had their party run over this encounter this way?
Sorry for the minor threadjack, but what's a reverse resurrection? Have I missed something in the rules or is that a "house" thing?
The PCs in our group only have two approaches to situations like this: the one described, and "we're going in to talk/bluff/negotiate and will try hard not to fight." It is impossible to predict in advance which approach they will take, though! They ended up negotiating with unlikely people like the Dark Stalker leader and Fetor, but pounding Vervil (way before they were supposed to) and Jil (ditto). The fight against Vervil was very much like the massacre the original poster described: they figured out where he'd be on his daily business back home, and terminated him with extreme prejudice.
They are currently on a knife's edge as to whether to talk to Vhelantru or fight him. They know what he is, but he's helping hold Cauldron together right now, and they're not sure they can spare him. They're also having a vigorous moral debate over the idea of killing him and then telling the town "Lord Vhelantru was killed and impersonated by a beholder! It's so tragic!" and putting up a statue to him....
At these levels I expect most fights to be very one-sided: if the PCs don't win right away they are quite likely to lose right away. If the GM wants to build up the villains more, it has to be done at arm's length, or the PCs need a reason not to fight. My GM ran some side adventures, and worked in a bit of Vervil backstory into one of them: the PCs talked to the enslaved spirit of Vervil's mage-master, who told them that he had let Vervil have access to too much power too early, and Vervil had murdered him to secure it. By the time they actually hit him, they had a strong feeling for who he was, making the fight meaningful even though it was extremely short.
Mary
Sorry for the minor threadjack, but what's a reverse resurrection? Have I missed something in the rules or is that a "house" thing?
slay living? heal? something like that probably?