So next week, my players will fight Dragotha. They cleaned out the Tabernacle's lower level, with great ease, in fact. Venk was blinded, and Zyrith hit with fugue (stunned him). The avolakia clerics got an electric-substituted meteor swarm/quickened fireball, et al. Mahuudril got the old time stop/elec and acid-subbed delayed blast fireball trick, followed with an empowered orb of fire. The wormdrake rolled a nat one on a save for destruction. Hmm...not as challenging as I foresaw.
So, they've got that upper level, with a few nightcrawlers, and Dragotha, hanging on to a few avolakia clerics for assistance. The party went back to Zulshyn's to rest/identify gear, and level all four PCs to 21st. I warned them that they might be giving Dragotha time to prepare.
In the previous adventure's BBEG fight, Brazzemal was sent to another plane. The party went to his Aerie in Wormcrawl--not knowing what it was--and were attacked yet again by the dragon, advanced to a wyrm. Well, at fifteen hit points, he teleported away, and the group decided he learned his lesson. (In fact, I was going to leave it at that, but I think you can see where this is going...)
Even though Brazzemal practically let the party destroy Dragotha's phylactery, Dragotha's probably gonna need some help against four epic--and highly prepared--heroes, especially with Balakarde nullifying much of his power. Should I re-re-introduce this CR 24 dragon into the fight, side by side with Dragotha?
I was planning on having him teleport in at the other end of the upper level, nearer to area 16. That way, if the party decides to run out of the Writhing Sanctum where Dragotha is situated, they find themselves sandwiched between two dragons. Is this too evil, even for a party with high damage output that seems to scoff at the enemies that dare cross its path? Or is this a rare opportunity to truly scare them with a nasty dragon/dracolich combo, one they may remember for the rest of their lives?
Wow. You and I seem to be near the same points in the path, where I'm making similiar decision with Kyuss. I think its a fine line between a challenging encounter and a TPK, and Brazzie might certainly up the encounter to this point. The problem I forsee is not the breath weapons or spells, but just the sheer physical damage output both dragons are capable of. In my game, Dragotha was doing over 250 dmg a round and basically killing off a PC every turn. Brazzemal's damage output is almost the same, so if both dragons were to gang up or get lots of lucky rolls (crits), it might spell certain doom. I agree that Dragotha needs minions or some other way for him to get additional actions in each round. I used my "custom Kyuss Knight", but I think a Wormdrake (there are supposably six in the world) would be more fair. As for Brazzie: Attack them with him while the rest. Zulshyn aside, this should put the fear of Kyuss into them, as there's quite a difference between a surprised party and a mega-buffed-know-what-they're about to fight prepared party. I employed a similiar trick with Zyxanth, and it resulted in an incredible fight. Consider also giving Dragotha Life Ward (spell compendium). This will let him survive a couple of heals, at least until he gets dispelled/ MDJ'd.
I have to agree with you about the Wormdrake, Rakshasa. I'm leaning toward introducing another of these menaces, as the last one was seriously pwned. I try to give dragons a modicum of respect in a fight, and make an effort to play them as well as I can. But when they roll a nat one on a save or die spell, well...
What I'm thinking of doing with Brazzemal, is having him go over to Lashonna's camp. After all, he did "let" the PCs destroy Dragotha's phylactery, so she may consider his betrayal charming. I'm loathe to make him any more powerful than he is, but the prospect of another vampiric dragon tempts me...
Yes, I think the wormdrake may make an even more fascinating adversary, and he deserves a second chance. Filling up Dragotha's upper level with summoned frost worms, certain to react with death throes in the midst of the fight--as well as gating in something...maybe a chronotyrn--will give Dragotha the numbers he needs. Thanks for the tip!
And if Dragotha's still not tough enough, I slap him with my favorite template: evolved!
The Advanced Bestiary (Green Ronin) has a wonderful template for undead called Negative Energy Charged. The best part is it can be applied with a 6th level spell that has a permanent duration. :D Turn undead can remove it, but it is a trememndous buff for spellcasting undead.
Is it ok to post such a template? I'm not sure...
The Advanced Bestiary (Green Ronin) has a wonderful template for undead called Negative Energy Charged. The best part is it can be applied with a 6th level spell that has a permanent duration. :D Turn undead can remove it, but it is a trememndous buff for spellcasting undead.
Is it ok to post such a template? I'm not sure...
Doubt it. Green Ronin would have the copy right.
Well, I've got one more trick for the savvy PCs.
Three avolakia priests escaped the party's assault. Well, I'm going to have them accompany Dragotha in the fight, under the effects of Sign (Spell Comp), giving them a +4 init, which should give them an init mod of +11 (not sure why the article puts them at +3, but whatever). Their goal is to open a breach for Dragotha to lay into the party, by casting Shock and Awe on the party as well, in the first round of combat. (My players are notorious for neglecting to put up SR). With that, the players should be caught flat-footed, giving the dracolich the first round at least.
From there, the Wormdrake will attempt to show up. Hopefully, this will allow for a more memorable--and hopefully terror-inducing--encounter with the legendary Dragotha.
(Brief amendment to my previous post):
I'm using Inhibit, instead of Shock and Awe. I found Shock and Awe is only applicable in the surprise round, and I would feel too guilty jacking my PCs with a surprise round in this fight. I thought that was too easy...
Even though Brazzemal practically let the party destroy Dragotha's phylactery, Dragotha's probably gonna need some help against four epic--and highly prepared--heroes, especially with Balakarde nullifying much of his power. Should I re-re-introduce this CR 24 dragon into the fight, side by side with Dragotha?
In your position, I'd include Brazzemal. Your players seem to be having an easy time of the combats so far and this is the point to pull out the stops and really challenge them. As Brazzemal is Dragotha's lieutenant, I'd be surprised if Dragotha *didn't* make use of him during the final confrontation. To not use everything Dragotha has at his disposal is to nerf him.
Keep in mind your players all have epic characters at this point; they'll likely do better than you suspect (again).
J-
My players are keeping something up their sleeves for this fight. They won't divulge their secret to me regarding their trump card for Dragotha, but I suspect it has something to do with astral projection (unlikely) or imprisonment (my bets are on this one).
Since the party consists of heavy-spellcasting...er, spellcasters, they rely on getting the jump on opponents, carefully adjucating their resources, and defeating foes fast. They tend to collapse in endurance fights, but rarely have to deal with them as a result of their aforementioned tactics.
While it lacks flashy panache, I may break down and have Dragotha just plain cast antimagic field on himself in the first round. While I'm fuzzy as to whether he can begin his breath weapon at a point within the reach of his bite (i.e. 20ft reach, outside the antimagic field), this may be the edge he needs to survive.
Either way, they all throw down tomorrow night. Let's see who comes out on top!
Either way, they all throw down tomorrow night. Let's see who comes out on top!
Let us know how it goes; I'm curious to hear. The group I DM'd were primarily casters as well.
Hope it's entertaining for all!
J-
Dear God, they beat Dragotha in the first round! Well, with that out of the way, I should explain how they uber-cheesed the undead dragon.
It began as they teleported to area 16, and soon after engaged the nightcrawlers. Meteor swarm/quickened meteor/quick fireball, and then mass cure light ended them swiftly. (They are epic, and diviner and cleric have multispell; diviner has rod of greater quicken). Then they move into the Writhing Sanctum...
Most of the party beat Dragotha on the initiative, but most importantly, the cleric, the diviner, and the bard. They didn't tell me what spells they prepared prior, and that was okay, as they know that I've said that anything they can legally cast from any Wizards sanctioned books are cool. Well...here's what finally did it:
Prior to the fight, the party teleported to shop in Magepoint (teleported just outside the town), and bought a scroll of giant size (wu jen 7, Comp. Arc., CL 19th). They also paid for Contingent Spells (Comp. Arc. p. 139) of Revivify (Spell Comp) and Heal on each character, triggered when they die.
So, the fight broke down this way. The cleric cast a couple of quickened actions, and held her action for when the diviner (right next to her) took his. (Though this was an unspecified parameter, my players wanted to surprise me, and we later clarfied that her actions in character would have been legitimate.) The avolakias tried to slow them down with heightened, then quickened, inhibits, but to no avail. The diviner waited for the bard, who went shortly thereafter. (They knew that a wormdrake was going to teleport behind them in three rounds, thanks to greater anticipate teleport.)
The bard is a seeker of the song (Comp. Arc.), and is something of a turbo buffer. He has Song of the Heart from Eberron (any bonus granted by inspire greatness--for our purposes--is increased by one), and Focused Performance (Dragon #338, p. 89), which--among other things--can confer an individual performance, at the cost of an extra bardic music attempt, to confer double the bonus of, say, inspire greatness. Furthermore, he possesses Words of Creation (Book of Exalted Deeds), and uses the Words of Creation to--in this case--enhance his inspire greatness. Combined with his Seeker of the Song (Comp. Arc.) ability, "combine songs", he can grant nine bonus Hit Dice, and other effects. The bard used two of these individual performances, on the diviner and the cleric.
The diviner has a base 18 Constitution (he likes to play tanks), and had a amulet of health +6. The cleric had a 12 Con, with bears endurance up (+4). The diviner cast quickened dimension door, dragging the cleric up next to Dragotha. (BTW, the kobold diviner is dragonwrought, and would thus be immune to Dragotha's paralyzing gaze...though it hardly mattered). The diviner used Use Magic Device, enhancing his check with a moment of prescience, to become a colossal creature, with a +12 bonus to Con; he now had a +13 Con mod. Combined with his base 77hp (partially thanks to Divine Oracle's d6), his temporary hp from his +9 bonus HD (avg of 49hp) and his new con mod effecting his 30HD (+390hp), he had a total of 516hp. The cleric had 268hp. Now came the explosion...
Our diviner had prepared--and asked our good-aligned cleric to spontaneously cast as a standard action--a sanctified spell: Exalted Fury. For those of you, like me, who didn't know what this is, it's a sanctified spell from Book of Exalted Deeds, p. 99. It says, "all evil creatures within the area take damage equal to your current hit points +50," with the sacrifice that you (the caster) die, though you can be raised normally. While the diviner had to memorize the sanctified spell, our cleric was able to spontaneously cast it, just like a cure spell.
From the sacrifice of the two characters--immediately Revivified and Healed thanks to the contingency spell--Dragotha took 884hp before he even got his first action. I even made him evolved for that extra kick...
After that, since the spellsword had absolutely no part in the last fight, they let him tackle the wormdrake one-on-one, as a founding event for his epic legacy item.
One thing's for sure after that surprise: Kyuss will give no quarter...
Toss Brazzemal in. Show no mercy. The PCs will probably be successful anyway, but that's how the game goes. :)
That's too bad about Dragotha, Hierophantasm. Sounds like my Lashonna fight. I made I rule that if my players can use any spell from the Wizards sourcebook,so would I. Afterall, statistic blocks are always limited by the amount of space the good people here are given; there's no way Dungeon has the space to reprint the most useful spells the BBEG will use if they're coming from six different sourcebooks. That's why I pulled off the kiddy gloves for the final module, as I recommend you do to. Give the enemy spellcasters access to every book, inluding Vile Darkness, Spell Compendium, PHB2, Complete Divine, and so forth. Only fair...
I had planned on using a variety of different spells for Dragotha, and his avolakia acolytes. They included a bunch of spells designed to help him get over armor even further (such as Wraithstrike from Spell Comp) or negate PC actions (such as Stifle Spell from PHB2 for Dragotha, and Pronouncement of Fate from Heroes of Horror and Inhibit for my avolakias).
But, sure as I was that it would be the case, it came down to the ever-important initiative. Even with Sign (Spell Comp) cast on all my avolakias and Dragotha, they beat me to the punch, employing the same spell on themselves (courtesy of a wand of it). Oh well.
Don't worry, though. I think a vampiric Brazzemal is sounding better every day...
"they know that I've said that anything they can legally cast from any Wizards sanctioned books are cool."
There's your problem. Just because a spell or feat comes from a WoTC splatbook doesn't mean its balanced (shivering touch, anyone?). And spells or feats that were balanced at the time of their creation often become unbalanced as later spells and feats are introduced.
But, if the players and you had fun, then really it was a success!
I got to hand it to your players, they really did their homework on this one. They knew they were up against a legendary dragon and prepared for it. Unless you want to match them spending countless hours pouring through every book for clever spells/tactics(sadly, something I've done in the past) then these things will happen. The only thing I would've done differently is included Brazzemal. Having dealt with epic PCs before I've learned err on the side of overkill, PCs of that level will always have SOMETHING up their sleeves.
The only thing I would've done differently is included Brazzemal.
I agree he would've really raised the bar. But, if there's at least one entertaining footnote to add to this explosive assault--since the diviner became colossal and did sick damage, he's taken to calling it the "critical mass attack"--it's that Brazzemal can still fulfill his role of "most pesty NPC baddie" in the campaign.
(In truth, I've been calling Brazzemal by a totally different name, a name taken from a massive red dragon antagonist from my very first D&D game. Perhaps fate is throwing me a bone by letting that legendary red dragon make a comeback in such a familiar role. I always wanted that red dragon of mine to fight the hero in that prior campaign atop a magical tower--it was one in Glantri, Touraine for you Mystara fans--so I may very well have my wish granted!)