How did your PCs' battle with Sayren-Lei go? With my group of 6 (Pal 17, Ranger/Bbn 17/1, Rogue 17, Clr 17, Clr 16, Evoker 17), it took several rounds, dragging the fight out the entire session.
Though wild watchers don't do overly high amounts of damage, their defenses are top-notch: the disarm effect of the cloak, the swarm aura, SR 30, AC 38 (43 w/ a quickened barkskin, 48 +combat expertise), resistance 30 to 4 kinds of energy, high saves, DR 15/cold iron & magic, 325 hp, fast healing 10.
My PCs kept getting disarmed (once per attacking character/ round) & the only cold iron weapons available were arrows that ran out quickly. They finally overcame the swarm aura when one of the clerics casted repel vermin on himself & stuck close to the watcher. Early on, the wizard got balefully polymorphed into a toad, then was saved via Miracle; the wizard gated in a creature, but BP took it out fast. Though a few spells & attacks got through, the party was reduced to using aid another to boost the rogue's attack rolls. I'd say it took about 12-13 rounds to whittle Sayren-Lei down enough to surrender, dragging much of the fun out of the fight.
Anyone else have similar experiences with the wild watcher?
Yep, a bit like a couple of other fights towards the end (including Kyuss), this one has the potential to take forever. Which is a shame, it's not really fun for anyone that way.
In general, I decided in these kinds of situations, where I could have chosen tactics that would effectively be a stalemate (i.e. neither side could really win), to throw the players a bone and modify the tactics a little bit in order to make the battle decisive one way or the other (meaning, of course, the PC's eventually prevailed).
Sure, if you feel the opponent can beat down the PC's, go for it, but if all the monster / NPC can do is stop the PC's from killing it, it soon becomes boring for everyone (including DM).
From memory, this fight ended up with pretty much everyone flying, and rather than use endless hit and run tactics, I think I had the watcher use some more stand-still offense eventually, which allowed the PC's to gang up and smack him down. I seem to recall that scenario popping up more than once, actually. Oh, and I think the watcher had some nasty spells he could use at will - I could have used some of that all the time, but didn't.
I'd also recommend that DMs planning to run LoLR sprinkle some cold iron magic weapons throughout (Harrowdroth's den is a good place, as is the octopus tree's lair).
Agreed; that fight did nothing but drag. I'd recommend for DMs who haven't run the adventure yet to skip it--go straight from Darl & co. to the visions.
I omitted the battle with the Wild Watcher entirely. That part of the scenario just made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Considering the Watchers are watching what goes on on the island, why would Sayren-Lei want to kill those who had returned the bird to life after it was killed by someone else?
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why would Sayren-Lei want to kill those who had returned the bird to life after it was killed by someone else?
That's why returning the bird to life gives such a huge bonus on diplomacy. It's been a while since I ran this adventure but I'm fairly certain that the real reason is because greedy Sayren-Lei is wanting the knowledge to himself and he can see the PCs about to nab it.
I had no problems with this encounter at all *shrug*