I am just leading my group through HoHR. They wiped out the drow and the Octopin. They were shocked to find the entrance to the Mind Flayer's lair and decided that they had to rest and heal. As it is about 3 am they will just wait until sunrise, so that the divine casters get their spells and abilities back; then those will go to resupply until the next 4 hours passed and the arcane casters are also recharged. Now my question, as Zyrxog is definitely aware by then, that the PCs are after him, what will he do to reinforce his lair. To get new minions it is too late, so I thought, he might free the advanced octopin, but where will it wait...a mean thing would be the brain-room, but that is maybe too tough..or should he just welcome them and lead them by their noses telepathically, fully confident, that he himself will not have any problems with the pesky adventurers (maybe bluffing them into taking some of the cursed items?). Any ideas welcome, Thanks.
Zyrxog and the two octopins are actually plenty tough enough for most groups, especially if they burn a few resources on the brain, the advanced octopin and/or the vrock. And Zyrxog's primary purpose is to lure them into his clutches. He's supremely confident. I'd go easy on the PCs now, but play Zyrxog tough. Unless the party plans to cast spell immunity (mind blast) on everyone, you'll be lucky if they survive.
Unless the party plans to cast spell immunity (mind blast) on everyone, you'll be lucky if they survive.
Zyrxog can be pretty challenging, especially if he places himself in a spot that most of the PCs can't reach (such as hovering over the pool). He'll pretty much ignore most of the spells the party might fling at him, so they'd have to get very creative to avoid being slaughtered.
You are right...but I think I will tease them a little bit, the old dead animals in front of the door and telepathic contact stuff...I think he will scry on them and tell them exactly what they do right now...could be fun. One thing I do not like with Zyrxog is, that the PCs never meet him before the end fight, so they cannot develop any real enmity towards it.
Oh they'll have plenty of enmity toward Zyrxog before all is said and done. I agree with the advice given so far, let Zyrxog wait. There is absolutely no way that they can approach him without warning, so he'll be fully buffed and tough as nails when they finally reach him. My group just finished up with Zyrxog and we lost two characters at the first encounter. We should have lost at least two more on the second encounter, but I wanted to move on, so I fudged things to keep people alive.
Don't underestimate Zyrxog! Hopefully they've read the clues ahead of time and are a little prepared for him, but if they just wander in, expecting the next room full of monsters, you're gonna wipe the floor with the party. Zyrxog makes the classic mistake of being overconfident and waiting for the heroes to come to him, except that he really is more than a match for them. So I don't think that he's overconfident to tell the truth, just confident.
Enjoy the bloodbath!
P.S. - Part of Z's equipment is a ring of counterspelling which is very silly if you ask me. The guy has SR through the roof (in fact, no spell of the party's level can touch him unless someone has spell penetration, greater spell penetration, and rolls a natural 20), so he has almost nothing to fear from magic. It's like a dragon wearing an amulet of natural armor +1. What for? The party is doing fine with cool magical gizmos so I just removed the ring.
P.S. - Part of Z's equipment is a ring of counterspelling which is very silly if you ask me. The guy has SR through the roof (in fact, no spell of the party's level can touch him unless someone has spell penetration, greater spell penetration, and rolls a natural 20), so he has almost nothing to fear from magic. It's like a dragon wearing an amulet of natural armor +1. What for? The party is doing fine with cool magical gizmos so I just removed the ring.
Actually I added a sidetrek and my PCs are level 9 already and we gave them better stats so that it is more fun and less death. In order to balance this, I leveled Zyrxog to Sorc 8, giving him Enervation as 4th level spell. In the end I think the ring of counterspell is there for only one purpose: counter-counter spell, Zyrxog will get a problem if his Levitate is cancelled and the Pcs could ground him...if the fighters reach him, he is toast...still I think he is tough like hell...I just didn't want to give the PCs the feeling, that the BBEG is just sitting there waiting for them indefinitely (I had to convince them to rather use the 4th level cleric divination spell, than LegendLore which would have taken them at least 1 week to cast). But I really think I will taunt them via telepathy while they rest, to make them look over there shoulders and give them the feeling that the problem Zyrxog is for real. Zyrxog still has his scrying pool.
"Unless the party plans to cast spell immunity (mind blast) on everyone, you'll be lucky if they survive"
I dunno, to me it also depends on what sort of arcane caster the party has; I'd expect any good wizard-type player to have spells like Fly and See Invisibility available and memorised, so things like the Invisible Stalkers and the levitating Mind Flayer are not so difficult to overcome. And the party not being all bunched up goes a long way too, so only one or two is in the mind blast or similar effect. A bit of luck can also go a long way, like my guys have a habit of rolling well on the critical Will save, then immediately get up close and personal with the offender (smash the stone, grapple the mind-flayer, etc).
As I've posted some time ago, my group didn't use spell immunity or any other ways of avoiding the potentially deadly parts of this adventure, and they managed to get through it pretty easily: sure, the mind flayer was a tough fight, but once the fighter took a mind blast and recovered from being stunned, it was over pretty quickly from there despite the advanced octopin also being there, he just flew over the the mind flayer and grappled him while the rest of the group hit him with spells from range. So I'd certainly say there's more than one way to skin the mind-flayer-cat....
Part of Z's equipment is a ring of counterspelling which is very silly if you ask me. The guy has SR through the roof [...]
IIRC, the ring has Dispel Magic stored in it. Dispel Magic is not subject to SR, so he's not naturally protected from that spell by his SR. So his ring will stop the PC's de-buffing him with a Dispel Magic (unless they have more than one memorised). Quite cunning, I thought. My group wizard wore that ring a long time, although to be honest it never got used because no-one bothered to try and de-buff her.