|
My group ran the showdown with Khala last night (and by slaying him discovered the true spirit of christmas and rescued Santa Claus and the elves forced to make shadow pearls. errr.. nevermind.)
Anyways, I was somewhat surprised, the encounter with Xerkamat seemed much more challenging in comparison to the result of this one (The party successfully dispatched the wastrilith if only by the skin of their teeth).
It did take two goes as the party wisely retreated in the first encounter after the first several rounds (after fighting their way through the temple they were in no state to be going toe to toe with the big guy). However, they did quickly find out some of Khala's chief threats (gaze attacks, some spell like abilities including greater dispel).
After dimension dooring out and heading back to the beach the party hid in a swamp and rested for the night.
Well I have no problems with the party making a good strategy and they sat down for awhile. Long story short the party beamed back in. Protection From Evil spells warded off Khala's confusion gaze and other buffs kept the fear gaze a minimal risk. The party was airborne so the Skulvyn threat was all but negated. A flying astral construct, and a Huge Air Elemental ran inteference while the party attacked primarily with distance attacks. Khala dispatched the summoned creatures quickly with dispels. Took to the air himself knocking down the cleric with a dispel on his fly (skulvyns swarmed). Over the last several rounds as Khala was cutting a path he was being wailed on by the ranger with the Nimbus Bow and the psion blasting with Crystal Shards (no power resistance, rng touch atk).
Khala rips into the psion and grapples her. The cleric with some dismissals and banishments reduces the Skulvyns. The ranger continues a barrage of arrows against Khala. Khala successfully summons the retriever who attempts to petrify the ranger but fails. With stupendous luck the psion makes her concentration check and unleashes more crystal shards.
At this point technically the bad guy could have teleported out of there but it was getting late and felt like it needed to be wrapped up so Khala stood his ground. A few more rounds and Khala was toast.
As I said I can't fault the party with a good plan. They kept Khala at a distance and kept him busy for several rounds which made all the difference(That and having gathered some intel from the first encounter). I still was surprised that it felt like it was a pretty easy go for the party. THe only member who was truly in danger was the psion (who had wisely boosted her temporary hp before the encounter). In hindsight, I should have boosted 'security' in the temple with some demonic allies (vrocks or something).
WOndering how this battle went for others? Did anyone else have a plan of attack that survived contact?
|
I did a playtest against Khala - this is how it went (3 tries): Khala playtest. Wow, it's been almost 2 months, doesn't feel that long.
I guess as a DM I wouldn't rule that protection from evil would hedge out confusion, since it isn't active mind control (suggestion and dominate person are). I know this is contrary to the WotC article, but frankly there are disagreements with how even the sages interpret the rules sometimes.
Also, Khala is very dangerous to stand toe to toe with. Without decent buffs, he can easily tear down a tank in 2 rounds with his Con damage.
I playtested with a vanilla group, however. More exotic groups will naturally perform better.
In the end, my playtest group got him because he was focusing his attacks on one member and was being held off while the others did what they could to damage him or help others damage him. A crit knocked him down.
My group had a cocky invisible rogue get caught peeking into the room while the rest of the group was strung out behind in a few other rooms. They kept coming in one at a time as they caught up to save him.
They stayed away to take care of his pets and the false Noltus; they just sniped at Khala (as per the description he stays near the altar). They kept up building masses of ineffective summoned creatures (that greater dispel at will was very useful)
In effect they just managed to keep losing levels to his spit attack. When they charged him en masse the gaze attacks decimated them (they had stayed more than 30 feet away so they had no idea about them.) In the end they won but narrowly got away with only one fatality.
In the end it was a very nasty encounter for them but it was certainly not helped by their unfortunate approach strategy.
This is a roleplay heavy group of swashbucklers and retreat is not in their vocabulary. They certainly had fun and it was quite a memorable encounter even without major tactics on their part.
had a full-scale fight with Khala, Onalati and the Skulvyns (although the Wastrilith was out of the equation)
Two character deaths (group of 5+2), one feebleminded caster.... lots of carnage. Since Khala has Greater Teleport at will he did a lot of that to a hidden stash of potions (after all, that guy is a supposed alchemical genius and he doesn't have a single drink about ? Not with me ), quaffing bottles of vigour, Cure potions and Invisibility draughts.... of course, that meant that Onalati was shredded on his first break but there will always be losses.
Whirlwind Attack in combination with the rot from its tentacles was a massive problem as well. And in my experience, the room is too small to really keep him at a distance unless you can lock him into place and inactivity (like the 2-round stun he evenually succumbed too.
Memorable fight.
Over the last several rounds as Khala was cutting a path he was being wailed on by the ranger with the Nimbus Bow
Shouldn't the Nimbus Bow be useless, given his resistances/DR? Maybe if the archer had arrows made out of you-know-what...