Spoiler warning, if you haven't played Lightless Depths yet, and you're a player, read no further!!!
So my group has made it into Golismorga now, and began following the cavern walls around the outskirts of the city, they found the ziggurat first, and after scouting it out and seeing the sheer number of foes in and around it, they quickly decided to leave it for later.
They went the other way around the city and found the crater with the tear in it. After a long hard fight against the brain eater, they descended the crater walls and identified tlaloc's head. However, now the group has decided to leave the head where it is and attack the temple!!!
So last night we ran through this encounter, as the group decided to try guerilla tactics on them. The monk snuck up the temple while the group stayed back in ambush on top of two buildings with a narrow alley between them. The monk steps out of hiding to shoot 2 arrows into a kopru, and the fight is on. Monk then proceeds to lose initiative and is dominated by the kopru, who take him to the temple and present him to Ulioloth. Ulioloth decides he will make a great sacrifice and proceeds to have him annointed and stripped of his possessions. Meanwhile, the rest of the group knows something is wrong, and promptly casts 3 improved invisibilities and 3 fly spells, and soars over to the temple to check on things.
Next thing I know, the group has begun dropping fireballs and black tentacle spells onto the temple, while the sorcerer attempts to dispel the domination of the monk.
7 rounds and 2.5 hours of play time later, the group has wounded Ulioloth who retreated back into the temple from his invisible assailants. About 5 regular kopru lie dead, and 3 behemoths are dead or wounded. The second wave of monsters is nearing the base of the temple, and the group's invisibility spells are almost expired. Knowing the behemoths have potions of fly, they now realize their invisibility is the only thing keeping them alive.
I am dreading next session though, since as soon as the group becomes visible, they will be bombarded with dominate monster spells and there is a good chance at least 1 or two of them will fail their saves.
Hopefully the group has thought this through and can come up with an escape plan, or even if they can seal themselves inside the temple somehow, that may give them some time to rest after defeating Ulioloth.
Nothing stops domination like a protection from evil.
Hope things go well, it looks precarious indeed.
^_^ Never ceases to amaze how many forget those basic 1st and 2nd level spells can really, really save bacon in the latter levels of play.
I wish your players luck - if they hose up ...
Hmm...I'd be interested in finding out if they manage to defeat the whole lot of the kopru without creating a distraction. Certainly it seems possible, but unlikely.
Of course, this in and of itself would likely constitute a distraction. I imagine all the kopru scouring Golismorga, searching for the assailants. Even if they find the PCs after greater invisibility wears off, then they still might not be able to reach the flying PCs, let alone catch up to them if they play hit and run. Still, they might ease their ziggurat defenses enough to make for an equivalent reaction, as if they had destroyed the Tear.
In effect, if they destroy the Bilewretch of Holashner, they've still won the day, and Tlaloc's Tear remains intact. Still, I'd have Ulioth craft some wicked wondrous item to greet them instead.
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i'll do you one better.
my group completely ignored everything once they saw that ziggurat, and made straight for it.
they encountered the behemoths and nagas that were guarding the top of the pyramid, another 8-10 regular kopru, a bunch of trog slaves (2/kopru...they were carrying them around on litters), and a couple more nagas.
even tweaking the naga's spelllists, giving them haste, energy resistance, and some other buffs, the party slaughtered the guards, decimated the regular kopru, and chased away the nagas that survived.
when uliloth came out to play, he got one good shot in before getting jumped by the teleporting rogues and the cleric.
they made their way to the base, slaughtered him with grapples, and dropped the bilewretch with a maxed empowered war-mage orb of something, followed by some melee damage and som other spells
in short....if they're loaded for bear, move fast, and can make some relatively easy will saves (many many saves later, 1 character got dominated...and promptly dispelled), they can make it through.
if they hesitate, though, and allow them to regroup, they're toast.
-the hamster
if they EVER make it out alive, imagine the tons of XP they'll get!!! Hopefully, as mentioned above, protection from evil will protect them against the most dreaded domination.
Best of luck dealing with the kopru!
if they EVER make it out alive, imagine the tons of XP they'll get!!! Hopefully, as mentioned above, protection from evil will protect them against the most dreaded domination.
Best of luck dealing with the kopru!
does anyone elase think that having a first level spell (ie protection from evil) make you immune to a whole raft of spells is a bit broken?
does anyone elase think that having a first level spell (ie protection from evil) make you immune to a whole raft of spells is a bit broken?if they EVER make it out alive, imagine the tons of XP they'll get!!! Hopefully, as mentioned above, protection from evil will protect them against the most dreaded domination.
Best of luck dealing with the kopru!
Naah ... it has a short duration, is not subtle and there are higher level versions of it (Holy Aura) that do the same thing. It can also be dispelled, can't be cast from within either globe of invulnerability, is suppressed by anti-magic fields, yadda yadda.
And in the STAP, plenty of baddies have greater dispels they can throw around.
and, very important, it does not provide immunity, it just suppresses the effects of those spells for a certain amount of time (its duration ), which then resume....
as for the OP - similar to coarborundum's conundrum, The party made a stupid choice and is going to pay for it.... if they have no plan for a swift retreat in place (say, like a teleport back to the ship ?), they may get hosed.
So what ? Their mistake, their consequences !
does anyone elase think that having a first level spell (ie protection from evil) make you immune to a whole raft of spells is a bit broken?if they EVER make it out alive, imagine the tons of XP they'll get!!! Hopefully, as mentioned above, protection from evil will protect them against the most dreaded domination.
Best of luck dealing with the kopru!
Naah ... it has a short duration, is not subtle and there are higher level versions of it (Holy Aura) that do the same thing. It can also be dispelled, can't be cast from within either globe of invulnerability, is suppressed by anti-magic fields, yadda yadda.
And in the STAP, plenty of baddies have greater dispels they can throw around.
1 minute a level not bad, if you want it longer have to use magic circle against evil, 10 minutes per level. The fact that there are higher level versions is irrelevant, I dont mind an 8th level spell making you immune to an entire school of magic it's the first and third level ones I object to.
We have houseruled out this ability - we still allow the deflection & resistance bonuses and the protection from summoned creatures. That is enough for a 1st level spell IMO.
The fact that it suppresses makes it good anyway. Someone effected by confusion, domination, maybe a vampire has a dominated lackey or an evil sorcerer has a charmed beastie etc etc? just cast protection from evil on them as a 'cure' or have the cleric walk up to them with a magic circle.
Mind you I hate that death ward makes one immune to the whole school of necromancy. Imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth if there was a 1st, 3rd or 4th level spell that made you immune to all evocation spells or effects. bleah.
Sorry for the threadjack-- on topic I dont know the adventure but I love that they have got themselves in trouble and they know it. Great cliffhanger.
do people even bother to read the rules these days ?
"Death Ward" provides protection from negative energy and death effects, not the entire school of necromancy - feel free to check the PHB p217 one of these days. There are plenty of necromancy spells which do neither energy drain, nor a death effect.... Say Ray of Enfeeblement, which emposes a stat penalty...
Not to mention all fear effects, blindness/deafness, comand + halt undead, bestow curse, contagion , magic jar.... and that was only up to level 5 and from the PHB only
oh , and PoE does not help against "confusion" etc., but only against those enchantment (compulsion) spells that have "grant the caster ongoing control". Checking on "confusion, I don't see any degree of control, just random chaos, as an effect.
But I guess reading skills are overrated
/irony OFF
As for the OP - keep in mind that "Dominate" is a close-range spell/SLA, and therefore the Kopru have to get close up and and personal and with a LoE/LoS to even use it - which means with 50'-60' tops, charging range given their HD. Which might just provide a degree of saving grace fro the group.
Then again - having no escape plan readied is...... an invitation to disaster ? Given the fact that my group nearly bit the dust facing the brain collector (and only being saved through a timely teleport out to Farshore) I feel a certain degree of kinship for their plight. But without a fallback plan.... my empathy disappears
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Just out of curiosity.
Protection from Evil says "blocks any attempt to posess the warded creature (such as magic jar) or to excercise mental control over the creature... The protection does not prevent such effects from targeting the protected creature, but it suppresses the effect for the duration of the protection from evil effect."
So the Kopru, Aboleth, whatever else is up there still really have the upper hand. (I'm just running the third module now). If the monsters cast dominate or charm on the PC's while they have the protection, the PCs may still fail their Will saves and be Dominated/Charmed but the spell wont effect them yet, but as soon as the Protection from Evil spell ends, the effects of Dominate/Charm kick right in.
I know there is a decent post on Wizards about Protection from Evil.
<http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4mst/ask>
Just out of curiosity.
Protection from Evil says "blocks any attempt to posess the warded creature (such as magic jar) or to excercise mental control over the creature... The protection does not prevent such effects from targeting the protected creature, but it suppresses the effect for the duration of the protection from evil effect."
So the Kopru, Aboleth, whatever else is up there still really have the upper hand. (I'm just running the third module now). If the monsters cast dominate or charm on the PC's while they have the protection, the PCs may still fail their Will saves and be Dominated/Charmed but the spell wont effect them yet, but as soon as the Protection from Evil spell ends, the effects of Dominate/Charm kick right in.
I know there is a decent post on Wizards about Protection from Evil.
<http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4mst/ask>
Yuppers in one - especially with domination's extremely long 'range of command' - Protection from Evil is only a temporary stop-gap defense measure. If the OP's player characters fail to either annihilate the dominating critters, or otherwise remove themselves before they can draw LoS/LoE (presuming they are simply not hovering out of range, as previously posted and pointed out prior to any such attempts being made), they are in deep kimshee. If they (the characters) are aware of what the kopru can do when they are close enough, however, unless they screw up and forget about it, they should beat a hasty retreat just before the dinner bell rings.
Isn't the Kopru's dominate a supernatural ability? I don't think you can dispell those, IIRC.
Of course, there's a very good chance I may be wrong.
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Isn't the Kopru's dominate a supernatural ability? I don't think you can dispell those, IIRC.
Of course, there's a very good chance I may be wrong.
I looked it up, you're right. Supernaturals can't be dispelled, so dispel magic is out. Antimagic will work (strange that dispelling doesn't). And I think protection from evil would still work, though, since it isn't dispelling the effect, just protecting against it. Supernaturals aren't stopped by spell resistance, either.
yeah, that (Su) ability with a 180' ranged is ... rather overdone, when I looked it up, since it really beats the living daylight out of the standard 5th level spell.... Me bad, especially with "nobody reads the rules" anymore....
"Break enchantment" still should work as well to rid characters of its influence, since "Dominate Person" (which according to MM-II it is similar too ) is a 5th level arcane spell. Or a 4th level arcane magic, if using it from the bard's spellist, which Kopru's seem to do, given the Will save DCs ( a save DC 16 is only possible with itbeing a 4th level magic ) . Since Break enchanmnet does explicitly affect even those spelsl that cannot not normally be dispelled....
Best possible defense of course is not being a "humanoid" or affectable by "mind affecting enchantments"... like being a native outsider or giant or fey.... or recognisable as humanoid
"Protection from Evil" is explicitly named in the the description of "Dominate Person" as offering (possibly only temporary ) protection from it.
Blocking telepathic communication might help too, since outside of immediate close range, the telepathic link is essential to use the Dominate ability.
Oh, and not having Line of Sight or line of effect does help too, if you can arrange for that.
i'll do you one better.
my group completely ignored everything once they saw that ziggurat, and made straight for it.
they encountered the behemoths and nagas that were guarding the top of the pyramid, another 8-10 regular kopru, a bunch of trog slaves (2/kopru...they were carrying them around on litters), and a couple more nagas.
even tweaking the naga's spelllists, giving them haste, energy resistance, and some other buffs, the party slaughtered the guards, decimated the regular kopru, and chased away the nagas that survived.
when uliloth came out to play, he got one good shot in before getting jumped by the teleporting rogues and the cleric.
they made their way to the base, slaughtered him with grapples, and dropped the bilewretch with a maxed empowered war-mage orb of something, followed by some melee damage and som other spells
in short....if they're loaded for bear, move fast, and can make some relatively easy will saves (many many saves later, 1 character got dominated...and promptly dispelled), they can make it through.
if they hesitate, though, and allow them to regroup, they're toast.
-the hamster
My group did this as well. Two of my group are olman (one is a replacement PC, the other a new member of the group) so they were against destroying the curtain once they found out the olman's were responsible for putting it up in the first place. They actually talked to the brain collector and gained some information from the creature. Then they scouted the pyramid, made a plan for battle, and then just went after them.
In the end they were able to defeat the outside forces before having to fall back. Ulioth did make a brief appearance during the end of the battle but retreated into the pyramid after a couple of rounds. The party did have one character death during the battle (he rolled a natural 1 on a fort save) but otherwise it went well for them.
The next day they entered the pyramid to handle Ulioth and the bilewretch. I think it has been one of the better combats this campaign. The combat lasted for 13 rounds and took about 7 hours.
I hope yours turns out as well.
13 rounds of combat in 7 hours ? OMG....
Ouch on the time to run 13 rounds of combat ... I've run fights as long as 24 - 36 rounds in a single session. Recently a 24-rounder, which took 4 hours or so.
My personal King of the Mountain in terms of the round-count IIRC hails back to the original Ruins of Greyhawk, which I believe was in the 30-round range covering 8 hours' play time. Walking Death Machine vs. Village of Lizard Kings.
But 7 hours for 13 rounds ... talk about ow ow ow ...
The combat did take longer than normal. Many of the characters in my group have abilities that seem to take longer to use. I have a spiked chain tripper that rolls a touch attack, then a strength check, if successful, then an attack roll. Another PC is a druid wildshaped as a lion who uses pounce alot. If he hits with both claws, he rends; if he hits with his bite, he rakes. The main arcane spellcaster is a war weaver (which is troublesome enough on its own).
I think this group combined with the amount of enemies in the combat (19 kopru behemoths, 10 nagas that used dispel magic frequently, and 38 normal koprus) made it take the entire session to run. I suppose it didn't help that I gave a potion flying to every kopru behemoth either but I couldn't deal with that 5' move speed!
In the end the players loved the combat. It gave them a chance to really use their abilities (similar to the Crimson Fleet invasion). It was alot of fun to run as well.
The combat did take longer than normal. Many of the characters in my group have abilities that seem to take longer to use. I have a spiked chain tripper that rolls a touch attack, then a strength check, if successful, then an attack roll. Another PC is a druid wildshaped as a lion who uses pounce alot. If he hits with both claws, he rends; if he hits with his bite, he rakes. The main arcane spellcaster is a war weaver (which is troublesome enough on its own)....
I would ask them to roll all three d20s at the same time, with a color specified for the appropriate check (blue=touch, green=str (don't make me angry...) etc). If the first one fails, you can simply ignore the others. You could also have the damage rolled at the same time as the attack if you color coded. I did both with Harliss which was fun: 4d20, 3d6, 2d4. 9 dice on one attack! Sets the metagamers to panicking too....
Well my group managed to get out alive. They forced Ulioloth to retreat back into the temple, then followed him in, and the artificier placed evard's black tenatacles at the opening to each floor to prevent the baddies from following. They smartly decided to get into the temple before their invisibility wore off. Then they finished off Ulioloth and proceeded to fight the Bilewretch. This was a much tougher fight, but they prevailed and no character deaths!
They then used the psychic warrior's dimension door to escape back to a side cavern and rest, well hidden from the now disorganized and leaderless kopru. Destroyed the tear, and fled the city, adventure finished.
I was actually pleased that the group decided to ignore the kopru and focus on the adventure's goal. I gave them a moderate amount of experience since they didn't really approach the temple in the recommended manner.
Just out of curiosity.
Protection from Evil says "blocks any attempt to posess the warded creature (such as magic jar) or to excercise mental control over the creature... The protection does not prevent such effects from targeting the protected creature, but it suppresses the effect for the duration of the protection from evil effect."
So the Kopru, Aboleth, whatever else is up there still really have the upper hand. (I'm just running the third module now). If the monsters cast dominate or charm on the PC's while they have the protection, the PCs may still fail their Will saves and be Dominated/Charmed but the spell wont effect them yet, but as soon as the Protection from Evil spell ends, the effects of Dominate/Charm kick right in.
I know there is a decent post on Wizards about Protection from Evil.
<http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4mst/ask>
I just wanted to point out that so far as I know, Protection from Evil does nothing against Charm affects, as that is not "mental control".
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I just wanted to point out that so far as I know, Protection from Evil does nothing against Charm affects, as that is not "mental control".
True, but at least it hedges out dominate person (and possibly suggestion, since the spell does allow you to command someone once, thereby actively controlling how they think). Then again, even altering someone's thought process through the casting of Charm Person could be construed that way, but that spell once cast doesn't allow you to do anything active to affect their thoughts any further.
Charm Person can have its difficulties, but at least the save is easier to overcome.