|
My players have just finished the encounter with the Faceless One and his kenku cultists. They are low on hit points & spells, and appear to be getting ready to assault the ebon aspect--which would seem suicidal.
The players have considered and are rejecting the possibility or resting first. I feel this is due to the sense of urgency they feel, that the need to confront whatever is happening in/around the black pool requires immediate action.
Where they got this feeling from I have no idea! (Sarcasm here; I know that it's my fault.)
My question is, what can I do at this point to prevent the coming suicidal confrontation, without either appearing arbitrary or pulling the punch?
The party is also considering cutting and running; telling the authorities in Diamond Lake what is going on--and letting them deal with it.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
This is what I did:
after defeating each of the 3 areas:
gong sound reverberated throughout underground
ground shakes
after the Faceless One is defeated. a glowing black ball erupts from his corpse and floats up, through chambers and towards the pool..Once there it emerges into the pool..
I have a riptearing in air appear and formless face appears chastising the heroes...'by defeating my 3 henchmen, you have unleashed upon the world 1 of my best insturments of terror..behold your death at the hnads of the aspect!!!!'
'Flee if you value your lives'
my guys fled..to town
where the aspect followed..
had to fight to protect town..the 3 other advanturers (Auric , Khelleck wetc.. etc) fled and hid and refuseed to help and the townspeople mocked them and forced them out of town (setting up retribution during later issues)
Well, I didn't give my players the chance to flee to town. I mean, the aspect smashed the elevator and was waiting for them down there. There was no way to get by.
First of all, do they have the means to heal themselves? If they don't, you should remember that wand of cure light wounds that the Faceless One kept around that you forgot to tell your players about. Oh yeah, THAT one! Sure it only has...*rolls some dice*...23 charges left on it, but it's still pretty valuable.
If they can heal themselves, I wouldn't worry about them too much. The thing is truly scary, yes. But can also be very limited by terrain. My players drew it into the Erythnul caves for instance, causing the thing to be squeezed in the entrance passage. This allowed the effective use of tanglefoot bags and greataxes to much greater effect.
Sure your spellcasters might be running low on spells, but they just found some cool stuff (wand of magic missile anyone?) to help them out.
It's a good fight, but a doable one.
I think resting might break the dramatic flow. If your PCs want to battle it, be proud that you've successfully portrayed the immediacy (pardon my spelling) of the dungeon. My players did the same thing, and it was one of the best encounters of the AP.
The ebon aspect can be challenging, for sure, but by no means indestructible. I do suggest that if you feel your PCs are going to drop like flies, leave a helping hand in the form of a potion or two, as suggested above. The best way to do this--IMO--is to call for a Spot check (say, DC 5) to notice a loose stone in one of the walls. When pulled aside, the PCs find the potions you believe will best help them in the fight. Cure potions are most appropriate, but anything you think will put the EL on track will do.
Best of luck, and enjoy the fight! It's one of my faves, and a perfect capstone to the adventure.
|
|
A couple of good suggestions here. Thanks. this is a great sight for this sort of thing.
A well-placed wand or a few potions might do the trick. Of course, it won't help the spellcasters from feeling like 5th wheels, but....
Any ideas about this...beyond resting, of course? Through the course of the game they already have a wand or two in their hands--though they don't know what they do.
As this is a heroic situation, you might even allow your spell-casters to recall one or two of their best spells. Just call it divine intervention in their fight against evil (maybe you play with action points, then they should be able to do it anyway).
Well, this might go beyond the scope of the kind of thing that you're looking for, but why not allow them to figure out what the wands do? If a character has that spell on their list, there's a good chance that they could do that anyway through trial and error.
IMC, I decided that the mystery of what a magical item might do was only of passing importance. The dependence upon getting a pearl to cast identify just didn't seem to enhance the game very much. I followed the advice present on WoTC's site (I wish I knew where now) suggesting that you could make identifying an item purely a function of spellcraft. Identify and analyze dweomer give you a +20 on your spellcraft check to help with the process. Also, identifying via spellcraft takes one minute of study, not a full hour. Therefore one still cannot identify something in the middle of a battle, but it's perfect for times like these and for getting needed magical aid into the hands of your players in a timely fashion.
I can dig around for the rules, or a link to the WoTC site if you'd like to consider adopting this variant. I haven't found that it's taken any fun out of our game whatsoever.
|
|
Everything turned out well. The party elected to heal up first. Shortly after they entered the dark cathedral the Ebon Aspect reared up--and shortly thereafter it destroyed the elevator, trapping the party below and forcing them to deal with the creature.
The ensuing battle was memorable.
Thanks to all for the advice.
|
Well, this might go beyond the scope of the kind of thing that you're looking for, but why not allow them to figure out what the wands do? If a character has that spell on their list, there's a good chance that they could do that anyway through trial and error.
IMC, I decided that the mystery of what a magical item might do was only of passing importance. The dependence upon getting a pearl to cast identify just didn't seem to enhance the game very much. I followed the advice present on WoTC's site (I wish I knew where now) suggesting that you could make identifying an item purely a function of spellcraft. Identify and analyze dweomer give you a +20 on your spellcraft check to help with the process. Also, identifying via spellcraft takes one minute of study, not a full hour. Therefore one still cannot identify something in the middle of a battle, but it's perfect for times like these and for getting needed magical aid into the hands of your players in a timely fashion.
I can dig around for the rules, or a link to the WoTC site if you'd like to consider adopting this variant. I haven't found that it's taken any fun out of our game whatsoever.
This is the article you were talking about I think.
A great system I adpoted for my game. I tweaked it a bit and made up a table. If anyone is interested just hit me up with your e-mail address and I will send it to you. It is done in a word document.
@ Olmac: I read the article, it looks like a great idea, but what about a divine spellcaster doing it? I know that divine spellcasters can spellcraft spells being cast by arcane casters, but it seems to me that a divine spellcaster should not be able to identify, with spellcraft, a magic item that does something (uses a spell) that doesn't appear in the Divine spell lists.
Should divine spell casters be able to use this at all? Maybe to do it you should have to have the requisite creation feat?
As for the Ebon Aspect, I like the idea I saw elsewhere of the pool bubbling a bit more and more after each temple is defeated. After the last temple falls the pool becomes quite turbulent. You can maybe even have the temple start to shake a bit (à la Raiders of the Lost Ark) and if the PCs stick around to see what happens, to bad for them.
If the PCs flee, they get up above and maybe have some time to heal up, but 1d6 x 10 minutes after they leave the mines the ebon aspect claws its way up the shaft and heads in to town, hunting down the PCs and killing ad destroying along the way.
Most people, including the town watch, will flee, and it will take too long for the soldiers from the militia to get across town (and they can't _all_ leave, _someone_ has to guard the garrison!).
|
|
@ Olmac: I read the article, it looks like a great idea, but what about a divine spellcaster doing it? I know that divine spellcasters can spellcraft spells being cast by arcane casters, but it seems to me that a divine spellcaster should not be able to identify, with spellcraft, a magic item that does something (uses a spell) that doesn't appear in the Divine spell lists.
Should divine spell casters be able to use this at all? Maybe to do it you should have to have the requisite creation feat?
That would be one of those tweaks I meantioned. I let divine caster use spellcraft to identify. I made it so items made with arcane spells give a bonus for knowledge arcane (+2/5 ranks) and divine get a bonus for knowledge religion (+2/5 ranks) divine. If the spell appears on both caster types, then either can identify the item with the applicable bonus. Arcane casters can only use identify or the analyze spell to get the +20 bonus. Here it is copied and pasted.
____________________________________________________________________
Identifying Magic Items
Identifying magic items is now done with a skill check combined with detect magic as opposed to using the Identify or Analyze Dweomer spells. Identify and Analyze Dweomer spells are modified to add a bonus to the roll against the DC to identify the item. There is also a new rogue special ability added at 10th level to identify magic items.
Identifying Magic Items DCs
Items
Scrolls: Spellcraft DC 20 + spell level (read magic required)
Potions: Spellcraft DC 25 + spell level
Wondrous Items: Minor Item Spellcraft DC 25
Medium Item Spellcraft DC 30
Major Item Spellcraft DC 40
Wands: Spellcraft DC 30
Arms and Armour: +1 to +3 Spellcraft DC 25
+4 to +7 Spellcraft DC 30
+8 to +10 Spellcraft DC 40
Rods: Spellcraft DC 35
Rings and Staffs: Spellcraft DC 40
Modifiers
Arcane Based Items +2 per 5 ranks Knowledge Arcane (not potions)
Divine Based Items +2 per 5 ranks Knowledge Religion (not potions)
Potions +2 per 5 ranks Craft Alchemy
Identify Spell +20 on one item checked
Analyze Dweomer Spell +20 on each item checked during duration.
Relevant Item Creation Feat +2 circumstance bonus
It takes one round to identify a scroll, one minute to identify a potion, 10 minutes to identify any other item. Only time monetary costs are incurred is if spells are used for their bonuses, then paying material spell components apply. You can take 10 on these checks, but not 20.
Rogues
New 10th Level Rogue Ability (added to the list of choices available)
Identify Magic Item (EX): The rogue with this ability can use Appraise skill to identify magic items. The DCs are equal to those listed above but uses Appraise skill instead of Spellcraft. For every 5 ranks in Use Magic Device, the Rogue gets +2 circumstance bonus to the roll. The times are the same as listed above.
____________________________________________________________________
Sorry for the highjack, back to topic at hand.
My group had just emerged from the Grimlock area (they did the Hextor area, then the Vecna, then the Eyrthnul area) to find the Aspect destrying the elevator.
As for the Ebon Aspect, I got a real laugh when the scout in my group thought he could out run it up the stairs to the top platform. He got smacked every round as they ran up there. The scout then jumped off thinking that would stop the Ebon Aspect. You should have seen the look on the players face when it climbed down without a problem, and almost as fast as it ran up. A couple of characters in the negatives, a couple more in single digit hit points and they finally killed it. Was actualy the best fight to date as far as I am concerned. The group still talks about that fight. Mind you, we are only halfway through HoHR now.
My group just finished TFoE, and they deliberately kept the Faceless One alive, after figuring out from the preists' notes that bad stuff would happen if they all died. I also gave them the clue to what was going on by describing the souls of the two previous priests emerging as a black cloud after death and drifting toward the pool. Finally, I did the "pool bubbles more after a priest dies" bit.
From all those hints, they did their best to keep the Faceless One alive, and so healed up before the they left, after spending a couple of hours turning over the place for treasure.
So I had the priest die horribly as they entered the cathedral, and the fight was on!
The best moment was when they first hit the thing, in the round after the Aspect howled. I asked, "Do you have an epic weapon?" They had a serious brown pants episode.
However, after the first round, they had a much easier time of it, and were able to kill it without anyone dying after about four or five rounds.
So all in all, it really worked out well for me.
Doyle