In two sessions my PCs will have to go against Pitch Blade. It says everywhere, that they are really tough...but I see a certain course of events. First Dispel Magic will ground them easily and they cannot do anything about it. Next my Wizard will come with a Dominate Person; against a DC of 22, they have not much chance with +9 Will. After this my PCs will watch them tear themselves apart. Did anyone have such an experience? My PCs are getting a little bit cocky and I want them to have a really nasty fight (or at least cut some of their weapons to pieces ;-)) Any advice to buff up the dwarves? Thanks.
I don't know if they have adamantine weapons as written or if my DM made a change, but when my group fought Pitch Blade they did, and they knew how to use them. My warforged paladin was in a total panic, trying to keep them from sundering his precious magic weapons.
THAT was the scariest battle of the Belt for me as a player.
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Doesn't Protection from Evil/Good/Law/Chaos/Bunnies block domination? That would be a readily available counter measure to them (potions, scrolls, custom magic items). Also note that the opponents can get information about the PC's too. They can be ready for some (but not all) of your players' signature moves. Just my random thoughts...
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If they've used those tactics in previous fights, I would assume that their manager (Raknian's captain whose name eludes me atm)would give them scrolls or potions to counter effects. Dominate? here's your potion of Protection from Good. Dispel Magic? maybe some extra potions of Fly. Basically these guys are supposed to be set-up as not so subtle hitmen against the party. Equip/prepare them that way.Nothing like ordering a dwarf barbarian who's "dominated" to attack his friend and have him laugh in your caster's face as he charges with Power Attack at him.
Edit: darn, beat to the post lol
I think I am just too faithful to the module as written :-) Protection from Evil/Good will do the trick. "oh I missed my save oops, but it does not work". But maybe the first fight was just too easy...I guess it was meant to be. Let's see how the fair in the DungeonCrawl, maybe I will not have to do so much about Pitch Blade in the end.
TPKd my party with humiliating ease.
Both melee guys in our group lost their primary weapons to the blasted Sundering, putting the party way behind par on equipment. Luckily, they were quickly back on par due to level loss from resurrection after the froghemoth killed them, but it meant that they were 1-2 levels and equipment behind for the rest of the AP.
The first round of the Games was ridiculously easy for the party. I knew that PB as written wouldn't be much of a challenge for them (6 characters, plus Dire Lion Mount and Dire Wolf Companion) so I added an extra member. Then I customized their equipment and buffs a bit to deal with what my party was dishing out (Protection from Evil to ward against domination and the Malconvokers summoned creatures).
I subbed out improved sunder for a different feat for each barbarian (throw anything led to a surprised caster with a bastard sword embeded in his chest).
I gave each of them a different weapon property (Stygian (level drain...ouch), Somewhere on the board I read of the tactic of trying to bullrush or throw players out of the arena and that worked really well for getting rid of spellcasters. It was a tough fight, but not ridiculously so.
My playes walked all over them, and that was after I added an 8th level Theldrick and a Blood Golem of Hextor to the two dwarves! I couldn't see any way two dwarves would stand a chance against any balanced party that outnumbers them 2:1 or even worse and includes the ability to cast spells etc. Especially if your players are smart and plan ahead (after all, they should be finding out everything they can about their opponents, too - I let them get some info via their manager who was watching the fights and passed on what he could remember).
In my game, the golem was taken out by Grease, one Dwarf was pushed over the 60-foot height restriction in round one by a flying fighter, and the other was easily taken out via numerous spells, leaving just Theldrick who wasn't especially hard to finish off by himself. That night, I had the dwarf who survived team up with Captain Okral and try to assassinate the party under the arena - that underlined the fact these guys were dodgy hired killers, as in the arena they came across as a bit lame really. The PC's still survived an assassination attempt and called the guard, who took Okral away (of course, Raknain got him freed, heh heh).
I like the idea of potions of protection from good (or whatever alignment the arcane caster is), and whatever other protections are reasonable for Raknian to arm his killers with based on what they know of the PC's, but in my game the players were crafty in their preparations and came up with new tactics every combat, trying to save their best ones for the final, for example they never used dominate until they got the the final (and then took out the fighter before he even got to take a move, leaving the wizard quite exposed especially when the ugulistara(sp) arrived and started chowing down on a flesh golem). Good luck on the initiative rolls from the PC's can make a huge difference too, I roll separately for each opponent, but still a lot of fights saw key PC's get the first move, which they used to excellent tactical advantage.
So if your players do something similar, I say let them have their easy victories, they have earned them, I'm sure at least one of the fights will be tougher (unless they get lucky with the frogemoth, like my guys hit it with call lightning first round, which was like hitting the jackpot really, from there it was screwed as lightning slowed it and the party fighters just carved it up before it could eat one).
I think I am just too faithful to the module as written :-) Protection from Evil/Good will do the trick. "oh I missed my save oops, but it does not work". But maybe the first fight was just too easy...I guess it was meant to be. Let's see how the fair in the DungeonCrawl, maybe I will not have to do so much about Pitch Blade in the end.
Probably you don't really have a significant issue even if this is a bit to easy and your players are getting cocky. Cocky players are their own worst enemies for starters. On top of this there should be some pretty tough fights later in this adventure as well as in Gathering of Winds. After that they face Spire of Long Shadows. Now if Spire of Long Shadows is too easy you do have a serous problem (players are either too powerful or your not running the bad guys to their full potential).
In any case there are going to be a fair number of fights in this adventure - easy fights don't take that long and therefore keep the pace up.
I saw forcing a person out of the arena as too easy a way to win, and updated the arena rules to fix that. Basically, a person forced out has to enter the arena as soon as they are able, or be eliminated from the round.
Fair enough. In my case, one of my players saw this one before I ever thought of it; from my perspective (and the other players) it was an unexpected insight, so I thought "good on you". He does tend to have the occasional flash of genius in this regard, trying something quirky to win via an unexpected approach. Like the cockatrice fight against Zeech - he went for Zeech's cockatrice and ignored the cats. As I explained the game's rules, it never said he couldn't do that, so eventually he won that way then polished off the remaining cats.
Probably you don't really have a significant issue even if this is a bit to easy [...] there should be some pretty tough fights later in this adventure as well as in Gathering of Winds. After that they face Spire of Long Shadows. Now if Spire of Long Shadows is too easy you do have a serous problem (players are either too powerful or your not running the bad guys to their full potential).
I couldn't agree more, the Champion's Games are a good opportunity to make sure the campaign is not just one really tough fight after another. Even in this adventure, there are some potentially tough opponents, like the apostle of kyuss and the CR14 demon under the arena (which my group fought twice, and retreated from both times - eventually, once the games were over, they just informed the authorities and left them to it!) Think of it like say a major tennis competition - good players should breeze through the first couple of rounds before facing any sort of stern resistance, especially if they are on their game.
When I ran the fight against Pitch Blade, I really expected it to be a hard fight, but it turned out to be pretty easy. My group has 6 players. As the two dwarves closed to attack, they were hit with area of effect spells and arrows - one was near death before ever getting a chance to hit back. In hind-sight, I should have increased them to four or five members instead of two, or else somehow started them out much closer to the PCs.
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My players (including a soulknife and psion along with my in-party NPC wizard) were having an easy time of things (their stats are obscene), and I didn't see Pitch Blade as all that dangerous to them. So I ditched PB entirely and created a new team designed to challenge my players. I put them up agains three unusual psionic NPCs: A drow soulknife, a half-giant psychic warrior, and a githyanki ardent with some really vicious mantles--all disguised as humans right up until the beginning of the fight.
The PCs still won handily in spite of the healing potions I gave the NPCs, but it was a fairly satisfying fight for all concerned. It also gave me the opportunity to play with some non-core classes that don't otherwise show up in the adventure path. Good times.
At the time, I was running AoW as a gestalt game with eight players. I think I turned the Pitch Blades into Fighter/Barbarians, and upped their numbers to four.
They started off well, inflicting some good damage before the Dispel Magics started grounding them. And then in the heat of battle, I forgot Improved Uncanny Dodge. Hit points dropped very swiftly to sneak attacks that shouldn't have happened. There wasn't any real doubt that the players would win- they had the numbers and the magic. But forgetting that ability let them get off much easier.
Ok, I think I will ward them with protection from good. And I have another question. In the first fight my druid used summon nature's ally V. He summoned a Rhino and enlarged it with animal growth, which of course stamped everyone into the ground. Sure I do not want to nerf him, but is there a possibility to hamper this, How about protection from X, does it work against summoned animals?
In two sessions my PCs will have to go against Pitch Blade. It says everywhere, that they are really tough...but I see a certain course of events. First Dispel Magic will ground them easily and they cannot do anything about it. Next my Wizard will come with a Dominate Person; against a DC of 22, they have not much chance with +9 Will. After this my PCs will watch them tear themselves apart. Did anyone have such an experience? My PCs are getting a little bit cocky and I want them to have a really nasty fight (or at least cut some of their weapons to pieces ;-)) Any advice to buff up the dwarves? Thanks.
They didn't last 3 rounds in my campaign. I changed them a little bit to beef them up. I added one more dwarf and turned them all into psychic warrior/barbarians. Same potions but with psionic buffs and feats kicking. It didn't do a bit of good though..
Belfur, from the SRD:
Protection from Evil
This spell wards a creature from attacks by evil creatures, from mental control, and from summoned creatures. It creates a magical barrier around the subject at a distance of 1 foot. The barrier moves with the subject and has three major effects.
{snip}
Third, the spell prevents bodily contact by summoned creatures. This causes the natural weapon attacks of such creatures to fail and the creatures to recoil if such attacks require touching the warded creature. Good summoned creatures are immune to this effect. The protection against contact by summoned creatures ends if the warded creature makes an attack against or tries to force the barrier against the blocked creature. Spell resistance can allow a creature to overcome this protection and touch the warded creature.
So your simple Protection potion will help you kill two birds with one stone: domination and summoning. As long as the summoned creature is of the alignment protected against. Too bad there's no "Protection from Neutral" eh?
One thing to note however, the Protection spell does not prevent the dominating from working. It just prevents it from having any effect while the spell is in operation. Your dwarves still need saving throws, and upon failure after the battle, if the Pitch Blade dwarf survives, he will still be dominated. This came up for us a lot with that brain trap in Zyrxog's lair.
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So your simple Protection potion will help you kill two birds with one stone: domination and summoning. As long as the summoned creature is of the alignment protected against. Too bad there's no "Protection from Neutral" eh?
Small correction - protection from evil protects you from any non-good summoned creatures, not just evil ones. The same with the other protections, they protect you from all but their own alignment as far as summoned critters are concerned. So all of them protect against neutral.
Oooh, nice one Russ. Silly me. Thanks!
And then of course, the ability to fly will protect anyone from a summoned rhino too :-)
LOL!!!
My players call themselves the Celestial Knights, but their coat of arms is a flying Rhino.
This came from the druid using airwalk and wildshaping into a rhino in the fight against Zyrxog...so I would not bet on that.
Pitch Blade.... Two dwarves? SHEEAH RIGHT!
My PCs are powerhouses. I had to make up my own gladiator teams to keep things from being too easy.
The Diamond Hawks (for those who are interested):
NOTE: Only six ever fought at once time.
-Kragg: NG male werewolf (augmented half-orc) ranger 4/stalker of Kharash 5 (Exalted Deeds). Goes two-handed and uses power attack against all favored enemies (including evil, undead, and constructs), destroying them in one hit often (and always on a crit).
-Titus Blacksmith: LG half-orc fighter 11. Uses spiked chains and combat reflexes to improved-trip the first three opponents to step into his 10' threat. Should he lose his chains, he quick-draws a falchion (improved crit).
-Celendil Graycloak: CG male elf scout 9/deepwood sniper 2 (Masters of the Wild). Move and shoot. Move and shoot. Move and shoot. He also uses his own personalized non-lethal arrows (tanglefoot bag, thunderstone, etc.).
-Kal-Drac: NG male lizardfolk druid 11: Tends to wildshape into a polar bear or rhino. Uses natural spell a lot. Buffs the group with stoneskins, among other spells.
-Thak: LG male human monk 7/ninja 4 (Complete Adventurer): Uses ghost step in conjunction with stunning fist and sudden strike to incapacitate opponents.
-Marzena (from "Encounter at Blackwall Keep"): CG female sorceress 5/incantatrix 3 (Player's Guide to Faerun). Fireball, scorching ray, dispel, etc. Buffs the group with haste, among other spells.
-Illance Raknian, aka Ike Bigguns: CG male human rogue 6/invisible blade 5 (Complete Warrior). Move/tumble/flank/sneak, sneak, sneak. Uses bluffs to feint and sneak whenever possible. Wields the kukri.
I changed the first match to a simple team vs. team match to avoid the massive confusion we'd all face dealing with 12+ players at once (my PCs would have destroyed all three opposing teams as written in the module anyway... Gnolls? Arcane archers? Please. They had no business in the same arena with my group of killers).
Sentinel Guard was their first opponent, a group of six human fighters who work for Waterdeep's riot squad in the City Guard. They specialized in the shield phalanx, using spears for reach and quick-drawing personalized weapons when melee was realized. They were inspired by Frank Miller's 300. They were soundly defeated.
The second team was The Order of the Dragon, built using Oriental Adventures: three Shou Lung samurai (each with the crescent moon swordfigting style from Complete Warrior); a monk; a sohei with winged boots, flyby attack, and a naginata; and a wu jen who flew around on wings of fire and breathed gouts of flame. They were soundly defeated.
The third gladiator team, Pitch Blade, consisted of SIX level 10 dwarven barbarians each wielding adamantine great swords. I took out the flying, as it seemed stupid to have dwarves flying around...
...I took out potions and scrolls altogether (they were prohibited in my arena games), simply because I didn't want my wily players spending all their money on potions of fly, haste, enlarge person, etc. That was a recipe for disaster (and annoyance, I might add)...
Let me put it this way... The party ranger (using his +1 frost greataxe, power attack -10, AND favored power attack from Complete Warrior) hit one dwarf (at full hp) with a critical. He slew the dwarf in one hit (he dealt over 140 damage altogether, IIRC), cutting him completely in half and sending the crowd into a frenzy. The party sorceress and monk both threw in the towel on this one, but the rest of the group mopped up SIX Pitch Blade members.
Next was Madtooth, who swallowed two PCs before being overwhelmed.
When they fought Auric's Warband, I had bumped up Auric and Khellek to level 11, switched the flesh golems to clay golems, and added in Raknian's son, Liam (a fighter 10 with a bunch of horseman feats) and his steed... Since Auric and Liam are friends of the PCs, no one died in this match, but my group still beat them without much fuss. Liam managed to deal 85 damage to the party druid after a spirited charge with a lance, and Auric sundered Kragg's axe, but that was about it.
The situation with Bozal and Raknian is another story altogether...
All in all, with their winnings from the matches and their betting, the group cleared roughly 100,000 gold pieces when it was all said and done (not including the trophies and belt).
The gladiator matches were INCREDIBLE! Champion's Belt is one of the most ambitious and enjoyable modules I've ever ran. Thank you, Dungeon.
In two sessions my PCs will have to go against Pitch Blade. It says everywhere, that they are really tough...but I see a certain course of events. First Dispel Magic will ground them easily and they cannot do anything about it. Next my Wizard will come with a Dominate Person; against a DC of 22, they have not much chance with +9 Will. After this my PCs will watch them tear themselves apart.
In my game, the party was called Nature's Wrath. A Goliath Barbarian, a shapeshifting druid, and a ranger who threw returning swords like knives. They got quite into the theatrics of the event, using the ever smoking bottle to produce smoke as they entered the arena, as the Druid put on a light display, the ranger did a sword juggling act, and the goliath started a drum beat in the crowd with his hammer.
Nature's Wrath steam rolled Pitch Blade, as if they had been nothing more then a minor speed bump. Granted, the dwarves got close to sundering the Goliath babarian's family hammer, but they didn't get enough hits in before the party wiped them out. I let the party stomp them because they had aquited themselves expertly in the first round, they knew about the worm under the arena, and suspected it would be popping out in the final battle with the rival party. It made sense to move forward without too much fanfare.
If you want your Pitch Blade battle to last longer, here's a couple of basic suggestions: Add dwarves and give them maximuim hit points instead of average. They'll last much longer that way.
Prot. From Good/Evil is a good way to prevent domination, and they should know which the party is. An Elemental resistance potion or two will blunt the parties high damage spells, and you can increase the power of their weapons to buff their attacks.
One way or another, dispel magic is going to ruin most of your plans. The easiest way to fix that is to give each dwarf a ring of counter spelling, filled to the brim with the spells they love best. Since the PC's don't get to loot thier victims afterward, adding items to Pitch Blade or any other competitor can seriously increase their effectiveness. If the caster goes for a blanket dispel, any member wlll be able to counter it. Targeted dispels to bring one of the dwarves down to earth, but you'll need more then one.
If that +9 save really isn't enough to stand up, throw cloaks of resistance on them. The cloaks also allow you to give the team a better theme, as similairly colored cloaks give them a themed look.
My party had something like that going on, as they all had cloaks made from the hides of Displacer Beasts, tenticals, panther head, and all. Just like the vampire on the cover of Dungeon issue #126.
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As some of the posters mentioned, the main danger with Pitch Blade is not damage/dying, but losing your weapon. They both have Improved Sunder, and wield two-handed ADAMANTINE weapons!
That fact alone had the dwarf samurai of my group shaking... an adamantine greatsword sunder, with POWER ATTACK, is a deadly thing for one's equipment.
In my campaign, I have a houserule* that says you can't sunder something with a greater enhancement bonus (i.e. the dwarf's sword had one additional "plus" compared to Pitch Blade's pitch blades... :P )
*I'm not sure if recent 3.5 erratas have aligned the official rules to my houserule, but I don't see how a nonmagical weapon, even if adamantine, coud sunder a magical weapon... so by extension I've applied this to magical swords. So IMC, it goes like this (in descending order from the most sundering weapon to the least, just for the purposes of sundering):
Epic Adamantine
Epic
Magical Adamantine
Magical
Nonmagical Adamantine
Nonmagical
I now decided to remain with two dwarves, but make them level 11 (giving them greater rage) I buffed their stats, so that they get their ability modifiers rise by +1, except for strength where I use St18 base and add the bulls strength on top of it for a Strength of 22, so with greater rage they will have like 170 hp and a strength of 28. They now have potions of protection from good and a spare one and they each have a ring of counterspell with Ray of Enfeeblement in it. So my players can debuff them, but I hope that Pitch Blade will get off some serious attacks against the PCs. Maybe I add a second ring of counterspell with Dispel Magic...in the end they should really wrack the players and Loris Raknian has the resources no doubt. I have to add, that 3 of my 5 PCs are already Lvl 10 due to side tracks and the remaining two are Lvl 9, plus a cohort Lvl 8 and obscenly high stats, so I still hope that they will have a fair fight.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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As some of the posters mentioned, the main danger with Pitch Blade is not damage/dying, but losing your weapon. They both have Improved Sunder, and wield two-handed ADAMANTINE weapons!
One-handed. They have EWP (bastard sword) and shields, so they are using their illegitimate swords one-handed.
One-handed. They have EWP (bastard sword) and shields, so they are using their illegitimate swords one-handed.
I gave my dwarves greatswords. One of them did manage to sunder the half-orc's spiked chains, denying him his combat reflexes/improved trip routine. That particular dwarf was then diced to ribbons by the half-orc's falchion (full attack, one a critical).
As for the rest of the party, the druid had shaped into a polar bear (improved grab), the monk disarmed one dwarf (and didn't really need weapons anyway), the elf was running in circles outside the brawl firing arrows, and the sorceress was backpedaling casting ranged spells. The ranger wielded a greataxe, but he could shift into a hybrid werewolf if need be.
I gave Auric the combat brute feat from Complete Warrior and outfitted him with a +4 keen adamantine greatsword. He sundered right through the ranger's axe and cleaved right into him. Sadly for Auric, in the next round, the rogue tumbled into position for a flank and sneak/sneak/sneak, Auric threw in the towel.
Now on another topic. I have a Warforged Artificer character, who loves to go into the fights with the Iron Body infusion cast on him, so AC over 30 and DR 15/Adamantine, so most of the time I do not bother attacking him, as it would just waste too much damage potential (and his damage output is rather low compared to the Barbarian and Paladin). I know that most adversaries in the games have Adamantine weapons, but for the final fight with Auric and Kellek, I would like to have a nasty surprise for him. As he is an old relic of a former time, he is quite unique in my world and I cannot just have anti-construct weapons ready with every enemy, but in the games it easily possible: Aurics Warband knows about this character's strengths and weaknesses, and they have the resources to be prepared. So what would you suggest (apart from plane Dispel Magic).
Use dominate person on the barbarian. Remember, Khellek has spell focus and greater spell focus (enchantment). Bump up his intelligence if you think the save DC is low. Add a level to give him the option of dropping mind fog on a clump of PCs. If anyone fails that save, it's a -10 to all will saves. One confusion spell could bring the entire party down, let alone what a dominated barbarian could do to party members right next to him. ;)
Auric's animated shield/greatsword combo is good with power attack, but I also gave him the combat brute feat from Complete Warrior. Using sundering cleave and momentum swing (for the x3 power attack damage) really gave him an edge (get it?). Give him an adamantine greatsword, and he's even more effective.
Also, keep Auric close to the golems. They have reach 10, so anyone who wishes to engage Auric will have to shoulder past the golems, allowing them attacks of opportunity while Auric readies an action to sunder through whatever weapon leaps at him (and then cleaving through weapon and into opponent with combat brute's sundering cleave).
Remember that golems bypass adamantine damage reduction, so if that warforged PC finds him/herself in between two or more golems and Auric, it could be curtains.
I so recommend tailoring these matches to fit your group. I could have NEVER set the module teams against my group. It would have been no challenge whatsoever. The module is excellent, don't get me wrong, but I knew immediately that I'd be redoing the teams. I suggest doing that, especially when considering warforged PCs and other non-Greyhawk races.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Remember that golems bypass adamantine damage reduction, so if that warforged PC finds him/herself in between two or more golems and Auric, it could be curtains.
Golems do not bypass adamantine DR. They lack a "their natural weapons count as..." section in their Monster Manual entry, and their DR is not of a type that grants ability to overcome similar DRs.
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In my campaign, I have a houserule* that says you can't sunder something with a greater enhancement bonus (i.e. the dwarf's sword had one additional "plus" compared to Pitch Blade's pitch blades... :P )
*I'm not sure if recent 3.5 erratas have aligned the official rules to my houserule, but I don't see how a nonmagical weapon, even if adamantine, coud sunder a magical weapon...
In 3.0 your 'houserule' was actually part of the RAW. It's been changed in 3.5, however. Each '+' that a weapon has simply increases it's hardness by that amount (i.e. a +3 steel weapon has a hardness of 13). Adamantine, even nonmagical, is a serious threat to even epic weapons. Artifacts, on the other hand, are typically indestructible except under specific circumstances.
Golems do not bypass adamantine DR. They lack a "their natural weapons count as..." section in their Monster Manual entry, and their DR is not of a type that grants ability to overcome similar DRs.
Remember that golems bypass adamantine damage reduction, so if that warforged PC finds him/herself in between two or more golems and Auric, it could be curtains.
Huh... I thought that was a given across the board. It didn't come up at my table. My bad.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Huh... I thought that was a given across the board. It didn't come up at my table.
Nope. Only for magic and epic. For the alignment DRs, having an alignment subtype of the appropriate type (i.e. Good for DR/good) works, but having the DR itself does not. For material or weapon type DRs, having the DR type does not help you overcome it.
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In 3.0 your 'houserule' was actually part of the RAW. It's been changed in 3.5, however. Each '+' that a weapon has simply increases it's hardness by that amount (i.e. a +3 steel weapon has a hardness of 13). Adamantine, even nonmagical, is a serious threat to even epic weapons. Artifacts, on the other hand, are typically indestructible except under specific circumstances.
Various rules exist right now:
PHB, p.165: each +1 adds 2 to the hardness of armor, a weapon or a shield and +10 to the item's hit points.
DMG, p.217: each +1 adds 2 to a shield's hardness and +10 to its hit points.
DMG, p.222: an attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck. Each +1 adds 1 to the weapon's or shield's hardness or hit points.
PDK's houserule (combining rule 1 and 3): each +1 adds 2 to hardness and +10 hp; an attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield struck.
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I just ran the Pitch Blade battle last night. I knew it was going to be tough for my players. They previaled, but it was messy...and fun, for me at least.
I don't go out of my way to be a Killer DM, but the story line called for no punches to be pulled in this battle, so I stuck to the script and went for it.
Pitch Blade is a team of two, and my party is a team of seven. The adventure scaling says to add another dwarf, I though about it, but decided for another option instead. Pitch Blade had another teammate in Captain Orkal, except he used Dust of Disappearance before going up to the arena.
When the fight began, the party was confident, but wary. When the dwarves were suddenly flying and sundering their best fighters' weapons (including a greataxe of frost), they started to get nervous. When the favored soul was stabbed out of nowhere for 25 points of damage and then started taking strength damage after a failed Fort Save, they started wondering if they were going to make it through this battle.
Now, before the battle started, I had Ekaym offer to go hunting for potions, scrolls, wands or anything else they would find useful, They declined the offer, saying that they felt they had things well in hand. By the time they were 3 rounds into the fight, the were regretting that decision.
The favored soul went down from strength loss. Orkal moved on to the elf fighter/dervish, took him down, then went after his brother, the elf hexblade. The hexblade failed his Fort save and went unconscious from the blue whinnis, but not before incapacitating one of the PB dwaves with Tasha's Hideous Laughter.
Meanwhile the remaining dwarf was hacking the party's dwarf barbarian and the human psychic warrior, while the elf wilder used repeated concussion blasts and the halfling rogue/cleric ran around with a cure mod wand trying to keep those still standing out of negatives.
When the PB dwarf tried to Coup de Grace the Favored soul (he lived), that's when it dawned on them that the invisible guy on the field was not an official part of the team.
In the end, 4 of the seven party members were in negatives or incapacitated, of the remaining 3, 2 had less than a 3rd of their hit points. Not a single one of them was able to land a hit on Orkal (who left the arena, still under the effects of the dust) when the second dwarf was dispatched.
The party is very indignant. They KNOW they were set up, but have no way to prove it. I am hoping this spurs them to do a little exploring...
Ouch. Yeah, I ran Pitch Blade about a month ago. They charged in on the cleric and the soulknife. The next round, the soulknife took a standard move away, but the cleric only 5-foot adjusted. The pair both adjusted and full attacked the cleric, chopping him down in one round to about -20 hp (two improved criticals didn't help). It was pretty disheartening, being the first fatality of the campaign, but my players soldiered on.