[dcageofworms players stay out.]
So my PC's got the phylactery and after consulting with Manzorian and Lashonna they've come up with the following plan.
Note they are operating under the assumtion (which I made on the fly without consultation of any books) that when they start trying to destory the phylactery, Dragotha will be aware that someone is attacking it. It seemed a interesting idea to me.
Their plan is:
Pick their ground to fight on somewhere in the wormcrawl fissure. Preferably somewhere Dragotha will have to fly to negate his wing attacks and somewhere where is mobility is limited by the canyon walls.
Buff.
Start beating the hell out of the phylactery, grabbing Dragotha's attention. Soon he should be able to locate the phylactery and assuming he wants to protect it he'll show up.
Comence fight/ambush.
Essentially a make him come to us strategy.
They've given it more thought and consideration and planning but I'm not going to bore you with the details.
My initial thought is that Dragotha won't show. The adventure assumes that the PC's can destory the phylactery before going to the fissure and he doesn't interfere.
However with the PC's in the wormcrawl fissure doing this, maybe he will. It gives Lashonna a great opportunity to steal the monolith. Plus my players are ready to get to the end of this campaign and they don't need to slog their way through the worm crawl fissure. I could see the following.
round 1 dragotha becomes aware.
round 2-3 dragotha scry's the phylactery's loaction
round 4-5 tells the worm drake to teleport and attack.
round 6 worm drake shows up. dragotha watches.
round 7-12 worm drake gates, summons worms, and softens up the PC's.
tound 13+ dragotha shows up himself.
round 16 or 17 dragotha suddenly looks away from the battle and screams "NO! YOU BIT$%" and teleports back to writhing tabernacle to stop Lashonna
round 21-22 teleports back to vent his anger (being unable to follow Lashonna) and finish off the PC's screaming about how they are servants of the evil they seek to destory.
It may even be possible for the PC's to somehow follow dragotha back when he teleports.
My fear is this is a possible TPK. The worm drake, gates in a balor, summons a maralith, plus a bunch of purple worms, followed by dragotha???
The other question I keep asking myself is why wouldn't dragotha throw everything he has at the party and send in Maudril and the rest?
Lastly... the PC's have planned themselves out of Dragotha's horde.
Those are my thoughts and concerns. I'm thinking of letting the plan come to fruition but wanted to get other opinions and thoughts?
Thanks,
Shade325
My opinion is that if the PCs were powerful enough to retrieve the phylactery, Dragotha would NOT want to have himself and the phylactery anywhere near each other; too many eggs in one basket.
I like the idea of sending a bunch of minions with flight/teleport capability. Remember, their job is not to kill the PCs, but to grab the phylactery and get the hell out of there. If there's enough critters occupying the PCs, it might actually happen.
I'd normally say that there is not a chance in the Nine Hells that Dragotha would teleport to the phylactery. He's got to know its a trap. Still what you have set up sounds real cool and since cool always trumps common sense I say go for it.