So you've defeated Dragotha, you've defeated Kyuss.
How did it go, did you need to modify the encounter to make it challenging or did you run it as written ? What worked what didn't ?
To kick this off here's a run through of my group's encounter with Dragotha last night.
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The characters:
Human Paladin
Dwarven Rogue
Assimar Sorceror
Wild Elf Spirit Shaman
Dwarven Cleric
All at level 19 for the final session.
After breaching the doors of the tabernacle thanks to a disintegrate spell the group entered to be confronted by 6 Avolaki priests. The rogue succummbed to the promise of a slap up meal and disappeared through a door into a MMM.
The rest of the group were not quite so susceptible to their suggestions and battle ensued. The sorceror started off with a prismatic spray which turned one to stone but merely injured the others. The shaman and cleric let loose with various high level area effect spells, the Paladin began chopping an avolaki to pieces.
The avolaki let rip with slay living, flame strikes and wall of stones. With 1 avolaki out and 1 badly injured I had Mahudril show up. She lashed out with finger of death whilst the sorceror turned into a red dragon and breathed on some more avolaki. Meanwhile the paladin finished off the avolaki and the shaman and cleric rained more pain down from the heavens whilst a previously summoned earth elemental knocked down the walls.
2 rounds later it was all over. Of the death effects only 1 succeeded but I hinted to the player that he could feel his life force draining out and allowed him to spend a fate point to reroll which he succeeded.
The players then proceeded through to the Wormdragon. Whilst the dragon dealt some damage with it's initial breath weapn it found itself limited in the amount of damage it could deal before it went down. Particularly with a dwarven rogue standing on it's back smacking sneak attack damage home with 2 holy undead bane weapons.
Next up were the nightrawlers which went down with 1 sunburst spell when they all failed their reflex rolls.
By now I was thinking that the final encounter was going to be a whitewash.
However I decided to run the encounter as written and play it by ear if it looked too easy.
The encounter started with the 2 breath weapons hitting, some of the characters had protection up but it still took the sorceror and shaman down to periously low figures.
The paladin moved in to start a combination of smite attacks but was hampered by the very high AC (58), even with the Balakarde soul fragment(+20 attack) she was only hitting once a round and that was with no power attack.
The sorceror had more success with disintigrate though only did max damage on 1 of the 3 he fired.
The rogue dealt with Venk and Grazzilfex in fairly short order whilst the shaman and cleric hit with ranged spells with very mixed results and peformed some healing.
It looked for a couple of rounds like it was going to be a TPK, Dragotha forcecaged the paladin (who was released the next round thanks to a disintigration spell). He full meleed the paladin for 339 points of damage which killed the paladin but was promptly brought back from the dead by the spirit shaman who prevented her soul from leaving whilst the cleric cast mass heal and damaged Dragotha in the process.
Dragotha by this point down 600 hp decided to focus on the spell casters and cast the Withering spell (forget the exact name) which threated the casters but not too badly thanks to the previous heals. Another round and another 200+ points of damage delivered by the characters things were looking bleak for Dragotha with just 12hp left. Fortunately his action was next after the Sorceror, and his breath weapon was ready again and he could cast harm on himself and Dragotha had just made his save against another disintegration from the sorceror, one that dealt 19 points of damage !!!
So finally after about 5 rounds of play Dragotha fell.
I think it is fair to say that the players felt sufficiently challenged and in awe, especially when I put my colosaal Red Dragon mini on the table, that they'd not seen before !
Personally I expected more character deaths (not that I wanted them, you understand :-> ). If I wanted to push the characters harder I would make more use of his withering spell and leave the forcecages for people who could prove they can deliver lots of melee damage.
Also I would have mirror image up in the first round, that would have negated lots of the disintigrates.
Finally and this is a fudge, I would address his spell resistance of 33 which frankly was rather low for characters of this level, especially considering that one had a +20 to spell resistance checks.
It does make me wonder though if Kyuss will be a push over. The characters are going to be given some high powered toys to use. I will need to read the Kyuss scenario very carefully.