Well, having just hacked their bloody path through the Catacombs of Wrath, my (usually four-person, one short this week) party nearly died at Erylium's (tiny) hands, before doing something very unexpected.
They grappled Erylium, who was in range so she could cast cause fear, then dunked her, head-first in the runewell and held her there, squirming, until she drowned/froze to death.
...big disappointment on my behalf... There was I, thinking "now I have a demon, I'll show my pesky players who's winning"... and they drown the bad guy? Heck, I'm gonna award our cleric of Gorum a Wrath point for that one.
They did do very well to surprise me, though, I awarded full marks. That was certainly an interesting session.
They grappled Erylium, who was in range so she could cast cause fear, then dunked her, head-first in the runewell and held her there, squirming, until she drowned/froze to death.
Wow, so how charged up does the runewell get if you kill a demon of wrath right inside it? I'm thinking that this has got to give it a pretty big energy boost.
I would think so also. I would give it enough points to make at least 5 sin spawn at the minimum.
On another note, I honestly didn't know demons could drown.
Outsiders have to breathe, so it makes sense that they can drown. (Native outsiders also have to eat and sleep, but Erylium is extraplanar so those don't apply in this case.)
As long as they didn't draw blood, they should be OK, right?
As long as they didn't draw blood, they should be OK, right?
As long as they don't draw blood then the sinspawn won't emerge. The runewell recharges from wrathful deaths within its range, so charging it up still happens. Some goblin might be sent to activate the well, or it might simply sit, charged up a bunch, until Volume Five.
Did you apply cold damage for holding her under?
And
The way it works is that "any living creature that enters its freezing orange waters immediately takes 2d6 points of cold damage and must make a DC 15 Will save or be overcome with wrath."
Do demons count as living creatures? (I think so, but I'm not sure.)
Yes, they are living. (Nonliving would be undead and construct. And 'deathless' if you use that mess.) Don't demons have Cold resistance 10, though? I think the wonder is more of what happens to the person doing the pinning.
Right, thanks. Yes, demons have cold resistance 10.
I'd think that it would be pretty tough to pin someone's head under the water of the well without getting at least partially immersed. If it were my game, I'd inflict the cold damage and require the saving throw every round.
I think very cool way to kill her off but im surprized no Sinspawn was created from the scatching and clawing
The cold part only happens once so after the initial 2d6 it doesnt do any additional damage
For some reason, Quasits don't seem to get the full 'resistance booster' package, they only have fire resistance. Plus, there's no mention of the runewell only doing cold damage once... I had her make saves each round, but since she was a servant of Lamashtu, I figured she was pretty much filled with wrath anyway.
Also, I had two PCs making the grapple check on her, both of them having to make Reflex saves to avoid getting splashed with the water. No luck, they just grabbed her and held her head under.
Then they figured out that the runewell was powering down from creating all the sinspawn and started spawning them, everyone standing by with readied actions to grind them into dust once they emerged. It eventually just ran out of charges and went dormant again, which pleased our wizard greatly.
As I said, I did give my cleric of Gorum character a Wrath point for his actions, apparently that'll mean something in Sins of the Saviours but not too much right now.
The rogue in my party grappled Erylium and put it in a bag, then proceeded to clobber it to death.
This happened after a very, very, very, very, very long battle in which Erylium and the party had nearly depleted all their resources and the fight almost ended in a stalemate.
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My players made a b-line straight for this room and so they got here early(were still level 1, leveled after this fight) which means Erylium was a really tough fight for them.
But that for the most part just meant they couldn't hit her because she was flying, drowning wasn't an option since they couldn't reach her at all(they are all a bunch of melee bruisers and their caster hadn't resting the night before and was pretty much burned on spells).
What they finally came down to, since neither side was doing much damage to the other, but it was obvious Erylium could win a war of attrition with DR and fast heal, was the druid summoned a falcon. That managed to grapple her to the ground where the rest of the party wailed on it. I think that deserves restating. He summoned a falcon. Not a celestial falcon, just a falcon.
-Tarlane
The Necromancer in my party made short work with her flying by casting ray of enfeeblement on Erylium.
After that it was grapplin' and clobberin' time.
My table was very frustrated with the quasit. Round after round passed until one player did a running jump from the upper stage and grappled the little bugger. Even then they couldn't hurt her so finally on the 20th round they held her under the fountains water she struggled for a few rounds then went limp. The party came up with the bright idea of throwing her body into the summoning pool. About five feet away the quasit tried to escape (it had played dead +10 bluff) and failed. The poor thing was shoved back under water for about a half hour to make sure it was dead.
Talk about some wrath points. Heck, the players wanted to kill me too.
Well, our table hit an all out throw down with Erylium and her guards. (2 sinspawn, summoned lemure & dire rat, Vargoylle, and the mutated Kovi/Goblin guy.) the PCs survived, but how and stuff will be related in a Blog post on a "story so far post" soon. (due to schedules we have a 3 week window before we play next...gotta do something.)
SO, Erylium survived. Went invisible, and ran/flew away.
She evaded the party, but her world/empire has been shattered. What now?
I have thoughts, but has anyone ever taken her OUT of the Catacombs of Wrath and to Thistle top or ... ?
discuss!
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Well, having just hacked their bloody path through the Catacombs of Wrath, my (usually four-person, one short this week) party nearly died at Erylium's (tiny) hands, before doing something very unexpected.
They grappled Erylium, who was in range so she could cast cause fear, then dunked her, head-first in the runewell and held her there, squirming, until she drowned/froze to death.
...big disappointment on my behalf... There was I, thinking "now I have a demon, I'll show my pesky players who's winning"... and they drown the bad guy? Heck, I'm gonna award our cleric of Gorum a Wrath point for that one.
They did do very well to surprise me, though, I awarded full marks. That was certainly an interesting session.
Thats the only way our group could kill her too, I have that written up in my journal. :) as a player I will pretend to not know about all these wrath points being awarded. ( I can now see all kinds of lust points being added to my sheet.)
My players drowned her in the pool too. Although I wonder if I should add wrath points for her death?
She had to go into melee because the PCs stole her returning dagger and ran out of the room. After you throw a retunrning weapon, nothing in the rules says someone else can't pick it up before it flies back to you "just before your next turn".
So, seems to me that the main problem with Erylium is her DR? What my players did was research on quasits (with help from Zanthus and the wizard running the academy), thus finding out about her weakness to cold iron. Using this info, they really stocked up on cold iron arrows and weapons before heading into the catacoms.
Game day today. I'll let you know what happened.
Talk about some wrath points. Heck, the players wanted to kill me too.
Sounds like a memorable game.
Well..
As anticipated, Erylium was a real pain to deal with thanks to her high AC , mobility and invisibility. What eventually happened was, the party monk managed to leap high enough to grapple the quasit, then pin the little bugger, then tie it into a knot using one of his (tm) Varisian scarves.
After that they just pummeled the poor little thing into submission, put her into a bag and dragged her pack to Sandpoint for interrogation.
My group was having a lot of trouble with her.
At one point, she left the room and almost took down the paladin, who was in the doorway. So the group, once they saw her in the room, slammed the doors and spiked them.
Erylium, after a while, cut herself a bit, while hovering over the runewell, summoning another sinspawn. She did this twice.
It took a while, but like other groups, the monk finally grappled her, and that was all she wrote. Once they showed the body to the major, they burned it in the glassworks forge.
The funny thing was that the group had several cold iron daggers. But they missed their knowledge checks, so none of the players used their player knowledge to use those weapons.
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My group was getting very frustrated with Erylium as she was constantly flying out of range and they couldn't hit or damage her with ranged weapons. So the cleric of Desna dimensional hopped 10 feet up with the fighter (we're doing the campaign with the PFRPG alpha rules) who then grappled her down to the ground, managing hold on as they hit the ground. He then rolled over to the pool, held her under and that was that.
I have to say that some of the combats in the first book are really making my players think, probably more than they have for many years. At Thistletop the party had hurt Gogmurt enough to make him attempt to run to the stockade. When he was half-way over the bridge the bard cast a Grease on it and down into the depths he went to be met by the bunyip!