I finally got my copy of 149 yesterday, and Enemies of My Enemy is one of my favourite adventrues of the path thus far. However, I do have a couple of questions/concerns regarding the encounter where Demogorgon strikes back.
According to the adventure it is supposed to be a climax of sorts to the adventure. However, as cool as undead stone giants riding bodak T-RExs are, it doesn't seem like a very effective strike force to send at the party.
First of all there doesn't seem to be any reason for the party to actually stick around and fight them. Why bother? Why not just plane shift or teleport away and avoid them altogether? The only way I see for demogorgon's minions to get around this tactic is to try to blackmail the party by threatening to unleash their wrath on various material plane settlements if the heroes don't stick around and fight.
Assuming the general can actually convince the party to do battle with him, there is still the sticky matter with them not being able to naturally fly. Yes the general has unlimited use of the fly spell like ability and I would make sure he cast it on everyone in his party before battle. But the PCs will be air born as well and will have more access to dispelling magic that can ground their enemies. Once they are grounded the heroes can pretty much stay in the air and use ranged attacks and spells to decimate his forces.
To me it would make a lot more sense to use minions that can fly naturally, and some spell casters that could try to keep the characters in place with dimensional anchor or lock spells.
Is anyone esle thinking this encounter needs to be changed to be effective? It is supposed to be a climactic point in the adventure afterall.
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I finally got my copy of 149 yesterday, and Enemies of My Enemy is one of my favourite adventrues of the path thus far. However, I do have a couple of questions/concerns regarding the encounter where Demogorgon strikes back.
According to the adventure it is supposed to be a climax of sorts to the adventure. However, as cool as undead stone giants riding bodak T-RExs are, it doesn't seem like a very effective strike force to send at the party.
First of all there doesn't seem to be any reason for the party to actually stick around and fight them. Why bother? Why not just plane shift or teleport away and avoid them altogether? The only way I see for demogorgon's minions to get around this tactic is to try to blackmail the party by threatening to unleash their wrath on various material plane settlements if the heroes don't stick around and fight.
Assuming the general can actually convince the party to do battle with him, there is still the sticky matter with them not being able to naturally fly. Yes the general has unlimited use of the fly spell like ability and I would make sure he cast it on everyone in his party before battle. But the PCs will be air born as well and will have more access to dispelling magic that can ground their enemies. Once they are grounded the heroes can pretty much stay in the air and use ranged attacks and spells to decimate his forces.
To me it would make a lot more sense to use minions that can fly naturally, and some spell casters that could try to keep the characters in place with dimensional anchor or lock spells.
Is anyone esle thinking this encounter needs to be changed to be effective? It is supposed to be a climactic point in the adventure afterall.
I don't know about your group, but with mine they had done so much raw diplomacy gathering allies at that point in the adventure, that they were itching for a fight. So I had no problem with players running away. As for the entire group flying to avoid Enderan and his minions that didn't really happen either. The party didn't waste time getting everyone buffed to fly, as they wanted to attack from the get go. If your party does want to fly to attack, have the undead stone giants hurl rocks at them. Enderan can cast fly at will, so there is no reason for him to not have casted it on his entire group before the fight even happens. Since fly is an at will spell for Enderan, the party will run out of dispelling magic before he runs out of fly spells. By the same token, if they are wasting actions just to continue dispelling his fly magic, then they aren't using those actions to use offensive magic to defeat their enemies. If they want to spend 2 or 3 rounds dispelling flying magic while they are swarmed by the rest of the zombies and such, then let them. They will eventually realize it makes more sense to actully take the offensive then sit around trying to force 5 different opponents to the ground. If you have Enderan cast it on the Bodaks and the Zombies, then they are looking at 9 opponents with fly active, all who should spread out. That means a total of 9 actions to get everyone on the ground if all the dispel attempts work. Your party probably has at most 2 or 3 members that can cast dispels, so even if the whole group focuses on that it will take 3 rounds to get everyone down. While that is happening, the strike force will be ripping the party to small pieces.
Additionally, Enderan also has a SR of 30. Even if the party has 20th level casters at that point, they have 50/50 odds of affecting him with a spell that allows SR. There are a few spells that don't allow SR, but that at least limits your party's casters tactical options. Have Enderan make liberal use of darkness to take away line of sight and provide concealment against range attacks. Lastly, have the whole strike force attack them by suprise and from the air and you will have little worry of the things you are concerned about.
Well if you do an area dispell it won't take near that many actions because it will probably be the only spell cast on the giants. But it is good to hear from some one that is far enough along in the AP that they have actually run the encounter. That's impressive. I didn't think that there would be too many groups that would have played that adventure yet. Good stuff.
The good thing about this encounter is that you can spring it whenever you wish! Be as evil as is required.
Also, have Endearen (spelling?) use fly mutliple times on the zombies as well as their mounts. The multiple uses will overlap but continue to function independently. Targeted dispels will take them all out most likely, but it will take several area dispels to knock out every one!
Please someone correct me if I'm wrong...
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Well if you do an area dispell it won't take near that many actions because it will probably be the only spell cast on the giants. But it is good to hear from some one that is far enough along in the AP that they have actually run the encounter. That's impressive. I didn't think that there would be too many groups that would have played that adventure yet. Good stuff.
An area dispel is only an effective tactic if the enemies a grouped together far enough away that the area dispel won't also dispel the fly spells cast on the party, and even then only if it can catch all the enemies at once. If you have the giants surround them, they will have to decide if they want to try to dispel one giant at a time or try to fight instead. That is the party's decision. An area dispel will only effect I think a 20' radius, so it is easy to spread out Enderan's group so they aren't vulnerable to that tactic.
My party still had a relatively easy time with Enderan, but I wasn't bothered by it because they had a significantly harder time with Gorgant and Obox-Ob earlier on in the adventure. They made the mistake of engagin Gorgant after releasing Obox-Ob and ended up having to fight both. That resulted in two near PC deaths, whereas the Enderan fight noone was really in danger of dieing, so much as they just had to expend a lot of resources to win.
Creative Director
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It comes near the end of the adventure, but it's not necessarilly the climax of the adventure. The structure of "Enemies" is fluid; the climax can be ANY of the visits to the various allies-to-be, actaully. Depending on the order in which the PCs tackle them.
Or to think of it another way... "Enemies" is a lot more dependant on the next adventure than most; it's basically a giant prepararation scene for "Prince of Demons." That said, "Prince of Demons" ends up being the climax.
In any event, you have some leeway in when you have Enderan attack the PCs. Spring them when the PCs have depleted resources if you're worried that they aren't going to be tough enough. And don't forget: Enderan can cast fly at will as a spell-like ability. If you're feeling particularly cagey... you can have him cast that spell on the bodak dinosaurs; with his Ride +26, he can probably spur the dinosaurs into the air to chase down PCs...