Hi all,
I'm running Flood Season for my players right now, and I'm currently brainstorming the Ebon Triad's reaction to the PC incursion into the Kopru Ruins.
So far, the PCs have infiltrated the northern part of the compound, using intel from one of the lift guards who was influenced by Zone of Truth. They have encountered several of the northern guards, including Triel, and killed all but the rogues in the northern entrance - but since the PCs triggered the trap floor of spikes, the rogues aren't going anywhere. The party has since moved into Tarkilar's caverns, and have dispatched his undead minions, losing two PCs against the Spawn of Kyuss. The PCs will likely encounter Tarkilar at the beginning of the next session, and have spent one night resting in a secluded area to recover spells.
So the defense of the stronghold falls to Skaven. With his divination magic, he has likely learned about Triel's death, despite the PCs hiding her body in the armory and locking the door. While he might normally cower, this is a chance to assume leadership of the Triad. Since the lift is still at the beach, he knows the intruders are likely still in the complex.
Some of the ideas I have for his attack -
-Get his bandits to pour oil or something similar on the floor of the room with the water pit, in the hopes of causing the PCs to spill into it.
-If the PCs decide to leave after scouring Tarkilar's cavern, ambush whichever PC is turning the winch at the beach once the remaining party members are suspended over the middle of the lake. Attack them with ranged weapons if possible, but if that proves too dangerous cut the cables and let them fall into the lake - the skulvyn demon can make short work of them. This is a last-ditch solution, since Skaven probably wants their gear and replacing the elevator would be a pain.
- relocate the mud slaad or harpoon spider to the lava tube to pick off anyone who thinks they've escaped.
Thoughts? As a diviner, I think it's pretty plausible that Skaven could plan such an ambush.
I ran this encounter quite recently, with virtually identical results. I determined that Skaven would certainly be able to keep track of events, but that he'd rather do it through his familiar (which I changed to a rat) than spells, since some people can detect that they are being scried.
I changed up his spell list a little, thinking that his advance knowledge would allow him to prep for the encounter. The first step was to have the familiar near the opening of the webbed areas to let him know when the party approached, at which point he cast a minor image of himself talking to the Harpoon Spider, followed by an Invisibility on himself. Once the party came into the cavern and spotted the illusory Skaven, (who "failed" his listen check), they let loose with a "surprise round".
The real, invisible Skaven, took this round to cast Improved Invisibility. The party Mage, seeing the attacks pass straight through the back of the illusory Skaven, got halfway through saying "Oh, sh**" when he was slapped on the leg by a small, invisible halfing hand casting Ghoul Touch. Four rounds, and one casting of each Scare, Enervate, Lightning Bolt and Ray of Enfeeblement later, the Mage was immobile, the fighter at -3 to hit & damage, the party healers were scarpering at top speed and the rogue was at 0 STR.
They did pull it out though, which was awesome to see.
It was a good day.
Wow, Tarkilar went down quickly - none of the PCs figured out that they needed Silver to bypass DR, but between a raging barbarian with a two-handed sword, a paladin with 24 points of lay on hands, and a hasted celestial bison, it was over in 3 rounds. Tarkilar's two hits with the spiked chain resulted in 33 damage to the barbarian though, and since she only partially healed with a potion, some of the hillfolk killed her later with a pair of critical hits.
Meanwhile, Skaven is still planning. The slippery steps around the bloodbloater ooze water pit didn't do the trick - the rogue took point, and easily made her save. They've got 5 of the 8 wands now, so they may just attempt to escape.
Wow, Tarkilar went down quickly - none of the PCs figured out that they needed Silver to bypass DR, but between a raging barbarian with a two-handed sword, a paladin with 24 points of lay on hands, and a hasted celestial bison, it was over in 3 rounds. Tarkilar's two hits with the spiked chain resulted in 33 damage to the barbarian though, and since she only partially healed with a potion, some of the hillfolk killed her later with a pair of critical hits.
Meanwhile, Skaven is still planning. The slippery steps around the bloodbloater ooze water pit didn't do the trick - the rogue took point, and easily made her save. They've got 5 of the 8 wands now, so they may just attempt to escape.
In my case, I made Tark a 5th lvl Cleric and had him prep with a descrate, so when the players got into the lair and were having a tough time getting past his damage reduction, I had him animate an Ettin skeleton, which laid waste. It was a pretty epic battle, actually. Tark went down, but he took Shensen with him, using his icky Death domain ability.
I never let them know that coming home with less than 8 wands was an option, so they cleaned the place out.
Well, that was nasty.
As planned, Skaven relocated to the guardhouse at the top of the cavern. He took one group of 4 alleybashers, but otherwise he left his mercanaries as they were - he didn't want to tip the PCs off that anything was different, and really - every merc they killed was one less he had to pay.
The PCs used a combination of stealth, misdirection, and silence magic to kill many enemies without being detected. Eventually, they had explored all of the complex except for the Spider tunnels and Skaven's private chambers, so they decided to return to the surface with the 5 wands they had found.
The paladin, ranger and rogue went in the first lift run while the mage operated the device from the beach. Skaven and his thugs emerged from the guardhouse once the lift was 60 feet away from the beach, and demanded the PCs give them a good reason to not plunge them into the water. The paladin made an admirable diplomacy attempt, actually moving Skaven from hostile to neutral - but it still made business sense to kill them.
Back on the beach, the mage cast Invisible and Fly upon himself, and zipped up to the ledge. When confrontation was inevitable, he cast web to slow the enemy down, while the ranger killed the thug whose sword was poised over the pulley ropes. It looked like they might pull it off.
Skaven wasn't going down that easily though - he blasted the rope with a scorching ray, and succeeded with a rather high attack roll. With one of the two ropes gone, the PCs had to hang on for dear life.
After several turns of awesome stunts and tragic misses, the final results: the Paladin was drowning in the lake when the Skulvyn ate her, the ranger and rogue made it back to shore while the demon was munching the paladin. However, without a way out and highly outmanned, they surrendered to Skaven. Only the mage escaped.
The mage delivered the wands and immediately started planning a rescue op. After 5 sessions, I was sick to death of the Kopru Ruins, and I figured that Skaven wouldn't wait around once he knew the hideout was compromised. He looted the magic gear from his prisoners, mutilated them in the way of Vecna (eye and hand), and had them deposited on the steps of St Cuthbert's temple. He then took off with the Harpoon Spider, leaving his mercenaries in the ruins as a final gift to his ettercap friends.
Unfortunately for him, the rogue he had mutilated had made friends with Tarkilar's former Quasit, Gutternut. Gutternut never liked Skaven anyways, so he followed the gnome. Once the party had received Regenerate spells and were prepared for revenge, Gutternut gave the rogue a starting point for the ranger to track - they caught up two days later and killed Skaven & the harpoon spider. The little creep has definitely earned himself the status of "most hated villain" in the path so far. I think Wee Jas is gonna need to bring his ghost back around chapter 8 or so. :)
Shawn
Heh, my players have also begun to hate Skaven. He's the first villain they've faced with the intellectual capacity to truly outwit the party.
The players entered the southern-most door of the ruins first and through a combination of stealth and overwhelming fire-power they managed to clear out the southern part of the ruin without setting the complex on alert. They didn't attempt to enter Skaven's quarters after the rogue was unable to pick the lock and the party didn't enter the web-filled tunnels reasoning that the spiders they assumed inhabited the caverns wouldn't be going anywhere and that the sentient inhabitants of the ruin posed the greatest threat.
The party returned to the beach and re-entered the ruin via the northern-most door. The party triggered the foot-shredder trap and were attacked by the archers on the balcony. The party split up with three heading into the ruins and three retreating to the beach (and re-entering through the room with the blood-bloater pit trap). The party fought past the Allybashers and Hillfolk who were responding to the alert and ended up in Triel's mess hall (area 37 on the map) surrounding a large number of Triel's goons. As the party injured the enemy they would retreat to Triel's chamber and drink their potions and all the while Triel was buffing for the assault. When the party finally entered Triel's chambers they encountered six completely or mostly healed Hillfolk and and a fully armored and buffed Triel (AC 25! with the help of some spells from the spell compendium). The party fought a war of attrition with the tanks soaking up one or two hits from Triel then retreating into the hallway where the healers patched them back up and returned them into the fray. Eventually the Hillfolk ended up dead and Triel was surrounded and unable to heal without provoking potentially lethal attacks of opportunity. She was brought down by a critical hit by the greatsword wielding fighter-mage, but not before she managed to kill Kallev (the Tiefling from Drakthar's Way whom the party had taken on as a hireling).
After the battle the party captured the Hillfolk guarding the passage into the northern caverns who put the fear of the unknown into the party. So, without resting or recovering spells the party decided to explore the web-filled caverns. They cut their way through the webs and made short work of the spiders there. The ettercaps gave them more trouble and retreated to the harpoon spider's lair where Skaven (and some of the Alleybashers and Hillfolk who remained alive in the ruins) awaited them. It was a short and brutal fight. Skaven's spells weakened the party and forced the rogue and the archivist to retreat. The Hillfolk and Alleybashers kept the party away from Skaven while he pummeled them with spells. Then the ettercaps managed to web the party's ranger-monk who was subsequently harpooned by the harpoon spider and impaled on her back. Skaven (who was running out of offensive spells) used this hostage to negotiate. He has demanded the value of the wands of control water from the party and safe-passage into the jungle (after which he will release his hostage).
The party retreated and negotiated with Skaven via an Alleybasher messenger. Eventually they "agreed" to Skaven's demands but actually intend to ambush Skaven on the beach as he escapes. The party managed to turn Skaven's messenger against him and have plotted to have the Alleybasher free their companion while Skaven sleeps. However, Skaven has used his divination spells and his (invisible) familiar to learn all about the PCs' plot. He's now busy setting up a trap for when the party returns to the ruins. The only thing the PCs have going for them at this point is the Striders. The party rogue returned to the city (ostensibly to obtain the ransom money) but -- without informing the rest of the party -- made contact with the the Striders and brought them down to the ruins to help out.
That's where our last session ended: with the party and Skaven engaged in a deadly game of cat and also cat.
Skaven has definitely managed to rattle my player's normally unshakable confidence. Even when Tongueater killed the party barbarian they quickly shook it off (and agreed to recover the wands in exchange for a raise dead spell). But Skaven has them worried that they might be outmatched. I have a feeling that no matter what happens Skaven will be making an encore appearance before the campaign is over.
Heh, my players have also begun to hate Skaven. He's the first villain they've faced with the intellectual capacity to truly outwit the party.
Malitia,
I'm with you on this one - after all the clueless goblins and brutish-but-brainless big bads, it was a nice change to get a really nasty villain with a high intellect into the mix. I've started introducing the Necronants from the Haunted Village into the story, and I think that somewhere around chapter 8 or 9 they may make a move on the PCs by attacking with an undead squad composed of former PCs and enemies. Skaven is definitely a prime candidate for this little subplot.